August 2015 Green Fire Times

News & Views

from the

S u s t ai n ab l e S o u t h w e s t

Native American Green

I ndigenous S olutions

August 2015

Northern New Mexico’s Largest Distribution Newspaper

Vol. 7 No. 8

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Vol. 7, No. 8 • August 2015 Issue No. 76 Publisher Green Fire Publishing, LLC

Skip Whitson

Associate Publisher

Barbara E. Brown

Editor-in-chief

Seth Roffman

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Anna C. Hansen, Dakini Design Copy Editors Stephen Klinger Susan Clair Webmaster: Karen Shepherd Contributing Writers

Dave Castillo, Aliyah Chavez, Carnell Chosa, Tracey Cordero, Scott Davis, Susan Guyette, Alejandro López, Rita Martinez, Mara Matteson, Harlan McKosato, Ada Pecos Melton, David J. Melton, Trisha Moquino, Raquel Redshirt, Seth Roffman, Delores E. Roybal, Kenneth T. Romero, Brian Vallo, Stephen Wall, Christian White

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News & Views

from the

Sustainable Southwest

Winner of the Sustainable Santa Fe Award for Outstanding Educational Project

Contents

Indigenous as a Way of Life. . .. . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 7 Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . . 8 Summer Policy Academy: Voices of our Indigenous Youth . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 9 Tribal Infrastructure Solutions in New Mexico . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 12 Red Power 3.0. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 13 Update: The Santo Domingo Heritage Trail Arts Project . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 15 Everyday Green: Paths of Beauty – An Exhibit at the Poeh Center. . .. . .. . .. . 17 Keres Children’s Learning Center at Cochiti Pueblo . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 18 The Cochiti Youth Experience: Project Laughing Corn . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . 19 The Chamiza Foundation . . .. . . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 20 Nambé Pueblo Receives Community Agriculture Grant . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .21 A ‘People’s Garden’ at Zuni Pueblo. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .21 The Journey of Becoming a Man. . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 22 Tribal Green Reentry Youth Programs Incorporate Culture . . .. . .. . .. . .. . 22 Homemade Solar Ovens in Navajo Country . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . ..24 Navajo Newsbites. . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 24 The Warrior Project . . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 31 Native Newsbites . . .. . .. . .. .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 7, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 28 Newsbites . . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 31, 37 What’s Going On:. . .. . .. . ... . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .. 38

Niki Nicholson 505.490.6265 Niki@GreenFireTimes.com Albuquerque: Shelley Shilvock 505-492-5869, ShelleyShilvock@gmail.com

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c/o The Sun Companies P.O. Box 5588, SF, NM 87502-5588 505.471.5177 • info@greenfiretimes.com © 2015 Green Fire Publishing, LLC Green Fire Times provides useful information for community members, business people, students and visitors—anyone interested in discovering the wealth of opportunities and resources in the Southwest. In support of a more sustainable planet, topics covered range from green businesses, jobs, products, services, entrepreneurship, investing, design, building and energy—to native perspectives on history, arts & culture, ecotourism, education, sustainable agriculture, regional cuisine, water issues and the healing arts. To our publisher, a more sustainable planet also means maximizing environmental as well as personal health by minimizing consumption of meat and alcohol.

Green Fire Times is widely distributed throughout north-central New Mexico. Feedback, announcements, event listings, advertising and article submissions to be considered for publication are welcome.

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Some of the 2015 Project Hii Hii’ Kah (Laughing Corn) mentors and mentees at Cochiti Youth Experience’s tool distribution at the beginning of the season. (See story, pg. 19) © Jayson Romero

COVER: D ragonfly Altar, gouache on paper, 1991. Painting by Douglas Johnson Green Fire Times • August 2015

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Indigenous as a Way of Life

Stephen Wall

“I think that when we talk about re-indigenization we need a much larger, bigger umbrella to understand it.

It’s not necessarily about the Indigenous people of a specific place; it’s about re-indigenizing the peoples of the planet to the planet.”

– John Mohawk, Original Instructions

pg. 259. (Emphasis in original article)

The Jemez River near Zia Pueblo, New Mexico

Defining “Indigenous”

T

he word indigenous is defined as “originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country” (Dictionary.com). While this definition applies to almost anything, in today’s world the word indigenous is often used to describe a people; that is, the people who originally lived and still live in a particular region or area and who have had to adjust to outsiders coming into their land. In today’s world, with a history of colonialism and economic migration, indigenous has political and cultural overtones. However, this article is not about the rights of indigenous people vis-à-vis colonial powers and settler communities.

This article is based on the above-stated sentiments of John Mohawk, a Seneca scholar, and the need for humans to see themselves as indigenous to planet Earth.

and Hispanic—and set the stage for the changes we saw in the 20th century. Policies and programs set in Washington, D.C., over 2,000 miles away, took land-use prerogatives away from the indigenous people. Resource extraction and development were designed for the benefit of outside investors rather than those who lived on and drew sustenance from the land. The population of New Mexico grew from 360,000 in 1920 to a bit more than two million today. While a small portion of that population growth is the natural growth of the indigenous populations, most have been newcomers, spurred on to New Mexico by the growth of the defense industry and other business opportunities. These newcomers brought land-use ideas, water-use practices and environmental ethics that are not born of this land and not part of the reciprocal relationship with the Río Grande Valley.

We become more indigenized as we understand the land, sky and other natural phenomena as metaphor within our lives and psyches.

© Seth Roffman (2)

Thus, indigeneity in New Mexico is not defined solely through a racial or ethnic lens but is based on the practices and ethics that flow from the land itself and ensure the sustainability of life. Those who act in a manner attuned to that flow might be considered indigenous.

Neither those who see this place as a way station on the road to bigger and better things nor those who place the creation of personal wealth at the expense of community and future generations will have the insight and perception to interact with the land in a manner that generates indigeneity.

John Mohawk interviewed Hopi elders David Monongye (next to cane) and Nelson H. in Hotevilla, Arizona. Interpreter Thomas Banyacya, sitting between them, translated. 1983.

For the purpose of this article, the particular region or area in focus is the Río Grande Valley, including the watersheds and tributaries that contribute to the Río Grande. This would include Río Abajo (below La Bajada), Río Arriba (above La Bajada), the San Luís Valley, ríos Jémez, Puerco, Galisteo and Chama, and the creeks and canyons that make up the headwaters of all these rivers. Ecologically, the Río Grande Valley contains much of the same animal and plant life found in surrounding bioregions, such as west to the Colorado Plateau or east towards the Llano Estacado. However, the presence of the Río Grande riparian environment provides some plant and animal diversity and food security.

For the past several hundred years, the indigenous peoples of the Río Grande Valley included the Pueblo, Navajo, Apache and Utes. These people came to the Río Grande Valley for similar reasons that bring people today: economic forces, changing weather conditions and the search for a safer, more secure place to live. These peoples brought with them an ethic that recognized the reciprocity and relationship necessary for sustainable living within the ecosystem.

The arrival of Juan de Oñate, in the late 1500s, brought new animals and a new people to the Río Grande Valley, and over the next 400 years those people indigenized into the rhythms and spirituality of the land. Generations of Hispanic settlers have grown to be a part of the land because they understood that the Earth was the Mother that provided food, clothing, shelter and all that they needed.

However, change came to the Río Grande Valley. The 20 century brought dramatic transformations for the people and the land. Americans came after 1848 in search of wealth and fortune. They changed the traditional land-use patterns of the indigenous people—Indian th

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A Short History of Deindigenizing

Regardless of ancient astronaut theories, humans are indigenous to planet Earth and have, over thousands of years, developed ways of life that existed in relative balance with the places of their habitation. While examples of overuse of resources, forced migrations and population die-offs exist, when we consider the extent of human habitation, these occurrences, continued on page 26

First Nations L.E.A.D. Institute Conference santa fe, nm • sept. 22–24 For 35 years, First Nations Development Institute has worked with Native nations and organizations to strengthen American Indian economies and support healthy Native communities. As an extension of that mission, First Nations’ L.E.A.D. conference is designed to help emerging and existing leaders in Indian Country grow professionally, share ideas and learn new asset-building skills.

The 20th annual L.E.A.D. conference will be held at the Hilton Buffalo Thunder Resort, near Santa Fe, Sept. 22 - 24. It is geared for Native American nonprofit professionals, Native Americans interested in launching or expanding nonprofit or philanthropic organizations, tribal leaders and those in tribal organizations, tribal economicdevelopment professionals and those interested in Native American food sovereignty.

Attendance at the event is required for many of First Nations’ grantees, but a limited number of seats are open to the general public.

This year’s conference will include three training tracks: Empowering Native Youth through Asset-Building, Strengthening Tribal and Community Institutions, and Nourishing Native Foods and Health. Conference registration fee is $475.

Registration, conference logistics and agenda and opportunities for sponsors and vendors can be found at www.FirstNations.org/2015LEAD

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School

T

he Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School (LI) was established in 1997 to create opportunities for discourse on a wide range of public policy and tribal community issues that were challenging the vitality and spirit of New Mexico’s tribal nations.

Through 15 programs designed and implemented by LI cofounders Regis Pecos, Carnell Chosa and staff, the LI uses a Pueblo community core valuesbased lens to strengthen four themes that run throughout the institute’s programs: community service, leadership, public policy and critical thinking.

issues from diverse perspectives; and the Summer Policy Academy, a Pueblo youth summer intensive that introduces the youth to tribal, state, national and international policy issues and requires them to implement community service projects in their respective communities.

Community Institute participants serve as faculty to the Summer Policy Academy and mentor its students.The two projects have served more than 4,000 participants, including 200 Summer Policy Academy graduates.

One of the more recent programs the LI conceived is the Pueblo Indian Doctoral From the beginning, two programs Cohort. In 2012, through support have provided a foundation for the from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, LI: Community Institutes, a convener the LI partnered with Arizona think tank designed to bring community State University’s School of Social members together to address pressing Transformation to design and implement a doctoral training program focused on the LI’s work in Pueblo communities. Ten inaugural cohort members, each with more than 15 years of professional work experience, graduated in May 2015.Cohort members included attorneys, educators, nonprofit leaders, health professionals and business leaders. The curriculum design allowed L-R: June Lorenzo, Richard Luarkie, Anthony Dorame, each student to explore and Carnell Chosa, Michele Suina, Shawn Abeita, Ken research the intersections Lucero, Corrine Sanchez, Jose Vince Lujan, Mark Ericson

© Seth Roffman

Carnell Chosa

2015 Summer Policy Academy students participating in a unit on advocacy with PNM’s Cathy Newby

of their academic interests, professional careers, Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), and justice, as they related to 10 critical issue areas related to Pueblos, identified by LI participants over the course of 15 years.

The institute’s four themes: community service, leadership, public policy and critical thinking

What made the Pueblo Indian Doctoral Cohort successful was the special attention to design and delivery. All scholars remained in New Mexico and maintained their professional careers during their course of study. Courses were delivered in four ways: students traveling to Tempe, professors traveling to New Mexico, video conferencing and course travel modules in which the cohort took classes with other indigenous doctoral

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students throughout the world, including the Saami in Norway and the Maori in New Zealand.

Another innovative element to the program was the dissertation. It was designed so that each individual’s dissertation served to contribute to collective products in the form of a Pueblo Doctoral Cohort book, edited by project principals, Drs. Bryan Brayboy and Elizabeth Sumida Huaman, and an article in a special edition of the Journal of American Indian Education, edited

by Drs. Terri McCarty and Tsianina Lomawaima. The final piece to the dissertation required development of a policy position paper focused on each scholar’s area of research. Each of these policy papers is currently being implemented.

“Our people’s contributions in the areas of science, architecture and philosophy have kept our communities strong for many generations. This opportunity provided each of us to contribute another layer in maintaining and building upon the Pueblo way of life,” said Dr. Corrine Sanchez, executive director of Tewa Women United.

Eurocentric academic research in indigenous communities has often had destructive effects. The graduates were motivated in part by the belief that research conducted by Native American scholars in their homelands will likely be more ethical and culturally responsive.

A second cohort of doctoral and masters students will begin in late fall 2015. i Carnell Chosa, Ph.D. ( Jemez Pueblo) is codirector of the Leadership Institute at Santa Fe Indian School. CTChosa@ sfis.k12.nm.us

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Summer Policy Academy Voices of our Indigenous Youth The SPA gave me a new outlook and perspective on policies and brought multiple indigenous representatives together, giving me a sense of how many of us have similarities in government and in the traditional ways of life.

– Tyrell Westika (Zuni Pueblo, SPA Fellow) My experience at SPA was great! It helped me broaden my mind and gain knowledge I can use to help my community. It was also fun meeting new people and learning why they were here. – Sunny Rose Eaton (Tesuque Pueblo, SPA Fellow) There has been a lot said about the sacredness of our land, which is our body; and the values of our culture, which is our soul; but water is the blood of our tribes, and if its life-giving flow is stopped or it is polluted, all else will die, and the many thousands of years of our communal existence will come to an end. – Frank Tenorio (San Felipe Pueblo), 1978

T

yrell Westika and SunnyRose Eaton are two of the 17 exceptional student fellows who have positioned themselves as young tribal leaders at the Santa Fe Indian School’s 2015 Summer Policy Academy (SPA).

These individuals originate from the 19 pueblos of New Mexico and other Southwest tribes. Together, they are learning about policy and how it affects them on personal, family and community levels.

New Mexico pueblos rely on their governmental administrations, along with traditional leadership.

Their goal is to explore the many ways they can contribute and help their native communities. Although most are still just completing high school, they have been discussing issues that concern tribal governments today, such as blood quantum, land and water rights, cultural preservation, environmental protection and language loss. Another fellow, Eddie Humetewa, a SFIS senior,

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quoted his grandfather, Frank Tenorio, in a discussion about environmental sustainability. His concerns about the environment motivate his research for his Senior Honors Project. Drawing on their own knowledge and upbringing, tough issues are never left off the table and, in fact, are dissected to understand underlying causes such as discrimination and historical trauma.

The Leadership Institute (LI) hosts the SPA every year, along with several other institutes, to focus and guide the development of potential tribal leaders as they talk about important issues.

SPA is a three-year fellowship for high school students to engage in the policy-making process, shifting from local, state and national perspectives.

Throughout the program, students have heard from guest speakers such as Kelly Zunie (Secretary of Indian Affairs), Ken Lucero (tribal liaison for Martin Heinrich), Phoebe Suina (High Water Mark, LLC), Carmen López (College Horizons), Mark Erickson, Ph.D. (SFIS), Robert Tenorio (Kewa potter) and many others. SPA partners with organizations such as the Native American Voting Alliance (NAVA), Tewa Women United, IMPACT Personal Safety, American Indian Law Center (AILC) and the University of New Mexico’s Center for Native American Health. These partnerships allow the fellows to travel to experience different learning environments. They have also visited the state capitol, Taos and the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. The activities and workshops have uniquely touched upon the LI’s issue areas of governance, law, health, art, economy, language and education, as represented within Pueblo communities.

The fellows are immersed in discourse around what constitutes policy, what kinds there are, and effective ways policy can be changed. Regis Pecos, codirector of the LI, has shared his knowledge and incorporated “The 100 Years of Federal Indian Policy” in his teaching.

This history has provided the backbone for the program, with such topics as the Pueblo Revolt, treaty-making, Indian

© Dr. Corrine Sanchez

Christian White

2015 Summer Policy Academy students at the New Mexico State Capitol

removal, the Reservation Period, Indian Reorganization, and self-determination.

Although it is initially not a welcoming history for young student fellows to be introduced to, Pecos focuses on the strengths of the surviving communities.

Even though federal and state agencies have made great efforts to eliminate Native peoples, the fact that Native communities still exist and thrive reflects their fortitude. Throughout Pecos’s presentations, he emphasizes Native people’s history of cultivating young tribal leaders, such as the fellows.

This reinforces the necessity for wellinformed tribal youth and their potential for contributing to their communities.

For Native people, leadership is pivotal to their community’s survival. The New Mexico pueblos rely on their governmental administrations, along with traditional leadership, to maintain a balance between external political factors and the need to preserve the cultures passed down from their ancestors since time immemorial.

At the end of the SPA program, each student works on a community-based project that allows him or her to put newly found knowledge into practice.

Students have worked on creating programs, researching Native history, building parks and bridging gaps in their communities. Each fellow chooses a challenge within his or her community and creates a project to raise awareness or help fix issues such as language loss, drug abuse, water and land issues, just to name just a few.

Caitlyn Tafoya, who currently lives in Albuquerque, wanted to learn more about her language and her community, so she lived with her family in Taos,

made a video of her experiences and presented it to an audience of more than 300 community members. Tafoya describes the project as, “one of the most intense two weeks…I learned a lot about my community and also myself.

It was fun and definitely one of my best experiences.”

A three-year fellowship for high school students to engage in the policymaking process

With the completion of the student fellows’ projects, the students received certificates and a gift of a laptop for their dedication. It was another successful year for the SPA. The graduating students now move on to SPA II, where they will travel to Washington, D.C., to propose bills to U.S. senators. Having graduated more than 200 fellows, the SPA is approaching its 10-year anniversary. Through its longevity, the SPA and the LI have demonstrated their importance to the Native communities of New Mexico. i Christian White is currently an intern at the Leadership Institute at SFIS. He graduated from Columbia University this spring with a double major in political science and in race and ethnic studies. White cofounded a nonprofit organization called AlterNATIVE Education and is active in social-justice issues.

He will be attending UNM in the fall to pursue his master’s degree.

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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Tribal Infrastructure Solutions in New Mexico

Harlan McKosato

S

ome of the poorer tribal communities in New Mexico have been compared to Third World countries because of their economic struggles and their lack of modern water and energy systems. Most of the state’s Pueblo villages, Navajo chapter houses and Apache tribal communities are isolated and have little or no access to the already poor infrastructure in the Land of Enchantment.

A decade into the 21st century, the White Rock chapter of the Navajo Nation in the western part of the state was in desperate need of basic electrical power lines.

The Pueblo of Santa Clara in northern New Mexico still had no running water and no reliable water supply. Zia Pueblo had never had indoor plumbing because it had no wastewater treatment facilities.

“Each tribe or pueblo in New Mexico is at a different level of progress in terms of economic development and community development,” said Kelly Zunie, a member of the Pueblo of Zuni and secretary of the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department. “Some are still trying to get the basics—water and power.”

Poorer tribal communities in New Mexico have been compared to Third World countries.

In response to these poor living conditions and after much collaboration with tribal leaders, in 2005, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson signed into law the Tribal Infrastructure Act. The law requires that the state allocate 5 percent of its estimated oil and gas severance tax—from $9 million to $16 million dollars annually—for use by the Tribal Infrastructure Fund (TIF) to award qualified critical tribal infrastructure projects.

Tribes are eligible to apply in three areas: planning, design and construction. This year’s TIF cycle awarded $12.3 million to 25 different tribal communities. Since its inception, TIF has awarded more than $83 million to tribal infrastructure projects across the state. The TIF is overseen by the Tribal Infrastructure Board, which evaluates and decides on the awardees, and both are administratively attached to the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department.

“One of the (Navajo) chapters did not have running water,” said Zunie, the first woman to lead the nation’s only Indian Affairs Department given state cabinet level authority. “They were able to get TIF funding for water. The community was so excited. Just to hear the elders so excited to have indoor plumbing —their quality of life has improved greatly.

“I was thinking, this is America. This is like having Third World countries in America,” said Zunie. “I think the state of New Mexico has taken that into account.

Other states don’t have this kind of funding for tribes.”

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Green Fire Times • August 2015

The Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo) has had great success leveraging TIF funds. It was awarded $150,000 for planning of a wastewater treatment facility in 2014. This The Navajo Nation’s To’hajiilee chapter received $2 year they were awarded million over two funding cycles (2013/2014) from New $155,000 for design of Mexico’s TIF for its Emergency Management Field a community wellness Office Planning/Design and Construction. The chapter c e n t e r. D i a b e t e s h a s completed planning and design and recently broke increased by 5 percent at ground for construction on the facility.

Ohkay Owingeh during the past five years, largely due to lack of physical exercise, and 24 percent of the youth in the community are overweight or obese by the time they enter high school.

“We have a very high rate of childhood obesity. We have no physical education (program) in our tribal school or our Head Start,” said Christy Mermejo, planning manager for Ohkay Owingeh.“We just built a brand new school with tribal funds. Next to our school there’s an old BIA building that needs to come down so we can build a gymnasium.”

This year Ohkay Owingeh also received $476,500 for construction for waterline improvements. The waterlines in the pueblo were installed in the early 1960s. Tribal officials explain that should the existing waterlines fail they are not repairable— which would cause hundreds of people in the pueblo to be without water for a long period. A reliable water-delivery system is critical to the safety of the residents.

“It will bring us safe drinking water and fire suppression. If we had a fire right now we don’t have waterlines that have the capacity to put out a fire,” said Mermejo. “The basic human need of water, most people don’t think about it when they live in the city.

If we don’t start replacing these lines, our members won’t even have access to water.”

“I recently met with Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye,” said Zunie, who also serves as chair of the Tribal Infrastructure Board. “He said the state of Arizona (where most of the Navajo Nation is located) doesn’t have anything like this for the tribes. I think that speaks volumes. Even with budget crunches we still keep rolling because it helps to change lives.”

Harlan McKosato is the director of NDN Productions, a multimedia company based in Albuquerque. He is a citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma.

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Courtesy Northern Pueblos’ Housing Authority

Red Power 3.0

Dave Castillo

D

uring colonial times, Native warriors—men and women—defended and advocated for their peoples and homelands. Although today the number of American Indians and homelands to defend are much smaller, we are, nonetheless, visible and potent. From the 1950s through the Civil Rights era, intrepid and inspired Native people coined the term Red Power and fought to remind Washington, D.C., policymakers that we were still here and that a seat at the table was an inherent right for Native peoples and Native nations. Today, recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples informs global policy along with popular notions of our shared obligations to the planet we all call home. The United States has seemingly reached some zenith of technological innovation and economic prosperity and, yet, Native nations lack access to critical public infrastructure, and many remain the most impoverished communities, even by global standards. Today, tribal nations are offering solutions and setting examples for tribes in the quest for equitable access to resources needed for the health and well-being of their communities.

Native people have always adapted to their surroundings. Current-day adaptations require modifying tools designed for poverty-stricken inner cities, not tribal communities. These tools have been in use for at least 30 years and are a far cry from federal grant- and entitlement programs of decades past. These tools treat public-sector grant funds as seed capital and magnify the funds’ impact by leveraging nonfederal financing. These programs include a broad range of tax credits and federal loan guarantees, as well as equity capital and other investment opportunities. Native organizations and individuals responsible for such accomplishments take pride in the projects built and say things such as, “This isn’t your typical government project; it’s high-quality materials and construction—the same as one might find in any off-reservation development.”

If a grandma from a stark desert landscape and outgunned rainforest dwellers are willing to take up arms, shouldn’t we be willing to pick up a travel itinerary, a pen and a laptop?

Picuris Pueblo built a net-zero-energy fire station for its remote community. A combination of grants and loans with government guarantees, as well as support from the Southwest Native Green Loan Fund, were key elements for assembling the funds necessary for this state-of-the-art green building. it’s helpful to remind ourselves of the battles of the past, some of which Indian people continue to fight.

The last armed conflict between an Indian Nation and a foreign power was in 1917 on what is now the Crow Reservation in Montana. Yet, the potential for armed conflict remains. Most recently, in the Southwest, disputed political boundaries imposed by the United States have escalated conflicts between the Navajo and Hopi tribes. Not long ago, an elderly Native American grandmother clutched a hunting rifle—in questionable shape but in use nevertheless—to defy removal from the land of her ancestors to satisfy the solutions arrived at by politicians. The situation remains much worse for our relatives in other parts of the Americas. I was in Perú not a year after a confrontation between tribal men, women, children and elders from the Amazon region, who were defying petroleum exploration by multinational corporations in the last remaining vestiges of traditional hunting and fishing grounds of multiple South American tribes. To quell that uprising, continued on page 33

For political or practical reasons, some still dismiss the idea of using private-sector resources and debt capital to impact economically distressed communities. Although the political argument for maintaining the federal government’s liability, owing to its Trust responsibility and treaty obligations, is worth noting, the idea of not using such tools because of their complexity must be dismissed. Over the almost 20 years I’ve worked in tribal community and economic development, the difficulty associated with applying market solutions to communities that lack formal (capitalist) market economies has been raised many times. Elected tribal leaders, practitioners and professionals working on tribal economic development continue to have to deal with federal, state and local issues that make rebuilding Indian Nations a complex endeavor. These range from restrictive, federal land-use regulations—stemming from the Trust status of reservation lands across most of Indian Country—to blatantly hostile state governments and reluctant private-sector financial institutions. When the battle against such obstacles seems the most daunting,

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Green Fire Times • August 2015

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ICF Warehouse Inc. (Formerly Reward Wall Systems of NM)

• NUDURA stocking distributor • Scaffold Bracing & Ancillary products • Same great service as always • Phone (505) 474-4389 • Visit: ICFWarehouseNM.com

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Green Fire Times • August 2015

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UPDATE: The Santo Domingo Heritage Trail Arts Project

The First ArtPlace America/NEA Grant in Indian Country Aliyah Chavez

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anto Domingo Pueblo, sometimes known by its traditional name, Kewa, will, by the spring of 2016, be home to a 1.5-mile “Kewa Art Trail” connecting two new affordable-housing developments to the Rail Runner station. That will allow pedestrians to safely walk to commute on the train to surrounding cities such as Albuquerque, Bernalillo and Santa Fe for employment, education, groceries, medical appointments, etc.

© Seth Roffman

On eight nodes along the trail, Santo Domingo Pueblo artists such as Thomas Tenorio will showcase their work in the form of larger-than-life sculptures of traditional jewelry and pottery. Tenorio, a potter, said, “Nobody has really done anything like this. It’s a learning experience for me.”

Greta Armijo, Director, Santo Domingo Tribal Housing Authority

The Art Trail and the new housing developments are particularly unique, considering that the historically conservative tribal council is known to make decisions with little community input. However, ideas and feedback from tribal members were included in the conceptual and design phases. One thing they wanted was to create a way to safely access the Rail Runner.

The Art Walk is being created thanks to collaboration among the Santo Domingo Tribal Housing Authority (SDTHA), ArtPlace America and the National Endowment for the Arts. For the first ArtPlace America/NEA grant in Indian Country, ArtPlace has awarded the SDTHA $478,000 for the Art Walk’s construction. ArtPlace America seeks “to advance creative placemaking to emphasize the importance of art and culture in a community’s well being.”

The new Domingo Housing Project has been sited in proximity to the restored Santo Domingo Trading Post, 2.5 miles from the historic main village.

Community members were interested in a return to traditional-style housing.

Thus, buildings and landscape plans reflect historic design and planning patterns with interconnected walking and bike trails. A large, centrally located orchard will provide food and a gathering place for family activities. Rainfall will be carefully captured and directed to reduce irrigation demands. Housing units of varied sizes will be passive solar, with individual garden plots. The project includes a multipurpose indoor-outdoor space for community meetings, childcare, tutoring and job training, as well as a community kitchen.

For more information on the trail project, visit www. artplaceamerica.org/grantee/santo-domingo-heritage-trailarts-project or http://arts.gov/exploring-our-town/santodomingo-cultural-district Aliyah Chavez (Santo Domingo) is an undergraduate at Stanford University, double-majoring in the comparative studies of race and ethnicity and in communication.

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Green Fire Times • August 2015

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Madelena Rediscovers Ancient Jemez Pueblo Pottery Process

© Seth Roffman (2)

Joshua Madelena, an award-winning potter, self-taught archaeologist and recent governor of Jemez Pueblo, has recaptured an art form dating back 300 years: Jemez Pueblo’s distinctive b l ac k - o n - w h i t e p o t t e r y, w h i c h thrived from 1300 to 1700 but vanished with the Spanish reconquest.

During 10 years of painstaking research and experimentation, Madelena analyzed broken shards to figure out the original recipe. In the process, he was able to track the Jemez peoples’ history to before 200 A.D., when the tribe was part of Utah’s Fremont culture. Through analyzing the pottery, along with clues in the Towa language, Madelena says a direct connection has been established between the Jemez people and early Puebloans at Mesa Verde.

exposition

July through September Featuring an art tower of Italian Landscapes

by European artist, Raquel Sarangello 2874 HWY 14 N MADRID, NM

The Jemez people originally lived on top of the mesas that overlook their village.

Conquistadors drove them to the valley below as part of efforts to convert them to Catholicism. On one of his treks up a mesa as part of his research, Madelena discovered an original mine from which he accessed clay to use in his attempts to recreate the coiled pottery. Paint formulas came from his grandmother. Through trial and error, and many cracked pots, he figured out traditional pit firing. Madelena exhibits his work each year at the Santa Fe Indian Market.

New Mexico Women in the Arts To Honor Filmmaker Jill Momaday Too often in American culture, the stories of great men and women aren’t told until long after they’re gone. Filmmaker Jill Scott Momaday believes that the tradition of passing stories among generations is “the thread that connects all humanity.”

On Sept. 10, the New Mexico Committee of Women in the Arts (NMCWA) will celebrate Jill Momaday at a gala entitled “Weaving Legend, Legacy and Landscape through Filmmaking.”

Momaday is the director, producer and writer of Return to Rainy Mountain, a documentary about her father, Pulitzer Prize-winner N. Scott Momaday, and their Kiowa heritage as told from a woman’s perspective. The film (http://returntorainymountain.com) will air on PBS in 2016.

Segments from the film-in-progress will be screened at the gala. In addition, N. Scott Momaday will read a poem he has composed in honor of his daughter Jill.

The gala will also feature music and poetry performed by Jill Momaday’s husband and daughters.

The NMCWA was established in 1997 to support the museum’s mission to bring recognition to achievements of women artists in New Mexico. The gala fundraising dinner will take place on Sept. 10 at Four Seasons Rancho Encantado, in Santa Fe. Proceeds will benefit the NMCWA scholarship program. Tickets ($125) can be purchased online at www.NewMexicoWomenintheArts.org

Nakotah LaRance

Nakotah LaRance (Hopi/Tewa/Assiniboine), 7-time World Hoop Dance Champion, recently returned from Toronto, Canada, where he was the star performer for the Cirque du Soleil– produced segment of the opening ceremony for the 2015 Pan American Games. LaRance was the principal dancer for the Cirque du Soleil show “Totem” and is the master instructor for the Pueblo of Pojoaque Youth Hoop Dancers.

He resides in Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico.

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© Darren Vigil Gray

“Under the Tuscan Sun”

EV ERY DA Y GREEN

Paths of Beauty: Mountains, Water and Clouds

An Exhibit at the Poeh Center – Aug. 20 – Nov. 14 Susan Guyette

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i’po-wa-ve. You are invited to an exceptional, interpretive glimpse of nature symbolism, as reflected in Pueblo ritual embroidery. A new exhibit opening at the Poeh Cultural Center and Museum this month, “Paths of Beauty,” honors the work of two renowned artists: Shawn Tafoya (Santa Clara and Pojoaque pueblos) and Isabel Gonzales ( Jemez Pueblo).

Isabel Gonzales lives in San Ildefonso Pueblo (through marriage). Her Jemez Pueblo designs emphasize red, green and black associated with the seasons, cardinal directions and cosmos. Gonzales receives embroidered textile orders from pueblo members throughout the villages. Shawn Tafoya has received several awards for his embroidery and is also a renowned potter. In Pueblo custom, men often weave and embroider. Tafoya creates ritual dance attire for his family and community members.

Cultural Connections

Wo v e n e x p r e s s i o n s o f p l a c e , prayer, sacred animals and cosmos transform and engage Pueblo people in relationships with the world around them. The interplay between embroidery, native cosmology and the continuity of Pueblo symbolism renews cultural practice—as traditional embroidery designs reflect connections in nature and an expression of Pueblo identity. It is said that each stitch is like the breath of life itself. Pueblo people consider textiles “clothes of the spirits.”

“Paths of Beauty” honors two renowned artists: Shawn Tafoya and Isabel Gonzales.

Pueblo cloth is used for ceremonial attire in many Pueblo dances and to create a sanctuary for patron saints during feast days. Embroidered garments used for ceremonial purposes include the manta, a shoulder blanket or wraparound dress; the dance kilt, either embroidered on the bottom edge or along the two vertical edges; and dance sashes or belts, often woven on a table loom and embroidered.

Embroidery classes are offered to pueblo members at the Poeh Arts Center. Textile traditions date back more than 2,000 years, with yarn made of indigenous cotton, handspun and woven on upright looms into a balanced plain weave.

Over the centuries, both men and women were weavers and embroiderers.

Isabel Gonzales

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The cotton textile used today as a base for an embroidered dance kilt or manta is monk’s cloth, a commercial cotton cloth woven in either a plain or

“balanced” weave. Pueblo embroiderers often process commercially produced yarn—wool or acrylic—by re-spinning to tighten it, then soaking the yarn in water to set it.

One unique aspect of Pueblo embroidery is the stitch. Embroidery designs are in a negative pattern, with large areas in dark colors forming the background, and the white unembroidered areas forming the design. The unique stitch shown below enables the embroiderer to cover a large area with the background color.

Shawn Tafoya embroidery sarweb.org/embroidery

Spirituality and Nature

Songs, dances and prayer connect to the larger Pueblo cosmos. The foundation of Pueblo religious life is maintenance of harmony, or balance, within the context of nature. Symbolism, reflected by embroidered designs, honors relationships with mountains, rain, plants, butterflies, clouds, flowers and corn, as well as the dance plazas. In the words of Shawn Tafoya: They are the clothing of the gods and dancers, They are the clothing of our sacred spaces, our holy places, our homes, and us.

They are powerful and sacred, and yes, They are beautiful.

P at h s o f B e a u t y : I s a b e l Gonzales and Shawn Tafoya: N ature C onnections in P ueblo Embroidery. Opening Reception:

Aug. 20, 5 to 8 p.m. Free.

The exhibit’s curators are Lucy Fowler Williams (University of Pennsylvania) and Antonio Chavarria (Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe).

To learn more, see “The Language of Contemporary Eastern Pueblo Embroidery,” www.museum.upenn. edu; and the School for Advanced Research’s website: http://sarweb.org/ embroidery The Poeh Center has extended an open invitation for people to come explore the meaningful contexts of Pueblo embroidery and pottery, eat Pueblo food and celebrate with the Pueblo communities. The Poeh Cultural Center and Museum is located at Pojoaque Pueblo, 15 miles north of Santa Fe, just off Highway 285/84, 78 Cities of Gold Road (www.poehcenter.org). i Susan Guyette, Ph.D., is of Métis heritage (Micmac Indian/Acadian French) and a planner specializing in cultural tourism, cultural centers, museums and native foods.

She is the author of Sustainable Cultural Tourism: Small-Scale Solutions; Planning for Balanced Development; and the co-author of Zen Birding: Connect in Nature. susanguyette@nets. com

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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Keres Children’s Learning Center at Cochiti Pueblo Trisha Moquino, Tracey Cordero, Mara Matteson

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n July 14, St. Bonaventure Day, Cochiti Pueblo celebrated its annual feast day, dancing in the ancient tradition to songs sung in the Keres language. This annual celebration supports the Cochiti people and strengthens humanity’s cultural and linguistic diversity, which, like biodiversity, is important for sustaining life on this planet.

Located in northern New Mexico along the Río Grande, Cochiti Pueblo is home to a tribe of more than 900 indigenous Americans. Full participation in community life requires knowledge of Cochiti’s original language, Keres. Future leaders of the tribe must know Keres in order to continue Cochiti traditions. In spite of over 20 years of tribal efforts to preserve the language, today there are fewer than 10 fluent speakers under the age of 20.

One reason for this is that formal, public, English-oriented education for Cochiti people has historically worked against bilingualism and biculturalism.

Federal and state policies have been philosophically incompatible with traditional child-rearing approaches of the tribe, which value participating in community life, hands-on learning, competence, respectful and responsible citizenship and inner discipline.

The Keres Children’s Learning Center (KCLC) opened in 2012 as a preschool, using Montessori child-centered pedagogy in a Keres-language immersion setting, serving 10 Cochiti children between the ages of 2.5 and 6. The

center provides students with rigorous, high-quality education while supporting them in learning their language during the developmental period best suited to language acquisition. Since opening, KCLC has served 25 children in its primary (preschool) classroom and is preparing to open an elementary classroom for students ages 6 to 9 who will be starting their fourth year at KCLC.

Reinforcing cultural identity and language while advancing academic success

KCLC’s underlying goal is to provide Cochiti children with the foundational cultural and academic tools needed to become loving, responsible, thriving adults. KCLC strives to provide an environment for children that will naturally allow them to both discover and practice self-discipline, critical-thinking skills and peer relationships while always using the Keres language and traditional core values. KCLC board member Tracey Cordero explained, “KCLC is the best of both worlds for Cochiti children—reinforcing their cultural identity and language while advancing their academic success. Fundamental to KCLC’s teaching methods are the ways in which our own elders have taught us and sustained our people. KCLC includes elders’ guidance and input in all areas of learning, from the language to the curriculum. It is KCLC’s belief that the use of intergenerational life skills, love

Tortilla lesson

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Good friends at end-of-year trip to Tent Rocks

and support will be key to our children retaining a worldview that centers on the importance of a communal perspective rather than an individualistic one.”

KCLC provides weekly seminars, materials and techniques to assist in the intergenerational transmission of Cochiti Keres. The seminars support parents in strengthening or acquiring Keres language skills themselves, so they can support their children in learning the language. Helping parents take a leading role in their children’s education also helps perpetuate Cochiti’s child-rearing beliefs.

After three complete years at KCLC, parents see their 5-year-old “graduates” not only speaking Keres among peers and family but also reading and writing in English and solving addition, subtraction and multiplication problems.

The tribal government of Cochiti Pueblo recognizes KCLC’s efforts in assisting young children to become bilingual and supporting their families’ bilingualism.

KCLC operates with the tribal council’s blessing, as an independent nonprofit governed by a board comprising an equal number of tribal and nontribal educators and professionals. To avoid English language requirements embedded in federal and state funding for preschools, KCLC is primarily funded by private foundations, which include Brindle, Chamiza, Lannan, McCune and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, as well as private donations and $40 per child in monthly tuition from families. Additionally, in 2014, KCLC received a three-year Esther Martínez Language Immersion grant from the Health and Human Services’

Administration for Native Americans (ANA).

There is a deeply held Pueblo belief that caring for the children makes the whole community stronger and sustains the community’s individual and collective well-being. “Helping sustain our Keres language gives Cochiti children a chance to retain a world view that is thousands of years old and that still has a place in our world today,” said teacher and cofounder Trisha Moquino. “The teachings and values passed on through our language are worth our efforts because they help us to be critical thinkers and responsible people. These children represent Cochiti reclaiming control of the education of our children and, in doing so, determining our future.”

For more information, contact Trisha Moquino at 505.465.2185 or trisha@ kclcmontessori.org Trisha Moquino (Cochiti/Ohkay Owhingeh/ Kewa) has taught in local public, private and BIA schools. Moquino realized that she wanted to provide a different educational opportunity for her own daughters and other Pueblo children, one that would support Keres language learning and cultural, as well as academic development. With those goals in mind, she cofounded the KCLC. Tracey Cordero (Cochiti Pueblo) is a KCLC board member. She has worked in Cochiti tribal government and was recently named a Fellow in the Native American Community Academy’s Inspired Schools Network (NISN).

Mara Matteson taught at Cochiti School for many years and joined KCLC in 2014 to manage KCLC’s Esther Martinez Initiative ANA Grant.

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The Cochiti Youth Experience Hii Hii’ Kah • Project Laughing Corn Article and Photos by Kenneth T. Romero

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he Cochiti Youth Experience (CYE) incorporated as a nonprofit in 2008 and reorganized in 2010 as a way to promote healthy eating habits and lifestyle choices, create opportunities for youth and address health-related issues at the Pueblo of Cochiti. Diets high in refined sugars and processed and fast foods have taken their toll. As in many Native communities, obesity, diabetes and other problems are common, due in part to the lack of local fresh fruits and vegetables and consumption patterns that have diverged f rom traditional ways. Over 50 percent of tribal members living at Cochiti make a daily commute—20 to 60 minutes each way—to jobs off the reservation. Most households make the same commute at least once a week to purchase groceries.

CYE’s main initiative, Project Hii Hii’ Kah (Laughing Corn), is organized around two objectives that support the goal of creating a local, sustainable food economy for the pueblo: revitalize traditional cultural practices of agriculture and food production; and bring elders and youth together in meaningful mentoring relationships.

The project is in homage to Hii Hii’ Kah, a historically significant symbol in the Cochiti tradition of joy and abundance, which includes cultural and personal well-being. The preservation and revitalization of community knowledge and practices in growing, producing and consuming local and traditional foods are necessary for ensuring the pueblo’s cultural survival, physical and spiritual well-being and for increasing economic self-sufficiency.

Acoma and Santa Clara Pueblos Seek More Control of Their Schools

Acoma and Santa Clara pueblos want to be able to design classes that support the teaching of their Native languages. The two pueblos have been considering taking on self-governance and having their schools become tribally—rather than federally—operated. The federal Bureau of Indian Education (BIE—part of the BIA) would still pay for operational costs.

The two pueblos, along with five other tribes across the country, received BIE funds last month to develop their own curricula and school boards. The move reflects the Obama administration’s desire to help make tribes self-reliant. In recent and current years, the BIE has provided an unprecedented amount of funding to build the capacity of tribal education departments.

The Santa Clara Tribal Council has voted for the pueblo’s schools to be independent.

Acoma is still deliberating. As part of the process of asserting sovereignty in Indian education, the pueblos—Acoma, home to 5,000 tribal members, with two schools; and Santa Clara, with 1,000 tribal members and two schools—would be able to choose how much to spend on particular expenses in line with their priorities.

The Pueblo of Jemez has implemented a Towa language-immersion approach in its Head Start programs. The University of New Mexico’s American Indian Language Policy Research and Teacher Training Center is providing Native language curriculum design, development and implementation assistance to support Pueblo tribes’ vision for culturally based early-childhood development.

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This year, the project has 10 adult farmer-mentors, four elder mentors and more than 24 youth participants.

Some previous youth participants have become mentors themselves. All attend monthly classes to learn hands-on farming methods and to be introduced to scientific data. In partnership with a local beekeeper, beekeeping training is also offered. The honey produced has been given to our elders.

We also hope to provide surrounding areas with traditionally grown Pueblo fruits and vegetables.

Our plans are to increase not only our participant base but also the percentage of acreage within our ancestral homeland that produces fresh fruits and vegetables.

Crops grown have included white and blue corn, red and green chile, squash, watermelon and Indian melons, pinto beans, radishes and tomatoes. At the end of the season, harvests have been sold at the Youth Farmers’ Market in the pueblo. The majority of the money generated goes to the youth farmers. A portion—decided by the participant—is given to CYE to support the following year’s program.

We intend to help enable our program participants to travel to farmers’ markets in surrounding urban areas, so that the produce they grow can be a sustainable economic opportunity. We also hope that a permanent farmers’ market can be created and maintained on the reservation, providing surrounding areas with traditionally grown Pueblo fruits and vegetables.

Other Cochiti Youth Experience Initiatives

CYE has partnered with the Pueblo of Cochiti Governor’s Office and Education Department and the New Mexico Children,Youth and Families Department (CYFD) to provide a free nutritious lunch to all children in the community during the summer. The Summer Food Service Program is administered by CYFD and funded through the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). CYE has also assisted the pueblo’s Administration Department in supporting youth and their parents in the preparation of traditional foods for ceremonial use and in having a Cochiti youth participate in the Native Youth Leader Conference, “Revitalizing Wellness Through Food,” at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

Plans include the creation of an Elder Garden close to the senior center to help bolster the physical and emotional well-being of our elders, who may not be physically able to work in tribal fields.This will also provide opportunities to partner younger children with elders. Creation of a Children’s Garden at the Keres Children’s Learning Center could be a foundation for planting seeds of interest in traditional agriculture in younger children. Proposed plans also include a centrally located orchard to grow apricots, apples, cherries, plums and peaches.There was once an orchard on the eastern edge of the village; however, due to drought, it has been lost.

Our tribal council and tribal community recognize the importance of Project Hii Hii’ Kah and are supportive of CYE’s work. The Cochiti Youth Experience is seeking funding. Our programs are solely funded by foundation grants and private donations.

Kenneth T. Romero is executive director of the Cochiti Youth Experience, Inc. 505.220.9100, CYE@cochitiyouth.org, www.cochitiyouth.org

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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The Chamiza Foundation 26 Years of Support for Pueblo Communities

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stablished in 1989 by the late Gifford Phillips and his wife, Joann, the Santa Fe–based Chamiza Foundation continues to operate in the spirit in which it was envisioned; that is, to assist in the continuity and living preservation of New Mexico’s Pueblo Indian communities. With a passion for the evolving arts and cultural traditions of the (then) 19 pueblos, the Phillips family enlisted the guidance of their close friend, Dr. Alfonso Ortiz, a scholar from Ohkay Owingeh (formerly San Juan Pueblo), who would help them develop a framework for long-term engagement with the pueblos.

Support for language revitalization, cultural preservation, youth development and revitalization of traditional arts

Seeking to establish a foundation that was responsive to the real needs of the tribal communities, and recognizing that these needs would be best identified and articulated by Pueblo people themselves, the Phillipses sought out the assistance of others to serve as board members, including Dr. Joe Sando of Jemez Pueblo and Agnes Dill of Laguna and Isleta pueblos.

After informing the pueblos of the new financial resource available for tribal

initiatives focused on language revitalization, cultural preservation, youth development and the revit-alization of traditional arts, the foundation evaluated the first proposals and grants were awarded. By 2014, the Chamiza Foundation had contributed close to $14 million to the 19 pueblos in support of hundreds of diverse projects.

Grantees have also included Native American organizations that provide direct services to Pueblo people, partnerships and collaborations among Pueblo tribes and other special interest groups engaged with Pueblo communities.

Meaningful involvement of Pueblo people in the foundation’s development and grassroots grant making continues to be an essential part of how Chamiza operates.

Over the years, the foundation and its board have diligently worked to build relationships and trust with tribal communities, working

First Nations Development Institute Awards native agriculture and food systems grants

First Nations Development Institute has announced nine tribes and Native American organizations around the country that will receive grants through the institute’s Native Agriculture and Food Systems Initiative (NAFSI). The NAFSI is intended to help Native communities build sustainable food systems that will help eliminate food insecurity and enhance economic development in rural areas. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation makes the funding possible. Three innovative projects in New Mexico were selected for funding: Tewa Farms’ Crop Expansion Project, $24,500, Pueblo of Pojoaque – This grant will support the expansion of the tribe’s farm. It will make possible the purchase and installation of two hoop houses, a heated greenhouse and a milling machine that will allow the farm to operate year-round, significantly improving community health and nutrition.

Red Willow Center, Growing Community Food Systems, $26,000, Taos Pueblo – This grant will allow the expansion of several projects including a greenhouse, farmers’ market and food-distribution program.This project seeks to increase access to fresh,healthy foods by implementing two new, tribal food-service programs for tribal youth and elders.

Ramah Navajo School Board, Inc., Wild Food Orchard, $14,192, Pine Hill – This project is a permaculture model for young entrepreneurs. During the school year, middle-school students will plant, grow, harvest and sell wild pine nuts. The project is intended to teach the basics of agriculture and business.

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© Seth Roffman

Brian Vallo

Chamiza Foundation board members visited Nambé Pueblo in 2014. closely with grantees during funding periods, offering technical guidance and administrative support. On annual field trips to the pueblos, the board has met with administrators and tribal leaders, witnessed projects in progress and interacted with project participants. The foundation has also hosted community dialogues to help evaluate the projects and their impacts.

Robust, candid discussions have provided useful information about the communities’ challenges and needs, as well as opportunities and aspirations for growth. After analyzing this information and incorporating many suggestions, Chamiza’s grant making has expanded to support specific needs.

Since then, the foundation has awarded multiyear project grants, as well as longterm grants for tribal initiatives requiring planning and development support. The Keres Children’s Learning Center (KCLC) in Cochiti Pueblo is one such project that Chamiza has supported since its inception (see story, page 18). Ten years later, as a direct result of support from the Chamiza Foundation, KCLC has been able to leverage additional support from significant philanthropic organizations.

Last year, both the Southern Pueblos Governors Association and the Eight Northern Indian Pueblo Council adopted resolutions acknowledging the significant contribution made by the Chamiza Foundation over the past 25 years. This

recognition honored the Phillips family and their commitment to the Pueblo people, acknowledged the importance and success of past and current projects and the dedication of past and current board members.

The current Chamiza Foundation Board of Directors comprises Joann Phillips and her children, James Phillips, Marjorie Phillips Elliott and Alice Phillips Swistel, who work closely with 11 other directors, nine of whom represent Pueblo communities, including the newest member, Trisha Moquino (Cochiti/Ohkay Owingeh/ Kewa), cofounder of the KCLC. Philanthropy is not a new concept to Pueblo people. The inherent values associated with caring for one another, offering and sharing, and making a contribution towards the general welfare of the community remain an integral part of social and cultural cohesion within the pueblos. This sacred principle, which helps ensure the vitality and survival of these communities, is the basis for their engagement with the Chamiza Foundation. i Brian Vallo is f rom Acoma Pueblo and is a member of the Chamiza Foundation Board of Directors. He is the director of the Indian Arts Research Center at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe.

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A:ho’ A:wan Doyenkakya Dehwanne

A ‘People’s Garden’ at Zuni Pueblo

Dolores E. Roybal

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n the northwest area of New Mexico, Zuni Pueblo residents are gaining more access to healthy fresh food through the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project (ZYEP), which, in combination with existing school and community garden programs, is helping revitalize gardening and, in the process, connecting tribal members to cultural and spiritual traditions of Zuni agriculture. Zuni is the largest of 19 pueblos in New Mexico and home to about 10,000 people in an area considered a food desert. The closest city is Gallup, 40 miles away.

Start students, which was one of four school gardens and two community gardens in the p u e b l o. T h e intention was to demonstrate that home gardens are viable options for families who want to improve their health.

Con Alma Health Foundation, New Mexico’s largest private foundation dedicated solely to health, is assisting this effort through its Healthy People, Healthy Places initiative.

Con Alma is focused on supporting locally grown and culturally significant foods, as well as increasing support for the preservation of agricultural traditions and encouraging elders and indigenous people to share those practices with children and families. To leverage funds, the Zuni project is one of 31 mini-grants (totaling $161,000) Con Alma has provided to nonprofits that are working to increase people’s ability to get healthy food and be physically active in their communities.

“In addition to the clear health benefits of fresh, local produce in a community where obesity and diabetes rates are high above averages, there are important personal and community benefits to maintaining the rich agricultural past that allowed Zunis to thrive in a very difficult environment for so many generations,” said Dr. Val Wangler, who works on these initiatives. “We believe in highlighting the benefits of traditional lifestyles and diets that were common long before processed foods and unhealthy government commodities contributed to declining health.”

© Seth Roffman

The ZYEP, the lead for the gardening project, has a long history of partnering with agencies at Zuni. ZYEP’s A:ho’ A:wan Doyenkakya Dehwanne, or “People’s Garden,” has involved representatives from at least 10 local organizations. With prior Con Alma support, ZYEP created a garden with Head

Nambé Pueblo Receives Community Agriculture Project Grant

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he Pueblo of Nambé, encompassing nearly 20,000 acres in northern New Mexico, historically was known for its agriculture, traditional textiles and pottery. The Río Nambé flows through the pueblo and empties into the Río Grande. In 2011, the Pacheco Fire burned half of the watershed that feeds the Nambé Falls Reservoir. Runoff from heavy rains caused further damage. High Water Mark, LLC, a Native American–owned floodplain and watershed-management company, is leading efforts to restore the reservoir.

Nambé Pueblo recently received $37,000 from First Nations Development Institute in support of expanding the pueblo’s two-acre Community Farm. Heirloom organic corn, beans, squash and chile are grown there, and a hoop house extends the growing season for other vegetables and herbs. A one-acre vineyard has been planted with four varieties of grapes.

These crops, along with buffalo meat from the tribe’s herd, are provided to a senior center and to individual families at a season-end festival.

Besides supplementing families’ diets with healthy foods and inspiring them to create family gardens, the goal is to improve the tribe’s food security. Other benefits include opportunities for pueblo volunteers and youth to learn traditional and modern farming methods and to have elders impart farming and cultural knowledge, including Tewa language skills, in working with the youth.

Farm Program Manager George Toya hopes the farm will become self-sustaining. For more information, call 505.455.4220, email srydeen@nambepueblo.org or visit nambepueblo.org

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The garden project was recently granted tribal land to expand. These projects have a way of creating ripples in communities that are invested in creating a healthier environment for families. i Dolores E. Roybal is executive director of Con Alma Health Foundation. http://conalma.org

UNM Health Sciences Center Helps Zunis Address Health Problems

Zuni Pueblo, about 150 miles west of Albuquerque, has some of the highest rates of diabetes and kidney disease in the world. About 400 residents, most 45 and younger, are in early stages of kidney disease. UNM Health Sciences Center researcher, Vallabh “Raj” Shah, Ph.D., along with his colleague Dr. Philip Zager, have been working with the pueblo on the Zuni Health Initiative for 16 years to help tribal members address these chronic conditions. The researchers say that a sedentary lifestyle, a diet of mostly processed foods and reluctance to take advantage of available health care are mostly to blame.

Shah recruited healthcare workers from the community to provide testing and coaching, diet and exercise programs that can be implemented at home or at a new, nearby e xercise center. T he y monitored compliance and progress. After six months, all of the disease markers, including blood glucose and body-mass index, had dropped.

The Center for Native American Health, part of UNM’s Health Sciences Center, partners with New Mexico’s 22 tribes around health issues, addresses health disparities and runs a student recruitment and retention program. It also helps students find ways to pay for medical school. The Health Sciences Center recently graduated a record 39 American Indians in the health professions.

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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The Journey of Becoming a Man

Scott Davis

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or 25 years, Tewa Women United (TWU) has been serving all women within Río Arriba County. Starting as a collective of Tewa women looking to heal their own lives, families and communities from the traumas of sexual violence, domestic violence and substance abuse, the group expanded to embrace the larger community and developed a commitment to serve all families in need.

Learning sustainable life skills within a framework of traditional Tewa values and lifeways

With TWU’s core values of supporting healthy families as a foundation, Jon Naranjo, who is from Santa Clara Pueblo, has been working with TWU to establish the Sengipaa Ing Vi Po (The Journey of Becoming a Man) mentor project. He is dedicated to establishing an ongoing program of Native men teaching Native boys valuable, sustainable life skills, from agriculture and hunting to auto maintenance and financial literacy, all within a framework of traditional Tewa values and lifeways. Native men with a variety of life skills are being recruited to serve the initial cohort of eight Tewa boys.

Survival skills will be taught as part of the curriculum,from making a friction fire to what to do if you get lost.These important abilities,once mastered,will result in higher levels of confidence in the young men. “Teaching our boys how to live in balance between the traditional and modern worlds is critical for the future of our Tewa communities,” Naranjo said.

However, it’s not all work and no play. The cohort will also be involved in a variety of fun activities such as fishing, camping, river rafting and enjoying lots of good food. Each event and activity is fashioned in a way to bring understanding of our interconnectedness,

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For many years, the organization struggled with how to reach out to men and boys in the community. In 2014, an opportunity arose through a grant from First Nations Development Institute to further the scope of TWU’s engagement by working with Native men and boys in Río Arriba.

Jon Naranjo harvesting melons at Santa Clara Pueblo

as well as the responsibilities that the boys will be taking on as they journey to become men: responsibilities to themselves, their families and communities and the women and girls in their lives. The Sengipaa project is embedded with teachings designed to educate the boys in how to be instrumental in ending violence against women and girls.

By combining real-life skills with cultural understanding,TWU is embracing both men and women. Corrine Sanchez, director of TWU, is excited about this development.

“At TWU, we love our Native men and boys,” she said, “and realize that the health and well-being of all our Native peoples are intimately linked.”

For more information or to provide support for this project, email jon@tewawomen united.org or visit http://tewawomenunited.org/sengipaa-ing-vi-po-mentor-project Scott Davis lived and worked in Río Arriba County since 2007. When not managing construction projects for Avanyu LLC, he can be found helping TWU or vainly attempting to pull every last goat’s head from the yard where he and his daughter live in San Pedro, New Mexico.

Tribal Green Reentry Youth Programs Incorporate Culture Ada Pecos Melton, Rita Martínez and David J. Melton

Since October 2009, three tribes— Hualapai in Arizona, Mississippi Band of Choctaw and Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota—have implemented community-based Green Reentry initiatives through the Tribal Juvenile Detention and Reentr y Green Demonstration Program funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).

The programs were part of a cross-site evaluation being conducted by RTI International and American Indian Development Associates, LLC.

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These programs serve youth through innovative approaches that combine traditional interventions, such as individual assessment, education, counseling and reentry planning, with activities such as gardening, hydroponics, beekeeping, raising chickens, equine therapy and skills development in green technologies.

Learning specific skills can make young people more employable and self-sufficient.

The outdoor nature of green activities and the security-focused nature of juvenile detention facilities needed to be reconciled. This required a careful understanding of the specific activities that were feasible to implement. An important consideration was the extent to which youth would be able to continue their participation in green activities after their release. This can often be

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he incorporation of hands-on “green” activities into traditional, juvenile-justice rehabilitation programs is a novel approach that is proving to have several benefits for tribal youth. These programs are designed to help youth successfully reintegrate into their communities upon release from confinement, as well as address problems that have instigated at-risk youth referrals to the program.

Rita Martínez

Ada Pecos Melton

possible through collaboration with community-based partners.

Working in a garden and caring for living things is therapeutic for many people. Learning specific skills such as horticultural techniques, greenhouse construction or solar panel installation can make young people more employable and selfsufficient. Most youth interviewed expressed favorable views about their participation in the Green Reentry

program, noting that they learned new things and had fun. Not all enjoyed working in a garden, h o w e v e r, w i t h some expressing dissatisfaction with getting dirty and working in the heat. A staff David Melton m e m b e r n o t e d that, once the greenhouse was in place, the gardening aspect of the program became more enjoyable for the youth. continued on page 37

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© Alejandro López

McClellan Hall Awarded the Alec Dickson Servant Leader Award

In April 2015, McClellan Hall, founder and director of the National Indian Youth Leadership P r o j e c t ( NY L P ) , based in Gallup, New Mexico, was presented with the Alec Dickson Ser vant Leader Award at the National Service Learning Conference, in Washington, D.C. For over 35 years, Hall, an educator of Cherokee descent, has engaged Native youth through outdoor adventure, service lear ning and culturally based activities that have grown from summer camps into year-long programs. Early in his career, he became aware that these teaching modalities were much more suited to Native youth, particularly those who came from difficult home situations and were struggling to find hope in their lives.

In 1990, NYLP received five-year funding to implement Project Venture, a year-long outdoor adventure program that facilitated individual and group development within a cult ur al conte xt. It achieved model-program status from the Office of Health and Human Ser vices. Concurrently, it was recognized by the Center for National Crime Prevention and the First Nations Behavioral Health Association in Canada for its effectiveness in redirecting the lives of Native youth toward positive goals. Project Venture has since been replicated across all of Canada and much of the United States.

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Homemade Solar Ovens in Navajo Country TEDx talk presented at Popejoy Hall, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Raquel Redshirt

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This was me 10 years ago, encountering the struggles of some of my people. I noticed that many families’ Christmas dinners consisted of perishable food from the local gas station and tortillas made over an open fire. And that sparked an idea. I knew I wanted to pursue a dream that benefited the future of my Diné (Navajo) people. And with firewood and coal becoming scarce, I knew my dream would start by helping those living off the grid find an alternative way to prepare a well-cooked meal.

Keeping in mind the future of our land and sacred traditions that have been passed down from my grandparents, I used materials found around a typical Navajo household to construct a homemade solar oven.

Homemade solar ovens are simple, environmentally friendly, low-cost machines that can be used by those who cannot afford industrial materials. This community-

© Seth Roffman

ake a journey with me. You are nine years old, giving up a traditional Christmas family gathering. You are driving down dusty dirt roads, delivering baked goods to relatives who live in rural areas of the Navajo Nation. While visiting, you notice that basic necessities are missing among a majority of the families, including running water and electricity.

focused project was designed to provide struggling families around the Navajo Nation with a low-cost, healthier alternative for cooking food that does not rely on precious natural resources like firewood.

The basic design of a homemade solar oven includes the use of two cardboard boxes, one within the other, to create a two-and-a-half-inch wall where the insulation is located. Reflectors are constructed from the attached flaps of the outside cardboard box to create a funnel structure to attract more direct sunlight.

N a v a j o N E W S B I T E s New Navajo Leader Russell Begaye’s Priorities

The unemployment rate on the Navajo reservation is around 50 percent. About 42 percent of tribal members live below the poverty line. Just 7 percent have a college degree, significantly affecting their job prospects.

This has created a culture of conservation. Diné families, on average, live on seven gallons of water per day—often stored in rain barrels, recycled buckets and plastic containers—and reuse it whenever possible. Some families drink, cook, bathe and clean with water hauled from livestock tanks and, in some cases, pumped from aquifers tainted with radioactive waste from decades of uranium mining.

The Navajo Nation’s new president, Russell Begaye, was sworn in on May 12. Begaye, an ordained Southern Baptist minister who served on the Navajo Council, ran on a pro-business platform. He seeks to set up manufacturing plants to create jobs and supports a proposed rail port project that could export agricultural goods and coal.

Weeks after Begaye assumed the presidency, an audit of the Navajo Nation revealed that the tribal government’s 110 chapters had more than $77 million in unspent funds from annual tribal-government appropriations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared parts of the Navajo reservation a food desert. A food desert is a region where residents can’t easily buy fresh, healthy, affordable food. Gas stations and convenience stores are the primary grocers for many people.

Bringing running water and electricity to the tens of thousands of people who live without it are among the tribe’s priorities. Begaye wants to restart negotiations for water rights in the Little Colorado and Lower Colorado River basins, but that won’t be easy. He was among the lawmakers who rejected a settlement linked to the Lower Colorado because it included provisions for a coal-fired power plant.

As part of the Healthy Diné Nation Act, the Navajos’ 2 percent sales tax on “minimalto-no-nutritional-value” foods sold on the reservation—such as cookies, chips and sodas—went into effect in April. Funds generated will go into a community health fund to support projects such as farmers’ markets, vegetable gardens and exercise equipment, as well as educational programming.

Begaye is opposed to the development of the Grand Canyon Escalade, a controversial aerial tram at the east end of the Grand Canyon that would transport tourists from the cliff tops down to the confluence of the Colorado River and the Little Colorado River, an area sacred to the Hopi. A proposed development plan approaching $1 billion includes a riverside boardwalk, hotels, a cultural center and places for Navajo artisans to sell their work.

The Diné Community Advocacy Alliance lobbied for almost two years to get the junkfood tax approved. They consider it one way for Indian Country to address the health epidemic of diabetes and obesity among the tribe’s 175,000 residents. Another bill that eliminates the tribe’s 5 percent sales tax on fresh fruit and vegetables is also in effect.

Climate-Change Impacts on the Navajo Reservation

Water has never been abundant for the Diné, who have raised their families and livestock on the high-desert lands across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah for centuries. At a time of a multiyear widespread drought, despite an unusually rainy summer, one-third of the roughly 50,000 households on the Navajo reservation have no reliable source of water.

According to a 2014 national assessment by the Obama administration, Southwestern tribes are among the most vulnerable to climate-change impacts. Weather extremes— from severe drought to major flooding—have become more common. From July to September 2013, major flooding affected 88 of the Navajo Nation’s 110 chapters, damaging 140 homes and costing millions of dollars.

Reservoir levels have been dropping, and some streams and springs have declined or disappeared, along with medicinal plants and animals such as prairie dogs and rabbits. Horses and cows have died of thirst at dry waterholes. Some farming plots have become sandier. Dust storms have increased.

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Navajo Junk-Food Tax

Electricity on the Navajo Reservation

An estimated 18,000 homes on the 27,673 square-mile Navajo reservation are not connected to the grid.

The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) has offered, since 1999, solar photovoltaic (PV ) systems to its customers who don’t have access to the grid, through an affordable rental program. People don’t own the PV system but pay for the electricity provided, similar to the SolarCity model. More recently, NTUA started offering solar-wind hybrid systems. An 800-watt PV array along with a 400-watt wind turbine costs the homeowner $75 per month, which goes toward the purchase of the system and is enough to power lights, TV and appliances, including an energy-efficient refrigerator. NTUA finances the systems, which is much cheaper than extending utility lines to homes.

Investing in renewable energy is helping many tribal members improve their quality of life. Children can do homework at night, family members can make crafts under better lights, thereby increasing their income, and they don’t have to breathe fumes from kerosene lanterns. Having refrigeration means not having to travel great distances as often for food. And being able to charge cell phones and laptops can facilitate communication and education.

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I conducted numerous trials to compare varying materials in order to achieve the best performance. The solar oven’s performance was rated on its ability to reach high and consistent internal temperatures and the appearance and taste of the cooked food. For insulation, I tried Sudan hay, cotton, soil and shredded paper, but found that sheep’s wool was the best insulation. Black construction paper was the best inside lining and aluminum foil was used for the reflectors. With those materials, the temperature inside the homemade solar oven reached a maximum of 315 degrees Fahrenheit, which is above the recommended food-safety internal temperature. From there, the cooking started.

I knew I wanted to pursue a dream that benefited the future of my Diné people.

We prepared hot dogs, hamburgers, cookies, steaks, chicken, fish and just about every Navajo’s favorite, mutton. Boy, did my family and I eat well during trial runs. The food was tender and flavorful. The delicious smell spread through the neighborhood, and even the dogs and livestock in the area wanted to try the cooked food.

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There is a high diabetes rate on the Navajo Reservation. A homemade solar oven prepares food that can be cooked in its own juices, a healthier alternative to having to add potentially harmful cooking fats.

Raquel Redshirt’s homemade solar oven

There are a few limitations to solar cooking. A homemade solar oven, like a slow cooker, takes more time to cook a meal than a traditional oven. And of course, solar ovens will not work as efficiently in cloudy or overcast weather. However, considering the delicious, healthy food that homemade solar ovens provide using a safe, low-cost technology and fuel source, the choice seems clear. After all, patience is a virtue!

Since this project started, my journey has taken me many places. I first showcased my project at the National American Indian Science and Engineering Fair, where I was selected as one of the finalists. At the prestigious International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles, California, I shared my homemade solar-oven idea through media, including the 100 People Foundation, an interview with Bill Nye the Science Guy, and several international newspapers. I was awarded the Goethe special award, an all-expenses-paid trip to Germany with five other young scientists, during which I shared my project with local high school students and teachers.

I am still on my journey, one where I am no longer just traveling around delivering food but working to help others take a step toward a greener and healthier future.

The Navajo Nation has endured harsh treatment as a result of uranium mines, power plants and environmental degradation, but the homemade solar oven can help change the hand we’ve been dealt by improving many lives, once it’s introduced to more people.

Let’s go back to that dusty dirt road on the Navajo Nation. But now it’s several years in the future. Instead of delivering baked goods, we are greeted by Navajo families preparing their Christmas dinners in solar ovens. Our conversations reveal the great benefits that solar cooking has offered to their daily lives. By bringing awareness to a small population and providing an alternative solution to a pervasive problem, we can demonstrate the importance of creating a sustainable world, starting with a simple technology like a homemade solar oven.

Raquel Redshirt (Diné) believes a broken system exists in her homeland, and vast improvements need to be made. Originally from Shiprock, New Mexico, and currently enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, she plans to return to the Navajo Nation, where she can use her knowledge to create a brighter, greener future for her people. krcredshirt@ou.edu

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while devastating, have not been the norm in human history. Indigeneity has meant living within the limits of resources, exercising reciprocity and acknowledging relationships that existed within the confines of a particular bioregion or ecological niche.

Worldwide, there have been many examples of man’s inhumanity to man, including slavery, conquest and war. However, the West has been a civilization which measures its history and progress as a society through chronicling the rise and fall of empire.

Starting with Alexander the Great, the history of Western civilization moves through the Greek, Roman and Holy Roman empires, into the feudal empires of Spain and Portugal, and then to those empires based in the modern state including most of Western Europe and, most notably, Britain and the United States. Through the combination of technology, the modern state and empire, colonial relations came into existence as European empires encircled the planet. The existence of empire and colonial relations created the notion of indigenous peoples: those original inhabitants of a land as opposed to those settlers, developers and governors who originated in the colony’s “mother country”. The arrival of colonial powers brought to the land a people whose beliefs, values and practices were not based in a relationship with the colonized land but were based in the mother country and overlain with dreams of riches, status and glory.

Those who act in a manner based on the practices and ethics that flow from the land itself might be considered indigenous.

But the process of deindigenizing humans from the planet was not just the result of colonization. The marriage of science and technology has worked to create a worldview that has become despiritualized and materialistic. Since the scientific revolution, the processes of science have moved beyond observation and description into manipulation and control. Technology has been the handmaiden of this transition, and now the Western ideals of progress and development have been globalized. This, in turn, has marginalized the indigenous knowledge that took hundreds of years to develop as indigenous peoples interacted with their environment. In today’s world, the techno-values that minimize the importance

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of place mythologize technology’s ability to control the natural world and direct the world’s financial resources to the development of even more technological “fixes” that have become the underlying principles by which most countries operate.

Thus, humankind at large has lost the ability to connect to the power of place and connect with the flow of energy that arises from the land, leaving us as strangers in our own lands, lost to the indigenous sense of belonging and purpose.

Why Indigenize?

So why would anyone in their right mind want to move away from a technologybased economy and lifeway, which appear to provide for all of the needs of humankind, to a regionally defined, self-limiting lifeway?

For the majority of people in the United States, this is a no-brainer: looking to indigenous knowledge to provide for our needs is to reverse evolution, or precipitate devolution. We know that progress means going forward.

We live in a complicated world. We transport food thousands of miles between production and consumption. Similarly, we develop our energy sources far from the point of consumption, requiring extensive and complex delivery systems. Our economy is based in the purchase of material goods manufactured on other continents, using natural resources from many parts of the world. Our empire requires huge expenditures of money and energy to maintain a planet-wide presence to support our lifestyles. By and large, we have an affluent lifeway, but our institutions are beginning to fail: schools don’t educate, hospitals don’t heal, courts don’t dispense justice and governments can no longer govern fairly.

Not only is the world complicated, but it is fragile, as well. We are beginning to see the environmental impact of the excesses of the industrial revolution and a consumer economy. As climate change progresses, we are starting to see how drought, flooding and severe weather events impact various communities and bioregions. We may not immediately feel the effects of these events, but if they continue, their cumulative impacts will overwhelm our ability to import food and other necessities. Our dependence on hydrocarbons has made us deaf to environmental concerns, dependent upon capricious leadership of oil-producing countries and dangerously unprepared for a society without hydrocarbons. Finally, we must look to finance and the monetary economy, the weakest link in this fragile

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© Seth Roffman

Indigenous Way of Life

Dr. Joe Sando, noted historian, author and scholar from the Pueblo of Jemez, inspired generations of research, writing and debate about Pueblo history and life. His legacy is honored by highlighting current research and creative expression at the annual Joe Sando Symposium. Key organizers of the March 2015 event were (l-r) Carnell Chosa, Porter Swentzell, Tessie Naranjo, Marth Becktell, Beverly Singer, Stephen Wall and Joseph Turnipseed.

world. The cyclical nature of capitalism, with its peaks and valleys, has become exaggerated in the last 40 years, creating economic crisis followed by economic crisis. The peaks have enriched only a small portion of society, while the majority feels the effects of the valleys.

Indigenization is the connection between the people and the land on which they live. To indigenize is to recognize that lifeserving activities in the bioregion need to be sustainable and that we need to encourage and foster activities that enhance our reciprocal relationship with the land.

Reindigenization: A Process

In some ways, indigenization seems to be

a pipedream or a radical vision. But the inability of our political and economic leaders to come to grips with environmental realities is quickly manifesting a condition in which the complexity and fragility of the planet will converge to bring dramatic and possibly catastrophic change. As rational human beings we should be looking to possible alternatives to our current predominant lifeway.

“But I live in a multibuilding apartment complex in midtown Albuquerque. How can I indigenize myself to the land?” This is an excellent question, and it really gets to the heart of indigenization. As a society, we have created urban areas that are totally dependent on the surrounding rural areas—both near and far—for energy, water, sustenance and markets. We have become reliant upon wage labor that places a premium on the creation of wage-paying jobs, often to the detriment of the environment.

In our current situation, indigenization starts with mindfulness or intentionality.

So what does that mean? It means that we need to become mindful of the choices that we make in relation to our place, the land we

live upon, the bioregion we inhabit. The less control you have over the source of resources you need—food, energy, water—the more mindful or intentional you must be over how you use those resources. Awareness of wateruse practices (long showers, lawns, running water while you rinse dishes), energy-use patterns (lights left on, use of instant-on devices), food-use habits (wasting food, relying on food grown at a distance) are first steps to indigenization. Mindfulness and intentionality create awareness that leads to the next step in indigenization: connection with the land.

In order to connect with the land, one has to be aware of the land. The mindfulness employed to become aware of our consumption habits, practices and resource use can be expanded to become aware of the land. In order to connect with the land, one has to study the land, spend time outside, and be intentional in one’s desire to understand the interrelationships between the land and all that lives on it. Just being outside with that intent and desire will pay off after a while, as one slowly becomes aware of the subtleties found in the natural world. Where does the sun rise on the summer solstice? Where does it set on the winter solstice? When do the sand hill cranes first appear in their migration? What do the various cloud formations portend? When should I plant my garden—even if it is just a few planters on the apartment balcony? Many will see the attainment of this kind of knowledge as something beyond their abilities. But because the universe is always teaching us, it is not our abilities that determine whether we gain the knowledge—it is our will. We gain this knowledge through observing the natural world, reading historical accounts and travelogues, talking with people who hold this knowledge.

Slowly, the knowledge will come. continued on page 29

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James H. Auerbach, MD and Staff support Green Fire Times in its efforts to bring about a better world by focusing on the people, enterprises and initiatives that are transforming New Mexico into a diverse and sustainable economy.

Some of the topics Green fire times showcases: GREEN Building, Products, Services, Entrepreneurship, Investing and Jobs; Renewable Energy, Sustainable Agriculture, Regional Cuisine, Ecotourism, Climate Adaptation, Natural Resource Stewardship, Arts & Culture, Health & Wellness, Regional History, Community Development, Educational Opportunities James H. Auerbach, MD provides dermatology services in Santa Fe, NM (Sorry, we are no longer accepting new clients.)

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Native NEWSBITEs BIA Hinders RE Development on Tribal Lands

The Energy Information Administration estimates that homes on reservations are 10 times less likely to have access to electricity than homes in non-Indian communities.

Fourteen percent of reservation households are without electricity. Many reservations have homes scattered over large areas, far from a utility grid.

Some tribes are looking to utility-scale renewable-energy (RE) projects to improve tribal members’ quality of life and also serve as revenue generators for the tribe.

According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in June, tribal lands could produce 5 percent of the country’s solar energy and more than 3 percent of electricity from wind. Yet, while developers have built hundreds of utilityscale wind farms and solar arrays on private and federal lands since 2004, only one significant wind project is generating power from tribal lands. Another tribal wind farm and a solar project are under construction.

Critics accuse the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of impeding RE development. In a holdover of historical protocol, the BIA has to sign off on RE projects on tribal lands, although other Interior Department agencies are better equipped to consult on and approve such projects. That results in obstacles and long delays. In June, in a report to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, the GAO cited the BIA’s “poor management.”

The BIA responded, saying that it is getting ready to deploy a system nationally that will do a better job of tracking data and review times and acknowledged that it needs to give tribes more guidance on how to take over some federal responsibilities.

There is a complicated relationship between the United States government and the sovereignty that Native American tribes are entitled to under treaties and federal law. Although tribes are sovereign nations capable of making their own decisions, in 2005, Congress authorized Tribal Energy Resource Agreements, to be administered by the BIA, to assist tribes’ efforts to enter power-purchase deals and leases. Not a single tribe has used the process because the agreements don’t clearly outline where tribal and BIA responsibilities begin and end, and the agreements lack funding to pursue control. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) says that Congress needs to help address tribes’ qualms and figure out how to get tribal RE in motion.

The BIA has identified 25 tribal RE projects that could be completed within the next five years and produce up to 2,200 megawatts (MW) of power. The Obama administration has awarded millions of dollars in federal grants for RE, hydropower and fossil-fuel projects on tribal lands. Last month Rep. Grijalva and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) introduced the Tribal Tax Incentive for Renewable Energy Act, which would amend a section of the Internal Revenue Code to allow tribal governments to use existing federal renewable-energy investment tax credits. picuris pueblo to receive technical assistance On July 9, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy announced that Picuris Pueblo, in northern New Mexico, will receive on-the-ground technical support from the DOE’s Strategic Technical Assistance Response Team (START).

The customized assistance will help the pueblo understand and prioritize its resource opportunities and financing options as it seeks to develop approximately 1 MW of solar photovoltaics on its land and facilities.

Arizona’s Senators Trade Apache Sacred Lands to Mining Companies

In February 2015, 300 people, mostly San Carlos Apache, marched 44 miles from their tribal headquarters to occupy Oak Flat, a National Forest campground east of Phoenix, Arizona, where they have camped for months to protest what they see as an assault on their culture. The campground is in the center of an ancient Apache prayer site, Chi’Chil’Bilda’Toteel, which includes an Apache burial ground and ceremonial site, where coming-of-age ceremonies have been performed for many generations.

The San Carlos opponents’ website is www.apache-stronghold.com As public land, Oak Flat has had special protection since 1955 when, because of its cultural and natural value, President Eisenhower designated the area as off-limits to mining. Despite this protection, in December 2014, Congress—through a fineprint, last-minute rider attached to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)—authorized the transfer of the land’s title to Resolution Copper Mining, which is owned by Río Tinto, a private, Australian-British mining company, and BHP Billiton. Both are world leaders in strip-mining. Republican senators John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona—without public scrutiny—engineered the “Southeast Arizona Land Exchange,” which would trade 2,400 acres of Forest Service land, including Oak Flat, for 5,300 acres of private land Río Tinto already owns. McCain has called the bill a compromise that protects 800 acres of sacred land along nearby Apache Leap.

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The companies say the mine could generate $64 billion in economic value over its 60-year life. It will reportedly use about 18,000 acre-feet of water annually, enough to supply about 40,000 homes. Five square miles will be used to store toxic mining waste. According to the companies, once “block-cave” mining has been completed, the result will be a caved-in pit, 1,000 feet deep and two miles wide, that will appear similar to a nearby meteor crater.

A full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) must be written and approved.

However, the bill’s language stipulates that 60 days after the EIS is complete, the land will belong to Resolution no matter what the study says. On June 17, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), with 14 bipartisan cosponsors, introduced the “Save Oak Flat Act.” The bill would repeal Section 3003 of the FY15 NDAA. In July, the Apache Stronghold group walked/caravanned from Tucson, Arizona, to Washington, D.C., to call for the land to once again be protected.

Drilling Permits for Oil in Mancos Shale Formation Could Be Halted

As a result of a lawsuit filed by a coalition of Native American and environmental organizations, a federal judge could impose a moratorium on new oil-drilling permits in the Mancos Shale formation in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico. The area includes the Chaco Culture National Historic Park. The groups want a more thorough environmental impact statement from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Judge James Browning, who, last January, struck down a fracking moratorium in Mora County, is expected to rule this month.

There are 260 well sites in the area. About 150 have been drilled since 2011, and 3,600 are proposed for the greater Chaco region. The oil has become accessible as a result of horizontal drilling and fracking. The impacts on people, water, ecosystems and climate have not been adequately studied by the BLM, the groups contend. Nearly 30 top archaeologists from universities and organizations around the nation have called on the U.S. Department of the Interior to protect the Chaco area from oil and gas development.

BP America, ConocoPhillips, Encana Corp. of Canada and WPX Energy of Oklahoma, along with the American Petroleum Institute, have joined the lawsuit in support of the BLM. Encana and WPX have reportedly invested $1 billion in drilling projects in the Mancos formation. New Mexico Gov. Susana Martínez has urged the U.S. Interior secretary to support the BLM’s position.

Uranium Mining in the Southwest

Uranium mining and milling wastes, after more than 30 years, still have not been remediated in Milan, Church Rock and throughout northwestern New Mexico.

“Waste from Río Grande Resources’ ‘zombie mines,’ left on standby for 25 years, continues to contaminate air, land and water,” said Susan Gordon, coordinator of the Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment (MASE). “At the same time, federal and state governments continue to permit new uranium mines.”

“The communities that are members of the MASE coalition have been irreparably harmed by uranium mining and milling in the Grants Mineral Belt,” Gordon added.

“We stand united in our position that no new mines should be allowed to open until the toxic legacy has been cleaned up.”

Uranium Resources, Inc. announced in June that it is selling its Roca Honda Project in west-central New Mexico to Energy Fuels, Inc., of Toronto, Canada, for $2,875,000.

The Colorado-based company has a processing plant in Texas.

In Arizona, Energy Fuels, Inc., is planning to mine uranium about four miles from the Grand Canyon’s South Rim and truck the ore up Highway 64 to Williams and, from there, to Flagstaff on I-40 and on to Highway 89 North to the Navajo Nation, through Kayenta and Bluff before reaching the White Mesa Uranium Mill. The EPA has found that communities in the vicinity of uranium mines, mills and processing sites risk dangerous levels of exposure to radon-222, an isotope of the chemical element, known to dissolve in the bloodstream and capable of causing chronic radiotoxicity, which is tied to a high incidence of lung cancer. There are also added hazards of road accidents from the mining operations.

The company is using a loophole in a 2012 ban on new uranium mines and is hoping to operate under an operational plan and environmental review from 1986. The Havasupai Tribe, the Grand Canyon Trust and other environmental groups have appealed the mine opening to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Indigenous as a Way of Life As we become aware of the basics of our connection to the land, we become more indigenized; that is, we are beginning to understand the land, sky and other natural phenomena as metaphor within our lives and psyches. These metaphors are lessons to further our understanding of place, relationship, other values and their application in our lives and the lives of our families and communities.

For example, as we look to the cardinal directions, what values or concepts do we associate with the east? Values and concepts such as rebirth, a new beginning, hope and light can be associated with the rising sun.

Similarly, the west can represent darkness, closure or maturity. Likewise, concepts and values can also be delegated to the north and south. In a comparable manner, the same metaphorical process can be assigned to the changing of the seasons. We hear of mental

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conditions such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or we think of spring fever, both being examples of the effects the seasons have on us. While these are general observations, the change of seasons is different in each bioregion and place. Part of indigeneity is being aware of how the seasons come and go and how that affects our lives and psyches.

The ability to see the connection between our psyches and the land signifies a deep connection.

When we become aware of our psychic connection to the land, we have deepened our relationship with the land. Through this depth, we can see our responsibilities to the land, celebrate the joys of living on the land’s bounty and look to a meaningful future for our families and communities.

Being indigenous is to be aware of that deep connection with the land and act accordingly.

Indigeneity is not race- or ethnic based, but

it is an awareness and action that recognizes the importance of place and land in our own lives. It is also acknowledging and acting upon the reciprocal relationship with the land that provides for future generations. Indigeneity is a commitment to place and to the future of our communities in that place. i

Stephen Wall is the department chair for Indigenous Liberal Studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. He is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation and has lived in New Mexico most of his life.

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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NEWSBITEs The Coal Industry

The coal-industry downturn shows no signs of letting up. Coal use in the United States fell 21 percent between 2007 and 2014. Coal accounted for 37 percent of the country’s electricity in February 2015—down from 50 percent in 2007—according to the Energy Information Administration. More than one-third of the nation’s coal plants have already closed or announced closures. Most are expected by 2020, when the EPA’s proposal to cut carbon-dioxide emissions could go into effect.

The industry is struggling to cut costs in the face of natural gas made cheaper by the fracking boom and low prices for thermal coal burned in power plants and metallurgical coal used to make steel. Meanwhile, communities and power companies throughout the United States are avoiding long-term spending on coal because of financial risks, pollution impacts, environmental regulations and renewable-energy options that are becoming cheaper.

Emmarie: 11 years old.

Ute (Uncompahgre)/ Navajo (Deer and Bitter Water)/English

Tough Times for Peabody Energy

In June 2015, Peabody Energy, the world’s largest privately owned coal company, announced 250 corporate and regional employee layoffs and said it would cut production at an Australian metallurgical coal mine by about half. That coal has been exported to China and India. Peabody’s shares have dropped 81 percent over the last year. As of March 31, Peabody had $6.4 billion in debt. The multinational corporation recorded a $787-million loss last year on revenue of $6.8 billion.

In 2014, Peabody won a bid for a 640-acre lease to develop 9.2 million tons of coal adjacent to El Segundo Mine, north of Grants, New Mexico. El Segundo Mine produces 8 million tons a year. In March 2014, in response to an appeal of the sale of the lease based on environmental impacts, the BLM gave Peabody the go-ahead to expand the mine.

For the past 47 years, Peabody has operated two mines on Black Mesa, in Arizona, mining over 400 million tons of coal, using billions of gallons of water each year from the Navajo Aquifer, to provide cheap energy and water to the entire Southwest.

Peabody’s use of the aquifer has allegedly resulted in the marked decline and, in some cases, eradication of seeps and springs within the region.

Coal Royalties Sought to Address Climate Impacts

Leaders of 10 Western mountain towns including Taos, New Mexico, have sent a jointly signed letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewel and other federal officials requesting assistance in getting coal companies to pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year to help the towns deal with the impacts of climate change. The town officials asked for changes in the system that collects royalties on coal.

Coal mining is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that are widely considered to contribute to changing weather patterns. The National Institutes of Health estimates 24,000 premature deaths per year nationwide from coal burning.

Sowaniu: 4 months old.

Narragansett/Navajo

Mahko: Apache

The Warrior Project

Photos by Tailinh Agoyo

Heart: 2 years old.

Narragansett/ Blackfeet/Tuscarora/ Saponi/Chinese

Four Corners Power Plant Update

T

Local community, regional and national environmental groups have pointed out what they consider to be significant flaws in the agency’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and have told the DOI that the DEIS cannot be used to justify any decision to prolong the power plant or mine. The groups say, by rubberstamping the status quo for decades to come, the federal government has left local residents and communities to assume serious pollution dangers and financial risks.

Tailinh Agoyo is in the first phase of the project. She has visited the Navajo in Arizona, the Narragansett in Rhode Island and the Mohawk in upstate New York. She has engaged in discussions with local communities about environmental concerns and how they are taking steps towards positive change. Through photographs of children, she shares stories about people and land, as well as testimonials from the children about their concerns and desire for environmental justice.

The Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s record of decision released on July 17 ensures the continued operation of the Four Corners Power Plant and Navajo Mine, located on the Navajo Nation, in northwestern New Mexico, through 2041. The decision does not allow the mine to expand, which is being contested in federal court.

About 800 people work at the 52-year-old plant and mine. Long-time owners of the plant are leaving, including Southern California Edison and El Paso Electric, while BHP-Billiton has sold the Navajo Mine to the Navajo Nation and will exit its share of the plant’s ownership in 2016. That leaves Arizona Public Service (APS) as the majority owner responsible for the massive investment required to keep the electricity flowing. Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) still owns a 13 percent share. The Navajo Nation will have to take on increased regulatory liabilities governing coal ash, methane and wastewater. APS, after shutting down three of the facility’s five emit stacks, is faced with increased regulatory mandates for the two stacks being retrofitted to reduce emissions by at least 30 percent.

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he Warrior Project is a collection of images that portray indigenous children in a world where resources are becoming depleted, pollution is high and the Earth is threatened. The children photographed are nurtured in a culture where the importance of honoring and protecting the earth is part of their DNA. They are not passive victims; they are budding change-makers, activists and empowered leaders. They are warriors of strength, knowledge and ancestral power.

Tailinh’s mission is to photograph indigenous children from tribes around the world, each facing unique environmental concerns. By drawing upon traditional beliefs and creation stories, she is represents indigenous people as a thriving, evolving people committed to positive change. The images and accompanying testimonials emphasize the urgency of taking action to ensure the Earth is sustainable for the future generations.

To support The Warrior Project or for more information, call 917.386.5036 or visit: www.warriorchildren.com/contact.html i

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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Green Fire Times • August 2015

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Photo: Communidad Andina

Red Power 3.0

Men from Amazon tribes assemble to confront paramilitary forces under the auspices of the Peruvian government at the height of a dispute between tribes and petroleumexploration companies on tribal lands. [Photo Credit: Communidad Andina] paramilitary forces, covered in body armor, entered in armored personnel carriers with U.S.made M-4s and M-16s. The Indians never had a chance, but they chose to fight anyway.

Fortunately, today, most Indian people in the United States do not face such stark battles.

Except for the devastating social ills that disproportionately affect our families and community members, the challenges most of us face in rebuilding our communities range from study of the dull and mundane to the mildly interesting—unless, of course, you have a finance or accounting background. Instead of identifying the most potent battle tactic, we must master I.R.S. regulations. Perhaps, we must travel to cold or balmy localities, stay at mere three-star resorts for multiple days of coursework or workshops to learn about topics such as power-purchase agreements and lease buy-back arrangements for renewable-energy projects on tribal lands. The most committed of our colleagues will stay up through the wee hours of the night perfecting their cash-flow projections and pro forma budgets to satisfy the requirements of a dreaded case study that tests our knowledge of the previous day’s course on development financing fundamentals. As a former tribal economic-development manager, I withstood the ire of tribal council members, tribal landowners and political appointees over why one project or another must oblige one financing provision or another. None of these challenges is easy or fun to deal with. Yet, if a grandma from a stark desert landscape and outgunned rainforest dwellers are willing to take up arms today, shouldn’t we be willing to pick up a travel itinerary, a pen and a laptop? Today’s Red Power movement may not be as glamorous as the images of the warriors of centuries past, or Tribal leaders, program managers and even the nostalgia of Wounded Knee and community members assemble to learn Alcatraz in the 1970s, but it could be the about underutilized resources available most important challenge we embrace for from public-, private- and nonprofit-sector the generations that follow us. For those of entities at the annual Resource Forum convened by the Multi-Agency Tribal you who are game, I’ll see you at the next training session or project meeting! i Infrastructure Collaborative.

Dave Castillo is CEO of a Native Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). When not traveling around the Southwest discussing financing options for Native businesses and tribal projects, he’s working on the latest reporting requirements of federal agencies or the return expectations of foundations and investors. He is always happy to collaborate or commiserate with anyone working to navigate the currents of project development in Indian Country. dncastillo@ nativehomecapital.com

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Green Fire Times • August 2015

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NEWSBITEs Water Resources Research Institute Unveils New Mexico Watershed Website

State Attorney General Hector Balderas has announced that, in the interest of getting a better handle on New Mexico’s available water resources, his office is investing $1 million from its consumer protection fund (the result of settlements won in lawsuits) into the Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) at New Mexico State University. The two $500,000 grants were approved by the state Legislature.

WRRI, under the direction of Alexander “Sam” Fernald, coordinates water-related research projects statewide. The institute has provided much of the data that is being used on a new website that provides a snapshot of the state’s water supply, water use and evaporation. The site (nmwrri.nmsu.edu) went live in July. There has been a lot of data on New Mexico surface water, but until now it hasn’t all been accessible in one location. New models and satellite tracking data that can gauge water use by plants, as well as the amount of surface water will be added to the site as part of WRRI’s Statewide Water Assessment, a multiyear project.

Balderas has called the need to find innovate ways to use water and develop a long-term strategy for future demand “a public safety issue, as well as an economic development issue.”

Legislators Request Action on Methane Hot Spots

New Mexico Senators Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall, along with Representatives Michelle Lujan Grisham and Ben Ray Lujan are urging federal officials to take action on “a methane hot spot the size of Delaware over the San Juan Basin—the largest concentration in the nation—in an area of high oil and gas production.”

Methane is a major global warming contributor, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It absorbs 25 times more heat than carbon dioxide on a 100-year timescale. The legislators’ letter to the Office of Management and Budget also cites methane as a significant public health issue. Though methane is the largest constituent of natural gas, other toxic pollutants like benzene are often released at the same time, contributing to ozone pollution and smog. Methane is also released in coal production and from coal-fired power plants.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees oil and gas development on federal and Indian lands. New BLM and EPA standards being considered could greatly reduce methane emissions. Flaring, venting and leaks add up to millions of dollars in lost revenue for companies, states and the federal government. Some developers have already implemented emissions-reduction plans.

National Native Food Sovereignty Summit

Native agriculture is an economic and cultural cornerstone of most Native American communities. Many tribes are implementing traditional food initiatives such as local food production, seed saving, educational workshops and ecological restoration work for culturally essential foods. Traditional diets have the potential to undo much of the illness and harm processed foods have caused Native communities.

Tribal Green Reentry The incorporation of elements of Native culture has been essential to the success of these programs.

Green Reentry programs offer a natural opportunity for tribal youth to reconnect with their traditional culture and for elders—the keepers of tribal wisdom and knowledge—to be involved in working with youth and sharing their knowledge through green activities such as using traditional planting methods (e.g., Three Sisters, native fruit tree windbreaks), greenhouse construction techniques (e.g., straw bale) and Native design principles. In addition, the grantees infused their programs with cultural activities to directly involve youth through traditional healing,

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Native communities will come together to learn from one another to promote health, wellness and food sovereignty at the third annual Food Sovereignty Summit, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Oct. 26–29. The event will be co-hosted by First Nations Development Institute and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. It will take place at the Radisson Green Bay Hotel and Conference Center.

The summit will feature three tracks: Applied Agriculture. Community Outreach and Products to Market. Native farmers, ranchers, gardeners, businesses, policymakers and other practitioners from around the United States will share information, program models and tools to meet growing and marketing challenges, as well as provide inspiration, mentoring and networking opportunities. There will be Experiential Learning Field Sessions (farm practices, food preservation, food handling, organic certification), a Chefs’ Corner (culinary creations from various tribal regions) and a session to connect mentors and mentees.

For more information, visit www.firstnations.org/summit

Navajo Green Economy Commission

The Navajo Green Economy Commission reconvened in July 2015. Wahleah Johns is the commission’s new chairperson. Levon Thomas is vice-chair, along with members Anna Rondon and Sam Woods.

They think the time is right for building a Navajo Nation green economy. To that end, they are planning a Solar and Wind Summit 2015, this fall, in Window Rock, to inform and educate Navajo Nation leaders on what they see as a tremendous opportunity to transition into a healthier, cleaner economy by investing in training a green workforce, getting people to become more energy-literate, and instituting energy-efficient, rooftop photovoltaics (PV) and microgrid technologies.

“The time is now for us to show the world that Navajo people do have the desire to reduce carbon emissions, and we need to call on DOI, DOE and other resources to help make possible more renewable-energy policies,” said Rondon. “The Navajo Green Economy Commission can provide educational resources and collaboration for long-term options.”

The commission, legislated into existence by the Navajo Nation Council in 2009 as a way for the tribe to consider climate-change mitigation and adaptation options, had its budget vetoed twice. The commissioners have volunteered since then and are looking forward to engaging with the new Begaye administration.

Navajo Language Fluency Requirement Voted Down

On July 21, Navajos voted to eliminate the requirement for their top leader to be fluent in the Navajo language. A Navajo presidential candidate who was not fluent was eliminated over the issue in a recent election. The winner, Russell Begaye, advocated for keeping the fluency requirement. The Navajo language, an essential part of maintaining culture and tradition, is recognized worldwide as the basis for a code that helped the U.S. win World War II. Many Navajos still speak the language, but its use is not widespread among young people. It is taught in schools and there are other efforts underway; films including Star Wars and Finding Nemo have been dubbed in Navajo.

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sweat lodges, talking circles, history and language, traditional crafts and excursions to culturally significant sites.

Interviews with tribal staff, stakeholders, parents and participating youth indicated that youth acquiring cultural knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences become more grounded in understanding how they can use their culture to make changes in their lives and rely on it as a resource during stressful times.

Access to culturally relevant services and resources is both a right and an obligation that tribal governments share with state and federal agencies and is supported by laws such as the New

Mexico Children’s Code (2011). Tribal programs are increasingly incorporating culture into prevention and intervention activities as a source of healing. The cultural programming incorporated into the three Green Reentry programs has also helped each of the tribal governments provide culturally relevant and appropriate services to their young citizens and families and increased collaboration among tribal and regional resources. The development of such partnerships can help tribes implement green technologies and environmentally sustainable activities to create long-term environmental and economic benefits.

Parents at all three sites expressed substantial support for the Green Reentry program, particularly for programming that provided their children with new skills such as gardening, beekeeping and green construction. They were also enthusiastic about activities that involved service to the community such as community clean-up. Most believed that positive changes in their children’s lives had resulted from their participation in the program. i Ada Pecos Melton, Rita Martínez and David J. Melton are with American Indian Development Associates, LLC, based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 505.842.1122, http://aidainc.net

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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What's Going On! Events / Announcements 2000 Mountain Rd. NW

Story circles where you can share 5-minute stories with your fellow ‘Burqueans. Neighborhood association and organization tables.

Free food, music, art activities. valerie@artful-life.org, http://artful-life.wix.com/artfullife#!abq-museum-neighborhood-day/c721

ALBUQUERQUE Aug. 3, 11 am Tesuque Pueblo and the Pueblo Revolt Indian Pueblo Cultural Center 2401 12th St. NW

Former Tesuque Gov. Mark Mitchell will provide a historical perspective on the pueblo’s role in the 1680 revolt. www.indianpueblo.org

Aug. 5, 5:30-7 pm Green Drinks Hotel Andaluz, 125 Second St. NW

Network with people interested in doing business locally, clean energy alternatives and creating sustainable opportunities in our communities.

Presented the first Wednesday of each month by the ABQ and Río Rancho Green Chamber. info@ nmgreenchamber.com, www.greendrinks.org

Aug. 8, 10 am-4 pm Summer Wings Río Grande Nature Center 2901 Candelaria NW

Speakers, guided bird walks, hummingbird banding, live birds from wildlife rescue, arts & crafts for kids, Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge display. Presented by the Friends of the Río Grande Nature Center. Free. Parking $3. 505.344.7240, www.rgnc.org

Aug. 11, 9 am-4 pm NM Pueblo and Community Agriculture Conference Route 66 Casino/Hotel, I-40

Workshops such as beekeeping, organic certification, hoop houses, spring vegetable production. Educational agency and program booths. Lunch provided. Hosted

by NMSU’s Southern Pueblo Beginning Farmer/Rancher Program. Registration: 505.852.0480 or 505.852.2668

Aug. 15 Resilience Run Indian Pueblo Cultural Center 2401 12th St.

3rd Annual. 10K, 5K and kids’ walk commemorating the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

Hopi/San I Reed Clan dancers, food, music.

Fundraiser for IPCC museum renovation.

Online registration: $35, $20, $10: ResilienceRun.org, www.indianpueblo.org

Aug. 15, 2-3:30 pm Home Composting Basics Taylor Ranch Library 5700 Bogart NW

Turn food scraps into plant-ready nutrients, quick & simple with the Bokashi method.

505.897.8816, register@nmcomposters.org

Aug. 16, 12-4 pm Neighborhood Day at the ABQ Museum ABQ Museum of Art

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Aug. 23, 11 am-3 pm Tomato Fiesta ABQ Garden Center, 10120 Lomas, NE

Classes and garden tips from Master Gardeners and tomato experts. Trade fair, music, kids’ activities. 505.292.7144, www.albuquer quetomatofiesta.com

Aug. 27, 11:30 am-1:15 pm Planners as Leaders Hotel Andaluz, 125 2nd St. NW

Urban Land Institute/APA-NM lunch. Presentation by Gail Goldberg, FAICP, Exec. Dir. of the Urban Land Institute Los Angeles District Council. $50/$35/$25. Registration: http://uli.org

Aug 29, 10:30 am-12:30 pm Eating for Your Health Highland Senior Center 131 Monroe NE

Community-based workshop led by Susan Clair, covering elements of a healthy lifestyle, plant-based & animal proteins, organic vs. conventional, antioxidants and systemic alkalinity, health benefits of herbs & spices, complex & refined carbs, healthy fats. Free or by donation.

Registration: 505.281.9888, clair@nmia.com

Sept. 12 Indian Pueblo Cultural Center Gala 2401 12th St. NW

Annual fundraising dinner/auction. Art, food, dance, history. $150. Sponsorship opportunities available. 505.724.3539, ccanfield@indianpueblo. org, indianpueblo.org/gala

Sept. 26 NM Solar Energy Assn. Solar Fiesta CNM Workforce Training Center 505.246.0400, info@NMSolar.org

Nov. 11-13 Quivira Conference Embassy Suites

“The Next Wave: Cultivating Abundance”; hear from ranchers, farmers, scientists, activists and others. Speakers include Paul Hawkin, Christine Jones and many more. 505.820.2544, cbaca@quiviracoalition.org. Tickets: http://qui viracoalition.org/2015_Quivira_Conference

Daily Our Land, Our Culture, Our Story Indian Pueblo Cultural Center 2401 12th St. NW

Historical overview of the Pueblo world and contemporary artwork and craftsmanship of each of the 19 pueblos. Through Oct. 16: Visionary Concepts: Genres of Pueblo Art, spotlighting artists who depict pride in culture and tell a story of cultural perseverance.866.855.7902,www.indianpueblo.org

“ABQ 2030 District”

A voluntary collaboration of commercial property tenants, building managers, property owners and developers; real estate, energy, and building sector professionals, lenders, utility companies; and public stakeholders such as government agencies, nonprofits, community groups and grassroots or-

Green Fire Times • August 2015

ganizers. Property partners share anonymous utility data and best practices. Professional partners provide expertise and services. Public partners support the initiative as it overlaps with their own missions. Info: albuquerque@2030districts.org

SANTA FE

Aug. 1, 10-10:30 am USDA National Farmers’ Market Week Kickoff Water Tower, SF Railyard

The SF Farmers’ Market has been selected by the USDA to host the kickoff ceremony for the 16th annualNationalFarmers’MarketWeektorecognizethe role that farmers’ markets play in the agricultural and food economy. Special guest speakers. 505.983.4098, ext.6,www.farmersmarketinstitute.org

Aug. 5, 11:30 am-1 pm Santa Fe Green Chamber Lunch SFAHBA, 1409 Luisa St.

Presentation/discussion on having a Public Bank. $20/$15. BankingOnNewMexico.org.

Reservations: 505.982.1774

Aug. 6-9 Santa Fe Yoga Festival

Well-known instructors and local yogis lead more than 108 classes and workshops. Daily meditations, dharma talks, hikes, farm to table dinners, musical performances, pool parties and Michael Franti concert (8/8, 7 pm). www.santafeyogafestival.org

Aug. 7, 6-7 pm “Wars, Revolts and Defining Collective Memory re: the Pueblo Revolt” NM History Museum, SF Plaza

Presentation by archaeologist/author Jason Shapiro. Free. nmhistorymuseum.org

Aug. 8, 10 am-2 pm Healthy Kids Celebration Santa Fe Convention Center

Performances by local fitness groups, CPR training, Obstacle course, skateboard demonstrations, acrobatics and juggling instruction, low-cost lab screenings, health-focused organizations. Presented by Christus St.Vincent,SF Fire Dept.,city of Santa Feå.

Eldorado area recycling advocacy group monthly meeting. All welcome.

505.466.9797, eldorado.285recycles.com

Aug. 13, 5-8 pm Round Mountain Body of Santa Fe, 333 W. Cordova Rd.

Acclaimed multi-instrumentalist brothers with alt-folk and global influences. $14/$7.

Aug. 14, 6-8:30 pm Seton Birthday Celebration Academy for the Love of Learning Seton Village

Opening reception and 7 pm lecture by Ernest Thompson Seton’s granddaughter Julie Seton. Free. www.aloveoflearning.org/event_ detail/164/1350

Aug. 15, 7-9 pm Fantasies of Flying SF Art Institute, 1600 St. Michael’s Dr.

Preview screening of rough cut of Georgina Lightning’s film about suicide prevention, trauma and various forms of healing. Followed by an open discussion with Lightning.

Free. http://georginalightning.com/

Aug. 17-23 Native Cinema Showcase NM History Museum

In partnership with the National Museum of the American Indian, the NM History Museum presents the latest in Native documentaries, shorts, features. http://nmhistorymuseum.org/calendar.php

Aug. 18, 6 pm Chefscapades Clubhouse at Las Campanas

Some of SF’s executive chefs collaborate to create a 4-course dinner. Live auction of vacations, art, jewelry. Benefits Pete’s Place Interfaith Shelter for the homeless. $150.

505.795.7494, www.interfaithsheltersf.org

Aug. 18-20 Antique American Indian Art Show El Museo Cultural

40 top national dealers in historic American Indian art. www.antiqueindianartshow.com

Aug. 8, 10 am-4 pm Kindred Spirits Art Show 3749A Hwy. 14

Aug. 19, 5 pm Native Arts Unbound La Fonda Hotel

Aug. 8 Comment Deadline SF MPO Pedestrian Master Plan

Aug. 19, 6-7:30 pm NMSEA-SF Chapter Meeting Amenergy, 1202 Parkway Drive

Fundraiser for animal sanctuary/hospice for dogs, horses and poultry. Visit with the animals, meet the artists. Painting, photography, jewelry, sculpture, carvings, folk art, wearable art. Free.

505.471.5366, kindredspiritsnm@earthlink. net, www.kindredspiritsnm.org

The public is invited to comment on the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s master plan to improve the pedestrian environment. Send comments to mstibbetts@santafenm.gov. Copies of the draft may be downloaded at: http:// santafempo.org/pedestrian-master-plan/

Aug. 9 3rd Annual Resilience Run Tesuque Pueblo

Commemoration of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

505.983.2667

Aug. 11, 4-6 pm Eldorado/285 Recycles ECIA Conference Room

The Institute of American Indian Arts presents its annual scholarship dinner and auction, reception and silent small-works art auction.

Dinner at 6:30 pm followed by a live auction.

Tickets start at $175. iaia.edu, 800.804.6423

SF Sustainable Everything Advocates, a NM Solar Energy Assn. chapter, seeks to make living sustainably the accepted norm through creating public awareness, actions, participation and volunteerism in organizations and events that establish SF and NM as leaders in this effort. Meets 3rd Weds. each month. Claudia@solarlogicllc.com

Aug. 20 Deadline SF MPO Transportation Plan

Documents that will guide transportation infrastructure spending and pedestrian, bicycle, public-transit policy through the year 2040.

Public comments sought. Open house review/ discussions: 8/4, 6, 11, 24, 27. 505.955.6664, ejaune@santafenm.gov, www.santafempo.org

www.GreenFireTimes.com

Aug. 20, 5-8 pm Poeh Center Opening Poeh Cultural Center and Museum

“Paths Of Beauty: Isabel Gonzales And Shawn Tafoya.” Free. Embroidery exhibit runs through Nov. 14. (See story, page 17) Center is 15 miles north of Santa Fe, just off Hwy. 285/84

Aug. 20-21 40th Annual Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian Benefit Auction 704 Camino Lejo

Silent and live auctions of jewelry, textiles, pottery and fine art. 505.982.4636, wheelwright.org

Aug. 20-22 Indigenous Fine Art Market SF Railyard Arts District

More the 400 traditional and contemporary artists. Live entertainment. Indigefam.org

Aug. 21, 5-7 pm Visions and Visionaries Opening IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Pl.

The premier collection of contemporary Native art inaugurates a new wing, the Kieve Family Gallery, with a multitude of renowned artists curated

by Candice Hopkins. 505.983.1666

Aug. 21, 5-7 pm New Audiences for Native Films Allan Houser Art Park, MoCNA

Native Cinema Showcase Film Panel & Reception.

Sponsored by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and the IAIA MoCNA

Aug. 22, 3-5 pm LaDonna Harris: The Art of Self-Determination Allan Houser Art Park, MoCNA

Panel discussion on advancing tribal self-determination in an era of globalization. With LaDonna Harris, Kevin Gover, Mark Macarro, Laura Harris, Bird Runningwater. The film “LaDonna Harris: Indian 101” will be shown in the IAIA MoCNA from Aug. 20-Oct. 20.

Aug. 22-23 Indian Market Santa Fe Plaza

94th annual gathering of Native artists including many events leading up to and occurring during the market. swaia.org

Aug. 22-23, 9 am-4:30 pm Portal Artists Celebration Palace of the Governors Courtyard (Blue gate on Lincoln Ave.)

Artists of the POG Native American Artisans program. Traditional dances, music and food. 505.476.5100

Aug. 25, 6-7:30 pm Is Your Cell Phone Making You Sick?

La Montañita Co-op Community Room, 913 W. Alameda

Learn about patented products that help neutralize the effects and simple ways to decrease exposure. 505.780.8283

Aug. 28, 10 am NM Acequia Commission Meeting Bataan Memorial Bldg., Room 238

Info: 505.603.2879, molinodelaisla@gmail. com. Agendas: 505.827.4983, www.nm acequiacommission.state.nm.us

Aug. 27, 6 pm Heirloom Food and Story Private Residence

Farm-to-table dinner and spoken-word performances celebrating Pueblo and East Indian cultures. With master storyteller Larry Littlebird

www.GreenFireTimes.com

(Laguna/Santo Domingo) and writer/director Shebana Coelho (Bombay, India). A fundraiser for Tano Farm at Hamaatsa that addresses food insecurity in Indian Country. $95. Tickets and info: heirloomfoodandstory.brownpapertickets.com or 505.379.2598, littlebird@hamaatsa.org

Aug. 29, 10 am-12 pm Green Writer’s Circle

Aug. 5-9 Native Film Series Gallup, NM

Third annual.

Native filmmakers.

505.870.1124, lightlanguagestudio@q.com

Aug. 9 Pueblo Independence Day Jemez Pueblo Plaza

Writers engaged in sustainability, ecology, health and environmental issues meet for training, discussion, publication and information resources. RSVP: sguyette@nets.com

13-mile pilgrimage run from the plaza to Jemez Historic Site kicks off events commemorating the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Native food, dances, arts & crafts. Free. nmmonuments.org/jemez

Aug. 29, 12-4 pm Neighboring Faiths Fiesta St.John’s United Methodist Church

Aug. 15, 12-3 pm Embudo Valley Library Celebration 217A NM 75, Dixon, NM

Booths from SF congregations of all faiths. Meet your “neighbors in faith.” Celebrate diverse traditions. Food, music, entertainment, clothing drive for school uniforms for kids and adult winter clothes for Interfaith Shelter. SF Interfaith Alliance. 505.699.6049, www.ilasantafe.org

Aug. 29-30, 10 am-4 pm Fiesta de los Niños: Children’s Celebration El Rancho de las Golandrinas, La Ciénega

Games, crafts and entertainment. $8/$6/12 & under free. 505.471.2261, www.golondrinas.org

Sept. 22-24 First Nations L.E.A.D. Inst. Conf.

Buffalo Thunder Resort

Empowering Native Youth, Strengthening Tribal Institutions, Nourishing Native Foods & Health. (See Newsbite, page 7)

Sept. 2015-May 2016 Institute of American Indian Arts Artists in Residence

Open to Native Americans or First Nations artists from the Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest and Southwest; one-month terms; public receptions and artist talks. 505.424.2389, levans@iaia.edu; applications: iaiaacademics. wufoo.com/forms/iaia-artistsinresidence/

Dec. 3-4 Acting Out: A Symposium on Indigenous Performance Art

Symposium,performances,workshops,video screenings. 12/4, 6-8 pm: Performance at the Lensic. Presented by the MoCNA and MIAC. 505.428.5907, iaia.edu/museum/news-events/upcoming-events/

Tuesdays and Saturdays, 7 am-1 pm Santa Fe Farmers’ Market 1607 Paseo de Peralta (& Guadalupe)

Northern NM farmers & ranchers offer fresh greenhouse tomatoes, greens, root veggies, cheese, teas, herbs, spices, honey, baked goods, body-care products and much more. www.santafefarmersmarket.com

HERE & THERE

July Through September “Under the Tuscan Sun” Expo Galleria Italia, 2874 Hwy. 14 N., Madrid, NM M-S 9:30 -5:30, 714.887.9131

July 31-Aug. 9 Las Vegas Heritage Week Various Locations, Las Vegas, NM

100-horse Cowboy Reunion Parade, cowboy quilt exhibit, rodeo, self-guided tours of historic homes, more. 505.425.8803, lvcchp.org

Aug. 5-9 Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Red Rock State Park, Gallup, NM

Dancers, artisans, musicians, vendors and families from tribes across the U.S. and México. 505.863.3896, gallupceremonial.com

Community celebration for the National Medal for Museum and Library Service winner.

Aug. 15 Deadline Collaborative Forest Restoration Program

Technical Advisory Panel nominations sought for people with experience in forest ecosystem restoration. 505.842.3425, wdunn@fs.fed.us, www.fs.usda.gov/goto/r3/cfrp

Aug. 20-23 Taos County Fair Juan I. Gonzales Agricultural Center

Livestock exhibits, watermelon and pie eating contests, live music. 575.758.3982, taoscountyfair.com

Aug. 20, 1-4 pm BLM Federal Coal Program Listening Tour Courtyard Marriott, Farmington, NM

The Bureau of Land Management is seeking public comment on how the agency “can best carry out its responsibility to ensure that taxpayers receive a fair return on the coal resources managed by the federal government on their behalf.”www.blm.gov/live

Sept. 15 Donation Deadline Storydancer Project Navajo Nation Series

Free services include health clinic trainings, presentations for toddlers, preschool and K-6 graders and teacher in-service trainings at schools and centers. projectdirector@story dancer.com, www.thestorydancerproject.org

Through Sept. 30 Ancient Native Farming Techniques Exhibit Colorado Plateau Intertribal Learning Center, Tuba City, AZ.

Exhibit showcases efforts by elders and community leaders from 12 tribes across the Colorado Plateau to preserve dry farming practices that have allowed native peoples to flourish for thousands of years. Open by appointment. alicia.tsosie@ foodcorps.org, www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/ preserving-our-seeds-and-farmer-knowledge

Oct. 23-24 Traditional Agriculture & Sustainable Living Conference Northern NM College, Española, NM

10th annual. This year’s theme: Global Warming and Other Issues Threatening Mother Earth. International keynote speakers include renowned elder/healer/shaman Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq (“Uncle”) from Greenland and Dr. Mark Nelson, dir. of the U.K. based Institute of Ecotechnics. Panels, workshops, hands-on activities, vendors, info booths, heritage seed exchange. 518.332.3156, fourbridges@live.com, http://4bridges.org

Aug. 21-22 Cowboy Music & Poetry St. James Hotel and Philmont Scout Ranch, Cimarrón, NM

Western Music Assn. event. Performed by those who live and work in the West. 575.376.9207, CimarronCowboyGathering.com

Aug. 21-23 Amigos Bravos Float Trip Rio Chama

A mostly gentle float punctuated by easy rapids down the wild & scenic river. Valet service with luxury camping accommodations. $1,720. Partially tax-deductible.

575.758.3874, rconn@amigosbravos.org

Aug. 25, 7 pm Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Talk Los Alamos, NM

Learn about the largest petroglyph site in North America. Free. www.losalamosnature.org

Aug. 28, 8 am Seed Harvesting Hike Bandelier National Monument, NM

Help collect seeds for post-fire Frijoles Creek restoration project. Free. Meet at Juniper Campground in Bandelier. www.losalamosnature.org

Aug. 31 Submission Deadline Questa Quilt Project

Quilt pieces are sought for an art piece that expresses the feelings of New Mexicans about the effects of the now-closed Questa mine. The quilt will be unveiled on Sept. 12 as part of “The Ground Beneath Our Hearts,” a global spectacle to honor the resilience of people living in communities affected by mining and oil & gas development. 505.351.1381, lizg.nm@gmail.com

Green Fire Times • August 2015

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Authentic Native American Art From The Twenty-Two Tribes Of New Mexico

Than Povi Fine Art Gallery

It’s not your ordinary gallery......It’s a cultural experience

Special events throughout the month of August 6 Banana Lane, Santa Fe, NM 87506 | Hwy 84/285 Exit 176 | Next to Gabriel’s Restaurant Visit our newest location at the Pueblo of San Ildefonso starting September 1st www.thanpovi.com | 505.455.9988

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Green Fire Times • August 2015

Ntive American Owne

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