U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder delivers his keynote address at a tribal conference on the campus of United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, N.D., on Thursday. Holder announced Monday he is recommending ways to increase voting access for Native Americans and Alaska Natives. (Photo: AP Photo/Kevin Cederstrom )
By RACHEL D’ORO, Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday his office will consult with tribes across the country to develop ways to increase voting access for American Indians and Alaska Natives.
Holder said the goal is to require state and local election officials to place at least one polling site in a location chosen by tribal governments in parts of the nation that include tribal lands. Barriers to voting, he said, include English-only ballots and inaccessible polling places.
In Alaska, for example, the village of Kasigluk is separated into two parts by a river with no bridge. On election day, people on one side have just a few hours to vote before a ballot machine is taken by boat to the other side.
In Montana, a voting rights lawsuit is pending from tribal members on the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap reservations. They want county officials to set up satellite voting offices to make up for the long distances they must travel to reach courthouses for early voting or late registration.
“These conditions are not only unacceptable, they’re outrageous,” Holder said. “As a nation, we cannot — and we will not — simply stand by as the voices of Native Americans are shut out of the democratic process.”
After consulting with tribal leaders, his office will seek to work with Congress on a potential legislative proposal, Holder said.
Associate Attorney General Tony West discussed the announcement later Monday in Anchorage, during a speech to the National Congress of American Indians.
Despite reforms to strengthen voting rights, there also have been setbacks, West told the crowd. He cited last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of Shelby County, Alabama.
The decision effectively stripped the federal government of its most potent tool to stop voting bias — a requirement in the landmark Voting Rights Act that all or parts of 15 states with a history of discrimination in voting, mainly in the South but also Alaska, get Washington’s approval before changing the way they hold elections. Now, changes do not have to be submitted, and it is up to the U.S. Justice Department or others who sue to prove changes are discriminatory.
West also pointed to a Justice Department court filing last week that sided with plaintiffs in a voting rights lawsuit filed by several Alaska villages. The lawsuit alleges the state has failed to provide accurate, complete translations of voting materials into Alaska Native languages.
The Justice Department also intervened earlier this year in response to a plan by Cibola County, New Mexico, to eliminate voting-rights coordinators.
Remote geography and the inability to speak English do not free Americans from the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship, West said. Neither should they “impede the rights to which we are all entitled,” he said.
American Indian and Alaska Native leaders attending the conference welcomed the announcement.
“I think anything that involves tribes and tribal authority is extremely important,” said Dr. Ted Mala, director of traditional healing at the Alaska Native Medical Center and director of tribal relations for an Anchorage-based tribal health services organization.
He said tribes have had more opportunities for such consultations with the federal government under the Obama administration.
“We even meet with the president once a year, and it’s a wonderful thing,” Mala said.
Carol Schurz is a councilwoman for the Gila River Indian Community in Sacaton, Arizona. She said the community organizes its own elections and consults with state officials on state and federal elections.
Schurz encourages voter registration and said the Justice Department proposal would be well-received. She said it could empower indigenous voters “if we have the opportunity to get all our people engaged.”
Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan Pascua Yaqui Tribe Attorney General Amanda Lomayesva and Pascua Yaqui Tribe Chief Prosecutor Alfred Urbina are working to improve the Pascua Yaqui community through the Violence Against Women Act.
By Jacelle Ramon-Sauberan, Indian Country Today
The Pascua Yaqui Tribe is making progress in Southern Arizona after being chosen to take early advantage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). “So far VAWA is helping us analyze our own process and the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Council is really interested in how this is going to work out,” said Amanda Lomayesva, Attorney General for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.
On February 6, the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, the Tulalip Tribes of Washington and the Umatilla Tribes of Oregon were chosen by the Obama Administration to exercise criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes of domestic and dating violence, regardless of the defendant’s Indian or non-Indian status, under the 2013 VAWA law.
Lomayesva (Lumbee) said the Pascua Yaqui Tribe became interested in VAWA when they wanted to expand their tribal jurisdiction. “I think it really started to gain steam in 2007 when people started talking about problems in Indian Country –about crimes that were reoccurring and not being taken care of,” said Chief Prosecutor for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Alfred Urbina.
Not to mention, the Domestic Violence is the main crime on the Pascua Yaqui reservation, he said.
Prior to the assertion of VAWA, when a non-Native American committed a crime on the Pascua Yaqui reservation, the Pascua Yaqui Police officers would drop them off on the edge of the reservation, Lomayesva said.
Also, prior to 2010, tribal members accused of a crime would only be incarcerated for one year and the Pascua Yaqui jail was not fit for anyone. The office was in a house and the jail was a cage, said Urbina (Pascua Yaqui).
In 2010, the Tribal Law and Orders Act changed that allowing the tribe to sentence criminals up to three years of incarceration per offense with a maximum of nine years.
And the tribe was able to have a multi-purpose justice complex built through a $20 Million American Reinvestment Recovery Act in 2010. “There has been a real tribal effort to address these problems and a challenge to not only our courts, but all tribal courts to protect tribal members,” said Lomayesva.
The tribe currently has 12 VAWA investigations that have lead to arrests of non-Native Americans, said Urbina. “We had two individuals that were wanted felons by the State of Arizona hiding out on the reservation,” he said. “This happens on our reservation a lot, and other surrounding reservations.”
Also, they are finding that majority of the women involved in the cases are single, young females with children. Typically, both parties are unemployed, alcohol is involved and the accused are repeat offenders.
Urbina admits it is too early to start drawing conclusions. But he’s beginning to see what some of the key issues are, and is asking questions. “VAWA is giving us an opportunity to do an assessment and look into bigger problems,” he said.
Lomayesva admits that a couple of the VAWA cases have fallen apart, and it has led them to question what the tribe can do to help support domestic violence victims.
Tribal members Lourdes Escalante and Feliciano Cruz Sr. both believe VAWA will have a positive effect on their community. “As a community member I think it is about time the tribe start prosecuting non-Natives,” Cruz said. “If they live on our reservation they should abide by our laws.”
Cruz believes that domestic violence on the Pascua Yaqui reservation has gone on long enough and is happy to see that non-Native Americans who are accused won’t be “slapped on the back of the hands anymore. They commit the crime, they go to do the time.”
As for Escalante, a law student at the University of Arizona, is interested to see what VAWA does for her tribe. “I like that my tribe was one of the first to take this on,” she said. “Hopefully, it makes a huge difference; but since it is still kind of new, we will have to wait and see.”
FILE – This Nov. 29, 2009, file photo, shows Chester Nez talking about his time as a Navajo Code Talker in World War II at his home in Albuquerque, N.M. Nez, the last of the 29 Navajos who developed an unbreakable code that helped win World War II, died Wednesday morning, June 4, 2014, of kidney failure at his home in Albuquerque. He was 93. (AP Photo/Felicia Fonseca, File)
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — The language he once was punished for speaking in school became Chester Nez’s primary weapon in World War II.
Before hundreds of men from the Navajo Nation became Code Talkers, Nez and 28 others were recruited to develop a code based on the then-unwritten Navajo language. Locked in a room for 13 weeks, they came up with an initial glossary of more than 200 terms using Navajo words for red soil, war chief, braided hair and hummingbird, for example, and an alphabet.
Nez never tired of telling the story to highlight his pride in having served his country and stress the importance of preserving the Navajo language. The 93-year-old died Wednesday morning of kidney failure with plenty of appearances still scheduled, said Judith Avila, who helped Nez publish his memoirs. He was the last of the original group of 29 Navajo Code Talkers.
“It’s one of the greatest parts of history that we used our own native language during World War II,” Nez told The Associated Press in 2009. “We’re very proud of it.”
Navajo President Ben Shelly ordered flags lowered across the reservation in honor of Nez from sunrise Thursday to sunset Sunday.
Nez was in 10th grade when he lied about his age to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps not knowing he would become part of an elite group of Code Talkers. He wondered whether the code would work since the Japanese were skilled code breakers.
Few non-Navajos spoke the Navajo language, and even those who did couldn’t decipher the code. It proved impenetrable. The Navajos trained in radio communications were walking copies of it. Each message read aloud by a Code Talker immediately was destroyed.
“The Japanese did everything in their power to break the code but they never did,” Nez said in the AP interview.
Nez grew up speaking only Navajo in Two Wells, New Mexico, on the eastern side of the Navajo Nation. He gained English as a second language while attending boarding school, where he had his mouth washed out with soap for speaking Navajo.
When a Marine recruiter came looking for young Navajos who were fluent in Navajo and English to serve in World War II, Nez said he told his roommate “let’s try it out.” The dress uniforms caught his attention, too.
“They were so pretty,” Nez said.
About 250 Navajos showed up at Fort Defiance, then a U.S. Army base. But only 29 were selected to join the first all-Native American unit of Marines. They were inducted in May 1942 and became the 382nd Platoon tasked with developing the code. At the time, Navajos weren’t even allowed to vote.
After World War II, Nez volunteered to serve two more years during the Korean War. He retired in 1974 after a 25-year career as a painter at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Albuquerque. His artwork featuring 12 Navajo holy people was on display at the hospital.
For years, Nez’s family and friends knew only that he fought the Japanese during World War II.
Nez was eager to tell his family more about his role as a Code Talker, Avila said, but he couldn’t. Their mission wasn’t declassified until 1968.
The accolades came much later. The original group received Congressional Gold Medals in 2001 and Nez often joked about pawning his. He measured the accuracy of the movie “Windtalkers,” based on the Code Talkers that came out the following year, at 78 percent and said the Navajo spoken by Adam Beach was hard to understand but “he tried his best.”
Code Talkers have appeared on television and at parades and they are routinely asked to speak to veterans groups and students. They are celebrated on the Navajo Nation with a tribal holiday.
Nez threw the opening pitch at a 2004 Major League Baseball game and offered a blessing for the presidential campaign of John Kerry. In 2012, he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas, where he abandoned his studies in fine arts decades ago after tuition assistance he received for his military service ran out.
U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, of New Mexico, praised Nez for his bravery and service to the United States in a statement Wednesday. The Code Talkers took part in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific, sending thousands of messages without error on Japanese troop movements and battlefield tactics.
Once while running a message, Nez and his partner were mistaken for Japanese soldiers and were threatened at gunpoint until a Marine lieutenant cleared up the confusion. He was forbidden from saying he was a Code Talker.
“He loved his culture and his country, and when called, he fought to protect both,” Udall said. “And because of his service, we enjoy freedoms that have stood the test of time.”
Despite having both legs partially amputated, confining him to a wheelchair, Avila said the humble Nez loved to travel and tell his story.
“It really was a good thing, such a good experience for him,” she said. “He said he would do it over again if his country needed him.”
A public viewing is scheduled Monday evening in Albuquerque. A Mass is scheduled Tuesday in Albuquerque, with burial to follow at the Santa Fe National Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
On May 30, the Atlanta Dream kicked off its new initiative Heritage Fridays and celebrated Native American Night in honor of Shoni Schimmel.
The rookie guard, Umatilla, told ICTMN that she really appreciated the showing of support and called Friday’s event “Awesome.”
Native supporters filled an entire section of the Phillips Arena in Atlanta, and fans wore blue T-shirts donning Schimmel’s name and number, 23. And the first 2,000 fans received a turquoise Shoni Schimmel wristband.
“We are proud of the cultural diversity of our team and we look forward to celebrating that this season and beyond,” Dream President and General Manager Angela Taylor told WNBA.com.
Atlanta snapped a two-game losing bump with an 80-69 win over the Seattle Storm to improve to 3-2 overall, the team’s post game notes said. The Dream is now 2-1 in home games, and has won 20 of its last 25 regular-season games at Philips Arena.
Schimmel managed one assist for the night, but she’s averaging 9.3 points per game. Her season total of 38 points is tied for the most in WNBA history for a player in her first five career games, WNBA.com said.
At halftime, the Red Road and Elks Soldiers performed and Schimmel energized the crowd by taking a few photos with her biggest supporters and fans.
After the game, Schimmel revealed to ICTMN that when she’s not on the court, she manages her own blog, whcih you can read here. On her blog, Schimmel posted a photo of Native American Night. She’s posing with a crowd of fans, dancers, and WNBA staff.
“It was great getting to see the fans come out and support!! She wrote. “Thank you all for coming, and see you next time!!”
Indigeneity is an unusual way to think about International Relations (IR). Most studies of world politics ignore Indigenous perspectives, which are rarely treated as relevant to thinking about the international (Shaw 2008; Beier 2009). Yet Indigenous peoples are engaging in world politics with a dynamism and creativity that defies the silences of our discipline (Morgan 2011). In Latin America, Indigenous politics has gained international legitimacy, influencing policy for over two decades (Cott 2008; Madrid 2012). Now, Indigenous political movements are focused on resisting extractive projects on autonomous territory from the Arctic to the Amazon (Banerjee 2012; Sawyer and Gómez 2012). Resistance has led to large mobilized protests, invoked international law, and enabled alternative mechanisms of authority. In response, governments have been busy criminalizing Indigenous claims to consultation that challenge extractive models of development. Indigenous opposition to extractivism ultimately promotes self-determination rights, questioning the states’ authority over land by placing its sovereignty into historical context. In that sense, Indigeneity is a valuable approach to understanding world politics as much as it is a critical concept to move beyond state-centrism in the study of IR.
The Consolidation of Indigenous Resistance against Extractivism
Indigenous peoples are contesting extractive projects in various, complementary ways. Collective marches have multiplied as an immediate means of resistance throughout the Americas. In 2012, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador led thousands of people on a 15-day, 400-mile March for Life, Water, and the Dignity of Peoples, demanding a new water law, the end of open-pit mining, and a stop to the expansion of oil concessions. Within days, a similar mobilization took over Guatemala City. The Indigenous, Peasant, and Popular March in Defense of Mother Earth covered 212 kilometers to enter the capital with nearly 15,000 people protesting mining concessions, hydroelectric plants, and evictions. In Bolivia, various marches demanded consultation as the government prepared to build a highway within the Indigenous Territory and National Park Isidoro Sécure (TIPNIS). From Canada’s Idle No More movement to the protests against damming the Xingú River Basin in Brazil, Indigenous movements are rising and demanding they be allowed to participate in decisions affecting their territories.
Protests are at the core of global Indigenous agendas. In 2013, the Fifth Continental Summit of Indigenous Peoples of the Abya Yala encouraged communities to step-up resistance in light of the threat posed by state-sponsored extractivism. This is what Indigenous women were doing when they walked from Amazon territories to Quito, Ecuador, denouncing government plans to drill without consultation in the Yasuní reserve. Local protests are not trivial or irrelevant in world politics. Rather, they are part of a larger effort to transform local concerns into international politics.
Indigenous peoples have remarkable expertise in international law and are savvily leveraging their rights to consultation and self-determination guaranteed in the ILO Convention 169 (1989) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (UN General Assembly 2008). They have won emblematic legal battles at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), at times obliging states to recognize Indigenous territorial authority. In the decade-long case of Sarayaku v. Ecuador, the IACHR upheld the right of free, prior, and informed consent with a binding sentence against the Ecuadoran State for allowing a foreign oil company to encroach on ancestral lands without consultation during the 1990s. A 2011 petition by communities of the Xingú River basin led the IACHR to order Brazil’s government to halt the construction of the Belo Monte Dam. The Mayan Q’eqchi’ expanded jurisdiction by taking Hudbay Minerals to Court in Canada for crimes committed at an open-pit nickel mine in Guatemala. In Canada, two Manitoba First Nations used their own legal systems in 2013 to serve eviction notices to mining companies operating illegally on their land.1
International pressure is significant, yet states frequently eschew what they perceive to be uncomfortable mechanisms of accountability. Courts may validate Indigenous resistance, and UN reports warn against the catastrophic impact of extractive industries, but Brazil continued to build the Belo Monte Dam and Peru’s government did not consider suspending the Camisea gas project of drilling 18 wells on protected territories that have been home to Amazonian peoples in voluntary isolation (Feather 2014). Nevertheless, states that evade prior consultation obligations only foster Indigenous inventiveness. In the absence of official mechanisms of consultation, people establish autonomous ones. Local communities of the Kimsacocha area took matters in their own hands after years of being ignored, demanding Ecuador’s government consult them on a mining project in the highlands. In 2011, they organized a community-based consultation without the authorization of the state that was nevertheless legitimized by the presence of international observers (Guartambel 2012). The community voted 93% in favour of defending water rights and against mining in the area. Autonomous forms of prior consultation are increasingly common in Latin America. In Guatemala alone, there have been over sixty community-based consultations since 2005 (MacLeod and Pérez 2013).
Contesting States of Extraction
Indigenous resistance has been the target of severe government repression, ranging from judicial intimidation to assassinations of activists. Mobilizations against the Congo mine in Cajamarca, Peru, led President Ollanta Humala to declare a state of emergency and unleash military repression. An estimated 200 activists were killed in Peru between 2006 and 2011 for resisting extractivism (Zibechi 2013). Colombia’s government, in turn, declared protests against the mining industry illegal. In Ecuador, about 200 people have been criminalized for contesting the corporatization of natural resources. Many have been charged with terrorism. Violent repression against TIPNIS protesters in Bolivia revealed that even Evo Morales, Latin America’s first elected Indigenous president, is willing to use force to silence demands for consultation. Various activists opposing the multinational mining giant AngloGlod Ashanti have been assassinated. Argentina’s Plurinational Indigenous Council, which calls for an end to extractivism, has recorded eleven assassinations since 2010. The Observatory of Mining Conflicts in Latin America (OCMAL) estimates there are currently 195 active conflicts due to large-scale mining. Peru and Chile lead the list with 34 and 33 conflicts respectively, followed by Mexico with 28, Argentina with 26, Brazil with 20, and Colombia with 12. Mega-mining alone affects nearly 300 communities, many of which are located on Indigenous territories.
This wave of intense criminalization indicates the expansion of the extractive frontier. In Peru, where anti-extractivist unrest toppled two cabinets under the Humala government and led to the militarization of several provinces, mineral exploration expenditures increased tenfold in a decade. In 2002, 7.5 million hectares of land had been granted to mining companies; by 2012 the figure jumped to almost 26 million hectares, or 20% of the country’s land. Nearly 60% of the province of Apurímac has been granted to mining companies. In Colombia, about 40% of land is licensed to, or being solicited by, multinational companies for mineral and crude mining projects (Peace Brigades International 2011). According to OCMAL, 25% of the Chile’s territory was under exploration or operation as of 2010. In 2013, Mexico’s government opened the state-controlled energy sector to foreign investment, changing legislation to allow private multinationals to prospect for the country’s oil and natural gas resources for the first time since 1938.
The problem is that governments are largely licensing Indigenous land. In 2010, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues reported that Colombian mining concessions had been awarded in 80% of the country’s legally recognized Indigenous territories. Colombia’s government has 8.8 million hectares of Indigenous reserves designated as oil areas and granted 168 mining licenses on Indigenous reserves in 2011. Extractive industries lead to evictions, toxic waste, and resource scarcity, creating conflicts over water, soil, and subsoil. Open-pit mining uses unsustainable amounts of water. The controversial Marlin mine, partly funded by the World Bank in 2004, and today fully owned by Goldcorp, uses in one hour the water that a local family uses over 22 years (Van de Sandt 2009).2 In Chile, mining consumes 37% of the electricity produced in the country – which will reach 50% in a few years – compared to 28% for industry and 16% for the residential sector. This requires the Chilean State to continually expand energy sources, thereby accelerating displacement and the transfer of agricultural land to hydroelectric projects.
Conflicts against extractivism should not be dismissed as only concerning Indigenous peoples. They encompass larger debates about the role of extractivism in politics and contest a development model based on the corporatization of natural resources. In particular, they reveal the continuous role of resource exploitation as a strategy to finance states. Governments are prioritizing extractive industries as key engines of growth, although there is ample evidence that extractive industries create relatively few jobs. President Juan Manuel Santos promised to turn Colombia into a mining powerhouse because it attracts quick investment. Opening Ecuador to mega-mining financed much of President Correa’s third re-election. In fact, his unexpected policy shift to approve drilling within the Yasuní Reserve is explained largely by his government’s urgent need for cash. China, which holds over 35% of Ecuador’s foreign debt and financed 12% of its budget in 2013, buys about 60% of the country’s oil and is expected to pre-buy Yasuní oil (Guevara 2013).
Indigenous claims against extractive projects contest a world system based on predation and usurpation. In Guatemala, mining is managed by long-standing political elites and inscribed in the colonial genealogy of power. In many instances, the entrepreneurs promoting mining today are the scions of the same oligarchical families that have controlled Indigenous land and peoples for centuries (Casaús 2007). The political economy of extractivism encompasses global inequalities of exploitation, within and among states. About 75% of the world’s mining companies are registered in Canada, and most operate in the so-called Global South (Deneault et al. 2012). Extractive industries in the North rely on alliances with national elites to exploit natural resources of peoples and places historically marginalized from power politics.
Indigeneity as a Way to Rethink International Relations
Claims against extractivism are ultimately claims to the right of self-determination. The unilateral expropriation of land for mining today is a continuation of the Doctrine of Discovery. It conceptualized the New World as terra nullis, authorizing colonial powers to conquer and exploit land in the Americas. It also paved the way for a paradigm of domination that outlasted colonial times to evolve into a broader – and more resilient – self-arrogated right of intervention embodied by the modern state (Wallerstein 2006). Today, the idea of “empty” lands survives in extractivist practices. Large-scale mining by multinational corporations perpetuates the human abuse and resource appropriation initiated by Spanish colonizers centuries ago in the Bolivian mines of Potosi. International rights to self-determination may have replaced Papal Bulls, yet the political economy of looting natural resources on Indigenous lands continues, now in the name of development.
In this context, Indigeneity is a privileged site for the study of international relations. First and foremost, the extent and sophistication of Indigenous political praxis is relevant to any explanation of world politics. The rise of anti-extractivism as a politics of contestation against state exploitation calls for alternative sites of governance, such as the Inuit Circumpolar Council (Shadian 2013). Indigenous claims are shaping political practice, framing international legislation, and destabilizing assumptions about stateness. They seek the redistribution of rights as much as the uprooting of the concentration of power in the state. In that sense, Indigenous claims to consultation challenge the authority of states over natural resources as much as Westphalian forms of sovereignty.
Second, Indigeneity disrupts state sovereignty (Ryser 2012). The UNDRIP became the longest and most hotly debated human rights instrument in UN history because the expansion of Indigenous rights is intrinsically related to issues of state authority over territory. Rights to self-determination entail the recognition of plural forms of territorial authority in competition with states. Indigeneity is attributed to peoples who have historically been excluded from projects of state-making. Yet it contributes much more than making visible historically excluded groups. It refers to a politics that both precedes the state and lies outside of it. It is the constitutive “other” of the modern state, marked by a co-constitutive history that explains why Indigenous politics vary depending on different processes of state-formation. Consequently, Indigeneity is vital to a discipline dedicated to studying relations among states precisely because it is intrinsically related to state-formation. Standing outside of, and prior to, the state makes Indigenous standpoints valuable in terms of thinking critically about world politics and imagining what post-national political assemblages may look like (Sassen 2008).
Finally, Indigeneity is a strategic perspective in expanding scholarly debates on what constitutes IR. Indigenous experiences complement and broaden official national histories with forgotten or repressed narratives (O’Brien 2010), thus expanding methodological assumptions on how to do IR (Jackson 2010). Its precedence over the modern state encompasses alternative worldviews to think about the international beyond stateness. Indigeneity thus defies core epistemological foundations about power. In particular, it historicizes the state and sovereignty, moving away from Eurocentric conceptions of the world (Hobson 2012) and breaking with the discipline’s unreflective tendencies (Tickner 2013). The vibrancy of Indigenous struggles not only confirms the inadequacy of the state, echoing calls to provincialize Europe’s political legacies (Chakrabarty 2000), but it also provides concrete experiences of what the international can actually look like within and beyond the state (Tickner and Blaney 2013). Indigeneity is therefore doubly valuable for world politics. In addition to contributing alternative praxis of the international, it instigates critical theory to expand disciplinary borders.
Conclusion
Indigeneity is a valuable category of analysis for world politics. Indigenous experiences offer a fuller understanding of the world we live in. Integrating indigenous perspectives in the study of IR speaks to the ability to extend our political practice beyond the ivory tower. It is not a category of analysis that concerns merely Indigenous peoples, just as racism is not a matter for people of African descent only, or post-colonial studies the domain of previously colonized societies. The entire thrust of Indigeneity is that the non-state is the business of the state, and that there are alternative pathways available to decolonize the discipline.
Stripping IR of its state-centrism invites us to reflect upon the entrenched colonialism of international relations. Indigenous perspectives will hopefully inspire scholars to adventure beyond the conventional borders of the discipline. After all, opening an alternative locus of authority is nothing short of revolutionary.
Kristin Butler George Toya, farm program manager at the Pueblo of Nambe
Indian Country Today
First Nations Development Institute announced June 3 that it is divying up $400,000 in grant awards to 12 Native organizations. The grants, made possible by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Michigan, were awarded under First Nations’ Native Agriculture and Food Systems Initiative.
The NAFSI grant program is intended to help tribes and Native communities build sustainable food systems, increase healthy food access and awareness, and stimulate tribal economic growth and development. The 12 grants range between $20,300 and $37,500 to the following tribes and Native organizations:
Bay Mills Community College, Brimley, Michigan, $37,500
The grant will support the Waishkey Bay Farm 4-H Club and Youth Farm Stand. Waishkey Bay Farm is a sustainable farm and orchard located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The club’s purpose is to recruit tribal youth to help grow, harvest and market fruits and vegetables.
The grant will be used to expand a small community garden. Food from the garden will be sold at the casino restaurant. Additionally, project organizers plan to sell surplus fruits and vegetables throughout the community via a mobile farmers’ market. The project aims to increase access to healthy food on the reservation while creating jobs and stimulating economic development.
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, Portland, Oregon, $28,125
The grant will assist tribal fishers as they build new relationships with tribes to develop and expand market opportunities for salmon products. The project aims to increase opportunities for the fishers of the Columbia River tribes.
Diné Community Advocacy Alliance, Gallup, New Mexico, $20,300
The funds will be used to help the alliance support the Healthy Diné Nation Act and Junk Food Tax, which was vetoed by the Navajo Nation president in February 2014. The act seeks to impose a 2 percent sales tax on sugar-sweetened beverages and junk food, and eliminate sales tax on fresh fruits and vegetables.
Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College, Hayward, Wisconsin, $37,500
The grant will be used to build capacity and expand the college’s Sustainable Agriculture Research Station (LSARS). LSARS will increase healthy food access by providing a mobile farmers’ market, online and telephone food-ordering service, and EBT-SNAP purchases.
Lakota Ranch Beginning Farmer/Rancher Program, Kyle, South Dakota, $37,500
The grant will be used to establish an active gardening club on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Fruits and vegetables harvested will be sold at a local farmers’ market to promote healthier food choices.
Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, Ponca City, Oklahoma, $28,125
The funding will build capacity and expand the local community greenhouse. The goal is to produce twice as many fruits and vegetables in the expanded greenhouse. Additionally, the funds will be used to host weekly diabetes health education and cooking classes.
Pueblo of Nambe, Nambe Pueblo, New Mexico, $28,125
The Community Farm Project will focus on expanding to create more traditional meals with locally grown, highly nutritious food items. Nambe Pueblo is a food desert with issues of access and affordability of fresh, local produce. The farm can expand with eventual creation of a marketplace on pueblo land, instituting practices such as composting and seed saving, and working to revitalize Indigenous crops, harvesting wild plants, and raising hormone-free, locally slaughtered meats.
Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa, Tama, Iowa, $37,500
The grant will build capacity and expand the Meskwaki Grower’s Cooperative. The food co-op launched in 2013 and needs to expand to include a greenhouse, seed-saving program and food-preservation workshops, as well as increasing co-op membership.
Sust’ainable Molokai, Kaunakakai, Hawaii, $37,500
The grant will be used to launch the Molokai Food Hub, which will give the Native Hawaiian farming community better access and control over its local food system. The Food Hub will help accurately manage orders and monitor product quality.
Taos County Economic Development Corporation, Taos, New Mexico, $37, 500
The organization will lead and coordinate the Native Food Sovereignty Alliance (NAFSA), including coordinating board meetings, proactively recruiting and growing the membership base, and moving the organization toward achieving its 501(c)(3) nonprofit, tax-exempt status. The organization will also coordinate development of a three-year strategic plan and a priority list of policy areas to be addressed.
The grant will continue to fund the “Farming for the Working class” project and will enable another 10 Native Hawaiian homestead families to start actively farming their fallow land. The program consists of hands-on farm training, paired with classroom-based learning and business training.
Six years ago, I made my first trip to Indian country. I visited the Crow Nation in Montana—an experience I’ll never forget. I left with a new Crow name, an adoptive Crow family, and an even stronger commitment to build a future that honors old traditions and welcomes every Native American into the American Dream.
Next week, I’ll return to Indian country, when Michelle and I visit the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in Cannonball, North Dakota. We’re eager to visit this reservation, which holds a special place in American history as the home of Chief Sitting Bull. And while we’re there, I’ll announce the next steps my Administration will take to support jobs, education, and self-determination in Indian country.
As president, I’ve worked closely with tribal leaders, and I’ve benefited greatly from their knowledge and guidance. That’s why I created the White House Council on Native American Affairs—to make sure that kind of partnership is happening across the federal government. And every year, I host the White House Tribal Nations Conference, where leaders from every federally recognized tribe are invited to meet with members of my Administration. Today, honoring the nation-to-nation relationship with Indian country isn’t the exception; it’s the rule. And we have a lot to show for it.
Together, we’ve strengthened justice and tribal sovereignty. We reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, giving tribes the power to prosecute people who commit domestic violence in Indian country, whether they’re Native American or not. I signed the Tribal Law and Order Act, which strengthened the power of tribal courts to hand down appropriate criminal sentences. And I signed changes to the Stafford Act to let tribes directly request disaster assistance, because when disasters strike, you shouldn’t have to wait for a middleman to get the help you need.
Together, we’ve resolved longstanding disputes. We settled a discrimination suit by Native American farmers and ranchers, and we’ve taken steps to make sure that all federal farm loan programs are fair to Native Americans from now on. And I signed into law the Claims Resolution Act, which included the historic Cobell settlement, making right years of neglect by the Department of the Interior and leading to the establishment of the Land Buy-Back Program to consolidate Indian lands and restore them to tribal trust lands.
Together, we’ve increased Native Americans’ access to quality, affordable health care. One of the reasons I fought so hard to pass the Affordable Care Act is that it permanently reauthorized the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, which provides care to many in tribal communities. And under the Affordable Care Act, Native Americans across the country now have access to comprehensive, affordable coverage, some for the first time.
Together, we’ve worked to expand opportunity. My Administration has built roads and high-speed internet to connect tribal communities to the broader economy. We’ve made major investments in job training and tribal colleges and universities. We’ve tripled oil and gas revenues on tribal lands, creating jobs and helping the United States become more energy independent. And we’re working with tribes to get more renewable energy projects up and running, so tribal lands can be a source of renewable energy and the good local jobs that come with it.
We can be proud of the progress we’ve made together. But we need to do more, especially on jobs and education. Native Americans face poverty rates far higher than the national average – nearly 60 percent in some places. And the dropout rate of Native American students is nearly twice the national rate. These numbers are a moral call to action. As long as I have the honor of serving as President, I’ll do everything I can to answer that call.
That’s what my trip next week is all about. I’m going to hear from as many people as possible—ranging from young people to tribal leaders—about the successes and challenges they face every day. And I’ll announce new initiatives to expand opportunity in Indian country by growing tribal economies and improving Indian education.
As I’ve said before, the history of the United States and tribal nations is filled with broken promises. But I believe that during my Administration, we’ve turned a corner together. We’re writing a new chapter in our history—one in which agreements are upheld, tribal sovereignty is respected, and every American Indian and Alaskan Native who works hard has the chance to get ahead. That’s the promise of the American Dream. And that’s what I’m working for every day—in every village, every city, every reservation—for every single American.
Aerial view of Taholah’s Lower Village. Photo courtesy of Larry Workman
By Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
TAHOLAH – On March 25, the encroaching waters of the Pacific Ocean awakened residents in Taholah, Washington, when their aging seawall was breached and flooded sections of their Lower Village. Now, the village is faced with relocation due to changes in climate resulting in rising sea levels, tsunami threats, and flood danger from the Quinault River.
The ancestral home of the Quinault people is classified as a tsunami hazard zone by the Washington Emergency Management Division and is no longer considered safe. As a result, a comprehensive master plan is being implemented that would move residents and government structures 120 feet above sea level to the Upper Village.
The risks were identified years before when the Quinault Indian Nation undertook a comprehensive analysis of the coastline after increased flooding in the Lower Village. The analysis showed deterioration of the protective berm that separates the Lower Village from the ocean water. With each large storm the ocean encroaches further into the village, making relocation necessary. “We first thought it was rain water, but in 2009 we did a walk down to the ocean line and we discovered the ocean was encroaching much worse than we thought,” said Councilman Larry Ralston, Quinault Indian Nation Treasurer.
What was uncovered was the deterioration of a protective berm that separated the Lower Village from the ocean water and with each large storm, the ocean encroached further into the village, making relocation necessary.
“We did a risk management plan and undertook an emergency preparedness evaluation and it was determined that not only are we vulnerable to the ocean encroaching, but the footprint of our Lower Village is vulnerable to liquefaction, so if we had a large earthquake, the village could actually sink
Larry Ralston, Quinault Indian Nation Treasurer, stands in front of his mother’s house which will not be moved during the relocation of Taholah’s Lower Village, and could face possible demolition along with other buildings that cannot be moved. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
into the earth,” said Fawn Sharp, Quinault Indian Nation President.
President Sharp explained the safety of current and future Quinaults is the main priority. “We have a sacred trust and duty to those who are deeply connected to the land and their homes. It is a mix in which we have to plan carefully. We have over 1,000 residents and we have our major retail outlet, the Taholah Mercantile. We have our jail facility, courthouse, daycare and head start, and k-12 school so a number of our critical programs are located right in the heart of the village.”
“As of right now we are in the process of undertaking a feasibility study. The study will fully assess the infrastructure and the number of residents at risk, putting together a plan that we can then take to federal appropriators and members of congress, and other federal agencies in an effort to relocate the village,” said President Sharp.
Preliminary estimates for relocation cost are near $65 million and include the need to acquire land adjacent to the Upper Village, and the building of infrastructures including roadways, utilities, housing, and businesses. The loss of generational history that holds cultural relevance to the Quinault people is something that is also being considered, as is the risk of the “big one” hitting.
“As a resident of the Lower Village, we think about tsunamis more often than not. For a lot of us, we grew up listening to the ocean and we know what the weather is going to be like just by hearing the waves. You are always listening to the ocean to monitor what is going on,” said Ralston. “I am looking forward to the move, but I also know there are some houses that will be torn down like the one that my mother was born in in 1928. The worst case scenario if we don’t move everyone to higher ground, is that we get hit with a wave at two in the morning and we would only have two or three minutes to evacuate the Lower Village and we lose lives.”
Quinault elder James DeLaCruz Sr. stands by the recently reinforced Taholah seaswall, is among the handful of residents who do not plan to leave the Lower Village during Taholah’s relocation. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
With only two ways in and out of Taholah, the risk of liquefaction puts residents at a high risk during evacuation, as roads would be inaccessible. During the event of a tsunami wave residents have limited time to move to higher ground.
Tsunami warning systems in place in Taholah include a siren monitored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrator headquarters in Seattle. In the event of an earthquake or tsunami wave the siren will go off followed by a voice telling residents to evacuate. To date, the siren has only been used during monthly test drills.
“The benefit of the relocation will be knowing that our citizens are safe, said President Sharp. “The other benefit will be the planning process will have a lot of room to expand. We have a fairly large land base adjacent to the village that we are looking at developing. There will be opportunity to create space for building a private sector economy. We are getting direct input from our membership; if you could take just a blank space, how would you want to design a community? That is the exciting part of the planning stage. There are a lot of great ideas that are emerging from our citizens, and their vision and their view of what a future Taholah will look like.”
Although relocation is necessary, residents will not be forced to move. Some residents like Quinault elder James DeLaCruz Sr. knows he will not be relocating. His house butts against the seawall, and as he explains “The Lower Village has been a part of my life as long as I can remember and this is where my home is until nature changes that.
Taholah Mercantile, a Quinault Indian Nation enterprise, is the main, and only, source of perishable food shopping for residents in the Lower Village. It sits a block from the seawall and is at risk of flooding from rising sea levels. Photo/ Brandi N. Montreuil, Tulalip News
“We believe that every citizen has that right,” said President Sharp. “We will do our best to educate our membership about the risk. We will do our best to provide our citizens the options for relocation, but ultimately we will respect that individual citizen’s absolute right to live where the Creator put them and the lands that were given to our ancestors.”
“Our ancestors had to be good stewards of the land. We have done that here at Quinault,” said President Sharp. “Yet we seem to be paying the price for others who don’t share the same values. Our ocean is becoming acidic, the ocean is encroaching into our ancient homelands, and the glaciers that feed the upper Quinault River and our prized sockeye salmon are disappearing. So while we have been good stewards, we are paying a heavy price for other peoples mistakes.”
The Taholah Relocation Master Plan includes the Quinault Planning Development and Kaul Design Associates. A three-year planning process will be implemented in phases and include gathering information, needs and choices of the community, and final plan preparation.
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
Photo by Doug Inglish. Source: facebook.com/ELLEuk
Indian Country Today
Pharrell Williams appears on a special-edition cover of Elle UK‘s July issue wearing a feather headdress, and Natives are not at all “Happy” about it. In fact, they’re tweeting their disgust on Twitter using the hashtag #NOThappy — a reference to Pharrell’s mega-hit “Happy.”
Pharrell earned smirks in January for wearing an enormous “Mountie”-style hat to the Grammy Awards — but he stuck with the look and it became a signature style. Which makes Elle UK all the more proud of themselves: “we persuaded ELLE Style Award winner Pharrell to trade his Vivienne Westwood mountie hat for a native American feather headdress in his best ever shoot,” reads promotional copy on the mag’s website. The photos were taken by Doug Inglish.
Pharrell Williams on the cover of the July 2014 collector’s edition issue of Elle UK, shot by Doug Inglish.
Taino Ray:How can you do something so stupid and disrespectfulll.. you are not a Chief Pharrel.. The eagle feathers are sacred… Even if you are part Native the headdress is off limits… Its for Warriors and people of the plains culture.. You don’t have the right to wear that Pharrel… neither does Cher or Emerson Windy… You guys don’t get it…. You will learn the hard way by us Natives telling you so…
Gail Lichtsinn:You have no right to wear a headress that is so sacred to native people..Those headresses are earned and not worn to make a buck or draw attention..They have meaning and are worn by our men with pride and dignity..This is a mockery of a proud people..We are not a joke and take these things very seriously..Go back to wearing your OWN clothes
Sandy Johnson:I love your music! BUT…please don’t insult our Indigenous People by wearing a headdress. They are earned one Eagle feather at a time through acts of selflessness and bravery. Thank you.
We’ll probably have more on this story in the near future, as neither Pharrell nor Elle UK have commented on the controversy. As wrong as this sounds, it’s going to be said: You really should have stuck with the mountie hat, Pharrell.
Less than six months after the start of an aggressive grassroots campaign, the Seattle City Council unanimously approved a $15 minimum wage on Monday, the highest in the nation.
A supporter of the $15 an hour minimum wage holds a sign during a Seattle City Council meeting in which the council voted to raise the minimum wage in Seattle, Monday June 2, 2014. (Photo: Stephen Brashear / Puget Sound Business Journal) The measure passed by a 9-0 vote and was met with cheers and celebration among workers in the chamber and those gathered outside.
“We did this. Workers did this. Today’s first victory for 15 will inspire people all over the nation,” said councilor Kshama Sawant, whose victory last fall as a Socialist Alternative candidate and continued push for the $15 wage are credited with galvanizing the city-wide movement that pushed the council for the increase.
“A hundred thousand low-wage workers in Seattle will be seeing their wages raised to $15 an hour over the next 10 years. That would imply a transfer of roughly $3 billion from the top to the lowest paid workers,” she continued. “Such a transfer has not happened in so many decades because mostly what’s happened is the flow of wealth has been from the bottom up. This is really raising the confidence of working people around the country.”
“We did this. Workers did this. Today’s first victory for 15 will inspire people all over the nation.” —Kshama Sawant, city councilor
Working Washington—a coalition of individuals, neighborhood associations, immigrant groups, civil rights organizations, people of faith, and labor—also celebrated the victory. In a statement just ahead of the vote, the group said:
When Seattle fast food workers with Working Washington first called for $15, many thought it was well out of reach — an impossible dream, not a realistic demand. But the bold leadership of fast food workers, airport workers, grocery workers, and others transformed the public debate and changed what was possible.
A year ago, $15 was just a number on fast food strikers’ picket signs. Today it’s set to become reality for 100,000 Seattle workers.
It was not a complete and total victory for progressive coalition. Numerous amendments offered by Sawant to strengthen the new wage law, including speeding up its implementation, were defeated by the council. In the end, however, no one denied that it was only the relentless pressure from below that forced its historic, if compromised, passage.
In her speech following the vote, Sawant acknowledged the shortcomings of the bill, but called it an “historic victory” as she rose to explain the importance of how Seattle activists were able to bend the council, including those tied to large business interests, towards their will:
15 was not won at the bargaining table as the so-called “sensible compromise” between workers and business. It was not the result of the generosity of corporations or their Democratic Party representatives in government.
What was voted on in the city council was a reflection of what workers won on the street over this last year.
In 15 Now, groups of workers and activists met weekly, held mass conferences and debates, organized rallies, and engaged thousands of people around the city about the need for a living wage. We won the public debate – in a recent poll 74% of voters now support 15. We defeated the arguments of business in the corporate media.
Let this be our guide. At every stage of the struggle, corporations and their representatives, have sought to undermine our efforts. And future victories will also depend on the organization of working people fighting for our interests.
Writing for The Nation, John Nichols highlighted the aggressive stance of Sawant and her allies as he put the Seattle wage fight in its national context:
Sawant unsuccessfully proposed amendments to speed up wage hikes for employees of the largest businesses—those with over 500 employees—and to assure that tipped workers get the full benefit of the wage hike. And she objected to a provision that allows for paying some workers below the minimum, saying, “Any kind of teenage wage or sub-minimum wage goes against the principles of workers standing together. The sub-minimum wage is demanded and liked by businesses because it allows them to bring down wages in general. It’s harmful for workers as a whole.”
Sawant and her allies are not done with the fight. They are gathering signatures for a city charter amendment that would have large businesses paying $15-an-hour starting January 1, 2015, while small business and nonprofits would have a three-year phase-in period. The charter amendment will, if it qualifies for the ballot, face significant opposition from Big Business. And there will be those who suggest that the 15 Now activists are asking for more than can be reasonably obtained.
But just a year ago, there were plenty of folks who said $9-an-hour was an unreasonable goal. Now the debate in Seattle is about how quickly to go to $15. And that debate is spreading to communities nationwide.
In response to passage of the new Seattle wage hike, the International Franchise Association—which represents corporate chain stores and restaurants like McDonald’s, Subway, and others—renewed their promise to sue the city over the new wage law. But as the Seattle Timesreports, many local business owners welcomed the vote:
Molly Moon Neitzel, owner of Molly Moon’s ice cream, said the mandate will drive up her labor costs by $100,000 a year, but she expects to benefit from workers with more money to spend locally.
“A hundred thousand people next year will have more money in their pockets,” she said, referring to the estimated number of workers who now make less than $15. “They’ll have more money to buy ice cream.”
Neitzel has about 80 employees at six stores in Seattle. Last fall, she raised pay for her non-tipped employees to $15 from between $11 and $13.50.
She said another probable benefit from the higher minimum wage is reduced employee turnover.
“They’re so appreciative of the raise,” she said of her non-tipped employees. “Retention is great, and their quality of life has increased.”
