"Sharing One Skin" by Jeanette Armstrong

In this article, “Sharing One Skin,” by Jeanette Armstrong, she talks about what it means to be Okanagan and the different selves that makes a person while in her tribe’s beliefs. She believes that when all four selves intertwine you gain sanity. The Okanagan people are deeply connected with the environment such as nature. She represents Okanagan and has teachings but she does not speak for the Okanagan people. If the four selves are not together, they create a weakness within you. The community, land, responsibility, and creation of communities with heart are all essential to sharing the same skin as your community or your tribe’s members. “A fire that is not controlled can destroy.”

"How Place Names Impact The Way We See Landscape" by B. Toastie

Memories and stories are connected to our land and this is very well emphasized in the article, “How place names impact the way we see landscape,” by B. Toastie. As native people we have a strong connection to various landscapes. An important quote to me is “When an Indigenous place is named, or renamed, either its ancestral name or a new name, then you are evoking reconnection.” Our reservations or Pueblos are very important landscapes because it is where our ancestors have connections and have thrived for generations. They passed this land onto living descendants. Some of these tragedies, traumas, and injustices connected to the land are caused by colonial structure. “A lot of places are attached to story. And those stores are important for us to remember, because they are really telling us something about ourselves and our past.”

"And Then I Went To School" by Joe Suina

The assimilation process in early Native American education had much more impact than what is talked about. In the article, “And then I went to school,” by Joe Suina, he talks about the before, during, and after boarding schools. In the beginning, he felt connected to his community and liked who he was being a Pueblo Native while learning many things from his grandma. His

grandma taught him everything he wanted to know about being from Cochiti Pueblo. But once boarding schools were introduced he noticed a change within himself and now he began to question being Native. Due to boarding schools he felt ashamed of who he was and wanted to change. He was very fond of his grandma as he expressed his gratitude towards her throughout the article. He mentions the great and traditional woman she was. However, he knew that things would never be the same within his Pueblo again and felt sad that he had to change in order to adapt to the whiteman’s world.

"Indians of North America: Conflict and Survival" by Frank W. Porter lll

Native Americans are often overlooked and supposedly extinct, this is well discussed in the article, “Indians of North America: Conflict and Survival”, by Frank W. Porter III. The article talks about the early discovery of this new world by Christopher Columbus. While discovering this world, Europeans encountered Native Americans for the time. Europeans recognized the wealth of natural resources and were ignorant towards the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual riches of the Native people. It was then that Europeans attempted to change the Indigenous way of life. The author talks about Natives as a past tense signifying that we were “extinct”. The question asked was why Native people didn’t kill off the early settlers because we as Native people had the military skill if it had not been for the devastating epidemics and disruption of the ecology. Europeans had wondered where Natives came from. Historians believed that Indigenous people would be conquered and forced to live the ways of their conquerors. However, the reality of it was that the Native people resisted to be assimilated. When the United States acquired territory from France and Mexico, the federal government wanted to open this land to homesteaders. But Indian tribes that lived on the land had already signed treaties with the European government assuring their title to the land. This is when things took a turn for the worse resulting in land being taken away with force and Natives being relocated. Reservations were then established to quickly lead to termination of tribes. 

"New Mexico v. Mescalero Apache Tribe "

Natural resources granted upon tribal lands face the threat of being taken advantage of, whether by states or the federal government. In a lawsuit against the State of New Mexico being filed by the Mescalero Apache Tribe, was to prevent the application of state fishing and hunting regulations to non-members of the Mescalero Apache within the tribe’s reservation in southern New Mexico. The Tribe filed suit in Federal District Court, seeking to prevent the state from controlling on-reservation hunting and fishing. The current reservation has more than 460,000 acres of which the Tribe owns all but 193.85 acres. Roughly 2,000 members of the tribe live on the reservation, along with resident federal employees of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service. The Mescalero Apache Tribe and Federal Government both oversee the fish and game management program. Following the Constitution and agreement with the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. “These efforts provide employment opportunities for members of the Tribe, and the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and related services generates income which is used to maintain the tribal government and provide services to tribal members.” I chose this quote from the lawsuit because I am fond of the tribe providing services and employment opportunities for their tribal members. Thus showing a sense of caringness while looking out for the people. Personally I believe that a lot of individuals would be willing to do anything for their people. 

"Native Alaskans Are Compensated for Their Land' published by Salem Pressed Encyclopedia

Indigenous tribes were able to receive compensation for their land from the federal government through treaties and legal claims. In the article, “Native Alaskans Are Compensated for Their Land,” published by Salem Press Encyclopedia, Native Alaskans are given compensation for willingly giving up claims to their land that was historically occupied with ANCSA. In December 1971, an act was settled into law by President Richard M. Nixon. Thus, representing the peak of a long struggle over Native land claims that was made up for the immediate need to construct a pipeline to carry oil through lands that were claimed by Native Alaskans. In 1955, a Supreme Court ruling mentioned that the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution did not protect native land rights. Due to this, fear arose that there would not be little valuable land remaining to content native claims and opposition to state land claims. Discovery of Prudhoe Bay, on the North Slope of Alaska, was one of the largest oil fields ever founded. The government proposed that a pipeline be constructed across the state to transport oil to Valdez, a city easily accessible for loading petroleum because of its position as a year-round ice-free port on Prince William Sound. The pipeline construction was supposedly feared that it would lead to other violations on their land claims. However, other interested parties expect benefits from the construction of the pipeline, which promised lower petroleum prices from the Federal Government, revenue from the state, land preservation to environmentalists, and recently denied rights to Natives, especially the title to land that they believed was theirs. “Many Native Alaskans believed that existing laws, rather than protecting them, stripped them of rights to lands that they claimed. They generally did not consider either the state or federal government to be supportive of their concerns.” I chose this quote because I feel Indigenous people today are still fighting to keep their lands. They may be fighting to maintain the cultural aspects that make Native people unique to other races and ethnicities internationally. 

Cultural Resources are not a Renewable Thing

Considering Tribal Rights when Crafting Water Rules within States

The Importance of Bamboo Ecosystems in Southwestern Brazil

First Nations Left With The Cleanup Of A Toxic Mess

USDA Invests $2.1M to Fund Plant Protection Projects