News Archives - Page 179 of 447

Tribes support changing feds’ recognition process

By PHILIP MARCELO, Associated Press

MASHPEE, Mass. (AP) – American Indians attending a Tuesday hearing at the Mashpee Wampanoag community center on Cape Cod said they support the federal government’s plan to make it easier for tribes to gain federal recognition.

But the tribal representatives, from New Jersey, Virginia, Missouri, New England and elsewhere, urged the U.S. Department of the Interior to go further.

They called for setting a time limit on the review process, which can sometimes take decades.

“There’s something wrong when a process takes more than a generation to complete,” said Cedric Cromwell, chairman of the tribal council for the Mashpee Wampanoags, which won federal recognition in 2007 after a 30-year quest.

Federal recognition brings tribes increased government benefits and special privileges, including seeking commercial ventures like building casinos and gambling facilities on sovereign lands.

Tribal leaders also strongly objected to a proposal they said effectively gives “veto power” to certain “third parties” when a tribe seeks to re-apply for recognition.

Dennis Jenkins, chairman of the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut, said the provision would allow states, municipalities and other organizations that oppose tribal recognition to stand in the way of the federal decision-making process.

“It would be next to impossible for us to re-apply if this proposal goes through,” he said.

One attendee, meanwhile, suggested the proposed changes would “devalue” federal tribal recognition by setting the bar too low.

“The current process was not intended to create a tribal existence where none had existed,” said Michelle Littlefield, Taunton resident who has been an outspoken opponent of the Mashpee Wampanoags’ plan to build a $500 million resort casino in that city. “It is meant to protect the integrity of the historical Native American tribes that have an honored place in our nation’s history.”

The hearing was the last in a series of nationwide meetings on the proposal, and the only one held on the East Coast.

Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn said the department believes it can make the tribal recognition process less costly and burdensome to tribes and more predictable and transparent without “sacrificing rigorousness.”

The Mashpee, who hosted the meeting, are among only 17 tribes that have been recognized by the Interior Department since the process was established 35 years ago.

The majority of the 566 federally-recognized tribes in the U.S. earned that status through an act of Congress.

The Interior Department proposes, among other things, lowering the threshold for tribes to demonstrate community and political authority.

Rather than from “first sustained contact” with non-Indians, tribes would need only to provide evidence dating back to 1934, which was the year Congress accepted the existence of tribes as political entities.

Washburn said that proposal, in particular, could help “level the playing field” among tribes.

Eastern tribes, he said, would otherwise need to provide a much more exhaustive historical record – sometimes dating as far back as 1789 – than their western counterparts.

“We’ve heard over and over that the process is broken,” Washburn said. “We’re going to do something.”

Tribes hold vigils for Columbia River salmon

By: Associated Press, August 4, 2014

HOOD RIVER, Ore. (AP) — Native American tribes in the U.S. and Canada are holding vigils along the Columbia River to pray for the return of salmon migration as the two countries prepare to renegotiate a treaty concerning the river.

The treaty, signed in 1964, governs operations of dams and reservoirs that have caused salmon run declines.

Tribes are pushing to include salmon restoration to the upper Columbia, above Grand Coulee Dam in northern Washington State, in the treaty.

In recommendations for potential negotiations, the U.S. says the two countries should study the possibility of restoring fish passage over that dam. But Canada says restoring fish migration and habitat is not a treaty issue.

Seventeen vigils will be held along the length of the river, in Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia.

Nisqually tribal fisherman maximizing value of salmon

Nisqually fishers listen to a presentation on the upcoming salmon seasons and how to maximize the value of their catch.

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, Aug 4th, 2014

For the past several years, the Nisqually Tribe has bought and sold salmon caught by their fishermen. This summer, the tribe worked with Sea Grant and dozens of tribal fishermen to review techniques to increase the value of their salmon.

The goal of the program is to pass as much value as possible back to the fishermen. We wrote about the tribe’s fish marketing program last year:

The Nisqually Indian Tribe is creating a stable market for tribal fishermen by buying and processing salmon.

“What we’re trying to do here is to make sure tribal fishermen can afford to stay on the water,” said James Slape Jr., Nisqually Tribe councilmember.

…

“They’re able to keep the resource price consistently high throughout the season,” Slape said. “Our goal is to make sure that tribal fishers, not only Nisqually, take home livable wages. A good portion of the fishers rely on fishing as a single source of income for their families.”

Currently, the tribe is selling more than 6,000 pounds a month of tribally caught salmon to wholesalers and food supply companies.

By taking steps like icing and bleeding salmon soon after they’re caught, tribal fisherman can increase the health of the entire buying operation. “A higher quality of fish overall helps all the fishermen,” said Rick Thomas, who runs the buying program for the tribe.

One step the tribe took in 2011 to help fishermen was to invest thousands of dollars in an ice machine that makes 11 tons of ice available fishermen daily.

Jamestown S’Klallam Gathering Steelhead DNA for Database

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commissions

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe wants to know which age class of steelhead is surviving best within the Dungeness River watershed.

While checking smolt traps and conducting spawning ground surveys this spring, the tribe took tail and scale samples from 500 juvenile steelhead in five creeks between Sequim and Port Angeles: Seibert, McDonald, Matriotti, Bell and Jimmycomelately.

“We’re already counting the adults and juveniles every spring and fall, so why not take DNA samples and develop an age database for steelhead?” said natural resources technician Chris Burns.

Steelhead scales are taken to be analyzed for DNA.

Analyzing the scales will tell biologists how long a steelhead has been in fresh water before out-migrating and how long it spent at sea. The DNA also will show whether the steelhead migrated back out to sea after spawning in fresh water.

Steelhead returns are harder to forecast because of their complex life history. Juvenile steelhead leave fresh water between the first and fourth years of life, but return from salt water in one to five years. Steelhead also are repeat spawners, returning to salt water before coming back to fresh water to spawn again during their lifespan, which can be as long as seven to nine years.

The genetics information would be shared with the state to help develop a larger database.

“By zoning in on steelhead ages, it will help the tribe with fisheries management, resulting in more accurate returns and harvest management decisions,” Burns said.

Puget Sound steelhead were listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in 2007. The primary causes of the decline of the steelhead population include degraded habitat, fish-blocking culverts and unfavorable ocean conditions.

Power To The (Native) Peoples

Joe Pakootas wants to become the first Native American to represent Washington

By Nathan Thornburgh, ALJAZEERA AMERICA

Candidate Joe Pakootas, center, walks with his family in the Perry Street Parade in Spokane, Washington July 26, 2014. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of profiles of people running for office in America who are unlikely to win, but who believe so strongly in their cause that they still try. The first profile, on Bruce Skarin’s efforts in Massachusetts, can be read here.

SPOKANE, Wash. — Ever since Lewis and Clark rolled down the mighty Columbia with a presidential writ, politicians and the judges they appoint have controlled the fortunes of Joe Pakootas’ people. Executive orders confined his ancestors to the Colville Reservation, acts of Congress deprived them of gold-rich foothills, and federal judges ruled from afar about their basic rights as Americans. Now, for the first time ever, a registered tribal member is making a serious bid to represent the people of Washington state’s 5th District in Congress. Running against incumbent Cathy McMorris Rodgers is none other than Joe Pakootas.

It is a tough challenge. Not only is Pakootas (pronounced pah-KOH-tas) running as a Democrat in a deeply conservative district, but his main opponent is also the kind of blandly affirmative incumbent who is particularly hard to unseat. McMorris Rodgers is running for her sixth term and is the fourth-ranking House Republican. She’s a hard worker with unexceptional views and an up-by-her-bootstraps biography (first in her family to earn a college degree, worked at McDonald’s to pay her way through school) that she can wield smoothly, as she did when she gave the GOP’s response to the State of the Union address in January. She has raised a tremendous amount of money without much visible effort and won’t really begin campaigning in the district until after the Aug. 5 multiparty primary, in which the top two candidates (regardless of party) advance to the November ballot.

Pakootas speaks at the Stevens County 7th District Picnic in Chewelah, Washington, July 26, 2014. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America

The only Democrat running (the other two candidates are a Tea Party Republican and an independent), Pakootas has still had to work very hard just to have a chance in the primary. Running as a Democrat in the 5th District is, as one organizer put it, “taking one for the party,” and the Democrats in Spokane had to convince Pakootas, the chief operating officer (CEO) of the Colville Tribal Federal Corp., which manages tribal business and brought in $86 million in gross revenue last year, that he should accept the challenge. The Native population can’t deliver many votes (there are just over 9,000 registered Colville members, the largest Native group in the district), but Democratic Party officials saw Pakootas’ potential to be a rare crossover figure.

Pakootas, 57, has an undeniably compelling story. Like his opponent, he comes from humble roots. McMorris Rodgers’ father owned an orchard in small-town Kettle Falls and had political aspirations of his own. Pakootas had a somewhat rougher road: he was born on the reservation and was a ward of the state by the time he was in the second grade. He and six of his seven siblings were sent to live with a foster family on a dairy farm off the reservation; it was three years before they were reunited with their parents. The only one of his siblings who didn’t grow up to be an alcoholic or drug addict was an older brother who died in a motorcycle accident as a teenager. Pakootas himself was a star athlete in high school, but he “went the path of drinking,” as he puts it, for a couple years. By the time he straightened out, his athletic career was derailed, and he was married, with a child on the way.

The candidate surveys damage at the Rainbow Beach Resort, one of the businesses he supervises as the CEO of the Colville Tribal Federal Corporation. Cabins at the resort, located on the Colville Indian Reservation, were destroyed by a storm with heavy winds.Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America

That he managed to become the man he is today — the Colville CEO who helped turn around tribal finances and helped lead a successful lawsuit against a Canadian mining firm that was polluting the Columbia River — is a testament to his character. For the first time in its history, the Colville Corp. is managed entirely by Native Americans, from Washington state and beyond. Pakootas has instituted a more Native-friendly culture for the employees, including things like extended leave for root-gathering season in the spring. He has also cut waste by shuttering unprofitable mills and houseboat concessions owned by the tribe, while focusing on profitable casinos and the next great hope for the tribe’s future growth: luring corporations by offering offshore-style tax concessions on the reservation. He credits his time in foster care with helping him be at ease with non-Native culture, and he worked his way up in industries — construction and later drilling and blasting — that were at times downright hostile to Native Americans. And he’s done all this while running a successful convenience store in his hometown of Inchelium. He’s been married for 38 years to his high school sweetheart; they have four children and six beautiful grandkids.

But having a great story isn’t the same as being able to tell it glibly on command. Over lunch at the gilded Davenport Hotel, in downtown Spokane, Pakootas is disarmingly thoughtful and honest. He’ll tell you about why he wears a Livestrong bracelet (for the friends and family he lost to cancer). He’ll explain that the End of the Trail pendant, based on the iconic James Earle Fraser sculpture of the plains Native American slumped in the saddle, is around his neck because it was his deceased brother’s favorite artwork: “[his death] is constantly with me,” he says. And if you ask about the aplastic anemia bracelet on his other arm, he’ll start to cry: he lost a 6-year-old niece to the disease.

That emotional honesty is not just his own personality, he says later; it is also Native culture. One of the human-resources reforms he instituted as CEO was to allow a more flexible bereavement schedule for employees. “Non-Indians can take an afternoon off for a funeral,” Pakootas says. “But we need a week, maybe two. We need time.”

Pakootas and his family prepare to walk in the Perry Street Parade. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America

Native culture is, in some ways, at odds with the two main chores of electioneering: self-promotion and fundraising. “That’s the worst part for me,” he says. “I never could talk about myself. I never could grovel for money, and I guess that’s kind of what we’re doing,” he says, laughing. When he ran for the tribal council, he did a lot of door-to-door politicking, which was fine, but “out here it’s all about money. And I’m not very good at it.”

Susan Brudnicki, an energetic former federal employee who is managing Pakootas’ campaign, has done everything short of locking him in a room with a phone and a call list for fundraising. Like his opponent, he has gone far outside the district for money. But he hasn’t had her success. “There are 566 tribes in the United States,” he says. “And I’ve called 80 percent of them.” He knows many of their leaders from as far back as the days when he played in rez-ball high-school-basketball tournaments all over the country. The Colville and Spokane tribes have given the maximum amount, but turning that farther-flung network into money has proved difficult. “They say the same thing you hear from non-Indians,” he says. “They say it’s not a winnable race.”

Taking a phone call after the Parade in Spokane. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America

Native groups are active in politics in the gaming era, but more as tactical donors, not as boosters for Native candidates. That could explain, in part, why there are so few Native Americans running for federal office. Pakootas says he talked briefly with a Native congressional candidate in Minnesota who later dropped out of the race. There are two Republican legislators from Oklahoma with Native roots, but through the ages, the list of Native American politicians is woefully thin.

The end result is this: even with the money raised from Native American groups and tribes, Pakootas has raised less than $100,000. McMorris Rodgers has raised more than $2 million. That leaves retail politics. Brudnicki got Pakootas to start seeing a speech coach, to help him take the “ain’ts” and “innits” out of his sentences. But the nerves are harder to conquer; he carries around a moisturizing mouth spray — “my go-get-’em juice,” he jokes — for dry mouth, which plagues him when he speaks in public.

Outside of Pakootas' office in Spokane. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America — Outside of Pakootas’ office in Spokane. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America

At a candidate forum hosted by the advocacy group in the Business and Professional Women’s Foundation in a school cafeteria in Republic, Washington, more than two hours northwest of Spokane, Pakootas is impeccably turned out in a blue suit with blue tie. Most of the other candidates and the hundred or so attendees are dressed in jeans and T-shirts and the like. Everyone in the room except Pakootas is Caucasian, from the two policemen wearing military-grade body armor to the nervous guy who asks the candidates who’s going to put a check on the environmentalists.

Pakootas certainly looks like a politician: smooth skin, strong jaw, and good hair. (One political consultant who normally advises against using candidate pictures on billboards had a change of heart upon meeting Pakootas face to face.) But his delivery still needs work. He starts answers strong enough, citing statistics about rising poverty in the district and defending the role of government in creating jobs. But he tends to flee at the end of his answers, to talk quickly and then sit quickly.

Pakootas jokes with his son-in-law, left and daughter. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America

McMorris Rodgers isn’t there, but the other two opponents are, and they fare no better. Dave Wilson, a successful Spokane businessman running as an independent, promises to “end the gridlock” without coming close to articulating how. Tom Horne, a conservative Republican, follows that by huffing that gridlock in Washington is the whole point: “It keeps things from getting worse faster.” When the break comes, Pakootas retreats to the back of the room, near the table where the lemonade and brownies are being served, and makes small talk with Brudnicki and a few of his volunteers until it’s time to go.

The crowd is much smaller the next evening in Colville, the seat of Stevens County, an area that one resident calls a “biker-gang retirement community.” Colville is also ranching and logging country, and there’s a deeply Western conservatism here. Fewer than two dozen people have shown up for the Pakootas “town hall” at the pavilion in Yep Kanum Park, and the crowd looks somehow even smaller under the tall trees. But the Democrats who are here are true believers, both in progressivism and in this candidate. The owner of the local window shop thanks Pakootas for running. Walt Kloefkorn, the Washington state coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America, rattles off a list of Democratic candidates from prior elections, all unserious or underqualified in some way. “I think Joe’s one of the best Democratic candidates in years,” he says.

And it’s true: in the smaller crowd, much more receptive to his set menu of pro-choice, pro-environment policies, Pakootas is at ease. Speaking into a small mic attached to a portable amp Brudnicki brought, he tells jokes and gets laughs. He tells his own story with a bit more polish than the night before.

After the speech, the Rev. Jim CastroLang of the local United Church of Christ comes over and shakes Pakootas’ hand. He congratulates the candidate on staying upbeat, despite the odds. “You know how it goes,” he says. “You can’t win — until you do.”

A Pakootas supporter wears the candidate's buttons. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America — A Pakootas supporter wears the candidate’s buttons. Ian C. Bates for Al Jazeera America

This series is produced in partnership with Roads & Kingdoms.

Affectionate graffiti mars sacred Indian site

This July 25, 2014 photo shows graffiti expressing affection for someone named Miranda on the sacred Jamestown S'Klallam site of Tamanowas Rock. (AP Photo/Peninsula Daily News, Joe Smillie) — This July 25, 2014 photo shows graffiti expressing affection for someone named Miranda on the sacred Jamestown S’Klallam site of Tamanowas Rock. (AP Photo/Peninsula Daily News, Joe Smillie)

By Associated Press Published: Aug 3, 2014

CHIMACUM, Wash. (AP) – Graffiti expressing affection for someone named Miranda has marred one of the most sacred sites for an American Indian tribe in Washington state.

Jamestown S’Klallam officials learned last month of the pink and white painting of “I (heart) Miranda” on the towering Tamanowas Rock northwest of Seattle. The 43-million-year-old monolith has been used for millennia by Salish Native Americans for hunting, refuge and spiritual renewal rituals.

In the Klallam language, Tamanowas means “spirit power.”

“It’s an incredibly important site for us,” Anette Nesse, chief operating officer for the tribe in Blyn, told The Peninsula Daily News.

The Jamestown S’Klallam tribe bought the rock and 62 surrounding acres from the Jefferson Land Trust for $600,000 in December.

Standing more than 150 feet tall, Tamanowas Rock is made up of a pair of basalt masses that shoot up through a dense forest, offering sweeping vistas of Admiralty Inlet, Whidbey Island and the Cascades.

The graffiti is about 8 feet long from end to end in letters that are roughly 3 feet tall.

The area is a favorite spot for rock climbers. In the past, however, the worst impact they left behind was campfire remnants.

The “I (heart) Miranda” tag also was painted on the Uptown Theatre in Port Townsend last month.

“I don’t know who Miranda is,” Nesse said. “She must mean a lot to somebody, but painting it on the rock is definitely not the best way to express it.”

Nesse and Bill Laubner, manager of the tribe’s facilities, are determining the best way to remove the graffiti without damaging the rock.

Nesse doesn’t think the painting was done with malice. “I just think whoever painted that didn’t realize how important the rock is to us,” she said.

Tamanowas Rock, also known as Chimacum Rock, was listed on the Washington Heritage Register in 1976. The tribe also is seeking to have it added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The rock, believed to have formed from molten lava, was used as a lookout for mastodon hunters, according to tribal spokeswoman Betty Oppenheimer.

Caves formed from gas bubbles during the rock’s development were used for spiritual vision quests.

S.D. tribes gather to talk about ensuring water rights

By: Scott Feldman, July 29, 2014, Argus Leader

RAPID CITY – More than 100 years ago, a treaty established that all water on Native American land or that naturally flowed to Native American land was to be held by the sovereign tribes.

But tribal governments say they still are fighting to make sure their water rights and, by extension, rights of sovereignty are protected.

Representatives from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, all members of the Great Plains Water Alliance, gathered last week for the Missouri River & Ogallala Aquifer Indian Water Rights Conference in Rapid City to discuss those rights, how they are being undermined and what can be done to protect what is theirs.

The purpose of the conference was to figure out how to prevent federal and state governments from infringing on the water rights legally held by the tribes, said Dennis “Charlie” Spotted Tail, Solider Creek Council representative of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and chairman of the Great Plains Water Alliance.

Presentations at the conference included an explanation of the dangers of uranium mining in the Black Hills, the potentially damaging effect the Keystone XL Pipeline could cause to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation and an explanation of the history of tribal water law.

Spotted Tail claimed that as the conference was being held, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was navigating waters from the Missouri River that naturally would flow to the tribes of the Sioux Nation to other users.

“They are totally disregarding our treaty rights,” Spotted Tail said.

He said engineers are following rules established by the 1944 Flood Control Act but are ignoring the Winters Doctrine precedent that has been in place since 1908.

The Winters doctrine came from the case of Winters v. United States in 1908, when the Supreme Court ruled that when the United States creates an Indian reservation, it implicitly reserves sufficient water to fulfill the purposes of the reservation, with the water claim priority date established as of the date of the reservation, according to a presentation by David Ganje of the Ganje Law Office in Rapid City.

The Supreme Court ruled that the right to use water flowing through or adjacent to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation was reserved by the treaty establishing the reservation. Although the treaty did not mention water rights, the court ruled that the federal government intended to deal fairly with Native Americans by preserving their water, Ganje wrote in his presentation.

“We need enough water to supply the reservation for what it was created for and to preserve enough for future use,” he said.

The Great Plains Tribal Water Alliance and the The Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation are working toward a federal congressional hearing to lay claim to what is rightfully theirs, using the help of water law experts and lawyers, Spotted Tail said.

“The theme of this whole meeting is to formulate a strategy after the meeting for a hearing, utilizing the knowledge provided by our water rights experts and attorneys,” he said.

86 family members disenrolled from Oregon tribe

By: Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) – An Oregon woman says 86 members of her family have been disenrolled from an American Indian tribe that operates the state’s largest tribal casino, as leaders review the tribe’s rolls and enforce new membership requirements.

Family spokeswoman Mia Prickett said she’s shocked about being stripped of membership from the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, since one of the family’s ancestors was a chief who signed an 1855 treaty that helped establish the tribe.

The council that governs the 5,000-member tribe had been considering disenrolling the family for nearly a year, saying they no longer satisfy enrollment rules.

The decision to remove the family was made after the council earlier this month changed the enrollment ordinance via “emergency amendments.” The amendments gave the authority to make decisions on disenrollment to an enrollment committee, which is an administrative body, and removed the council from the process.

Grand Ronde’s Stacia Martin, executive coordinator for the Tribal Council, declined to confirm the number of people removed or the exact reasons, citing the “confidential nature” of enrollment proceedings.

Those removed lose health care and housing benefits, educational assistance and about $3,000 annually in casino profits, among other benefits.

The contentious removal is part of what some experts have dubbed the “disenrollment epidemic” – a rising number of dramatic clashes over tribal belonging that are sweeping through the U.S.

These tribal expulsions, which started in the 1990s along with the establishment of Indian casinos, have increased in numbers just as gambling revenues skyrocketed. Critics say the disenrollments are also used as a way to settle political infighting and old family and personal feuds.

Most tribes base their membership criteria on blood quantum or on descent from someone named on a tribe’s census rolls or treaty records.

Grand Ronde officials previously said the tribe’s membership pushed for an enrollment audit, with the goal of strengthening the tribe’s “family tree.” They did not say how many people were tabbed for disenrollment.

Prickett says her ancestor chief Tumulth was unjustly accused of participating in a revolt and was executed by the U.S. Army – and hence didn’t make it onto the tribe’s roll, which is now a membership requirement.

“This is morally and ethically reprehensible,” Prickett said of the disenrollment.

The family can appeal the decision to the Tribal Court and the Tribal Court of Appeals.

Victims of Brutal Joy Killing Had Come Looking for Work

Alysa Landry, 7/30/14, Indian Country Today

The two Navajo men murdered July 19 in Albuquerque were homeless only when they were in the city.

Kee Thompson and Allison Gorman, who were beaten to death with cinder blocks while they slept on a mattress in an open field, had homes on the Navajo Nation, said Mary Garcia, executive director of the Albuquerque Indian Center. Although their individual circumstances varied, both men left those homes in search of other lives and instead found themselves living on the streets of New Mexico’s largest city.

“They leave the reservation for better opportunities,” Garcia said. “But once they get here, the opportunities aren’t here because of lack of training or lack of transportation. Then the bad things start happening.”

Both men sought services at the Indian Center, which offers hot meals, counseling, phone and computer services and referrals. Staff at the Indian Center helped identify the men, who were beaten so badly they were unrecognizable.

Gorman, 44, had a card in his pocket listing his mailing address at the Indian Center, Garcia said. “That was the only thing on his body that could identify who he was,” she said.

In the days following the murders, details about who the men were have trickled in. Gorman, of Shiprock, New Mexico, moved to Albuquerque earlier this year looking for work. When he couldn’t find a place to live, he ended up on the streets, his sister, Alberta Gorman, told reporters.

“We are all in shock and we just can’t make sense of all this that has happened,” Alberta Gorman told a KOB-TV reporter. “My brother Allison was a son, a brother, a father, an uncle and a grandfather, and he was a very kind, loving man.”

Gordon Yawakia, prevention coordinator at the Albuquerque Indian Center, remembers Gorman as a “big, tall guy” who dressed in Levi’s, boots and a cowboy hat.

“He was a regular, down-to-earth cowboy,” Yawakia said. “With a backpack on, he reminded me of the Marlboro man.”

Gorman last visited the Indian Center on May 5. According to sign-in records, he was there at 9:30 a.m. and again at 1:30 p.m. He kept a mailbox at the center, saying he wanted a “place to call home,” Yawakia said.

Thompson, who was either 45 or 46, left his home in Church Rock, New Mexico, in 2005. His family said he moved to Albuquerque after his 19-year-old nephew died of a heart condition.

Thompson’s aunt, Louise Yazzie, told reporters she raised him after his mother died.

“He’s the only son I have,” she said. “I told him, ‘I want you to stay here with us.’”

Thompson returned home periodically, Yazzie told a KOB-TV reporter. But he always returned to his street family.

Although Garcia hadn’t seen Thompson at the Indian Center for several years, she remembers he was always well-dressed and had his hair neatly trimmed.

“He always had a real good-looking hairstyle,” she said. “The reason I found it interesting is because he didn’t look like a street person.”

And really, he didn’t belong on the street, Garcia said.

“A lot of the guys who come here are homeless, but only in the city,” she said. “They have homes on the reservation.”

Police arrested three teenagers in connection with the murders. Alex Rios, 18, Nathaniel Carrillo, 16, and Gilbert Tafoya, 15, each are charged with two open counts of murder, tampering with evidence, three counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and robbery. Bail was set at $5 million for each of them.

The Albuquerque Indian Center organized a peaceful march last Friday to memorialize the two men and call on city and state officials to step up. About 200 people participated in the march, Garcia said.

“I always like to make the point that because the people are homeless, that doesn’t mean they have to be treated with less respect,” she said. “What happened to these men is beyond comprehension and no one should have to go through that.”

Alex Rios, 18, Nathaniel Carillo, 16, and Gilbert Tafoya, 15, are suspects in the brutal deaths of two homeless Navajo men in Albuquerque on July 21. (Courtesy Albuquerque Police Department)

For Rare Languages, Social Media Provide New Hope

by Lydia Emmanouilidou, NPR

At a time when social media users, , are trading in fully formed words for abbreviations (“defs” instead of “definitely”), it may seem that some languages are under threat of deterioration — literally.

But social media may actually be beneficial for languages.

Of the estimated that are spoken around the world, UNESCO projects half will disappear by the end of the century. But social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are in a position to revitalize and preserve indigenous, minority and endangered languages, linguists and language-preservation activists say.

Facebook is available in over 70 languages, ranging from Ancient Greek to French. Facebook

One of the reasons some indigenous languages are endangered is that increased connectivity through the Internet and social media have strengthened dominant languages such as English, Russian and Chinese, says Anna Luisa Daigneault of the .

Endangered languages stand a greater chance of survival when they are used online.

“Having a Web presence for those languages is super important for their survival. Social media are just another connection point for people who want to stay connected to their language,” says Daigneault, Latin America projects coordinator and development officer at the institute.

Today, Facebook — the world’s most popular social networking site — is available in . The list includes indigenous languages like Cherokee and Quechua. This year, Facebook says it launched 13 news languages, including Azerbaijani, Javanese, Macedonian, Galician and Sinhala.

Facebook through the website; if there is enough demand, the language will then appear in the and the Facebook community can begin translating the interface.

, a community of 16 volunteers in Bolivia, is working on translating the Facebook interface in Aymara, one of the three official languages in Bolivia.

An Aymara woman prepares to take part in a pageant in La Paz, Bolivia, in 2013. Jaqi-Aru, a community of volunteers is working on translating the Facebook interface in the indigenous language of Aymara. Juan Karita/AP

Elias Quispe Chura, the group’s Facebook translation manager, says the effort involves young Aymara people from different Bolivian provinces. “We promote use of our mother tongue on the Internet through translation projects and content creation,” he says. “With that, we want to contribute and enrich the content of our language in cyberspace.”

He says Aymara native speakers in Peru, Chile, and Argentina are waiting anxiously to see their language as an option on Facebook. The group started the project in 2012 and is more than halfway done translating 24,000 words, phrases and sentences.

But the task hasn’t been free of challenges.

“There are many words that there aren’t in Aymara, for example: mobile phone — ‘jawsaña,’ password — ‘chimpu,’ message — ‘apaya,’ event — ‘wakichäwi,’ journalist — ‘yatiyiri,’ user — ‘apnaqiri’ and so on,” Chura says. “In some cases, we had to create new words taking into account the context, the situation, function and their meanings. And in others, we had to go to the .”

Facebook provides some support to the volunteer translators, offering stylistic guidelines on its page.

The website can be used to revitalize and preserve indigenous, minority and endangered languages in more ways than one.

Pamela Munro, a professor of linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, has created a to post words, phrases and songs in Tongva, a language formerly spoken in the Los Angeles area.

Munro, a consultant to the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, says the language hasn’t been spoken by a native speaker in about 50 years. She hopes to reach people who are interested in learning about the language through the Facebook page.

“We have readers all over the world … people post on the page from all over and ask questions like, ‘I found this word in a book. Can you tell me about it?’ A lot of the people that interact with the page are ethnically Tongva but a lot of the people are not,” she says.

The creators and contributors of — a website that seeks to preserve Anishinaabemowin, an endangered Native American language from Michigan — use Facebook in a similar manner.

Ojibwe.net contributor Margaret Noodin is an assistant professor of English and American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The language has 8,000-10,000 speakers, she says. But most of the native speakers are over 70 years old, placing the language under threat.

“That’s the most dangerous thing. There are very few young kids that are growing up in a fluent environment,” Noodin says.

Although the group doesn’t rely solely on social media to disseminate content, Noodin says that gives the group a chance to reach younger generations.

“It’s how kids communicate now. It’s little moments here and there. And that adds up … . If we don’t use the language creatively into the future then what we’re doing is documenting a language that’s dying … . Our language is alive and it’s staying alive,” she says.

Other social networking websites such as Twitter can also be used in similar ways. The website is currently available in just under 40 languages

Kevin Scannell, a professor at Saint Louis University, has consulted for Twitter on how to make the website friendlier to speakers of minority languages.

Scannell is also the creator of , a site that tracks tweets in indigenous languages. It can help people who want to find others who are using their language online.

“Having endangered languages on the Internet has a really strong impact on the youth because it shows that their language is still relevant today,” says Daigneault of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages. “When people use their language it shows that they’re proud of speaking … it.”

At a time when companies like Facebook are trying to grow in the developing world, having the interface available in other languages can be a great benefit.

“Just even making the website itself available in other languages in a huge part of reaching the ,” Scannell says.

John Hobson, the director of Graduate Indigenous Education Programs at the University of Sydney, agrees.

“It is … essential that as new technologies are integrated into majority societies and communication, they should be equally integrated into minority ones,” he says.

But Hobson says the best results will come when the conversation continues outside of social media.

“They are not magical devices that will do the learning or communicating for folk,” he says. “Living languages are those used for meaningful communication between real people … . So, tweet and Facebook in your language … . But make sure you keep speaking the language when you put the device down.”

Lydia Emmanouilidou is an intern with NPR News.