Beyond Borders

  Written by: Zacharia Zimmerman Ognyan Yosifov (2020). The Kindred Spirits Choctaw Monument. [photo]. https://www .nytimes.com           “They’re the keepers of our stories and our history” (Gass, 2020). In a community where the elders are held to such high esteem a pandemic with the potential to dramatically effect the older demographic of a community can be a scary thing. The elders in indigenous communities are said to carry much of the culture with them and are the ones to rightfully pass it down through the generations. According to Glass (2020), reservation populations are disproportionately old and between chronic disease, living remotely, and an under resourced health system things such as tradition, tribal knowledge, and language are at risk of being lost if the response to covid-19 isn’t swift and effective. If they fail to protect their elders, they will possibly only begin to know the rhetoric and revisionist history commonly taught by the...

  Written by: Natalie Wilson Photo description: “In August 2019,  the Makaliʻi ’Ohana—based on Hawaiʻi island but with ties around the world—brought offerings and sung songs in honor of the Mauna and all who stand to protect her.” Photo credit: Kapulei Flores. Retrieved from “A New Documentary Centers Protest, Poetry, and the Fight for Native Hawaiian Sovereignty” Vogue. 19 February 2021. https://www.vogue.com/article/this-is-the-way-we-rise-documentary-protest-poetry-mauna-kea-hawaii “We are not American!” This is the cry heard across generations of Native Hawaiians; from Haunani-Kay Trask at the 1993 commemoration of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government to Jamaica Osorio facing off against police at protests to protect Mauna Kea nearly thirty years later, echoing down a violent history of oppression and cultural erasure in Hawaii. [1] The government of the Hawaiian Kingdom was illegally overthrown by white colonizers in the 1890s, an act which President Grover C...

  Written by: Jessica Schneider Image credit: Lorie Shaull         The Native populations across North America have a massive problem on their hands. Thousands of their women have gone missing or been murdered over the years with little to no news coverage or acknowledgment from the United States or Canada. The safety and well beings of ingenious women, girls, and two spirited people have been silenced for long enough. Women are starting to speak out about the violence going on, both on the reservations and in urban environments. According to statistics taken in 2019, Indigenous women are 10 times more likely to be murdered than the rest of the United States’ population (“The Tragedy of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women”, 2019). 1 out of 2 women will experience some kind of sexual violence within their lifetime. In Erik Ortiz’s article, Why It’s Difficult To Track Cases of Missing and Murdered Native American Women and Girls , he quotes that “nearly 60 perce...

  Written by: Sam Morrow (Corbley, 2020)   https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/first-native-american-owned-film-studio/ Camel Rock Studios is situated within the foothills of mountains called the Sangre de Cistro in New Mexico. The land of Tesque Pueblo has been featured in multiple films as the background when beautiful deserts were needed   (Corbley, 2020) .   The land owned by the Tesuque Pueblo is an amazing location with scenic deserts and a very notable rock formation known as Camel Rock. These mountains are brownish red in color and very stunning. Officials of the tribe stated that there is around twenty seven square miles of the reservation available for filming outside. This tribe is comprised of around eight hundred members   (CONTRERAS, 2020) . Tesuque Pueblo landscapes have seen many different movies filmed on its turf, including such classic cinematic films such as “The Man from Laramie” and “Cowboy.” The area was particularly useful for filming w...

  Written by: Mutia Morris https://btlonline.org/u-s-indigenous-communities-building-capacity-to-confront-climate-change/        Climate change is such a huge issue for everyone living on planet earth. If you do not understand the specifics of climate change, it's a change in weather than what it usually is. According to NASA, " Climate change is also a change in Earth's climate. This could be a change in Earth's usual temperature. Or it could be a change in where rain and snow usually fall on Earth." Although in certain locations there are communities that are affected by climate change a lot more. In this case, a lot of indigenous communities are affected by climate change.        Climate change has been the topic of discussion for many years and there has always been a debate about whether it is a real issue. Personally, there is no doubt in my mind about it being real. There is an obvious change in the climate. I'm s...

  Written by: Sarah McCullough https://ecology.iww.org/node/1836 There has been a growing momentum to address the issues of police brutality and incarcerating Native Americans. While these issues are not widely talked about, it does not erase the fact that Natives face an unfair incarceration rate, especially on their reservations. Because injustices on Natives go frequently unreported, it is important to bring light to what is going on. Native Americans make up one percent of the United States’ total population, and makeup two percent of police killings. States with a higher Native population are super overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Natives make up nine percent of the total population of South Dakota and make up twenty-nine percent of their prison populations. Similarly, in Alaska, Natives make up fifteen percent of its total population and thirty-eight percent of its prison population (Ross-Pilkington).                ...

  Written by: Nicholas Eltzroth A Recent addition at the San Francisco Art Institute, featuring a Statue of Leonard Peltier (Photo Courtesy of Alex Peterson).           In June of 1975, two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were allegedly murdered at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota (fbi.gov). Leonard Peltier, notable for his activities as a Native American Rights activist was supposedly present on the Reservation at the time of the two FBI agents’ arrivals, and there was a warrant out for his arrest. The FBI has continuously claimed that Peltier’s car was found, and an investigation ensued which led to Peltier shooting the two FBI agents during a standoff, and later fleeing to Canada to evade capture (fbi.gov). Furtherly, and according to the FBI, Peltier was caught by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and admitted that he had fired at the two FBI agents. Peltier was convicted to two life terms in prison when he was found guilty in ...

Written by: Christian Jarrett The modern story of the Maori people that mainly inhabit New Zealand and parts of Australia is a very unique one that is not seen very often across the globe. To begin, the Maori people of New Zealand somewhat blur the line on what it means to be indigenous in some people’s eyes due to the fact that they themselves had only come to what is today New Zealand in approximately the eleventh century. It is undisputed, however, that the Maori people were established on the island centuries before the arrival of European settlers. Since the arrival of Europeans to New Zealand, the Maori people and culture have seen many of the same troubles as other native groups throughout the world after they encountered Europeans, but at the same time they possess certain cultural victories that are not seen in many other cases throughout the globe. The real issue facing the Maori people today is the exploitation of the culture for financial gain that does not retur...