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SAN FRANCISCO-The 42nd Annual American Indian Film Festival was held November 4th at the Brava Theater Center in San Francisco. Established in 1975, the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco is the oldest and most prominent media showcase in the world. Michael Smith, Founder/Director of the Film Institute and Festival describes this year's media as "a presentation to foster public truth and understanding of the social, economic, cultural and life ways of contemporary...
LUKACHUKAI, Ariz.-In December, Navajo tribal member Nicco Montaño defeated Roxanne Modafferi to become the first Navajo Ultimate Fighting Championship Flyweight Champion. Montaño, who grew up on a Navajo reservation, had considered going back to school and quitting the mixed martial arts sport earlier last year. But then the UFC opened a 125-pound division and assembled a cast of female flyweights for their TUF reality series. Montaño is one of the least experienced ch...
Tempe, Arizona-When Talia Fuentes fills out the race/ethnicity portion of the United States Census, she checks three boxes: Hispanic, Native American, and Caucasian. But up until 2000, Fuentes, and others like her, would have only been able to check one box. According to the U.S. Census, in the year 2000 about 6.8 million Americans marked two or more races, and by 2010, that number increased by a third, up to roughly 9 million. Fuentes, 32, grew up in Mesa, in a primarily...
MESA, Ariz.-Nominations are now open for the 2018 UNITY 25 Under 25 Native Youth Leadership Awards. The program is designed to celebrate the achievements of Native American and Alaskan Native youth ages 14 to 24 who embody UNITY's core mission and exude living a balanced life developing their spiritual, mental, physical and social well-being. Honorees will be recognized at a ceremony during the National UNITY Conference, July 5–9, 2018 in San Diego, California. In addition t...
Shakopee, Minn.-The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) has broken ground on Hoċokata Ti, a multi-purpose building that will serve as a community gathering space, cultural activity site, and public exhibit chronicling the history of the tribe. The SMSC intends to interpret and encourage traditional Mdewakanton Dakota cultural heritage, language and history through exhibitions, preservation and education at Hoċokata Ti, which means "the lodge at the center of the c...
OTTAWA, Ont.-In November, Inuit from Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Chukotka came together in Ottawa to discuss cultural sustainability, food security and conservation through use. The Summit resulted in a commitment to collaboratively and inclusively promote, sustain and strengthen Inuit cultural rights to food sovereignty. The Summit further called for a unified pan Arctic voice on Inuit rights to the sustainable use of the Arctic's living resources and a move toward...
ADA, Okla.-The Chickasaw Nation has created a mobile application that offers mothers, fathers and other caretakers a new resource in the palm of their hands. The MOMents app, now available to the public at no charge through the Apple App Store and Google Play, provides tips and advice through every step of a child's development. Topics include eating, breastfeeding, sleeping and playtime, among others. Also included in the app are links to helpful resources and information...
PULLMAN, Wash.-Washington State University has received two state grants from the state's Professional Educator Standards Board (PESB) to help indigenous educators become state-certified teachers. The PESB is responsible to oversee the state's teacher preparation, certification and continuing education through traditional methods as well as alternative routes. The first award, for $210,000, is a project called Ti'tooq'an Cuukweneewit AlterNATIVE Route. The project focuses on I...
KANSAS CITY-November marked 120 years that The Indian Leader has been published. This, the world's oldest Native American student newspaper, is published by Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. To celebrate the event, the university held a reception which included a mayoral proclamation, Dr. Venida Chenault, President of Haskell Indian Nations University, discussing the importance of maintaining a Native American presence in journalism, a history of the...
Thunder Bay, Ont.-Ontario is working with Indigenous partners to deliver 14 projects that will help people break the cycle of poverty, increase access to safe and nutritious food, find good jobs and end homelessness, while meeting the unique challenges and needs of First Nation, Métis and Inuit peoples. "We know that Indigenous individuals and families face far greater rates of poverty than their non-Indigenous neighbors," says Peter Milczyn, Minister of Housing and Minister...
WINNIPEG, MB—Manitoba has promised to donate $10 million for the Inuit Art Centre at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG). This contribution will make an incredible social, economic, and cultural return for Manitobans, now and in the future, stated the gallery in a press release on December 19, 2017. All three levels of government—city, province, and federal government—are getting behind the Inuit initiative and “underscoring the value of this major project not only for Manitoba but also Canada as a whole. According to the gallery...
A very unusual art exhibition on display at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, "Insurgence/Resurgence" brings together the unique talents of 29 Indigenous artists whose work ranges from emerging to established, some of whom push the boundaries in their presentations. Curated by Jaimie Isaac and Julie Nagam, the pieces speak to political insurgency and the radical shift in understanding Canada's history and art culture. Working with many different media, these young Indigenous artists...
ADA, Okla.-This fall, the feature film Te Ata, produced by the Chickasaw Nation, was released to theaters and subsequently to DVD in November to coincide with Native American Heritage Month. In 2014, the Chickasaw Nation embarked upon telling the story of Mary Francis Thompson, born in 1895 in Emet, Indian Territory. She acted on Broadway, toured Europe, entertained Britain's King George and Queen Elizabeth and other European dignitaries. She was a favorite of President...
Chicago-The National Trust for Historic Preservation has presented the Trustees Emeritus Award for Excellence in the Stewardship of Historic Sites to the Cherokee Nation. Cherokee Nation was recognized for their careful stewardship of several properties vital to their history and culture, as well as for their contributions to preserve state-owned resources within the Nation. For example, the 1844 building that housed their National Supreme Court, the 1875 National Prison and...
The Tomaquag Museum, Rhode Island's only museum dedicated to telling the story of the state's Indigenous Peoples, recently awarded Indian Life's Native Cooking columnist with their Lifetime Achievement Award. Dale Carson, of the Abenaki tribe, was born and raised near the water in Rhode Island. Both parents were artists so her home life was rich in books and artwork and Dale found her own niche in painting and doing crafts. She has had two retail shops featuring Native...
On October 6, 2017, The Canadian federal government agreed to pay C$750 million to the survivors of the "Sixties Scoop" program, in which 20,000 First Nations children were removed from their parents' households and placed with non-indigenous foster or adoptive parents. The plaintiffs claimed that this caused them mental and emotional anguish and loss of their ancestral culture. Carolyn Bennett, Canada's Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister, announced the agreement. "I have...
Whitesboro, a village of about 3,700 in central New York's Oneida County, recently unveiled a new official seal in efforts to respond to a charge of racism. The previous seal depicting a wrestling match between the community's founder and an Oneida Indian chief endured national scrutiny as it was interpreted as a white man strangling a Native American. Prompted by an online campaign disparaging the original, three-fourths of those voting in 2016 were in favor of keeping the...
MILWAUKEE, WI | On Tuesday, October 18, 2017, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) membership overwhelmingly moved to support Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Perry Bellegarde’s request that NCAI join AFN in working to establish an Indigenous Chapter in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). National Chief Bellegarde was addressing NCAI at the NCAI 74th Annual Convention and Marketplace in Milwaukee, WI. “I thank the National Congress of American Indians for passing a unanimous motion sup...
WASHINGTON-Tribal leaders backed a House bill on October 25, 2017, that would give tribes the ability to control more of their land, instead of having to get federal approval for virtually any use. The American Indian Empowerment Act would let tribes shift federally controlled trust land to "restricted fee land," a move that could save millions of dollars that tribes now spend on "burdensome regulation," while restoring a level of tribal sovereignty. While they called the...
KANSAS CITY-On October 9, Kansas City, Mo., officially declared the day as Indigenous Peoples Day, joining a growing list of more than 50 U.S. cities shucking the celebrations of Christopher Columbus in favor of recognizing the indigenous people of North America. The city council adopted legislation to officially declare Oct. 9 as Indigenous Peoples Day in Kansas City, Mo. Resolution No. 170786 states, in part: Christopher Columbus, a man who is known to have "discovered" the...
BALTIMORE-According to an Annie E. Casey Foundation's 2017 Race for Results report, American Indian kids join children in immigrant, African-American, and Latino families as lacking in opportunities for success and well-being. Among the findings: • Thirty-eight percent of American Indian children live in households with incomes of 200 percent above the federal poverty level, compared to 69 percent of white children and 69 percent of Asian children. • Among fourth-graders natio...
WASHINGTON-Sex trafficking in Indian Country is a significant problem, with tribal women and children suffering at higher rates than the general population, a panel of experts and activists told a Senate committee on September 27, 2017. Witnesses told the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that tribes experience risk factors that can lead to victimization more often than other groups and that tribal women and children are targeted by traffickers "for their exotic beauty." "All...
WASHINGTON-Senators John Hoeven (R-ND) and Tom Udall (D-NM), chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs (SCIA), led a bipartisan group of 21 senators in introducing a resolution to recognize the month of November as National Native American Heritage Month. The resolution celebrates the heritage, culture and history of Native Americans and recognizes the many contributions Native Americans have made to our nation. "Native Americans have significantly...
According to Canada's 2016 Census, the indigenous population of the country is growing at four times the rate of the rest of the population. Nearly 1.7 million people identified as Aboriginal, which is a 4.9 percent share of the total population and a 42.5 percent increase since 2006, a growth rate more than four times that of their non-Indigenous counterparts. Statistics Canada says the spike is a result of natural growth-increased life expectancy and a high fertility...
Bear Ears Monument in Utah remains in the middle of controversy. The state of Utah has submitted maps to the Interior Department that show Bear Ears National Monument cut in size from 1.35 million acres to approximately 120,000 acres. While the Trump administration has not announced a final decision on the state's vision, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has issued a press release praising the administration's impending decree. Governor Gary Herbert's office argues that the state's pr...
