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The road to Cacique Panchito’s village of La Rancheria is long and windy, with the last 12 miles so steep and eroded that a Soviet-era tank truck is required to climb through its crevasses.

Panchito loves it that way, to be among his people and just a bit isolated. The community’s traditional and most trusted voice, and cacique, or chief, since 1974, Panchito is a deeply spiritual man of his own mountain, his own community. Along with his wife, Reina, he is beloved elder to many other elders, hundreds of families and thousands of Indian grandchildren in his overall clan of the Gran Familia Rojas-Ramirez.

Persisting over centuries, some 30 or more communities of this historical Indian clan (estimated at some 20,000 people), live largely in farming communities but field many relatives in other professions such as teaching, medicine and public health, journalism and mechanical arts. READ MORE — José Barreiro, Special to ICT

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It was January 31, 1968, Dwight Birdwell was a Specialist Five in the Army, fighting in the Vietnam War. There was a large enemy attack on the Tan Son Nhut Airbase near Saigon. Many of the unit’s vehicles were either disabled or destroyed. One of the first to respond to the attack was Birdwell.

“He knew his vehicle was the first line of defense. So, Birdwell stood in his Commander’s hatch, half exposed, at times standing entirely out of the tank, fully exposed, laying down suppressive fire on the enemy,” President Joe Biden said during the White House ceremony Tuesday.

Under heavy fire, Birdwell, who is Cherokee, was able to move his tank commander and fire the tank’s weapon at enemy forces. Once his tank was incapacitated he continued fighting. He was eventually wounded but refused evacuation. Instead he led a small group of defenders to disrupt enemy attack until reinforcements could arrive. READ MORE — Pauly Denetclaw, ICT

Fresh off the start of a rebranding campaign, ICT is adding new staff as well as promoting from within.

ICT has welcomed three new staff members to its Indigenous team dedicated to telling Native stories and promoted two staff members.

R. Vincent Moniz, Jr., the senior producer for the ICT newscast, is now full-time. He’s NuÉta and Oglala from the Three Affiliated Tribes. He’s been with the company for almost two years as a contract worker. Moniz is based in Bismarck, North Dakota.

“Indian Country Today was the dream. If I could work with Indian Country’s ‘Justice League’ that would’ve been absolutely amazing and so as I moved up through journalism and learning different styles of writing. ICT has always been a dream of mine, to be able to work with people, with everybody,” Moniz said on the “ICT Newscast with Aliyah Chavez.” READ MORE — ICT

As a child, Jack Malstrom was obsessed with Speedy Gonzales and showered with gifts like Taco Bell plushies and T-shirts with the Mexican flag.

Today, Malstrom understands that those offerings were rooted in tired tropes and stereotypes, but nonetheless appreciates the effort their parents made.

“They did the best they could,” Malstrom said. “They didn’t know there was any organization that really helped. Especially back then, there wasn’t any help, you know, for White parents to raise multiracial kids.”

A not-so-subtle narrative of Mexican American identity took shape. It wasn’t until years later that Malstrom, who uses they/them pronouns, discovered something that made the entire narrative fall apart. They were actually Indigenous.

Malstrom was born in Compton, California in the spring of 1989. Their birth mother had found out she was pregnant at 15 years old and made the decision to put Malstrom up for adoption without notifying or consulting the birth father, who was in prison at the time for a gang-related shooting. READ MORE— Jarrette Werk, Underscore News

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On this Tuesday edition of the ICT Newscast, a Forge Fellow looks for clues to health through epidemiology. And redemption for a crime not committed. But first, the Onondaga Nation increased its land base.

Watch:

Mohegan Chief Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba, the nation’s first Native U.S. treasurer, comes from a line of chiefs who instilled in her the need to keep her tribe healthy and to survive.

“It’s our job to leave footprints on the path for those who come behind us — so they may find their way easily,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Now Malerba, 68, will bring that mindset to two new jobs in Washington: President Joe Biden appointed her U.S. treasurer and overseer of a new Office of Tribal and Native Affairs at the Treasury Department.

As part of the first role, her name will appear on all new U.S. currency. “I hope to sign the currency either Chief Lynn Malerba or Chief Many Hearts Lynn Malerba,” she said, referencing the meaning of her name within her tribe, “Mutáwi Mutáhash.”

In the latter role, she will be thinking of new ways to help tribes develop their economies to overcome challenges that are unique to tribal lands.

“Tribes cannot offer tax incentives on their reservations” in the same way that states and local municipalities would tax economic development, she said. She added that tribes haven’t been able to offer tax-exempt bonds for things like concert halls and golf courses like municipalities can. READ MORE. — Associated Press

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