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During a contentious week at the 80th annual National Congress of American Indians conference, members took a vote on two constitutional amendments that would exclude state-recognized nations from voting membership. Both proposed constitutional amendments failed.
If the amendments had passed, state-recognized nations could still be members of NCAI, but they would not be able to vote on important issues, such as presidential elections.
In the election Thursday morning, both proposed constitutional amendments failed — a win for the 24 tribes who would have been automatically excluded from voting membership if the amendment had succeeded.
Proposal one: to amend NCAI to limit membership to federally recognized tribes was rejected, with 55.67 percent against and 44.3 percent of voters in favor, according to real time reporting by Indianz. READ MORE — Nika Bartoo-Smith, Underscore News + ICT
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For the second time in U.S. history, a citizen of the Chinook Indian Nation will serve as a United States ambassador.
Roger Nyhus was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on a voice vote late Wednesday, Nov. 15, as U.S. ambassador to Barbados and six other Eastern Caribbean countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Nyhus was nominated by President Biden on Sept. 20, 2022, and is believed to be the third Indigenous person to serve as a U.S. ambassador. John Christopher Stevens, also Chinook, served as ambassador to Libya and was killed in the attack in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. Keith Michael Harper, Cherokee, served from 2014-2017 as ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“I’m incredibly honored to represent the United States and the American people in seven dynamic, independent democratic nations in the Caribbean,” Nyhus said in a statement posted on social media. READ MORE — Richard Arlin Walker, Special to ICT
WASHINGTON — Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, challenged the head of the Teamsters union to a physical fight at a U.S. Senate hearing Tuesday intended to showcase how labor unions are making families’ lives better.
The tense confrontation at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing stemmed from acrimonious posts on social media, as well as a confrontation between the two at an earlier Senate hearing.
Tuesday’s episode started after Mullin, Cherokee Nation, read aloud one of Teamsters chief Sean O’Brien’s posts on X, formerly known as Twitter. In the post, O’Brien had called Mullin a “greedy CEO who pretends like he’s self made.”
O’Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, ended the post by writing, “You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy.” READ MORE — Oklahoma Voice
The start of COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 shut down any plans for an in-person Zuni Pueblo community garden in New Mexico. The Zuni Youth Enrichment Project found a way that spring to bring the garden to the community.
The youth enrichment project partnered with the Zuni Agricultural Committee to create and distribute gardening kits and rain barrels to dozens of families stuck in their homes as a way of reintroducing traditional gardening practices and providing critical resources.
“Coming together is one of Zuni’s strengths so to be stripped of the ability to do that was new territory for everybody,” said Joe Claunch with the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project.
“That project, that initiative was really well received. We saw a 400 percent increase in the number of people that were gardening from the first year of COVID compared to prior to COVID. We always struggled with our community garden program unless we were bussing kids to our gardens, people were not participating. Then we were seeing gardens everywhere throughout the community.” READ MORE — Dalton Walker, ICT
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The Yuma campus of Northern Arizona University is home to a groundbreaking science center. It’s the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science. Ora Marek-Martinez is part of this major effort to further spread these essential understandings.
One of the first urban Indian centers is closed. For a major renovation. Since 1975, the Minneapolis American Indian Center has been the gathering place for 35,000 tribal citizens, who call the Twin Cities their home. ICT’s Shirley Sneve toured the construction site. Mary LaGarde, its executive director.
ICT Editor-at-Large is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He participated in a three year project, the Commission on Reimagining the Economy. Megan Minoka Hill is the senior director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.
WATCH
Clean water, the source of life. It sounds so simple.
As a human right, however, it has become much more complicated in the age of mining, nuclear bomb tests, fertilizer and pipelines. An invisible enemy may be lurking in the rivers and mountain streams.
To tell such a broad story, producer/director/musician Steve Salas, Apache, and co-director/writer James Burns realized they needed to bring it down to earth. So, they followed one woman, Indigenous activist Layla Staats, across First Nations reservations to see the human impact of contaminated water.
The resulting film, “Boil Alert,” is a revelation. More than a documentary, it shape-shifts into an art film with surreal dream-like sequences of dark spirits in the deserts, forests and riverbanks that portray an ecological and existential crisis. It’s enhanced by the stunning landscape cinematography of Andrew Maso. READ MORE — Sandra Hale Schulman, Special to ICT
- Conservation group supports formation of new Alaska Native corporations: ‘This is a long overdue shift in The Wilderness Society’s position and is a significant step toward correcting injustices against Alaska Native communities’
- Tribes, Oklahoma law enforcement clash over license plate citation: Oklahoma tribes allege state abruptly changed license plate policies for Indigenous citizens
- Tribe builds thriving olive oil business: Demand grows for Séka Hills oils from the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation
- The Supreme Court says it is adopting a code of ethics, but it has no means of enforcement
- Rep. George Santos won’t seek reelection after scathing ethics report cites evidence of lawbreaking
- Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs accused of years of rape and abuse by singer Cassie in lawsuit
We want your tips, but we also want your feedback. What should we be covering that we’re not? What are we getting wrong? Please let us know. dalton@ictnews.org.
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