Beyond Borders

Written by: Kara Teipen The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth  by Jennie A. Brownscombe, 1914. Pilgrim Hall Museum. In the life of a Native American, they only relied on themselves, and those around them. One vital aspect of life is the consumption of nutrients. Obtaining said nutrients in the wilderness is a task that takes a lot of planning and coordination for the Native Americans. Doing as little as surviving was no easy feat for them. Currently, 1 in 4 Native Americans lack the security of food. This is a large amount compared to the 1 in 8 Americans experiencing food insecurity. Think progress, reported that there are new studies of food Insecurity in Native American Communities. They show the irony of this in their introduction story. “It has been nearly 400 years since the Wampanoag people encounter the starving, cold pilgrims in Plymouth Bay.” (ThinkProgress) This is the event we know as Thanksgiving. The Wampanoag people helped the British learn how to grow crop

Written by: Chelsea North Screenshot from ‘A Message To Humankind form the Wisdom Weavers’ YouTube trailer https://youtu.be/wyrT5HjnQ94             It is no secret that Native Americans have a strong connection to the land around them. The land holds a sacred meaning and is a key component to their culture as whole. The Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation lies along the border to Canada and pollution is encroaching on their land. Paola Rosa-Aquino’s article ‘To Share or not to Share: Tribes Risk Exploitation When Sharing Climate Change Solutions’ explains the issues that the tribe of this area is facing with increasing pollution from nearby facilities.             Paola explains that the nearby industrial facilities are the result of shifting changes in the plants and animals in the Saint Regis Mohawk region and as a whole greatly affecting the way the tribe is able to practice cultural ceremonies. Not only this, but also the tribes’ fish population and medicinal plants are

Written by: Kayla Bailey   http://ogp-cdn.aws.onegreenplanet.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/2017/05/bear-ears.jpg         In the early 20 th century, Theodore Roosevelt stood at the Grand Canyon proclaiming some of the most memorial words spoken by a president, “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” These words helped to instill the value of the insurmountable importance of respecting and taking care of nature and our environment, distinguishing this between utilizing the land for its resources and simply reveling in its beauty and ability to provide without exploitation. In tandem with his speech, The Antiquities Act passed during his legislation provided a president the ability to declare huge sums of land as national monuments and he used this power to establish parks such as Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. His sentiment in many ways is anomalous to other Western perspectives that would much quicker

Written by: Alondra Jara Portrait of Marichuy. Credit: Sopitas.com María de Jesús Patricio, also known as Marichuy, is a Nahua medicine woman from Jalisco, Mexico and a representative for the National Indigenous Congress (CNI). She is the first indigenous woman to run for president. After losing the Mexican presidential election, she continues to be a human rights activist fighting for indigenous rights. The man who won the election is Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO. He was very popular with voters for promising to fight corruption within the government and improve the economy. He recently released a video asking for the Spanish government to apologize for its crimes against Mexico’s indigenous peoples during Spain’s conquest exactly 500 years ago. He considered these to be human rights violations. The Spanish government responded refusing to apologize, “La llegada, hace quinientos años, de los españoles a las actuales tierras mexicanas no puede juzgarse a la l

Written by: Jenna Corrice   https://www.livescience.com/30366-atlantic-forest-jungle-brazil-ecosystem.html Around the world there are many languages that are spoken, some natural some artificial. There are many more than just the main ones that are so widespread, such as English, German, Spanish, as well as others. There are a great many of these that are indigenous. Of these indigenous languages, there are a vast amount of them that are endanger. Endanger of going extinct. A language is thought of as extinct when there are no longer any people who can speak it. There are many aspects of indigenous languages that are important. For one, there is a social importance. The shape of a culture influences the language and the language influences the people right back. Every single human language has a uniqueness to it. They may have similarities, and or come from the same linguistic group, but they are still solely themselves and how a culture has evolved, changed, and endu

Written by: Soh Wah This article discusses the issues that native people are facing when it comes to groundwater. The tribe that involves this issue is Navajo in New Mexico. The Navajo Nation member Atencio has seen the ways oils and gas can divide people. His cousin was working for the industry out in New Mexico and his grandmother lives in the unincorporated town of Counselor. “Now, Atencio sits on the board of Diné CARE, a Navajo-led environmental organization, which is suing the Trump administration for its repeal of an Obama-era fracking rule, which would have implemented better protections for people like Atencio’s grandmother.”(Funes) The place where these people lives are really close to something that can cause lots of money and the government just want to take it and use it as an economy. This becomes a big problem for the tribe because they know that if they don’t protect it, then they will lose the land and the tribes can be divided into separate places. “T

Written by: Natalie Smith https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/02/new-mexico-navajo-nation-searchlight-native-american#img-1           In the Sanostee chapter of the Navajo nation, there is a long road called route 5010. Route 5010 is a dirt road that many people use to travel through the Navajo Nation. The road, however, is in poor condition. The road has been the cause of quite a few issues for those who live along the route. A woman who lives along the route told her story, “one day her father had just returned home and he collapsed. The rain had been constant that day and the road became extremely muddy. It took three ambulances to finally reach her father, the first two got stuck in the mud. She wonders if the ambulance could have gotten there sooner maybe her father would have survived” (Linn & Landry 2019). The road needs to be improved not only to allow emergency personnel to do their job but for people to just live their everyday lives.   “Nearly

Written by: Samantha Riley Language instructor Michael Zimmerman leads an Ojibwe language class at Indian Community School in Franklin, Wis. Photo courtesy of WUWM. The Ojibwe is a group of indigenous people who live in Canada and the United States. The Ojibwe speak not one standardized language, but a chain of linked local varieties, with nearly a dozen dialects. The different dialects have varying pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. The differences in dialects can be great enough to prevent speakers from understanding each other. The Ojibwe consider their language to be one of the greatest treasures of their cultural heritage, with its ability to be precise, descriptive, and visual. Unfortunately, the Ojibwemowin language is endangered. The Ojibwe have had no choice but to speak English due to being forced to attend English boarding schools, urban life, popular culture, and other public interactions. Serena Graves, a member of the tribe, said in a presentation ab

Written by: Jay'Mee Proctor Source: https://www.mintpressnews.com/arizona-apache-continue-to-fight-bill-which-hands-sacred-native-american-land-to-mining-company/208194/ “ This is appalling, this would not happen at any other holy place in the world, if someone tried to extract minerals from the Vatican or from Jerusalem it would be see as an abomination ” -- a supporter (Reddog Rudy) of the resistance movement against the proposed mine tells MintPress News. (article by Derrick Broze, August 01, 2015)            Mining has become a major issue among Native American tribes and their lands not just in the United States, but globally. These lands are considered to be sacred amongst these people and their comminutes (such as the Oak Flat Native American community). This not only puts a drastic dent in their resources (for what they need to survive since they live off the land and what it provides), but it also displaces them, leaving them homeless and forced t

Written by: Jocelyn Paul Figure 1 Ken Greene boiling water in his home at the Six Nations reserve. Photograph: Jennifer Roberts for the Guardian When it comes to water rights and controversy Nestle has been in the spotlight quite a few times. And yet again they seem to be in the middle of another controversy. This time with the Six Nations of the Grand River in Canada. On January 22 nd Nestle Waters Canada met with the Six Nations Band Council’s Committee of the Whole to discuss their application for water bottling on Six Nations territory. Currently the company draws over 3.6 million liters of water daily from Six Nation’s treaty land, and they are wanting to continue that. The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change asked the company to “engage the communities directly to listen to their concerns and work with them” (Patterson) Chief Ava Hill asked Nestle representatives, “If Six Nations say we don’t agree with those permits, will you shut those plants down?” N

Written by: Ethan Martin Laurel Morales/KJZZ           In the southwest region of the United States of America, there is an ancient tribe biting their nails on both sides of the border. It is not too common that a group of people find their homeland on two sides of an international divide, but that is the unfortunate truth and the reality that the Tohono O’odham tribe of Arizona face on an every day basis. These people, alongside other tribes, live their lives as citizens of a nation of people, oddly enough, without a country to call home. However, the way that they see it, they do not cross an international boundary, the international boundary crosses them...and their land. This fight over their migration and status as a people has come under greater scrutiny as of late due to the current presidential administration’s policies towards our neighbors in the south.   So who exactly is the Tohono O’odham tribe anyway? The Tohono O’odham peopl