Over the past 25 years, Richard A. Grounds (Yuchi), Ph.D., has worked with Yuchi Elders to create new Yuchi speakers and bring his language back into his community, as well as advocating for Indigenous Peoples' language rights globally. He is currently Chair of the Global Indigenous Languages Caucus and Executive Director of the Yuchi Language Project. An article by Dr. Grounds on Yuchi language revitalization in the face of intellectual colonialism appears in Indigenous Languages and the Promise of Archives, from the University of Nebraska Press.
Leya Hale, 36, lives in St. Paul. She was born and raised in the Los Angeles area. She is Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota and Navajo. She is a storyteller, a documentary filmmaker, and a producer with Twin Cities PBS (TPT), where she’s been working for the past eight years. Her recent film, "Bring Her Home," addresses the epidemic of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women in the United States.
According to ockbaywaywampum.com, "wampum is the bead cut from the Quahog shell, its distinctive purple and white bands create beautiful natural diversity in the material, which can be smoothed to a high polished shine. The Quahog clam is geographically limited to the coastal waters between Maine and Long Island and was harvested for food and made into jewelry by the coastal peoples of the North-Eastern region.
Tanka bars are probably the most recognizable Native American food products in the U.S.. In this radio program, Dawn Sherman, CEO of Native American Natural Foods, takes us through the Tanka's history, past challenges, as well as present day aspirations.
Producer: Shaldon Ferris (Khoisan)
Interviewee: Dawn Sherman (Lakota, Shawnee, Delaware)
Music : "Saami Drum" by Tyler, used with permission
"Burn your village to the ground" by A Tribe called Red, used with permission.
Migrant families from Central America and elsewhere have had to endure being separated. Foster homes and shelters has become the temporary home to many of the kids, some of them being toddlers. Bureaucratic errors could leave the government officials unaware that a child’s parent is in the U.S. What happens when the parents cannot speak English or Spanish?
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It was the Wampanoag People, the people of the first light, that encountered the Pilgrims when they arrived to Turtle Island (North America) from Europe in 1620. Since 1863, Thanksgiving has been celebrated as a national holiday in the United States, mythologizing the violent events that followed European arrival into a story of friendship and mutual sharing. But the reality is that the Wampanoags’ generosity was met with genocide, and this truth has been systematically suppressed in the US education system, government, and popular culture.
It's time to recognize that celebrating the life of Christopher Columbus is the same as celebrating the erasure of Indigenous existence.
"We believe it is important to hear the other side of the story-- the Indigenous side-- because there are detrimental implications to learning about the side of history that makes heroes of colonizers, and erases those who were colonized" say Shaldon Ferris and Avexnim Cotji, Indigenous Rights Radio producers.
Julian Kunnie reflects on how our ways are destroying life for future generations and on the need to honor and protect mother nature instead of turning her into a commodity.
Antonio Gonzales, director of the American Indian Movement AIM West, explains why the use of Indigneous Peoples as mascots is culturally offensive and can no longer be tolerated in the 21st century. We caught up with Antonio Gonzales at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples Issues, New York.