Past Shows Archives » Native America Calling

As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releases its 20-year dredging plan for the Columbia River, tribes say they want more of a say in how the operation affects their fishing and cultural priorities. The Corps acknowledges that its ongoing work to maintain the 43-foot deep channel is detrimental to salmon and other species. The Trump administration, which cancelled a historic river co-management agreement with tribes, now wants to facilitate larger, more powerful shipping barges on the river that already transports more than 26 million tons of grain a year. But the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Cowlitz Tribe, and others say the waterway is more than just a highway for agricultural exports. They want their voices reflected in future river dredging decisions.

GUESTS

Roger Amerman (Choctaw), geologist and ethnogeologist

Virgil Lewis (Yakama), fish commissioner for Yakama Nation with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission

Erik Holt (Nez Perce), chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe Fish and Wildlife Commission

Break 1 Music: To Keep the World We Know (song) Bruce Cockburn (artist) O Sun O Moon (album)

Break 2 Music: Beauty Way (song) Summit Dub Squad (artist) The Beauty Way (album)

A racial discrimination lawsuit by a non-Native resident of Hawaii threatens to dismantle a Native Hawaiian land benefit established by Congress more than a century ago. The suit challenges the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, a federal law reserving more than 200,000 acres of land in a public trust for Hawaii’s Native population. Residents need to prove they have a 50% blood quantum to qualify for 99-year lease. The plaintiff argues he was denied a lease based on an unconstitutional racial preference. It is one in a series of challenges for similar benefits including school admissions and a health studies scholarship, all giving preference for Native Hawaiians, who do not share the same political protections as Native Americans. We’ll discuss how the lawsuits brings issues of equity, blood quantum, and historic land dispossession to the forefront.

GUESTS

Robin Danner (Native Hawaiian), senior advisor to the Sovereign Council of Hawaiian Homestead Association

Elizabeth Ho’oipo Pa Nakea (Native Hawaiian), attorney, founding president of Hui Na’auao, and executive director of the Native Hawaiian Advisory Council

Patrick Kahawaiolaa (Native Hawaiian), homesteader and elder

Derek Kauanoe (Native Hawaiian), assistant professor of law at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Break 1 Music: Ke Aloha I Ka Pu’uwai / He ‘Ili ‘Ula Au a He Hawai’I (song) Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu (artist) Call It What You Like (album)

Break 2 Music: Beauty Way (song) Summit Dub Squad (artist) The Beauty Way (album)

Overall support for many key LGBTQ+ issues remains overwhelmingly high among Americans, but a new survey shows that support declining for the first time in years. Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey shows 69% of those surveyed favor same-sex marriage, for instance. But that is down from 71% two years ago. The new direction comes as more anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and legislation are surfacing. A handful of cities and states are opting to show support for traditional families rather than back Pride events. At the same time, annual parades, events and public discussions show no signs of slowing down. We’ll get a view of what Pride means in 2026.

GUESTS

Dr. charlie amáyá scott (Diné), independent scholar, public speaker, and content creator

Steven Barrios (Blackfeet), co-founder of the Montana Two Spirit Society; knowledge and wisdom keeper

David Herrera (Mestizo), co-founder of the Montana Two Spirit Society

Myk Mendez (Shoshone-Bannock), cultural activist and organizer, owner of Marvelous Beads, and a published comic book author

Lenny Hayes (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), owner and executive director of Tate Topa Consulting, LLC

Break 1 Music: Common Feelings (song) Darksiderz (artist) Ancestors EP (album)

Break 2 Music: Beauty Way (song) Summit Dub Squad (artist) The Beauty Way (album)

A major housing and retail development proposal in Virginia threatens to pave over the birthplace of one of America’s most influential historical leader. Paramount Chief Powhatan is the notable late-1500s leader who united local tribes into what became known as the Powhatan Confederacy to face the first waves of English settlers. He was the being father of Matoaka, also known as Pocahontas. The nonprofit organization Preservation Virginia placed the site on its 2026 list of most endangered places. Tribal leaders are actively working to halt the development project, saying it would be “an immeasurable loss to tribal communities and the Commonwealth of Virginia.” We’ll hear from tribal leaders about Powhatan’s birthplace and his enduring legacy.

GUESTS

Chief Kevin Brown (Pamunkey)

Chief Frank Adams (Upper Mattaponi)

Break 1 Music: A Beautiful Darkness [Feat. Nadjiwen] (song) Sultans of String (artist)

Break 2 Music: Trick Song (song) Battle River (artist) Hard Times (album)

As the nation commemorates the 100th anniversary of historic Route 66, some historians, scholars, and curators are offering a different perspective of the famed Mother Road. An exhibition just opened at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, Okla. that gives the public a view of the people, culture, and influence arising from the tribal land the road cuts through. A Diné culture educator is giving live presentations of research into the detrimental effects on Native people that the highway brought with it. And the American Indigenous Tourism Association’s Route 66 campaign encourages visitors to look beyond the neon and 1950s pop culture that is synonymous with Route 66, and take time to learn about the ways it transformed Native Americans connection to the rest of the country for the first time.

GUESTS

Shawn Price (Diné), historian and director of the Dinétah Navajo Cultural Program

Gail Chehak (Klamath Tribe), community and partner relations director for the American Indigenous Tourism Association

Adrienne Lalli Hills (Wyandotte Nation), learning and community engagement director for the First Americans Museum

Danyelle Means (Oglala Lakota), executive director of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture

Break 1 Music: Brown Eyed Handsome Man (song) The Wingate Valley Boys (artist) Navajoland U.S.A. Country Happening (album)

Break 2 Music: Trick Song (song) Battle River (artist) Hard Times (album)

A rule change in South Dakota opened a door that allowed a sizable increase in the number of eligible foster parents. It is a boon for places like the Oglala Sioux Reservation that declared an emergency in foster child placement as recently as three years ago. The Minnesota Supreme Court turned back another challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) as the legal justifications for such claims dwindle. And we’ll learn about a Pascua Yaqui tribal secretary who has opened her home to more than two dozen foster children over the years.

GUESTS

Nancy Marie Spears (Cherokee), Indigenous Children and Families reporter for The Imprint

Susan Schrader (Oglala Lakota), director of the Child Protection Services and ICWA program for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, kinship caregiver, and an elder

Toni Giago (Oglala Lakota), family developer for Oglala Sioux Tribe Child Protection Services

Anna Evans (Chickasaw and Cherokee), mother

Break 1 Music: Children’s Honoring Song (song) Red Hawk Medicine Drum (artist) New Beginnings (album)

Break 2 Music: Trick Song (song) Battle River (artist) Hard Times (album)

Before a joint legal project between the Native American Rights Fund and the National Congress of American Indians started 25 years ago, tribes were losing 80% of their cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, they are winning 70% of those cases. That’s from an analysis just put out by the Tribal Supreme Court Project in conjunction with its 25th anniversary. We’ll look at some of those wins and losses and what they add up to a quarter century later.

We’ll also get updates on two important lawsuits in Oklahoma: a class action lawsuit claims the federal government owes as many as 10,000 Native land owners compensation for oil and gas development — and the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against a novel jurisdiction agreement between the Muscogee Nation and the city of Tulsa, Okla.

GUESTS

Hazel James (Chickasaw), plaintiff in Tyson v. United States

Peggy Immohotichey (Chickasaw), plaintiff in Tyson v. United States

Melody McCoy (Cherokee), senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund

Jason Salsman (Muscogee), press secretary for the Muscogee Nation

Jeffrey Nelson, partner of mctlaw, manager of the Indian Law Practice Group

Break 1 Music: Hatchet (song) Blaine Bailey (artist) Indian Country (album)

Break 2 Music: Trick Song (song) Battle River (artist) Hard Times (album)

The State of Alaska is moving forward with a program to kill brown bears across a 40,000-square-mile swath of land in southwest Alaska. The plan to shoot bears from helicopters aims to improve declining numbers of the Mulchatna Caribou Herd. Several local tribes and the Alaska Federation of Natives support the plan. Caribou are a subsistence food source. The herd peaked at over 200,000 in the 1990s, but plummeted to 12,000 by 2022. Conservationists oppose the bear control measures, arguing it lacks scientific evidence that it achieves what officials say it goes. We’ll explore the complexities of predator management in Alaska.

GUESTS

Janet Bavilla (Yup’ik), subsistence hunter and Platinum Traditional Village council member

Doug Vincent-Lang, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Break 1 Music: Bear Beats (song) Cheevers Toppah (artist) True Melodies (album)

Break 2 Music: Trick Song (song) Battle River (artist) Hard Times (album)

Taos and Skwah First Nation chef and entrepreneur Caprio “CJ” Bernal opened an expansion of their original coffee bar on Taos Pueblo. Dawn Butterfly Café is the new full-service cafe that grew from their starting concept in 2022. The name and energy that drives the project honors Bernal’s late sister.

Camas, a wild purple flower with an onion-like bulb, has been an important plant for Native people, mainly in the northwest. This is the time of year for harvesting and cooking them. Some culture keepers are reconnecting with traditional teachings and recipes handed down across generations, but environmental and land use changes are setting up more access barriers. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is one tribe working to protect this significant plant through a series of projects.

The Cultivating Culture reporting team created imagined an Indigenous version of the USDA’s food pyramid with plants and subsistence animals important to Native diets. It serves as a hub for an Indigenous food reporting project on how food and language fuels tribal sovereignty.

The Menu is a regular feature on Indigenous food news and stories hosted by producer Andi Murphy.

GUESTS

Carpio “CJ” Bernal (Taos Pueblo and Skwah First Nation), owner and chef of Dawn Butterfly Café

Jordan Mercier (Grand Ronde), cultural education coordinator at the Chachalu Museum and Cultural Center

Shaun Griswold (Laguna, Jemez, and Zuni Pueblo), correspondent at High Country News and Native News Online

Break 1 Music: Horseback Riding Song (song) The Tewa Indian Women’s Choir (artist) The Tewa Indian Women’s Social Choir: Fun and Social Songs From San Juan Pueblo (album)

Break 2 Music: Cauyaqa Nauwa [Where’s My Drum] (song) Pamyua (artist) Drums Of The North: Traditional Yup’ik Songs (album)

Iñupiaq poet Joan Kane explores themes of home and colonial dispossession in her new poetry collection, “with snow pouring southward past the window“. Kane’s poems center on Iñupiaq worldviews and language, featuring masterful experimentation with form and imagery. Her critically acclaimed work has led to faculty appointments at Harvard University, Tufts University, and Reed College. She also recently edited “Circumpolar Connections: Creative Indigenous Geographies of the Arctic”, an anthology of Indigenous writings about the region.

Ho-Chunk elder Sherman Funmaker just released his debut collection of poems and essays in “Bear Tracks“. He navigates the culture, family, loss, and racism he experienced growing up in Wisconsin. He writes with both emotional depth and humor about such life-changing decisions as dropping out of high school to be a rock-and-roll drummer and finding success as a writer later in life.

Break 1 Music: The Wild One (song) Link Wray (artist)

Break 2 Music: Cauyaqa Nauwa [Where’s My Drum] (song) Pamyua (artist) Drums Of The North: Traditional Yup’ik Songs (album)