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Northwest tribal leaders fight for government to uphold treaties

Tulalip Tribes Chairman Mel Sheldon speaks at the rally. Photo courtesy Theresa Sheldon, Tulalip Tribes Board of Director.

Lummi Nation Chairman Tim Ballew II and other leaders rally in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015, to oppose the Gateway Pacific Terminal, which would export primarily coal and expand railways. Ballew says that the project would disregard treaty rights and harm the environment. Grace Toohey McClatchy

WASHINGTON – A proposed coal terminal and affiliated railway for Cherry Point, Wash., has sparked concern about treaty violations and environmental degradation for many Pacific Northwest tribal leaders, 10 of whom rallied together in Washington, D.C., on Thursday morning against what they said is government disregard for their treaties.

About a block from the White House, three Lummi Nation sisters crooned a song referencing the 1855 U.S. treaty with Pacific Northwest Native American tribes, reserving certain rights for their fishing, hunting and sacred grounds. “What about those promises? Fills my heart with sadness, I can’t do this on my own, we’ve got to come together and be strong,” the women sang.

But Tim Ballew II, chairman of the Lummi Nation, said those rights are in jeopardy.

“All the tribes are standing here today in solidarity to protect not just our reservation community but everybody’s community from the impacts that cannot be mitigated,” Ballew said, standing in front of leaders from the Tulalip, Swinomish, Quinault, Lower Elwha Klallam, Yakama, Hoopa Valley, Nooksack and Spokane nations and the president of United South and Eastern Tribes.

The proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal, a subsidy of SSA Marine, would act as a trading hub between landlocked domestic companies and markets in Asia, said Joe Ritzman, vice president of business development for SSA Marine. The deepwater terminal would handle up to 60 million tons of commodities, primarily coal, and the project would coincide with a railway expansion.

OUR CURRENT FOCUS IS THE IMPACT ON TREATY FISHING RIGHTS, AND IT’S THE GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSIBILITY TO UPHOLD THE TREATY. Tim Balew II, chairman of the Lummi Nation

But the project’s designated land includes burial sites for Lummi ancestors and artifacts, Ballew said, and the coastal development would harm age-old fishing traditions within the tribe.

“The location of the pier will take away fishing grounds and the increase in vessel traffic would impede access of our fishermen to fishing grounds throughout our usual and accustomed areas,” Ballew said.

Washington state, Whatcom County and the federal government are reviewing the environmental impacts of the proposed export terminal and associated rail expansion, expecting to release state-local and federal environmental impact statements in 2017. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is the federal review agency, is also inspecting Native American treaty rights at play.

“Our current focus is the impact on treaty fishing rights, and it’s the government’s responsibility to uphold the treaty,” Ballew said.

The Lummi Tribe, whose reservation is minutes from Cherry Point, entered the Treaty of Point Elliot more than 150 years ago, which ensured the sovereign nation right to “fish at usual and accustomed grounds and stations is further secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of the Territory.”

JoDe Goudy, chairman of the Yakama Nation, said his tribe has faced similar treaty battles in Oregon, most recently when the governor halted a proposed coal export plant near their sacred ground and Columbia River fisheries. But now that decision is under appeal, putting their treaty rights at stake again, Goudy said.

“The recognition from us collectively (is) that those reserved rights go hand in hand with our sustained existence as peoples,” Goudy said. “A direct attack on such things, in our hearts and minds, is a direct attack on our sustained existence.”

Not only would the Gateway Pacific Terminal affect the Lummi Nation, Goudy explained, but the proposed railways would transport coal by the Yakama Nation’s portion of the Columbia River.

“This issue affects all of us, we’re connected in ways that the U.S cannot even imagine,” said Tyson Johnson, council member of Nooksack Indian Tribe.

SSA Marine will wait until the state, county and federal environmental reports come out, Ritzman said. But with plans for mitigation strategies and a 75 percent natural buffer of the 1,500 acres for the project, Ritzman said he expects his company’s proposal to meet all state and federal environmental requirements and not impact the fisheries.

President Barack Obama and his administration met with the tribal leaders and many more Thursday afternoon as a part of the White House Tribal Nations Conference.

“I credit the current administration for every year building on our efforts to help us rebuild our nations and I encourage them to continue that,” Ballew said. “We really want them to give this issue its due respect. It’s a human rights issue, it’s a treaty rights issue, and we need our sacred sites protected.”

Read more here: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article43286049.html#storylink=cpy

Strengthening our community: Red Curtain Arts Center hosts Tulalip culture night

by Micheal Rios, Tulalip News

On Friday, October 23, the Red Curtain Foundation for the Arts, in partnership with the Tulalip Tribes’ Lushootseed Language Department, hosted a free cultural event from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Tulalip tribal member and Lushootseed teacher, Maria Martin, shared the legend of “Her First Basket” in Lushootseed and English, accompanied by tribal illustrations and artwork.

Scott Randall, president of the Red Curtain Foundation for the Arts in Marysville, first approached Maria at the annual Raising Hands event in 2014 with his idea for bringing the Marysville and Tulalip communities together with a culture night.

“We, Scott and I, thought it would be beneficial to everyone in the Marysville and Tulalip communities. There is a separation between the two and we wanted to break down that wall,” stated Maria. “We know we can be a strong community, but there is so much unknown about one another. This event is just one way for our communities to come together and grow.

“We plan on having a story and activity once a month. It is a free event, with donations if you feel up to it. We just want to break down those walls of curiosity. I’m sure that there are many Natives/ Tulalip community members that have encountered some sort of silly question about Native Americans and how we live. This is a way to educate outsiders, to understand one another.”

Maria chose to share her favorite Lushootseed story “Her First Basket”, a core story in the Lushootseed Department’s values book, and pass along the significant meaning it holds to both her and her people.

“It’s a story about not giving up and there is a bit of community unity within it as well,” explains Maria. “A Cedar tree helps this little girl to see her potential and she gains friends for it. Bringing people together and seeing their potential, it’s something every teacher strives for.”

Marysville and Tulalip community members were invited to partake in the evening of culture. Each table within the auditorium had at its center a “Her First Basket” picture book, so that children and adults could follow along as Maria first told the story in her traditional language, Lushootseed.

Following the storytelling sessions, the audience members were taught some basic weaving skills, using paper and yarn as substitutes for traditional cedar strips, to create their own basket and memento from the evening.

“After telling the story in Lushootseed and in English, we worked on making paper and yarn baskets. For many it was their first basket. It was a fun experience, and people’s talents are so amazing,” says Maria. “I hope to see more community members from both the Marysville and Tulalip communities at future events. We are all related, we live right next to one another, and our care for our neighbors is so important. It was so nice to see the people that showed up; the outcome of their basket making was beautiful. Accomplishing something you haven’t done before is such a great feeling, and meeting new people with the new experience is a beautiful thing too. There are so many people out there that we can all learn something from.”

Contact Micheal Rios, mrios@tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

Mayor and County Executive Declare a Homelessness State of Emergency

The number of people sleeping on the street in King County increased by 21 percent between 2014 and 2015. KELLY O

By Heidi Groover, The Stranger

Seattle has become the third major West Coast city to declare that homelessness has reached a state of emergency.

Mayor Ed Murray today declared a state of emergency due to homelessness in Seattle—following similar moves in Los Angeles and Portland—and King County Executive Dow Constantine did the same in the county.

To address the emergency, Murray announced $5.3 million in new one-time money that will go toward homelessness services over the next few months. Constantine also pledged $2 million total toward services like law enforcement diversion, housing vouchers, and shelter beds, though some of that is already included in his budget.

Government officials often declare states of emergency about natural disasters in order to “highlight the gravity of the challenge and make formal requests for assistance from the state and federal governments,” Constantine said at today’s announcement at the downtown YWCA. “Homelessness is not a natural disaster. It is a human-made disaster.”

The crisis is undeniable: During this year’s one-night count, 3,772 people were sleeping outside in King County and 2,813 of them were in Seattle. That was a 21 percent increase in the county and 22 percent increase in the city over last year. According to the mayor’s office, 66 homeless people have died in the county so far in 2015, 47 of whom lived on the streets or in homeless encampments, and 3,000 Seattle Public Schools students are homeless.

Constantine said 35,000 people in King County become “newly homeless” every year.

“Thirty-five thousand,” Constantine repeated. “That is the population of a city the size of Issaquah.”

YWCA CEO Sue Sherbrooke, who spoke in support of the declaration of emergency, said her organization provided case management or shelter for 7,500 people last year. She said homelessness falls “disproportionately [on] women, men, and families of color.”

Murray said he wouldn’t consider an end to the state of emergency until the region sees a “significant reduction in the number of people dying on our streets—and I mean significant—and a significant reduction in school-age homelessness.”

So, what exactly does it mean for the city to declare a state of emergency?

Declaring an emergency—a move usually reserved for “civil unrest, a natural disaster, or a terrorist attack,” the mayor said—allows the city to move more quickly to fund homelessness services and is basically a cry for state and federal help in addressing the problem. Service providers and local government officials have criticized the federal government for reducing the amount of money it spends on housing and homelessness services, leaving local government to shoulder those costs. As part of the emergency declaration, the mayor said he would also ask the federal government to make FEMA assistance available for homelessness.

“We must get this issue back on national agenda,” Murray said. “It’s foolish to believe cities alone in isolation can solve [homelessness].”

Both Constantine and Murray cited federal disinvestment along with increasing income inequality, a lack of services for mental illness, and a national heroin epidemic for worsening homelessness.

The new $5.3 million, which is a separate pot of money from the ongoing discussions about the mayor’s budget, will come from the sale of excess city-owned property on Myers Way South, according to the mayor’s office. It will be spent on a slate of servicesmostly focused on case management, outreach to people living on the street or in encampments (including illegal makeshift encampments), and 100 new shelter beds with limited hours for one year. The money will also fund some sanitation needs like Honey Buckets and trash removal, but where those will go remains unclear.

Technically, the property on Myers Way hasn’t yet been sold yet, according to the mayor’s office, so the city’s profit is estimated. That means the city is essentially lending itself the money for these homeless services and plans to repay itself after the sale of the property.

Murray called the declaration “risky” because “the orders you can issue under state of emergency are extensive,” including closing businesses or issuing curfews. He isn’t using those powers here, but did promise to consider bypassing zoning restrictions or speeding up permitting processes to create new shelter space for children.

The state of emergency declaration also allows the city to spend money more quickly by simply directing it toward service providers instead of going through the standard contracting process.

That puts most of the responsibility for figuring out the specifics—like where the Honey Buckets and new shelter beds will go or who will be hired for case management—on the city’s Department of Human Services. HSD Director Catherine Lester said after the mayor’s announcement that the shelter beds will be focused on a population that is currently unable to access already existing shelter, like couples, people with pets, or people with certain criminal histories. (Which population is yet to be decided.)

“We really want to make a dent on those things that are keeping people on the streets,” Lester said.

The city council will have to approve legislation authorizing how the $5.3 million is spent, which Council President Tim Burgess pledged to do quickly. Six council members, including Burgess, stood with the mayor at his announcement today. Council Member Mike O’Brien called homelessness a “tragedy in a city that can create so much wealth.”

The list of funding is largely focused on immediate needs—not that surprising for a state of emergency—rather than long-term preventative services, although both Murray and Constantine emphasized the need to address root causes of homelessness.

Constantine said he and Murray spoke directly with President Barack Obama about the issue when Obama visiting Seattle recently.

“He was very aware and concerned not just with increase of homelessness nationally…but also with the particular increase in homelessness in West coast cities,” Constantine said. “We are joining with other West Coast cities to say this time is different. Something different is going on here.”

Nourish your body and mind at Sparks Hot Yoga

By Kim Kalliber, Tulalip News

There’s a new place in Marysville to heal the body and mind and nourish the soul: Sparks Hot Yoga.

Today, Tulalip Tribal members, Quil Ceda and Tulalip Elementary students and Marysville community members helped shop owner Jennifer Garner celebrate the grand opening. The ceremony included dancing, drumming and singing followed by the ribbon cutting.

Jennifer, a former teacher at Quil Ceda and Tulalip Elementary, was pleased to have some of her former students in attendance.

“I taught in the [Marysville School] district for fifteen years and it was such a rough year that I wanted to serve the community in a different way. And I think the adults need this to continue to help the kids. We give so much and the kids need so much right now with everything they’re going through, so the adults can come here for a hour and leave a little stronger,” said Jennifer about her focus and goals of the new yoga studio.

Jennifer Garner, Owner, Sparks Yoga Studio in Marysville with her daughter — Jennifer Garner, Owner of Sparks Yoga Studio in Marysville, celebrates with her daughter.

While touring the facility, which includes a beautiful heated studio, attendees lined up for membership enrollment. Spark Hot Yoga of Marysville offers Hatha, Vinyasa flow, Sculpt, Yin and Kids Yoga classes.

Visit www.sparkhotyogastudio.com for information and new membership specials. Sparks Hot Yoga is located at 6608 64th St.NE, Suite , Marysville, WA 98271.

Elbow grease: the cost effective, green cleaner

Denise Frakes of Blue Sky Services, gives tips on dumping toxic cleaners and using a little elbow grease for a safer, cleaner home. Photo/Niki Cleary, Tulalip News — Denise Frakes of Blue Sky Services, offers tips on dumping toxic cleaners and using a little elbow grease for a healthy, clean home. Photo/Niki Cleary, Tulalip News

By Niki Cleary, Tulalip News

It’s easy to fall prey to the advertising. A sparkling home, the scent of a sea breeze drifting across the living room, not to mention the image of your bizarrely clean children and dogs frolicking as you take cookies from your spotless oven. The fact is, it’s a myth. The images are clever marketing. A play on our childhood memories and a lifetime of conditioning about how to properly complete domestic chores that hooks us into buying toxic cleaners that not only wreak havoc on our health, they actually make our house dirtier!

Denise Frakes has owned and operated cleaning companies for 24 years, she explained, “There’s a reason most of our fragrances are ‘seabreeze, mountain mist,’ all these things feed our [idea] of hearth and home, except they don’t. Our sense of smell is in the mid-part of the brain where our memories and emotions are. A lot of times it’s hard to let go of products we’re emotionally connected to.”

It helps if you first consider that most cleaning products designed for your home are pesticides.

“Anything that kills a living organism, is a pesticide,” Denise pointed out. “Be careful, we are living organisms. Have you ever cleaned your house and had this scratchy throat, a headache, or you just feel tired?”

It’s not just because you don’t like cleaning.

She went on, “Instead of feeling vitalized because we’ve done something physical, we don’t feel well. What happened? We’re mixing products all the time. Say I’m in the shower and use a product called ‘Kaboom’. I spray it, breathe it in, it gets on my skin. Then maybe I use my window cleaner with ammonia, and some of it also lands on me, the glass, and some on the acrylic floor. Now I’m in this tiny area, with poor ventilation and I’ve created a toxic gas.”

In addition to the concern of mixing chemicals, Denise said that one of the goals of cleaning is to leave no residue. Denise and her husband, the owner/operators of Blue Sky Services, employ a system that focuses on prevention then escalates to the use of what she calls ‘restorative’ cleaning products, things like bleach.

“Cleaning is not about adding on, it’s about removing. We start with residue free, or green cleaning, because when you’re done cleaning the only thing left should be the [surface]. ”

But cleaning products make life so much easier, right? I’ve seen the commercials, spray that stuff and little bubble cartoons come out of nowhere and leave behind sparkles and freshness. Turns out that’s not exactly accurate, most cleaning products leave behind a residue that attracts dirt if it’s not removed.

“The job of cleaners is to attract soil, so they leave behind a residue which makes things re-soil faster,” Denise explained.

Prevention is always better than cleaning, she pointed out. She pronounced that a good entry rug is the first line of defense. Taking off shoes as you enter the house is another strategy to keep dirt out.

“The premise of my cleaning is always, is there a way we can prevent a soil? If you have a commercial entrance rug and take off your shoes, you’ll minimize 76% of all soils that come in the door.”

When you do have to clean, the best ingredient is elbow grease, and plenty of it.

“We are masters of breaking surface tension in our cleaning company, because that’s where the cleaning happens,” Denise illustrated by wetting a cloth and scrubbing briskly.

“I use a two-towel method, microfiber cloths are great technology,” she added. “A good microfiber will gather 99% of the germs. They grab a hold of the soil, we don’t need to kill germs, just remove them. I clean with a microfiber, then buff dry with a terry cloth or other non-lint towel.”

Dish soap is one of the products Denise is fond of using. Because it’s excellent at breaking surface tension, is safe and a little can go a very long way.

“I use it in showers, counters and floors,” she said. “Because it’s high bubbling, you can use a really diluted product. It’s a great cleanser to use, then rinse and dry and it’s not in the air.”

In line with her mildest means cleaning philosophy, Denise encourages the use of vacuums, especially those that use HEPA filters. HEPA filters remove very fine particles from the air.

“There’s a lot of stuff in our dust that isn’t healthy,” she explained. She urged people to consider opening their windows, both to let in fresh air and to remove moisture, an often forgotten danger to indoor air quality.

“When you live in a house it should be the safest, healthiest place, but most homes have 25% more contaminants than outside,” said Denise. “Air purifiers are great, but clean your filters on a regular basis and maintain them well. I recommend that every house has a hygrometer, a relative humidity measurement tool.”

Ideally, indoor air should contain 30-50% moisture, when it’s above 60% the humidity provides a perfect environment for dust mites and mold.

“If you’re cleaning or working in the kitchen or taking a shower, open a window and turn on the ventilation,” she encouraged. “The exhaust fans remove contaminants and the windows bring in fresh air.”

Quick review time: in order to reduce dependence on cleaning products you should practice prevention, use area rugs and stop dirt at the door. Next, clean early and often using the mildest means possible, preferably water and washcloths followed by drying to prevent water spots and dirt from settling into the droplets. If you have to use a cleaning product, make sure that you increase the ventilation and open the windows.

Remember, you should feel better, not worse, after cleaning. For more tips on green cleaning you can follow Denise’s blog at www.dfbluesky.com.

$2.1 million will support MPHS victims, responders

By Diana Hefley, The Herald

MARYSVILLE — The federal government announced Friday it will provide $2.1 million dollars to support victims, witnesses and first responders affected by last year’s shootings at Marysville Pilchuck High School.

The grant will pay for mental health and victim services, additional school counselors, suicide prevention efforts and other programs at the high school and throughout the district.

“We’re excited about this and what we’ll be able to do,” said Marge Fairweather, the executive director of Victim Support Services.

The nonprofit provides two trauma therapists who mainly work with students at Marysville Pilchuck. Fairweather plans to hire a case manager and third therapist to reach more students in other schools.

On Oct. 24, 2014, a high school freshman shot his friends. Four students were killed and a fifth was seriously wounded. Shooter Jaylen Fryberg, 15, then killed himself.

The school district, Marysville, the Tulalip Tribes, Victim Support Services and Volunteers of America initially applied for $4.2 million. The amount was refined to meet the guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime.

After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Congress authorized the office to set aside $50 million a year to provide grants to victims and first responders after acts of terrorism or mass violence. The money comes from bond forfeitures and fines paid by white-collar criminals.

The federal office provided a $7.1 million grant for recovery efforts after a gunman in 2012 killed 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Yakama Nation to have full authority over civil, criminal proceedings on tribal land

By KIMATV.com Staff

YAKIMA, Wash. — Federal officials have accepted a petition that will give Yakama Nation authorities exclusive jurisdiction for certain cases on tribal land, and will have the State of Washington withdraw from any authority.

The United States Department of the Interior said in a news release Monday that ‘retrocession’ has been granted, and tribal police and courts will have full authority over civil and criminal cases involving members of the nation.

The federal government will retain their authority over the Nation, and Yakama Nation authority will remain the same. The removal of state authority over tribal persons is the only change to come from this decision.

The state will keep jurisdiction over those involving non-tribal defendants, plaintiffs or victims.

As part of the agreement the federal Office of Justice Services (OJS) assessed the Yakama Nation’s court system and offered recommendations for improvements to their tribal court operations, as well as helped develop a 3-5 year plan.

The Yakama Nation also created ten new police officer positions, in preparation of having more cases to handle.

OJS also donated $149,000 to the help bolster the tribal court system by improving the court’s infrastructure, increase pay for law-trained judges, hire a legal assistant and court administrator, and provide training to tribal judges, prosecutors, and defenders on issues like domestic violence, child abuse, and neglect.

Washington lawmakers established a process for tribes to ask for exclusive jurisdiction in 2012. Washington has become the sixteenth state to rescind its authority over tribal court proceedings involving only tribal members.

Governor Jay Inslee agreed to the Yakama Nation’s petition last year. The change will officially take effect in April.

View here to see the full release from the United States Department of the Interior.

Breast cancer campaign puts the pink in October for indigenous women

On October 21, AICAF asks men and women of all ages to wear pink and share photos on social media using the hashtag #indigenouspink to spread breast cancer awareness.

by Daanis Chosa and Julia Jacobson, Native Times

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn — The American Indian Cancer Foundation recently announced the first-ever “Indigenous Pink Day,” a national breast cancer awareness campaign for indigenous women.
On October 21, AICAF asks men and women of all ages to wear pink and share photos on social media using the hashtag #indigenouspink to spread breast cancer awareness, said AICAF Executive Director Kris Rhodes.

“All of America has jumped onto pink October and sometimes it’s done in ways that exploit the cancer issue,” Rhodes said. “But for the American Indian Cancer Foundation, Indigenous Pink is an important way to raise visibility in our communities where cancer is still invisible and to take control with screening.”

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death and the most common cancer found in American Indian and Alaska Native women. But when breast cancer is found early, the five-year survival rate is 98 percent, according to Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Barbara Scott, an enrolled member of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina who lives in Charlotte, was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer in 2005. Over the next six months, she underwent aggressive chemotherapy and radiation to remove a tumor that had metastasized to her lymph nodes.

“I was ready to give up, I was tired of fighting and wanted to just go home,” Scott said.

Scott was at particular risk for breast cancer, she said, because her mother had breast cancer and her family carries the gene for the disease.

But regardless of a family history, American Indian women shouldn’t be scared of breast cancer and modern medicine, she said.

“We are a resilient people, we have survived for forever, and we can’t let something like breast cancer get into the way,” Scott said. “We need to be warriors and stand strong.”

Chris Davis, an enrolled member of the Fond du Lac band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northern Minnesota, is a nurse practitioner for the Fond du Lac tribe and a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with Stage 0 breast cancer in 2013 and feels fortunate her cancer was caught early.

“I think in the community where we are in, where there are such high rates of cancer, we need to find these cancers early,” Davis said.

Although Davis was recommended to have her first mammogram at age 50, she had her mammogram at age 40. Davis said she may have had a more invasive form of cancer if it was detected later.

“Take your health into your own hands. Utilize your resources and ask as many questions as you can,” she said.

In recent years there has been a tremendous increase in the number of American Indian women who have been screened for breast cancer in Minnesota, said GayLynn Richards, the regional coordinator of Sage, Minnesota’s breast and cervical cancer screening program.

Richards also said there has been a reduction in breast cancer deaths among Minnesota American Indian women over the last decade, according to Minnesota Cancer Surveillance System data.

She credits the lower death rate to programs like the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community mobile unit, which brings mammograms and other screening services directly to the communities where American Indian women live.

“We listen, learn and seek out information from the community members, and together come up with an intervention or educational approach that is respectful,” Richards said. “We love the idea of bringing the services to the community.”

For more information about Indigenous Pink Day, see americanindiancancer.org/pink.

Daanis Chosa (Ojibwe) is a college student, lacrosse player, and community health outreach specialist.

Julia Jacobson is a recent college graduate and communications specialist.

NHNA creates shared health coverage for American Indian communities at no cost. Registered users can download additional print, web and audio content at http://www.nativehealthnews.com and publish as is or add their own reporting, highlighting important issues within the local Native community. NHNA services are free to all those who think good journalism has a positive impact in the lives of all of our readers, listeners, and viewers.

Seattle Continues Healing ‘Deep Wounds’ With Boarding School Resolution

Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights ReservedStarting in the middle of the 19th century, church groups and the U.S. government set up boarding schools for Natives. Here, children from many tribes were taught how to speak English and how to make a living. They were separated from their elders, and were discouraged from learning tribal traditions and language. This photo by U.P. Hadley shows the buildings and students at the Industrial Boarding School on the Puyallup Reservation between 1880 and 1889. The school opened in 1860. During the 1880s, a number of new buildings were added, and the school grew from 125 to about 200 students. — Museum of History & Industry, Seattle; All Rights Reserved
Starting in the middle of the 19th century, church groups and the U.S. government set up boarding schools for Natives. Here, children from many tribes were taught how to speak English and how to make a living. They were separated from their elders, and were discouraged from learning tribal traditions and language. This photo by U.P. Hadley shows the buildings and students at the Industrial Boarding School on the Puyallup Reservation between 1880 and 1889. The school opened in 1860. During the 1880s, a number of new buildings were added, and the school grew from 125 to about 200 students.

By Richard Walker, Indian Country Today, 10/20/15

“If it be admitted that education affords the true solution to the Indian problem, then it must be admitted that the boarding school is the very key to the situation,” Indian School Superintendent John B. Riley wrote in an 1886 reportto the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

“Only by complete isolation of the Indian child from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily educated.”

Such was the prevailing attitude of Indian Affairs agents during the federal boarding-school era: That America’s First Peoples were a problem to be dealt with, that America’s Manifest Destiny required Indigenous Peoples to be remolded and assimilated into the mainstream—even if it meant forcibly removing children from their families.

It wasn’t until 1978—118 years after the establishment of the first American Indian boarding school—that Native American parents gained the legal right, with the passing of the Indian Child Welfare Act, to deny their children’s placement in off-reservation schools.

“Some Native American parents saw boarding school education for what it was intended to be—the total destruction of Indian culture,” the American Indian Relief Council reported on its website. “Resentment of the boarding schools was most severe because the schools broke the most sacred and fundamental of all human ties, the parent-child bond.”

On October 12, council members in one of the largest cities in the U.S. took a step toward helping to heal the wounds from the boarding school era.

The City Council of Seattle, Washington, approved a resolution“acknowledging the various harms and ongoing historical and inter-generational traumas impacting American Indian, First Nations, and Alaskan Natives for the forcible removal of Indian children and subsequent abuse and neglect resulting from the United States’ American Indian Boarding School Policy during the 19th and 20th Centuries …”

The resolution calls on the United States to examine its human rights record and to work with American Indian and Alaskan Native peoples “in efforts of reconciliation in addressing the impacts of historical trauma, language and cultural loss, and alleged genocide.”

“The supposed goal [of the boarding schools] was to ‘Kill the Indian, save the man,’ which is tantamount to cultural genocide,” Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant told LastRealIndians.com. “The resolution will give city officials the opportunity to acknowledge and help heal the deep wounds opened up by the boarding school policy. It is also another step toward getting the city to take real action to address the poverty, oppression, and marginalization that the community faces to this day.”

The resolution was drafted by Matt Remle, Lakota, with support from Seattle lawyer Gabe Galanda, Round Valley Indian Tribes; Seattle Arts Commissioner Tracy Rector, Seminole; the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition; the Native American Rights Fund, and other members of Seattle’s Native community. The resolution was sponsored legislatively by Sawant.

The resolution vote took place on Seattle’s second annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day. The day included a rally and march to Seattle City Hall, drumming and songs, a keynote address by Winona LaDuke, Ojibwe, and a celebration at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center.

During the boarding school era, “roughly 100,000 American Indian children ages 5-18 were stripped from their homes and placed in remote boarding schools,” Remle wrote on LastRealIndians.com. “Native languages, spirituality and customs were outlawed, physical and sexual violence was rampant.”

It’s a subject known all too well by the First Peoples of the Seattle area. Seattle, named for the mid-1800s leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish peoples, is the largest city in a state with 29 federally recognized Native nations. The first American Indian boarding school in the United States was established at the Yakama Nation in eastern Washington in 1860; the Tulalip Mission School, operated by the Catholic Church, was established three years earlier and was the first contract school for Native American children.

In her book, Tulalip, From My Heart, Harriette Shelton Dover (1904-1991) wrote of harsh discipline, poor diet and inadequate care, of tuberculosis and pneumonia and childhood deaths.

Helma Ward, Makah, told Carolyn J. Marr, an anthropologist and photographs librarian at the Museum of History and Industryin Seattle, “Two of our girls ran away … but they got caught. They tied their legs up, tied their hands behind their backs, put them in the middle of the hallway so that if they fell, fell asleep or something, the matron would hear them and she’d get out there and whip them and make them stand up again.”

“They were not allowed to speak their language there,” Inez Bill, Tulalip, told KING 5 News, Seattle, of her grandparents’ boarding school experience. “When you lose your language, you lose your culture. It left our people scarred.”

Fast forward to today: The children and grandchildren of those who were forced to attend boarding schools and were banned from speaking their languages have taken control of their own children’s education, are showing that their culture has an important role in education and that it can build bridges of understanding in communities.

Almost 65,000 students in Washington identify as Native American or Alaskan Native, according to the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. OSPI’s Office of Native Education was created in the mid-1960s to help Native students achieve their education goals and meet state standards. The office provides resources and training to help educators and families meet the needs of Native students, builds curriculum in Native languages and about Native culture and history, and works to increase the number of Native educators.

Eight Native nations operate their own schools in Washington, according to the state Superintendent of Public Instruction. School districts near reservations have liaisons to the Native American community and/or partnerships with a local Native nation’s education department. Earlier this year, the state legislature mandated the inclusion of Native American history, culture and governance in the curriculum of local public schools.

During its heyday, the American Indian Heritage Early College High School in Seattle had a 100 percent graduation rate, and all graduates went on to college. The Urban Native Education Alliance is lobbying to have the school reestablished in the new Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, named for the late principal of Indian Heritage and under construction at the site of the former school.

The Suquamish Tribe operates and funds Chief Kitsap Academy, a high-tech, culturally based high school that is part of the Early College High School network. According to the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, only four of 10 of North Kitsap School District schools and programs met Adequate Yearly Progress goals in reading and math proficiency in 2014—one of those was Chief Kitsap Academy. Students use the latest technology, but are also exposed to cultural teachings and study the Lushootseed language. The school is open to Native and non-Native students.

Northwest Indian Collegehas grown from a school of aquaculture to a four-year college with six satellite campuses in two states. It offers four undergraduate degrees, nine associate’s degrees, three certificate programs, and five other study programs. The University of Washingtonand The Evergreen State Collegehave longhouses that serve as places of gathering and sharing as well as teaching.

A totem at Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Washington. (Google Plus/NWIC)

Eaonhawinon Patricia Allen, a University of Washington graduate and community organizer in Seattle, spoke at Seattle City Hall before the City Council’s vote. She later wrote on LastRealIndians.comthat the boarding school era “was one of the last actions made to complete colonization and … to wash the Native identity out of Natives. But I am here to tell you this, and so will my future children: We still survived and are starting the process of healing.”

Canada established a Truth and Reconciliation Commissionto prepare a complete historical record on the policies and operations of residential schools; complete a public report, including recommendations to the parties of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement; and establish a national research center that will be a lasting resource about the Indian Residential Schools legacy in Canada. The commission is reaching out to the public in national and community events, and honoring residential schools survivors in a lasting manner. It is also examining the number and cause of deaths, illnesses, and disappearances of children, and documenting the location of burial sites.

Native Lives Matter, Too

By Lydia Millet, NY Times, Opinion Pages

IN August 2010 John T. Williams, a homeless woodcarver of the Nuu-chah-nulth tribe who made his living selling his work near the Pike Place market in Seattle, was shot four times by a police officer within seconds of failing to drop the knife and piece of cedar he was carrying (Mr. Williams had mental health problems and was deaf in one ear). He died; the folding knife was found closed on the ground. The young police officer who shot Mr. Williams resigned, but he never faced criminal charges, even though the Seattle Police Department’s Firearms Review Board called the shooting unjustified.

In South Dakota in 2013, a police officer used his Taser to shock an 8-year-old, 70-pound Rosebud Sioux girl holding a knife; the force of the shock hurled her against a wall. After an investigation, the officer’s actions were deemed appropriate.

That same year 18-year-old Mah-hi-vist (Red Bird) Goodblanket of the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribes was killed by the police in his parents’ home in Oklahoma just before Christmas. They’d called 911 because their son was having a violent episode after a misunderstanding with his girlfriend. Before the police entered their home Red Bird’s father begged them, “Please, don’t shoot my son.” A few minutes later, the parents would count seven bullet holes in their son’s body — one in the back of his head. The exact narrative of the incident, which fittingly took place in Custer County, is in dispute.

In November 2014, also in Oklahoma, Christina Tahhahwah of the Comanche tribe died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Fellow inmates claim that jail guards shocked her with a Taser for refusing to stop singing Comanche hymns.

In December 2014, one day after attending a #NativeLivesMatter rally against police violence, Allen Locke, a 30-year-old Lakota man, was shot dead by the police in South Dakota. Mr. Locke had been holding a steak knife at the time he was hit by up to five bullets; the shooting was deemed justified a month later.

Most recently, in July, a 24-year-old Lakota mother of two named Sarah Lee Circle Bear died in a South Dakota jail of a methamphetamine overdose. Her death, which involved a two-hour time lapse between the first signs of physical distress and her transport to a hospital, got almost no national media attention.

All the victims were Native Americans, and they’re just a small sample of a systemic problem. American Indians are more likely than any other racial group to be killed by the police, according to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, which studied police killings from 1999 to 2011 (the rate was determined as a percentage of total population). But apart from media outlets like Indian Country Today, almost no attention is paid to this pattern of violence against already devastated peoples.

When it comes to American Indians, mainstream America suffers from willful blindness. Of all the episodes of police violence listed above, only the killings of Mr. Williams and Mr. Goodblanket received significant news coverage outside Indian circles, the latter only in an article for CNN.com by the Oglala Lakota journalist and activist Simon Moya-Smith. The Williams shooting, which was the subject of public outcry, was covered by a major local news site, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as well as by The New York Times.

One reason for Indian invisibility in the media may be low numbers; Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the country now total about three million, or 5.2 million if you include mixed-race individuals, compared with about 45 million African-Americans. Perhaps equally important, their population densities off the reservation tend to be low. They have a small urban presence; New York, with about 112,000, and Los Angeles, with about 54,000, rank first and second among cities with American Indian populations. Phoenix, Oklahoma City and Anchorage come next. About one-fifth of American Indians still live on reservations.

Economic and health statistics, as well as police-violence statistics, shed light on the pressures on American Indian communities and individuals: Indian youths have the highest suicide rate of any United States ethnic group. Adolescent women have suicide rates four times the rate of white women in the same age group. Indians suffer from an infant mortality rate 60 percent higher than that of Caucasians, a 50 percent higher AIDS rate, and a rate of accidental death (including car crashes) more than twice that of the general population.

At the root of much of this is economic inequality: Indians are the poorest people in the United States, with a poverty rate in 2013 that was about twice the national average at 29.2 percent — meaning almost one in three Indians lives in poverty. So it doesn’t come as a complete shock that members of these disadvantaged communities encounter law enforcement more often than, say, middle-class whites. But the rate at which native people die as a result of those encounters is nonetheless deeply disturbing: Though “single-race” Indians make up slightly less than 1 percent of the population, they account for nearly 2 percent of police killings.

There are many complexities surrounding Native American interaction with the dominant culture, whose Declaration of Independence refers to them as “merciless Indian Savages” and whose history of mass killings has taken a staggering social toll. But the fact is that today’s avoidable tragedies of oppressed Indian lives and troubled deaths remain far too often in the shadows.

At this moment, when black Americans are speaking up against systemic police violence, and their message is finally being carried by virtually every major news source, it’s time we also pay attention to a less visible but similarly targeted minority: the people who lived here for many thousands of years before this country was founded, and who also have an unalienable right to respect and justice.