This blog is a backup for American Indian Adopteesblog
There might be some duplicate posts prior to 2020. I am trying to delete them when I find them. Sorry!
SURVEY FOR ALL FIRST NATIONS ADOPTEES
ADOPTEES - we are doing a COUNT
If you need support
Support Info: If you are a Survivor and need emotional support, a national crisis line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week: Residential School Survivor Support Line: 1-866-925-4419. Additional Health Support Information: Emotional, cultural, and professional support services are also available to Survivors and their families through the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. Services can be accessed on an individual, family, or group basis.” These & regional support phone numbers are found at https://nctr.ca/contact/survivors/ .
MY EMAIL: tracelara@pm.me
Flooding
in North Carolina following Tropical Storm Helene. (Courtesy Sgt. 1st
Class Leticia Samuels / North Carolina National Guard)
Over the weekend, President Joe Biden approved
a Major Disaster declaration for North Carolina, including for the
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, to help people access funds and
resources to recover from Hurricane Helene.
The funds are available for essential items like food and water, repairs, or a temporary place to stay.
In preparation for the storm, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians declared a state of emergency last week.
The tribe still plans to hold its Cherokee Indian Fair this week.
In
a statement issued by tribal leaders, they said they’re moving forward
with the fair with a deep understanding of the devastation caused by the
hurricane to surrounding areas.
They said the fair represents a time to gather, reconnect, and strengthen bonds.
The tribe will gather supplies during the fair to help those in need.
VIMEO: https://ebci.com/live-streams/
*
(Courtesy Asm. James Ramos / Facebook)
On Friday, California Native American Day, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed seven tribal bills.
The
bills introduced by Assemblymember James Ramos (Serrano/Cahuilla/D-CA)
include protections for the Indian Child Welfare Act, strengthens the
Feather Alert for missing Indigenous persons, and requires schools to
teach about the impacts of Missions and the Gold Rush.
If
you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, you can speak with a
trained listener by texting 988, the national Suicide and Crisis
Lifeline, or calling +1 (800) 273-TALK (8255).
Oglala children, Native boarding school victims laid to rest in weekend-long ceremony
The remains of three Oglala Lakota
students who died while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School
in the 1890s were returned home this month and reburied in their South
Dakota homelands
The
casket of Samuel Flying Horse is carried out of a ceremonial tipi by
Tayton Kills Small, left, and Rodney Rouillard at Pahin Sinte Owayawa
School in Porcupine, S.D., on Sept. 21, 2024, during a memorial service
that was held for Fannie Charging Shield , Samuel Flying Horse, and
James Cornman.ByCharles Fox / ICT News |
September 29, 2024
This article is free to access.
OGLALA, S.D. — As darkness descended, the procession to rebury
Samuel Flying Horse (also known as Tasunke Kinyela) made its way along a
dirt road to the Brave Blue Horse Family Cemetery outside of Oglala,
S.D., on Sunday, Sept. 22. The memorial service and community gathering
had run behind schedule and now the blue skies that marked the day and
golden light of the setting sun were gone.
Corrine
Brave looks over the casket of her relative, Samuel Flying Horse, in
Oglala, S.D., on Sept. 22, 2024. Samuel was one of three Oglala Lakota
students disinterred and returned to their homeland from the Carlisle
Barracks Post Cemetery in Pennsylvania.
Charles Fox / Special to ICT
Samuel died as a student at the Carlisle Indian Industrial
School and waited 131 years to be disinterred and returned to his
homeland. Those gathered were not about to let darkness make him wait
longer.
Approximately 20 vehicles in an open field encircled and
directed their headlights on the small fenced-in cemetery. The pounding
of the drum, the singing of songs, and prayers drifted up as pinpoints
of starlight began dotting the night sky. Eventually, a group of men
lowered Samuel’s casket, covered in a star quilt and a bouquet of red
roses, into the ground. Samuel was now part of the land he had left
behind in 1891.
Along with
Fannie Charging Shield
and James Cornman, Sameul was reburied on the Pine Ridge
Reservation this past weekend. Fannie and James were buried at St.
Julius Cemetery in Porcupine on Saturday, following a community
gathering at the Pahin Sinte Owayawa School to celebrate the homecoming
of the three Oglala Lakota students. Samuel was reburied the following
day.
They died in the early 1890s as students of the Carlisle
Indian Industrial School, the first federally run, off-reservation
boarding school for Native Americans. Approximately 8,000 Native
American students attended the school in a misguided attempt at forceful
assimilation into white civilization by cutting all links in their
cultural chain. It became the model for more than 400 schools across 37
states and territories in the U.S. and provided a blueprint for Canada’s
notorious residential school system.
The three students were
among the estimated 232 students who died during its years of operation
from 1879 to 1918. Each passed from tuberculosis, then called
consumption. It was the leading cause of death at the Carlisle school.
The dream
It wasn’t until the three students came home to Pine Ridge a
week earlier that Corrine Brave, 70, checked her family tree and
realized she was a relative of Samuel Flying Horse, who school records
indicate was an orphan. With some trepidation, she stepped forward to
claim Samuel and offer a burial site.
Vee
Janis, left, a relative of Fannie Charging Shield, and Corrine Brave, a
relative of Samuel Flying Horse, hug during a memorial service at Pahin
Sinte Owayawa School in Porcupine, S.D., on Sept. 21, 2024. The remains
of Fannie Charging Shield, Samuel Flying Horse, and James Cornman were
returned from the Carlisle Barracks Post Cemetery in Pennsylvania and
reburied on the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota.
Charles Fox / Special to ICT
As the mourners gathered, illuminated by the headlights of the
surrounding cars, Corrine Brave told the gathering the story of a dream
she had had the night before. A figure of a man descended a steep series
of steps toward her. He kept slipping and falling, appearing to be
legless. She could not make out the features of his face, but his voice
was distinct. As he got closer, he said “wopilayelo” (the male version
of thank you) to her four times. She felt the man was Samuel.
The dream woke her.
“I
sat straight up, looked around thinking I was hearing things,” she
recalled. “Then I said to myself, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ … So that's
when I knew I was doing the right thing for my relative,” Brave said.
“It was for love – the love of my relatives, the love of my
family. … I just really felt that in my heart that there was a
relationship between us.” She began to think of herself in the role of
an auntie.
He was buried beside his namesake, her late brother Samuel Brave.
The 'peaceful war'
The weekend’s ceremonies started Saturday morning when a convoy
of nearly 25 cars made their way from Pine Ridge through the rolling
hills. It traveled along the Chief Bigfoot Highway past the Wounded Knee
Massacre site. It was a morning to celebrate and memorialize the three
students.
The
movement to repatriate the remains of students from the Carlisle
Barracks Post Cemetery in Pennsylvania began in 2015, when the Sicangu
Youth Council of the Rosebud Sioux stopped at Carlisle following an
event in Washington, D.C. It began with the simple question “Why aren’t
we doing something to bring them home?” Justin Pourier, right, blesses
former youth council members (left to right): Chris Eagle Bear, Jayden
Whiting, and Rachel Janis on Sept. 21, 2024, at Pahin Sinte Owayawa
School in Porcupine, S.D. where a memorial service was held for Fannie
Charging Shield , Samuel Flying Horse, and James Cornman.
Charles Fox / Special to ICT
Fannie, James and Samuel left home for Carlisle in the name of
education. The students did not realize they were taking part in a
“peaceful war,” one fought in the classroom using education as the
ammunition to force assimilation and cultural destruction. Books and
blackboards were deemed a cheaper solution to “the Indian problem” than
bullets and battlefields.
The school, located on a vacant U.S.
Army base in Pennsylvania, was run in a military fashion. It was only
fitting that upon their return they be memorialized in a school, Pahin
Sinte Owayawa, in Porcupine, S.D.
It was the graduation day they had not lived to see.
The
three caskets were carried into the school gym and placed in ceremonial
tipis. About 100 community members and students sat in folding chairs
and bleachers. They gathered to gain knowledge from all the students had
endured over a century before by traversing 1,500 miles across the
country to a school that had all intentions of erasing their culture.
The trio of students and their experiences had become the teachers.
Courage, perseverance and overcoming adversity were their subjects. It
was their time to be honored.
“They were innocent, and they were raised right. And when they
went to Carlisle, their parents got them ready,” Pat Janis, a medicine
man and relative of Fannie Charging Shield, had said the previous day in
an interview with ICT. “They said, ‘This is a different way than we
live, but you got to go forward. You got to learn these things. This is
the way we're going to live now. So you got to have strength. You got to
have courage and do your best. Get educated. You're going to help us.’
So they prepared them. Although those students didn't want to go there …
they took it as a warrior. … They said, ‘I'm scared. I don't know what
this is, but my parents believe in me, and they want me to move forward
into this way of life. I'm not selling out our people.’”
A question becomes a movement
The movement to repatriate the remains of students from the
Carlisle cemetery began in 2015, when the Sicangu Youth Council of the
Rosebud Sioux Tribe stopped at Carlisle following an youth event in
Washington, D.C. It began with the simple question no one had thought to
ask in earnest before, “Why aren’t we doing something to bring them
home?”
A
group of Lakota motorcyclists from Washington state lead a convey of
approximately 25 vehicles along Chief Big Foot Highway (Highway 27) on
their way to Porcupine, S.D., on Sept. 21, 2024. The convey was part of a
memorial services for Fannie Charging Shield , Samuel Flying Horse, and
James Cornman, whose remains had been returned from the Carlisle
Barracks Post Cemetery in Pennsylvania.
Charles Fox / Special to ICT
The question ultimately led the Office of Army Cemeteries to
begin the process of returning students’ remains to their tribal
communities. Since 2017, the Office of Army Cemeteries – which oversees
the Carlisle cemetery along with other military gravesites, including
Arlington Cemetery – has disinterred and returned the remains of 32
children from the school’s cemetery. Still, 146 students have yet to be
returned to their tribes prior to this fall’s disinterment.
Three
former members of the Sicangu Youth Council, Chris Eagle Bear, Rachel
Janis, and Jayden Whiting, were recognized and honored at the memorial
service for initiating the return of Carlisle students.
“You know,
10 years later, I didn't expect to be where we are today. Because at
the end of the day, we were just kids with a curious question,” said
Chris Eagle Bear, 26, who is currently a Rosebud Sioux Tribe councilman.
“My
generation is the first generation that is not a part of the boarding
school era. And with that, we're able to share what we feel. We're able
to speak on matters that a lot of our people couldn't speak on for a
long time because they were scared,” Eagle Bear said. “The older
generation started sharing their stories, started sharing things that
they've never shared before with anyone.”
Janis called the relatives of the three students forward for a ceremony of healing and compassion near the end of the event.
“We are still in mourning over it. It's a good thing that we
can get over it now, because sometimes we walk around with sadness and
mourning, and we don't even know we're in mourning ’til we get a
physical sickness like diabetes,” he said.
For Justin Pourier, the
Oglala Sioux Tribal Historical Preservation Officer, who had gone to
Carlisle and accompanied them on their homecoming, there was the
satisfaction of a mission accomplished. He often thought of all they had
endured and felt a love and an attachment to the three students.
Michael
Littlevoice, a Ponca and Omaha man from Ponca City, Okla., plays the
flute in front of the casket of Samuel Flying Horse. Littlevoice felt
compelled to attend the event to help the community heal and celebrate.
The words of his song are: “After all of these years, I'm home, I'm
home. I'm home after all these years.”
Charles Fox / Special to ICT
Yet, there was so much more work to be done. Pourier thought
about other Oglala Lakota children who remain buried at other boarding
school cemeteries and artifacts in the possession of museums and
academic institutions. He spoke at the event of the Oglala Lakota
students buried at the White’s Indiana Manual Labor Institute, a
Quaker-run, Native American residential school in Wabash, Ind.,which was
initially established by Quaker missionaries in 1862. And he talked
about his hope to continue to have artifacts, such as war bonnets and
moccasins with beautiful beadwork, returned from various museums to a
place where Native youths could draw inspiration and pride in the
beautiful craftsmanship.
“If they can see all these things, it
reestablishes their pride and their sense of knowing who they are. I’m
hoping it brings healing, and helps our children grow back into the
strong nation we used to be,” Pourier had said while in Carlisle. “We
can't afford to send a busload of kids all the way to New York to look
at something that should be back home.”
Mourners
bury the remains of Samuel Flying Horse — a Lakota student who died
while attending the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1893 — near
Oglala, S.D., on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2024.
Charles Fox / Special to ICT
As the morning of speeches and prayers came to a close
Saturday, Michael Littlevoice, a Ponca and Omaha man living in Ponca
City, Okla., asked permission to address the crowd. He had attended
Chilocco Indian Agricultural School with Orville Flying Horse of
McIntosh, S.D., in the early 1970s. He felt compelled to attend the two
events to help the community heal and celebrate.
He performed an
original composition on his flute inspired by the occasion. The haunting
yet peaceful music echoed through the room, setting the mood for the
reburial that would follow shortly, the ending to the long and
unfortunate journey home of Fannie, Samuel and James. While he performed
as an instrumental, he informed those gathered of the words:
“After all of these years, I'm home, I'm home. I'm home after all these years.”
This story was originally published on ICTNews.org.
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Taken from mother by nuns, victim finds solace in pope's Belgium visit
Matthieu DEMEESTERE
Pope Francis on Friday said he was
"saddened" to learn about a little-known scandal that still troubles
Belgium: the "forced adoption" of newborns taken from their mothers,
with the complicity of nuns.
To Lieve Soens, who was listening in the audience, the pontiff's words meant a great deal.
The 50-year-old has been on a decades-long quest to find closure after she was torn from her mother at birth.
"I
am very satisfied, it is a great start," she told AFP while travelling
home from the royal residence in Brussels where Francis addressed
political and civil society leaders as part of a three-day visit.
"We are being recognised as victims and that is very important".
Soens
was adopted by a Belgian couple in 1974, shortly after her birth in
northern France to a woman who opted to remain anonymous under a system
known as delivering "under X".
Fifty years later, she is still
trying to understand how her biological mother- a teenager at the time- was taken by nuns from Lommel in Belgium to Dunkirk, more than 200
kilometres (120 miles) away, to deliver a baby she would never see
again.
A first step was to try to track down her birth mother.
With the help of a victim support group, she located her in Belgium's
Dutch-speaking Flanders, where she herself lives.
But her offer to meet was turned down, in a letter sent via a lawyer.
"Maybe she is afraid," Soens told AFP in an interview at her home in the Flemish town of Kuurne earlier this week.
"After
the birth, she was told the baby was dead, and she likely never told
her new family about this pregnancy at the age of 16- it's just too
hard," she said.
- Church 'apology' -
In 2023, the Flemish
newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws published the hard-hitting testimony of
multiple victims of forced adoption, including a mother whose newborn
had been taken from her.
The paper's investigation estimated that Belgian nuns had been involved in around 30,000 such cases between 1945 and the 1980s.
Most
of the births were in Belgium, but 3,000 to 4,000 pregnant women were
taken to France, according to Binnenlands Geadopteerd, a support group
for the victims of forced adoptions.
There, the "under X" system erases all filial link between mother and child.
Most
cases involved young, unmarried women - some of them victims of rape
or incest - whose parents wanted their pregnancy kept under wraps.
The parents would contact Church officials, who provided the link to families wishing to adopt.
"We
see how the bitter fruit of wrongdoing and criminality was mixed in
with what was unfortunately the prevailing view in all parts of society
at that time," Pope Francis said in Brussels.
The Belgian
conference of bishops has formally apologised on several occasions over
the scandal - when it first erupted in 2015 and again last year.
It has said it would welcome an outside investigation to ensure full accountability, but none has so far taken place.
In her search for her roots, Soens had the support of her adoptive parents.
They were convinced, she says, that they were doing the right thing by taking in an unwanted baby.
They
showed her documents from 1974 including her birth certificate
mentioning her adoption and change of name, and a bill from the private
clinic where she was born.
- 'Every day counts' -
After they passed away some 20 years ago, she ramped up her efforts.
"I
don't want to hurt anyone, I just want the truth," she said, while
acknowledging her "anger towards the Church, the nuns and the clinic"
who all played a role.
On Friday Soens was among the guests for
the pope's speech at Laeken palace, where he also reaffirmed that the
Catholic Church must "seek forgiveness" for the scourge of child sexual
abuse.
At one point she and two fellow "adoptees" had hopes of an
audience with the pope, but Church authorities chose to focus on
bringing Francis face to face with a group of about 15 individuals who
suffered clerical sex abuse as minors.
A poor decision in the view
of Debby Mattys, who co-founded the Binnenlands Geadopteerd group and
is pressing for access to clerical archives.
"The Church can help
us find solutions to bring birth parents together with the children who
were taken from them," said the 57-year-old - herself a victim of
forced adoption in the 1960s.
"It is truly urgent, because our parents are already getting old. Every day counts."
Sixties
Scoop survivor and CNC social work student, Sherry Hunter, shared her
story during the college's Calling for Action: Honouring Truth event
held Wednesday, Sept. 25 ahead of the National Day of Truth and
Reconciliation that will be celebrated at Lheidli T'enneh Memorial Park
on Monday, Sept. 30. Citizen staff photo
Sixties Scoop survivor Sherry Hunter shared her story during
the College of New Caledonia’s Calling for Action: Honouring Truth
event.
“Truth and Reconciliation means to me as a First Nations person that
we are finally being recognized and acknowledged for the horrific
atrocities that are happening to our First Nations people across
Canada,” said Hunter, a CNC social worker diploma program student
heading for a social work bachelor’s degree.
She talked about her experiences at the event, held Wednesday, Sept. 25
ahead of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Day that will be
celebrated at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park on Monday, Sept. 30 from 2
to 4 p.m.
“I have learned so much here at CNC,” Hunter said.
During her learning she discovered the nature of colonialism, which
is part of her own personal story as a '60s Scoop survivor, and has
acknowledged the injustices she has experienced because of it.
Between about 1951 and 1984, an estimated 20,000 or more First
Nations, Métis and Inuit infants and children were taken from their
families by child welfare authorities and placed for adoption or in
foster care in mostly non-Indigenous households. This mass removal of
Indigenous children from their homes, supported by a series of
government policies, became known as the Sixties Scoop, according to the
Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre website at UBC.
“Some of the injustices include my loss of my language, my culture and my heritage,” Hunter said. “Most importantly I feel my loss of connection to my family and my homeland.”
Besides the loss of her First Nations roots, she also felt like she did not belong with the new white family, she added.
“I was stuck in the middle trying to find a sense of belonging,”
Hunter said. “My story is sad but typical that we all hear too often
from First Nations across Canada that should never have happened to me
and to many, many others.”
Hunter said her experience had a profound impact on her life that she carries with her to this day.
“I know what it’s like to be abused,” Hunter said. “I was taken as a
young child and put into two different foster homes. I arrived in the
second foster home when I was three. Little did I know what would happen
to me there. I was physically, mentally and sexually assaulted from the
time I was seven years old until I was 13. These years are important
for all our development and if we are not nurtured in a positive
environment our later years are a hot mess.”
Because of what Hunter experienced as a young child she said she fell into drug misuse and alcoholism.
During her healing journey she has learned to overcome these
addictions and learned a new way in order to become successful, she
added.
“My healing journey has been bittersweet,” Hunter said. “The bitter
is I am 61 years old getting an education, trying to make a difference. I
should’ve had this life when I was 20. The sweet is I am here. I am
healthy. I’m getting a good education and I will make a difference.”
Documentary about repatriation efforts of masks premiered at TIFF
September 26th, 2024
Filmmaker Neil Diamond
By Sam Laskaris, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Neil Diamond’s latest film is one that he kind of stumbled into.
Diamond, a member of the Cree Nation of Waskaganish in Quebec,
created the movie Red Fever, which sees him travelling to various
countries to learn why people are fascinated with the stereotypical
image of Natives.
Red Fever had its Canadian theatrical release this past June.
While working on that film, Diamond was inspired to write and direct another documentary titled So Surreal: Behind the Masks.
This movie had its world premiere earlier this month at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Diamond’s latest film sees him once again travelling to various parts
of the world to understand the history of Yupʼik and Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw
ceremonial masks.
The film examines the masks’ influence on the Surrealist art movement
and includes scenes where efforts are made to return these masks, many
of which were stolen, to their rightful owners.
Diamond said he himself learned quite a lot during the making of So Surreal: Behind the Masks.
“I don’t have a great knowledge of art but I know what I like,” he
said, adding Spain’s Salvador Dali and American Man Ray are two of his
favourite artists. “That’s pretty much all I knew about the surrealists.
I knew very little. So, I learned a lot with this film.”
Joanne Robertson co-wrote and co-directed So Surreal: Behind the
Masks with Diamond. She had worked as a story producer/researcher for
Red Fever.
Robertson explained that while Red Fever was being made Diamond and
herself were among those who attended an art exhibit in Montreal, which
focused on Picasso’s influence on African masks.
“As part of that exhibit we also learned the story of the masks and
how there was this influence of Northwest coast masks on the
surrealist,” she said. “So somehow we kind of ended up in that rabbit
hole. And that sort of fit really well into Red Fever, which was the
story of influence of sports, fashion, politics and at the time art.
“But from that exhibit and from the stories that we heard following
going down that rabbit hole we ended up connecting with folks from out
west in Alert Bay (in British Columbia),” she said.
That’s when it was discovered that Indigenous masks from that
community ended up in the hands of surrealists in various locations.
Some of those masks were stolen from the community in 1921.
Many Indigenous masks ended up in the hands of collectors or in
museums. In his latest film Diamond attempts to get these masks
returned.
“They are beautiful,” he said. “They weren’t created to be displayed.
They tell a story, unbelievable stories, incredible stories behind the
mask.”
Diamond believes returning masks will help with reconciliation efforts.
“I think so,” he said. “Things are changing, slowly. It’s just like
if I stole something from you. Let’s say I stole your watch or
something. You loved this watch. It’s a family heirloom. And if I
returned it, I think you’d be very grateful.”
Robertson also believes repatriation efforts of the masks will help with reconciliation.
“I think it does move the needle a bit, hopefully,” she said. “In
terms of reconciliation, the stories that are shared and if people start
to listen like we talk about in the film, start listening to these
stories and when they’re seeing the museums they’re seeing the pieces
and they’re understanding where these pieces come from, I think is a
part of reconciliation.”
Diamond is thrilled So Surreal: Behind the Masks had its world premiere at TIFF, one of the more prestigious festivals around.
“I never really expected it,” he said. “I was really surprised that we were invited. I’m grateful and happy.”
Diamond was pleased with the exposure that screening at TIFF will bring.
“I think the people that we talked to in the film are going to be
very happy with the exposure that they’re getting,” he said. “They want
people to know this story and TIFF is a great place to have this story
told.”
The film will also soon be available on Canada’s Documentary Channel.
Tocabe is an Osage-owned
Indigenous restaurant and online store founded by Ben Jacobs, and this
year they’ve released a line of ready-to-eat, elevated frozen meals. The
ready-made meals are made with Indigenous-sourced ingredients
Tocabe's
frozen Indigenous meals can be prepared with a microwave, in the oven
or by heating in a sauté pan after defrosting. Osage News
Tocabe launched its Indigenous marketplace this year, selling Native
foods to the mainstream. Microwaveable meals for adults and children are
among the shippable products sourced from Native producers. Tocabe also
expects a spike in orders beginning with Indigenous People’s Day on
Oct. 14 and continuing through Native American Heritage Month in
November.
Founder Ben Jacobs describes Tocabe’s Indigenous sourcing as
“Native-first, local second,” meaning if a Native farmer or producer has
a Native ingredient, Tocabe will source from them before relying on a
local organic option.
“We source from Native producers growing and raising traditional
foods, but also utilizing ingredients which have been introduced
post-contact, as long as they are Native-produced,” added Katrina Salon,
a representative for Tocabe. For example, she said, “Wheat berries from
Ramona Farms and olive oil from Seka Hills.”
Tocabe created their Indigenous marketplace because they want Native
food to be accessible. Native food is not well understood, encountered
or available, but Tocabe hopes to bring Native foods to everyone, Jacobs
said.
In addition to creating mainstream access to Indigenous foods, Jacobs
also aims to support Indigenous economic development. Tocabe does this
by supporting the development of Native farmers, ranchers, and food
producers who are building “an equitable, sustainable and innovative
food system … benefitting American Indian communities.”
Tocabe’s Indigenous marketplace has products for sale from such
ethical Native producers for customers to use in their own cooking – or,
they can order ready-made meals in bulk bundles or individually. In a
children’s line called Little Harvest, Tocabe has options like blue corn
pancakes, spaghetti and bison meatballs and French toast. In the adult
line of meals, there are “elevated” options like iko’s green chili stew.
One Harvest Meal option is the “bison Sonora bowl,” which has a
wheatberry and white tepary bean blended with roasted squash purée,
nopales, zucchini and Navajo-grown pinto beans, with braised bison and a
chili sauce. Meal bundles include the “Best of Bison” bundle, with the
bison Sonoran bowl alongside bison chili, bison posu, sausage posu, wild
rice jambalaya and a “sausage sunset” – similar to the Sonoran, but
with roasted yams, bison sausage and other variations in sauce and the
type of beans.
The meals do have some preservatives, Salon said, due to some of the
ingredients they include in their ready-made meals. But Tocabe does not
add any additional artificial or synthetic preservatives, according to
Salon.
The company has scaled-up their distribution and they’re ready to
fill all the orders they’re expecting through the fall, said Salon. From
home cooks who want to source Indigenous ingredients for their
Thanksgiving menus to busy professionals who want fast, nutritious
options for dinner, Tocabe is hoping to be one of the options that comes
to mind.
Their frozen Indigenous meals can be prepared with a microwave, in
the oven, or by heating in a sauté pan after defrosting. To give one of
the ready-made meals a try – or to order Indigenous-sourced ingredients –
visit https://shoptocabe.com/.
WASHINGTON (KTVZ) -- The Justice Department has announced more than
$86 million in grants administered by the Tribal Affairs Division within
the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) to American Indian and Alaska
Native communities to support survivors of domestic violence, dating
violence, sexual assault, stalking, and sex trafficking.
The grants provided through the Violence Against Women Act will fund
services for victims of these crimes while providing support for Tribal
governments, including law enforcement, prosecutors, and Tribal courts,
to enhance safety and support Tribal sovereignty.
The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is receiving $1.25 million,
one of three grants under the Tribal Special Assistant U.S. Attorney
Initiative “to support the collaboration between Tribes and U.S.
Attorneys’ Offices in their investigation and prosecution of domestic
violence, sexual assault, dating violence, sex trafficking, and stalking
cases in Indian country.”
The Tribal Affairs Division within OVW is responsible for the
administration of Tribal-specific grant programs and initiatives,
management of Tribal-specific training and technical assistance, and
coordination with other federal departments and Justice Department
offices on Tribal issues.
Principal Deputy Director Allison Randall of OVW made the
announcement Tuesday at the annual Tribal Sexual Assault Services
Program Institute, a convening of Tribal officials, victim advocates,
and other Tribal leaders, as well as OVW-funded training and technical
assistance advisors, who work to support Tribes in developing and
improving programs to support survivors of sexual assault.
A new film highlights the traumas inflicted on Indigenous children by residential schools
Alaskans
say that history needs more attention. “Sugarcane” is set in British
Columbia. But after recent screenings in Sitka and Anchorage, advocates
say the documentary’s themes are as relevant and urgent just across the
Canadian border in Alaska.
St. Joseph’s Mission Indian Residential School, a site featured in a
scene from the new documentary Sugarcane. (Sugarcane Film LLC)
This
story contains difficult subject matter relating to Canada’s and
America’s history of operating residential schools for Indigenous
people. The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
has gathered resources for self-care at this site.
A new documentary, “Sugarcane,”
recounts the searing, traumatic history of colonization and forced
assimilation of British Columbia’s Indigenous people through a network
of what are known as Indian residential schools.
The film features former students and
their descendants seeking truth, reconciliation and healing from the
nation’s legacy of those schools — institutions that the Canadian
federal government now says carried out a “cultural genocide” through physical and sexual abuse.
After recent screenings in Sitka and Anchorage — and with the approach of the annual Sept. 30 commemoration for survivors — advocates say the film’s themes are as relevant and urgent just across the Canadian border in Alaska.
Churches and the federal government
once operated a similar network of roughly two dozen such schools in
Alaska starting in the 1870s, according to federal records.
Those institutions, advocates say,
inflicted their own traumas that still cast a shadow over Alaskan
survivors and their relatives — many of whom have not had the same
chance to process the painful history in the way that’s shown onscreen
in the new film.
“I could feel the tension in my body.
I was shaking all night; I still feel it now, two days later,” Ayyu
Qassataq, a 44-year-old Yup’ik and Iñupiaq advocate, said after watching
Sugarcane at its packed screening last month at the Anchorage Museum.
“I could feel the presence of that devastating and violent history — a
history that is largely invisibilized in Alaska.”
The Canadian federal government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2008 in response to class action lawsuits filed by survivors of the country’s residential schools.
The commission ultimately concluded
that the Canadian schools were a “systematic, government-sponsored
attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate
Aboriginal peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples.”
Sugarcane’s two directors, who spoke
onstage with Qassataq immediately after the Anchorage screening, said
they want the movie to lead to deeper understanding among both
Indigenous and non-Indigenous people of the systems that operated on
both sides of the border.
That’s especially the case in the U.S., they said, where the federal government hasn’t as thoroughlyaccounted for the schools’ history as in Canada.
In that country, the government has provided some $7.5 billion in restitution for Indigenous people, according to the New York Times.
The Canadian federal government also is currently spending more than $150 million
to support tribes as they document, locate and commemorate missing
children and unmarked burial sites at former residential schools. In
2008, the prime minister formally apologized for the school system.
Julian Brave NoiseCat, co-director of Sugarcane, speaks after a
screening in August at the Anchorage Museum. Co-director Emily Kassie is
at left, and Ayyu Qassataq, a Yup’ik and Iñupiaq advocate, is at right.
(Photo by Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal)
“There is not a parallel process of truth and reconciliation happening
in this country in as robust a way as there is in Canada,” co-director
Julian Brave NoiseCat, who explores his family’s own traumatic history
in Sugarcane, said in an interview just before the screening. He added:
“It takes a lot of courage to have the conversation. And our hope is
that this film inspires people across the country who are living in the
legacy of this genocide to have those conversations.”
Sugarcane, described by the New York Times as “stunning” and a “must-see” film, tells the story of a single Canadian First Nation in British Columbia, and its efforts to excavate and account for the deep harms inflicted by a Catholic-run boarding school.
NoiseCat’s grandmother was a student
at the school, where she gave birth to NoiseCat’s father. Harrowing
scenes feature survivors and former workers recounting how unwanted
babies born to Indigenous students at the school were sometimes thrown
into an incinerator.
T he Métis National Council and the Government of Canada will be working collaboratively, Nation-to-Nation, to develop a process to engag...
To Veronica Brown
Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.
OUR HISTORY
BOOK 5: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects
