The 2013 Northwest Indian Gaming Conference and Expo will beheld July 15-17, 2013 at the Tulalip Resort Casino in Tulalip, Washington, about 30 miles north of Seattle, directly on I-5 at exit 200.
The Tulalip Tribe’s Resort includes the Tulalip Casino, 378 hotel rooms and luxury suites, casual and fine dining restaurants, the Spa, and 30,000 sq. ft. of conference space. Tradeshow exhibitors will be located in the 15,000 sq. ft. Orca Ballroom.
Our attendees come from the all of the Northwest states, with the largest number from Washington, followed by Oregon, California, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Montana. Save the date!
Our show manager this year is Buss Productions and the contact person is Heidi Buss at (651) 917-2301 or FAX (651) 917-3578 or email at hbuss@msn.com.
Registration Questions? Call Madeline Bahr at Washington Indian Gaming Assoc. 360.352.3248 or email: madelinebahr@reachone.com
Early Bird Discount Registration ends June 14th. Save $50 over the regular registration rate. Discounted Hotel rate is available through June 21st, but don’t wait! Rooms are going fast!
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, in a release, said she was proud to take on leadership of the new initiative. It is aimed at improving communications between Senate Republicans and Native American voters.
NRSC Chairman Jerry Moran said in a release that he’s “thrilled” to have Murkowski involved.
Murkowski serves on the Senate Indian Affairs committee, and received strong support during her 2010 re-election campaign from Alaska Natives.
The NRSC backed Murkowski in the 2010 GOP primary, which she lost to Joe Miller. It then backed Miller as Murkowski mounted a write-in campaign to keep her job.
At the most recent Native American conference of the Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform, held in April in Nashville, among the many issues raised was that of the Cobell settlement of 100 years-plus of Indian trust assets.
This class-action settlement of the claims of tens of thousands of American Indians, many of whom are resident Tennesseans, is just another farce committed against the most economically disadvantaged people in the U.S.
This past December, $1,000 checks were sent to thousands of Native American accountholders for money of which they were defrauded for more than 100 years. This was a token payment to represent royalties — for oil, timber, grazing, etc. — that should have been paid by the Department of Interior since 1887. The settlement, forced on Indian plaintiffs, was for $3.4 billion.
Sound like a lot of money? But not when the true amount of loss, with interest, for a century and a quarter was $179 billion. The $1,000-per-person figure would not even buy a decent used car. This is what the U.S. government thinks of American Indians. This settlement was passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, because he thought it was fair. The settlement reeked of abominable villainy! The courts, the Congress and the president combined in this infamy.
But make no mistake: The verdict of history shall judge this “settlement” as a permanent blot on his presidential legacy and the U.S. as a whole. This $3.4 billion must also be seen in context with other issues. For example, in the Iraq war $12 billion was spent per month. In just one week, the U.S. government spent as much on the Iraq conflict as it did to settle an Indian lawsuit that it fought tooth and nail for 16 years. This is a grotesque injustice.
Some issues money can never address. Over that 122-year period, Native Americans lived, and continue to live, in a nightmare of hopelessness, deprivation and intergenerational trauma generated in part by abject poverty. Poverty stifles; abject poverty kills. Just think how the just payment of money due over this time span could have alleviated some of that misery. Think of how many countless lives — adults, children and the elderly — could have been altered and saved.
Currently, on many reservations the suicide rate among teenagers and young adults is the highest in the Western Hemisphere. This, again, is the result of generations of malevolent, intentional, genocidal poverty inflicted on Native Americans by an endless succession of U.S. administrations.
It will be to the everlasting ignominy of this government that there was no fair settlement reached, only more dishonor attached to a system covered with the gore of generations of victimized Native Americans.
This is the most scandalous forced settlement in American history. Never has so much been owed to so many, who have received so little.
Albert Bender, a Cherokee activist, historian and grant writer, lives in Antioch; albertbender07@yahoo.com.
Kurt Batdorf / The Herald Business Journal Process Solutions workers Bill Desmul (left) and Zach Barnes use a crane to lower a completed panel into an electrical service box at the company’s Stanwood assembly plant.
By Kurt Batdorf, The Herald Business Journal
STANWOOD — When you think of electrical panel and control systems manufacturing, you probably wouldn’t put Stanwood very high on a list of likely contenders.
But the city is home to Washington’s largest such business, Process Solutions.
Why Stanwood? It doesn’t have a reputation for tech manufacturing as Arlington, Mukilteo and Bothell do. But it does have a mayor, city officials and local boosters who want attract and keep family-wage jobs.
When the Port of Bellingham lured away the building’s former occupant, Index Sensors & Controls, the city didn’t want to see it sit empty and wanted another occupant with an equally robust payroll.
Process Solutions designs and builds electrical control systems and the software that controls them for industries including food processing and packaging, biotech and pharmaceutical, water and wastewater, energy management, manufacturing and aerospace. It builds more than 2,000 control panels per year. North America accounts for 95 percent of the company’s business, Busby said. It did $13 million in sales in 2012 is on track do close to $15 million this year.
Process Solutions President Todd Busby said he was drawn to the Index Sensors building on the east end of town, across the parking lot from Stanwood Cinemas, because it was much more attractive than the three metal buildings his company occupied in Arlington.
Besides, Busby said, with a metal building, “there’s only so much you can do with it.”
However, he wasn’t sold yet on Stanwood. Busby liked Arlington and had been negotiating a ground lease with the city for a bigger facility. He said the deal fell apart after city officials wouldn’t accept liability for anything Busby uncovered during excavation and site preparation. That brought Busby back to the Index Sensors building.
Randy Heagle of Windermere Stanwood represented Busby on the building’s purchase.
The city’s responsiveness impressed Heagle and Busby.
Stanwood community development director Rebecca Lind said she crunched numbers with the city’s finance director and determined that the real-estate excise tax from the property sale would offset the cost of water and sewer, so the City Council agreed to a five-year utility waiver for Process Solutions.
The building’s vinyl floor tile presented another stumbling block for Busby. Lind said the city’s engineer and building official toured the building and wrote a report about how to correct the tile floor’s problems. Stanwood also waived fees for its review of tenant improvements and sign permits.
“That gave Todd the confidence to invest in the building,” Lind said.
“With the help of the city, we helped save the deal,” Heagle said.
Process Solutions closed on the sale in August 2011 and moved into the building April 15, 2012. Busby celebrated his first anniversary in Stanwood with a tour of the 28,000-square-foot engineering and manufacturing facility.
Busby led the city’s ad hoc economic development group — Heagle and a half-dozen local bankers and realtors — through the plant recently.
Process Solutions employs 62 people. About 40 engineers occupy cubicles in the front half of the building, but Busby noted that most of them spend a lot of time on the road with far-flung clients.
The manufacturing floor fills the back half of the building. The vinyl tiles that Busby so disliked are gone. He had the concrete slab ground smooth and polished, removing seven tons of material.
A crane helps workers place large, heavy electrical panels into service boxes instead of using a forklift like most of Busby’s smaller competitors do.
Each work station has overhead power and compressed air for tools and a rack Busby invented that holds 10 spools of wire. Workers can unroll just the wire they need, so copper waste fell from 7 percent to 1 percent, he said.
And then there are the batting cages. Busby, a Little League and soccer coach, said it’s a gift to his employees and their kids.
Busby wanted to have a building that appealed to prospective and current employees. There’s a spacious lounge where workers can make a cup of coffee and see what’s on the giant, flat-screen TV. Daylight filters into the building. Busby worked with designer Garrett Kuhlmann of H2K Design in Stanwood on the interior decor.
So far, Busby’s investment in employee comfort and aesthetics is paying off. He’s recruited eight new engineers since January and gained a $500,000 contract with a customer who saw the building after leaving a movie.
“We wanted to invest in our own building,” Busby said. “It reflects the quality of the work we do.”
WASHINGTON, May 13, 2013 – May measurements confirm April forecasts: NRCS hydrologists predict reduced spring and summer water supply for much of the West.
April saw a surge in snow in many places but didn’t make up the shortfall during previous months.
“For much of the West, April was wetter than January, February and March combined,” said NRCS Meteorologist Jan Curtis. “But it was too little, too late.”
NRCS hydrologists use May streamflow forecasts to confirm and refine the April forecasts. Though recent snow made small improvements in some areas, most changes are insignificant.
“California, southern and eastern Oregon, Nevada, southern Utah, southern Colorado and especially New Mexico will experience major water shortages due to sustained drought conditions and low reservoir storage,” says NRCS Hydrologist Tom Perkins.
“I haven’t seen it this bad in New Mexico since I started forecasting for the Snow Survey Program in 1983,” he added.
As of May 1, USDA’s Secretary Tom Vilsack designated many counties in Western states as eligible for USDA drought assistance.
Water resource managers face difficult decisions because of this shortage. Western states should prepare for potentially increased vulnerability to forest and rangeland fires and mandatory water restrictions. In addition, wildlife that depends on surface water is going to suffer.
There are a few exceptions to the dry forecasts. The North Cascades and the headwaters of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers are near normal.
“For the rest of the West, there is no silver lining,” Perkins said. “I think it’s going to be a long, hot, dry summer.”
According to Curtis, much of the snowmelt won’t reach the streams.
“The soil in the southern half of the West is like a dry sponge that will absorb and hold water as it melts from the snowpacks. Only when the soil is sufficiently saturated will it allow water to flow to the streams,” he said.
NRCS’ National Water and Climate Center monitors soil moisture with its SNOw TELemetry (SNOTEL) and Soil Climate Analysis Network (SCAN) networks. These sensors gather soil data that helps NRCS better monitor drought development.
“Although NRCS’ streamflow forecasts do not predict drought, they provide valuable information about future water supply in states where snowmelt accounts for the majority of seasonal runoff,” said Perkins.
In addition to precipitation, streamflow in the West consists largely of accumulated mountain snow that melts and flows into streams as temperatures warm into spring and summer.
The May forecast is the fifth of six monthly forecasts. The forecast compares the current level of water content in snowpack in the 13 Western states with historical data to help the region’s farmers, ranchers, water managers, communities and other stakeholders make informed decisions about water use and future availability.
NRCS scientists analyze the snowfall, air temperature, soil moisture and other measurements taken from remote climate sites to develop the water supply forecasts.
“USDA streamflow forecasts play a vital role in the livelihood of many Americans,” said Jason Weller, NRCS acting chief. “With much of this region greatly affected by drought, our experts will continue to monitor snowpack data and ensure that NRCS is ready to help landowners plan and prepare for water supply conditions.”
Since 1935, NRCS has conducted snow surveys and issued regular water supply forecasts. NRCS installs, operates and maintains its extensive, automated SNOTEL system to collect snowpack and related climatic data in the Western United States and Alaska.
Other resources on drought include the U.S. Drought Monitor and U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook map, which forecast drought conditions through March 31. For information on USDA’s drought efforts, visit www.usda.gov/drought. And to learn more about how NRCS is helping private landowners deal with drought, visit the NRCS site.
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service helps America’s farmers and ranchers conserve the Nation’s soil, water, air and other natural resources. All programs are voluntary and offer science-based solutions that benefit both the landowner and the environment.
Follow NRCS on Twitter. Check out other conservation-related stories on USDA Blog. Watch videos on NRCS’ YouTube channel.
USDA has made a concerted effort to deliver results for the American people, even as USDA implements sequestration – the across-the-board budget reductions mandated under terms of the Budget Control Act. USDA has already undertaken historic efforts since 2009 to save more than $828 million in taxpayer funds through targeted, common-sense budget reductions. These reductions have put USDA in a better position to carry out its mission, while implementing sequester budget reductions in a fair manner that causes as little disruption as possible.
OLYMPIA – May 13, 2013 – The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission invites the public to attend the Eighth Annual Salish Sea Native American Culture Celebration with the Samish and Swinomish tribes.
The celebration runs from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 8, at the Bowman Bay picnic area on the Fidalgo Island side of Deception Pass State Park, 41020 State Route 20, Oak Harbor. The event celebrates the maritime heritage of the two participating Coast Salish tribes. This year’s event also commemorates the 100th birthday of the Washington state park system, which was created by the Legislature in 1913.
The June 8 event will feature canoe rides and native singers, drummers and storytellers. Artists from the two tribes will demonstrate traditional weaving, cedar work and woodcarving. A salmon and frybread lunch also will be available for purchase. The Discover Pass is not required to attend the event. In recognition of National Get Outdoors Day, Saturday, June 8 is a State Parks “free day,” when visitors to state parks are not required to display a Discover Pass.
Cultural event activities are presented by the Samish Indian Nation, the Samish Canoe Family, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and the Swinomish Canoe Family. Proceeds from food sales at the Salish Sea Native American Culture Celebration support the Samish and Swinomish canoe families’ participation in the annual intertribal canoe journey; each year, tribes and nations from the Pacific Northwest travel by canoe to different host communities along the Salish Sea. This year, the Quinault Tribe plays host to the intertribal canoe journey, which lands in Taholah on August 1. For more information about this year’s canoe journey, visit www.paddletoquinault.org.
The event is accessible to persons with disabilities. If special accommodations are required in order to attend the event, please call (360) 902-8626 or (360) 675-3767 or the Washington Telecommunications Relay Service at (800) 833-6388. Requests must be made in advance.
The Salish Sea Native American Culture Celebration is part of a broader series of events celebrating Washington’s diverse cultures and presented by the Folk and Traditional Arts in the Parks Program. The program is a partnership between the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, the Washington State Arts Commission and Northwest Heritage Resources with funding provided by National Endowment for the Arts and the Washington State Parks Foundation.
Deception Pass State Park is a 4,134-acre marine and camping park with 77,000 feet of saltwater of shoreline, and 33,900 feet of freshwater shoreline on three lakes. The park is best known for views of Deception Pass and Bowman Bay, old-growth forests, abundant wildlife and the historic Deception Pass Bridge.
Stay connected to your state parks by following Washington State Parks at www.facebook.com/WashingtonStateParks, www.twitter.com/WaStatePks_NEWS and www.youtube.com/WashingtonStateParks. Share your favorite state park adventure on the new State Parks’ blog site at www.AdventureAwaits.com.
Red Bull, in cooperation with the Seattle Department of Parks & Recreation is looking for an artist to work in collaboration with a world‐class team of experts to design public artwork that is skateable. This is not a skate park – it is first and foremost a work of art. But this is art that invites interaction and participation.
Red Bull is investing in the Seattle community by creating a truly unique public art experience that explores the creative nexus of public space, athletic skill and individual imagination. Red Bull and the Seattle Department of Parks & Recreation have selected a site for the Red Bull SkateSpace in Myrtle Edwards Park, just north of the Olympic Sculpture Park on an elevated knoll with spectacular views to Elliott Bay and the Olympic mountain range. Red Bull SkateSpace will blend art and skateboarding to create unique terrain where the innovation of skateboarders can truly flourish.
A UW-Bothell researcher turned to a crowd-sourcing website to fund his study of trains’ emissions and dust.
By Sharon Salyer, The Herald
BOTHELL — Ask just about any scientist. They have far more ideas for things they want to investigate than they can ever get the funding to explore.
That’s the conundrum that Dan Jaffe, a researcher at the University of Washington’s Bothell campus, found himself in last month.
Jaffe is a professor of chemistry and atmospheric sciences. He wanted to study just how much emissions and tiny particles called particulate matter are being produced by passenger and freight train exhaust as well as coal dust from trains in Western Washington.
Little currently is known about the environmental effects caused by the passing trains.
His interest was triggered by a proposal to build a $650 million terminal north of Bellingham to export coal, grain and other material to Asia.
The proposal eventually would create up to 450 jobs, backers say. The trade-off: It also would bring more trains through Western Washington — up to 18 each day through Snohomish County, opponents say.
Jaffe thought there was a fairly simple way to conduct his experiment: Install an air-quality monitor that could measure which particles were caused by diesel exhaust and which from the larger coal dust particles over a four- to six-week period this summer.
A web camera also would be installed to document which trains were passing as the emissions occurred.
With the help of some UW students, he figured the experiment could be conducted for a little more than $18,000.
Compared to multi-million dollar research projects, that’s chump change. Nevertheless, Jaffe was getting little more than a swing-and-a-miss trying to drum up financial interest in the project.
Government agencies weren’t too encouraging, he said. “I was getting a little bit discouraged. I was pretty close to giving up.”
That’s when someone suggested he take a look at an online site, microryza.com, where researchers make public pitches for donations to fund their projects. Musicians, artists and others have used similar “crowd-sourcing” websites, such as Kickstarter, to support their projects.
“I was kind of skeptical at first,” Jaffe said.
His pitch outlining the project, with a promise that donors would be credited in the research, was posted on April 29.
Much to his surprise, on Thursday evening, just 11 days after his project was posted, he was notified that the goal had been met, with 236 people pledging a total of $18,055.
Publicity over his project and the way he raised money to do it have generated a lot of interest, he said.
“I’ve had emails from people telling me how to do it better,” Jaffe said. Their suggestions included adding additional monitoring sites or doing an analysis of the chemistry of coal dust.
He said he’s also had some interest from an environmental agency in a coal-producing state.
With the pledge goal reached far earlier than the July 1 online deadline, Jaffe said on Friday that he’s moving up the start of his research.
Assisted by two or three students at the University of Washington’s Bothell campus, he said he hopes to begin collecting information in July.
Measurements may be taken at two different sites. By moving the equipment, information can be collected on whether there are more diesel particulates when trains are moving slowly or if there is any coal dust left behind when the trains are going fast, he said.
Results are expected nine months after the project begins.
“I’ll be pretty mum on releasing it much earlier than that,” Jaffe said. “When the data come in, we have to think about what it means. That’s how science is.
“We need the first shot at it to figure out what it means and to do it in the quiet of the labs.”
Although the fundraising goal has been reached, donors can still make contributions. If enough do, Jaffe said he’s considering adding an additional monitoring site near the Columbia River Gorge.
“There have been reports of coal dust there,” he said. “I think scientific measurements would be very useful.”
Source: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, HHS.gov
Starting with Mother’s Day, we celebrate National Women’s Health Week. As a nation, we honor the women in our lives – our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, friends, and colleagues – by encouraging them to make their health a priority and to take steps to live healthier, happier lives.
Women are frequently the health care decision-makers in their families. We take time off from work to drive a parent to the doctor. We hold our children’s hands while they get their vaccinations. We make the appointments for our spouses’ checkups – and then make sure they actually go. We stretch and re-work our family budgets to pay the doctor’s bills. And too often, we put our own health last.
But the truth is unless we take care of ourselves first, we cannot really take care of our families. That means we have to eat right, exercise, and get the care we need to stay healthy. Unfortunately, preventive care has not always been easily accessible or affordable for everyone, including young women.
But the health care law is helping to usher in a new day for women’s health. The Affordable Care Act is making it easier for women to take control of their own health. For many women, preventive services like mammograms, Pap smears, birth control, and yearly well-woman visits are now available without cost sharing. The health care law improves women’s access to appropriate preventive health screenings, which can help detect diseases early, when treatment is most effective and least costly.
Starting next year, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to refuse us coverage just because we’re battling breast cancer or have another pre-existing condition – and they won’t be allowed to charge us more just because we are women.
If you’re one of the millions of women who are uninsured or who buy insurance on their own, more options are on the way because of the Affordable Care Act. Starting October 1, 2013, you will be able to visit a new Health Insurance Marketplace where you can compare and choose from a range of plans to find one that best fits your needs and budget. All of these plans must cover a package of essential health benefits, including maternity and newborn care.
To get more information about the Marketplace and to sign up for email and text updates to get ready for October, visit HealthCare.gov.
Being healthy starts with each of us taking control. So Monday on National Women’s Checkup Day, and during National Women’s Health Week, I encourage you to sit down with your doctor or health care provider and talk about what you can do to take control of your health.
There’s no better gift you can give yourself – or your loved ones.
Emily Rasinski for The New York Times David A. Patterson with students at Washington University in St. Louis.
By Alan Schwartz, The New York Times
LAWRENCE, Kan. — The visitor to Haskell Indian Nations University detailed his roaring 20s: drug addict, garbage collector, suicidal burnout once told by a doctor that he was mentally retarded. It was a curious way to inspire a group of young American Indian students long surrounded by these types of problems. Until he got to the good part.
“I never shared this with anyone until I got my Ph.D.,” he said.
A high school photo of Dr. Patterson before he dropped out.
His American name is David A. Patterson, his Cherokee name Adelv unegv Waya, or Silver Wolf. He is a tenure-track assistant professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. His groundbreaking research on the pitfalls facing Native Americans is both informed and inspired by his own story of deliverance.
“Mentally retarded? I wish I could find that doctor now,” Dr. Patterson said, the students transfixed.
Dr. Patterson, 49, has devoted what he considers his second life to studying the quicksand that just about swallowed him, and that continues to imperil American Indians more than any other ethnic group. About 18 percent of American Indian or Alaska Native adults need substance-abuse treatment, almost twice the national average, according to figures from the federal government. Deaths from alcoholism, diabetes, homicide and suicide are two to six times as high among Native Americans as they are among other groups, according to various studies.
During Dr. Patterson’s childhood in Louisville, Ky., any interest he might have had in his Cherokee roots was discouraged by his abusive father and squelched by teasing schoolmates. By 9, he had moved from beer to highballs, and at 18 he was a quaalude-favoring high school dropout. Detached and directionless, he pointed a loaded rifle at his head one afternoon in his basement before someone knocked at the door.
It was his mother’s brother, Bill Allen. He treated David’s disconnection with some long-repressed family history. Mr. Allen recounted how his grandmother, David’s great-grandmother, was half-Cherokee, making David 1/16th Cherokee. He told him where she came from, the traditions David never enjoyed. This expanding family lineage, which to that point had essentially stopped with his Irish father, gave David a new sense of belonging. Ultimately, the two researched census records and made pilgrimages to obscure Indian cemeteries to trace long-forgotten generations, penciling rubbings off gravestones.
When Dr. Patterson found a red-tailed hawk feather on a sidewalk, Mr. Allen explained how it meant that the bird, signifying wisdom and strength, was leading him on the right path.
“Bill was the one guy I could feel Indian around,” Dr. Patterson said, choking up. “Our pride fed off one another.”
Still an alcoholic garbage worker for Waste Management in Louisville — for a while he processed sewer excrement — Dr. Patterson used this newfound past to conceive a future. He went to employee counseling and, upon psychiatric examination, was told he was dyslexic and mentally retarded; he spent five weeks in a mental health facility. But he took the diagnoses as a challenge, a new starting point. He got sober and began to work with other addicts, and at 27 entered junior college.
Growing his hair into a Cherokee ponytail and with fresh tattoos of a wolf and three tepees, he enrolled at Spalding University and earned a degree in social work. He got his master’s degree and his doctorate from the University of Louisville, also in social work. He was hired by the University of Buffalo as an assistant professor studying solutions for Native American substance abuse and high dropout rates — longtime problems caused in part, Dr. Patterson’s research suggests, by the same cultural disconnection that he had felt.
The Brown School, ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation’s top schools of social work, lured him away last year.
“He brings to the table new strategies, new ways and new perspectives to think about,” said Pete Coser, the program manager for the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies, a division of the Brown School. “His story and experiences will be able to bring, at least, a light to those that are experiencing it now. Things that plague Indian country. How do we get over the mental monster that keeps us in that box?”
A walking movie script in the genre of Chris Gardner, the homeless single father who became a millionaire investor and was portrayed by Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” Dr. Patterson only recently decided to reveal details of his past. And few acquaintances from his lowest points know anything about his present.
“I couldn’t be happier,” said Dr. Adrian Pellegrini, a Louisville psychiatrist who treated Dr. Patterson two decades ago and did not know what became of him. “The biggest miracle for people like David is that they’re still alive.”
Dr. Patterson’s research focuses on intervention strategies for substance abusers in underserved populations, particularly American Indians. He has just finished teaching a graduate-level class on drug and alcohol abuse.
As the first American Indian professor at the Brown School, Dr. Patterson has helped connect Indian students on campus, of whom there about 20, with their varying heritages. (Students belong to the Choctaw, Navajo and Seneca nations and a half-dozen others across the United States.) He invites them to his home to sit around a drum and teach one another Native songs.
One evening, eight students gathered in a downpour with Dr. Patterson outside the Brown building for a traditional spiritual cleansing ceremony. A student lighted some blades of sweet grass and gently waved the smoke on each student with an eagle feather. The smoke rose into the dripping trees as a student led the prayer: “We ask our creator to help us stay on track,” he said, “and take this education, this training, kinship, all of this back home.”
Lindsay Belone, a Navajo from Twin Lakes, N.M., is working on her master’s degree with Dr. Patterson. “He’s brought to the classroom a lot of American Indian spirituality and social justice issues — honoring mother earth and our ancestors,” she said. “He’s definitely a leader in Indian country who I can look up to. If you want to be a professor, that can happen.”
Dr. Patterson will return to Buffalo this summer to participate in ceremonies among the Six Nations of the Iroquois and speak with students about Indian challenges. He also plans to visit other American Indian communities across the nation to share his story, much as he did last fall at Haskell, the only accredited university devoted to serving various Indian tribes.
Haskell’s history makes it as much shrine as school: a century ago, young Indians whose tribes’ land had been seized by the United States were sent there to become Christians, cut their hair and shed their traditional customs and tongues. Students who did not comply could be beaten or chained to walls in what is now Kiva Hall. Many died there from such abuse.
Today, about 1,000 students use some of the same buildings to become one of the rare members of their tribes to earn a college degree. More inspiration came from Dr. Patterson, most poignantly when he explained why he took the name Silver Wolf. Wolves “take care of each other,” he said. “Their survival depends on it.”
Terry Redlightning, a Haskell junior from the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, recalled how only 17 of his 100 classmates at Flandreau Indian School graduated with him. He described a “feeling of hopelessness” pervading his community back home and said Indians there live on whatever comes to them. “Whether that’s a government handout or a minimum-wage-paying job — or you commit suicide,” he said.
“Those are your options — at least that’s what the thinking is,” Mr. Redlightning said. “Especially when you’re a kid, you see it. You’re constantly going to funerals. Death by drugs or alcohol. Car wrecks. Suicide. You don’t have any high expectations.”
After his lectures last fall, Dr. Patterson walked around campus to visit relics of Haskell’s sad past — the powwow grounds, Kiva Hall and some sacred wetlands. Then he went to the most solemn area of all. It was a cemetery filled with dozens of small, weathered gravestones for children who, four and five generations ago, did not survive their days at Haskell.
Dr. Patterson teared up when he saw the stones from a distance. “These are the children of the Holocaust for us,” he said.
He dried his cheeks with a tissue and kept walking toward the cemetery. He looked up and saw a red-tailed hawk perched on a lamppost, leading him still.
