Every eight weeks, instead of publishing another edition of First Nations News & Views, navajo and I will be taking a break to recharge, handle administrative duties of the series, set up interviews, do research and plan for the next seven weeks.
U.S. officials and representatives of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Hidatsa,
Mandan and Arikara)
sign the Garrison Dam pact June 11, 1953.
The officials are not the ones crying. Read the story
here.
While we're in preparatory mode this week, here are a few links to stories that received the most comments in the first seven weeks of the series:
• Carter Camp Tells Why Wounded Knee Siege of 1973 Still Matters Today
• First Totem Pole in a Century Raised in Seattle for Victim of Police Shooting
• 'Twilight' Series Fakes Authenticity, Rips Off Quileute Nation
• Some Damage of the 125-Year-Old Dawes Act Finally Being Mitigated, But the Scars Will Ever Remain
• 70 Years Ago This Month the Navajo 'Code Talkers' Were Born
• Menominee 7th Grader Suspended for Speaking Her Native Language
Indians have often been referred to as the "Vanishing Americans." But we are still here, entangled each in his or her unique way with modern America, blended into the dominant culture or not, full-blood or not, on the reservation or not, and living lives much like the lives of other Americans, but with differences related to our history on this continent, our diverse cultures and religions, and our special legal status. To most other Americans, we are invisible, or only perceived in the most stereotyped fashion.
First Nations News & Views is designed to provide a window into our world, each Sunday reporting on a small number of stories, both the good and the not-so-good, and providing a reminder of where we came from, what we are doing now and what matters to us. We wish to make it clear that neither navajo nor I make any claim whatsoever to speak for anyone other than ourselves, as individuals, not for the Navajo people or the Seminole people, the tribes in which we are enrolled as members, nor, of course, the people of any other tribes.