#Alaska Natives

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

So my post on Oklahoma making it legal to take indigenous children from their parents without tribal consent is blowing up, and I'm glad people are horrified. But what I need people to know is that this might happen on a national level.

The Supreme Court is debating overturning the Indian Child Welfare Act.

What this act does is give Native American and Alaska Native tribes and nations control over the foster and adoption placement of their children. To overturn it would be to say tribes and nations aren't sovereign, and it would also allow the U.S. government to forcibly assimilate indigenous children into other cultures.

Please:

Spread the word about what is happening.

Read online news articles about this; the more traffic on those articles, the more likely the press is to write more articles.

If there are protests in your area, join them.

If there are indigenous nations or tribes in your area, ask them how you can help.

Donate to indigenous rights organizations like Native American Rights Fund.

Write to your representatives.

If ICWA falls, keep all of the above up. Don't just shrug and think it's over.

[uwmspeccoll]

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: fossil records, ravens, and layering with dg nanouk okpik

This week we feature Alaskan poet dg nanouk okpik (b. 1966). Born in Anchorage, okpik is Inupiaq, Inuit, though she was raised by a white adoptive family. She’s taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts and served as resident advisor for the Santa Fe Indian School. Her most recent collection blood snow was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. The poems featured here are drawn from her first collection, corpse whale, published in 2012 by University of Arizona Press as part of the Sun Tracks series. Sun Tracks was established in Tuscon in 1971 to highlight the creative work – writing as well as visual arts – of Native Americans. corpse whale won an American Book Award and the May Stanton Award.

In his foreword to corpse whale, Arthur Sze highlights the layering of time in okpik’s poems, and suggests a “visionary quest” for some eternal element at the core of the work: “Past, future, and present co-exist, and this underlying conception of time strengthens the mythical elements in her work.”

Speaking with Southeast Review after the release of blood snow, okpik explains Sze’s profound influence on her own work – she studied with him at the Institute of American Indian Arts – and the way her poetics is shaped and layered by such influences, as well as her travels: “my diction is a composite of these travels and many stories told. It is comprised of beauty and the agony of man’s struggles. In eight types of symbolism that come naturally to me. I let the writing speak for itself.”

View other posts on Natives American/First Nation Women Writers.

See other Women’s History Month posts.

–Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern.

[wachinyeya]

—

“the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the State of Alaska’s bid to fast-track the legal process, overrule the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and gain approval for the Pebble Mine — slated to extract enormous amounts of copper, gold, and molybdenum from the pristine and sensitive ecosystem known as Bristol Bay.

A diverse coalition led by Alaska Natives has consistently fought against the proposed mine for more than two decades. It eventually gained support from the EPA, which ultimately blocked the mine proposal in January 2023 over concerns it would threaten an aquatic ecosystem supporting the world’s most prolific sockeye salmon fishery.

This decision is significant, particularly considering the current High Court’s tendency to support states’ rights, limits on regulation — especially of the environmental variety — and corporate concerns. Alaska’s request, filed in June, was unusual in that it sought to skip lower appeals courts to challenge the EPA’s decision on the basis that it violated Alaska’s state sovereignty.

Under the law, alleged violations of state sovereignty are one of the few categories of cases that grant the Supreme Court original jurisdiction — meaning a state can bypass the usual state/federal court appeals process and file straight with the High Court. The justices could easily have decided to hear the case and decide in favor of the mining company, which has shown no qualms about engaging in some shady business practices over the years.

As the single most productive sockeye salmon fishery in the world, Bristol Bay contains biodiversity and abundant wild fish populations which present a stark contrast to many other fisheries in the Pacific Northwest (and worldwide). Most have experienced severe depletion over the last few decades. Sockeye salmon — like all Pacific Salmon — are a keystone species, vital to the health of an entire ecosystem. Of course, salmon also provide a sacred food source for Indigenous communities up and down the West Coast.”

-from the Lakota People’s Law Project

[blizzardandsukijedisofhyrule]

I barely ever make my own posts but holy shit I am so fucking angry about trump changing Denali's name back to mckinley. Never wanted to punch a wall so bad in my life. Shit man

[americanredragger]

New Department of Interior opinion promises to recognize expanded tribal jurisdiction in Alaska

This is big fucking news.

[fivepercentgodsandearths]

I build with Royal StarAllah about getting Knowledge Of Self in Alaska, Alaskan Land Rights For Natives, Hunger Strikes, Bob Marley Movie, Western Imperialism and Much More. For the full build hit the link in the bio or the comments underneath. Like, Subscribe and Share. Peace!

[alyfoxxxen]

Rebuilding to Endure: Alaska Native Villages are Racing to Relocate to Avoid Rising Waters and Thawing Permafrost | NMAI Magazine

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

The Trump administration is saying Native Americans are not entitled to birthright citizenship.

[uwmspeccoll]

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: Tanya Lukin Linklater

Today we feature the art and poetry of multidisciplinary artist Tanya Lukin Linklater (b. 1976) from southwestern Alaska. Her work incorporates dance, sculpture, textiles, video, and text, and often draws on the lived experiences of indigenous peoples. She is of Alutiiq heritage and an enrolled tribal member of Native Villages of Afognak and Port Lions on the Kodiak Island archipelago. The poems featured are from Slow Scrape; our copy is a second edition published in 2022 by Talonbooks, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

In her introduction to the collection, the poet Layli Long Soldier suggests that Lukin Linklater’s power establishes itself in her choreographer’s mastery of rhythm (“text in step”), and in the relational themes of the poems: “Through particulars of place, language, and culture, people begin to know each other; and erasure (rife with overlooking, forgetting, denial and invisibility) becomes impossible.” It is not dominance and defiance that characterizes these relations, the power is in the knowledge: “We feel for one another.”

The images are from various projects of Lukin Linklater’s featured in An Indigenous Present, edited by Jeffrey Gibson and Jenelle Porter for BIG NDN Press out of New York City in 2023. The collection gathers dynamic visual work and writing from contemporary Native North American artists.

Check out a recent consideration of Lukin-Linklater’s work in Art Review.

See other work featured in An Indigenous Present.

View other posts on Natives American/First Nation Women Writers.

See other Women’s History Month posts.

--Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern.

[portland-sunshine]

Quick pushback/clarification here, as someone who lived in a town that was majority Alaska natives.

Most Arctic peoples are not Inuit, and the terms are not interchangeable. The Inuit are a specific people, and a lot of other tribes find it pretty insulting to get lumped in as one bit group under that name. It's like calling all Europeans Swedes.

The people I lived around were mostly Yupik and Tlingit, with a few Aleut folks. They actually preferred "Eskimo" as a broad term over Inuit, but their ideal would be their actual names.

If you want to refer to the natives of the Arctic and surrounding areas as a group, Arctic peoples is better. If they're specifically from Alaska, you can instead go with Alaska natives (and yes, it's Alaska, not Alaskan).

Folks, friends, y’all…. esk*mo is a slur. I understand a lot of people don’t know that, I don’t want to be a dick about it, but I’ve been seeing it in fics. Wanna write “esk*mo kisses”? Just say “nuzzled noses” or something.

I’m not here to call anybody out, it’s been in multiple fics, I’m not vague posting. This is just a psa. 👍🏻

[eli-xr8]

when ICE is going after people that don't look white or black to the point that when they got to juneau natives were advised to carry their tribal IDs with them MFS WE WERE HERE FIRST!? WE AREN'T EVEN IMMIGRANTS ILLEGAL OR LEGAL ISTG 😭😭😭

[asiawhy]

Possible Interview

If any of my mutuals or anyone that sees this is Native American or Alaska Native. Would you be down to be interviewed for a graphic design project?

Sorry if this is weird or out of nowhere.

[cherryblossomshadow]

[Image ID: A black and white picture of a woman with a quote overlaid, reading:

Asking you to give me equal rights implies that they are yours to give. Instead, I must demand that you stop trying to deny me the rights all people deserve.

Smaller text at the bottom identifies the quoted woman as

Elizabeth Peratrovich Born: 1911 Equal rights advocate for Alaska Natives Helped pass first anti-discrimination law in the US

/end ID]

Elizabeth Peratrovich was an American civil rights activist, Grand President of the Alaska Native Sisterhood, and member of the Tlingit nation who worked for equality on behalf of Alaska Natives…

[pomporri]

different post but this was my take on the brazilian miku trend

the world is hers 🩵

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - May 15-21

Like these weekly compilations? Support me on Ko-fi! Also, if you tip me on Ko-fi, at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week - almost double the content!

1. Translocation of 2,000 rhinos in Africa gets underway in “one of the most audacious conservation efforts of modern times”

“The 2,000 rhinos - more than are currently found in any single wild location in Africa - represent around 12-15% of the continent’s remaining white rhino population. […] “Rhinos perform an important ecological function in the environment as a large grazing herbivore,” says Dale Wepener[….] “The protection of rhino is far more than just looking after rhino; other species that occur in the protected areas will benefit from the protection,” explains Jooste. “This will lead to an increase in diversity and result in much healthier ecosystems.”

2. Florida Corridor Buffers Effects of Climate Change on Wildlife — And People

“A massive multi-partner effort that has conserved 10 million acres for wildlife in Florida over past decades will help buffer wildlife—and people—from the effects of climate change, a new report says. […] Protecting these corridors is important for wildlife genetics, demography and connectivity […], conducting prescribed fires in the corridor can reduce the risk of more intense wildfires [… and] they can provide buffers against hurricanes and seasonal thunderstorms.”

3. Global life expectancy to increase by nearly 5 years by 2050 despite geopolitical, metabolic, and environmental threats

“Increases are expected to be largest in countries where life expectancy is lower, contributing to a convergence of increased life expectancy across geographies. The trend is largely driven by public health measures that have prevented and improved survival rates from cardiovascular diseases, COVID-19, and a range of communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (CMNNs).”

4. Valencia has Spain’s longest urban park

“Jardin del Turia (Turia Garden) is the green spine of the City of Valencia and Spain’s (and possibly Europe’s) longest urban park stretching for a length of 8.5 kilometres [… and] the current administration plans to make Jardin del Turia Europe’s largest city green space by extending it to the sea[….] Almost all Valencia residents (97 per cent) live within 300 metres of an urban green space. […] Jardin del Turia is a true urban oasis that provides exceptional thermal comfort, with a temperature difference of up to three degrees compared to other areas of the city.”

5. This Paint Could Clean Both Itself and the Air

“When an artificial ultraviolet light source shines on [photocatalytic] paint, the nanoparticles react with pollutants to make them break down—theoretically removing them from the nearby air and preventing a discoloring buildup. [… R]esearchers developed a new photocatalytic paint that they claim works using UV rays from ordinary sunlight, making its self-cleaning properties easier to activate. They’ve also shown that they can effectively produce this paint from recycled materials [including fallen leaves].”

6. Planting Seedlings for a Cooler Rockingham

“A dedicated group of volunteers recently planted over a thousand native seedlings in Lewington Reserve [… and] re-established canopy cover to areas of the reserve to create cooling shade for the local community and provide homes for native wildlife. […] Planting lots of trees and shrubs in urban areas can help create shade and cool cities, mitigating the impacts of climate change, contributing to biodiversity conservation and building greener, more resilient communities.”

7. Sydney’s first dedicated affordable housing for trans women designed to deliver ‘positive outcomes’

“Community housing provider and charity Common Equity NSW, […] which is for people on very low to moderate incomes, prides itself on creating inclusive living and promotes the independence and well-being of people and communities […, and] will deliver the first-of-its-kind social housing in a bid to provide a safe place to live for transgender women seeking an affordable home.”

8. Rewilding: How a herd of bison reintroduced to Romania is helping ‘supercharge’ carbon removal

“170 European Bison reintroduced to Romania’s Țarcu mountains could help capture and store the carbon released by up to 84,000 average US petrol cars each year. […] By grazing a 48 square kilometre area of grassland in a wider landscape of 300 kilometres squared, they helped to capture an additional 54,000 tonnes of carbon each year. That is around 10 times the amount that would be captured by the ecosystem without the bison.”

9. World’s biggest grids could be powered by renewables, with little or no storage

“[…] 100% renewable supply can then match the load by putting surplus electricity into two kinds of distributed storage worth that [an energy expert] says are worth buying anyway – ice-storage air-conditioning and smart bidirectional charging of electric cars, and recover that energy when needed, filling the last gaps with unobtrusively flexible demand.”

10. Supporting the Long-Term Survival of Copper River Salmon and Alaska Native Traditions

“With $4.3 million in NOAA funds, the Copper River Watershed Project and The Eyak Corporation will remove fish passage barriers, opening more streams for salmon spawning and subsistence fishing. [… As part of this effort, o]ld narrow culverts that constrict water flow will be replaced with “stream simulation” culverts wide enough to fit the full stream, including its banks. They are also deep to allow contractors to place stones and other material inside to mimic a natural stream bottom.”

May 8-14 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[dhampirdreamerz]

@priests-ate-the-documents

pov Facebook moms who burn sage,