This Week in Native American News (3/27/2020): Yes there is more Covid-19 news AND a great watchlist for when you are stuck in your house and bored
March 27, 2020 - Happy Distanced Friday #2!
How the coronavirus threatens Native American communities
So far, the Lummi tribe has reported three Covid-19 cases, but expect numbers to rise as the pandemic progresses. Photograph: Stephen Brashear/EPA
In Navajo, the novel coronavirus is called “Dikos Ntsaaígíí-Náhást'éíts'áadah.” Naming the enemy was just the first step.
There are 574 federally recognized Native American tribes across the United States, some in remote parts of the country with limited access to basic resources. Native Americans are 19 times more likely than white people to lack indoor plumbing, according to a 2019 report. The Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation are food deserts, according to a GoFundMe relief fund organized by Ethel Branch, who was the 11th attorney general of the Navajo Nation.
"These communities also have high numbers of elderly, diabetic, and cancer-afflicted (i.e., high risk) individuals. These communities could be devastated by coronavirus and COVID-19," reads the GoFundMe page, which had raised almost $100,000 on March 19, three days after it was launched. “The need is so great.”
Read the Full Story Here -THEN READ- Native American tribe takes trailblazing steps to fight Covid-19 outbreak
So what can you do to help?
Support Lutheran Indian Ministries staff who are still Proclaiming, Discipling, and Healing online and in small groups
-AND- Buy Native products online
“Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field” Presents Contemporary Native Experiences from the Inside
Genízaro Delvin Garcia standing in remains of the 18th-century Santa Rosa de Lima Church. Abiquiú, New Mexico, 2019. (© 2020 Russel Albert Daniels)
The exhibition Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field presents photo essays by Native photojournalists Russel Albert Daniels (Diné descent and Ho-Chunk descent) and Tailyr Irvine (Salish and Kootenai), created in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Their essays reflect the work of a new generation of Native professional photographers who are motivated by two objectives: combating lingering stereotypes of Native Americans and pursuing what they call modern Indigenous stories—stories of contemporary Native people rooted in their lived experiences. These stories, as the photographers contend, are underrepresented, if not entirely overlooked, in the media. Deeply concerned with who tells these stories, which fall outside most non-Native Americans’ experiences, Daniels and Irvine offer complex, nuanced, and thought-provoking portraits of what it means to be Native in the United States today.
Read the Full Story Here
If you still have time after the photo essays, The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian has webcasts online.
Still need to fill some time? This Indigenous “What to Watch” list is for you
It’s hard to fit all the news in a little space.
To read all of this week's news, visit the LIM Magazine.
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