Personal History
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.
I come from a family of hunters. Autumn was always a big deal, because that’s when hunting season began. The day hunting licenses became available was treated like a special occasion.
An argument for train travel is the people you meet. Some might take that as an argument against, but I’m not sure why a practicing xenophobe would be traveling in the first place.
Comfort is a curious thing. In the right amounts it's like a miracle drug. Or maybe it's more specific like a panacea or nepenthe for the lovesick hopeless romantic who can't seem to get over the woman he lost. "God, I just want to forget her!" he begs on his knee in his gloomy room.
The terrorists beat us on 9/11 in that they changed our lives for the worse. I am reminded of President Bush's asinine remark, "They hate us for our freedom." I used to joke about the corollary to that. If our own government took away our freedom, would "they" still hate us?
Every now and again, I suffer from bouts of technology fatigue. I remember a simpler time. When I was a kid growing up on the rez, we didn’t have cell phones—heck, we didn’t even have voicemail or caller ID. Sometimes we didn’t have a phone in our house at all.
The reasons one would take their own life_especially when they’re young—is an area I hope to bring awareness to so others may not have to deal with the anguish of having a loved one pass away by their own hand.
When addressing justice for American Indians the subject is often sensitive and at times things can get very controversial. No matter the results, eventually we all deal with it and move on.
Amid touted economic recovery at the federal government level, Indian country remains underwater in terms of sustainable growth in all but a few isolated pockets of capital markets within the United States and Canada.
I read with great interest the opinion piece written by Lise Balk King entitled, "Vern Traversie and the Worst Place to Be an Indian