Tribal Nations Summit stresses federal responsibilities

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris showcased historic investments in Indian Country with speeches and a 96-page progress report at this week's White House Tribal Nations Summit.

As VOA reported, Biden announced a new national monument on the site of the Carlisle Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania, which served as the model for hundreds of residential schools that forced children to abandon their traditions and languages.

Another move announced at the summit is a 10-Year National Plan on Native Language Revitalization to invest $16.7 billion to protect and restore Native languages in all 50 states. Today, fewer than 200 Indigenous languages are still spoken, mainly by elders, and experts warn that if no action is taken, only 20 will remain by 2050. The plan will establish a new Office of Native Language Revitalization to coordinate efforts and manage funding.

The administration announced new guidance for federal employees on treaty and tribal consultation obligations, as well as strategies for addressing the chronic underfunding of tribal programs.

It also released further guidance on federal support for tribes facing natural disasters, public health emergencies, and climate-induced relocation challenges.

Biden honored with 'Lightning and Thunder'

At the summit, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland gifted President Biden a traditional wool blanket made by Eighth Generation, a Seattle-based company owned by the Snoqualmie Tribe.

The blanket was designed by artist and metalsmith Pat Pruitt, who, like Haaland, is a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. Pruitt named the design "Lightning and Thunder."

"I had no idea my blanket had been selected until friends sent me photos of the event," Pruitt said. "It is both humbling and meaningful to witness this recognition. As a former tribal leader, I deeply understand the significance of serving the people, as well as the hard work and sacrifices that come with it."

In many Native traditions, gifting a blanket is a gesture of respect for leadership and milestone achievements.

Texas high court to decide religious freedom case

The Texas Supreme Court was set to rule this week on whether the city of San Antonio's temporary closure of a park and plans to remove trees violate religious freedom.

For several years, the city of San Antonio has been fighting cormorants, large migratory birds that nest in the city's Breckenridge Park and cause damage to vegetation. City contractors have used chemical sprays, heavy pruning and aerial explosives to disrupt bird rookeries, but these methods failed.

Matilde Torres and Gary Perez, members of the Lipan Apache Native American Church, sued the city last summer, arguing the site is spiritually significant to their culture as it connects to their creation story. They say city plans would violate religious freedoms guaranteed by the Texas constitution.

The Lipan Apache is not a federally recognized tribe but was recognized by Texas in 2019.

The case made its way to the top court in Texas, which was expected to rule on Monday. At the time of this writing, a decision was still pending.

Read more.

Wisconsin tribe agrees to end predatory lending in Minnesota

The Wisconsin-based Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (LDF) has agreed to stop short-term, high-interest loan operations in Minnesota and to forgive over $1 million in outstanding loans. LDF had been providing short-term loans since 2012, including through a dozen online loan operations.

A ProPublica investigation this year revealed that the tribe charged interest rates as high as 800%, violating Minnesota's usury laws. The investigation says many of those loans ended up devastating borrowers across the country.

"I borrowed $1100 and agreed to pay $272 bi-weekly, with the thought that I would have that paid off in under 4 months," one borrower complained. "To my shock, I logged on to my account shortly after receiving the funds and my balance due is over $4000!"

Minnesota sued the tribe's lenders, which led to this settlement stopping that lending and canceling over $1 million in outstanding loans.

"My approach to this case and other tribal lending is to stop violations and harm while also preserving and respecting the tribes' sovereign status," stated Attorney General Ellison. "I am grateful for the defendants' cooperation in this investigation and agreement to cease further lending and collection activity in Minnesota."

Read more.

President Joe Biden has created a new national monument on the grounds of a former Indian boarding school in Pennsylvania, which served as the blueprint for hundreds of similar institutions across the United States.

“I want everyone to know,” Biden said. “I don't want people forgetting, 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now.”

Indian children from 140 tribes were taken from their families, tribes and homelands and forced to spend years at the school in the borough of Carlisle, he noted.

“It was wrong, and by making the Carlisle Indian School a national monument, we make clear that [that's] what great nations do. We don't erase history. We acknowledge it. We learn from and we remember, so we never repeat it again.”

Biden told the 2024 Tribal Nations Summit in Washington Monday that the monument will encompass 10 hectares (24.5 acres) inside what is today the Carlisle Army Barracks, including historic buildings and structures that once made up the school’s campus. These will include the brick and marble gateposts at the school’s entrance, which Carlisle students built by hand in 1910.

The U.S. Army will maintain operational control over the site, which is now home to the U.S. Army War College. The Army will collaborate with the National Park Service to oversee the planning and management of the new national monument, consulting with federally recognized tribes to ensure that the monument accurately reflects historic and contemporary impacts of the boarding school system on tribal members and communities.

“This addition to the national park system that recognizes the troubled history of U.S. and Tribal relations is among the giant steps taken in recent years to honor Tribal sovereignty and recognize the ongoing needs of Native communities, repair past damage and make progress toward healing,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams, a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Northeast Oregon.

The announcement comes just six weeks after Biden’s visit to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona. There, he gave a long-awaited apology to Native Americans for the boarding school era, calling it “one the most consequential things I've ever had an opportunity to do in my whole career as president of the United States.”

Earlier Monday, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland opened the summit with a speech focusing on the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative she launched in May 2021.

The initiative resulted in a two-volume report that documented the history of the school system, accounting for 417 known schools and confirming more than 900 child deaths.
The initiative also included The Road to Healing, in which Haaland and Assistant Interior Secretary Bryan Newland traveled to 12 Native communities, giving survivors and their descendants an opportunity to share their boarding school experiences.

“So many of you spoke bravely and forthright[ly] … about the horrors you endured or the trauma that was passed down over generations. Those stories must continue to be told,” Haaland told the summit leaders.

As part of the initiative, the Interior Department engaged the National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition to conduct video interviews with boarding school survivors to create a permanent oral history collection.

Haaland announced that the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will partner to preserve their accounts for the public.

President Joe Biden on Monday presided over his final White House Tribal Nations Summit by reaching into the nation’s dark past and establishing a new national monument to honor the suffering of thousands of Native children and their families in federal boarding schools in the last century.

His proclamation starts a three-year clock to design a monument to be placed at the flagship Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened in 1879, with the stated mission to “kill the Indian” to “save the Man.” Schools like this removed children from their families and forced them to speak English, wear non-native clothing and eschew tribal customs.

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Earlier this year, Biden described the treatment of thousands of Native children at government boarding schools as “a blot” on the nation’s history.

"The federal government mandated — mandated — removal of children from their families and tribes, launching what's called the federal Indian boarding school era, over a 150-year span, 150 years from the early 1800s to 1970 — one of the most horrific chapters in American history,” he said earlier this year. “We should be ashamed.”

The most recent U.S. Census found that the population of those who consider themselves wholly or partly Native is upward of nearly 9 million. The U.S. Department of the Interior says it serves 1.9 million American Indian and Alaska Natives, many in sovereign lands.

That’s a shadow of the population that historians say thrived on the continent before European colonization. Native Americans were only granted universal U.S. citizenship in 1924 with the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act.

Activists like Elveda Martinez of the Walker River Paiute Tribe say it’s remarkable how recent this history of dispossession and discrimination is.

"It's within our generation that Natives finally all had the right to vote,” she said. “So, that's still a big thing now. We always tell people, you know, it was our parents and people in that generation that fought for the right to vote."

As a group, Native residents have the highest poverty rate in the country, and their youth lag behind other demographics in education, according to a study by a bipartisan research group.

On Monday, Biden detailed his administration’s efforts to improve the livelihoods of descendants of the nation’s pre-colonial populations and to give communities more say, such as designating conservation areas. But he stressed that honoring the past is the way forward.“By making the Carlisle Indian School a national monument, we make clear what great nations do,” he said. “We don’t erase history. We acknowledge it and learn from it, so we never repeat it again.”

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, praised Biden’s work.

“President Biden has been the best president for Indian Country in my lifetime,” she said. “This is a president and an administration that truly sees Indigenous people and has worked tirelessly to address the issues in Indian Country that have long been underfunded or outright ignored.”

As a sign of her esteem, Haaland, who is a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, draped Biden in a personalized parting gift: a black-and-white version of a blanket designed by Pueblo artist Pat Pruitt, who says the motif, which depicts thunder and lightning in the desert, is meant to evoke “the feeling of that calm before the storm that is filled with electricity and sound.”

But as one tribe made clear Monday, America’s Native people are not a monolith.

The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians lashed out at the Biden administration for what the group says is a “lack of tribal consultation” over a wave of proposed off-reservation casinos, including a recent approval for Oregon’s first off-reservation casino.

“It is performative to celebrate an administration’s contributions to Indian Country when the actions tell a very different story,” Cow Creek Umpqua Tribal Chairman Carla Keene said in a statement sent to VOA on Monday. “We have been dismissed and ignored about policy that will devastate our social, cultural, and economic livelihood. There is time to do the right thing and put a stop to the pending decisions that will irreversibly harm Tribes across the Pacific Northwest and West Coast, which is a backwards step in American history, not forward.”

The principal chief of the large and powerful Cherokee nation — which includes about 450,000 people — issued a careful, diplomatic statement Monday advocating for the summit to continue under the next administration.

“I’m looking forward to attending the White House Tribal Nation’s summit this week,” Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. posted on Facebook. “Other than when the summit was not held (2017-2020), I’ve been attending since 2013. I hope it is a productive engagement and I hope it continues on in future years.”

President-elect Donald Trump indicated that he views Native issues as intertwined with energy generation, by naming North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as Interior secretary, while also serving as “White House energy czar.”

"We're going to do things with energy and with land interior that is going to be incredible,” he said, but did not elaborate.

As president, Trump angered Indigenous activists by lifting a ban on the Keystone XL pipeline that cuts through sovereign native lands on its path south from Canada to Texas.

Biden revoked Trump’s permit for the oil pipeline on the first day of his term.

After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track this year for much better attendance. The importance of showing up has been stressed repeatedly at school — and at home.

When he went to school last year, he often came home saying the teacher was picking on him and other kids were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy's grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and to behave in class.

He needs to go to school for the sake of his future, she told him.

"I didn't have everything," said Betom, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Tommy attends school on the tribe's reservation in southeastern Arizona. "You have everything. You have running water in the house, bathrooms and a running car."

A teacher and a truancy officer also reached out to Tommy's family to address his attendance. He was one of many. Across the San Carlos Unified School District, 76% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year.

Years after COVID-19 disrupted American schools, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance. But attendance has been worse for Native American students — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has since grown, according to data collected by The Associated Press.

Out of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had absenteeism rates for Native American and Alaska Native students that were at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average.

Many schools serving Native students have been working to strengthen connections with families, who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty. Schools also must navigate distrust dating back to the U.S. government's campaign to break up Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children into abusive boarding schools.

History "may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time," said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University's Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

On-site health, trauma care

The San Carlos school system recently introduced care centers that partner with hospitals, dentists and food banks to provide services to students at multiple schools. The work is guided by cultural success coaches — school employees who help families address challenges that keep students from coming to school.

Nearly 100% of students in the district are Native and more than half of families have incomes below the federal poverty level. Many students come from homes that deal with alcoholism and drug abuse, Superintendent Deborah Dennison said.

Students miss school for reasons ranging from anxiety to unstable living conditions, said Jason Jones, a cultural success coach at San Carlos High School and an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Acknowledging their fears, grief and trauma helps him connect with students, he said.

"You feel better, you do better," Jones said. "That's our job here in the care center is to help the students feel better."

In the 2023-2024 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate in the district fell from 76% to 59% — an improvement Dennison attributes partly to efforts to address their communities' needs.

"All these connections with the community and the tribe are what's making a difference for us and making the school a system that fits them rather than something that has been forced upon them, like it has been for over a century of education in Indian Country," said Dennison, a member of the Navajo Nation.

In three states — Alaska, Nebraska and South Dakota — the majority of Native American and Alaska Native students were chronically absent. In some states, it has continued to worsen, even while improving slightly for other students, as in Arizona, where chronic absenteeism for Native students rose from 22% in 2018-2019 to 45% in 2022-2023.

AP's analysis does not include data on schools managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, which are not run by traditional districts. Less than 10% of Native American students attend BIE schools.

Schools close on days of Native ceremonial gatherings

At Algodones Elementary School, which serves a handful of Native American pueblos along New Mexico's Upper Rio Grande, about two-thirds of students are chronically absent.

The communities were hit hard by COVID-19, with devastating impacts on elders. Since schools reopened, students have been slow to return. Excused absences for sick days are still piling up — in some cases, Principal Rosangela Montoya suspects, students are stressed about falling behind academically.

Staff and tribal liaisons have been analyzing every absence and emphasizing connections with parents. By 10 a.m., telephone calls go out to the homes of absent students. Next steps include in-person meetings with those students' parents.

"There's illness. There's trauma," Montoya said. "A lot of our grandparents are the ones raising the children so that the parents can be working."

About 95% of Algodones' students are Native American, and the school strives to affirm their identity. It doesn't open on four days set aside for Native American ceremonial gatherings, and students are excused for absences on other cultural days as designated by the nearby pueblos.

For Jennifer Tenorio, it makes a difference that the school offers classes in the family's native language of Keres. She speaks Keres at home but says that's not always enough to instill fluency.

Tenorio said her two oldest children, now in their 20s, were discouraged from speaking Keres when enrolled in the federal Head Start educational program — a system that now promotes native language preservation — and they struggled academically.

"It was sad to see with my own eyes," said Tenorio, a single parent and administrative assistant who has used the school's food bank. "In Algodones, I saw a big difference to where the teachers were really there for the students, and for all the kids, to help them learn."

Over a lunch of strawberry milk and enchiladas on a recent school day, her 8-year-old son Cameron Tenorio said he likes math and wants to be a policeman.

"He's inspired," Tenorio said. "He tells me every day what he learns."

Home visits

In Arizona, Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro said better communication with families, including Tommy Betom's, has helped improve attendance. Since many parents are without working phones, he said, that often means home visits.

Lillian Curtis said she has been impressed by Rice Intermediate's student activities on family night. Her granddaughter, Brylee Lupe, 10, missed 10 days of school by mid-October last year but had missed just two days by the same time this year.

"The kids always want to go — they are anxious to go to school now. And Brylee is much more excited," said Curtis, who takes care of her grandchildren.

Curtis said she tells Brylee that skipping school is not an option.

The district has made gains because it is changing the perception of school and what it can offer, said Dennison, the superintendent. Its efforts have helped not just with attendance but also morale, especially at the high school, she said.

"Education was a weapon for the U.S. government back in the past," she said. "We work to decolonize our school system."

This story is part of a collaboration on chronic absenteeism among Native American students between The Associated Press and ICT, a news outlet that covers Indigenous issues.