This Week in Native American News (3/13/2020): Flipping the Narrative, Building a Film Native Production Studio, and Supporting Native News
March 13, 2020
FOR ALASKA NATIVE YOUTH, A TRADITION-ROOTED PROGRAM TEACHES RESILIENCE
SOURCE CENTER FOR ALASKA NATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH
In Alaska, the weather in remote regions, such as Emmonak, a Yukon settlement by the Bering Sea, is harsh. But the headlines can be harsher: Suicide. Alcohol misuse. The Yup’ik tribe have lived in this tundra for over 10,000 years, but in recent decades, members of the Native community have struggled with significant mental health challenges.
They’re not the only ones. A 2019 report co-authored by Well Being Trust and Trust for America’s Health found adolescent suicide across the United States has increased a staggering 87 percent from a decade ago. But it doesn’t affect all young people equally.
Rasmus, along with Yup’ik elders, is committed to “flipping the narrative.” Native community leaders and researchers in Alaska developed the Qungasvik program based on Yup’ik traditions to help teens find strength and celebrate life. “We need to help them recognize that help is within their communities and help is available for people who want to ask,” says Billy Charles, a tribal member from Emmonak and a research co-investigator at Alaska Native Health Research. “This work also provides more tools to focus on the bigger things that they want to do with their lives.”
Read the Full Story Here
Native Americans have long been Hollywood outsiders. That’s changing in New Mexico
Camel Rock Studios sits on the site of a former casino in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Tribe of Tesuque Pueblo)
The 75,000-square-foot facility north of Santa Fe was used as a location for the Universal Pictures movie featuring Tom Hanks. After it wrapped last year, Brown, who heads economic development for the Tesuque Tribe, moved to repurpose a casino building the tribe had built on the pueblo’s 17,500 acres and make it a permanent production facility, with an initial investment of $50 million. Billed as the first studio owned by a Native American tribe, Camel Rock Studios officially opens Friday.
“They’ve been in the movie business since 1955 and about 20 movies and TV shows have been filmed on the pueblo,” said Brown. “The tribe is committed to expanding their business and to create jobs for the tribe and to create more self-sufficiency.”
Named after the nearby 40-foot pink sandstone Camel Rock, the studio gives the community a stake in a production boom taking place locally and nationally. Studios including Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Netflix are investing billions of dollars in New Mexico, lured by lucrative state tax incentives.
Read the Full Story Here
Report for America will support 19 journalists to cover Native American communities
It’s hard to say that Native Americans have, historically, gotten the kind of journalism they deserve. Mainstream news outlets typically pay them little attention, and when they do, indigenous people are more often the subject of reporting than its target audience. Less than one half of one percent of journalists at U.S. news organizations are Native, compared to 1.7 percent of the national population. And that’s not even to mention how Native Americans are portrayed in the limited coverage they do see.
But coverage of Native American and Indigenous communities in the United States is about to get a major boost, thanks to a new partnership between Report for America and the Native American Journalists Association to support 19 journalists in the next year. Report for America currently has 10 journalists covering Indigenous affairs and related beats and it plans to add nine more this year.
“The history of U.S. journalism is largely a history of neglecting and even harming Indigenous communities,” said Maggie Messitt, a Report for America senior advisor, said in an announcement.
Today’s History Lesson: Native American Children’s Historic Forced Assimilation
Children arrived at school at different points in the assimilation process. Many still openly embraced their traditional cultures, including some of these Lakota children on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The order of the children is not known, but pictured here are: Thomas New, Alice Slow Fly, Harry With Horns, Standing Little Tail, and Jesse Foot. DMNS BR61-285
In May 2018, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the government would begin to separate children from their families who had crossed from Mexico into the United States. More than 5,000 children were torn from their relatives. Tragically, this is not the first time the U.S. government has systematically and forcibly removed children from their loved ones.
In 1890, the U.S. government ended open warfare against Native American tribes, which had begun in the 17th century and intensified through the 19th century. The population of Native peoples—once in the millions—had plummeted to around 250,000. Many of these politically and militarily defeated communities were confined to reservations that occupied a fraction of their traditional homelands. What to do with these newly confined peoples?
The goal became assimilation: to transform Native Americans into “good Christian citizens.” As one school founder said at the time, “Kill the Indian in him and save the man.” This was attempted by breaking up reservations and outlawing religious practices. However, many felt that Native adults would likely never change. Real change could only come by focusing efforts on their children.
Read more here
Enjoy Your “Social Distancing” and Plan a Great Summer Trip - 12 Incredible Pow Wows To Experience In The U.S. And Canada
It’s hard to fit all the news in a little space.
To read all of this week's news, visit the LIM Magazine.
Sign up to get these emails in your inbox and never miss a week again!