During the evening of Friday, October 23, the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve held a small, intimate gathering to unveil its latest exhibit, Natural Wanderment: Stewardship. Sovereignty. Sacredness. An exhibition of Native American portraits and stories that honors and seeks to protect ancestral ways of life and lands in North America.
Matika Wilbur, of the Tulalip and Swinomish tribes, presented an extraordinary exhibition of Project 562 portraits of Native Americans devoted to the protection of the sacred and the natural. Project 562 aims to build cultural bridges, abandon stereotypes and renew and inspire our national legacy by documenting people from 562+ Tribal Nations in the United States.
“Project 562 is my offering to you. It is for the people. For each of us. It is with deep respect that I welcome you to my newest collection: Natural Wanderment: Stewardship, Sovereignty, Sacredness,” said Matika in a welcome pamphlet to all those who attended the opening night’s unveil. “This collection of images is meant to help us understand our relationship with the mother earth.”
Matika, one of the Pacific Northwest’s leading photographers, has exhibited extensively in regional, national, and international venues such as the Seattle Art Museum, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, The Tacoma Art Museum, the Royal British Columbia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts in France. Her photographs have been acquired for the permanent collections of the Tacoma Art Museum and the Seattle Art Museum.
“Most of the portraits are accompanied with excerpts from our interviews recorded on the road,” stated Matika. “The responses of the featured people provide a special opportunity to bring you closer what we have experienced and come to understand from so many Native Americans in their own lands. These speakers’ words allow imagination of identities and realities, history and places that are otherwise difficult if not impossible to experience. It is so important to us that people be able to tell their own stories from their own places.”
Matika studied photography at the Rocky Mountain School of Photography in Montana and received a bachelor’s degree from Brooks Institute of Photography in California. Her work led her to becoming a certified teacher at Tulalip Heritage High School, providing inspiration for the youth of her own indigenous community. She is unique as an artist and social documentarian in Indian Country. The insight, depth, and passion with which she explores the contemporary Native identity and experience are communicated through the impeccable artistry of each of her heartwarming photographs.
“This is just the beginning,” Matika concluded. “There are many miles of the journey left to travel, and many, many more stories to share. I offer deepest thanks to my family, the Tulalip Tribes’ Hibulb Cultural Center, the Project 562 Team…and other supporters for believing in and helping us continue our work. I am so grateful that you are here; my hands are raised to you!”
Project 562, with intense and widespread attention, will when completed produce a fine arts book series, curricula, documentary, project-derived fashion, and other cutting edge Native American aesthetic material distinct in creativity and quality, origin and insight. To learn more please visit project562.com.
The exhibit unveiling included a gathering at Hibulb’s longhouse, opening prayer by Tulalip Board of Director Marie Zackuse, welcoming songs by the Tulalip Canoe Family, and song and dance by Tlingit dance group, the Náakw Dancers,
Following the exhibit preview, Matika took to Facebook to express her overwhelming gratitude for all those who made her evening a special one.
“A great big thank you to the Tulalip Hibulb Cultural Center for hosting a beautiful opening for Project 562 last night! My heart is so full of love and gratitude… A million thanks to our Tulalip leaders, community members, singers and dancers that blessed us with your beautiful words and songs, I could hear your drum beat in my dreams last night! Thank you to my incredible family and friends for your unwavering support and uplifting encouragement– it was so good to see so many relatives! I’m overwhelmed with gratitude this morning- thank you for believing in this great big idea to ‘change the way we see Native America’. It took so many people to bring it all together, thank you for being a part of it. You make it possible.”
The 42-piece photographic exhibit, Natural Wanderment: Stewardship. Sovereignty. Sacredness, will be on display through June 11, 2016 at the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve.
Beginning this past spring, as part of the Tulalip Tribes trauma-informed care services, children at Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary have been learning Rainbowdance. Rainbowdance gathers children, teachers, and sometimes parents around a big parachute for one hour and helps them enhance social empathy, self-confidence, and self-regulation. The facilitator, in this case Christy Anana, Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary school counselor, blends storytelling, object lessons, and repetitious movements set to music. Consistency over many weeks and months lead to the mastery of movement, which promotes self-confidence, helping them to develop coping mechanisms for daily challenges and stressors.
By Niki Cleary, Tulalip News
Have you ever been rolled by a wave? First, it hits you. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it’s just a shock, but then you’re tumbling. Completely disoriented, you have no idea which way is up, or how to get out. You can’t stay where you are, you know that. Your lungs start burning. You can hear your heart pounding in your ears. Then there’s that magic moment when you find your equilibrium. You find the surface, and take that first sweet breath of air.
Last October the MPHS school shooting was a wave that rolled us all. The problem with waves is they never come alone. Over the course of the year, waves have broken over us repeatedly. Some were small, like the time some guy cut in front of you in the line at the coffee shop. Some are very personal, the time a loved one lied to you or told you they hated you. Some are huge and might include domestic violence, or a death in the family. Some happened within our families and some, like the automobile accident that killed four young people in August, happened to our entire community.
Every wave has hit each of us differently. Some of us were carried closer to shore and we’re almost walking on the beach normally again. Some of us were brought a step closer to drowning every time. Some of us found a life raft in the arms of our families, and some found it in addiction or dysfunction. A few of us have kept ourselves afloat by climbing onto someone else, and now we’re panicking as we watch them slip below the surface.
These are just the latest series of waves to wash over our community. One of Tulalip’s original tidal waves of trauma, the boarding school, scarred our community. It left a type of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome that was passed from generation to generation. That legacy made it more difficult for our people to cope with stressors, and when our community was rocked by the shooting, many of us were already at our limits.
What does trauma look like?
“Our people are hurting so bad,” said Sherry Guzman, Tulalip’s Senior Manager of Behavioral Health. “So many of our people have had so much trauma and it’s still going on. A lot of people don’t think of it as trauma. Maybe their father left or didn’t protect them, or mom or dad drank too much or mom had many boyfriends.
“Then they get older and fall in love with this person that said they loved them. Then there’s a baby and that person leaves. Then because they’ve never been taught to take care of a child, that child, who they do love, is taken. That is trauma, upon trauma, upon trauma. Trauma can be a boyfriend slapping you or making fun of you. One of the greatest traumas in our community is lateral violence, wanting to hurt someone else because it makes you feel bigger or better.”
Gina Skinner from the Tulalip’s Chemical Dependency Clinical Administrator pointed out a history of trauma in the clients that seek healing from addiction. The last year, she explained, has been particularly difficult.
“There is a lot of emotion in every session,” Gina described. “There was a core group of kids checking in. Nobody quite knows what to do with these wounded children. We get referrals from the school or summer youth program. But once they get a UA (urinalysis test), they were like, ‘Oh well, I don’t want the job,’ or, ‘I don’t want to go back to school.’ From my perspective we need to figure out how to get them engaged into services gently with us or child services.
“It’s almost easier to get them into my department [chemical dependency] because someone would rather be an addict than have mental health issues. Addiction is something you can recover from and mental health has this permanency stigma.”
Gina urged both children and adults to reach out, “Every feeling is valuable, no matter if you think it’s too little. If you don’t feel right or need to talk, if you don’t feel safe, tell someone. There is help here, come in, this is a safe place for you.”
The unthinkable
Like 9/11, or those who lived through Pearl Harbor, the people affected can instantly recall where they were and what they went through when they heard about the shooting.
“I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” reminisced Tulalip’s Child Advocacy Coordinator Leila Goldsmith. “I know that’s an anxiety attack.”
Now, like many community members, Leila doesn’t quite feel like she’s entitled to feel traumatized.
“No matter how bad it feels to me, it’s hard to give voice to it, because I didn’t have the worst thing happen. None of us feel like we’re allowed to feel, because someone had something worse happen, someone else lost a child. I know we need to acknowledge that even if you were on the periphery, it was devastating. What happened was unthinkable, and then it happened. Even if you are on the edges of it, it changes your world.
“For a while it was quieter. Things kind of came to a standstill. We didn’t have as much activity, I think, because everybody was just consumed with living.”
Leila runs the Child Advocacy Center, a program dedicated to helping heal victims of child abuse.
“Initially I was asked to help find resources to guide us through those first months,” Leila explained. At that time she reached out to colleagues on a national level to find professionals able to both provide the level of service needed in the aftermath, and provide it in a way that supports Tulalip culture, rather than trying to work around it.
“Lots of people want to come help you, but there aren’t very many people you want to have around,” Leila explained. “The phrase that rang in my mind is, this is the guy you want around after everyone else leaves.”
The ‘guy,’ was actually a team: the International Trauma Center, led by Dr. Robert Macy.
“He was incredible compassionate and gentle. I felt, if he came, he’d be here to help and not further his own interests. He agreed to a trip to meet and talk with us to see if we were the right fit. When Dr. Macy first came, that was the first time someone sat down with us and said there is a predictable set of stages that the community will go through. It was so comforting for someone to say, ‘I’ve seen this over and over and this is what you can expect.’ Because when you’re experiencing it, it feels like your brain is exploding, you can’t even think in a straight line. ”
Leila explained that, while it’s been a year, that guidance is still needed.
“We have some of the highest numbers we’ve ever had,” she said. “We know stressors in families mean more child abuse and less resilience. This has taken a toll on every single person, our reserves and our ability to cope.”
Her hope is that the community will continue to focus on healing and children.
“There is a safety net of professionals here who have a multitude of resources and are genuinely doing their work with heart. Sometimes, I feel like people give up on the truth, that healing is possible. Healing doesn’t come through the criminal justice system, it comes other ways. We’re working to offer more so that people can have that opportunity to walk towards healing. We have a long ways to go.
“If I could change one thing to make us healthier,” she continued. “I’d say choose children over adults, every day. Protect children before you protect adults. If people did that alone, everything would change.”
Healing takes a village
The International Trauma Center describes traumatic experiences as “dehumanizing, shocking or terrifying, singular or multiple compounding events over time and often include betrayal of a trusted person or institution and a loss of safety. Trauma can result from experiences of violence. Trauma includes physical, sexual and institutional abuse, neglect, intergenerational trauma, and disasters that induce powerlessness, fear, recurrent hopelessness, and a constant state of alert. Trauma impacts one’s spirituality and relationships with self, others, communities and environment, often resulting in recurring feelings of shame, guilt, rage, isolation and disconnection.”
The bright light in all this is that people can heal from trauma. A trauma or even multiple traumas doesn’t doom a person to a life of addiction, health issues and intergenerational violence. Which is why Tulalip has instituted a Trauma Informed Care model of services.
Tulalip Recovery Manager, Rochelle Lubbers described the model, “Trauma Informed Care (TIC) is a powerful way to help our tribal members manage and sustain important relationships in our personal and work lives by engaging in compassion, vision, social justice while at the same time decreasing the use of violence and aggression to negotiate those relationships.
“There are many ways Trauma Informed Care will be implemented throughout our community,” she continued. “One piece will be to educate the community and workforce about the impact of psychological trauma. Through the identification, assessment and treatment of trauma in individuals, families and community members we can significantly decrease the long term negative effects of violence exposure among our tribal members.”
The goal, she explained, is to create resiliency to all trauma, not just cope with the aftermath of the MPHS shooting. “We know we will continue to experience trauma in years to come and the Trauma Informed Approach gives us long-term effective tools to reduce violence in our community and to engage in consistent resilient behaviors for our children, partners and elders.”
Tulalip is not alone in this effort, Rochelle pointed out.
“’Unity’ was not only a message developed after Tulalip and Marysville experienced community violence, but it was an effort between all respective parties to communicate and heal together. Last November a recovery committee was formed and was very inclusive to the greater community; it includes the Tribe, City of Marysville and the School District as well as partnering agencies such as Victim Support Services and Volunteers of America Crisis Care in addition to many faith based communities and non-profit agencies.
“This group has produced many tangible community resources and events such as an inter-faith service, a multi-disciplinary trauma response team, a series of evidence based suicide prevention programs, an integrated community based resource website, multiple trauma informed care trainings and credentialing seminars, and, at the one year marker, a ‘Walk of Strength’.”
As we experience new waves of tragedy and the ripple effects of trauma, we don’t have to be at the mercy of the waves. The resources are available to teach us to swim through them.
“There can be long and short term effects to not dealing with trauma,” said Rochelle, “and the impact is different from person to person. The important thing is to be aware of change in behavior of your loved ones and seek help when you are worried. Watch for signs of isolation, anxiety/worry, increased risky behavior, and changes in sleep, amongst others. The Volunteers of America crisis line is a great resource for anonymous emotional support and can be accessed by phone or online chatting: 1-800-584-3578.
“In addition, Tulalip’s mental wellness teams have been receiving additional training in trauma processing and are always here to offer our community support. You can reach the adult program at 360-716-4400 and the children’s program at 360-716-3284. Please know that most of us cannot process this tragedy on our own and it is okay to get the help you need from a professional.”
Additional Resources
MTUnited.org
Chemical Dependency Crisis 24 hour Line 425-754-2535
Care Crisis Line 24 hours 800-584-3578
National Suicide Prevention Line: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
YAKIMA, Wash. — Federal officials have accepted a petition that will give Yakama Nation authorities exclusive jurisdiction for certain cases on tribal land, and will have the State of Washington withdraw from any authority.
The United States Department of the Interior said in a news release Monday that ‘retrocession’ has been granted, and tribal police and courts will have full authority over civil and criminal cases involving members of the nation.
The federal government will retain their authority over the Nation, and Yakama Nation authority will remain the same. The removal of state authority over tribal persons is the only change to come from this decision.
The state will keep jurisdiction over those involving non-tribal defendants, plaintiffs or victims.
As part of the agreement the federal Office of Justice Services (OJS) assessed the Yakama Nation’s court system and offered recommendations for improvements to their tribal court operations, as well as helped develop a 3-5 year plan.
The Yakama Nation also created ten new police officer positions, in preparation of having more cases to handle.
OJS also donated $149,000 to the help bolster the tribal court system by improving the court’s infrastructure, increase pay for law-trained judges, hire a legal assistant and court administrator, and provide training to tribal judges, prosecutors, and defenders on issues like domestic violence, child abuse, and neglect.
Washington lawmakers established a process for tribes to ask for exclusive jurisdiction in 2012. Washington has become the sixteenth state to rescind its authority over tribal court proceedings involving only tribal members.
Governor Jay Inslee agreed to the Yakama Nation’s petition last year. The change will officially take effect in April.
Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights Reserved Starting in the middle of the 19th century, church groups and the U.S. government set up boarding schools for Natives. Here, children from many tribes were taught how to speak English and how to make a living. They were separated from their elders, and were discouraged from learning tribal traditions and language. This photo by U.P. Hadley shows the buildings and students at the Industrial Boarding School on the Puyallup Reservation between 1880 and 1889. The school opened in 1860. During the 1880s, a number of new buildings were added, and the school grew from 125 to about 200 students.
“If it be admitted that education affords the true solution to the Indian problem, then it must be admitted that the boarding school is the very key to the situation,” Indian School Superintendent John B. Riley wrote in an 1886 reportto the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
“Only by complete isolation of the Indian child from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily educated.”
Such was the prevailing attitude of Indian Affairs agents during the federal boarding-school era: That America’s First Peoples were a problem to be dealt with, that America’s Manifest Destiny required Indigenous Peoples to be remolded and assimilated into the mainstream—even if it meant forcibly removing children from their families.
It wasn’t until 1978—118 years after the establishment of the first American Indian boarding school—that Native American parents gained the legal right, with the passing of the Indian Child Welfare Act, to deny their children’s placement in off-reservation schools.
“Some Native American parents saw boarding school education for what it was intended to be—the total destruction of Indian culture,” the American Indian Relief Council reported on its website. “Resentment of the boarding schools was most severe because the schools broke the most sacred and fundamental of all human ties, the parent-child bond.”
On October 12, council members in one of the largest cities in the U.S. took a step toward helping to heal the wounds from the boarding school era.
The City Council of Seattle, Washington, approved a resolution“acknowledging the various harms and ongoing historical and inter-generational traumas impacting American Indian, First Nations, and Alaskan Natives for the forcible removal of Indian children and subsequent abuse and neglect resulting from the United States’ American Indian Boarding School Policy during the 19th and 20th Centuries …”
The resolution calls on the United States to examine its human rights record and to work with American Indian and Alaskan Native peoples “in efforts of reconciliation in addressing the impacts of historical trauma, language and cultural loss, and alleged genocide.”
“The supposed goal [of the boarding schools] was to ‘Kill the Indian, save the man,’ which is tantamount to cultural genocide,” Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant told LastRealIndians.com. “The resolution will give city officials the opportunity to acknowledge and help heal the deep wounds opened up by the boarding school policy. It is also another step toward getting the city to take real action to address the poverty, oppression, and marginalization that the community faces to this day.”
The resolution was drafted by Matt Remle, Lakota, with support from Seattle lawyer Gabe Galanda, Round Valley Indian Tribes; Seattle Arts Commissioner Tracy Rector, Seminole; the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition; the Native American Rights Fund, and other members of Seattle’s Native community. The resolution was sponsored legislatively by Sawant.
The resolution vote took place on Seattle’s second annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The day included a rally and march to Seattle City Hall, drumming and songs, a keynote address by Winona LaDuke, Ojibwe, and a celebration at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center.
During the boarding school era, “roughly 100,000 American Indian children ages 5-18 were stripped from their homes and placed in remote boarding schools,” Remle wrote on LastRealIndians.com. “Native languages, spirituality and customs were outlawed, physical and sexual violence was rampant.”
It’s a subject known all too well by the First Peoples of the Seattle area. Seattle, named for the mid-1800s leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples, is the largest city in a state with 29 federally recognized Native nations. The first American Indian boarding school in the United States was established at the Yakama Nation in eastern Washington in 1860; the Tulalip Mission School, operated by the Catholic Church, was established three years earlier and was the first contract school for Native American children.
In her book, Tulalip, From My Heart, Harriette Shelton Dover (1904-1991) wrote of harsh discipline, poor diet and inadequate care, of tuberculosis and pneumonia and childhood deaths.
Helma Ward, Makah, told Carolyn J. Marr, an anthropologist and photographs librarian at the Museum of History and Industryin Seattle, “Two of our girls ran away … but they got caught. They tied their legs up, tied their hands behind their backs, put them in the middle of the hallway so that if they fell, fell asleep or something, the matron would hear them and she’d get out there and whip them and make them stand up again.”
“They were not allowed to speak their language there,” Inez Bill, Tulalip, told KING 5 News, Seattle, of her grandparents’ boarding school experience. “When you lose your language, you lose your culture. It left our people scarred.”
Fast forward to today: The children and grandchildren of those who were forced to attend boarding schools and were banned from speaking their languages have taken control of their own children’s education, are showing that their culture has an important role in education and that it can build bridges of understanding in communities.
Almost 65,000 students in Washington identify as Native American or Alaskan Native, according to the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. OSPI’s Office of Native Education was created in the mid-1960s to help Native students achieve their education goals and meet state standards. The office provides resources and training to help educators and families meet the needs of Native students, builds curriculum in Native languages and about Native culture and history, and works to increase the number of Native educators.
Eight Native nations operate their own schools in Washington, according to the state Superintendent of Public Instruction. School districts near reservations have liaisons to the Native American community and/or partnerships with a local Native nation’s education department. Earlier this year, the state legislature mandated the inclusion of Native American history, culture and governance in the curriculum of local public schools.
During its heyday, the American Indian Heritage Early College High School in Seattle had a 100 percent graduation rate, and all graduates went on to college. The Urban Native Education Alliance is lobbying to have the school reestablished in the new Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, named for the late principal of Indian Heritage and under construction at the site of the former school.
The Suquamish Tribe operates and funds Chief Kitsap Academy, a high-tech, culturally based high school that is part of the Early College High School network. According to the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, only four of 10 of North Kitsap School District schools and programs met Adequate Yearly Progress goals in reading and math proficiency in 2014—one of those was Chief Kitsap Academy. Students use the latest technology, but are also exposed to cultural teachings and study the Lushootseed language. The school is open to Native and non-Native students.
Northwest Indian Collegehas grown from a school of aquaculture to a four-year college with six satellite campuses in two states. It offers four undergraduate degrees, nine associate’s degrees, three certificate programs, and five other study programs. The University of Washingtonand The Evergreen State Collegehave longhouses that serve as places of gathering and sharing as well as teaching.
A totem at Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Washington. (Google Plus/NWIC)
Eaonhawinon Patricia Allen, a University of Washington graduate and community organizer in Seattle, spoke at Seattle City Hall before the City Council’s vote. She later wrote on LastRealIndians.comthat the boarding school era “was one of the last actions made to complete colonization and … to wash the Native identity out of Natives. But I am here to tell you this, and so will my future children: We still survived and are starting the process of healing.”
Canada established a Truth and Reconciliation Commissionto prepare a complete historical record on the policies and operations of residential schools; complete a public report, including recommendations to the parties of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement; and establish a national research center that will be a lasting resource about the Indian Residential Schools legacy in Canada. The commission is reaching out to the public in national and community events, and honoring residential schools survivors in a lasting manner. It is also examining the number and cause of deaths, illnesses, and disappearances of children, and documenting the location of burial sites.
IN August 2010 John T. Williams, a homeless woodcarver of the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe who made his living selling his work near the Pike Place market in Seattle, was shot four times by a police officer within seconds of failing to drop the knife and piece of cedar he was carrying (Mr. Williams had mental health problems and was deaf in one ear). He died; the folding knife was found closed on the ground. The young police officer who shot Mr. Williams resigned, but he never faced criminal charges, even though the Seattle Police Department’s Firearms Review Board called the shooting unjustified.
In South Dakota in 2013, a police officer used his Taser to shock an 8-year-old, 70-pound Rosebud Sioux girl holding a knife; the force of the shock hurled her against a wall. After an investigation, the officer’s actions were deemed appropriate.
That same year 18-year-old Mah-hi-vist (Red Bird) Goodblanket of the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribes was killed by the police in his parents’ home in Oklahoma just before Christmas. They’d called 911 because their son was having a violent episode after a misunderstanding with his girlfriend. Before the police entered their home Red Bird’s father begged them, “Please, don’t shoot my son.” A few minutes later, the parents would count seven bullet holes in their son’s body — one in the back of his head. The exact narrative of the incident, which fittingly took place in Custer County, is in dispute.
In November 2014, also in Oklahoma, Christina Tahhahwah of the Comanche tribe died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Fellow inmates claim that jail guards shocked her with a Taser for refusing to stop singing Comanche hymns.
In December 2014, one day after attending a #NativeLivesMatter rally against police violence, Allen Locke, a 30-year-old Lakota man, was shot dead by the police in South Dakota. Mr. Locke had been holding a steak knife at the time he was hit by up to five bullets; the shooting was deemed justified a month later.
Most recently, in July, a 24-year-old Lakota mother of two named Sarah Lee Circle Bear died in a South Dakota jail of a methamphetamine overdose. Her death, which involved a two-hour time lapse between the first signs of physical distress and her transport to a hospital, got almost no national media attention.
All the victims were Native Americans, and they’re just a small sample of a systemic problem. American Indians are more likely than any other racial group to be killed by the police, according to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, which studied police killings from 1999 to 2011 (the rate was determined as a percentage of total population). But apart from media outlets like Indian Country Today, almost no attention is paid to this pattern of violence against already devastated peoples.
When it comes to American Indians, mainstream America suffers from willful blindness. Of all the episodes of police violence listed above, only the killings of Mr. Williams and Mr. Goodblanket received significant news coverage outside Indian circles, the latter only in an article for CNN.com by the Oglala Lakota journalist and activist Simon Moya-Smith. The Williams shooting, which was the subject of public outcry, was covered by a major local news site, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as well as by The New York Times.
One reason for Indian invisibility in the media may be low numbers; Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the country now total about three million, or 5.2 million if you include mixed-race individuals, compared with about 45 million African-Americans. Perhaps equally important, their population densities off the reservation tend to be low. They have a small urban presence; New York, with about 112,000, and Los Angeles, with about 54,000, rank first and second among cities with American Indian populations. Phoenix, Oklahoma City and Anchorage come next. About one-fifth of American Indians still live on reservations.
Economic and health statistics, as well as police-violence statistics, shed light on the pressures on American Indian communities and individuals: Indian youths have the highest suicide rate of any United States ethnic group. Adolescent women have suicide rates four times the rate of white women in the same age group. Indians suffer from an infant mortality rate 60 percent higher than that of Caucasians, a 50 percent higher AIDS rate, and a rate of accidental death (including car crashes) more than twice that of the general population.
At the root of much of this is economic inequality: Indians are the poorest people in the United States, with a poverty rate in 2013 that was about twice the national average at 29.2 percent — meaning almost one in three Indians lives in poverty. So it doesn’t come as a complete shock that members of these disadvantaged communities encounter law enforcement more often than, say, middle-class whites. But the rate at which native people die as a result of those encounters is nonetheless deeply disturbing: Though “single-race” Indians make up slightly less than 1 percent of the population, they account for nearly 2 percent of police killings.
There are many complexities surrounding Native American interaction with the dominant culture, whose Declaration of Independence refers to them as “merciless Indian Savages” and whose history of mass killings has taken a staggering social toll. But the fact is that today’s avoidable tragedies of oppressed Indian lives and troubled deaths remain far too often in the shadows.
At this moment, when black Americans are speaking up against systemic police violence, and their message is finally being carried by virtually every major news source, it’s time we also pay attention to a less visible but similarly targeted minority: the people who lived here for many thousands of years before this country was founded, and who also have an unalienable right to respect and justice.
Once again denying tribal treaty-reserved fishing rights – and the many federal court rulings that have consistently upheld those rights – the state of Washington is appealing its latest defeat in a case brought by western Washington tribes in 2001 to force repair of hundreds of salmon-blocking culverts under state roads.
Oral arguments for the appeal will be heard tomorrow, October 16 in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle. The appeal stems from a 2013 ruling by Judge Ricardo Martinez, who issued a permanent injunction requiring the state to repair more than 800 state-owned fish-blocking culverts over the next 15 years. Also at issue is a 2007 decision in favor of the tribes in which Martinez ruled the state’s obligation to fix culverts stems from the treaty right to take fish. The tribes, state, and federal government tried for several years to settle the case, but were unable to reach agreement.
“Our treaty-reserved right to harvest salmon includes the right to have those salmon protected so that they are available for harvest, not only by the tribes, but by everyone,” said Lorraine Loomis, chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. “Our treaty rights are at risk because we are losing salmon habitat faster than it can be restored. Without habitat, we have no fish. If we have no fish, we have lost our treaty right, and our culture and economies will be destroyed.”
Tribes reserved the right to harvest salmon in treaties with the United States government more than 150 years ago, in exchange for which the tribes ceded the vast majority of their homeland to allow non-Indian settlement. The treaty fishing right was upheld in U.S. v. Washington, the 1974 ruling that recognized the tribal right to half of the harvestable salmon returning to state waters and established the tribes as co-managers of the resource with the state.
In great part due to loss of habitat, salmon populations have rapidly and continually declined for the past several decades. As a result, both Indian and non-Indian fishermen have suffered from greatly reduced harvests. “We all stand to lose if we cannot protect the salmon’s habitat,” said Loomis. “We were disappointed by the state’s choice to appeal the district court’s decision, especially when restoring salmon benefits Indians and non-Indians alike.”
Blocking culverts deny salmon access to over a thousand miles of good habitat in western Washington streams, affecting the fish in all stages of their life cycle and reducing the number of adult salmon returning to the state by hundreds of thousands of fish. State agencies have consistently told the Legislature that fixing problem culverts is a scientifically sound, cost effective method for increasing natural salmon production. Even so, the state’s sluggish rate of culvert repair meant it would have taken more than 100 years to fix known blocking culverts even as salmon populations continued to decline throughout western Washington.
The injunction forces the state to accelerate the pace of repairs to blocking culverts. Over the past two years, the state agencies have been cooperative in working with the tribes, Loomis said. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, State Parks and Department of Natural Resources have made good progress toward correcting the existing fish blocking culverts, which the injunction requires be fixed by next year. The Washington Department of Transportation is responsible for the majority of failing culverts, which the injunction requires be corrected by 2030. WSDOT’s correction rate is still far too slow, but the Tribes are encouraged by the agency’s recent efforts to re-prioritize funding to bolster culvert corrections and the state Legislature’s increased funding to the agency. Repairs will be funded through the state’s separate transportation budget and will not come at the expense of education or other social services.
The 20 treaty Indian tribes in western Washington always prefer to collaborate rather than litigate to restore and protect salmon and their habitat, Loomis said. “But the state’s unwillingness to work together and solve the problems of these salmon-blocking culverts in a timely manner left us with no alternative except the courts. We hope the Ninth Circuit will fully uphold the district court ruling and that we can move beyond litigation to work cooperatively with the State to protect the salmon resource,” she said.
Sweetwater Nannauck from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian tribes of southeast Alaska and Director of Idle No More Washington speaks at the Indigenous People’s Day celebration at Westlake Center. Photo/Kim Kalliber
By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
Congress made the second Monday of October a federal holiday honoring Christopher Columbus in 1937. To all Indigenous, Native, and Fist Nations people, the commemoration of the man responsible for initiating the European colonization of the Americas, which led to hundreds of years of disease, colonial rule and genocidal extermination following the Italian explorer’s accidental trip to the Americas, is just another reminder of the ‘social silence’ we have had to endure as a culture.
‘Social silence’ is the anthropological term for a phenomenon that occurs in a human society when the subjects that are core to how the society function are exactly the ones that are never mentioned. Because European colonialism of the Americas and the mass genocide of millions of indigenous peoples led to the development of the United States (the beacon of hope, prosperity and freedom of the civilized world), there continues to be ‘social silence’ around the cruel and violent history of the United States, of colonialism, and of one Christopher Columbus.
If we maintain the social silence around colonialism, our past and present will always be bewildering. But if we break the silence, and talk about what truly matters, the confusing swirl of struggle and conflict can suddenly make sense. We become silent no more. We become Idle No More.
Last year, the Seattle City Council unanimously voted to change the federal Columbus Day holiday to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, making it the second major U.S. city after Minneapolis to adopt the change. The holiday’s new designation follows a decades-long push by Native American activists in the Coast Salish area to abolish Columbus Day.
Seattle’s decision garnered national media attention and, since then, major cities along the west coast, including Anchorage, Alaska, Portland, Oregon, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and San Fernando, California, have passed legislation changing Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Days. Only days ago, Alaska Governor Bill Walker signed a momentous proclamation declaring the second Monday of October to be Indigenous Peoples’ Day. While the state of Alaska is the first to rename the federal holiday, credit must be given to South Dakota, the first state to rename the federal holiday as Native American Day in 1990.
So it was with great pleasure and pride that the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, in partnership with Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution author Matt Remle, held an all-day celebration in Seattle on the 1st anniversary of Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Monday, October 12.
Photo/Kim Kalliber
Photo/Kim KalliberIndigenous Peoples’ Day resolution author Matt Remle Photo/Kim Kalliber
The celebration was comprised of three main events, to which any and all Native community members and supporters were freely invited to. The first event was a celebratory march from Westlake Park in downtown Seattle. Hundreds of people gathered at Westlake Park, most decked out in their Native regalia, and they beat their drums and sang as loud as they could while marching to their Seattle City Hall destination.
The second event took place in the Bertha Knight Landes room of Seattle City Hall, where Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrators were greeted by the Seattle Mayor and Seattle City Councilmembers.
Crowd gathered at Seattle City Hall where Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrators were greeted by the Seattle Mayor and Seattle City Councilmembers. Photo/Micheal Rios
“Last year we took a historic step in the city of Seattle, and today it is an honor to be here and be with all of you to celebrate the 1st anniversary of Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” said Seattle Mayor Edward Murray. “It marks a new history in the city of Seattle and continues our dialogue with the tens of thousands of Native Americans who call Seattle home. It goes without saying that the history of this city is intertwined with the history of our Native peoples. We know we face challenges with the institutional discrimination that remains today, in housing, addiction and education. We will continue to work on these issues in Native communities. If anywhere in the nation we can make progress on these very challenging issues, it’s us. We have an incredible heritage of tribal communities who have been groundbreaking and leading this state long before my ancestors were here. Going forward, we have a lot of healing to do, but today we are here to celebrate. Today we are here to honor. Today we are here to say Indigenous Peoples’ Day is more than just a day, it’s every day.”
Lunch, consisting of salmon chowder, frybread, and a healthy fruit salad, was served to all those in attendance.
Following lunch, a very passionate, keynote speech was given by Winona LaDuke. She is a member of the Anishinaabe nation from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota and is renowned for her activism on behalf of indigenous people and the environment. She is also a two-time Green Party vice presidential candidate.
Winona LaDuke, keynote speaker at City Hall. Photo/Micheal Rios
“What a great day it is. It is so happy, so liberating,” marveled LaDuke. “On our march here I noticed ‘Columbus Day Sale’ signs in the windows of some stores, and I was thinking does that mean I can walk around those stores and take whatever I want?”
“It is so liberating for me to be here and celebrate with you all in just how awesome it is be Indigenous people. You know, it’s always perplexed me how someone can name something as large as a mountain or sea or an entire day after someone as small as a human. It changes how people view things when everything is named after all these white guys. We are just beginning. There is a lot of work ahead in the renaming and recovering and restoration of our homelands. In doing so we remember our ancestors. In doing this we honor all those before us, all those here, and all those yet to come. And we reaffirm our place here as a people who remember, as a people who do not suffer from historic amnesia. We are a people who live today in a civil society who knows where it is exactly and is willing to be healthy, healthy and beautiful.”
“We are living proof that it is possible to live in a worldview that does not include empire, the destruction of our Mother Earth, and being ran by the morally corrupt oil and pharmaceutical companies,” continued LaDuke to a crown of cheering Native community members and supporters. “As we open our minds here I’m really honored to be with you in Seattle, a place that is in process of deconstructing the colonial renaming of our mountains, rivers, and oceans. I have great admiration and respect to y’all out here for standing up in what you know is true and being here to celebrate this great day.”
There was an evening celebration held at the Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center that consisted in Native and Indigenous people from all over the nation performing their cultural songs and dances, not entertainment, but to celebrate each other. Celebration in recognition of a day that not only provides us with a platform to raise awareness, but it also commemorates a history of survival and perseverance.
Native American drummers demonstrate at the steps of City Hall during a rally to take strong action on the climate change on February 17, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. David McNewGetty Images
NEW YORK — Not far from the negotiations for a new global development agenda that took place between heads of state at the United Nations General Assembly last month, a small group of female leaders gathered out of the limelight to sign another historic agreement.
The delegation chose not to meet at UN headquarters in east Midtown but on a traditional Native American tribal territory in Central Park’s East Meadow.
Seven women representing eight different tribes signed a treaty to unite the indigenous women of the Americas in friendship to protect the land and people from the harms of climate change and environmental degradation.
In what organizers said was the first-ever indigenous women’s treaty, the women pledged to support the rights of indigenous peoples, commit nonviolent acts of civil disobedience to protect the planet, and demand immediate changes to laws that have led to environmental destruction.
“We’re saying this is the line. We’re done. The destruction stops now,” said Pennie Opal Plant, one of the treaty’s lead signers.
The United Nations recognizes that women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change because they constitute a majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent on natural resources for their livelihood.
“Women’s role as central stakeholders is one of the most important, yet untold stories of climate change. If we are to have a fighting chance at restoring the health of the Earth and our communities, women’s experiences and knowledge must be brought to the forefront,” said Osprey Orielle Lake, the executive director of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), at an event where the treaty was later presented.
The signed treaty contends that the laws of Mother Earth “have been violated to such an extreme degree that the sacred system of life is now threatened and does not have the capacity for life to continue safely in the way in which it has existed.”
Opal Plant, who is of the Yaqui, Choctaw and Cherokee tribes, was instrumental in shaping the treaty. She grew up in the shadow of Chevron and Shell refineries in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, where she saw environmental degradation first-hand. She has organized nonviolent prayer walks in her home city led by Native American elders, but after connecting with other women during a gathering of nature rights advocates in Ecuador 2014, Opal Plant saw opportunity to launch a worldwide movement. She joined several other indigenous leaders from the US and Ecuador — Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca tribe, Patricia Gualinga Montalvo and Blanca Chancoso of the Kichwa, and Gloria Hilda Ushigua Santi of the Sápara.
“When women unite and commit to something, shifts happen,” said Montalvo, speaking through an interpreter. “I feel strongly that it’s a time to be heard and for actions to take place.”
Montalvo played a large role in successfully fighting the Ecuadorian government in 2012 in a landmark Inter-American Court of Human Rights case, Sarayaku v. Ecuador, in which the Ecuadorian government was found guilty of rights violations after authorizing oil exploration on Sarayaku lands without prior consultation with the indigenous community.
Opal Plant and her treaty co-signers presented their document at an event hosted by WECAN on Sept. 29, a Global Women’s Climate Justice Day of Action.
Women are disproportionately impacted by climate change, and they are central to solutions, said Orielle Lake at the event.
In the coming months, Opal Plant and her co-signers will create a website to expand the treaty beyond the Americas and allow other groups to sign online. In December, they plan to bring the treaty to COP21, the Paris Climate Conference, and hold another ceremony where more indigenous women leaders will join.
Montalvo’s indigenous community in Sarayaku is constructing a canoe that will travel from Ecuador to France. “The canoe is a symbol of Sarayaku, a symbol of our living forest,” said Montalvo. “We will bring it all the way to Paris so it can navigate the River Seine and so we will be heard.”
In New York, WECAN also presented a Women’s Climate Declaration, which includes a demand to bring back atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to below 350 parts per million — which many scientists agree is a level that avoids catastrophic global warming — and an aim to ensure that women’s groups have access to funding to adapt to climate change that is already happening. The declaration already has garnered over 2 million signatures and will be delivered at COP21 later this year.
Women comprise 20 million of the 26 million people estimated to have been displaced by climate change, according to a 2010 report by the Women’s Environmental Network.
“I ask that as temperature rises, that we rise,” said Orielle Lake.
A new study shows that stormwater runoff from urban roadways is so toxic to coho salmon that it can kill adult fish in as little as 2½ hours.
But the research by Seattle scientists also points to a relatively easy fix: Filtration through a simple, soil-based system.
“It’s basically … letting the Earth do what it does so well, what it has done for eons: cleaning things up,” said Julann Spromberg, a toxicologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and co-author of the report published Thursday in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Scientists have long suspected that the mixture of oil, heavy metals and grime that washes off highways and roads can be poisonous to coho, but the study is the first to prove it.
The research got its start more than a decade ago, when habitat-restoration projects began coaxing a trickle of coho back to several urban streams in the Puget Sound area. But many of those fish died before they could spawn. And the deaths seemed to coincide with rainstorms that sent runoff surging through drainage pipes and into the waterways.
In some place, like Longfellow Creek in West Seattle’s Delridge area, up to 90 percent of females were killed.
“It was apparent that something coming out of those pipes was causing it,” Spromberg said.
She and her colleagues tried to reproduce the effect in the lab. But the artificial mixture of oil and other chemicals they concocted had no effect on the fish.
So their next step was to try the real thing: Actual runoff, collected at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Centerfrom a downspout that drains a Highway 520 onramp near Montlake.
“When we brought out the real urban runoff: Bang! They were down, they were sick, they were dead,” said co-author Jenifer McIntyre, a researcher at Washington State University’s Puyallup Research and Extension Center.
In experiments at the Suquamish tribal hatchery near Poulsbo, every coho exposed to the runoff died — some within a few hours, all within a day. Before death, the fish became lethargic, rolled around and swam to the surface as if gulping for air, McIntrye said.
The fact that actual runoff proved fatal while the scientists’ concoction did not underscores an unsolved mystery about which chemical or combination of chemicals are so toxic to the fish. It could be any number of compounds that weren’t part of the artificial brew, including byproducts of oil and gasoline combustion, chemicals released by tires or tiny particles from brake linings, Spromberg said.
“We still need to keep looking at what exact compounds are involved.”
But whatever the chemical culprit, the scientists found it could be removed by passing the runoff through 55-gallon drums packed with layers of gravel, soil and compost. None of the fish exposed to the filtered stormwater died or fell ill.
“It was remarkable,” McIntyre said.
The finding is a strong endorsement of rain gardens, grassy swales and other “green” alternatives to traditional drains and pipes designed to collect stormwater. The idea is instead to let the runoff percolate through the ground, as it did before so much of the area was paved and developed.
State regulations strongly encourage developments to use such approaches, according to the Washington Department of Ecology. A project called 12,000 Rain Gardens in Puget Sound is also promoting their use.
“We should be seeing more and more of these systems in the future,” McIntyre said.
Coho, which were once abundant throughout the Northwest, may be particularly vulnerable to toxic runoff because they spawn in the fall, prompted by seasonal rains. Habitat destruction, fishing and other factors almost certainly contributed to the species’ precipitous decline, Spromberg said.
Chum salmon, whose habitat and spawning seasons overlap those of coho in many places, don’t appear to be as affected by runoff — something the scientists plan to investigate this fall.
Perhaps the major limitation of the study is the small sample size. Only 60 coho were used in the experiments, 20 in each of two experimental and one control groups. The scientists were lucky to get that many, thanks to the cooperation of the Suquamish Tribe, McIntryre said.
Also, the urban runoff collected near Montlake was undiluted in the experiments and represents about the worst possible case: runoff from a busy highway in a big city, a DOE official who was not involved in the study pointed out.
“It’s great that the treatment gets rid of toxicity from this nasty stuff,” Karen Dinicola of DOE’s stormwater program wrote in an email. But it’s particularly challenging to retrofit urban-collection systems with greener alternatives, she said.
But the results of the research could help guide future development in rural watersheds where coho runs remain, the researchers said. And it can also be used to help inform urban-restoration projects as well, so fish aren’t lured back to appealing habitats, only to be clobbered by toxic runoff.
The researchers are preparing for their next round of studies, which will include tests to zero in on what is actually killing the coho.
The rain that soaked the region Wednesday also filled their runoff-collection barrels, Spromberg said.
“We only have one shot a year, when the fish come back and we can do the experiments and take the samples,” she said. “Hopefully, with this rain we’ll have more fish coming in soon.”
The Marysville School District (MSD) began a new one-to-one initiative that will span the entire month of October and put a Chromebook computer in the hands of more than 5,500 students in grades 6 through 12. As part of the roll-out, Tulalip Heritage High School was the first school chosen to receive the latest and greatest generation of HP Chromebooks. With the lightning fast Chrome OS, 8-second boot-up time, and over eight hours of battery life, the Chromebooks provide the versatility teachers need and the technology students want.
“We are thrilled about the limitless learning possibilities using Chromebook,” said MSD Superintendent Becky Berg. “With support of our Marysville and Tulalip communities, we are investing in the technological tools of today that will help our students become tomorrow’s leaders. Technology continues to change rapidly. We are equipping our student to be active, contributing citizens in a digital world.”
According to an MSD press release, the devices are fully funded by a technology levy approved by district voters in 2014. Preparations for the Chromebook initiative began with last year’s upgrade of the district’s wireless Internet infrastructure. Since then, MSD partnered with a local Marysville company, Advanced Classroom Technologies, to install more than 60 miles of network cabling. The system went live in March 2015, and now all district facilities have Wi-Fi available to the students and community during non-school hours.
So whether you are at school campus to watch a sporting event, attending an afterhours activity, or just sticking around to do homework or research, you can now connect to a free, public Wi-Fi that becomes available at the end of the school day. This is a huge benefit for students and their fellow community members who don’t have an available internet connection at home.
Students will be allowed to take and use the Chromebook devices at home following the school day and use them on home or public Internet connections. Even if they’re used outside of the district, the devices have built-in content filtering as required by law.
The Chromebooks initiative will change the instructional learning environment for the students at Heritage, while keeping information and their resources constantly up-to-date. Think of how people generally learn new methods and strategies in today’s digital era. We will search Google, Wikipedia or YouTube to learn something in the moment. Moving away from the traditional model of teachers as ‘the fountains of knowledge’, MSD wants the students to be more independent and active in their knowledge development. Students will no longer have to rely necessary on their teacher or an outdated textbook to deliver content anymore. Instead, teachers will be facilitating use of the ever-expanding wealth of knowledge available via Chromebooks.
Scott Beebe, MSD Technology Directory, says 140 teachers received professional development training (e.g. productive internet searching, learning Google Apps, basic troubleshooting) in August on how to use the Chromebooks in the classroom, and about 150 more will be trained throughout the month of October.
The professional development will focus on learning to design lessons that not only empower and engage students in compelling work, but also leverage the power of technology to connect people and ideas.
Heritage students and teachers alike agree the one-to-one Chromebooks initiative benefits everyone. Students are able to do their work more efficiently and have no difficulty submitting assignments with the Google Docs app, while teachers no longer have to try to decipher student handwriting and can edit assignments and provide immediate feedback to students individually.
“The Chromebooks make it easier for us [students] to stay organized and turn our work in on-time,” says Heritage senior Samantha Marteney. “We each have our own computer so it’s easier for us to gather information. For me, it’s way easier to turn in assignment even on days I’m not at school, I can just email them to my teachers.”
“I think the Chomebooks make it a lot easier to take notes in class and complete assignments,” added fellow Heritage senior Mikaylee Pablo. “With the Google Drive app, it saves all our work for us as we type, so we don’t have to worry about losing papers or journals. Plus, I can now do research and type at the same time, instead of doing research on a desktop then writing in a notebook.”
Heritage High School has never had a library or computer lab that is accessible to students furthering their learning like other high schools in the district. The Chromebooks bring a world wide web of books and other resources to their hands now.
“The Chromebooks are a wonderful resource for our students. It’s amazing to see every one of our students with their own computer and now provides them with the opportunity to open doors to learning and enrichment that we’ve never had access to in the past,” explains Heritage humanities teacher Marina Benally. “The Chromebooks bring more of the world into our classes. The access to information makes this a thriving learning community and as such we further and grow each other’s thinking through technology. I’m more and more facilitating rather than being the sage on the stage. It makes education really exciting for our students.”
With such rapid investment in communication devices, wide-scale wireless network, and professional development, student learning is clearly on center stage. The Chromebooks initiative will help students achieve more academically, perform better on tests and be in a better position when it comes to computing in the collaborative online environments of today’s digital era.
