Category: Uncategorized

Things are moving so quickly in Indian Country that it is hard to keep up. But I thought that anyone interested in this blog will be especially interested in Interior Secretary Haaland of the Laguna Pueblo Tribe, and Jaime Pinkham of the Nez Perce Tribe, came together at Dworshak Dam to celebrate the transferral of the fish hatchery, which was constructed in 1969, and has been co-managed by the tribe for the past 18 years, to the Nez Perce Tribe.

The tribe will be responsible for spawning and rearing steelhead, spring chinook and coho at the hatchery and taking care of the facility. The Corps will continue to own and partially fund the hatchery and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will administer the facility and be in charge of fish health measures.

The hatchery is a key cog in the federal and regional effort to produce salmon and steelhead to mitigate for declines caused by Dworshak Dam on the Read The Article

As part of our “Native Sport” exhibit, we wanted to offer art work for purchase: Beadwork by Roger Amerman, and photography by Dallas Dick. Best laid plans……

Which means that the raffle announced then has been “reworked,” with raffle tickets available now online and at the Center–where the beautiful Amerman beaded bag and Dallas Dick photo are on display, and online at https://josephy.org/event/native-sport-raffle?blm_aid=16351

Only a few tickets were sold–as we didn’t have art work here–so we now have 95 tickets available: $10 each or 3 for $25. The drawing will be held druing Chief Joseph Days, Friday, July 29 at 4:00 p.m.
qe’ci’yew’yew’—thank you!rich

Native Sport Raffle

  Read The Article

I spent most of a recent two week soujourn in The Department of American Culture and Literature, also known as the American Studies Department, at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Ankara, a modern city of high rises and 5 million people, is the nation’s capital. The university is nearly self-contained, with housing, coffee shops and a market, and is surrounded by hospitals, government buildings, and apartment and business towers.

Bilkent has 12,500 undergraduate and graduate students, and an adjacent k-12 Bilkent Laboratory and International School has over 1000 students. Although early grades are dual-language, upper grades at the BLIS school and the entire university use English as the teaching language.

I met with five sections of fifth-graders and one eleventh grade Global Studies class. The fifth graders were basically fluent in English; the eleventh graders as easy in their English as are most American eleventh graders.

The teacher, a White South African, had versed them in the spread of peoples Read The Article

It’s April 13, and in tomorrow I leave for a two-week trip to Turkey—Here’s a calendar of upcoming events. See you in May! Read The Article

My friend Tony Robinson, a retired pastor with deep roots in Wallowa County, recounted his church and civil rights journeys in a blogpost yesterday, as answers to a grandson’s queries. The history begins with memories of growing up in suburban Washington D.C., and serving as an usher for the inauguration of John Kennedy when he was 12. And then being at the front, watching JFK’s funeral procession pass by just three years later. He told his grandson that his church, in a segregated suburb, introduced him to area black churches, and sent him to interracial summer camps, setting him on a path of pastoring to Hmong refugees and AIDs patients. His regret was not being at the 1963 March on Washington and hearing Martin Luther King’s famous words. His parents, like most of white suburban D.C., had feared violence. Read The Article

A friend gave me a new book, We Had A Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy, as a Christmas gift. She knows that most of my reading these days is by Indian authors and about Indian history and culture. She’s heard me exclaim about boarding schools and broken treaties. She thought it might give me something about Indians that was a little lighter to read. Read The Article

A group of seven Nez Perce artists and writers who call themselves luk’upsíimey—“North Star”– Collective has been together at the Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland for the past week, practicing their art, learning and relearning their language together. They are college professors and language teachers, visual artists and wordmakers, from California and Arizona, Philadelphia and Lapwai, who came together in this Wallowa place that echoes their ancient common nimiipuu –Nez Perce–language. Read The Article