Beyond Borders

Written by Ethan Martin  (Lorie Shaull, Flickr) A little-known fact in this country is the degree to which Native American Women and youth face violence throughout their life, and the injustice of how their cases are often mishandled, disregarded, or not acknowledged at all. A fact that is absolutely astounding is that according to a report that was released in 2016 by the Seattle Indian Health Board as well as federal institutions such as the United States Department of Justice, “The National Crime Information Center reports that, in 2016, there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls”(UIHI, 2016). This number itself may not seem as alarming to the average reader as one might think that “many people go missing every year”. However, out of this large number of missing women and children, only 116 of these cases have been recognized and reported by the US Department of Justice. That means, upon doing a quick calculation, that a...

Written by Summer Lake     Figure 1 (Sauers 2011)   In 2012 Sasha Houston Brown, a member of the Santee Sioux Nation, wrote a letter to the popular fashion company Urban Outfitters (NPR 2012). In her letter, she brought to light that the company has been using the term “Navajo,” without the tribe’s permission, to sell a line of items that the tribe does not resonate with (NPR 2012). She felt that it was an embarrassment and insensitive gesture to the tribe to sell items such as “Navajo Hipster Panty,” “Vintage Handmade Navajo Necklace,” and “Navajo Print Fabric Wrapped Flask” (NPR 2012). Brown posted her letter online on Columbus Day, and it instantly went viral, bringing attention to the Navajo tribe that this misuse of their trademarked name and appropriation of their culture was happening (NPR 2012). In February 2012, the Navajo Tribe sued Urban Outfitters and its subsidiaries for “infringing on [the Navajo Tribe’s] trademarks by using the name ‘Nav...

Written by Wayne Hemrick                  It is an old story that has been told from the beginnings of first contact with white europeans but remains a fresh wound that wont heal and a current struggle. If we put you out of sight and mind maybe you will disappear? It seems that most white settlers, a ffl uent land owners, politicians, and business men felt this was, and to some   respects still is, a great way to handle the indigenous people “problem”. The United States and private Individuals have taken, swindled, and ignored Native Tribes land rights for years. Intertwined with this is the control of tribal lands and resources by federally recognizing or not federally recognizing a tribe. What makes this worse is the spiritual connection that tribes have with the land; which to many, is more important than any natural resource that can be harvested from the lan...

Written by Maggie Hayden Source: https://studybreaks.com/thoughts/native-american-laguage/ “Losing a language is a major setback for everyone, because along with the language, you will also lose all of the poems, the stories, the songs. And those things are of immense importance to all of us as human beings.” — Anthony Aristar   Every single person on Earth has a language that is an important part of their culture. It is their means of communication through every aspect. Once that language is gone or dies out, a part of the culture it once thrives in becomes lost too. Loss of language is something many Native groups deal with and have dealt with for hundreds of years. There are around 7,000 languages still being used today, but 50-90% of those languages are expected to be extinct by the 22 nd century. In the Native American culture, there used to be around 300 languages spoken among different tribes, with 155 being spoken today and 50 of those are spo...

Written by Chad Gibson     Figure 1 : Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana. Photo from http://www7.nau.edu/itep/main/tcc/Tribes/plns_ncheyenne                The Northern Cheyenne reside in the state of Montana on a reservation consisting of 444,000 acres of land (Montana.gov n.d.). The tribe has just over 11,000 members with a little over 5,000 of those members living on the reservation(Montana.gov n.d.). The Eastern boundary of the reservation is the Tongue River and the Crow reservation on the West (Montana.gov n.d.).             The Northern Cheyenne reservation is part of the Powder River Basin which supplies about forty percent of the United States coal supply (Diaz and Aponte n.d.). On the Northern Cheyenne reservation there is a large amount of underground coal. It is estimated to be around 23 billion tons of coal (Rott 2017). As ...

Written by Sarah Freeman http://www.cristyli.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Washington-Redskins.jpg The issue of sports teams using Native Americans as logos and mascots. In recent news, the Cleveland Indians Baseball team finally took Cheif Wahoo off of the team's shirts. The mascot is still on merchandise but this is a step forward. After taking the Cheif Wahoo of the jerseys of the plays people have been brought up the issue of having the Washington Redskins change their name. The Redskins are an NFL team and have been under fire for this name for years. You might wonder why is this such a big deal it's just a name for a football team. The term Redskins is a racial slur for Native American’s. This is not uncommon in the United States to have Native American mascots and team names all over. People are not mascots that is one of the slogans used to protest these racist actions against Native Americans.   The mental and rascal problems that come from usi...

  Written by Ellie Dufek Photo of Edwin Dagua Ip ía, assassinated Indigenous governor, taken by Hannah Wallis Often times in the US, when people are told to think of discrimination against Indigenous people, they think of the story of European colonists coming to settle in America.   The trials of other Tribal peoples are overlooked at times, even though their struggles are just as real.   In Columbia unfortunately, any Indigenous person who believes that they have rights are in danger of being killed by paramilitaries and those who seek to thwart their rights to freedom.   Specifically social leaders to the movements are in danger, making them appear even braver for continuing to fight nonviolently.   In cases like this, it is hard to comprehend the varied emotions people are feeling who are put in this position.   You want to fight for your freedoms, but you may be killed at any point for doing so, even in broad daylight like Edwin D...