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Laurel Morales, NPR, May 29, 2019. Neda Billie has been waiting to turn on lights in her home for 15 years. "We've been living off those propane lanterns," she says. "Now we don't have to have flashlights everywhere. All the kids have a flashlight so when they get up in the middle of the night like to use the restroom they have a flashlight to go to [the outhouse]." Billie, her husband and their five kids live in a tiny, one-room hogan, a traditional Navajo home. Their three sheep graze on...

A red hand over her mouth. The letters MMIW painted down her leg. What message was this high school track star sending? When photographer Alex Flett attended the WIAA 1B State Track and Field Championships at Eastern Washington University , he didn't expect that to capture an iconic image of a high schooler with a powerful message. Rosalie Fish, from Muckleshoot Tribal School in Auburn, WA, showed up on the track with a statement painted on her body—a red hand covering her mouth and the...

Once, there was no easy recourse for tribes when governments or corporations engaged in one-sided, or unilateral, actions that negatively affected them. But on May 10, a major milestone in the fight for Native sovereignty was reached when Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced a new state policy regarding Washington’s federally-recognized tribes. “Effective immediately,” Ferguson said, “my office is adopting a consultation and consent policy regarding Washington’s 29...

In the 1950s, after renovations were complete, visitors could wander into the chapel and see statues of saints and pictures of the Virgen de Guadalupe on the stucco walls. They could see the simple wooden pews that still filled the church and, outside, the stones once used to grind grain, and then wander through the Spanish-style garden with its large gray fountain, rose bushes and lemon trees that glowed in the California sun. Tour guides typically avoided the darker details of its history,...

At a hearing on trauma among Native Americans on Wednesday, tribal leaders asked North Dakota's senators to consider the potential traumatic consequences of building an oil pipeline. "We can still achieve economic development. We can still achieve national security," Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said in tearful testimony. "But don't do it off Indians anymore. We pay the cost, and this is the cost: historical trauma." Archambault was speaking to Sens. Heidi Heitkamp,...

For centuries, Indigenous Ohlone people who live in the San Francisco Bay Area have been dispossessed of their ancestral territory. But through the Sogorea Te Land Trust, they’re starting to reclaim some of it. The Indigenous women who are leading this effort told me how, one parcel at a time, they’re acquiring and sharing their lands, creating space for ceremony and community, and building resilience for themselves and future generations. On a cool morning in December, Johnella LaRose...

Tribal members in Northern California are reclaiming traditional tattoos, especially facial tattoos as a means to connect with their cultural history, a panel of experts in indigenous tattoos told a diverse group of 45 people in attendance at the community event at the Museum of Sonoma County. Those who attended were surrounded by displays of indigenous art, ceramics, and paintings. A spectacular hand carved canoe, used for traditional voyages, tracing ancestral journeys through the Pacific...

Building on culturally-based teachings, through the use of traditional stories and personal reflections, Jerry Tello shares the “medicine” and process to detox from, and break the cycles of painful, generational patterns, and harmful relationships; guiding the reader through a journey to recover one's sacredness . Recovering Your Sacredness re-introduces values and generational wisdom that are found in virtually every cultural tradition and spiritual school of thought. Tello lifts up these...

Building on culturally-based teachings, through the use of traditional stories and personal reflections, Jerry Tello shares the “medicine” and process to detox from, and break the cycles of painful, generational patterns, and harmful relationships; guiding the reader through a journey to recover one's sacredness . Recovering Your Sacredness re-introduces values and generational wisdom that are found in virtually every cultural tradition and spiritual school of thought. Tello lifts up these...

Native communities face many challenges. Too often the strengths of families are strained by these challenges, and finding effective ways to support our families can be difficult. Our communities often find themselves dealing with the results of family and community disruption, (alcohol or drug abuse, unintended pregnancies, dropping out of school, etc) and are challenged to address the core issues. ACE scores are significantly higher in indigenous American communities than in the broader...

After years of documented instances of anti-Native racism — including the use of racial slurs and harmful stereotypes by white administrators, faculty, and staff — in a school where 94 percent of Native students are below proficiency in reading, compared to 49 percent of white students, the U.S. Department of Education is starting an investigation into discrimination against Native students in Montana’s Wolf Point School District. Investigators with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office...

In 2013, The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation implemented a special provision of the Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA). The tribal domestic violence criminal jurisdiction made it possible for federally recognized tribes to prosecute non-Indian offenders who committed acts of domestic or dating violence on tribal lands. They were one of the first three tribes in the U.S. to do so. Currently, 24 tribes have implemented the special jurisdiction provision, while several...