Tulalip Tribes’ Construction Training Program graduates and instructors. Photo/Mara Hill
by Mara Hill, Tulalip News
As summer approaches, students everywhere are graduating from school, or moving up a grade. On June 15, thirteen students from the Tulalip Tribes’ Construction Training Program graduated a 10-week course. A graduation ceremony was held at the Hibulb Cultural Center to mark the event. The Tulalip Tribal Employment Rights Office partnered with Edmonds Community College to offer a trades program to students, providing curriculum that teaches a variety of construction trades and skills. This program gives students better opportunities for full-time employment and skills that will last a lifetime. Upon completion of the course students are certified in the basics of construction trade, awarded a flagging certification, First Aid/CPR, and an OSHA 10 Hour Safety Card.
Under the supervision of instructors Mark Newland and William “Billy” Burchett students constructed two tiny houses for their final class project. These houses are approximately 120-square-feet and offer stability and a safer environment for residents of Nickelsville, a homeless encampment located in Seattle where the houses are being donated.
The insulated houses will offer electricity and heat, along with a Native American touch. Tribal members James Madison and Ty Juvinel designed the doors of the houses.
John Hord, an Ojibwe tribal member and Nickelsville resident, spoke at the graduation about the impact these homes will have on people now and in the future and wants, “all to understand that it’s not a short-term gift. The lifespan will be touching lives 15-20 years from now.”
John Hord, Ojibwe tribal member and Nickelsville resident. Photo/Mara Hill
Hord was pursuing his bachelor’s degree in psychology, human services and urban environmental issues and working in construction before being displaced from his home a few months ago. Hord plans on returning to school and combining his education and construction skills to mentor other Native Americans on his reservation, White Earth, in Minnesota.
The TVTC graduates received a diploma and ceremonial hammer. Congratulations to Matt Charles, Stuart Charette, Arron Charley, William Duran, Philip Falcon, Corey Fryberg, Jess Fryberg, John Primeau, Abrahn Ramos, Maurice Riley, Cole Stanger, Darwin Weaselhead and Sky Weaselhead.
Two dozen years after her death, Harriette Shelton Dover continues to be a guide and an inspiration far beyond the Tulalip reservation.
What it must have been like to sit and have a chat with her … to be fortunate enough to hear her share the stories that elders had shared with her about the times before the treaties … to learn about what she had witnessed on the road from the assimilation era to the Tulalip Tribes’ economic and political resurgence.
Dover, who walked on in 1991 at age 86, continues to pass on the teachings of her elders and bear her own witness in an inspiring, no-holds-barred oral history, Tulalip From My Heart: An Autobiographical Account of a Reservation Community (University of Washington Press, 2013). This 308-page book is the product of a series of tape-recorded interviews between Dover and anthropologist Darleen A. Fitzpatrick, conducted once a week from 1981–83. Fitzpatrick is also the author of We Are Cowlitz: Traditional and Emergent Ethnicity, University Press of America, 2004.
Dover had a unique position from which to witness the struggles and survival of her people after the signing of the Treaty of Point Elliott of 1855. She was born in 1904, 49 years after the signing of the treaty; her granduncle, Steh-shail, was a treaty signer, and her paternal grandfather was present at the signing. Her father, William Shelton (1868–1938), was a hereditary chief of the Snohomish and spent much of his life trying to bridge the divide between Coast Salish people and whites. Her mother, Ruth Sehome, was the daughter of Sehome, a leader of the S’Klallam people.
Dover grew up listening to elders’ firsthand accounts of the hardships her people experienced after moving from their villages to the reservation on Tulalip Bay: inadequate food and water, harsh economic conditions, religious persecution, and the outlawing of potlatches and traditional ceremonies. She experienced the hardships and prejudices of the assimilation era and spent 10 months of every year for 10 years in an Indian boarding school, where children were treated harshly and loving kindness was rare.
But Dover was unyielding in retaining her Coast Salish identity—she was Hiahl-tsa, the daughter of Wha-cah-dub and Siastenu. She was unyielding in her sense of justice. She knew her people’s history, she knew what the treaty said, and she knew her people never gave up their right to continue their traditional lifeways, their right to govern themselves, their right to coexist.
“We have been here for a long, long time,” she says near the book’s close. “We have always been here.”
She also believed, as did her father, that people from different cultures could learn to understand each other and look beyond their differences. Dover, who had witnessed troubled marriages between Native women and non-Indian men, was married first to a S’Klallam/Tsimshian man, then later to a white man.
In her book, Dover tells of treaty time, settling on the reservation, finding work in the early days, the first memories of white people, the elders’ teachings, the boarding school experience, treaty rights, public school (she graduated from Everett High School in 1926), political and social conditions, and her people’s legacy.
She was there when her father built the first traditional longhouse of the new era in 1913, and was present at the first Treaty Day commemoration in January 1914. In 1927 she assisted her father in the case brought before the U.S. Court of Claims, seeking proper payment for lands ceded in the treaty.
She was elected to the Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors in 1939 and later served as chairwoman; she also served as postmaster of the U.S. Post Office at Tulalip. She was, like her father, a bridge between the Native and non-Native communities—she was a member of the Everett Business and Professional Women’s Club and Everett Church Women United, wrote as a periodic contributor to the Seattle Post-Intelligencerand served on the Marysville School Board.
Dover shared information about cultural items and her people’s history with anthropologists, and worked with academic linguists to help preserve her people’s language. In the 1970s, she helped revive the ancient First Salmon Ceremony, honoring the year’s first salmon that is caught. She testified in the 1974 federal court case of United States vs. Washington, which affirmed her people’s treaty right to harvest salmon “at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations.” She earned a degree at Everett Community College while in her 70s.
In her book, Dover still teaches about standing up for what is right, about living a life of honor, love, resilience and respect.
“For many people she is still a personal guide, and the memory of her courage and commitment to the well-being of her people is still a force for good in the community,” one book reviewer wrote of Dover. “There is information here that you will find nowhere else about [Tulalip] in the early years of the 20th century.”
Kenny Dobbs performs his aerial display, wowing everyone in attendance by dunking over several community members. Photos/Micheal Rios
by Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
On Thursday, May 28, the Higher Education Department held a special event for Tulalip’s youth at the Greg Williams Gym. They made it possible for the youth to come together for an evening consisting of every youth’s choice of dinner, pizza and Gatorade, while experiencing the unique talents of super dunker and motivational speaker, Kenny Dobbs. Every youth who attended the event also received their choice of a Kenny Dobbs ‘Fly’ or ‘Dream Catcher’ t-shirt.
Dobbs is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Phoenix resident and professional basketball player, but is most notably recognized as the self-proclaimed ‘King of the Dunk Game’. He has toured the NBA while being sponsored by Sprite as a celebrity dunker, performing in front of sold-out stadiums during halftime shows, celebrity games and NBA All-Star Weekends. Becoming a Sprite Slam Dunk Champion and International Slam Dunk Champion means Dobbs’ dunking talents have become globally recognized. As his reputation has soared sky high, like his vertical leaping ability, Dobbs never forgot where he came from and who he is representing. He now tours across the nation, going reservation to reservation as a motivational speaker for tribal youth to share his story of hope and to perform his dunking abilities while doing so.
Dobbs proves the legend of the 48″ vertical is no tall tale! Photo/Micheal Rios
“I’m so excited to be here and you guys are so lucky to be able to grow up in such a beautiful community,” Dobbs said to the estimated 150 Tulalip youth in attendance. “Today, the main theme is for me to be able to come out and have a good time with you guys. It’s going to get personal as I share who I am and what I’ve come from. By sharing my story I want all of you to know that I’m somebody that you relate to and can learn from. Today, I stand before you all as an International Slam Dunk Champion, but before any of that became reality there was a lot of challenges and difficulties I was facing in my life. Similar to a lot of you I’m sure.”
As an adolescent, Dobbs grew up in a drug and gang related neighborhood in Phoenix and found himself going down the wrong road. After a series of personal conflicts with his parents, run-ins with the law, dropping out of high school, and a lengthy stay in a jail cell, Dobbs realized his life had become a nightmare and the only way out was to make wholesale changes to his lifestyle. After being set free from his self-made incarceration, Dobbs began to set himself free from everything else that had been holding him back in life. He started with his friends; anyone who had drug or gang affiliations he cut ties with, anyone who brought more negative energy than positive energy was also cut loose.
As mentioned earlier, Dobbs dropped out of high school. He was 15 years-old at the time and got into a physical fist fight with his dad and was kicked out of his house. Soon after followed his stint in jail. At 17 years-old he found himself with no real high school education, no place to call his home, and no future prospect other than what he believed he could do. To hold himself accountable and to ensure he was staying on the right road for future success, Dobbs created what he calls his ‘Dream Journal’.
Myrna Red Leaf and Aliyah Jones show off their free Kenny Dobbs t-shirts they received for attending the event. Photo/Micheal Rios
“I began writing down all my goals and dreams on paper. In that notebook I began to explain how I wanted to become a professional athlete and positive role model for my family, my home, and my community,” explained Dobbs. “I wrote down all my goals, big or small, and from that point on I continued to learn from that process. It was taking the goals and the dreams from my mind and my heart and actually putting them down on paper. They became something that I not only thought about, but that I saw as well. I began to write the steps it was going to take for me to accomplish those goals and dreams, so as I took them out of my mind and onto paper now I could read them and see them. They became reality to me and to this day I still keep myself a dream journal and all that went into there was, what are my goals, what are my dreams, and then I’d break it down step by step so I knew what I’d have to do to accomplish my goals and reach my dreams. The very first goal I ever set in my life was getting my high school diploma.”
At the time Dobbs had no clue how much work and dedication it would take him to achieve the goal of receiving his high school diploma, but he was determined and that’s all that mattered. It would take two hard years, no winter breaks, no summer breaks, all day and evening school sessions for Dobbs to accumulate enough credits to reach his goal. He remained focused and grinded every day at his studies until he received his diploma.
“To this day that was the very first goal I set, stuck with, and accomplished in my life. Now when I went to school that day and they handed me my high school diploma that was a sense of accomplishment I never felt before. I committed two years of non-stop grinding, of blood, sweat and tears that I committed to achieving my goal. Now, there is no possibility of me accomplishing that goal and dream and staying focused on it on a daily basis if I would had still been using drugs and alcohol, if I had been still hanging out and going to parties, chasing the girls, and stayed involved with the friends who were getting me into trouble. There would have been no possibility for me to accomplish my goal and dream of getting my high school diploma.”
Realizing what was possible if he remained focused and dedicated to his goals and dreams opened up a whole new world of possibility to Dobbs. Soon after receiving his diploma he attended a junior college where he walked-on as a player for the basketball team. By chance he would receive an invitation for a celebrity Slam Dunk Contest and after wowing the crowd with never before seen dunks, he would be crowned Slam Dunk Champion for the first of many times yet to come. He would go on to travel the world showcasing his talents, from south Florida to South America, from Rome to Romania as a celebrity dunker for both the NBA and Sprite.
After founding his own organization ‘UpRise Youth Movement’ with the mission of empowering youth of all ages with a challenging, yet empowering message of hope, Dobbs now travels across the country to educate youth on Native lands. For three years he served as the chairman on the Arizona State Youth Advisory Council for Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention. He also had the privilege of serving as an ambassador for Nike’s N7 division. He knows that if you want to grab a youth’s attention, dunking is a good way to do it.
“I accomplished my goal of being one of the top dunkers in the world,” Dobbs says. “But most important to me is the UpRise Youth Movement. The dunk shows get the youth inspired and open to listening to what I have to say, then I’m able to deliver a powerful message of hope that will encourage them to rise up and become leaders in their home, school and community. I believe this is the reason I’m here, and I thank God I am now living out His purpose for my life. This is what makes my job the best in the world!
“Each one of us has a purpose, a plan and a destiny for our life, but some of us may never reach that potential if you don’t believe in yourself right now. Write your dreams and goals down and what you think are the steps to achieving them. Separate yourself the negative influences that you’re facing and begin to take that step of getting off the bench and getting into the game that is your purpose in life.”
Tulalip youth pose with their free t-shirts and comic books they received at the event. Photo/Micheal Rios
Students in the video production class get hands-on experience working with cameras and conducting interviews. Photo/Brian Berry
by Mara Hill, Tulalip News
Students at Tulalip Heritage High School were given the opportunity to experience different types of art in a program called Artists in Residency (AIR). Eight artists from the area came to the school to instruct students in a fourteen-week course, giving each student an option to learn, create, and perform two different types of art. The art classes offered were cedar weaving, carving, yoga, pow wow 101, Native American flute making/playing and video production. The teachings from each instructor allowed students a hands-on and individualized experience.
Shelly Lacy, the principal at Heritage, explained that the students not only learn the craft that the artist is sharing, but they learn traditional teachings as well.
Heritage students with the paddles they made during carving class. Photo/Mara Hill
The video production class, instructed by Brian Berry and Rick Valentine, video producers from the Tulalip Tribes Communications Department, introduced students to the basics of video production and film making and then progressed into some of the more technical aspects. Students learned about framing, lighting, b-roll, audio, and editing. They were also taught how to interview people and operate a high definition video camera.
Nina Fryberg, a senior at Heritage, talked about why she chose video production. “At first I decided to take yoga and cedar weaving, but I asked to switch into film-making for both periods instead.” Fryberg had experience working on a short-film last year in another program, which helped with her decision to participate in video production this year. She also earned a position as a student producer, which allowed her to give other students instructions and tell them which crew positions they were assigned to.
Berry explains that students weren’t selected as producers, but that they more or less “earn the position by showing a significant level of initiative and attention.” Student producers also run the productions and make editing decisions.
“It takes a lot of effort to put into film-making. You have to plan everything out and make sure everything is okay and ready to go before you start filming” said Fryberg.
In the final weeks, students in each class finished their projects and prepared to perform for the other students, instructors and faculty members. The video production class created a short film, “Heritage High School – A Small Learning Community” which previewed on May 15th, about what makes Tulalip Heritage High School unique and why students chose Heritage over other schools in the district. The video was a product of what the students learned over the course of 14 weeks.
“The student body, faculty and fellow AIR artists screened the video and it received a round of applause and cheers” said Berry.
Students from the Pow Wow 101 class perform for students and faculty. photo/Mara Hill
The six additional artists who shared their gifts, teachings, knowledge, and talent with the students were Clarissa Johnny, Kelly Moses, Mytyl Hernandez, Ian LaFontaine, Sheri Thunder Hawk and Paul Wagner.
“Heritage High School – A Small Learning Community”can be watched on demand at tulaliptv.com and found in the Tulalip Culture section of the main menu.
The video will also be included in the May 25th edition of Tulalip Matters, which will air daily for a week, beginning May 25, on Tulalip TV channel 99, at 12: a.m., 8:00 a.m., 12:00 p.m., and 5:00 p.m.
Tulalip Matters can also be viewed anytime, on demand, at tulaliptv.com.
PINE RIDGE, S.D. — OUTSIDE the Oglala Lakota tribe’s child protection service office, staff members updated a police officer on the latest emergency: An 11-year old girl had texted her cousin that she wanted to kill herself and then had gone missing.
A damp breeze swirled smoke from the caseworkers’ cigarettes, and the sun flitted between mottled clouds, the advance guard of an approaching spring blizzard. The officer jotted down some specifics on the girl and the remote area where she was last seen, then pulled away from the curb. They didn’t want to lose another child.
Since December, nine people between the ages of 12 and 24 have committed suicide on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation — home to Crazy Horse’s Oglala band of the Lakota — in southwestern South Dakota.
They come to Pine Ridge every few years, these suicide epidemics, with varying degrees of national media attention and local soul-searching. What the news media often misses though, and what tribal members understand but rarely discuss above a whisper, is that youth suicides here are inextricably linked to a multigenerational scourge of sexual abuse, with investigations into possible abuse now open in at least two of the nine recent suicides.
I’m a wasicu (Lakota for “white person”) from Massachusetts, but I’ve spent about half of the past decade living on the rez, working mostly as a teacher and archery coach. Within two weeks of starting my first job teaching high school English here, a veteran teacher told me something he thought was critical to understanding life on Pine Ridge: By the time they reach high school, most of the girls (and many boys, too) have been molested or raped.
His anecdotal observation seems to track with the available statistics. According to the United States Department of Justice, Native Americans are 2.5 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than other Americans, and the numbers on Pine Ridge, one of the largest, poorest reservations in the country, appear to be even greater. “We started two clinics for reproductive health in the largest high schools on the reservation,” said Terry Friend, a midwife who works at the year-and-a-half-old Four Directions Clinic, which specializes in sexual assault and domestic abuse. “When I take a sexual history of a patient, I ask, ‘Have you had sex against your will?’ At the high schools, girls answered yes more than no.”
Numbers are harder to come by for boys, but local medical professionals estimate that they are also high, and that such rates of abuse can translate to high rates of suicide. One recent study found that nationally, teenage boys who were sexually assaulted were about 10 times more likely to attempt suicide, girls more than three times more likely.
At some point, most local child sexual assault cases cross the tribal prosecutor’s desk. “Unfortunately, many of those same kids have suicidal ideations and attempts,” said the tribe’s attorney general, Tatewin Means. “I definitely think there’s a strong connection between sexual assault and suicide here on the reservation.”
THE BOY LOVED the sweat lodge. He was a troubled student but took solace in the traditional Lakota form of prayer, with steam hissing off big glowing rocks in the center of a small lodge made of bent saplings and canvas tarps. School and tribal officials said the boy showed up to school one day last spring when he was supposed to be on suspension, climbed a pine tree in the schoolyard and hanged himself from a thick branch. Teachers and students saw him, and he was quickly cut down. Struggling to breathe, he sprinted for the school’s sweat lodge, where he took refuge until the police and a relative calmed him down.
It wasn’t the first time he had attempted suicide in or around school grounds, administrators said. He’d been depressed, and behaving erratically, with signs that he was using drugs and “huffing” gasoline. There had also been signs of sexual abuse, involving not only him but also a younger brother and male cousins he lived with. Every time one of the boys showed new signs of abuse or talked about suicide, school officials said, they called the tribe’s child protection unit, and every time they were told the same thing: “It’s still under investigation.”
The child was not removed from the home. Then in December, two weeks after his 14th birthday, the boy hanged himself at home and became the first in the recent string of nine suicides.
His case was lost, it seems, in the web of tribal bureaucracies and federal oversight bodies that are long on backlogged cases and short on funding. The tribal child protection unit, for instance, currently has two investigators for the entire reservation, which the federal census puts at more than 18,000 total residents (though tribal officials say is closer to 40,000). The two investigators are responsible for handling upward of 40 new cases a month, and hundreds more in the long-term case management system.
About a month after the boy died, a 14-year old cheerleader killed herself. Soon after, rumors of an all-too-familiar detail started to spread: Before her death, the girl told friends that her stepfather, a longtime teacher and coach at her school, was sexually abusing her. What followed broke the usual mold, though: Her friends came forward to tell school officials. Charles Roessel, a member of the Navajo Nation and director of the federal Bureau of Indian Education, which oversees the school, said administrators acted quickly to suspend the accused teacher and refer the case to federal investigators. No charges have been brought.
Shortly after his suspension from the federal school, the cheerleader’s stepfather was brought on, according to school officials, as an unpaid intern by the reservation’s Shannon County school system, which is overseen by the state. His job was to shadow one of the system’s principals so that he could learn to be a school administrator. The stepfather did not respond to requests for comment.
TRIBAL LEADERS and experts are struggling to understand the recent suicide epidemic (specifics on many of the cases aren’t widely known), but there’s general agreement on one underlying cause: the legacy of federally funded boarding schools that forcibly removed generations of Native American children from their homes. Former students and scholars of the institutions say that the isolation and lack of oversight at the mostly church-run schools allowed physical and sexual abuse to run rampant.
“My grandmother used to tell me that she didn’t think she was pretty,” said an E.M.T. friend of mine who responds to a suicide attempt every week or so, “because when the priests used to sneak into her dorm and take a little girl for the night, they never picked her.”
Left untreated, such sexual abuse can lead to elevated rates of drug and alcohol abuse and suicide, said Dr. Steven Berkowitz, director of a center on youth trauma at the University of Pennsylvania.
One sad irony of the recent suicides is that they come in the middle of new initiatives to address sexual assault. The Four Directions Clinic is treating young abuse victims who were previously sent to distant hospitals off the reservation. Tribal and federal law enforcement officials now confer regularly to better coordinate investigations. High school students recently petitioned the Pine Ridge school board to create health classes for vulnerable middle school students, and the board unanimously voted to find necessary funding.
Still, the challenges are enormous. Six days after the 11-year-old girl went missing, protection services still hadn’t located her, though a caseworker says the hope is that the girl and her mother have gone to a domestic violence shelter somewhere — the reservation doesn’t have its own.
Shortly before the 14-year-old boy committed suicide, a school administrator tried to counsel him. Lakota tradition, she told him, teaches that a spirit set free by suicide is doomed to wander the earth in lonely darkness. “You don’t want that, do you?” she asked. He looked her in the eye, a minor taboo for Lakota children to do with their elders, and said, “Anything’s better than here.”
Funds will enable tribes to plan for directly operating BIE-funded schools on their lands and improving student educational outcomes
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced that grants ranging from $25,000 to $150,000 per fiscal year are available for federally recognized tribes and their education departments. The grants are designed to help tribes assume control of Bureau of Indian Education (BIE)-funded schools in their communities, promote tribal education capacity, and provide academically rigorous and culturally appropriate education to Indian students on their reservations and trust lands.
Eligible tribal governments may apply for these grants by responding to the Request for Proposals that the BIE published on May 15, 2015, in the Federal Register.
“This grant program reflects President Obama’s commitment to tribal self-governance and self-determination, and will support tribal educators who best understand the unique needs of their communities as they strengthen their capacity to assume full control of BIE-funded schools on their reservations,”said Secretary Jewell, who chairs the White House Council on Native American Affairs. “It is a critical step in redesigning the BIE from a direct provider of education into an innovative organization that will serve as a capacity-builder and service-provider to tribes with BIE-funded schools.”
“With this announcement, we are taking the next major step in our efforts to return the education of Indian children to their tribes,” Assistant Secretary Washburn said. “We understand that tribal leaders, educators and parents have the greatest need to ensure that their children receive a world-class education, and with this effort, we will see to it that tribes can assume total control over the BIE-funded schools in their communities to improve the educational outcomes for their students. We’re grateful Congress understands the importance of this process and appropriated funding to support this effort.”
“This grant solicitation carries out recommendations of Secretary Jewell and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s Blueprint for Reform to transform the Bureau of Indian Education from a school administrator into a capacity builder and service provider to support tribes in educating their children and youth,” said BIE Director Dr. Charles M. “Monty” Roessel. “These grants will help tribes and their tribal departments of education to assume control of the BIE-funded schools serving their communities.”
The Blueprint for Reform, issued in June 2014 following consultation with tribal leaders, is an initiative of the White House Council on Native American Affairs, chaired by Secretary Jewell.
President Obama established the Council as part of his commitment to engage in a true and lasting government-to-government relationship with federally recognized tribes in a more coordinated and effective manner, including promoting and sustaining prosperous and resilient tribal communities.
Jewell then issued a Secretarial Order to begin restructuring BIE from solely a provider of education to a capacity-builder and education service-provider to tribes. The goal of this transformation is to give tribes the ability themselves to provide an academically rigorous and culturally appropriate education to their students, according to their needs.
The Blueprint made several recommendations regarding the BIE’s budget. Interior should invest in the school system’s infrastructure, including new school construction, and align its budget to support tribal self-determination by requesting and increasing tribal grant and Tribal Grant Support Costs for tribally controlled grant schools.
Under the solicitation announced today, grants will range from $25,000 to $150,000 per fiscal year depending on the project, number of educational programs impacted, project design, and expected outcomes. Subject to the availability of appropriated funds, grants will be provided for three years and, depending on performance, may be renewed for additional two-year terms.
Grant funds will support program goals for the following areas that promote tribal education capacity-building:
·To provide for the development and enforcement of tribal educational codes, including tribal educational policies and tribal standards applicable to curriculum, personnel, students, facilities, and support programs;
·To facilitate tribal control in all matters relating to the education of Indian children on reservations and on former reservations in Oklahoma; and
·To provide for the development of coordinated educational programs on reservations and on former reservations in Oklahoma by encouraging tribal administrative support of all BIE-funded educational programs, as well as encouraging tribal cooperation and coordination with entities carrying out all educational programs receiving financial support from other federal agencies, state agencies or private entities.
Top priority will be given to applicants that meet the following conditions:
·Serves three or more BIE-funded schools (less priority will be given if the applicant has less than three schools, but with at least one BIE-funded school).
·Provides coordinating services and technical assistance to all relevant BIE-funded schools.
·Monitors and audits its grant funds by or through its Tribal Education Department (TED)
·And offers a plan and schedule that provides for:
oIts TED to assume all assets and functions of the Bureau agency office associated with the tribe to the extent the assets and functions relate to education;
oThe termination by the BIE of all such functions and office at the times of such assumption; and
oThe assumption to occur over the term of the grant, unless mutually agreeable to the tribal governing body and the Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, the period in which such assumption is to occur may be modified, reduced or extended after the initial year of the grant.
The BIE will assist tribes in the development and operation of TEDs for the purpose of planning and coordinating all educational programs of the tribe. Each proposal must include a project narrative, a budget narrative, a work plan outline, and a project coordinator to serve as the point of contact for the program. The project coordinator is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the TED fulfills the obligations of its grant.
The BIE will provide pre-grant application training at several sites to support tribes and TEDs in applying for grants. Details on location and times will be made available here.
The BIE oversees 183 elementary and secondary schools, located on 64 reservations in 23 states, serving more than 48,000 students. Of these, 59 are BIE-operated and 124 are tribally operated under Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act contracts or Tribally Controlled Schools Act grants. BIE also funds or operates off-reservation boarding schools and peripheral dormitories near reservations for students attending public schools.
Billy Frank Jr. poses for a 2014 photo near Frank’s Landing on the Nisqually River in Nisqually, Wash. Frank, a Nisqually tribal elder who was arrested dozens of times while trying to ‘assert his native fishing rights during the Fish Wars of the 1960s and ’70s. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
The state’s congressional delegation, showing rare bipartisan unity, plans next week to introduce legislation that would rename the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge in honor of Billy Frank Jr., champion of native fishing rights and a Washington civil rights hero.
The bill would create a National Historic Site to mark the 1854 Treaty of Medicine Creek, which took land from natives but did guarantee them the right to take fish “at all usual and accustomed stations . . . in common with the citizens of the territory.”
“I loved Billy Frank: He was one of the greatest men I have met in my life,” said U.S. Rep. Denny Heck, D-Wash., the principal author of the legislation. “He is our Martin Luther King, our Desmond Tutu, our Nelson Mandela.”
Frank was viewed differently when he launched Indian fishing rights protests on the Nisqually in the 1960′s. He was arrested 50 times, starting at the age of 14, for “illegal” fishing on the Nisqually River, where he was born and lived, and where his ancestors lived.
He died last year, at 83, as a recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, a person of vast credibility who began with a simple message. “He said simply, Treaties are the word of America, and America should keep its word,’ ” ex-Gov. Mike Lowry recalled.
The struggle for fishing rights became a seminal — perhaps THE seminal — episode in the modern history of Native-American rights.
“I have a particular view of how this impacted ‘Indian Country,’ ” said Heck. The issue of treaty rights to fish gave Native Americans a platform on resources. It gave them standing on other issues, and led to the National Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. And that act led to the fastest drop in Indian poverty we have ever seen.”
In this 1960′s photo, Billy Frank Jr., left, fishes on the Nisqually River near Olympia, Wash., with his half brother Don McCloud. Frank, a Nisqually tribal elder, was arrested dozens of times while trying to assert his native fishing rights during the Fish Wars of the 1960s and ’70s,. (AP Photo/Courtesy Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, File)
How so? “Billy was the spear point in treaty rights,” Heck added.
An historic moment in Northwest history came in 1974, when conservative U.S. District Judge George Boldt ruled for the Native Americans, that treaty Indians were entitled to 50 percent of the salmon catch and could fish in “all usual and accustomed grounds and stations.”
When he was 14, Bill Frank had told game wardens who arrested him: “Leave me alone, goddamn it! I live here.”
In later years, Frank would replace confrontation with cooperation in restoring the salmon runs that help define the Pacific Northwest.
“When a bunch of Really Important People get together in a conference room, you can always tell Mr. Frank even from afar,” author Timothy Egan once wrote. Amid the government and corporate executives, all tasseled loafers and silk ties, he’s the one with the long pony tail, the gold salmon medallion and the open necked shirt.
“And he’s the one with the scars — nicks, cuts and slash marks — from a lifetime of being harassed by people who don’t like Indians, and from an all-season outdoor life.”
The Nisqually Wildlife Refuge is a suitable honor. Frank lived to see levies and dikes come down at the mouth of the Nisqually River, with estuary habitat restored where salmon can grow up, and where visitors can witness a multiplicity of shore birds.
“The absence of natural estuaries like this is part of the reason why the region is still going backwards rather than forwards on Puget Sound salmon,” Heck noted.
Heck has done his homework on the bill. He has lined up as a cosponsor influential Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, a member of the Chickasaw Nation. He has also signed up Alaska’s crusty Republican Rep. Don Young.
Canada geese in the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge, a sanctuary for birds and a place where young salmon can grow up.
A cosponsor from this state, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, is a usually hyper partisan member of the House Republican leadership. “Her signing on says to the leadership, ‘This is O.K.’,” said Heck.
He has also secured backing from the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission — long headed by Billy Frank — and the National Congress of American Indians. Brian Cladoosby, chairman of the Swinomish Tribe, is currently president of the congress.
The legislation, officially “The Billy Frank, Jr., Tell Your Story Act” creates an opportunity for the Nisqually, Muckleshoot, Puyallup and Squaxin Island tribes to tell their stories. The U.S. Interior Secretary will coordinate with then creating materials for the Medicine Treaty National Historic Site.
Bill Frank made his last appearance just over a year ago, at a meeting in Suquamish with U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.
Just over a week later, he died. “When Billy spoke, you listened: We saw that firsthand just last week when he commanded a room that included tribal leaders, fisheries officials and the secretary of the interior,” U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., recalled of the meeting.
Not bad for a guy with a ninth-grade education.”Today, because of the Boldt Decision, the state and tribes are partners in the management and preservation of resources that are foundational in the economy of the state,” Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said in eulogizing Frank.
Just as Frank spoke of cooperation and conservation, the wildlife refuge at the mouth of the Nisqually speaks of Billy Frank Jr.
Meet Jennifer Tracy, an up-and-coming artist from Tulalip, trying to break into the mainstream and leave that whole working nine to five thing behind her.
During a leave from work due to health reasons, Tracy decided to reconnect with her culture through painting, and her new career was launched.
A self-taught artist, Tracy’s Native background and good business sense help to keep her small business growing while she formulates her unique, artistic style.
Jennifer’s mother is Sandy Tracy, and her grandparents are the late B. Adam and Marge Williams, all Tulalip Tribal members.
Photo/Jennifer Tracy
Tell us about your introduction into the world of art?
I have always had an interest in learning about the world we live in. I found, for me, seeing the world not only by my personal experience, but also by learning about people through their culture helped me to see the beauty in all things. One of the best things about growing up in Tulalip, I was able to live in a unique cultural area. I was able to attend pow wows, salmon ceremonies, and I got to dance in the Johnny Moses Dance Club to name a few things. As a child I would listen to stories passed down by our elders, which taught me a bit about the life of our ancestors, our connection to spirit and nature.
What is the primary medium in your art?
I primarily paint with acrylics, but I am incorporating other mediums as well, such as oil paint, watercolor, and spray-paint. I paint on canvases, wood rounds, paddles, drums, ornaments and cloth. I basically am open to trying new things as often as opportunity allows. I also taught myself to bead, which is a lot of fun.
Photo/Jennifer Tracy
What is your creative process like?
I do a lot of “research” throughout the year. I visit every museum, gallery and art show that I can find. I get inspired by different types of art, seeing what is being done in other genres. I get a lot of input from people as well, as far as what it is they like, what they would like to see, things they think would make great pictures. As I begin, I have an animal or two to concentrate on, I picture in my head what I would like it to look like, and then I do some sketches. When it feels complete I begin the process of picking a color scheme and then paint.
Photo/Jennifer Tracy
Creative blocks can be an artist’s nightmare. Have you had them and how do you get the creative juices flowing again?
Oh yes I do get creative blocks from time to time. There have been times when I cannot think of a thing, or a design just doesn’t feel like it will ever be done, when this happens I get out in nature, clear my head, or get some exercise. Remind myself that it can be finished; it will look right when I am done. I really try not to let my own thinking get in my way.
What prompted you to leave your career and strike out as an independent artist?
After high school I had the opportunity to work for the casino, which was basically where I stayed for the next 18 years. During this time I slowly felt more and more disconnected from my culture. With working the weekends, odd hours, and overtime I had very little time or energy for other things. In 2008 I had a surgery, which I had to take a couple weeks off work for. During this time I decided to reconnect in my own way to my culture. I focused on painting native design, and it was not easy at first. I have never taken an art class so when people ask about techniques and specifics about how I come up with my drawings it is a little difficult to answer. I see a design in my head and go from there. I keep a pencil and a ruler on my work table for sketching my designs. My style tends to be a mix of traditional and modern design.
I began selling my artwork in 2009 to family and friends. Then I began to sell at the Annual Christmas Bazaar and local pow wows where I was able to really get my work out and get feedback from more and more people. I left my job in September 2014 to become a full time artist. Super scary to take the leap of faith that I could really do this. My money went faster than I had hoped but I really felt a calling that this was what I was meant to do. Spiritually this has helped me grow and I get to express a part of my culture to others.
Being a full time artist is not easy work by any means, but in a way this pushes me to work harder. Money is still inconsistent but I have my work in a few gift shops, including the Hibulb museum here at Tulalip, Highway 2 Collectibles and Imports in Sultan, and Moonfrye Metaphysical in California. I still am a vendor at pow wows and bazaars, I started a web page on Shopify and on Photoshelter, and I do special requests for friends when I have the chance. I also offer items for sale on Facebook , on my personal page and on my Art Z Aspects page. I have some designs on display on an online gallery, Touch Talent, which has a large following worldwide. My Orca design was featured as the Editors Pick in January. Right now I am really working on becoming established as an artist. Once established, I would like to work towards owning a gallery.
Photo/Jennifer Tracy
How do you come up with a profitable pricing structure for your art?
For pricing on my prints I got help from an art consultant I had met. She gave me some real good advice about pricing, some info on local events, and wholesale pricing for businesses.
On my canvases, I had to figure in total cost to me and time spent. Then researched other Native artists and their pricing, originals versus series, different syles, ect. I decided I would keep my work on the low side of pricing because I would rather get more of my work out to people as opposed to waiting for a sale once in awhile.
For online sales the hard part is figuring out the cost of shipping.
What’s the coolest art tip you’ve received?
A few years ago at a gallery event I met this artist from China; his work was great. Before I left I got to talk with him and showed him some of my work. He told me if I wanted to be a professional artist, do it. Draw or paint something everyday. It does not matter what you draw or how much, just do some art everyday. If you only draw once in awhile you have to retrain yourself to do what you already knew in the first place.
Tracy’s artwork can also be found in prints and housewares, like coffee mugs. View Tracy’s art at the following websites:
Facebook: Follow Art Z Aspects at www.facebook.com/ArtZAspects and keep updated on new designs and upcoming events.
Cheyenne Brady, a 22-year-old senior at North Dakota State University, was crowned Miss Indian World at the Gathering of Nations powwow on April 25
FARGO — All her life, Cheyenne Brady has watched the annual crowning of Miss Indian World.
“It’s a role I have aspired to being since I was a young girl,” said the North Dakota State University senior. “Granted, I didn’t know the significance then, but when you’re about 7 or 8 and you’re just infatuated with all these girls with the pretty crown, you just want to be them.”
On April 25, that dream came true.
As her family members screamed from the crowd, Brady, 22, was named the winner of the largest and most prestigious pageant for Native American women. She still can hardly believe it.
“Sometimes I want to cry, and then I’m so excited, and then I look at the crown and I’m like, ‘Is this really mine?’ The first few days, I felt like I was in a dream,” she said.
The five-day competition takes place every year at the Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, N.M., one of the largest powwows in North America, and includes five categories: essay, interview, public speaking, dance and traditional talent.
“Our tradition is incorporated into every part of the pageant,” said Brady, who is from New Town on the Fort Berthold reservation of western North Dakota. “A big aspect of the pageant is knowing who you are, knowing your culture, knowing your history, knowing a bit of your language.”
Brady is a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, and also represents the Cheyenne, Pawnee, Otoe, Kiowa Apache, Hidatsa, Arikara and Tonkawa tribes.
For her talent, she told a true story about a young girl who was killed carrying a white flag at the Sand Creek massacre of 1864, when the U.S. Army killed about 200 people in a Cheyenne and Arapaho village.
“It was a piece of culture that I feel like is not talked about enough, and that’s why I wanted to present that story,” Brady said.
Out of the 21 contestants, Brady also won the awards for dance and essay — just like the first time she entered, in 2011.
“In the moment, I was like, ‘Oh gosh, I’ve been here before,’ but luckily I did better in the other three (categories),” she said.
When Brady didn’t win as an 18-year-old, she took a step back to learn more about her culture and who she was. Now, she’s ready to inspire others to do the same.
Over the next year, she’ll travel around to speak at conferences and powwows. She’s already booked to speak at a tribal college commencement.
“My primary goal is to encourage Native Americans to be who they are, learn their culture, be excited about it and be anything they want to be,” she said.
In the fall, Brady will start a graduate program at NDSU in American Indian public health.
“My people face many, many health issues,” she said. “Diabetes is an epidemic among Native Americans. If I can make any difference in that area, I’ll feel amazing.”
The Burke Museum, located on the University of Washington campus in Seattle, is currently showcasing their Native American artwork exhibit Here & Now: Native Artists Inspired. The exhibit is on display through July 27, 2015.
Here & Now showcases how today’s artists learn from past generations. According to Burke curators, the exhibit features 30 new works by contemporary Native artists, paired with historic pieces from the Burke Museum that artists identified as key to their learning.
“One can never be done learning,” explains esteemed Tsimshian artist David R. Boxley of Metlakatla, Alaska. “I want to see every piece I can of the old masters. They are my teachers and this is the only way I can learn from them.”
Photo/Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
Over the past ten years, the Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art at the Burke Museum has awarded grants to over 90 artists and scholars providing access to the Burke Museum’s collections. To gauge the real-world effects that their grants had on recipients, the Burke contacted each of their grantees and invited then to share how their artistic practice was affected by their study at the UW. Many of the grantee artists conveyed messages about how new pieces they had made were inspired by the historical artworks they had come into contact with at the museum. Each artist identified one key piece that influenced them, which are now on display next to each artist’s modern day interpretation of the artwork.
“It’s great to go and study the old pieces, to look at them, and hold them. You feel the energy. You can’t get over the quality, the detail, in the pieces. They’re some of the best teachers you get,” explains Latham Mack, Bill Holm grantee and Nuxalk artist from an Indigenous First Nation in Canada.
Photo/Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
The Burke made the statement: Ours is a working collection, serving artists and scholars who forge connections with these artworks to maintain a continuum of knowledge and creativity that spans the generations.
For more information about the Burke Museum, including daily hours, admission costs, location and directions, please visit www.burkemuseum.org or call Burke Reception at (206) 543-7907.
