Here are some Native American-related news stories and features making headlines this week:
HHS to fund development of tribal produce prescription programs
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has granted $2.2 million to five tribes to support the development of produce prescription programs.
Broadly, these programs provide free or discounted fruit, vegetables and other nutritious foods for patients living with food insecurity or diagnosed with certain health conditions. Healthcare providers write prescriptions that patients can take to be filled in retail food stores.
Awards of $500,000 each will go to the Laguna Healthcare Corporation, which serves the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico; the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma; the Navajo Health Foundation; the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in Arizona; and the Rocky Boy Health Center, which serves Chippewa Cree on the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana.
About one in four Native Americans experience food insecurity, compared to one in nine Americans overall, and they also experience high rates of diabetes and obesity.
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Oklahoma governor sues state lawmakers in over tribal compacts
Last week, VOA reported that Oklahoma’s majority-Republican Senate overrode Governor Kevin Stitt’s vetoes of two bills that would extend compacts between the state and tribes that split proceeds from tobacco and vehicle registrations.
Stitt’s lawyers on Monday filed a lawsuit against Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall and Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, arguing that only the governor has the authority to negotiate tribal contacts.
Oklahoma speaker McCall called the lawsuit “frivolous.”
For his part, Treat accused the governor of turning his back on “all four million Oklahomans, the legislative process and Oklahoma’s tribal partners.”
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk skirts state laws by operating on tribal land
Electric car manufacturer Tesla will soon open a showroom on the Mohegan Reservation in Connecticut, expanding its presence on tribal lands.
Tesla is so far the only carmaker that sells directly to buyers. All other auto manufacturers sell through independently owned dealerships. Many U.S. states have franchise laws that ban car makers from selling directly to customers without going through independent dealerships. Other states limit the number of stores Tesla can open.
CEO Elon Musk gets around these laws by negotiating with tribes to place showrooms on tribal land, where these laws do not apply.
In September 2021, Tesla opened its first showroom in a former casino on the Nambé Pueblo near Sante Fe, New Mexico, and a second on the Santa Ana Pueblo, near Albuquerque. Another Tesla showroom is planned to open in 2025 on the Oneida Reservation in New York.
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Tribes seek to find, protect bats in Pacific Northwest
The Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service and Oregon State University are hosting the first-ever Pacific Northcoast Bat Workshop on the Yakama Nation in Washington state.
The two-day workshop will address threats to bats on tribal lands, particularly White Nose Syndrome (WNS), a fungal infection that has killed more than 6 million bats in eastern North America since 2006 — decimating whole colonies. It showed up in the Pacific Northwest in 2016.
Bats are often misunderstood and feared but play a vital role in U.S. agriculture. By eating so many insects and rodents, they save U.S. farmers more than $3 billion in crop damage and pesticide costs each year.
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Federal courts highlight career of Hopi federal judge
As part of its video series “Pathways to the Bench,” U.S. Federal Courts this week focused on Diane Humetewa, a member of the Hopi Tribe in northwest Arizona, who in 2014 became the first Native American woman to serve as a U.S. federal judge.
Born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, she and her family kept close ties to Kykotsmovi Village, on the Hopi Reservation’s Third Mesa. In this video, she discusses challenges she faced along the way to federal judgeship—and her reluctance to share her cultural identity with non-Natives.
New Mexico honors two prominent Native American artists
Two Native Americans have been named among the winners of the 2023 New Mexico Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts. They are: experimental composer, performer and installation artist Raven Chacon, Navajo, who in 2022 became the first Native American awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for his 2021 composition “Voiceless Mass,” which debuted in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, church (see video below).
Also named is haute couture fashion designer Patricia Michaels, a member of the Water Clan of the Taos Pueblo. A former runner-up on the American fashion competition TV show “Project Runway,” Michaels has designed and created costumes for opera and theater productions, custom resort uniforms and red-carpet gowns. In 2014, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian board of directors in New York honored her as the first recipient of its Arts and Design Award.
New Mexico’s Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts was established in 1974 to celebrate the significance of the arts to the State of New Mexico.
See the full list of this year’s winners here:
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