Native America
Police chiefs respond to concerns about bias and victim-blaming in MMIWR cases
Shelda Livingston and her family say the complicated background of her sister Pepita Redhair led Albuquerque Police Department officers to discriminate against her during their investigation into Redhair’s disappearance in March 2020. “We feel like there was no investigation done, or completed, or even started,” Livingston said Thursday during a live radio program addressing missing […]
Navajo Nation pushes for radioactive waste remnants to be fully removed
GALLUP – Navajo Nation continues to hold strong on its stance against radioactive waste being dumped near its lands, while also pushing for the waste to be removed completely. The Church Rock uranium mill site is owned by United Nuclear Corporation, and in 1979 this site is where 93 million gallons of radioactive tailings were […]
Bringing more attention to missing and murdered Indigenous relatives
Full episode of “Let’s Talk New Mexico” on KUNM Radio Oct. 21, 2021 Pepita Redhair’s family is still looking. Redhair was reported missing at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Her family says the Albuquerque police investigation did not seem complete. Her boyfriend, the last person to see her, had a brief […]
National parks nominee pledges to ramp up workforce, improve staff morale
President Joe Biden’s choice to lead the National Park Service told a U.S. Senate panel Tuesday he would work to rebuild the agency’s workforce, which has shrunk even as park attendance hits new records. Charles F. Sams III, of Oregon, would be the first enrolled tribal member to lead the National Park Service. He is […]
Gallup hospital’s birthing unit to reopen, but former nurse says fix is just a Band-Aid
Administrators of a Gallup hospital announced Thursday afternoon that the hospital would reopen its labor and delivery unit a month after it closed, sending soon-to-be parents scrambling to find a new place to give birth. The unit at Rehoboth-McKinley Christian Hospital will reopen at 7 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 24, according to an all-staff email […]
‘Climate change is fundamentally altering the Colorado River’
States in the Colorado River Basin are adjusting to the reality that their rights outstrip the available water by nearly one-third, state and tribal leaders told a congressional panel Friday. The situation is likely only to worsen as the climate changes, leaving states and tribes in competition for their most vital resource. Representatives from the […]
Indigenous demonstrators make statement at Interior
WASHINGTON — Dozens of Indigenous leaders held a sit-in Thursday at the Interior Department in Washington, D.C., in an effort to stop the extractive fossil fuel industries. Jennifer Falcon, Nakoda, Lakota and Dakota, with Indigenous Rising Media, was inside and said before Thursday’s sit-in at the Bureau of Indian Affairs that they warned President Joe […]
St. Mary’s Mission: ‘This place is the Devil’
It was a lifetime ago, more than 50 years now, that Jodine Grundy taught at the St. Mary’s Mission boarding school on Confederated Tribes lands in Omak, Washington. It was 1966. Grundy was 20, an idealistic, newly minted graduate from the Jesuit’s Santa Clara University in California interested in art and social justice. Energized by […]
Reported missing, but attention still absent
Mary Margret Begay from Grand Canyon, Ariz., has been missing since Aug. 2, 1957. Paul Benally from Winslow, Ariz., has been missing since May 1, 1972. Gloria Ann Talley went missing out of Albuquerque on June 19, 1986 and hasn’t been heard from since. These are just a few of the forgotten missing that advocate […]
Indigenous Peoples’ Day in photos
Across New Mexico, people from tribal communities gathered yesterday to celebrate everything Native. Indigenous Peoples’ Day is every second Monday of October in the state. “Having all of these people joined together to reclaim a holiday that was that was based off of genocide and rape … it’s a very healing feeling, seeing everyone come […]
Tribal leaders praise Haaland and the US government for restoring Bears Ears
Tribal leaders in the Four Corners and across the country are ecstatic at the news that President Joe Biden signed proclamations this afternoon fully restoring Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments that were both cut into by the previous administration by nearly 2 million acres total. The All Pueblo Council of Governors, which represents […]
2021 Indigenous Peoples’ Day set to be the biggest to date
The future is Indigenous. Those words come from Dr. Christina M. Castro (Jemez / Taos) as she describes the Indigenous Peoples’ Day event her organization Three Sisters Collective is hosting in O’ga P’ogeh (aka Santa Fe). “Indigenous arts, culture, food and everything is literally the backbone of the economy of Santa Fe as the state […]