Native America Calling

A handful of tribes just finalized an agreement with the National Park Service clearing the way for foraging in the Yosemite National Park. Tribal members will collect acorns, yarrow, wild onions and numerous other plants for food and medicine on land their tribes have always been connected to. It’s the latest agreement since a 2016 law cleared the way for more traditional plant collections by tribal members on land that was previously restricted.

Joy Harjo’s (Mvskoke) new poetry collection, Cloud Runner, is the culmination and curated expression of her own personal grief. The poems spring from the aftermath of her daughter’s death in 2023 and range from devastating to hopeful. Harjo, musician, artist, and the first Native American U.S. Poet Laureate, explores a mother’s anguish and the time and work it takes to reconcile it.

The rape allegations by a former Cornell University student that administrators and law enforcement officials failed to follow up on shine a new light on college campus safety. Sexual assault prevention advocates have long faulted colleges and universities with poor protocols and inconsistent reporting. The organization End Rape on Campus finds that Native college students and students of color experience especially high rates of sexual violence on college campuses.

The number of books dropped from school reading lists and public library shelves is the highest since the organization, PEN America, started keeping track. Fueled mainly by conservative pressure groups and elected leaders at the school board and state legislative levels, the challenges to books target what opponents consider obscenity and themes that are too mature for younger readers.

Composer, singer and ethnomusicologist, Jeremy Dutcher (Wolastoqiyik), is taking his music on an international tour that includes performing in Taiwan and Japan with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Dutcher’s music continues to draws fans around the world following the release of two acclaimed albums in his Native language, featuring his distinctive tenor voice. His latest album, Motewolonuwok, won the Polaris Music Prize.

The Trump Administration’s proposal to remove questions about a person’s race for the U.S. Census is sparking alarm among tribal leaders, voting rights advocates and social service providers. They say it will significantly impede tribes’ political representation at the state and federal levels and reduce access to federal resources, adding up to a serious erosion of tribal sovereignty.

At a time when tribes across the country are working to shut down prediction market companies, the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana is embracing them by launching its own mobile app with the help of industry giant, Kalshi.

From the original Cherokee syllabary to banners waved by Native American demonstrators, graphic works by Native people carry a thread through the centuries that operate within their own design framework. A new book and accompanying gallery exhibition, “Designed to be Red,” documents and celebrates that thread of visual works by Native designers that exert agency and authority over their own stories.

At a time when Canada is reflecting on the painful history of residential schools, Indigenous leaders are having to speak out against organized efforts to minimize the harms inflicted on generations of Indigenous children. Just days before Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, white nationalists gathered near the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. The incident drew condemnation from Prime Minister Mark Carney and First Nations leaders.

“The Blue Corn Kitchen” by Alana Yazzie (Diné) gives young reader’s a glimpse of the traditional corn-based Navajo foods many Navajo grandmothers have stocked in their kitchens. It’s the latest project from the self-made, Navajo lifestyle and food blogger who also goes by The Fancy Navajo. Howdy Cakes is a new pastry and cake business by Diné culinarian, Liz McKenzie. It’s in partnership with a start-up mini food hall in Albuquerque.