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A dream come true for ‘Children of the Salmon’

Tulalip Tribal Chairman Mel Sheldon, surrounded by ‘Children of the Salmon’, cuts the ribbon, officially marking the opening of the Betty J. Taylor Early Learning Academy.Photo/MIcheal Rios — Tulalip Tribal Chairman Mel Sheldon, surrounded by ‘Children of the Salmon’, cuts the ribbon, officially marking the opening of the Betty J. Taylor Early Learning Academy.
Photo/MIcheal Rios

By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News

On Friday, August 7, the much anticipated grand opening was held for the Betty J. Taylor Early Learning Academy. The event marked the culmination of over a decade’s worth of planning, devotion, and perseverance by countless individuals committed to helping local community families make a lasting, positive difference in their children’s education. In partnership with parents and community, the caring and experienced Tulalip Tribes teaching staff created a loving and safe environment where children and families can grow in academically. The Betty J. Taylor Early Learning Academy (ELA) provides no cost educational schooling from 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday for children ages birth to 5 years-old.

“In 1999, Les Parks and I took a very transformative trip to Philadelphia to look at a learning academy,” recalls Mel Sheldon, Tulalip Chairman. “We think about education and what it means to our kids, what it means to our community, and how we create safe environments for learning. I look at this building and I see nothing but good vibrations and endless possibilities for our young ones. What a great site for the school here. Our youth are going to have memories that will go long into their life with their teachers, their parents, and all the learning that they’ll be doing.”

A large community attendance, along with representatives of Marysville School District and Washington, D.C. dignitaries, turned out to witness the debut of the gorgeous 52,000 square-foot Early Learning Academy. The facility, oriented towards views over Tulalip Bay and the surrounding woodlands, sits on nine acres of land and is designed to symbolize the tribe’s commitment to a healthy community and a strong foundation for our children’s education. Tribal artists worked with the project team to incorporate artwork on the site and within public spaces of the building to reflect the cultural context being infused into our idea of early learning. Tulalip artwork is clearly visible in the stunning, etched-glass panels provided by James Madison, the blue glass wave directly above the reception area, and the river designed walkway throughout the academy.

Spirited youngsters performed songs during the Early Learning Academy grand opening ceremony. Photo/Micheal Rios — Spirited youngsters performed songs during the Early Learning Academy grand opening ceremony.
Photo/Micheal Rios

“To me, this day has been 17 years in the making. It’s been a dream that we’ve all had,” details Les Park, Tulalip Board of Director, to the hundreds of attendees. “Research tells us that 90% of a child’s brain development happens before age five. Ever so true that is, our kids are capable and eager to learn at a very early age. We’ve known this and in response have created several different programs that touch on early learning, but this is the building where we are going to take it to a new and higher level, which I think is going to change our membership in the future. A generation from now, when these kids have grown up and are leading our tribe, they would have learned so much more than they would have, had they just waited to enter the public school system. It’s so exciting for me to witness this, a 17 year vision come to fruition today as we bring an early learning academy to Tulalip.”

Far too many children enter public school kindergarten unprepared for the drastic changes in routine and academic expectations. When children begin school unprepared it’s only a matter of time before they fall behind, and they tend to fall further behind as the school year progresses. All children need to enter school ready and able to succeed, which is why early education is so important. Cognitively, early education improves school performance, raises math and language abilities, and sharpens thinking and attention skills. Early learning also has plenty of social and emotional benefits as well. Children will improve and strengthen their interactions with peers, decrease problem behaviors, and helps adjustment to the demands of formal education.

With the opening of the Early Learning Academy, we fully expect all the added benefits and rewards of early learning to materialize for our children. However, those aren’t the only benefits of the ELA, as many new and exciting changes will be instituted to the way Tulalip will approach educating our young children. One such change is the moniker of the students who will attend the ELA, who will be affectionately known as the ‘Children of the Salmon’. The foremost game changer is the consolidation of all birth to five-year-old programs into one program, under one roof.

“We have brought all our birth to five programs out of their silos and brought them together into one, singular program with the same focus,” explains Sheryl Fryberg, ELA Manager. “We’ve redone all of our policies, procedures, and intake forms to reflect this. We are now the Betty J. Taylor Early Learning Academy. We’re not Montessori, we’re not ECEAP, and we’re not Early Head-Start; we are one.

“This academy is open to all of our tribal kids. In addition to our tribal kids, our service area is Marysville School District, so if your family is within the Marysville School District then your eligible to apply here.”

ELA will be using the Creative Curriculum, but utilizing different strategies. Teaching staff will utilize the Teaching Strategies assessment tools to show the progress that all of our children are making. This curriculum assures that the academy remains aligned with the school readiness early learning content standards, while doubling as a means to provide constant feedback on students’ progress.

“We will be utilizing a new child evaluation system, so that we can keep track of where our kids are with their learning,” explains Sheryl Fryberg. “Assessments that all our teachers will be using from birth to five will measure our students’ growth in different areas and stages. This process will make it possible for us to create custom and, if need be, individualized lesson plans from the assessment results to ensure we don’t allow any children to lag behind or fall into the gaps. Our top priority is to provide the best educational foundation as possible for each and every ELA student.”

Another big change, that undoubtedly will take some time for parents and students to adjust to, is the switch to a year-around school system. There will be no 2.5 month long summer break for students of the Early Learning Academy, instead there will be four school closures throughout the year. A one-week break will occur in December, April and June, while a two-week break is expected in August.

Interior views of ELA’s classrooms set-up for learning and imaginative play.Photo/Micheal Rios — Interior views of ELA’s classrooms set-up for learning and imaginative play.
Photo/Micheal Rios

“Research shows that when you do year-around schooling the children do much better academically, and what better time to have them transition to year-around school then while they are getting adjusted to the Early Learning Academy,” continues Fryberg. “I feel like we are laying such a strong foundation for our kids and the families to be involved in their kids’ education. The research has shown that when kids are off school for 2.5 months that they lose so much of what they’ve learned. You’re almost starting all over when they come back to school in the fall, so this move to year-around education will be such a huge benefit to the future academic success of our children.”

The academic success of our children is at the forefront of every idea and strategy that will be implemented in the ELA’s curriculum. The cultural tie-ins will remain and even be pushed to new limits, especially when it comes to teaching and learning the Tulalip language, Lushootseed.

“We’re working with the Lushootseed department to develop an immersion classroom,” says Fryberg. “We haven’t worked out all the details just yet, but for 18-months to 3 years-old we want one classroom for three hours a day, all the children do is speak and hear our Lushootseed language. Then we want to follow that group up, continuing to offer them Lushootseed immersion, and see what the end results are. If it’s successful, then we can find grants to really grow a Lushootseed immersion program.”

The ELA playground was built with safety in mind, featuring specialty mats to prevent injury and no public access. Photo/Micheal Rios — The ELA playground was built with safety in mind, featuring specialty mats to prevent injury and no public access.
Photo/Micheal Rios

One vision leads to another. As the ELA opens its doors to the children of our community and promises long-term positive results, one can’t help wonder what the future holds for the cohorts of birth to 5 year-olds whose education and future academic prospects just got a whole lot brighter. Time will determine just how big an impact the ELA’s foundation will have on the tribe’s future, but for now let us just appreciate all the people and effort that made the ELA possible.

“There were so many people involved, who came together as a team to make this vision a reality,” proclaims Misty Napeahi, General Manager of the Tulalip Tribes. “It’s not easy when we’ve had separate programs run as individual programs with different teaching models for all these years. We know the commitment to the children will supersede all obstacles and that our teaching staff will all be working together to serve our children. It couldn’t be done in a better facility. This building is absolutely gorgeous. This dream came true because of all the hard work of our maintenance and construction teams, our teaching staff, and all those who were involved behind the scenes. Because of you all, our children will be here for years to come.”

What if We Listened to Indigenous People?

Slowly but surely, Seattle’s non-Natives have started to acknowledge the stories of the people who lived here before them, and are making exciting new history in the process.

By Kelton Sears Tue., Aug 4, Seattle Weekly

For the 2015 edition of Best of Seattle, the Seattle Weekly staff looked back on the past year and selected the five innovations that we feel will do the most to make our city better. This is one of them. To read the rest of Seattle’s Best Ideas, go here.

Indigenous Peoples' Day resolution author Matt Remle. Photo by Alex Garland — Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution author Matt Remle. Photo by Alex Garland

When I call Matt Remle, he asks me to hold on for a second.

“I’m doing homework with my boy; I just have to tell him he gets a free break for a minute,” he says, chuckling. Remle, a Lakota man and the Native American Liaison at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, is often in the midst of homework, whether he’s helping students or his children or doing it for his own edification. As a Seattle correspondent and editor for the indigenous online news outlet Last Real Indians, he often digs deep into history. He aims to make connections to the present day in an attempt to tell stories that span centuries instead of moments, he says. In his mind, learning and telling stories about one’s ancestors is a necessary pursuit.

It’s a view he sees slowly trickling into the mainstream here in Seattle. “I think non-Natives are looking for a different voice and a different perspective,” he says.

Later today, Remle will visit Seattle City Hall to start planning the 2015 Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration, a very new Seattle holiday he was instrumental in creating. Last September, Remle wrote the resolution and led the campaign to replace Columbus Day in Seattle with Indigenous Peoples’ Day—a motion unanimously passed in October by the Seattle City Council. During the campaign, Remle weathered personal attacks and phone calls from outraged opponents who claimed replacing Columbus Day was “focusing on the negative” and “preposterous.” The most intense opposition came from local Italian-heritage groups.

A drum circle gathered outside City Hall before the first hearing for the Indigenous Peoples’ Day resolution. GIF by Kelton Sears

During one of the initial September committee hearings on the resolution, Sons of Italy member Tony Anderson told the City Council, “I pray you observe the same courage Columbus did in that summer of 1492.”

The request was a curious one given the grisly history that Remle soon shared with the Council, which came from Columbus’ own journals.

The explorer’s records, along with the writings of the crew and the Spanish friar Bartolomé de las Casas who accompanied Columbus on that fateful voyage, detailed firsthand accounts of their brutal acts. Remle told of the enslavement, rape, torture, and genocide of the Arawak people they encountered in the summer of 1492. Beheadings of young boys “for fun”; lurid blow-by-blow tales of forced sex with 9- and 10-year-old girls, the casual day-to-day dismemberment of dozens of Arawak simply “to test the sharpness of their swords.” The list goes on. By the end of it, 80 percent of the Arawak people had been killed. These clearly were not the stories Anderson had heard.

He, like the rest of Americans who go to public school, was likely taught the cute rhyme most of us know: “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” The explorer met the “Indians,” “discovered” America, and brought back gold. He was a hero, the father of the great “New World.” As Anderson understood it, Columbus was courageous.

During Remle’s recitation of Columbus’ acts, one man at the committee hearing screamed, threw his hands up, and left the room. “That’s insulting! I’ve had it!” As the meeting adjourned, the same man cornered Remle in the council chambers and told him he should “get some education” and that his comments about Columbus were derogatory to Italians.

“When you question the prevailing narrative, people have this angry reaction,” Remle tells me. “For me, personally, when I started learning these histories that are swept under the rug and not taught, I was kind of pissed. I felt lied to. Maybe bringing the Native history in will open peoples’ eyes that there is another narrative out there.”

In the past year, people in Seattle, and in Washington at large, have also started to realize that, maybe, the stories they’ve heard about the places we live and the people that came before us aren’t the whole picture. Seattle’s historic passage of Indigenous Peoples’ Day was a celebrated international victory, making headlines in Europe and Canada—but it was met with some skepticism. A recurring question: Isn’t Columbus Day a trivial holiday anyways? Who cares?

If it actually was trivial, the passage of Indigenous Peoples’ Day probably wouldn’t have set off the wave of outraged and openly racist Internet comments, radio talk, and media coverage that it did. According to Tulalip Senator John McCoy, part of America’s difficulty with confronting its colonial history is that it’s ugly. Listening to indigenous stories is hard for non-Natives.

“A lot of the things that have happened to tribes, since European contact to today, are not pleasant,” McCoy says. “A lot of history books only talk about how the ‘bad’ Indians fought the settlers trying to tame the Wild West. But the Indians had to protect their land, their resources, because these folks were actually invaders. They weren’t explorers or pioneers, they were invading a country, a territory. Granted, there are some tribes that didn’t do nice things. But I always say that when you teach history, you have to teach the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

In 2005, McCoy, a member of the Tulalip tribe and the only Native in the Washington state senate, sponsored a bill mandating that Native history be taught in public schools. To his dismay, at the last minute, the legal language was changed from “mandatory” to “encouraged.” It took him 10 years of educating his fellow senators to muster the votes for a mandatory tribal-history bill—which he finally achieved this March in the landmark SB5433 (passed 42-7), making Washington the only state in the union besides Montana to require such instruction.

“I have a fellow Democrat, I won’t say who, that always fought me over tribal sovereignty,” McCoy says. “I got up to give my floor speech, and about a third of the way through, because he didn’t sit far from me, I actually heard him say ‘Oh, now I understand.’ ”

In addition to authoring legislation, McCoy also helped develop “Since Time Immemorial,” a free tribal-history curriculum with the help of Denny Hurtado, the now-retired director of Indian Education for the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Together, McCoy and Hurtado, who is of the Skokomish people, cover everything from the Coast Salish economies and governance systems before European contact and the early Indian boarding schools that forced cultural assimilation on tribal youth, through treaty-making, treaty-breaking, tribal sovereignty, and Indian relocation, all the way up to today’s urban Native issues, including indigenous activists’ increasingly vital role in environmental actions. In teaching Native history, the hope is that students will start to understand and recognize that there is also a Native present, that indigenous people aren’t just mythic figures in a fuzzy “pilgrims and Indians” past, but active participants alongside non-Natives in the crucial stories we are still writing—stories that directly affect everybody.

The ShellNo protest on May 16 was one of the most visible, widely covered environmental actions in the Pacific Northwest in decades, a feat for an area that’s long characterized itself as an aspiring ecotopia. The vivid pictures of the colorful kayaks rowing out to protest the imposing Shell Polar Pioneer rig set to drill in the Arctic captured the imagination of people from around the world who read headlines about “The Paddle in Seattle.” But it was the juxtaposition of the assembled, mostly white environmental groups with the fleet of traditional wooden canoes of the Lummi and Duwamish that cut the most striking image—a powerful flotilla led by the area’s original inhabitants.

“That’s the way it should go,” Duwamish Tribal Chair Cecile Hansen says. “If [environmental activists] are going to involve the Natives, they should be in the forefront.”

Idle No More, the indigenous activist organization that led the flotilla, gave the ShellNo action the spiritual weight that made it so resonant. Indigenous involvement reframed the discussion from an abstract issue about climate change to a concrete discussion that indigenous people have been trying to start for 500 years: the ongoing pattern of colonization and destruction committed in the name of resource extraction.

To Idle No More’s Washington state director Sweetwater Nannauck, the Tlingit/Haida/Tsimshian woman who organized the ShellNo action, it’s not a coincidence that Shell’s oil rig perched in the sacred Salish Sea was called “the Polar Pioneer.” “I was like, really?” she says, laughing quietly. “That’s what they named it? It continues the same old thing—another ship has come in. So that’s why I say it’s important for us to heal that, my work is as a healer. We’re both active participants in healing, the colonized and the colonizers too. The thing people are starting to see is, the original colonizers have become colonized—now it’s corporate colonization.”

Idle No More has reinvigorated the fight for climate justice in the state by making this very obvious but historically overlooked connection—environmentalists and indigenous activists are essentially fighting the same fight. The problem is that environmentalists have long tokenized Natives in the discussion, painting them as mystical Earth people—archetypal symbols from an imagined past—rather than actively engaging with them as people who exist in the present. Examples abound, from the famous 1970s “Keep America Beautiful” PSA featuring the iconic “crying Indian” (who was portrayed by an Italian actor) to the frequent citation of a moving environmental speech given by Chief Seattle in 1854: a speech that, oddly enough, references trains that wouldn’t be built until years later—perhaps because it was actually written in 1971 by a screenwriter from Texas.

Sweetwater Nannauck at ShellNo. Photo by Alex Garland

“A lot of the times, these organizations think allyship means ‘We’re going to organize everything, and we want you to send a couple of Natives to sing and dance and drum for us,’ ” Nannauck says. “That’s tokenism. I’m about authentically led Native action—we organize it. In the workshops I teach—which a lot of organizers like 350 Seattle, Rising Tide, Greenpeace, and Raging Grannies that participated in ShellNo have taken from me—I teach how to work with Native people, the history of colonization, and how that colonization continues to affect us today.”

“It was always very iffy for tribes to work with environmental organizations because these organizations were arrogant,” says Annette Klapstein, who participated in the ShellNo flotilla as part of the Seattle Raging Grannies. “They would tell tribes what to do, which didn’t go over very well. This new alliance, based on respect and understanding, is so important because these different groups’ goals are much the same, and we are so much more powerful together.”

In late October when the state held a hearing in Olympia to discuss the the impact that oil transport through the Northwest might have, Nannauck contacted the Nisqually, whose land would be most impacted, and organized a rally at the Capitol. After taking her Idle No More education workshops, in which Nannauck teaches non-Native activists how to respectfully work alongside Natives, organizers from the local environmental groups knew to contact the tribes first, asking if Idle No More had organized anything and if they could participate, rather than vice versa. The event was led with Native prayer and drumming that Nannauck and the tribes organized themselves, and Natives made the first testimonies at the rally, which eventually swelled to 350 people.

“I told Sweetwater this later,” Remle says. “ShellNo was one of the first actions of that size where I saw mainstream environmentalists take a back seat and let canoes and local tribes take the lead. It was pretty amazing to see.”

The most important component of Nannauck’s Idle No More workshops is communicating why indigenous activism differs from non-Native activism. Yes, both are fighting for the same goal, but there is a discernible difference in approach. Nannauck doesn’t even call what she does “activism.” Nor does Remle. They call it “protecting the sacred.” The ShellNo story wasn’t the typical angry diatribe pointed at distant oil corporations. As Nannauck puts it, the story that the ShellNo action told was about humanity’s obligation to protect the sacred Salish Sea.

“The work I’m doing is educating both Natives and non-Natives about how the cultural and spiritual work has much more of an impact, not only on the Earth, but because we need to heal ourselves,” Nannauck says. “What people need to understand is that the Earth is just a reflection of us, and that what we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves too. I try to educate them about our traditional ways and how that spiritual foundation is what motivates us.”

Nannauck ends her workshops by asking participants about their ancestors. Where did they come from? Did they benefit from the land grabs when they came to America? Were they also oppressed? If you go far back, were they colonized too? These are questions and stories non-Native audiences often haven’t considered. It’s hard to consider stories you didn’t know existed.

“A lot of people start crying because they can feel it,” Nannauck says. “Acknowledging that historical trauma, it’s kind of like a spiritual revival. It’s starting in the Northwest. I believe that’s what’s going on right now. I feel like what we’re doing here, what we’re starting here, could be replicated in other places. It’s not all negative—it’s about healing. It’s about the power of our spirit and our connection.”

ksears@seattleweekly.com

As salmon vanish in the dry Pacific Northwest, so does Native heritage

By Darryl Fears, Washington Post

Young salmon called "smolts" are loaded into a floating net suspended on a barge at Mare Island, Calif. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP) — Young salmon called “smolts” are loaded into a floating net suspended on a barge at Mare Island, Calif. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)

As a drought tightens its grip on the Pacific Northwest, burning away mountain snow and warming rivers, state officials and Native American tribes are becoming increasingly worried that one of the region’s most precious resources — wild salmon — might disappear.

Native Americans, who for centuries have relied on salmon for food and ceremonial rituals, say the area’s five species of salmon have been declining for years, but the current threat is worse than anything they have seen.

“I grew up always having salmon,” said Lorraine Loomis, fisheries director for the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, whose culture is so intertwined with the migrating fish that they’re called the “People of the Salmon.” Salmon feasts once marked every phase of life on the reservation north of Seattle — naming ceremonies, weddings, funerals, memorials to the dead. Now they are few, she said.

“We’re very worried,” said N. Kathryn Brigham, chair of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland, Ore., which helps manage fisheries for the Yakama Nation and the Warm Springs, Nez Perce and the Umatilla tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

An estimated quarter-million salmon, more than half of the spring spawning run up the Columbia River, perished, probably because of a disease that thrives in warm water and causes gill rot, officials said. Normally cool streams in the river basin are 13 degrees warmer than the 60 degrees preferred by salmon, Brigham said.

The carcass of a Chinook salmon, an apparent victim of high water temperature, is shown on the bank of the Clackamas River in Oregon. Oregon wildlife officials are restricting fishing on most of the state’s rivers in an unprecedented effort to aid fish populations dying off from high water temperatures as the state suffers ongoing drought conditions. (Reuters/Rick Swart/Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife)

Salmon in the Northwest come in a variety — chinook, pink, coho, sockeye and chum — and that diversity has helped them survive for eons. When they hatch, some babies stay in place to eat and grow before migrating to the Pacific Ocean. Others swim to the ocean right away.

Adults stay in the Pacific for three to seven years before returning to streams where they hatched by swimming through Puget Sound in Washington or up the Columbia River, which runs from Alberta, Canada, to Oregon.

But as the climate warms, more salmon are starting to move farther north to Canada, experts say. Swimming to cooler waters in the north signals a major shift in behavior for the fish, and public officials are watching the trend with dread.

In addition to their significance to Native American communities, the salmon are worth more than $1 billion annually to each state’s sport fishing and tourism industries, which support tens of thousands of jobs.

Oregon and Washington officials recently closed dozens of recreational and commercial fishing spots. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service trucked 160,000 salmon 100 miles from a hatchery in central Oregon to a cooler part of the Columbia River.

As more fish vanish, the Swinomish, whose reservation skirts five bays, rely on handouts from the state and tribal councils. They accept 5,000 to 10,000 pieces per year to freeze, Loomis said.

“There’s just no water,” she said. “The glaciers are almost gone. The snow in the mountains is not good.” Even if salmon survive, but in tiny, remnant populations, “we won’t be able to sustain ourselves.”

Commercial fisherman Les Clark pulls a sockeye or blueback salmon from his net while fishing on the Columbia River near Skamania, Wash. More than a quarter million sockeye salmon returning from the ocean to spawn are either dead or dying in the Columbia River and its tributaries. (Gordon King/Yakima Herald-Republic via AP)

Possible extinction

Off the coast of Oregon, wild chinook salmon are gathering for a fall spawning run up the Columbia, but experts say there’s a good chance many will never arrive to lay eggs in the streams and brooks where they hatched several years ago.

Besides facing long-standing hurdles such as dams, the fish now will encounter a large patch of warming water. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Rich Johnson said the cooler ocean water probably will signal to the salmon that it’s okay to migrate up the warmer Columbia.

Earlier this year, clusters of dead and dying sockeye salmon were discovered in Oregon’s Lower Deschutes River, a Columbia tributary. Officials counted at least 100 fish but speculated that scavengers ate dozens more.

Scientists fear the chinook will suffer the sockeye’s fate. Die-offs mean that fewer eggs will hatch and hatchlings might not survive the warm water.

“The bleakest, most dire outcome is if this drought is sustained for a couple more years like California,” said Greg McMillan, science and conservation director for Oregon’s Deschutes River Alliance. Some populations “could go extinct,” he said.

But wild salmon have an array of survival tools. The species do not all migrate at the same time, and their hatchlings do not all behave the same. Some remain in shallow streams two years after hatching, while others head for the Pacific.

Puget Sound cities activate drought plans as river levels drop

Source: KOMO News

SEATTLE – Several Puget Sound cities are one step closer to water restrictions as the region’s record-setting hot, dry summer continues.

Seattle, Everett and Tacoma are all activating the first phase of their drought and water shortage plans, starting Tuesday. Those cities supply about two-thirds of all of the water used by Puget Sound residents and businesses – about 180 million gallons a day in the summer.

The conservation measures aren’t as drastic as in California, where people in some municipalities can’t water their lawns or wash their cars.

But city officials agree it is now imperative to begin with some voluntary steps, with local rivers running at historically low levels – killing off the oxygen fish need to survive.

Each city’s plan is a little bit different – but the basics are the same in each case. Residents are being asked to:

• Water plants early or late in the day – before 8 a.m. or after 7 p.m. – to prevent evaporation.

• Water longer but less frequently – a good soaking lasts longer.

• Fix leaks on faucets and toilets to stop wasting water.

• Use a broom instead of a hose to clean off driveways or patios.

Right now, all of these ideas are voluntary, but it’s clear that will change if conditions get worse – as we head into another round of hot weather this week.

Adiya Jones earns MVP of all-Native invitational

By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News; photos courtesy of Adiya Jones

The 13^th annual Native American Basketball Invitation (NABI) tournament, presented by Nike N7, the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Ak-Chin Indian Community, took place from June 30 thru July 4 in Phoenix, Arizona. NABI has become the largest basketball tournament in the world featuring Native and Indigenous high school youth. This year’s tourney featured 152 teams, totaling 1,600 Native high school-age youth representing teams from all across the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Through NABI, Native American high school athletes are given the opportunity to shine and use their talent to secure college athletic scholarships, while being showcased in front of countless college scouts.

This summer’s tournament featured over 350 games played in three days of pool play and bracket games, with the Gold Division Championship games played at U.S. Airways Center, home of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury, on Saturday, July 4. NABI also features a college and career fair, Team Meet & Greet pool party and educational seminars where the high school athletes are taught skills that inspire them to succeed and strive for higher education.

For Tulalip tribal member Adiya Jones, her talents on the basketball court were sought after by Team Nez Perce, the Idaho State Champions from Lapwai, ID. Nez Perce lost in heart breaking fashion in the finals of NABI 2014 and felt that by adding the post presence of Jones they would have enough fire power to win it all this year.

According to Jones, the invitation to play with an all-state championship team was an opportunity she couldn’t refuse. “The Lapwai team have been my rivals in most all-Native tournaments. They’ve always brought out the best in my game when I play against them. Being asked to play with them at NABI was very humbling and would give me a chance to work on my skills while being surrounded with a state champion.”

Not only was Jones playing on the Nez Perce team, but she would be starting at center every tournament game. The combination of speed and outside shooting that separates the Nez Perce girls from their opposition is usually enough to claim victory in any game. Now, with Jones holding down the paint, Nez Perce was the clear favorite to win the Gold Division championship.

Through the first four games of the tournament team Nez Perce, led by Jones, rolled teams in dominant fashion; winning by an average margin of 29 points per game. It wasn’t until the quarter-finals that Nez Perce finally found themselves in a competitive game versus Pueblo Elite. At halftime, the offensive driven Nez Perce, had only managed 7 points and were trailing 7-11.

“It was 112 degrees outside and we were playing our 2^nd game in a gym with no A/C,” says Jones, who attributes the team’s poor first half to the tough to play in conditions. “We were super tired, but at halftime we had the chance to rehydrate, sit down, and catch our breath finally.”

Following halftime, Nez Perce would go on to outscore their opponents 31-16 in the 2^nd half and claimed a 38-27 victory. Things wouldn’t get any easier for the now battle-tested Nez Perce, as they would have to play their semi-final game in less than two hours. The game would be another highly contested battle, but Nez Perce would prevail 40-33 and get a night’s rest before their championship game versus Cheyenne Arapaho.

The Championship game was held at U.S. Airways Center, home of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 4. It featured two undefeated squads in Nez Perce and Cheyenne Arapaho who were both 7-0 to this point.

As detailed by Jones, “our final game was such a good game. It was so close the whole time, with neither team taking more than a 4 or 5 point lead. It was the only game we played that I had doubts if we’d be able to pull out the win because Cheyenne just looked like they wanted it more. With like 2:00 to play we finally managed a little run and took a 6 point lead, but then Cheyenne pushed the tempo on us and we were really tired so it worked. They went up 2 points with barely any time remaining. We called a timeout, drew up a play, and were fortunate to execute the play perfectly. Cayla Jones made a game-tying basket right before the final buzzer to tie it up.”

The clutch basket by Nez Perce forced a 3-minute overtime period in the final game of the tourney. Nez Perce would ride that momentum in the extra period and earned a hard fought 78-75 victory to claim the Gold Division Championship. For her stellar tournament play, averaging a stat line of 18 points, 9 rebounds and 7 blocks, Adiya Jones was awarded tournament MVP.

“I was shocked. Extremely thankful, but shocked more than anything. There were so many good girls there,” says Jones. “My MVP and our tournament Championship is all do to the team chemistry we had. There were several scouts who commented on how good we looked playing together, they thought we had been playing together for years, but this was my first time playing with this team. They made me feel super comfortable in their system and it really showed in my performance. It was definitely the highest level of play I’ve been a part of and the best competition I’ve gotten from a tournament.

“Overall, NABI was such a great experience for me. Off the court I was able to sit down and talk to basketball mentors A.C. Green, 3x NBA Champion, and Kenny Dobbs, world renowned slam-dunk champion. Their words were so inspiring, just hearing them talk of their trials and tribulations…their motivational speeches to us. After the tourney was over I had college coaches and scouts give me their contact information. We’ve had some back and forth via email already and, hopefully, now there are some potential opportunities available for me to play college ball.”

Contact Micheal Rios, mrios@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

Sen. Jerry Moran sees support for re-election from American Indian tribes

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, Pete Marovich - Pete Marovich/MCT — U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, Pete Marovich – Pete Marovich/MCT

By Bryan Lowry, The Wichita Eagle

U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran has nearly $30,000 from 12 different American Indian tribes since January in support of his re-election bid.

Moran, a Hays Republican who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, received $1.43 million from January through June for his re-election campaign, according to his most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission. So far $1,000 of that has come from Kansas’ Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.

Moran has also received money from Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation; Louisiana’s Tunica-Biloxi Tribe; Washington State’s Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Snoqualmie Tribe and Lummi Indian Business Council; Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community; California’s Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and Shingle Springs Band Miwok Indians; Alabama’s Poarch Band of Creek Indians; and New York’s Seneca Nation of Indians.

The donations from the various tribes add up to $29,700.

The support from the tribes shouldn’t come as a surprise. Moran, a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, has championed legislation to strengthen the autonomy of tribal governments in recent years.

He co-sponsored the Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act, which broadened tax exemptions for tribes and was signed into law in 2014. He has also sponsored and pushed for the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act, which would have exempted tribal governments from the National Labor Relations Act.

“These Native American tribes are part of a diverse group of individuals and organizations who support Senator Moran – including Kansans in each of our state’s 105 counties,” Moran for Kansas spokeswoman Elizabeth Patton said in an e-mailed statement.

Moran has also received money from Kansas born billionaire Phillip Anschutz and his wife, Nancy, for $2,700 each. Anschutz, a native of Russell and alum of the University of Kansas, helped found Major League Soccer.

Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, gave Moran $2,700. His son, Chase Koch, president of Koch Fertilizer, and Chase’s wife, Anna, also each gave Moran $2,700.

Moran’s most recent report also includes contributions from state Rep. Mark Hutton, R-Wichita, who gave $2,700, and Kansas Secretary of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Robin Jennison, who gave $1,000.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/prairie-politics/article27927961.html#storylink=cpy

Sockeye salmon suffer infections in warm Columbia River system

Columnaris lesions mar the gills of a sockeye salmon that was moving up the Columbia River in July 2015.

By Rich Landers, The Spokesman-Review

FISHING — “Catastrophic” is a word that’s being used as scientists begin to unravel the mystery of why at least 200,000 sockeye that moved over Bonneville Dam have not made it to McNary Dam fish ladders in this summer’s huge salmon runs.

The sockeye woes may explain why dozens if not hundreds of 5- to 12-foot-long decades old sturgeon stuffed with sockeye are going belly up in the Columbia between the Tri-Cities and The Dalles.

The Columbia system is plagued with high temperatures and low flows. This is bad news for native fish that need cool water.

Fish managers have enacted fishing restrictions in some areas, but otherwise there isn’t a lot they can do about Mother Nature.

The photos above are of sockeye sampled last week at Bonneville Dam by state and federal scientists. The first dead sockeyes were noticed at the dam around June 8. This week, the fish scientists were finding dead fish, both shad and sockeye, in the Bonneville Dam fish ladder.

At the Little White Salmon National Fish Hatchery, sockeye in rough shape were hanging out near the facility.

But the words scientists use to describe what’s going on are freakier than the photos.

A Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist said this in an email to colleagues:

We have very bad news from the lower Columbia. These pictures are just a little piece of the story. The run is stalled, and the carnage is ugly, with conversion rates from Bonneville to Ice Harbor (for Snake River fish) 2-5%. Temperatures in the John Day reservoir approach 24 degrees, so nothing’s getting through without suffering. Looks like we’re going to lose the last 1/3rd to ½ of the run.

Fish that have passed the Snake are still moving upstream, but can’t get to into the tributaries. The fish that have entered the Wenatchee aren’t passing Tumwater Dam to continue on to Lake Wenatchee, and there’s no cold-water refugia below the dam unless they retreat downstream about 15 km to Peshastin Creek, which is a great steelhead stream but has no holding water for thousands of sockeye. Besides that, the flows are about half normal discharge, the snow’s all melted out of the cold-water source for Peshastin Creek, and they’re diverting water for irrigation, so it’s bound to heat up. For fish that passed Tumwater early, many have piled into a small tributary called Chiwaukum Creek, but it’s about the same size as Peshastin.

The Okanagan fish can’t leave Wells with the US Okanogan at 28 degrees C, and the reservoir is nearly 18 degrees C already. The rate of diseased and injured fish observed in the count windows at Wells seems to increase every day—lots of lamprey scars and descale, and we’re starting to see fungus and bacterial lesions. I don’t think the estuary provides hospitable holding, with lamprey and pinnipeds; so, I’m not sure we can count on a fall resurgence of migrants.

A British Columbia scientist commenting on this email thread among scientists wrote this:

Catastrophic losses of this year’s exceptional returns of adult Sockeye Salmon have begun to occur in the Columbia River given the unprecedented severity of super-optimal temperatures and low flows encountered along their freshwater migration corridor…. It’s probably fair to surmise that we may lose the majority of the nearly 350,000 wild adult Sockeye destined for Canadian portions of the Okanagan if Wells Pool, where they are currently holding, warms to temperatures much greater than 18 degrees Celsius for an appreciable length of time. Regrettably, this is highly likely to occur as temperatures are currently at 17.5 degrees and increasing while the Okanagan River is well in excess of the upper thermal lethal temperature of 25 degrees.

As noted in an earlier bulletin, we are also maintaining a Somass Salmon and Climate Watch given poor environmental conditions for either migration in the Somass River or for holding at the head end of Alberni Inlet. Although some fish managed to access their lakes of origin at Great Central and Sproat in the past few days, conditions are still marginal for passage and stored water released from behind the Great Central Lake Dam to supplement flows to ease passage under high temperature conditions has now been exhausted just as we head into what is on average the driest weeks of the summer-fall interval.

It may be advisable for DFO communications to identify “talking points” and “spokespersons” very soon to get out in front of events that will likely generate intense media interest. I’ve worked on BC salmon populations for more than 40 years and cannot remember anything comparable to what were currently seeing unfold on the coast !

Who wants to eat contaminated seafood?

The Sugawara family from Mill Creek fish at Cottage Lake in Woodinville in 2014. (Mike Siegel/The Seattle Times)

By Kevin Davis and Julie Kramis Hearne, Seattle Times

In many ways, Washington state is a shining example of a local and sustainable food system. Heirloom vegetables, heritage livestock breeds and sustainable seafood all find their way to farmers markets, local grocers and restaurant plates. Our citizens have a proud legacy of growing their own vegetables, raising their own chickens, catching their own fish and harvesting their own shellfish from local waters. It makes our state a great place to live, especially if you love food.

We have a problem, however. Generations of manufacturing industries built up the economy of our state, especially the Puget Sound region, in a time before many pollutants were adequately regulated. These industries left a legacy of pollution. Despite significant improvements in recent years, unsafe pollution continues to this day, and we still have a long way to go. Long-lasting toxics, including PCBs, arsenic, mercury and many others, persist for years and find their way into our fish and shellfish.

As longtime restaurateurs, sports anglers, sustainable food advocates and concerned parents here in the Pacific Northwest, we understand exactly how much people in this region value local fish and shellfish. Whether on the Washington coast, in the Puget Sound region, Hood Canal or Columbia River Basin, fishing, crabbing, clamming and harvesting oysters are ways of life and part of the heritage that makes life in Washington so rich and special. It is also one of the reasons why we are so concerned with the quality of our state’s streams, rivers and other water bodies.

The state Department of Ecology has an opportunity right now to better protect those resources and the health of everyone in Washington who eats local fish and shellfish. Last year, the department proposed a long-overdue update to Washington’s water-quality standards. The current rule is inadequate and out of date, lagging behind our neighbors in Oregon, despite our strong fishing economy and culture.

We want to know that when we harvest salmon or Dungeness crab from the Sound, collect oysters on Hood Canal or catch sturgeon on the Columbia River, that these are safe to feed to our friends and family.”

But the Department of Ecology’s current proposal would fail to sufficiently improve protections because of loopholes that would allow “acceptable” levels of many toxic chemicals in our waters, including PCBs, mercury and arsenic, to remain exactly the same. The new rule would address the unreasonably low daily fish-consumption rate, increasing it to 175 grams from 6.5 grams. The increased consumption rate better would reflect how much fish Washington residents eat. However, the proposed rule would also include a 10-fold increase in the allowable cancer-risk rate. This second change would effectively negate most, if not all, of the important protections that these regulations are meant to provide.

The Clean Water Act requires that states maintain “water quality criteria sufficient to protect the most sensitive of the uses.” Consumption of seafood is one of the most sensitive uses. Many Washington residents, especially tribal members, Pacific Islanders, commercial and recreational fishermen, eat large amounts of fish and seafood from these waters. Our children eat seafood, and are much more sensitive to pollutants. The Department of Ecology’s own research shows that at least 29,000 Washington children eat more than 190 grams of fish — about one fillet — every day.

It’s time for our state officials to fix our water-quality standards. We want to know that when we harvest salmon or Dungeness crab from the Sound, collect oysters on Hood Canal or catch sturgeon on the Columbia River, that these are safe to feed to our friends and family. The state has the authority and responsibility to regulate pollution and clean up our waters. The question is: will it?

Kevin Davis is the co-owner and executive chef at Steelhead Diner and Blueacre Seafood. Julie Kramis Hearne is a cookbook author and former restaurant owner living on Hood Canal.

Obama unveils program to connect low-income areas with high-speed internet

President Obama remarked on Wednesday: ‘A child’s ability to succeed should not be based on where she lives.’ Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

ConnectHome will launch in 27 cities and the Choctaw Nation, from where the president announced the initiative: ‘The internet is not a luxury – it’s a necessity

By Sabrina Siddiqui, The Guardian

Barack Obama on Wednesday paid a visit to one of the largest Native American tribes in the United States to emphasize the importance of expanding economic opportunity.

The president chose the Choctaw Nation area, an Indian reservation that spans roughly 11,000 miles across south-eastern Oklahoma, to launch an initiative that would increase access to high-speed internet in low-income households.

“The internet is not a luxury – it’s a necessity,” Obama said. “You cannot connect to today’s economy without having access to the internet.”

The pilot program, called ConnectHome, will serve as part of the Obama administration’s efforts to bridge the gap that leaves many communities – especially in low-income and rural areas – without broadband access.

The plan will launch in 27 cities, in addition to the Choctaw Nation, and will initially provide internet access to 275,000 low-income households and nearly 200,000 children, the White House said.

Citing an achievement gap, Obama said there were many consequences to not having internet access. It might begin with something as basic as young people not being able to complete their homework, the president said, and translate to a math and science gap and later an economic gap.

“In an increasingly competitive global economy, our whole country will fall behind,” Obama said.

The trip marks the second time Obama has directed attention at the Choctaw Nation, the third-largest Native American tribe in the United States. Last year, he included the Choctaw Nation among five so-called Promise Zones – an initiative directed at impoverished areas under which the federal government would partner with businesses and local governments to offer tax incentives and grants as part of a broader effort to reduce poverty.

Following its Promise Zone designation, the Choctaw Nation has received $58m in federal aid that has been used to expand educational opportunities and access to healthcare facilities.

Approximately 23% of individuals residing in the Choctaw Nation live below the poverty line – in some of its communities, the poverty rate is nearly 50%. The national poverty rate was 14.5% in 2013, according to the US census bureau.

“We’ve got a special obligation to make sure that tribal youth have every opportunity to reach their full potential,” Obama said in his remarks on Wednesday. “A child’s ability to succeed should not be based on where she lives, how much money her parents make. That’s not who we are as a country.”

Before his speech, Obama met with youth from the Choctaw Nation, Cherokee Nation, Muscogee (Creek) Nation and Chickasaw Nation.

Obama has stressed the need to improve the conditions of Native Americansbefore, particularly with respect to jobs and education.

“Native Americans face poverty rates far higher than the national average – nearly 60% in some places. And the dropout rate of Native American students is nearly twice the national rate,” he wrote in an op-ed last year. “These numbers are a moral call to action.”

Obama penned that op-ed ahead of a visit last June to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, located in both North and South Dakota. The president characterized the visit as an emotional one that he said left him and first lady Michelle Obama “shaken, because some of these kids were carrying burdens no young person should ever have to carry”.

“It was heartbreaking,” Obama added at the time.

According to a fact sheet released by the administration, the Obama administration is on track to meet its promise that 99% of K-12 students can use the internet in their classrooms and libraries by 2017.

“There are places where internet access can be a game-changer, but where service has not kept up,” Jeff Zients, director at the White House National Economic Council, told reporters ahead of Obama’s trip. “That’s especially true in schools … Students in every community need fast and reliable internet to get ahead and learn.”

According to an analysis by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, released on Wednesday, nearly two-thirds of households among the lowest-income quintile of Americans owns a computer, but less than half have a subscription with an internet service provider.

The report further found a “strong positive association” between median income and use of the web. Minorities were disproportionately affected, according to data compiled in 2013: black and Hispanic households lagged 16 and 11 points behind white households in having internet access, while Native American households were 19 points behind white households.

For Native Women, High Price of Rape Goes Untold

The Cherokee Nation has begun an advertising campaign to encourage native women to seek help.Credit: Photo by Suzette Brewer — The Cherokee Nation has begun an advertising campaign to encourage native women to seek help.
Credit: Photo by Suzette Brewer

There’s no way to quantify the damage, but tribal leaders estimate it’s in the billions. “It happens every day in every native community; it’s that common,” says Jodi Gillette, former special assistant on Native American Affairs to the White House.

By Suzette Brewer, WeNews Correspondent

STILWELL, Okla. (WOMENSENEWS)– For six years Brendan Johnson served as U.S. attorney for the State of South Dakota.

During his time as federal prosecutor, Johnson says fully 100 percent of the women and girls engaged in the sex trafficking industry were victims of rape and-or sexual abuse earlier in their lives.

“We had an underage girl from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota who was picked up in Sioux Falls and wound up in a sex ring,” said Johnson, who is now in private practice, in a phone interview from his office in Sioux Falls, S.D. “She was a single mother and had not a penny to her name, which is very common. She didn’t want to rely on government assistance because of the fear that her child would be taken away. She had also been sexually abused prior to this. So the high economic impact of these situations is hard to accurately quantify, because of post-traumatic stress disorder and the related issues for girls who are vulnerable targets for these criminals.”

Tribal women are the most vulnerable group of women when it comes to rape; nearly three times as likely to suffer sexual assault than all other races in the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice.

“It happens every day in every native community–it’s that common,” says Jodi Gillette, the former special assistant on Native American Affairs to the White House. “I know literally dozens of women who have told me at one point or another that they were raped or sexually abused, but no one talks about it because of the stigma. So they suffer in silence.”

Gillette, who now serves as a tribal policy advisor for the Sonosky Chambers law firm in Washington, D.C., recently testified at the U.S. Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva that even with recent passage of the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 and the Violence Against Women Act of 2013, which closed jurisdictional gaps and allowed non-tribal perpetrators to be tried in tribal courts, much work remains to be done.

Basic Services a Struggle

“Many tribes struggle to provide basic victims services, necessary training and staff for courts and adequate mental health care,” said Gillette in a recent phone interview. “To this day, tribes still cannot prosecute non-Indians for child abuse, rape and other serious crimes against women and children and must rely on the federal authorities, who usually only prosecute the worst crimes. This leaves vulnerable many Indigenous women and children unprotected in their own homelands.”

Nearly one-third of tribal women, or approximately 875,000 nationwide, report being raped at some time in their lives. Two-thirds of their perpetrators are non-Indian, who until very recently could not be prosecuted in tribal court and are still unlikely to ever face formal charges for their crimes in state or federal court. This is due, in part, to the fact that–despite the recent expansions of tribal court to prosecute rape–many smaller and-or remote tribes either do not have their own tribal court systems and do not have the resources to establish one.

The scourge of rape in Indian country has impacted every single community among the nation’s 567 federally-recognized tribes, whose total population hovers around 5.2 million.

The costs–both emotional and financial–are staggering for communities already beset by poverty and its attendant social problems in geographically isolated regions.

The American College of Emergency Physicians, based in Irving, Texas, estimates that the tangible costs of rape–for both the victim and the society–are approximately $150,000 per victim. That amount covers a range of categories including expenses for justice and prosecution, physical and mental health issues for the woman and her family, social services including emergency response teams and shelters, loss of education, loss of wages and/or employment.

Emotional costs, including pain and suffering for the victim and her children, possible death of the victim, including suicide and others, are incalculable.

Native American writer Louise Erdrich, in her 2012 book “The Round House,” tells the story of Geraldine Coutts, an Ojibwe woman who has been raped on Indian land. After her attacker goes free because of jurisdictional issues on Indian reservations, her teenaged son sets out on a quest to seek justice for his mother, who has retreated to her bed, paralyzed by grief and trauma.

Though the story is fictional, Erdrich’s book accurately captures the terrible toll of rape for Native women

Tribal leaders estimate that the final tally is in the billions for native communities already strapped by poverty and lack of opportunity.

Overlapping Issues

The pervasive and pernicious nature of sexual assault and abuse overlaps with a variety of other serious issues within native communities.

“Sexual assault presents some of the greatest challenges in Indian country,” Kevin Washburn, assistant secretary for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said in a recent email interview. “Because of the devastating impact that sexual assault can have on self-worth and self-esteem, we know that it may be a contributing factor to the epidemic of youth suicides. As we try to help tribal communities cope with a suicide crisis, it is imperative that we address each of the risk factors. For that reason, we have been working on better responding to the needs of survivors of sexual assault.”

Across the country, geographic isolation and jurisdictional complexities continue to be the biggest obstacles in both the prosecution and restitution of these crimes, particularly in Alaska, which has 229 tribes and is nearly three times larger than Texas.

The Northern Plains and the tribes of the Southwest are similarly situated, with tribal law enforcement and social service departments already bursting with overflowing caseloads and limited resources to prosecute. But with a growing sense of urgency, many tribes are redirecting as many resources as possible to address what is regarded as a human rights crisis in Indian communities.

The two largest tribes–the Cherokee Nation and Navajo Nation, for example–have dedicated agencies to assist their tribal members who are victims of sexual assault and other violent crimes. In 2013, the Cherokee Nation opened the One Fire Victims Service Office, which provides emergency advocate assistance to law enforcement, transitional housing and even legal assistance for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking or dating violence.

Help Navigating the System

The Navajo Nation Victims Assistance Program also works closely with the three states within its boundaries–Arizona, New Mexico and Utah–to assist its tribal members with help in navigating the legal system, as well as completing applications for financial assistance for health-related expenses, costs of funerals, lost wages, eyewear, and Native healing ceremonies and traditional medicine people.

The smaller tribes, many of whom have poor economies and high unemployment, still struggle with the enormous legal, logistic and financial burdens of sexual assault in their communities.

For them, not much has changed over the years, in spite of new legislation and programs to help stem the violence against Native women.

Gillette recalls a high school friend from the 1980s whose case is one of the few that have ever gone to trial. She says her friend, who was from the Northern Plains, was skewered and portrayed as a “whore” on the stand after being gang-raped by a half-dozen white teenagers from a neighboring community, even though she was a virgin at the time of the assault. Nonetheless, her perpetrators went free while her friend felt punished for coming forward.

“They made an example of her,” said Gillette, who remains haunted by her friend’s case. “The message was clear, ‘This is what’s going to happen to you if you tell.’ And she was only 15 years old. In this day and age, you’d think we’re past that–but we’re not.”

Suzette Brewer is a writer specializing in federal Indian law and social justice issues. A member of the Cherokee Nation, she has written extensively on children and families for Indian Country Today Media Network. Follow her on Twitter @suzette_brewer.