WASHINGTON – It was a historic day as tribal leaders representing a majority of the 564 federally recognized tribes in the United States converged on Washington, D.C. for the White House Tribal Nations Conference with President Barack Obama Nov. 5 as part of his outreach efforts to the first American people.
A Navajo delegation attended the meeting, a meeting that marked the largest and most attended gathering of tribal leaders in the history of the United States.
The Honorable Speaker Lawrence T. Morgan led a Navajo delegation that included Council Delegates Hope MacDonald LoneTree, Coalmine Canyon/Toh Nanees Dizi; and Lawrence R. Platero, Tohajilee. Navajo Vice President Ben Shelly was also in attendance.
The conference provided tribal leaders the opportunity to directly interact and voice their concerns with President Obama and high ranking representatives in his administration.
Morgan was thankful for the opportunity to be invited to the meeting.
“It is an honor to unite here with President Obama for this gathering to discuss pressing issues Indian country is facing today. This is truly a history-making event, I am glad to be part of it and I am humbled to be here representing the great Navajo Nation.” http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/70621082.htmlWASHINGTON – It was a historic day as tribal leaders representing a majority of the... more
By ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press Writer Ula Ilnytzky, Associated Press Writer – Tue Nov 10, 4:08 pm ET
NEW YORK – The famed Navajo Code Talkers, the elite Marine unit whose unbreakable code stymied the Japanese in World War II, fear their legacy will die with them.
Only about 50 of the 400 Code Talkers are believed to be still alive, most living in the Navajo Nation reservation that spans Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Many are frail or ill, with little time left to tell the world about their wartime contribution.
But on Tuesday, 13 of the Code Talkers, some using canes, a few in wheelchairs, arrived in New York City to participate for the first time in the nation's largest Veterans Day parade, set for Wednesday.
The young Navajo Marines, using secret Navajo language-encrypted military terms, helped the U.S. prevail at Iwo Jima and other World War II Pacific battles, serving in every Marine assault in the South Pacific between 1942 and 1945. Military commanders said the code, transmitted verbally by radio, helped save countless American lives and bring a speedier end to the war in the Pacific theater.
They were sworn to secrecy about their code, so complex that even other Navajo Marines couldn't decipher it. Used to transmit secret tactical messages via radio or telephone, the code remained unbroken and classified for decades because of its potential postwar use.
"We were never told that our code was never decoded" or given identities of the original 29 Navajos who created it, said Keith Little, 85, who joined the Marines at 17 and remembers crouching in a bomb crater amid heavy fire on Iwo Jima.
"It was all covered by secrecy. We were constantly told not to talk about it," Little said. The Code Talkers felt compelled to honor their secrecy orders, even after the code was declassified in 1968.
The oldest of the 13 living Code Talkers is 92, and the group includes one of the original 29. Many Code Talkers who served in the war were young farmers and sheepherders who had never been away from home.
"The code did a lot of damage to the enemy," said Samuel Tom Holiday, 85, of Kayenta, Ariz., who also is joining the parade. He was a 20-year-old Code Talker when he and two other Marines went behind enemy lines on Iwo Jima to locate a Japanese artillery unit advancing on American forces
The adorable K-6th grade Navajo children during the second week of school at the Navajo Lutheran Mission in Rock Point, Arizona.
Narrated and videotaped by Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard, executive director of the Navajo Lutheran Mission
Featuring K-6 students, teachers and staff.
1-928-659-4201 (Office)
1-928-659-4202 (School)
Navajo Lutheran Mission School:
NELM School Principal Felisita Jones
Kindergarten teacher Sharon Woody
1st grade teacher Lark Pettit
2nd grade teacher Jolene Wilson
3rd and 4th grade teacher Pauline Wagon
5th and 6th grade teacher Eileen Holiday
Tara Chee, NELM Community Services Coordinator and Navajo Language and Culture Instructor
2009 Board of Directors
Navajo Evangelical Lutheran Mission
Ron Augustson, Chair
Janice Lee Jim
Roger Johnsen
Jerry Thomas
Bill Heincke
Richard Wixom
David Ulibarri
Jeannie M. Harvey
Christel Badey
Clarence Begay
Sue Vogel-Herrera
Alice Natale
Carol Buckley, owner of Arizona Flutes and Native Arts in Camp Verde, AZ (high desert in Verde Valley) and a non-native flute musician specializing in American Indian music.
She has Michigan roots - lived in Davison and taught school in LakeVille Public Schools in Otisville, where she was a Speech and Language Pathologist.
In 1994 Buckley decided to refocus her life, escape from the cold weather, and move to the beautiful Verde Valley in Arizona’s high desert.
She is a poet and writer who plays Native American style flute music and has great respect for the Navajo and other Native American tribes and their respective cultures/heritage.
Carol also teaches classes on how to play the Native flute.
Songs used from Carol Buckley's “Rhythm Keepers” and “Raindrops on Roses” CDs
Navajo Lutheran Mission Second Week of School & Photo Montage:
Carol Buckley's “Raindrops on Roses” CD
Track 4 “Living Life”
Track 6 “Dancing Moccasins”
Cal Farley's Girlstown, U.S.A.
Situated on 1,425 acres of land eight miles south of Whiteface, Texas, (west of Lubbock) http://www.calfarley.org/girlstown/pages/default.aspxThe adorable K-6th grade Navajo children during the second week of school at the... more
(Rock Point, AZ) - Videos produced by two Pittsburgh area churches led by Pastor Susan C. Schwartz that sent missionaries to the Navajo Evangelical Lutheran Mission in Rock Point, Arizona in July 2009.
Volunteers from several faith traditions and churches painted murals and did other work at the Navajo Lutheran Mission including the Hope Lutheran Church of Forest Hills and St. John Lutheran Church in Swissvale.
Hope Lutheran Church of Forest Hills
353 Ridge Ave
Pittsburgh, PA
15221-4111
1-412-242-4476 (church office)
Blog about 2009 NELM trip by volunteers from several Pittsburgh area churches including Hope Lutheran Church of Forest Hills and St. John Lutheran Church in Swissvale: http://scs1249.blogspot.com
Preview story on April 9, 2009 in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Pittsburgh Live about area church group heading to NEML to paint. Pastor Susan C. Schwartz heads Hope Lutheran Church of Forest Hills and St. John Lutheran Church in Swissvale and Kathy Gaberson, a Hope Lutheran member. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_619790.html
More about the flute music featured in this video:
Travis Terry is a native Flutist of the Pima Nation who is born of the indigenous Gila River Pima Nation in Sacaton, Arizona.
On his myspace page, Native flutist Travis Terry says:
"I grew up surrounded by ethnic music and instruments of long ago, including the Native flute," Terry said. “As a child I had natural appreciation for music, which contributed to me becoming a self-taught flutist in my adult years. My military service has sent me around the world exposing me to the musical traditions of various cultures."
"Ethnic music was a continual interest and drew me closer to this dream of creating music. I have always been grateful to my parents (Irving and Caroline) for supporting my dreams and at the same time continually teaching me and my sisters (Denise and Dawn) the indigenous Pima culture, traditions and language. These values have aided me in blending contemporary culture with this heritage of the 'Desert People.' This conscious blending of cultures is very much reflected in my musical compositions and playing style."
"After my military service, I visited Canyon De Chelly where my good fortune led me to meet my lovely wife Cara and settle in Chinle, AZ. Cara and her family taught me the ways and language of the Dine (Navajo) people."(Rock Point, AZ) - Videos produced by two Pittsburgh area churches led by Pastor Susan... more
(Rock Point, AZ) - During July 2009, volunteers from the Lutheran Church of the Cross in Sacramento, CA visited the Navajo Lutheran Mission in Rock Point, AZ to assist the Navajo people with the health of their livestock.
Despite the extreme summer heat and the remote Navajo homes, church members helped deworm and vaccinate 500 sheep and goats plus 200 horses.
The volunteers from the Lutheran Church of the Cross paid for the expense of vaccinating over 700 livestock.
The vaccination program badly needs funding and anyone wish to help should contact the Navajo Lutheran Mission (see contact info below)
The Navajo Lutheran Mission extends special thanks to Arizona Navajo musician Anthony Maloney, who music is featured in this video and will be used in upcoming videos (scroll down for more info and links about Anthony Maloney)
Songs by Maloney included in this video are "Our Warriors" and "A Better Life."
Pastor serves as a Chaplain at California State University Sacramento
Church is on the Board of Directors of the Sacramento Area Campus Ministry. http://www.sacacmin.com
Wikipedia on the Navajo Nation:
The Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah in the Navajo language) is a semi-autonomous Native American homeland covering about 26,000 square miles (17 million acres), occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. It's the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_Nation
The Navajo Lutheran Mission extends special thanks to Arizona Navajo Musician Anthony Maloney, who music is featured in this video and will be used in upcoming videos
Songs by Maloney included in this video are "Our Warriors" and "A Better Life."
Navajo (Diné) singer, songwriter and poet Anthony K. Maloney, a member of the Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah) from Yuba City, AZ "Music City"
Founded in September 1953, the Navajo Lutheran Mission in Rock Point, Arizona (Tsé Nitsaa Deezʼáhí) located in the heart of the Navajo Nation (Diné Bikéyah).
In April 2009, Rev. Dr. Lynn Hubbard became the executive director.
Rev. Deborah Haffner Hubbard is a Presbyterian pastor was named the pastor of the Lutheran Mission House of Prayer.
This 2005 video by Drach Meinel Enterprises has been updated:
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. environmental regulators said they have withdrawn a permit for a massive coal-fired power plant that had been scheduled to be built on the Navajo Nation to send electricity to populated areas to the West.
The Environmental Protection Agency late on Monday withdrew the air permit that was issued last summer for the proposed 1,500 megawatt Desert Rock power plant. Sithe Global Power, LLC had planned to build the plant in northwestern New Mexico and send its power to rapidly-growing cities in Arizona and Nevada.
The regulators found the permit was issued before complete analysis of its emissions and impact on endangered species.
The move was another example of President Barack Obama's administration cracking down on coal. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday his agency will try to overturn a Bush administration rule that made it easier for coal mining companies to dump debris from mountain-top coal mining into valley streams.
Some Navajos supported building the plant for jobs it would provide and revenue. The $3 billion to $4 billion project had been expected to bring the Navajo Nation about $50 million a year.
"Every day this project is delayed, we are losing our Navajo children to poverty and alcoholism because of lack of opportunity," Navajo President Joe Shirley said in a release.NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. environmental regulators said they have withdrawn a permit... more
Uranium Mining, Native Resistance, and the Greener Path
The impact of uranium mining on indigenous communities
by Winona LaDuke
Published in the January/February 2009 issue of Orion magazine
"IN A DINE CREATION STORY, the people were given a choice of two yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were instructed to leave the other yellow powder—uranium—in the soil and never to dig it up. If it were taken from the ground, they were told, a great evil would come.
The evil came. Over one thousand uranium mines gouged the earth in the Dine Bikeyah, the land of the Navajo, during a thirty-year period beginning in the 1950s. It was the lethal nature of uranium mining that led the industry to the isolated lands of Native America. By the mid-1970s, there were 380 uranium leases on native land and only 4 on public or acquired lands. At that time, the industry and government were fully aware of the health impacts of uranium mining on workers, their families, and the land upon which their descendants would come to live. Unfortunately, few Navajo uranium miners were told of the risks. In the 1960s, the Department of Labor even provided the Kerr-McGee Corporation with support for hiring Navajo uranium miners, who were paid $1.62 an hour to work underground in the mine shafts with little or no ventilation.
All told, more than three thousand Navajos worked in uranium mines, often walking home in ore-covered clothes. The consequences were devastating. Thousands of uranium miners and their relatives lost their lives as a result of radioactive contamination. Many families are still seeking compensation. The Navajo Nation is still struggling to address the impact of abandoned uranium mines on the reservation, as well as the long-term health effects on both the miners and their communities, many of which suffer astronomical rates of cancer and birth defects.
As a college student, I worked for Navajo organizations, trying to inform their people about the uranium-mining industry and the large corporations—EXXON, Mobil, United Nuclear—that proposed to mine their lands. It was a humbling experience, seeing some of the richest corporations in the world faced by courageous peoples who fought for the two things that mattered to them more than money: their land and their identity. The Navajo people joined with many others across the country who felt that there was a much better way to make energy. In the end, the people did prevail—new mining proposals evaporated as tribal resistance and legal and administrative battles merged with economic forces. Eventually, contracts for uranium were canceled by utilities, which no longer sought to build unpopular nuclear power plants.
Now I feel like I am having very bad déjà vu—only this time nuclear power is seen as the answer to global climate destabilization. In 2005, the Navajo Nation passed a moratorium on uranium mining in its territory and traditional lands, which was followed by similar moratoria on Hopi and Havasupai lands, where mines are proposed adjacent to the Grand Canyon. “It is unconscionable to me that the federal government would consider allowing uranium mining to be restarted anywhere near the Navajo Nation when we are still suffering from previous mining activities,” Joe Shirley Jr., Navajo Nation president, explained at a congressional hearing on opening uranium mines in the Grand Canyon area. To the north, the Lakota organization Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way) is an intervener in a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing to allow the Canadian corporation Cameco to expand its Crow Butte uranium mine, just over the Nebraska border from the reservation."
continued.... at link or belowFor God's sake leave the yellow powder alone!
Uranium Mining, Native Resistance,... more
Broken Rainbow is a 1985 documentary film about the industry-led and government-enforced relocation of more than 10,000 Navajo from their traditional lands.
On December 1974 Congress passed “The Navajo-Hopi Land Settlement Act” which authorized the partitioning of the Joint Use Area (JUA) of the Navajo and Hopi Nations, and established the Navajo-Hopi Indian Relocation Commission (NHIRC) which led the relocation.
Soon after, countless of the most traditional and culturally-intact Dineh (Navajo) people were stripped from the only world they knew — and thrown into a cold and rootless way of life.
This documentary traces the events that led to this devastating relocation - as well as the history of both the Hopi and Navajo Nations, who’s dispute over land was used by the government to justify it.
Indeed, the government claimed that the relocation was to help bring an end to that dispute. The real reason, however, was to open up the region for coal and uranium exploitation.
The forced relocation of the Navajo continues to this day.
Did you know that China a country has one Time Zone for the entire nation? That's like New York City and Los Angeles being 8:45 AM at THE SAME TIME!
Hugo Chavez recently set Venezuela's clocks back by 30 minutes.
Arizona, which does not recognize Day Light Savings, has the sovereign Navajo Nation within it's borders, which does recognize DST. But within that, the Hopi Nation sides with Arizona.
Crazy!!
Do you know of any other interesting time zone differences?Did you know that China a country has one Time Zone for the entire nation? That's like... more
'Mother Earth, I am your child.' The environmental exploitation of the lands of the Southwest and the Navajo nation is a crime by this government. And it will continue regardless of who is president after this 'election' because the environmental exploitation is what allows them to ascend to the throne in Washington DC with the dollars of the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. They have no real respect for this Earth or the understanding of the spiritual connection the Navajo and others have to her. That is why the environment is not and should not be a partisan political issue. That is why we have to oppose politicians who are silent and those who only give lip service to doing anything to remedy this crime regardless of party. However, that seems hard to do with a population in this country that also places so much emphasis on party loyalty above all else. The Navajo do not know of such distinctions. All they want is to be able to cherish and revere Mother Earth and drink her water, breathe her air, and work her land without the threat of toxic waste and desecration. They understand what true freedom is about.'Mother Earth, I am your child.' The environmental exploitation of the lands of the... more
Another enchanting episode in the making of my gObama 2008 documentary. After a inspiring visit to Denver, Colorado to film Obama at the DNC, I drove to Arizona and visited the Navaho Nation Fair in early September 2008.
I was hanging out in Window Rock and bumped into the homeboys from Ashkii Ryderz Entertainment. They just released their first HipHop album in Navajo and were eager to promote.
As I walked around the fair, I discovered Miss Navajo Nation competing in the beauty contest passionately. When she had to switch her speech from Navajo to English, I thought about the complexity of spiritual survival in our modern world. A moment of truth that resonated also with Betty Redhair, who is a big Obama fan and lives near Shonto, Arizona.Another enchanting episode in the making of my gObama 2008 documentary. After a... more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an air permit for Desert Rock Power Plant on Thursday, the final day it was mandated to act on the long-delayed permit.
EPA agreed to act by Thursday after it was sued by the Dine Power Authority and Sithe Global Power earlier this year.
U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., informed The Daily Times of the decision after he received the news from EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson on Thursday morning.
Opponents of the proposed 1,500-megawatt, coal-fired plant, which would be built near Burnham on the Navajo Nation, criticized the decision.
"This is a serious blow to the Navajo tribal members who provided comments to EPA. The U.S. EPA has failed us and undermined us", said Dailan Long, Dine Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, one of the groups that opposed construction of Desert Rock. "Nothing is being done about the health issues we raised. The tribal elders are outraged that their comments were ignored."
Also outraged is Elouise Brown of Dooda Desert Rock.
"I hope and pray the people who made this decision never sleep again", she said. "How can people make this kind of decision that puts people at risk?"
Brown characterized the power plant as a "kind of torture to our people, Mother Earth and the environment.
"If they're part of EPA they have to realize the pollution goes worldwide, it's just not affecting my family ... somebody's paying off somebody", she said. "If your relative is sick (from pollution and its health effects) money will not buy their health back."
Brown vowed to continue fighting the Desert Rock plant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stephen Johnson is a murderer. He is condoning cancer, asthma, toxic waste, and climate change. This is an outrage. Haven't we done enough to torture the Native American community in this country? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued an air permit for Desert Rock Power... more
