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The story of Indian boarding schools – children stripped from their homes and forced into foreign lifeways – is a story of brutally disrupted lives, families and cultures that continues “to impact American Indian and Alaska Native individuals and Indian Country,” according to a report released this week by the U.S. Department of Interior.

It’s also a story that, like most every story in Indian Country, eventually comes back to the land.

“The purpose of the Indian boarding school policy was to assimilate American Indians and Alaska Natives and dispossess us of our lands,” said OJ Semans, executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes, an advocacy group of more than 20 tribes controlling more than 50 million acres.

And in a cruel twist, it was often land – appropriated from Native nations – that provided the resources to operate the boarding schools. The federal government granted thousands of acres for hundreds of schools – or sold large tracts at basement prices – to provide building sites, farms and ranches for starting and sustaining the schools. READ MORE — Stewart Huntington, ICT

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MESCALERO, New Mexico — Anne Marie Brillante never imagined she would have to choose between being Apache and being Catholic.

To her, and many others in the Mescalero Apache tribe in New Mexico who are members of St. Joseph Apache Mission, their Indigenous culture had always been intertwined with faith. Both are sacred.

“Hearing we had to choose, that was a shock,” said a tearful Brillante, a member of the mission’s parish council.

The focus of this tense, unresolved episode is the 8-foot Apache Christ painting. For this close-knit community, it is a revered icon created by Franciscan friar Robert Lentz in 1989. It depicts Christ as a Mescalero medicine man, and has hung behind the church’s altar for 35 years under a crucifix as a reminder of the holy union of their culture and faith. READ MORE — Associated Press

PHOENIX — Amid the fierce competition and colorful pageantry of the largest all-Native American basketball tournament in North America, some numbers stood out.

There were 196 teams representing 180 tribal communities playing in the 21st annual Native American Basketball Invitational over five days last week, the tournament beginning on the 13 courts of Grand Canyon University and ending with Saturday’s girls and boys championships at the Footprint Center.

But the games were also the backdrop to some life-changing moments.

Keon Talgo, a 19-year-old Native American basketball player, always dreamed of going to college, but needed assistance to turn his dream into reality. Everything came together during an unforgettable and eye-popping moment at the NABI.

Talgo, dressed in a black dress shirt and gray slacks, received a $10,000 scholarship during halftime of the boys’ championship game in downtown Phoenix. Talgo belongs to the San Carlos Apache tribe and will attend Cornell College, a private liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in the fall to study engineering. READ MORE — Cronkite News

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