Personal History
The other day I had lunch with an acquaintance of mine, Cecelia Cuch, a Northern Ute, and a friend of hers. He was an elderly Tewa gentleman from Hopiland. We were at a meeting of tribal people in Las Vegas and had taken some time for lunch and found a place to eat.
I have worked with over a thousand foster youth in the past 20 years. Thanks to Facebook and other social media sites I am able to stay in contact with them after they have left foster care and moved onto other settings. I recently connected with the first child that I placed in foster care.
Tomorrow is Saturday. She will rise early to go high in the mountains, a place called Lake Canyon way up in the Uintah’s South of the Duchesne River. The summer comes slow here, the snow stays long, and about this time of the year it is time for cattle to graze.
Once upon a time, Natives gathered around a campfire to share stories. While these tales were used to educate, instill values, and preserve culture and history, they also provided us with a means of creative expression and intellectual dialogue, and they were entertaining too.
Editor’s Note:
We publish opinions to help people think about things and to help them understand issues that pop up in our lives.
The intersection of my identity as a gay man and a Chippewa Cree tribal member begins at the intersection of Route 87 and Highway 448.
It was an old building; the buildings there were all old. Built in the early 1900s, they were red brick. Some would say they were Victorian. This was a three-story building, big and square with peaked roofs from those early days.
There was a small white envelope waiting for me when I got home. It was a subpoena, and it said be at the Federal Court Building at 8 a.m. and don't be late or else bad things will happen. So, I went.
Going home for Christmas is sometimes hard to do when there isn't enough beso (money) for gifts. It would be nice to go home and bring all the things everyone needs or at least maybe a gift they would like.
You know you come from a nation of oppression when a month has to be dedicated to your heritage. It’s the only way the rest of the country will remember how their freedom came to be, if they can see through the majesty of feathers, beads, and face paint.
Elsa Johnson, a Navajo grassroots activist and renewable energy consultant, has fond memories of the time when voter turnout on the Navajo Nation surprised Arizona. Her own family still participates in voting as a tradition, an anticipated and highly social event.
It would be a shame for Russell Means (1939-2012) to be remembered only as a maker of trouble, an unreasonable negotiator, and someone who pushed the limits of human behavior to the breaking point. I met him when I was an American Indian press reporter in Washington, D.C.
I was a reporter with an NBC news station in New Mexico in the winter of 2003. The morning newspaper I was reading reported that Russell Means was going to speak to students at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado that afternoon in a presentation.