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Are You Aware? The Consideration of the Ongoing Colonizing Project of Education
This is part V in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. “They steal, then they take your memory of the theft.” — Shad (2018) I sit here, in my living room, by my window overlooking the intersection in downtown Provo, Utah (if there is such a place). On the four corners are the Provo City Center Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the county health department, an auto body shop, and the apartment building where I live — Church, state, commerce, and home. Cars buzz by. So do the clouds. The sky is blue. And today is Pioneer…
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Are You Aware? COVID-19 in Indian Country
This is part IV in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. The effects of COVID-19 in Indian Country have been devastating. COVID hit Indian Country later than many other places in America. The Navajo Nation was the first. The Navajo reservation is the size of West Virginia, making it the largest reservation in the United States. With 170,000 people living there, it is sparsely populated. The Diné (their preferred name) keep themselves fed and warm by sheep herding. The sheep are used for food and sheared for the wool to make yarn for weaving. Known worldwide for their beauty, Navajo rugs are…
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Are You Aware? Who Are We, America?
This is part III in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. Recently, I was in the lobby of a radio station with a city law enforcement officer who is a criminal investigator (CI). The two of us were waiting to be interviewed on the radio about missing and murdered Indigenous people. The criminal investigator spoke to me about a case that happened downtown. She said she responded to a call where police officers told her they found a deceased Native American woman inside an apartment. The lead officer told the CI that the Native woman died from suicide. Upon investigation, the CI…
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Are You Aware? The Hia-Ced O’odham and the Wall (a Crime Against Humanity)
This is part II in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. On March 20, 2020, a group of Hia-Ced O’odham leaders traveled to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to visit our sacred place of being. While there, I gasped at what I saw. My heart bled in unbelief at the inhumane building of this counterfeit wall. It is counterfeit — not so much in its physical structure (because that is very real), but in its deceitful purpose. Truth be told, the majority of the drugs and human-trafficking come from the air, under the terrain, or corrupt officers. Cartels have a near-infinite…
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Are You Aware? Native Americans 101
This is part I in our “Nation to Nation” Awareness Wednesday series. Read the other posts in the series here. In the United States today, the federal government recognizes 574 tribal communities as sovereign nations. Dozens more are recognized within the boundaries of states. Canada recognizes 674 First Nations communities as sovereign nations, and in Mexico 89 different Indigenous languages are spoken. First Nations and Indigenous Mexicans are all Indigenous and relatives of the Native communities within the United States’ current borders. Understanding a bit of history and the existence of tribal communities today is an important undergirding of any movement toward an “ethical” governance on these lands. We must be…
