Episode #1: African-Native American Lives in Massachusetts
Join your host J Kēhaulani Kauanui for an episode that features Ramona Peters (also known as Nosapocket) and Rae Gould speaking about their historical and contemporary community relationships with African American communities, and contemporary Native identity in New England. Peters and Gould each gave at an event held at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in conjunction with a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution called “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas.” Rae Gould, Ph.D. is a member of the Nipmuc Nation. She has worked for her tribe as tribal historic preservation officer, NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) representative and in the service of their federal acknowledgement efforts. She currently holds the position of repatriation coordinator at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and teaches Anthropology courses in their Native Studies program. Ramona Peters is from the family of the Bear Clan—she’s a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and lives in Mashpee on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Peters is currently the NAGPRA Director for her tribe. She is a Board member of the NGO Cultural Survival, an international organization devoted to the promotion and protection of indigenous people’s human rights.
Original air-date: 1-3-12.
Episode #2: Crown and First Nations Summit in Canada & Crimes of Genocide in Guatemala
Join your host, J Kēhaulani Kauanui, two-part show focused on recent political developments. The first part will feature interviews conducted by Kauanui with Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair and Pamela Palmater who will give a critical overview of the recent Crown and First Nations Summit held on January 24, 2012 in Ottawa, Ontario Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Chiefs of the First Nations participated in the gathering, which had as its theme, “Strengthening Our Relationship – Unlocking Our Potential.” Hear their analysis of the meeting for a better understanding of the political conditions facing indigenous peoples in relation to Canadian government. Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair is an Assistant Professor of Native Studies and English at the University of Manitoba. He is Anishinaabe from the St. Peter’s (Little Peguis) Indian Settlement in Manitoba, Canada. Pamela Palmater is a Mi’kmaq lawyer and member of the Eel River Bar First Nation in northern New Brunswick. She holds the position of Associate Professor and Chair in Indigenous Governance in the Department of Politics and Public Administration and heads the Centre for Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University. Part two of the program focuses on another recent political development—a court order in Guatemala on January 26, 2012 that ordered former military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt to stand trial on charges of the crime of genocide for his role in the 36-year war targeting indigenous villages, where the military carried out a scorched-earth campaign in the Mayan highlands as soldiers hunted down bands of leftist guerrillas. Kauanui interviews Alicia Ivonne Estrada and Paco de Onís to ask about the history and the court case, as well as the newly released film, Granito: How to Nail a Dictator. Alicia Ivonne Estrada is an assistant professor in the Chicana/o Studies Department at California State University at Northridge. Her research focuses on Maya cultural productions in Guatemala and the United States, and she works with the Maya radio program Contacto Ancestral on KPFK. Paco de Onís, is the film producer of Granito: How to Nail a Dictator. He has produced numerous documentaries and his most recent production is a film and educational media project about the International Criminal Court titled “The Reckoning.”
Original air-date: 1-31-12.
Episode #3: Aboriginal Self-Determination in Australia and Palestinian-American Journalist Ali Abunimah
Join your host, J Kēhaulani Kauanui, for a two-part show. The first segment will feature Indigenous Australian leader Michael Anderson (Nyoongar Ghurradjong Murri Ghillar) as a guest for an interview about the recent debacle during Australia Day (also known as Invasion Day) on January 26, 2012, when demonstrators confronted Prime Minister Julia Giillard and opposition party leader Tony Abbott in relation to the Aboriginal “Tent Embassy”, which he co-established in 1972 that sits on the lawn directly facing Parliament. He will discuss the unresolved sovereignty claim of indigenous Australians. The second part of the show includes a segment of a recent keynote delivered by Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah at the University of Pennsylvania 2012 National Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Conference held February 4. The event touched on every aspect of the multifarious global effort to heed the BDS Call and bring an end to Israel’s oppression, segregation and dispossession of Palestinians. Abunimah is the founder of Electronic Intifada is an independent online news publication and educational resource focusing on Palestine, its people, politics, culture and place in the world.
Original air-date: 2-7-12.
Episode #4: Mohawk Poet Laureate of Victoria and Alaska Native and Inuit Education
Join your host, J Kēhaulani Kauanui for a new episode featuring an interview with Mohawk poet Janet Marie Rogers who was recently named the third poet laureate of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She’ll discuss the award and her two most recent poetry collections Unearthed, and Red Erotic. She is from the Six Nations territory in southern Ontario. She began her creative career as a visual artist, and started writing in 1996. She is the author of several other solo-authored poetry collections and spoken word poetry CDs including: Splitting the Heart, Dancing Together, Red, Catching Smoke, and Story:Time. Rogers also hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV radio and Tribal Clefs on CBC Radio One. Her radio documentary, Bring Your Drum (50 Years of Indigenous Protest Music) won the best radio award at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Festival last year. Later in the show, the program will feature a presentation by Iñupiaq scholar Tim Aqukkasuk Argetsinger from a Native sovereignty panel held at the recent Rebellious Lawyering conference at Yale Law School on February 17, 2012. He is from Anchorage, AK studying education policy at Harvard Graduate School of Education. Prior to graduate school, Tim spent several years in various advocacy roles working on Alaska Native and Inuit education and language revitalization issues in Alaska and Nunavut, Canada.
Original air-date: 2-21-12.
Episode #5: Sovereignty & Survival: Indigenous Perspectives on Federal Law & Policy
Tune-in for an episode featuring two presentations by David Cornsilk and J Kēhaulani Kauanui made at a panel, “Sovereignty & Survival: Indigenous Perspectives on Federal Law & Policy,” from the recent 18th annual Rebellious Lawyering conference at Yale Law School. RebLaw Conference is an annual, student-run conference that brings together practitioners, law students, and community advocates from around the country to discuss innovative, progressive approaches to law and social change. Cornsilk is a registered member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and enrolled citizen of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. He was the managing editor/co-founder of the independent newspaper The Cherokee Observer, and one of the founders of the Cherokee National Party. His lifelong activism has included working to expose the problem of Indian art fraud in eastern Oklahoma; co-founding the WhitePath Foundation, the first organization to publish information on HIV/AIDS in the Cherokee language; supporting equal marriage rights for gay, lesbian, and Two Spirit Cherokee citizens; and passionate advocacy for Cherokee Freedmen citizenship including a successful suit on their behalf in the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court.
Original air-date: 3-6-12.
Episode #6: Fighting Burial Desecration in Hawai‘i
Join your host J Kēhaulani Kauanui for a two-part episode focused on desecration in Hawai‘i and the criminalization of Kanaka Maoli resistance to it. Part one features an interview with Ka‘iulani Mahuka who has been fighting burial desecration on multiple fronts on the island of Kaua‘i including the infamous case at Naue. More recently, in April 2011, she was arrested while trying to prevent burial desecration at Kaumuali‘i Park, where the state was constructing a septic leach field for the restrooms that serve the throngs of commercial kayak tours on the Wailua River. In February, 2012, a jury found her guilty and convicted her of obstructing a government operation. Part two includes interviews with five participants at the recent protest at Kawaiaha‘o Church in Honolulu, on the island of O‘ahu. Backed by state officials, the church is involved in the continuous unearthing of a Hawaiian burial site and the removal of ‘iwi kupuna (human remains) to build a multi-purpose room. The case, previously covered on the show, has been unfolding over the last two years, with a still-active dig. The number of sets of ‘iwi kupuna is now at 500, and still counting. Hear from those who went to protest this travesty, including: archaeologist Tom Dye; Kamuela Kala‘i, a lineal descendant who has been key person fighting the case since the beginning; two students from the University of Hawai‘i who are part of a new group called Makawalu, Z ‘Aki and Kaimana Namihira; and ‘Iokepa Salazar, another lineal descendant with ties to those buried there. All interviews were conducted in person by Kauanui during a recent trip to both islands.
Original air-date: 4-3-12.
Episode #7: Canada and Israel Part I: Allies in apartheid, allies in colonialism
Join your host J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, for an episode featuring two presentations from an event, “Canada and Israel: Allies in apartheid, allies in colonialism,” held in Vancouver, which asked: How does the Canadian government’s support for Israel relate to Canada’s own historical and ongoing colonization of indigenous people here? What are the implications for supporters of the Palestinian struggle in carrying out solidarity work from within a ‘fellow’ settler society? Hear Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene First Nation) and Mike Krebs (Blackfoot descent). Glen Coulthard is an assistant professor in the First Nations Studies Program and the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Mike Krebs is a indigenous activist and member of the Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign in Vancouver.
Original air-date 4-17-12.
Episode #8: Canada and Israel Part II & Discussion of US Supreme Court’s hearing on Arizona SB 1070
Tune-in to “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond,” with your host J. Kēhaulani Kauanui for an episode featuring a public presentation and an interview. The first part features A talk by دانة علوان (Dana Olwan) made at an event, “Canada and Israel: Allies in apartheid, allies in colonialism,” recently held in Vancouver, which asked: How does the Canadian government’s support for Israel relate to Canada’s own historical and ongoing colonization of indigenous people here? What are the implications for supporters of the Palestinian struggle in carrying out solidarity work from within a ‘fellow’ settler society? In part two of the show, we hear from Tupac Enrique Acosta of Tonatierra, “A Cultural Embassy of the Indigenous Peoples supporting local-global holistic indigenous community development initiatives in accord with the principle of Community Ecology and Self Determination.” He discusses the doctrine of discovery in light of the US Supreme Court’s hearing last week on Arizona SB 1070.
Original air-date: 5-1-12.
Episode #9: Cultural Politics of Native American Theater and Cultural Resilience at Mohegan Tribe
Tune-in to “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond,” with your host, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, for a two part episode. First, you’ll hear an interview with William S. YellowRobe, Jr., a playwright and poet who hails from the Assiniboine Tribe of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian reservation. He will discuss his new projects and the cultural politics of authenticity in Native American theater. He is a currently in residence at the University of Maine, Orono, where he is Libra Diversity Professor in the English Department. His publications include the anthology, Where the Pavement Ends: New Native Drama, a collection of his one-act plays, and Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers and Other Untold Stores, an anthology of his full-length plays. He is a recipient of a Native American Achiever’s Award from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, a New England Excellence Award in Theater, among other awards. In part II, listeners will hear an interview from a recent a visit to the Mohegan Tribe’s reservation in Connecticut. There, Kauanui spoke with Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel, Medicine Woman and Tribal Historian, and Stephanie Morning Fire Mugford Fielding, Vice Chairwoman and Justice of the Council of Elders. Zobel is the author of several books, including: The Lasting of the Mohegans; Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon; Makiawisug: The Gift of the Little People (co-authored with Joseph Bruchac); Oracles: A Novel; and Fire Hollow. Fielding is very involved in the resurrection and instruction of the Mohegan language. Together, they sat down to discuss cultural revitalization at Mohegan in light of the fact that the tribe is hosting the next annual meeting of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, June 3-6, 2012.
Original air-date: 5-29-12.