Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights –Sequoia Hauck’s Gift for Decolonizing the Process of Art-Making

On today’s show, we talk with Sequoia Hauck (they/them), a Native (Anishinaabe/Hupa) queer multidisciplinary artist based in the Twin Cities. Sequoia’s art-making includes theater, filmmaking, poetry, and performance art, with all of it centered on a decolonized creative process.

Sequoia shares details of their upcoming art installation, which is happening as the closing event of Northern Spark. Their project is a large-scale installation of two cloth rivers that span what is now Raspberry Island in Imnížaska Othúŋwe/Ashkibagi-ziibiing (St. Paul). The cloth rivers are replicas of Ȟaȟáwakpa/Gichi-ziibi (Mississippi River) and Mnísota Wakpá/Ashkibagi-ziibi (Minnesota River).

Miigwech, Sequoia! We loved hearing about your passion for connecting to ancestors, building community through performance art, and finding healing and resiliency through our relationship to water and its movement and stillness.

Northern Spark is happening on Saturday, June 11th from 9p through 5:30a.

http://northern.lights.mn/platform/northern-spark-2022/

https://2022.northernspark.org/art-and-events/

Sequoia Hauck’s website is here: https://www.sequoiahauck.com/

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights – Joseph Nayquonabe Jr.’s Gift for Strengthening Tribal Economies

On today’s show, we talk with Joseph Nayquonabe Jr. (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) who is the CEO of Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures, a role where he uncovers new business opportunities as well as overseeing the band’s existing businesses.  He is also an avid runner, basketball player, and Ojibwe language learner. 

Joseph Nayquonabe Jr. shares how his career path went from lobbying to marketing at Grand Casino to his current role in leading economic development for his and other tribal nations.  Joe explains how it’s a “cool time” to be in business in Indian Country right now.

We loved hearing about Joe’s passion for this new era of business in Indian county.  He explains how Tribes are tackling problems with new perspectives, leveraging wealth attained through gaming, and bringing forward new and innovative economic opportunities.  Miigwech Joe, for your commitment to sustainable and value-centered businesses that will make a positive impact in our community, long into the future.   

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/ 

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights – Historian Brenda J. Child Responds to the Federal Indian Boarding School System Report

On today’s show, we talk with Brenda J. Child Ph.D. (Red Lake Nation) about the U.S. Department of Interior’s recently released investigative report on the Federal Indian boarding school system. 

Brenda J. Child Ph.D. is the Northrop Professor of American Studies and American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota and was recently awarded a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. 

The Department of Interior’s 100+ page report is a first step in the U.S. government accounting for and acknowledging the harm done to Indigenous people over many decades. From 1819 to 1969, the United States funded 408 boarding schools for American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaskan Native students. These schools were a means to culturally assimilate Indigenous people and to dispossess them of lands across what are now 37 states.

Brenda J. Child is the author of many award-winning books including Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940; Holding Our World Together: Ojibwe Women and the Survival of Community; and My Grandfather's Knocking Sticks: Ojibwe Family Life and Labor on the Reservation, which won the American Indian Book Award and Best Book in Midwestern History. Her bestselling book for children is Bowwow Powwow.

Find the report here: https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/department-interior-releases-investigative-report-outlines-next-steps-federal-indian

Additional resources suggested by Brenda J. Child: 

Museum Exhibit: Away from Home - American Indian Boarding School Stories exhibit at the Heard Museum in Phoenix Arizonahttps://heard.org/boardingschool/

Journal article: The Boarding School as Metaphor, written by Brenda J. Child https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/jamerindieduc.57.1.0037

Dr. Charles F. Eastman (Santee Dakota) autobiographies include Indian Boyhood, Soul of an Indian, and From the Deep Woods to Civilization.  Eastman was born near Redwood Falls, Minnesota in 1858. 

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights – Binesikwe Means’s Gift for Nurturing the Next Generation of Storytellers 

On today’s show, we talk with Binesikwe Means who is an enrolled citizen of the Oglala Lakota Tribe in Pine Ridge South Dakota, and a descendant of the White Earth Nation. Binesikwe is the lead instructor for Migizi’s First Person Productions, a youth-led social enterprise that produces videos, design work, and social media campaigns for businesses and non-profits.

We loved hearing about Binesikwe’s passion for storytelling and helping Native youth develop their talents through her work at Migizi.  We were moved by hearing how the organization survived the devasting loss of its building, which caught fire and was destroyed during the uprising in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.  

We were inspired by Binesikwe, as she shared how the community continues to support Migizi, so it can help Native youth find their voices, develop skills, share stories, and become experienced media makers.

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/

Today we are revisiting our conversation with Madonna Yawakie (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians) who is the President of Turtle Island Communications, Inc. (TICOM). We spoke with her in June of 2021. 

Together with her husband, Madonna founded this company which provides broadband engineering and consulting services to Tribal Nations. Madonna Peltier Yawakie holds a B.S. in Business Administration, and a Masters in Community & Regional Planning from NDSU.

TICOM has provided engineering and consulting services to the first 100% tribally owned Commercial Wireless System in the Nation, and the first 100% tribally owned Fiber to the Home Network which provides 1-gigabit capacity to all residents and businesses within its tribal lands. Madonna Peltier Yawakie has contributed to the FCC’s Telecom/Broadband Policies for Tribal Nations.

It is fantastic to hear how Madonna and her company are helping to close the digital divide in Indian Country, by increasing broadband access in education, public safety, and healthcare opportunities for those living and working on tribal lands. Turtle Island Communications, Inc. is online at: www.turtleislandcom.com

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund.

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights – Documentary Filmmaker Leya Hale’s Gift for Powerful Storytelling 

On today’s show, we talk with Leya Hale (Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Diné Nations), a producer for Twin Cities PBS, who is known for her feature documentary, The People’s Protectors, a Vision Maker Media grant production, and winner of the 2019 Upper Midwest Emmy Award for Outstanding Cultural Documentary. 

In 2020, Leya was awarded the Sundance Institute Merata Mita Fellowship for Indigenous Artists and attended the 2020 Berlinale European Film Market as a NATIVe Fellow.

Most recently, Leya Hale completed her second feature, Bring Her Home, a powerful and hopeful documentary that highlights the stories of three women fighting to vindicate and honor their missing and murdered relatives, while shining a light on this growing epidemic across Indian country. 

We loved hearing how Leya carved her path to becoming a Director/Producer, how she uncovered her unique voice and vision, and how she shares her gifts by encouraging and mentoring other young Indigenous filmmakers. 

Bring Her Home premiered at the 2022 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and is now being distributed nationally by PBS. Find out how you can watch the film here:  https://www.tpt.org/bring-her-home/video/bring-her-home-hf8spa/

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights – Honoring the Life and Legacy AIM Co-Founder Clyde Bellecourt (1938-2022) – Part 1

Today, the first of two special editions of our show, honoring the life and legacy of NeeGawNwayWeeDun, The Thunder Before the Storm, who was known by his colonial name Clyde Bellecourt. Bellecourt passed away in his Minneapolis home on January 11th, 2022. He was 85.

Clyde Bellecourt was a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and was a long-time civil rights advocate and co-founded the American Indian Movement in 1968. 

Throughout his many decades of activism, Bellecourt and AIM leaders sought solutions to police brutality, treaty rights, housing discrimination, and the loss of Indian children. He fought to create culturally specific education, innovative job programs, against sports mascots, and for human rights for Indigenous people here and around the world. 

His work was revolutionary and sometimes controversial.  Today we honor NeeGawNwayWeeDun, by hearing from community members who knew him well, and who share stories and shed light on the impact and legacy of Clyde Bellecourt.

** We also want to acknowledge the passing of Peggy Bellcourt on March 16, 2022 – Peggy co-founded the American Indian Movement alongside her husband Clyde. They were married for 56 years. Clyde said in his 2016 autobiography that his life with Peggy was inseparable from the Movement… and it was her strength and support that made his work in the Movement possible.

Miigwech to the folks who have shared their stories in these shows: Dr. Kate Beane (Flandreau Santee Dakota and Muskogee Creek), Dr. Brenda J. Child Ph.D. (Red Lake Nation), Dr. Antony Stately Ph.D. (Ojibwe and Oneida), Robert Pilot (Ho-Chunk Nation), Bob Rice (White Earth Nation), Steve Premo (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe), and Bob Blake (Red Lake Nation). 

Originally published as Episode S3 E50

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights – Honoring the Life and Legacy AIM Co-Founder Clyde Bellecourt (1938-2022) – Part 2

This is the second part of our special edition show, honoring the life and legacy of NeeGawNwayWeeDun, The Thunder Before the Storm, who was known by his colonial name Clyde Bellecourt. 

Clyde Bellecourt was a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and was a long-time civil rights advocate and co-founded the American Indian Movement in 1968. Bellecourt passed away in Minneapolis on January 11th, 2022. He was 85.

On today’s show, we learn more about Clyde’s time in prison as a young man, and how it strongly impacted him uncovered his purpose.  During that time of incarceration, Clyde Bellecourt met key people who helped him connect to Native traditions and spirituality, and together with whom he would co-found AIM.  This time of growth and healing informed every aspect of NeeGawNwayWeeDun’s advocacy work, which he carried throughout his life.

Chi miigwech to the folks who have shared their stories in these shows: Dr. Kate Beane Ph.D. (Flandreau Santee Dakota and Muskogee Creek), Dr. Brenda J. Child Ph.D. (Red Lake Nation), Dr. Antony Stately Ph.D. (Ojibwe and Oneida), Robert Pilot (Ho-Chunk Nation), Bob Rice (White Earth Nation), Steve Premo (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe), and Bob Blake (Red Lake Nation). 

** We also want to acknowledge the passing of Peggy Bellcourt on March 16, 2022 – Peggy co-founded the American Indian Movement alongside her husband Clyde. They were married for 56 years. Clyde said in his 2016 autobiography that his life with Peggy was inseparable from the Movement… and it was her strength and support that made his work in the Movement possible.

Originally published as Episode S3 E51

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights – Wayne Ducheneaux’s Gift for Leadership and Native Nation Rebuilding

On today’s show, we talk with Wayne L. Ducheneaux, II (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe) who is the Executive Director of the Native Governance Center, an organization dedicated to strengthening Tribal sovereignty and Indigenous leadership, through its Native Nation Rebuilders program.

Wayne shares his path of leadership and commitment to serving the needs of Native nations by helping leaders acquire the skills, training, and resources to support their citizens. Wayne is also dedicated to his family, is an enthusiastic video gamer, and an avid supporter of self-care and work-life balance, even though he hasn’t always practiced it himself. 

Many thanks to Wayne Ducheneaux for his dedicated leadership in guiding the Native Governance Center’s work supporting and training leaders, and for being a great example of how we thrive by being a good relative and building relationships. We appreciate your inspiring vision for the transformed future for Native nations. 

Learn more about how the Native Governance Center supports Indigenous Leadership here: https://nativegov.org/

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine – Weekly Radio Show

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce -- a.k.a. Minnesota -- to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Native Lights – Wayne Ducheneaux’s Gift for Leadership and Native Nation Rebuilding

On today’s show, we talk with Wayne L. Ducheneaux, II (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe) who is the Executive Director of the Native Governance Center, an organization dedicated to strengthening Tribal sovereignty and Indigenous leadership, through its Native Nation Rebuilders program.

Wayne shares his path of leadership and commitment to serving the needs of Native nations by helping leaders acquire the skills, training, and resources to support their citizens. Wayne is also dedicated to his family, is an enthusiastic video gamer, and an avid supporter of self-care and work-life balance, even though he hasn’t always practiced it himself. 

Many thanks to Wayne Ducheneaux for his dedicated leadership in guiding the Native Governance Center’s work supporting and training leaders, and for being a great example of how we thrive by being a good relative and building relationships. We appreciate your inspiring vision for the transformed future for Native nations. 

Learn more about how the Native Governance Center supports Indigenous Leadership here: https://nativegov.org/

Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund. Online at https://minnesotanativenews.org/