Indigenous History and Rights & Tribal Sovereignty

In the United States the use of unregulated water sources – defined as sources that do not meet criteria to be classified as a public water system as defined by the Safe Drinking Water Act - are used regularly for livestock watering, agriculture, domestic, and other purposes. Nationally, more than 45 million people rely on unregulated water sources for drinking water; however, there remains infrastructure disparities for drinking water access in communities on Tribal nations. For the Navajo Nation, a sovereign Indigenous nation in the Southwestern United States, between 7% and 30% of homes lack plumbing to deliver household drinking water, so residents are compelled to access other water sources – regulated and unregulated alike. Previous unregulated water quality studies on the Navajo Nation were regionally focused and unsuitable for evaluating water quality trends across the Navajo Nation, an area that encompasses more than 71,000 square kilometers in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Therefore, beginning in 2011 the Community Environmental Health Program at the University of New Mexico began to compile existing water quality datasets, principally for unregulated groundwater sources, in a single geospatial relational database. Researchers at the University of New Mexico Center for Native Environmental Health Equity Research of the New Mexico METALS Superfund Research Program, University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, and the Southwest Research and Information Center have compiled a database of water quality measurements from groundwater wells on the Navajo Nation using data from the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency, and data from researchers at the University of New Mexico, Diné College and Northern Arizona University. To date, this data compilation has been used for publications but has not been disseminated publicly. The purpose of this website is to facilitate access to these compiled water quality data. The application design enables users to view water quality information using statistical and geospatial tools. Our hope is that this information will support individual and community decisions about water use from unregulated sources.

This is the second in a series of posts introducing readers to various organizations, conferences, and/or listservs, relevant to the FCIL-SIS Interest Groups. The series seeks to increase awareness…

How a single pipeline project became the epicenter of an enormous environmental, public health, and civil rights battle.

By Summer Blaze Aubrey, Esq. LL.M. (Cherokee/Blackfeet) & Patricia Handlin, Esq. Enbridge, Inc. is a Canadian company that moves oil from the Western Canadian oil tar sands through a pipeline from Alberta, Canada across Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin on the shores of … Continue reading →

A Nevada federal judge on Friday rejected a legal effort by the Winnemucca Indian Colony to join a lawsuit attempting to stop a lithium mining project at Thacker Pass, a religiously and culturally significant area considered sacred to the tribe. Also last week, Department of Interior attorneys urged the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals […]

Staving off attempts by Republican officials to talk about Russia, tribal leaders spent the morning in D.C. highlighting the benefits of co-management plans and tribal sovereignty.

On June 22, 2021, you issued a memorandum directing Department of the Interior (Department) agencies to coordinate an investigation into the Federal Indian boarding school system to examine the scope of the system, with a focus on the location of schools, burial sites, and identification of children who attended the schools. You also directed that I submit a report of our investigation by April 1, 2022. In accordance with your direction, I am submitting to you the first Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report. This report shows for the first time that between 1819 and 1969, the United States operated or supported 408 boarding schools across 37 states (or then-territories), including 21 schools in Alaska and 7 schools in Hawaii. This report identifies each of those schools by name and location, some of which operated across multiple sites. This report confirms that the United States directly targeted American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children in the pursuit of a policy of cultural assimilation that coincided with Indian territorial dispossession. It identifies the Federal Indian boarding schools that were used as a means for these ends, along with at least 53 burial sites for children across this system- with more site discoveries and data expected as we continue our research...

Indigenous women migrants from Central America and Mexico face harrowing experiences of violence before, during, and after their migration to the United States, like all asylum seekers. But as Shannon Speed argues, the circumstances for Indigenous women are especially devastating, given their disproportionate vulnerability to neoliberal economic and political policies and practices in Latin America and the United States, including policing, detention, and human trafficking. Speed dubs this vulnerability "neoliberal multicriminalism" and identifies its relation to settler structures of Indigenous dispossession and elimination. Using innovative ethnographic practices to record and recount stories from Indigenous women in U.S. detention, Speed demonstrates that these women's vulnerability to individual and state violence is not rooted in a failure to exercise agency. Rather, it is a structural condition, created and reinforced by settler colonialism, which consistently deploys racial and gender ideologies to manage the ongoing business of occupation and capitalist exploitation. With sensitive narration and sophisticated analysis, this book reveals the human consequences of state policy and practices throughout the Americas and adds vital new context for understanding the circumstances of migrants seeking asylum in the United States. -- Provided by publisher.;"Incarcerated stories uses ethnography and oral history to document and assess the plight of indigenous women migrants from Mexico and Central America to the United States. Their harrowing experiences of violence before, during, and after their migration parallel the worst stories we hear about immigrants' journeys; but as Speed argues, the circumstances for indigenous women are especially devastating against the backdrop of neoliberal economic and political reforms that have taken hold in Latin America as well as the U.S. First these women were promised greater autonomy and economic opportunity under reforms meant to promote indigenous rights at home, but the attention given to indigenous recognition veiled policies that furthered the economic disruption for women"--

Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than one per cent of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized 'debate' which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice. In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond. The Transgender Issue is a landmark work that signals the beginning of a new, healthier conversation about trans life. It is a manifesto for change, and a call for justice and solidarity between all marginalized people and minorities. Trans liberation, as Faye sees it, goes to the root of what our society is and what it could be; it offers the possibility of a more just, free and joyful world for all of us.

Geo Neptune explores the history of the term "Two-Spirit" and who it pertains to. Does it mean two genders? Can anyone use it to describe themselves? InQueery is the series that takes a deeper look at the meaning, context, and history of LGBTQ+ vocabulary and culture. Powered by Google. What Does "Two-Spirit" Mean? | InQueery | them.

Author and Indigenous elder Ma-Nee Chacaby talks about Two Spirit identities.

The term Two-Spirit is a direct translation of the Ojibwe term, Niizh manidoowag.“Two-Spirited” or “Two-Spirit” is usually used to indicate a person whose body simultaneously houses a masculine spirit and a feminine spirit. The term can also be used more abstractly, to indicate the presence of two contrasting human spirits (such as Warrior and Clan Mother).

Two Spirit people have been present in Native communities for countless generations that predate LGBTQ terminology. Here are 8 things to know.

The Indian Health Service (IHS), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for providing federal health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives. The provision of health services to members of federally-recognized Tribes grew out of the special government-to-government relationship between the federal government and Indian Tribes. The IHS is the principal federal health care provider and health advocate for Indian people, and provides a comprehensive health service delivery system for American Indians and Alaska Natives. The IHS Mission is to raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the highest level.

The 19th Amendment didn’t secure the right to vote for Native American women, despite their strong influence on suffragist ideas.

Being a native Tucsonan and a graduate student in the Human Rights Practice program at UArizona, I am very familiar with evolving issues relating to the border between Arizona and Mexico. With the 2016 election of President Trump, not only have I been following local, state, and federal laws and related news pertaining to topics of immigration and human rights as they relate to our border, I have also been following how these laws and the border wall has been negatively impacting the Tohono O’odham Nation. A topic I was less familiar with is the historical and ongoing border issues regularly taking place in bordertowns and such as those lining reservations bordering “urban” cities in New Mexico and Arizona.

The Law Library invites you to view and interact with our latest exhibition, “20 Years of Indigenous Advocacy: Indigenous Law Since Time Immemorial.” Available physically and digitally, this exhibit is curated by me and Law Library Fellows, Jen Bedier and Francesco Fasano, with guidance from various members of our Law Library Team. Our work aims to spotlight the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program (IPLP) here at the James E. Rogers College of Law, the creation of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples mandate, and the scholarly contribution of IPLP alumnus (2014) and current SJD student Joseph K. Austin.

Osiyo! (That’s hello in Cherokee). November is National Native American Heritage Month, an official celebration to honor the ancestry, traditions and contributions of Indigenous peoples throughout history. Through the Library of Congress, you can learn more about the origin and purpose of this celebration. While it is important to have a formalized occasion for this celebration, every month should be a time to recognize the importance of Indigenous peoples to the United States. Indigenous peoples have lived in North America for approximately 15,000-25,000 years. Tucson is part of the traditional and current homelands of the Tohono O’odham and the Pasqua Yaqui, as the University of Arizona College of Law recognizes in its Land Acknowledgement.

This Women’s History Month, people rightfully are reflecting on the suffrage movement which helped grant many women the right to vote in 1920. What is too often overlooked, however, is Native American women’s vital role in this movement. Despite that they were an inspiration for the larger suffrage movement, Native American women were shut out by many other suffragists and endured lingering prohibitions on voting long after white women obtained access to that fundamental right.

This is the fourth post in a series about student organizations at the College of Law to help students find out what is going on at the school and get involved. Each blog post features an interview with the leadership of a student group. Vice President Callie Phillips agreed to answer some questions about NALSA. Thank you, Callie, for taking a break from your studies to answer a few questions!

The Law Library invites you to view and interact with our latest exhibition featuring the scholarship of two current students in the J.D. and the Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy (IPLP) program, Leo Killsback and Cheryl Redhorse Bennett.

Winston & Strawn strongly supports the effort to secure equal rights for women through ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution.

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For years, tribal citizens and grass roots organizations sought to bring attention to the issues surrounding missing or murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives. In tribal consultations and listening sessions, tribal leaders, advocates, law enforcement, community members, and others raised concerns about the disappearance or murder of American Indian and Alaska Native people across the United States. Tribes began taking concerted action to address these issues in their communities.

The Sobaípuri-O'odham occupied the San Pedro and Santa Cruz valleys of southern Arizona from the 1400s. Their descendants reside at the contemporary community if Wa:k (San Xavier del Bac). Most of the protohistory and history concerning the Sobaípuri-O'odham has been gleaned from documents written by the early Spanish colonizers and other Europeans and emphasizes the influence of Father Eusebio Kino; there are few accounts of the indigenous people themselves. In recent years, however, archaeological surveys and excavations in southern Arizona have revealed new information about this group. Where the Earth and Sky Are Sewn Together includes these archaeological findings to provide an enhanced interpretation of the Sobaípuri-O'odham lifeway, addressing questions that have been unanswerable by historical documents alone. Seymour considers new methods and theory for tackling the difficulties of working with a sparse archaeological record and proposes some very different answers. This book represents a much revised rendition of the historian's Sobaípuri-O'odham, a people who once dominated southern Arizona's landscape.

Indigenous cultures are not terra nullius -- nobody's land, free to be taken. True Tracks paves the way for the respectful and ethical engagement with Indigenous knowledges and cultures. Using real-world cases and personal stories, Meriam/Wuthathi lawyer Dr Terri Janke draws on twenty years of professional experience to inform and inspire people working across many industries -- from art and architecture, to film and publishing, dance, science and tourism. What Indigenous materials and knowledge are you using? How will your project affect and involve Indigenous communities? Are your sharing your profits with those communities? True Tracks helps answer these questions and many more, and provides invaluable guidelines that enable Indigenous peoples to actively practise, manage and strengthen their cultural life. If we keep our tracks true, Indigenous culture and knowledge can benefit everyone and empower future generations.

From one of our finest writers and leading environmental thinkers, a powerful book about how the land we share divides us--and how it could unite us Today, we are at a turning point as we face ecological and political crises that are rooted in conflicts over the land itself. But these problems can be solved if we draw on elements of our tradition that move us toward a new commonwealth--a community founded on the well-being of all people and the natural world. In this brief, powerful, timely, and hopeful book, Jedediah Purdy explores how we might begin to heal our fractured and contentious relationship with the land and with each other.

One of the most outspoken of current Native American activists, Churchill ( Fantasies of the Master Race ) here produces a fine volume of essays devoted to Native peoples' efforts to recover their lost lands and to protect what they have left. Threats to their territories take many forms, including expropriation, flooding for production of hydroelectric power and what Churchill terms ``radioactive colonization,'' whereby Native lands and waters are destroyed through uranium mining. Native resistance varies as well, ranging from legal suits and savvy marshaling of international public opinion to defense by force of arms. Deftly dealing with the situation in both the United States and Canada, Churchill debunks important myths (e.g., that there is a single ethnicity that can encompass all of North America's indigenous peoples). In the final essay, he expounds his version of ``indigenism,'' which he defines as giving the highest political priority to indigenous rights--whether in America, Australia or elsewhere. This is an important contribution to a growing body of work stressing Native sovereignty and self-determination. (Jan.)