Minnesota Native News: Legislative Update

Headlines: This week on Minnesota Native News we look back at the legislative session and two proposals that will impact tribes and Native people in the state.

STORY #1 - RED LAKE SCHOOL DISTRICT IS APPROVED FOR $14M IN BONDING (1:30)

This is Melinda Crowley’s first year as Superintendent of the Red Lake School District. And this year, she and the district’s leadership team requested 14 and a 1/2 million dollars from the legislature.

CROWLEY: We have children that are getting classes in closets and other hallway facilities, etc.

This year 99.4 percent of Red Lake students are American Indian and the number of children entering elementary school is growing every year.

Willie Larson, the Red Lake School District Business Manager, says the cafeteria needs a huge redesign.

LARSON: When you have a cafeteria designed for 300 kids and you trying to put 600 kids through there for breakfast, it just doesn’t work. (:08)

So Crowley and Larson got to work when the legislative session began.

CROWLEY: Well, number one, we’ve been going for this for quite a few years. So lots of work has been done previously. I spent a fair amount of time this year down at the capital myself making sure this was in front of people. We had senators and representatives tour the facilities so they knew what was going on. (:17)

And they were successful! The Legislature and Governor passed a bonding bill that included 14 million dollars for the Red Lake School District construction.

Crowley and Larson say they expect to break ground next summer.

STORY #3 - Legislature fails to establish the MMIW Task Force (3:30)

Earlier this year Governor Dayton proclaimed May 5th as a day to call attention to missing and murdered indigenous women. But many of Minnesota’s indigenous women wanted more than that. Reporter Melissa Townsend has the story.

Representative Mary Kunesh Podein says the idea started with a BBC series she was watching on TV. It was about Canada’s inquiry into their missing and murdered indigenous women.

MKP: It was broadcasted in the evenings around 10 o’clock and was just really emotionally and socially affected by it. And then just about that time is when Savannah Greywind went missing. (:17)

Savannah Greywind was a Native woman living with her family in Fargo, North Dakota. Greywind was brutally murdered and her newborn baby was stolen.

MKP: It was awful. Absolutely. A lot of the indigenous people knew what was going on and it was not put into the general news or broadcasted until it came out that she was pregnant. (:22)

Law enforcement found Greywind’s killers. But that does not happen in a lot of cases where indigenous women go missing or are found murdered.
There is no good data on how many indigenous women are missing, but there does seem to be a remarkably high number of unsolved cases.

The U. S. Senator from North Dakota, Heidi Heitkamp, proposed the Savannah Bill to improve the situation. And that got Representative Mary Kunesh-Podein thinking…

MKP: What the heck, I’m a state legislature - why aren’t I doing this? (:05)

So she called together more than 30 indigenous women and Native groups from across the state. She asked them what they thought of a statewide task force on missing and murdered indigenous women.

MKP: And everybody was just like yes, yes yes. And they gave me really, really good feedback. And it was great to see them literally and figuratively at the table. (:12)

They wanted the task force to engage public agencies to collect data on how many indigenous women are missing and murdered, and then make policies to reduce that number and solve the cold cases.

When the bill was first heard in the House, Native women gave testimony about their relatives who were murdered or missing and their own experiences of violence.

MKP: There was hardly a dry eye in the committee room. I get goosebumps every time I talk about it. Just the raw emotion and horror on people’s face. (:10)

Kunesh-Podein says many of the state representatives had no idea this is happening.

MKP: And you can’t blame a lot of people because they don’t know about it. But once they heard about it, they were filled with concern and compassion and pledged their support for the bill. (:11)

After two hearings, the bill landed in the supplemental budget bill for the Governor’s approval. But - Governor Dayton vetoed that bill.

MKP: We were so close and it just didn’t happen. But everybody is like next year, next year, next year. (:08)

Mary Kunesh-Podein says she will propose the bill again - next year.

For Minnesota Native News, I’m Melissa Townsend.

Minnesota Native News: New Language School Opens, Theater Festival Announced, and Youth Visit Rome

Marie: This is Minnesota Native News, I’m Marie Rock.
Headlines: Coming up…:
A new early headstart and preschool focusing on Dakota language is opening in the Lower Sioux community…
A playwright and actor talks about an upcoming theater festival…
And a group visits the Vatican to request the revocation of the Doctrine of Discovery.

Here is reporter Leah Lemm with these stories…

STORY #1 - Cansayapi Wakamyeza Owayawa Ti opening

REPORTER: The Lower Sioux Early Head Start and Preschool will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony in mid-July, after many months of hard work getting ready to provide Dakota immersion programs for the youngest learners… ages birth to five years old.

Vanessa Goodthunder is the Director of the school.

GOODTHUNDER: Our goal is to raise the next generation of Dakota language speakers and with it, raising healthy babies and healthy families.

REPORTER: Three programs that will be provided include a center-based program, an in-home program, and expected parent program.

GOODTHUNDER: Research says that if we affect the little ones, then we're raising the next generation of Dakota language speakers… There’s only five first language speakers left in the state of Minnesota where we're in a constant race to always revitalize our language.

REPORTER: In order to teach the young learners, approximately twenty-six staff were hired in January and they themselves have been getting language immersion training. Vanessa reports that they are learning the Dakota language at an incredible rate, so she asked them how they were able to perform so well:

GOODTHUNDER: Most of the staff, we asked them and they were like, because we believe in this vision and this mission and we really want to learn the language.

REPORTER: The community has rallied behind the school, voting on the logo and showing its support.

GOODTHUNDER: We did a survey in may to ask if this is what they wanted for a school. And unanimously the community said yes, we want this culturally relevant early childhood school. And so it's been really a community effort from the get-go.

STORY #2 - NEW NATIVE THEATRE ANNOUNCES PLAY FESTIVAL
REPORTER: Next, New Native Theatre has announced its upcoming third annual National Native American Ten Minute Play Festival….
I spoke with Rhiana Yazzie, the Artistic Director of New Native Theatre about some new developments with the festival. She reported that this year New Native Theatre is adding a national residency program for out-of-town directors and actors.

Deanna Standingcloud is a member of the New Native Theatre Ensemble and she shared her experience with the theatre company. She started with the company at the first National Native American Ten Minute Play Festival for professional development.

STANDINGCLOUD: Initially I wanted to just get over a lot of the stage fright and be able to enhance my public speaking thing.

REPORTER: Since then, Deanna has acted and written plays, and has reportedly caught the writing bug.

STANDINGCLOUD: Since my initial audition to now, I'm so happy that I made that decision because it has opened up on a whole, like creative dimension of my personality that I knew was kind of there.

REPORTER: The festival performances will be held the first week of August in Saint Paul.

STORY #3 - INDIGENOUS YOUTH VISIT VATICAN

REPORTER: And.. it was back on May 7th, indigenous youth from Minnesota had a meeting with Vatican officials in Rome. They asked that the Doctrine of Discovery be extinguished and the Vatican use its influence to stop governments from using the doctrine against indigenous people.

Mitch Walking Elk led the trip and is a coordinator for the indigenous youth ceremonial mentoring society with the Guadalupe Alternative Programs in Saint Paul. He elaborated on the history of the Doctrine of Discovery, which consists of several papal bulls… or decrees from the Roman Catholic Church.

WALKING ELK: The popes of those times just essentially declared war on the entire non Christian world and claimed the lands that were discovered, so to speak by their explorers, Columbus, Cortez, etc. gave them the right to take the land and the resources from those lands for the church to introduce the people to christianity.

REPORTER: The group met with and heard from several Vatican officials.

WALKING ELK: Their position on the papal bulls was that they were something of the past. We insisted that even though that may be the case from their standpoint, our standpoint was that there was something set in motion in the world that was devastating to too many people.

REPORTER: Mitch reports that the outcomes remain to be seen, but the youth had an experience that expanded on their advocacy work and ceremonial knowledge.

WALKING ELK: They had some great meals, they've met some different people, they met some new friends, new people, and they've got a powerful political and spiritual experience.

For Minnesota Native News…. I’m Leah Lemm.

Minnesota Native News: Moving Forward in a Good Way

STORY #1 - The Latest on LINE 3
Honor the Earth and 2 Ojibwe tribes have filed filed petitions to strike down the environmental impact statement for the Line 3 oil pipeline replacement. Melissa Townsend tells us more.

Before a permit can be granted or denied for the new Line 3 oil pipeline, the state must release a report detailing all the environmental impacts of the project.

On May 1st, after two years of research and community input, the state Public Utilities Commission declared the Line 3 environmental impact statement adequate and final.

But throughout the last 2 years tribes and Native led organizations, like Honor the Earth, have said NO - the report is not adequate.

And now that the PUC has ruled it final, they are filing formal petitions for reconsideration.

Paul Blackburn is staff attorney with Honor the Earth. He says, for one, the potential impact on particular waterways are not well researched in the report.

BLACKBURN: Most people know the St Louis Estuary and Duluth Harbor have a great deal of contamination in it down in the sediments. And if there were an oil spill, you’d have a combined mess of a lot of gloppy oil at the bottom of the harbor mixed in with those toxic sediments. And the question is how do you clean that up? (:19)

He says if you start trying to remove the oil, you stir up the toxic sediments and you’ve got a whole new mess. Honor the Earth is arguing for a more detailed impact analysis.

In addition to Honor the Earth, the Mille Lacs Band and the Fond du Lac Band say the report needs to include a full accounting of the pipeline’s impacts on Indigenous cultural resources.

BLACKBURN: The state needed to do an on the ground study looking for cultural resources on each route and say how do we pick the route that affects indigenous resources the least? (:13)

There is a separate report coming that will outline Indigenous cultural resources, but tribes want that report be part of this environmental impact statement. Otherwise, they say, the P-U-C could make a decision on the pipeline route without knowing the impact on cultural sites in the area.

These petitions to reconsider the environmental impact statement were filed on May 21st. The P-U-C has until the end of June to respond.

For Minnesota Native News, I’m Melissa Townsend.

STORY #2 - NATIVE MED SCHOOL GRADS
May has been a month of graduations and celebrations. Earlier this month 4 Native students graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Duluth campus.

Reporter Melissa Townsend caught up with them at a celebration hosted by the University’s Center of American Indian and Minority Health.

MELISSA: Just tell me your name and introduce yourself
JOSIE: OK, I’m Josie Scala. I’m a 4th year medical student about to be a doctor - tomorrow — YEAH!! (:08)

Josie’s dad is from White Earth, but the other three graduates come from much further away.

AARON: My name is Aaron Smith. I was born in Fort Defiance on the Navajo reservation,

TYSON: I’m Tyson Birmingham, I’m from Polson, Montana which is part of the Flathead Indian reservation.

SARA: I’m Sara Roe, I’m 28 years old, originally form Antioch, California.

Sara and the others say it was the Duluth program specifically for American Indian med students that drew them here.

SARA: I just love them and they made me feel like family. (:10)

All these graduates say there have been tough times in the past 4 years.

Josie Scala took a few years off between college and medial school and she says the first year back was pretty tough. But she’s felt more at ease each year!

JOSIE: I remember in the beginning of 3rd year it’s hard to imagine that you’ll get to the point that you’ll feel confident and be ready to be on your own sort of and I earlier this year really started feeling that. Like I’m ready to be doing this. So I’m excited - still nervous, but really excited and happy. (:17)

Each of these graduates have proud families here tonight. Josie’s dad is Clarence Scala from White Earth. He says he feels blessed.

CLARENCE: She’s done a lot of hard work. I’ve always told her she can do whatever she wants to do she just needs to do the work to get there. I mean she’s not a quitter … (:16)

Dr. Mary Owen shares his pride. She is the Director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for American Indian and Minority Health.

MARY: My heart is swelling for these graduates. I’m so happy for them and so thrilled for the work I know they are going to do for our communities. The physicians you saw tonight have been committed to Native people from day one. So they are such a great addition to our community. (:15)

That’s the community of Native physicians - which just got a little bit bigger. Congratulations graduates.

MN Native News: “Bowwow Powwow” Released

HEADLINES: Marie: This week on Minnesota Native News:

A new children’s book written by Brenda J Child, illustrated by Jonathan Thunder, and translated into Ojibwe by Gordon Jourdain, has hit the shelves.

This is Minnesota Native News, I’m Marie Rock.

STORY 1 AND ONLY:
HOST (Marie): The book, BOWWOW POWWOW, is a celebration of storytelling, dreams, and Ojibwe language through the eyes of Windy Girl and her trusted dog, Itchy Boy.

Here’s Leah Lemm with the story.

SOUND:
Leah: Windy Girl and Itchy Boy knew that Uncle’s pickup truck was the best place for stories. Windy especially like to hear about the powwow. Sometimes Uncle remembered things from when he was a boy.

Child: Look at! What’s that?

Leah: That is a big piece of fry bread that he’s eating! (:20)

REPORTER: That was me reading BOWWOW POWWOW to my four-year-old son. He was enchanted by the colorful illustrations and the dog, Itchy Boy, who was barking at everything in sight.

The author, Brenda Child, is a professor of American Studies and American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota. Full disclosure, she is now also an Auntie of mine.

Brenda Child is the author of several books, but her recent book project has combined her knowledge of history and her personal history to reach people of all ages and backgrounds.

CHILD: When I was growing up, I was very close to my uncle who was the person who gave me my Indian name. And I noticed that my daughter has a similarly strong relationship with her uncle today. Windy Girl is probably somewhat of a hybrid between me and my daughter.

REPORTER: Windy Girl spends times with her dog Itchy Boy and her Uncle… while riding around in Uncle’s mint green pickup truck… while ice fishing and… while at the powwow.

Windy Girl has a dream about all the dancers at the powwow, big and small, old and young, and from many tribes.

CHILD: Native people and native children will see themselves, I hope as they read and look at the beautiful illustrations in BOWWOW POWWOW, but also for folks unfamiliar with powwow traditions, I think it also introduces children to the various styles of dancing and it introduces them to the powwow as well. So I think there's something in the book for everybody. (:28)
REPORTER: BOWWOW POWWOW includes a telling of the story in the Ojibwe language, translated by Lac La Croix First Nation member and first-speaker, Gordan Jourdain.

CHILD: We wanted this book to be accessible to all the parents out there working in Ojibwe language with their children, but also all the efforts in schools in the Great Lakes where people are wanting materials like this to use with young children.

REPORTER: The illustrations in Bowwow Powwow are particularly vibrant and nuanced with Ojibwe and Native culture. Award winning artist and Duluth resident Jonathan Thunder was approached by Brenda Child and by Minnesota Historical Society Press, the publisher of the book.

I caught up with Jonathan Thunder at the Macrostie Art Center in Grand Rapids, MN, where his work is currently on display. (You could cut this if short for time)

THUNDER: We sort of lined up because she's got the Red Lake background and she’s a world traveler herself. I think her writing style and my drawing style really synced up. A lot of my work has to do with dreams and spirituality, so the fact that Windy Girl has a dream… I love a dream sequences.

REPORTER: Both Brenda Child and Jonathon Thunder are citizens of Red Lake, which is also evident in the artwork… one can see Red Lake Nation flags and license plates throughout the book.

THUNDER: In order to feel confident signing onto this project, I had to do a lot of research of the powwow culture, I drew from a lot from memory stuff, the scenes where Windy Girl’s in the pickup with her uncle and riding on the Rez road and uh, getting chased by dogs… and just various little nuances that go into the outer ring powwow setting.

REPORTER: Particular items of note include illustrations of Anna Gibbs ice fishing and Amik Larry Smallwood as the powwow emcee, both of whom were Ojibwe language carriers and passed away in the last couple years.

More information about Jonathon Thunder and his work can be found at THUNDER FINE ART DOT COM.

The book launch for BOWWOW POWWOW takes place June 9th at Birchbark Books in Minneapolis.

SOUND:
Leah: That night Windy Girl understood the powwow is always in motion, part old and part new, glittering and plain, but still wonderful, almost like a dream.

Child: Almost like a dream… Bowwow Powwow.

For Minnesota Native News, I’m Leah Lemm.