Tulalip News

John Lovick: ‘Dr. King’s speech … was a turning point in my life’

Photo courtesy of John LovickSnohomish County Executive John Lovick was raised by his grandmother in this house in Robeline, La. It had no running water when Lovick was a child. — Photo courtesy of John Lovick
Snohomish County Executive John Lovick was raised by his grandmother in this house in Robeline, La. It had no running water when Lovick was a child.

By Julie Muhlstein, The Herald

He was 12, old enough to know what it meant.

“Dr. King’s speech, frankly, it was a turning point in my life,” Snohomish County Executive John Lovick said last week.

Lovick grew up in the tiny town of Robeline, in Louisiana’s Natchitoches Parish.

He was raised by his grandmother, Elsie Lee Lovick. A mother of 11, she had picked cotton and scrubbed floors to support the family. Their house had no running water.

Robeline was far from Washington, D.C., where on Aug. 28, 1963, tens of thousands of people joined the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march ended with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s history-making “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Many Americans watched the landmark events of the Civil Rights Movement in their living rooms. Lovick didn’t have that luxury.

“We didn’t have a TV. We would hear about it, or listen to the radio. Obviously, we knew these things were going on,” said Lovick, 62, who lives in Mill Creek.

Mark Mulligan / The HeraldSnohomish County Sheriff John Lovick speaks to the media about his intention to seek appointment to the position of Snohomish County Executive in front of the Snohomish County Courthouse Monday morning. — Mark Mulligan / The Herald
Snohomish County Sheriff John Lovick speaks to the media about his intention to seek appointment to the position of Snohomish County Executive in front of the Snohomish County Courthouse Monday morning.

For a child in a segregated school, in a region that was ground zero in the struggle for racial equality, King was a towering figure.

“There were conversations about him in school — always Dr. Martin Luther King. He was the one black public figure you could really see,” Lovick said.

As Snohomish County’s top public figure, Lovick will join in a celebration marking the 50th anniversary of King’s speech at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Everett Community College’s Jackson Center. Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson, former Everett City Councilman Carl Gipson and Tulalip Tribes Chairman Mel Sheldon are also scheduled to speak at the free event.

Lovick said that as a boy in Louisiana, “not in a million years did I imagine I’d be executive of a very large county — that level of success.” Yet he took to heart a message brought forth by King’s powerful words.

“As I watched him, as I listened to his speeches, he always said things were going to change. There will be opportunities. He wanted to make sure we were prepared, by staying in school, staying out of trouble,” Lovick said.

“Things were very, very tough growing up down there. But there’s a future out there. It was a message that always resonated with me,” said Lovick, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard, and as a State Patrol trooper, a state lawmaker and as county sheriff before being chosen in June to lead Snohomish County after Aaron Reardon’s resignation.

The systematic segregation of Lovick’s childhood is gone, but not the hurtful memories.

In all his years of school in Robeline, where Lovick graduated from Allen High School in 1968, he never had a white classmate. “It was just the way life was,” said Lovick, who remembers seeing school buses go past carrying white students.

Schools in his Louisiana town remained segregated long after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling that found separate educational facilities are unequal. In 1957, King had taken a strong stand in the fight for integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

It wasn’t until the early 1980s, Lovick said, that Allen High in his hometown was ordered closed by a federal judge.

There was dismay in his voice as he described a visit to Robeline after finishing boot camp in 1970. “I went to a movie theater and had to sit in a segregated section — in my Coast Guard uniform. There was a sign, ‘colored,’ with a finger pointing in one direction,” he said. “That stirred up some terrible memories.

During his boyhood, the Ku Klux Klan was active. Lovick said his grandmother, who died three years ago at 97, feared for his safety when he would walk home. “She was always afraid of what would happen to me. At the time, there was a lot of hatred,” Lovick said.

He recently saw “The Butler,” based on the true story of a black man who worked 34 years, under eight presidents, as a White House butler. With its sweep of history, Lovick said the movie was a reminder that “a lot of people sacrificed and suffered for me to be here.”Lovick shared another painful memory. His grandmother, he said, would “crawl on her knees scrubbing floors, but she couldn’t walk in the front door of the house where she worked.”

Yet he chooses to turn away from bitterness, embracing King’s message of love and forgiveness. “Hating people is too much of a burden for me to bear,” he said.

When King spoke those words — “I have a dream today” — Lovick said he was a little too young to join in demonstrations for civil rights.

“I have tremendous admiration for those people who did the hard things,” he said. “I don’t know right now if I would have had the courage to do what they did.”

‘I Have a Dream’ event at EvCC

A free public celebration marking the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Jackson Center on the Everett Community College campus, 2000 Tower St. Speakers include Snohomish County Executive John Lovick, Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson, Tulalip Tribes Chairman Mel Sheldon and former Everett City Councilman Carl Gipson.

“The March,” a new PBS documentary looking back at Aug. 28, 1963, the day King delivered his landmark speech in Washington, D.C., will air at 9 p.m. Tuesday on KCTS, Channel 9.

WSU to begin design work for Everett university center

$10M set for Everett university center building’s design

Genna Martin / The HeraldEverett Community College Vice President of College Services Patrick Sisneros (center left) leads a group that includes Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson, Washington State University administrator Paul Pitre and state legislators Mike Sells, Hans Dunshee and Nick Harper, on a tour of the proposed site of a new WSU building near the EvCC campus at College Plaza on Broadway. — Genna Martin / The Herald
Everett Community College Vice President of College Services Patrick Sisneros (center left) leads a group that includes Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson, Washington State University administrator Paul Pitre and state legislators Mike Sells, Hans Dunshee and Nick Harper, on a tour of the proposed site of a new WSU building near the EvCC campus at College Plaza on Broadway.

By Jerry Cornfield, The Herald

EVERETT — These days the parking lot is pretty empty at College Plaza, an aging strip mall covering a long block on North Broadway.

There’s a barber shop and a nail salon, a store where most everything costs a dollar and a pay phone that works. And there’s lot of empty storefronts.

Flip the calendar ahead three years and passersby could be gazing at the cornerstone of a Washington State University branch campus.

WSU secured $10 million in state funds this year to design a 95,000-square-foot building near the corner of North Broadway and Tower Street.

The site is envisioned as the future home of the University Center of North Puget Sound, a consortium of four-year colleges including WSU that now conduct classes across the street in Everett Community College’s Gray Wolf Hall.

But by the time the building opens, WSU is expected to be running the consortium, having cemented its place in the city.

“It needs to be here because this is where the students want to go,” said Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish, after completing a tour last week of the plaza site with other lawmakers and representatives of the city and community college.

He brushed off a question on whether he hoped this structure would lead to a full-throttled branch campus.

“I won’t call it a name or anything. That’s just where you put the building,” he said. When people drive by they’ll know it’s WSU and they’ll get excited, he said.

All of this came together fairly quickly.

Everett Community College now manages the University Center whose members include Western Washington University, Central Washington University and the University of Washington’s Bothell campus. A state law passed in 2011 calls for WSU to take over next summer.

As part of the deal, WSU prepared a long-term operating plan and it predicted the University Center would run out of space by the end of the decade as enrollment rises from 465 students a year ago to nearly 1,200.

Everett Community College owns College Plaza and uses it for parking. Conversations last year led to the proposal for the building in the plaza and to acquire three nearby properties for development of a parking lot. The targeted parcels include the Everett Trailer Court and the property with a Subway sandwich shop and a 7-Eleven store.

EvCC President David Beyer said the presence of the college and WSU on both sides of North Broadway will give the area a whole new feel — and be a boost to the profile of both institutions.

“It will mean something for the community,” he said. “That’s been our whole thrust is to get ourselves out there so we are not looked at as that old campus in North Everett.”

Dunshee, who is chairman of the House Capital Budget Committee, had to muscle the $10 million into the state’s construction budget over the objections of his counterparts in the Senate Majority Coalition Caucus.

“We were fighting over it at 2:30 a.m. on the last day. That was about an hour before we finished up,” he said. “It was 10 or zero.”

Of the money, $7 million is for the design work and the rest is for land acquisition.

Paul Pitre, special assistant to WSU President Elson Floyd, said there’s not a specific timeline for finishing either task. But conversations are under way at the university as officials keep in close contact with lawmakers, the community college and the city at each step.

Many issues lie ahead. For example Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson encouraged Pitre to make sure trailer court residents are given as much as two years to relocate.

Finding the funding to build will be an issue, too. The Legislature probably won’t address the money issue until 2015.

Rep. Mike Sells, D-Everett, focused on the positive

“I’m encouraged that we’re moving forward on this,” he said. “It won’t be the last building. Once you start down this road, you keep working on it.”

ObamaCare mandate skips over Native Americans

By William La Jeunesse, Fox News

Despite claims that the federal health care overhaul needs the so-called individual mandate in order to require everyone to buy health insurance and keep the system stable, it turns out many have been granted an exemption from that requirement.

Those who will not have to comply with the mandate to buy insurance include some religious groups, and inmates, as well as victims of domestic violence and natural disasters. But the largest group of Americans exempt from the individual mandate is Native Americans, whose unique treatment under the law is raising more questions about the basic fairness of the legislation.

The reason behind the exemptions stems from the fact that the federal government, through treaty obligations, has assumed a responsibility for Native Americans.

“This is part of the federal government’s trust responsibility to the American Indians — to provide health, education and housing,” said health care consultant David Tonemah.

Consequently, Native Americans already receive free health care through the $4 billion-a-year taxpayer-funded Indian Health Service, which operates hundreds of hospitals and clinics around the country. Because they already have health care, the new law does not require them to make any additional effort to sign up for a new plan.

Yet Native Americans will also be offered subsidies to buy private insurance through the ObamaCare insurance exchanges.

To some, that sounds like double-dipping.

“There is no particular reason why they should be in the exempt category,” said Ed Haislmaier, a health care analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation. “There is an argument (taxpayers) are paying twice. All these things wind up raising questions of fairness, and that is a big part of why this law remains unpopular.”

Under ObamaCare, individuals earning less than $47,100 and families of four earning less than $94,200 are eligible for subsides. According to the 2010 census, the poverty rate among Native Americans and Alaska Natives is double the national average, with a median household income of just $35.062. About 30 percent lacked health insurance, also double the national rate.

Proposed subsidies for individuals range from $630 to $4,480 a year, depending on income, according to federal estimates. For families, the subsidies will range from $3,550 to $11,430 a year.

Gila River Tribal Councilwoman Cynthia Antone said many tribal members are confused. Outreach to Native Americans will have to be convincing to overcome their distrust of the federal government.

“They have the option not to sign up for insurance and we do have some members who won’t sign up because we have the hospital across the street,” said Antone. “But we encourage our members to do it because, like I said before, it’s a safety net.”

Native Americans are also exempt from financial penalties for not having insurance. The Congressional Budget Office expects 6 million Americans, mostly young adults, will pay the penalty, which ranges from $95 for an individual to almost $300 for a family beginning in January.

“Anytime you are going to say to people ‘go out and buy this’ you are going to have people say, ‘I don’t use insurance, I don’t believe in it, I can’t afford it,'” said Haislmaier. “When Congress gives in to those objections, you are just going to get more people who want a break. It does create an unfair situation in the end.”

Rosebud Sioux Tribe Unveils New Resources in the Fight Against Diabetes

Wellness Center and Mobile Medical Unit Boost Education and Screening Efforts through Partnership with Novo Nordisk

Novo Nordisk, Aug 23, 2013

ROSEBUD, SD, August 23, 2013 – Addressing one of the biggest health problems facing Native American communities everywhere, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe today unveiled a new, state-of-the-art wellness center and a first-of-its kind mobile diabetes medical unit. These resources will allow the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Diabetes Prevention Program (RSTDPP) to improve screening and intervention in children, as well as promote healthy lifestyles for people of all ages on the reservation. The center and mobile unit were made possible through funding from global healthcare company Novo Nordisk as part of its Native American Health Initiative.

“Diabetes is a serious problem for my tribe, but we know we can turn it around,” said RSTDPP Director Connie Brushbreaker. “Education and screening can help raise awareness about diabetes. The wellness center and mobile unit are smart ways to help us reach more people on our reservation and provide valuable disease education.”

Overall, American Indian and Alaska Native adults are more than twice as likely to have diagnosed diabetes compared with non-Hispanic whites.[1] In some American Indian/Alaska Native communities, diabetes prevalence among adults is as high as 60%.[2]

The new wellness center will house exercise facilities, diabetes education and nutrition training space, and exam rooms. The facility will also provide secure storage for the mobile medical unit, which can travel to the remote corners of the reservation to promote diabetes education, screening and prevention to residents that have limited access to care.

The enhanced diabetes prevention and screening efforts were recommended as part of a thorough, four-month assessment of the diabetes care and educational programs currently available to residents of Rosebud by the internationally-recognized Park Nicollet International Diabetes Center, a nonprofit diabetes care, education, and clinical research facility based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“This program has several important components to addressing diabetes in Indian country,” said Donald K. Warne, MD, MPH, professor at North Dakota State University and advisor to the project. “One of the most important issues is making an early diagnosis before complications start to occur. Too often, once a diagnosis is made there are barriers to accessing medical care, so bringing professional medical services to people through a mobile unit is both innovative and essential to improving quality of care.”

The initial investment of $3 million from Novo Nordisk also enables the formation of a diabetes education program for healthcare professionals and patients, the implementation of a community awareness initiative for diabetes prevention, and the creation of scholarships through the support of the American Association of Diabetes Educators that will allow tribe members to be trained as certified diabetes educators.

Curt Oltmans, corporate vice president and general counsel at Novo Nordisk, grew up near the Rosebud Reservation and witnessed the disparities in care facing the Native American population first-hand. He is leading Novo Nordisk’s Native American Health Initiative.

“For more than three years Novo Nordisk has engaged with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to design this initiative,” Oltmans said. “As a leader in diabetes, we believe that diabetes education and prevention are essential. Our Diabetes Educators have trained the community’s health representatives and members of the Diabetes Prevention Program. It has been a privilege for our employees to learn about the tribe’s traditions and culture. We are committed to the program and we want it to become a model for others.”

For the latest on the RSTDPP, visit www.rstdpp.org.

About Rosebud Sioux Tribe

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe, a branch of the Lakota people, is located on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in south central South Dakota. The federally recognized Indian tribe has more than 31,000 enrolled members and over 11,300 individuals currently residing on the reservation and its lands. The reservation has a total area of 1,442 square miles, while the total land area and trust lands of the reservation cover 5,961 square miles. The reservation includes all of Todd County, S.D. and extensive lands in four adjacent counties. The tribal headquarters is in Rosebud, S.D. For more information, visit www.rosebudsiouxtribe-nsn.gov.

[1] Source: American Diabetes Association, Native American Complications (http://www.diabetes.org/living-with-diabetes/complications/native-americans.html)

[2] Source: Special Diabetes Program for Indians Overview, May 2012 (http://www.ihs.gov/MedicalPrograms/Diabetes/HomeDocs/Resources/FactSheets/2012/Fact_Sheet_SDPI_508c.pdf)

– See more at: http://www.noodls.com/view/559834ED9E32BB3F409145101A8FDB17D6EB63FD#sthash.6L0U3kz4.dpuf

Obama Includes Natives When Discussing Legacy of Discrimination in US

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

During a town hall-style event in Binghamton, New York on August 23, President Barack Obama addressed the legacy of discrimination in the United States according to the Associated Press.

Obama said that poor people, run-down neighborhoods and underfunded schools would continue to exist even if a magic wand could remove discrimination.

Obama addressed the bias legacy of America, “from slavery to laws that required the separation of blacks and whites,” and how it “has meant that institutional barriers to success exist for many groups, particularly blacks, Latinos and Native Americans,” according to AP.

Smart policies to help those communities that will help America’s youth have a chance for success are what is needed.

Genetically Pure Bison Returned to Fort Belknap After a Century Away

Rion Sanders/Great Falls TribuneThirty-four genetically pure bison were released onto a 1,000-acre pasture on the Fort Belknap Reservation on Thursday, August 22. — Rion Sanders/Great Falls Tribune
Thirty-four genetically pure bison were released onto a 1,000-acre pasture on the Fort Belknap Reservation on Thursday, August 22.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Onlookers hooted, hollered and cheered as bison were coaxed off the trailer and went racing off onto the plain of the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. On Thursday, 34 genetically pure animals were set loose. It marks the first time in a century the animals have roamed the area.

“It’s a great day for Indians and Indian country,” Mark Azure, who heads the tribe’s bison program, told the Great Falls Tribune moments after the final two big bulls rumbled out of a trailer and trotted away onto the prairie. The bulls were kept in a trailer separate from the others.

The animals had traveled the 190 miles from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation where Fish, Wildlife and Parks had put 70 of them last year from Yellowstone National Park. Fort Peck already had a herd of some 200 animals, but the Yellowstone bison are the only remaining genetically pure and free ranging wild bison in the United States, the same animals that covered the western plains 200 years ago and numbered in the millions.

The intention was to move half of the Yellowstone bison to Fort Belknap, but the move was stalled by legal actions. Until the Montana Supreme Court finally ruled that it was legal earlier this summer, paving the way for the bison’s return.

“The fact that we’re assisting in preserving the genetically pure buffalo out of Yellowstone is significant—the fact that we’re ensuring the long-term survival of the species,” Mike Fox, tribal councilman, said in a Great Falls Tribune video report about the bison release. “But, on the cultural side… they took care of us and now it’s time for us to take care of them.”

The bison were released into a 1,000-acre pasture with an 8-foot fence, reported the Tribune, and just one of the animals was not released due to an injury.

Before being released all the animals were tested and found to be disease-free.

Fox told the Tribune that Fort Belknap will manage a herd and use it as seed stock for other places looking to reintroduce bison.

The release meant a lot to those gathered to watch. There was a pipe ceremony to welcome the bison back.

Fox told the Tribune the last few bison disappeared from Fort Belknap around 1910. “It’s a homecoming for the animals.”

Touch-A-Truck coming Sept. 14

The City of Marysville invites you to Touch-A-Truck on Saturday, Sept. 14, an event that puts your kids in the driver’s seat of Marysville’s biggest heavy-duty rigs. Honk the horns, set off sirens, kick the tires on a variety of big rigs – dump trucks, backhoe, vactor truck, police vehicles, street sweeper, Marysville Fire District fire engines, garbage trucks, an aid car and more. Come join the fun!

Marysville Noon Rotary Club will offer special activities for kids, and Marysville Kiwanis will have tasty treats for sale.

For more information please call (360) 363-8400. Please bring a donation for the Marysville Food Bank. No pets, please.

Read Event Flyer…

Feds Claim Tribal Lenders Not a Target; Tribes Sue NY Over Crackdown

Jane Daugherty, Indian Country Today Media Network

In the first positive federal response to widespread Indian protests over government attacks on tribal companies’ online loan businesses, U.S. Department of Justice officials August 21 assured eight tribal officials that they are not being illegally targeted.

The Department of Justice’s Financial Fraud Task Force’s recent activities were “not directed at tribal entities short-term lending businesses,” eight tribal leaders were told Wednesday in a meeting with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, said John Shotton, chairman of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe and chairman of the Native American Financial Services Association (NAFSA). Shotton participated with other tribal leaders in the meeting with Frimpong.

Also on Wednesday, NASFA, which Shotton chairs, sued the state of New York in federal district court demanding that the state stop trying to shut down tribe-owned online lending companies. New York’s attack on at least 16 tribal lending companies launched August 6 was filed by former federal prosecutor Benjamin Lawsky, the new czar of NY’s Department of Financial Services.

“Defendant Lawsky and the State of New York have overstepped their bounds with their illegal attacks on our tribes,” said Barry Brandon, NAFSA executive director whose members filed the complaint.

Jane Daugherty (Florida International University)

Any government crackdown on tribal lending companies—by federal or state regulators—would produce devastating cuts in education, health care and housing on Indian lands. Income generated by the tribal online lenders generates millions of dollars of income used to fund those core services, all of which have sustained huge cutbacks from sequestration of the federal budget.

The catastrophic sequestration cuts in promised funding to the tribes, $552.7 million cut so far, occurred despite assurances from the Obama Administration that guaranteed federal support for essential services to the tribes granted in treaties and agreements would be exempt from sequestration, mandatory across-the-board budget cuts ordered by Congress.

In response to Wednesday’s meeting with DOJ officials, Shotton said in a letter, “We were pleased to hear from you today that your actions are not directed at our tribal government short-term lending businesses. In particular, it was a relief to hear Deputy Assistant Attorney General Frimpong make the statement that, ‘It didn’t occur to me that we should consult with tribes in advance because we are going after fraud. Never have we focused on tribal payday or payday. We go after financial fraud, so we are not going after you.’ ” Shotton’s and other tribal leaders’ letter to Frimpong was posted on the NAFSA website Thursday, August 22.

Shotton also revealed that the DOJ has invited the tribal representatives to be part of the new DOJ Consumer Protection Working Group. Shotton added, “Tribal governments share your dedication to protecting consumers by offering responsible financial services products and services.”

The letter to the DOJ also noted the “recent … proud tradition of consultation between our governments that was memorialized by Executive Order during the Clinton Administration. Both the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations have continued this legacy of cooperation and respect for the sovereign rights of American Indian tribal governments.

“President Obama confirmed this commitment on November 5, 2009 by reaffirming Executive Order 13175, requiring all heads of departments and executive agencies to consult with American Indian tribal governments before taking any action which may affect the sovereign rights of an Indian Tribe. The recent Executive Order, dated June 26, 2013, establishing the White House Council on Native American Affairs, specifically acknowledges, ‘that self-determination—the ability of tribal governments to determine how to build and
sustain their own communities—is necessary for successful and prospering communities.’ ”

The key legal precedent governing tribe-owned businesses, including online lenders, is sovereign immunity, which recognizes the tribes as sovereign nations within the U.S. with complete control over their lands, businesses, laws and governance. Sovereign immunity was guaranteed in numerous treaties with the U.S. government in exchange for the surrender of vast tracts of Indian land and natural resources.

Tribal sovereign immunity has repeatedly been upheld in the Supreme Court and in numerous states. First expressed in Article I, section 8, of the United States Constitution, the courts have since consistently found that any erosion of Tribal Sovereignty would lead to a complete loss of the rights of recognition granted to the tribes by the federal government.

In 2012 in Colorado, tribal rights to operate online lending businesses under circumstances very similar to those in New York were upheld. In State of Colorado v. Cash Advance and Preferred Cash Loans, fully recognized as “arms” of Congressionally acknowledged tribes, dragged on for seven years with a final ruling that proved to be an overwhelming affirmation of tribal sovereign immunity.

Despite the Colorado case, former federal prosecutor and New York’s new banking czar, Lawsky, issued a written order August 6 against internet lenders – including at least 16 tribal entities – demanding that they stop making loans to New York state residents. His letter went out to 35 lenders and 112 banks that help process the loans.

Some tribal officials worry that the Department of Justice actions may have inspired New York’s attack on tribal lenders. Despite his experience as a former federal prosecutor, Lawsky’s reference to “illegal payday loans” shows a complete disregard for the centuries-old federal doctrine of tribal sovereignty, in which states have consistently been prohibited from meddling in the business affairs of Congressionally recognized tribes.

CNN reported Thursday that New York has made several attempts in recent years to interfere with tribal commerce. It attempted to atop the sale of tobacco by the tribes by arranging agreements with credit card companies to stop processing tobacco sales. That attempt ultimately failed when the U.S. Postal Service adopted rules allowing it to facilitate the transactions.

Lawsky’s cease and desist order against online lenders has already prompted the layoffs of 300 workers in Tennessee who worked for online lenders. NAFSA’s Brandon said several other online lenders may close because of Lawsky’s order to banks to stop acting as clearing houses for such loans.

In a telephone press conference Thursday, Brandon said, “We wrote a letter to Lawsky with our concern about his actions, requesting a meeting. We received no response from him.”

Brandon said for some tribes online lending businesses fund as much as a quarter of the government’s operational budgets, money they can ill-afford to lose for schools, health care and housing in economically depressed Indian communities.

Jane Daugherty, former associate professor of journalism at Florida International University, is a doctoral candidate at the University of Miami School of Communication. An investigative reporter and editor for 25 years, she is a four-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for coverage of the disadvantaged and was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in commentary in 1994. Her great-great-grandmother was a member of the Creek nation who fled Indian removal.

Can’t Bead the Real Thing: Fakes, Frauds and What You Can Do About It

source: DHGate.comAnyone can buy seed beads like these -- but not just anyone can be a Native craftsperson. — source: DHGate.com
Anyone can buy seed beads like these — but not just anyone can be a Native craftsperson.

AJ Earl, ICTMN

Whether you’re Assiniboine, Nʉmʉnʉ, Skokomish or otherwise, you’ve probably got some beadwork somewhere. It might be a gift for your family, for friends or maybe a co-worker who’s done an exceptional thing for you. It’s important and it’s a heartfelt thing, but where did it come from? Is it handmade or is it fake? If it’s fake, could you tell?

Although we sometimes take for granted our talented craftspeople, it’s important to know that there are threats to their very livelihoods. Much of the problem stems from fakes. The market for various Native arts has been flooded for years with fakes and knock-offs, and bead-work is no different. For the last few decades the craftspeople who make a living off of bead-work have had to contend with competition from non-natives and from overseas. Spotting these fakes and knowing why it’s important to call them out is only part of the solution. Knowing what to do and then acting is key.

Even if you buy from a pow wow, it’s not always guaranteed that the bead-work you get will be authentic. No matter how observant you are, if you roll it over in your hands, look it up and down, it’s sometimes hard to tell what exactly you’re buying. Many fakes simply look convincing. AAA Native Arts, a website devoted to selling native arts, says that bead-work is often imported from China and Taiwan. Still other problems exist with non-Natives selling imitations or art “inspired by” Native crafts, often times unlabeled as such. This can be a problem for the broader Native community.

A quick search online for “imitation native american bead-work” brings up 14,300,000 results on Google.com, and similar numbers on other search engines. Searching for “imitation native american headdress” gets 10.3 million results. A look for “native american costume” nets almost 4.4 million results. Almost none of the pieces look quite as good as something you’d get from a cousin or from one of our skilled elders, it’s missing something vital.

One of the most important aspects of Native bead-work, one thing that fakes lack, is its deep cultural value. Many of us can identify a friend or family member who beads. One such person is Cynthia Parrott from Washington State. A junior at the Tacoma campus of the University of Washington, Cynthia has been working with beads for years. She started working with beads in 5th grade after watching her mother for years, saying “ it was either this or weaving.” It’s a family matter as much as it is a personal one.

Parrott also brings up a second important aspect of bead-working: sustaining their families and themselves. “In college we all need extra money, so my bead-work is the way I make extra money,” says Parrott, “it’s my own little business”. For this reason she’s keenly aware of the fakes and fraudulent Native crafts that flood the market from time to time. “My craft is mass-produced in Guam and is brought here,” Parrott adds, “I think it is so disrespectful and there is no way we can compete with these prices.”

In order to help stem this tide the United States Congress passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. This act sets out to create standards for labeling and representation. It sets clear limits on who can call their art Native, how they can label it when they sell it, and who exactly is able to benefit from this protection. The reason was wholly cultural: bead-working and many other crafts can be traced back centuries, well before Columbus landed here. Beads, for example, originally started as bits of stone, shell, clay, bird bones or the leg bones of small animals. Pre-Columbian archeological sites often contain beads of all sorts. Protecting this art is vital to ensure the continuation of the multitude of Native cultures.

Of course, this act did not create a series of agents trolling pow wows and craft fairs in Brooklyn for fake Native crafts, so what do you do if you suspect what you’ve bought or what a dealer is selling is a fake? You get in contact with somebody! In order for it to be successful, it requires an attentive population calling out items they suspect of being fake or artists selling Native art that they think may not be Native. To that end, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 needs you to be effective! The law allowed for the creation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. This board is tasked with oversight of enforcement and reporting and is the place you bring complaints and reports of violations. It also has brief reports, examples of violations and info brochures for you to download at its website: iacb.doi.gov.

To protect our culture we need to be aware of what we’re looking for and what to do if we find it. The problem is clear and the solution is there. Now let’s do something about it!

On voters’ plates: genetically engineered crops

JUAN MABROMATA / AFP/Getty Images, 2012Transgenic soy plants are seen in an Argentina farm field. — JUAN MABROMATA / AFP/Getty Images, 2012
Transgenic soy plants are seen in an Argentina farm field.

Washington voters will decide whether to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients, a debate that’s roiling the food industry nationally.

By Melissa Allison, Seattle Times

Get ready for a food fight.

When Washington voters decide Initiative 522 this fall, they will do more than determine whether to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients.

They also will take sides in a national battle that has raged for two decades about the benefits and safety of manipulating the DNA of food — something many people view suspiciously but do not really understand.

“There’s a lot of uneasiness among consumers on the topic,” said Amy Sousa, managing consultant at the consumer research firm Hartman Group in Bellevue. “They don’t like the sound of it but have a difficult time articulating exactly why.”

GMO stands for genetically modified organism. Technically, any plant or animal that has been bred for particular characteristics is genetically modified. The difference with so-called GMOs is that their DNA is directly manipulated by inserting or modifying particular genes. Some call such targeted work “genetic engineering.”

The first genetically engineered food to appear on grocery shelves was a tomato that failed because consumers didn’t buy it. By contrast, the handful of genetically engineered crops that have been widely adopted by American agriculture — corn, sugar beets, soybeans, canola — are designed to appeal to growers by withstanding certain herbicides or creating their own internal pesticides.

Many of these genetically engineered seeds are owned by chemical companies such as Monsanto and Bayer — which has fueled some people’s mistrust.

GMO advocates, however, also include powerful non-business players, such as the Gates Foundation, that say the technology can be used to enhance nutrition and other qualities desired by consumers.

To Neal Carter, founder of a British Columbia company seeking regulatory approval for genetically engineered apples that don’t brown, GMOs conceived to appeal to consumers constitute a “second wave.”

“We’re going to see the next generation of biotechnology,” he said.

What he calls his “arctic” apples are a start. Carter grows them at test sites in Washington and New York states but will not disclose specific locations for fear anti-GMO activists could disrupt the work.

“It’s a huge investment, and we can’t afford to let folks know where we’re doing this because of that kind of risk,” he said. He wants to avoid the type of GMO crop sabotage that appears to have happened this summer in Oregon, where 6,500 genetically engineered sugar beets were uprooted.

Monsanto has said it also suspects sabotage in the discovery of genetically engineered wheat in Oregon during the spring, which prompted Japan to stop buying a popular Northwest wheat for two months. GMO wheat is not approved for commercial use, and it was found miles from where the company tested genetically engineered wheat almost a decade ago.

But the real war over GMOs is happening in the political arena.

Airing the arguments

The most recent skirmish took place last year in California, where the biotech industry and others spent $44 million to fight a labeling measure similar to I-522. Labeling supporters spent about $10 million.

The measure lost, but the idea of labeling GMOs appears to be gaining traction.

Maine and Connecticut recently passed labeling laws, although they are contingent upon other states participating. The grocery chain Trader Joe’s said in December that its private-label products contain no GMOs, and Whole Foods said earlier this year that within five years it will require suppliers to label products with genetically engineered ingredients.

The Hartman Group advises clients, which regularly include major food companies such as Kraft Foods, General Mills, ConAgra Foods and Kellogg’s, to discuss the matter openly.

“Trying to suppress labeling and skirt around the issue is not a sustainable approach, especially as more and more food retailers get on board with crafting their own position,” Sousa said.

People who oppose GMOs want labeling because they say genetically engineered crops have not been studied or regulated enough to know whether they are harmful.

They also argue it would be hard to return to non-engineered crops if damage is discovered later. And they point to dozens of other countries, including Japan and those of the European Union, that ban or label genetically engineered food.

“We already have the right to know as Americans what the sugar and fat content is, whether flavors are artificial or natural, whether fish is wild or farmed, what country our fruit comes from — and we have a right to know whether our food is genetically engineered,” said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for PCC Natural Markets, which helped write I-522 and led signature-gathering for the measure. It garnered about 100,000 more signatures than were required.

Other authors were Washington wheat farmer Tom Stahl and lawyers from the nonprofit Center for Food Safety and a Washington, D.C., law firm that helped write the California measure.

GMO proponents say the changes made to food using genetic-engineering techniques are not that different from changes that occur when plants and animals are bred conventionally.

They also point out that every independent science group to look into the issue, including the National Academy of Sciences, has found no evidence of ill health effects. And, they add, millions of people have eaten genetically engineered food for 20 years.

“It’s fine for people from rich, well-fed nations with productive farms to decline the use of GMOs. But they should not be allowed to impose their preferences on Africa,” Bill Gates said in a 2011 speech.

Processed-food manufacturers oppose labeling because labels could hurt sales, said Dave Zepponi, president of the Northwest Food Processors Association.

Removing all genetically engineered ingredients to avoid labeling would create enormous expenses, both in tracking down GMO-free ingredients and in segregating GMO and GMO-free ingredients, he said.

“Most of our companies are or attempt to be GMO free, but the risk of having a small amount of genetically engineered material in the product is too great. They would have to put a label on it, which is probably going to hurt their sales,” Zepponi said.

Although most food in the produce section is not genetically engineered, several major U.S. crops are — along with many processed foods.

More than 90 percent of soybeans, field corn and canola grown in the United States is genetically engineered. So is more than 80 percent of the sugar beets.

Those crops are turned into dozens of ingredients — cornstarch, soy lecithin, non-cane sugar — that are in processed foods.

But that is not how the GMO industry began.

The first genetically engineered food, which appeared in supermarkets in the early ’90s, was the Flavr Savr tomato. It was designed to last longer than regular tomatoes, but it flopped in the market.

“The tomato variety they worked with wasn’t that well suited for fresh use; it was more of a processing variety,” said Carter, the orchardist developing the non-browning apple. “It was remarkably ignorant or naive, and it goes to show how technology by itself isn’t the be all, end all.”

The market has not seen more products like the Flavr Savr, with traits that appeal directly to consumers, in part because it costs so much to develop GMOs.

“It’s very hard to get a payoff,” said Daniel Charles, author of the 2001 book “Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and The Future of Food.”

“If you come up with, say, a soybean with maybe healthier oil content, how are you going to make money on that? You have to first convince the consumer they want to pay more for that.”

Making a better apple

While the focus has been on growers, other GMOs are in the pipeline that have functions unrelated to herbicides and pesticides.

One is a genetically engineered salmon that grows to maturity more quickly. Another is rice with higher levels of vitamin A, known as “golden rice”; it has been a project of the Gates Foundation and others for years.

Then there are Carter’s non-browning “arctic” apples from British Columbia.

He said apple consumption has been in decline for years, and one reason restaurants and industrial kitchens don’t want to use them is that they brown.

So Carter, a former agricultural engineer, set up a research facility to create apples that do not brown. His company of seven employees is awaiting regulatory approval in Canada and the U.S. for arctic apples.

Like the Flavr Savr tomato, his genetically engineered apple turns off a gene rather than inserting one. But unlike the Flavr Savr, Carter said, his apples are derived from popular varieties — Granny Smith and Golden Delicious, to start.

Carter plans to label them as arctic apples, not specifically GMO. But information about their GMO origin will be available on the company’s website and elsewhere.

“We’re pretty confident by the time it hits stores, people will know exactly what it is,” he said.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com. Twitter @AllisonSeattle.

Seattle Times science reporter Sandi Doughton contributed to this report.