HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Here is a Native Unity story to help get the New Year started with a bang and a Prosperous Preface to 2004! Six hundred million is a most prestigious preface – right.

The Pima’s Progressive Prospects

A Phoenix, AZ company is planning what it says could be a $600 million business park on tribal land near north Scottsdale. The 209 acre project, to be called Pima Center, is a collaboration between Phoenix commercial developer the Mainspring Capital Group and more than 200 landowners who are members of the Salt River-Pima Maricopa Indian Community.

Mainspring has been negotiating for seven years with tribal members and families who own properties carried down for generations. When the Indian community was created in the 19th century, each tribal member was allotted 20 acres. The properties have passed down through generations and some parcels have multiple family members who share ownership.

Getting a majority to agree to lease the family holdings can take some time said Gerald Blomquist, the project director and a Mainspring partner, and some of the family members who controlled the land died during the time it took to put the deal together. “In many instances, their interests had been transferred to their heirs.”

Mainspring has a 65 years master lease, with options to extend the term. Blomquist added that it’s an attractive site that was worth the years of effort to lock down.
“It’s location, location,” he said. “You can have what can be termed as almost an infill piece – two freeway interchanges, very strong demographics, one of the closet location to the airport and employment centers of Tempe, Mesa and Scottsdale.”

The increased traffic will create a concern for the Salt River Tribe and the City of Scottsdale but my major concern would be for the welfare of the tribe - how this money will affect the members of the Salt River Tribe who could become instant millionaires. I think in this situation, Mainspring should offer free courses to tribal members to instruct them how to wisely manage their newly acquired wealth. If I should become a million–airess or even a thousand-airess, HELP!!!!

This article was edited from the pages of “The Arizona Republic” bylined Glen Creno and Peter Corbett.

Some great news came today for Larry Mitchell author of “Potawatomi Tracks” whose book I reviewed for Native Unity on September 17th.

His book and the review are being featured on “Forgotten Soldier”, a site for veterans to share their war stories and remember fallen comrades. Check it out at http://www.forgottensoldier.com/media/book_reviews/Vietnam book_Vietnam_g.htm.


Native Unity is edging up to the 1,500 visitation mark. It is not a significant number compared to the millions of people who surf the Net on a daily basis, but I feel it is a step in the right direction as far as Native trails, trials and tribulations are concerned.
~
FELIZ ANO NUEVO!!!
bobbie

Bobbie Hart O'Neill
bobbieo@digitaldune.net

Apaches Give Film 'High Marks' For Language Skills

The visibility of Native Peoples is finally making its mark on Hollywood - one film at a time! Tommy Lee Jones, has the role of a White man, who lives among the Apaches and speaks their language in the current Ron Howard film, "The Missing". The word is out among the Apache adults who saw the movie, “they could understand every word he spoke.”

The praise not only goes to Jones but to most characters in the film who spoke the Chiracahua dialect of Apache. Credit also goes to Director Howard and the film’s technical advisers, Mescalero councilman Berle Kanseah and Chiracahua linguist Elbys Hugar who had “accuracy” as their goal in the tale of 19th century frontier life starring Jones and Cate Blanchett.

Kanseah stated that there’s a generation gap that is growing suggesting that Apaches aren’t the only ones facing the problem “We need to enforce the home and not lose our way of life, our language.”

Hugar, a great-great granddaughter of Cochise addressed the cast before the film began. “The first thing Elbys said to me, stated Jay Tavere, a White Mountain Apache,“this is more than a movie, this is for the whole Apache nation.”

This is the first film that Apache was spoken well enough to be understood. “Usually Westerns, were dubbed in Navajo, a related language, said Steve Reevis, a Montana Blackfoot and supporting actor who never spoke Apache before the film was made.

The film is set in Southwestern New Mexico. Jones granddaughter, Blanchett’s daughter, is abducted by a renegade band of Indians and Whites who sell Indians into slavery – which is historically accurate. Travere and the Jones characters set out to keep the slavers from reaching Mexico. Eric Schweig, a Canadian Inuit, gives an outstanding performance, according to one reviewer, as the evil brujo – a medicine man gone bad - from another tribe who leads the slavers.

Modern Apaches appreciate the film for showing them as they were: the good and the bad, family oriented, generous, faithful to their religion and good humored.

Most of the Chiracahua were rounded up and sent to Florida in 1886, then shunted to Alabama, Oklahoma and finally to the Mescalero homeland in south central New Mexico in 1913.
According to Travere there are only about 300 people who are fluent in Chiracahua, today.

This story has been edited from an AP report, bylined Richard Benke, which appeared in December 21st edition of The Arizona Republic.

One In Four Native Americans Face Renter Discrimination

A study, “Discrimination In Metropolitan Housing Markets” released November 17th by the Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD), shows that more than a quarter of Native Americans are discriminated against when attempting to rent homes. The results of the study were presented to attendees of the 60th annual meeting of the national Congress of American Indians held in Albuquerque last month.

“Discrimination against Native Americans is especially severe, frequently denying them access to available housing altogether, while other minorities often experience subtler forms of discrimination, such as higher rents and application costs or less advice and assistance from rental agents,” said Margery Austin Turner, the study’s lead researcher and director of the Urban Institutes Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center.

Specifically, the study found that Native American renters in three states – New Mexico, Minnesota and Montana, experienced consistent adverse treatment relative to comparable whites on 28.5 percent of tests.

SO, what is HUD doing to fight the discrimination problem???

To help combat the problem since 1989, HUD has awarded grants to public and private fair housing groups as well as to state and local agencies under the Department’s
Fair Housing Program. Organizations use the money to educate the public and housing industry about discrimination laws, promote fair housing and investigate allegations of fair housing discrimination. Initially funded a $5 million in 1989, HUD this year is awarding $20.2 million in FHIP grants.

HUD, in partnership with the Advertising Council and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, recently released a multimedia campaign designed to fight housing discrimination by showing the many faces of those persons protected by the nation’s 35-year-old Fair Housing Act.

“These print and media broadcast public service announcements are a powerful demonstration that it is not only wrong to discriminate in housing, it is against the law,” explained Carolyn Peoples, HUD assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity.

Copies of the report can be downloaded from www.HUDUSER,org as well as ordered on line by calling (800) HUD-USER. Anyone who believes they have experienced housing discrimination should call HUD’s Housing Discrimination Hotline at (800) 669-9777, or visit HUD’s fair housing website at www.HUD.gov.

This article has been edited from the “hud NEWS”, released November 17th, 2003.

Seasons Greetings!

How Santa Makes His Christmas Rounds!

Here is a bit of whimsy for those of you who still believe in the white bearded, jolly old man in red known as Santa Claus. It comes from Knight Ridder Newspaper's reporter, Seth Borenstein.

Washington – “Scientists think they may have figured out how Santa Claus gets around the world in one night – Christmas Eve.

“The great minds of our planet have calculated Santa can zip around the world at a speed, according to Einstein’s theory of Relativity, that should turn Rudolph’s nose a blurry blue or warp time and space.

“Scientists calculate the Jolly Old Elf may be aided by a computer-generated trip planner, antennas to read children’s brainwaves and nano-technology that can make toys from cookies or dirt.

“His reindeer may be able to fly, powered by simple jet-like flatulence – in other words, methane gas may provide the magic.

“For the past several years, a handful of holiday-hearted physicists, engineers and biologist theorized just how Kris Kringle performs his yearly Christmas miracle. They’ve come up with different explanations for how fast Santa moves, how his reindeer fly, how Santa fits down chimneys and how he makes presents.

“Larry Silverberg, a professor of aerospace engineering at the North Carolina State University, has come up with the most detailed answer yet to a whimsical challenge.

“The key to Santa’s travel is what Silverberg calls a ‘relativity cloud’ in which Santa learned how to bend time, space and light, essentially making clocks run much slower for him than for the rest of us. This enables Santa to travel more than 75 million homes in 24 hours.

“Arnold Pompos, a physics researcher at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, five years ago came up with a slightly different version. He has Santa traveling at 99.99999999 percent of the speed of light, delivering all of his presents in about 500 seconds. The rest of the night he can ‘pig-out’ on milk and cookies.

“At that speed,” according to Pompos. ”Santa would leave a trail of light across the dark sky, and Rudolph’s nose would change colors, a phenomenon called the Doppler Shift.”

Now, you know all how Santa Claus can perform his Christmas miracle. He is a master of science!

Proof Of Heritage Demanded

Perhaps it is takes an awareness of “Dis-Unity” among tribes to bring about and promote the true spirit of “Native Unity”.

Isleta Demands Proof of Heritage

By Leslie Linthicum
Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer

ISLETA PUEBLO— Lupita Abeita was born in a one-room adobe house in the middle of the pueblo in 1914. She grew up speaking Tiwa and cooking beans and red chile for the feast day of St. Augustine each September.

Before he died in 1998, her older brother, Joe M. Abeita, was the leader of the pueblo's religious rituals. So imagine Lupita Abeita's surprise when she received a typed letter on official Pueblo of Isleta stationery this week, telling her the tribe had questions about whether she was a legitimate member— and that her $2,000 Christmas-time payment from the tribe would be held until she could prove her Isleta heritage.

"She said, 'If they don't recognize me as a child of the pueblo, who am I? What am I supposed to do?' '' said her daughter, Juana Jiron.

Abeita is not the only elder to have her identity as a tribal member questioned this week. Her surviving brother, Joe D. Abeita, also received a letter. In all, according to a member of the Isleta Tribal Council, 132 of the approximately 2,800 people listed as tribal members got letters notifying them that the pueblo was reviewing its membership rolls and that they would have until Jan. 2 to prove they are at least half Isleta in order to continue to be considered tribal members.

Everyone who got the letter had their annual per capita payments from the tribal government withheld. The per capita payments— unrelated to the tribe's casino, but something akin to a Christmas bonus that tribal members have come to count on— were handed out Monday and Tuesday at the pueblo treasurer's office.

The letters have caused anguish and anger among Isleta residents. Two members of the tribal council say the action was taken without the approval of the council and is illegal.

"The money doesn't really matter," Jiron said. "My mom is so hurt. She's just devastated."

Isleta Gov. Alvino Lucero would not comment on the letters, which were signed "Tribal Council." The president of the tribal council and the council secretary, who served on the membership audit committee and who handle the per capita payments, did not return phone messages.

A meeting of the 12-member elected tribal council scheduled for Thursday was canceled on Wednesday. Council member Robin Teller-Velardez said the letter was not approved by the tribal council and should not have been sent out.

She said the 12 members of the council appointed a four-member committee to look into performing an audit of tribal membership because the pueblo's census office had been in disarray, not because of doubts about people's blood lines.

Teller-Velardez said that, at Saturday's council meeting, the four members of the membership audit committee presented a list of about 60 people whose membership they were questioning and a draft of the letter they intended to send.

There was disagreement among council members about the list and the council did not approve sending the letter, Teller-Velardez said. Some members of the council wanted to review each name and make a decision.

"To me, that letter is not legal," Teller-Velardez said. "According to our constitution, the full tribal council is the only one that can take action on tribal membership. I think the timing, the way that it was done, is just wrong."

Council member Diane Peigler said Saturday's council meeting was not an official meeting and that no votes were taken on any matters. "It is totally a mess," she said. Teller-Velardez said she was especially upset that the identity of tribal elders, such as the Abeitas, was questioned.

"To me, they are what made our community," she said. "Any question about their membership affects them to their hearts and their souls. They're angry, and you can't blame them.

"The audit findings have identified some individuals that may be ineligible for tribal membership," the letter said.
Attached to the letter was a fill-in-the-blank family tree form going back three generations and asking for documentation of great grandparents' degree of Isleta blood.

The letter asked for supporting documentation, including birth certificates, marriage certificates and divorce decrees and court documents that would show paternity.

In Lupita and Joe D. Abeita's case, their parents died in the 1920s when they were children and they were sent to St. Catherine's Indian School in Santa Fe. Later, an uncle at the pueblo took them in to raise "They know who their parents are, but they have no birth certificates that we can find," Jiron said. "They have no record of their grandparents."

Many tribes in New Mexico and elsewhere use a one-quarter blood standard to determine tribal membership. The Isleta constitution says an Isleta tribal member must have at least one-half Isleta lineage. There is also a provision for adoption or naturalization, Teller-Velardez said.

U.S. Census data shows the pueblo's total population as 3,166. About 84 percent of pueblo residents— 2,675— identified themselves as American Indian with no other race. Another 181 people identified themselves as American Indian, but bi- or multi-racial. About 300 pueblo residents said they were black, white or other races.

Jiron's father's Isleta heritage is not being questioned, so she is still considered one-half Isleta and she got her per capita check. Her four children, who range in age from 3 to 32, would be only one-quarter Isleta if their maternal grandmother is not Isleta and their checks were also withheld.

Per capita payments are shares of tribal funds dispensed annually in December. The source of the funds and amount of the payments vary from tribe to tribe and year to year. They can range from less than $100 to several thousand dollars. In New Mexico, proceeds from casinos are not part of the payments.

At Isleta, the funds come from a trust account that is fed by right-of-way payments, land leasing fees, settlement proceeds and other funds.
Copyright 2003 Albuquerque Journal

Submitted to Native Unity by Marinell Degraffen

More On Native 'Dis-Unity'!

Letter from Tucson activist Carmela Confesor

Dear Bobbie: This is in response to Marinell’s submission pertaining to the Taos Pueblo incident as printed in the Sunday, December 14th issue of the Santa Fe “New Mexican”, bylined Tom Sharpe.*

I’ve been friends with John Suazo for many years. He is the founder of the organization RISE in Taos dealing with the education of children at the Pueblo. Yes, this Dis-Unity has been going on with the Taos people for many years.

There is no constitution within the tribe and the members have no say in running the tribe. They also are in the dark about their Casino as well. It is a shame this has to happen - pulling together is what it’s all about not just one family having a full rein on a proud people.

I hope the people of the tribe prevail and that their voices will finally be heard and not buried as my friend said. The tribal council said, “Oh, this never happened on Saturday” (December 13th), in response to Suazo’s comments that there was a near riot.

Thank you for printing the story.
Carmela Confesor

*See story below

SEASON'S GREETINGS - FELIZ NAVIDAD!

Sometimes, “Native Dis-Unity” prevails. The following story submitted by Marinell Degraffen illustrates one of these times. - bobbie


Sunday, December 14, 2003
’The Santa Fe New Mexican’
by Tom Sharpe

Pueblo Woman: Says Tribal System Unfair

A Taos Pueblo woman says she and her sister were handcuffed and held
by tribal police for half an hour Saturday morning after they
complained about how little money they received in Christmas payments
from the pueblo government.

Glenda Concha said pueblo heads of households got $150 each, but she
and her sister Bertina Concha were offered only half that because
their husbands are not tribal members.

"I walked in that door at the community room with my shawl on,
showing them respect that they demand of us as tribal members," she
said. "I walked in through that door a whole woman, and they expected
me to sign my name and agree that I am less than they are by taking
$75."

Taos Pueblo Gov. Allen Ray Martinez and other tribal officials were
not available for comment late Saturday. A dispatcher at the tribal
police office said he had no record of such an incident Saturday.

John Suazo, a pueblo member who is president of a group called
Residents in Support of Education, or RISE, said a "mini-riot"
occurred about 7:30 a.m. Saturday as a long line of pueblo members
waited outside the community center in freezing temperatures to
collect their Christmas "per capita" from the proceeds of the pueblo
casino and tourism fees.

Pueblo officials get far more than $150, Suazo said. He did not try
to get any funds because he is considered a troublemaker for
challenging pueblo leaders, he said. His mother only got $75 this
year because she recently was divorced, Suazo said.

"People are getting fed up with our system," he said. "We want a
change from this old dictatorship form of government to where we can
get to vote."

Concha said an altercation began when a friend in front of her in the
line reached the cashier: "The guy sitting there on the other side of
the desk said, 'Seventy-five for you,' and she said, 'Why?' and they
told her, 'Because you're married to a non-tribal member.' "

She and her sister were handcuffed and put in the back seat of a
police car after they complained, Concha said, but the officer
released them without filing charges on orders from tribal officials.

"All of these practices that are being done by the patriarchy on my
reservation are being done under the cover of sovereignty," she said.

Season's Greetings From Native Unity

Submissions to this column are welcome at any time, but Native Unity is asking you to submit stories and blogs about special events that you and your family have experienced in the past or will experience during the holiday season.

Share your holiday happenings with members of other tribes. Send submissions to bobbieo@digitaldune.net .. .

One Earth, One People
Ho! Mitakuye Oyasin
(We Are All Related.)

Be sure to read today’s article below – ‘An Owl’s Eye On Education’. One Native man, Faron Owl, enlightens the path of learning through AVID, a program designed to pave the way for a college education for high school grads.

An Owl's Eye On Education

That’s Faron Owl, a Quechan tribal member and teacher at San Pasqual High School in Imperial Country in California’s southeast desert country. Owl teaches a four-year volunteer preparatory class – Advancement Via Individual Determination or AVID.

AVID is a new program offered at the school designed to increase the enrollment of disadvantaged students in two and four-year post secondary education. It focuses on students who, traditionally, would not make it into college.

“Our goal, if you look at the 18 kids I have here,“ says Owl, “is to try to get them ready for college. This is the first year we’re running this program. We need to nurture and preach to these kids that they can go on, after high school, to a university or college.

“You’re talking about kids whose Moms and Dads may not have graduated from high school. Hopefully in four years, we hope to get at least half of these students into a university.”

San Pasqual, situated on the Quechan Indian Reservation in Winterhaven, California, joined 11 other schools and more than 1,110 students in the Imperial Valley who are participating in the AVID program, according to Owl.

AVID prepares students for college eligibility by teaching them study and organizational skills, strengthening their writing skills, providing college tutors, helping them get scholarships, taking students to visit colleges and helping them explore careers.

Lessons are offered in note taking, study skills, test taking, time management, SAT and college entrance/placement exam/preparation and effective textbook reading and library research skills. Students also receive help in preparing college application and financial aid forms.

In addition, the program works with community employers to provide summer apprenticeships for AVID students. There is also ongoing home contact in the form of quarterly letters, regular phone calls and quarterly meetings for all parents and students in the AVID program.
“The parents have made a commitment to help them at home,” Owl asserted. ”They’ve also made a commitment to look though their student binders which chart their progress in the program”

Prerequisites for participation in the AVID program include the desire to attend a two or four-year college, appropriate classroom behavior, maintaining between a 2.0 and 3.0 grade average, a good attendance record, good work habits and a willingness to commit to a minimum of two hours of homework each night in a rigorous college prep sequence of courses.

One San Pasqual student, Alejandra Guerrero said, “I think it’s cool because it’s helping us get like scholarships and things to go to college”.

Guerrero has her sights set on attending the University of California at San Diego in La Jolla California. “When we went there on a field trip, it was cool,(here she means ocean breezes as compared to hot desert winds), and it was big and nice,” she added.

San Pasqual students have the advantage of being able to attend a two-year community college just across the Colorado River from the Reservation at Arizona Western College in Yuma, Arizona.

This article was edited from the pages of the Yuma Daily Sun bylined Matt Riehl.

Native Tribes Conduct Census Count

For the first time in census taking history, Native American tribes will NOT have to accept the official census numbers which are used by Washington in doling out federal aid. So more than 100 tribes, including the Warms Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon, around the nation are challenging the 2000 census results and conducting their own head counts in the hopes of getting more federal money for such things as health care and housing.

Indian reservations have posed problems to census takers in their statistics of ever-changing household, frequent moves, mistrust of government officials and the mere definition of WHO is an Indian. As a result, the head count of Indians had some of the highest error rates of any minority group in the country.

In addition to the 100 tribes challenging the latest census figures, fifty or so other tribes are conducting or considering their own head counts according to Rick Anderson, a demographer from Tribal Data Resources, a Redding, CA company that is advising tribes on their census taking quest. Tribes were given the right to challenge the census when the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act was signed by President Clinton in 1996.

“Prior to that time”, said Anderson, “they were victims of the census system.” Each additional person counted brings in several hundred dollars a year in federal grant money.

“We’re being shorted on funding,” asserts Jason Hintsala, 27, an unemployed father of two, recently laid off from a job milling logs from the Warm Spring Lake Reservation’s pine forest on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains.
The Warm springs recount, which began in October of this year, has 17 new canvassers fanning out and ringing doorbells. As of November 24th, the recount on the reservation was about half completed.

Nationwide, 2.1 million people reported to the 2000 census takers that they consider themselves pure American Indian or Alaska Natives, far more than the 1.7 million officially enrolled in the country’s 560 federally recognized tribes.

Letter To The Editor

Dear Bobbie: Hi, thank you so much for the beautiful article. I should be seeing Mike Wilson today. Monday is the DGT (Democrats For Greater Tucson) luncheon. We have it every Monday. One thing the Democrats can do is have lunch (smile).

I appreciate what you did and I hope that the Native People who do read it and are not signed up to vote that they do. It’s so very important because it’s the only way out for them. If they can get political and they all do it, they could move mountains.

If all Native People would unite for a common goal what a powerful force they could be in this country, but they have to stop bickering amongst themselves.

Well, thank you again and I will tell my friends to come over to your site. Blessings and hugs Love, Carmela

To read her article - see below – ‘ A New Plank In The Democratic Party* Platform’.


*Native Unity does not endorse any political party or candidate but it does strongly support voter registration programs.

A New Plank In The Democratic Party Platform!

What does a Brooklyn-born senior citizen of Italian descent
have in common with a Tohono O’odham tribal member? Something very political! They are both members of a steering committee to get a Native American agenda firmly implanted in the Democratic Party platform.

Carmela Confesor, the former New Yorker, and Mike Wilson, the former Presbyterian minister from Sells, Arizona who put water jugs out on the Tohono O’odham reservation last summer for the illegal immigrants, are political activists working in Tucson and dedicated to getting the Democratic presidential candidates involved in issues facing the Native American peoples in this country.

“There are many issues here in Arizona as well as throughout the nation dealing with Native American problems,” asserts Carmela. “I have brought these issues out in talking with the Democratic candidates as they pass through Tucson on the campaign trail.”

She states she has received positive responses from Democratic hopefuls Governor Howard Dean of Vermont, and Senator John F. Kerry from Massachusetts. She and her husband, Stephen, a retired airmen and Filipino/Irishman who was also born in Brooklyn, have hopped on the Kerry bandwagon where both of them are serving on Kerry’s steering committee along with Mike Wilson.

She proudly stated that today, December 4th, Kerry was in Phoenix discussing his Native American agenda with the Inter-Tribal Council. She also hopes she played a decisive role in the addition of Native American issues to his campaign strategy.

“At the Pima County Platform meeting held in Tucson a few weeks ago and attended by party members from all over the state, I sat and waited for someone to mention Native American issues. When no one did, I stood up and asked, ’Well, where is the platform on Native Americans?’ They promised to have one on the agenda by their next meeting.”

“Our Congressman in Washington, Raul Grijalva, is sponsoring a bill to unite the Tohono O’odham Reservation people from both sides of the border. There is a small part of the Reservation that extends into Mexico and those tribal members cannot freely cross the border to attend ceremonies and family gatherings without being treated as Mexicans rather than tribal members.

“Then, there is the matter of citizenship. Without a birth certificate, members of the tribe cannot collect Social
Security benefits and veterans cannot get their pensions because they are unable to prove they were born in the United States. There are some 5,000 tribal members who are senior citizens, now, affected by this ruling. Although they were born in the U.S. and enrolled as tribal members most of them were born at home on the Reservation and never bothered to get birth certificates. They never understood the value or the need for a birth certificate and no one ever bothered to explain those benefits to them.”

In summing up her own agenda on Native activism, Carmela says, “When I lived in Brooklyn, I never knew what an Indian was other than the Lone Ranger’s Tonto. That all changed when I moved to Tucson 35 years ago and, now, I do have a love for these beautiful people who have been abused for so many years by White America.

“Now, what I want is for all of these beautiful people, who are eligible to vote in the 2004 election, to get themselves registered and urge all of their family members and friends to do the same. That goal will be easily accomplished if they understand their future lies within their own grasp.”

Murkowski Urges Sec. Thompson To Reduce Native Health Disparities

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On November 14th, joined by 19 of her colleagues, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) Alaska asked U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson to comply with, rather than fight, two recent U.S. District Court rulings against a policy created by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that two judges claim hurts low-income Alaska Natives and American Indians.

Murkowski, in a letter to Secretary Thompson released today, said she has concerns because of a pattern of payment refusals by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency within HHS. The refusals apply to emergency and specialty care referrals for Alaska Natives and American Indians who are eligible for Medicaid. Under the Indian Health Care Improvement Act (P.L. 94-437), or IHCIA, CMS (then HCFA) was tasked with paying the cost of important specialty care that is not available in Indian Health Service or tribally administered facilities.

Since then, however, CMS has consistently decided to disregard the law, leading to a court challenge by the states of South Dakota and North Dakota. In both decisions the judges ruled that CMS’ refusal to pay for vital referral care plays a part in perpetuating the health disparities that exist within the Native American community.

“Twenty-seven years after the passage of IHCIA, Native Americans and Alaska Natives continue to experience significant health disparities,” said Murkowski. “Compared to the general U.S. population, Native Americans and Alaska Natives have significantly higher rates of infant mortality, diabetes, heart disease, and traumatic injury. CMS’ pattern of refusing to pay for specialty care only perpetuates the endemic health disparities. ”

Murkowski noted that the specific policy about paying for referral care, known as the 100 percent FMAP, has been a matter of debate between states, tribes, and the Department of Health and Human Services for years. The Secretary has 60 days to appeal the two rulings that found CMS responsible to pay for referral care.

“We are urging the Secretary to not appeal the recent rulings, “ added Murkowski, ” but rather acknowledge his agency’s responsibility to provide American Indians and Alaska Natives full access to the benefits of our health care system. We hope the Secretary welcomes the rulings as an opportunity to show his commitment to reducing the long-standing health disparities faced by American Indians and Alaska Natives.”

God Of Tohono O'odham Keeps Watch From Baboquivari Peak

The URL for this very informative article http://www.azstarnet.com/star/sun/acc.html
was submitted to “Native Unity” by Tucsonan Marinell deGraffenreid. which appeared in the November 30th issue of “The Arizona Daily Star”.

It is actually two accounts relating to Baboquivari. The main article is from a spiritual /historic point of view written by Star reporter, Douglas Kreutz. The second describes
the experiences encountered by University of Arizona anthropology researcher, Rebecca Toupal, on ‘Climbing A Sacred Mountain’.

.

Tohono O'odham Native Foods

‘Eat Your Medicine’ is the headline for a December 1st story
in “The Arizona Republic” in the fight against four common diseases: Cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis and diabetes.

Diabetes and obesity are the greatest threat to the health of the Tohono O’odham since the tribe has forsaken its natural food diet and latched onto a high fat diet and the fast-food way of life.

Overweight, along with family history, are the biggest risk factors in diabetes and it’s important to stay active. The road back to healthy living is the route many of the tribal members are currently taking in the return to traditional foods though their Community Action program.

Tohono O’odham traditional food advocates from Southern Arizona mainly draw their knowledge from the work of Lebanese-American botanist Gary Paul Nabhan who was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 1990 and founded Native Seeds/SEARCH Program. The Tucson-based organization works to preserve native plants in the deserts in the southwest U.S. and northwest Mexico. It provides seeds to various groups including the O’Odhams for their Papago Farms Project.

The traditional Tohono O’odham diet relied on crops cultivated during the summer as well as plants gathered from the desert.

CULTIVATED CROPS:

Bawi* - (brown and white tepary beans).
These beans are high in protein and taste meaty. White tepary beans are slightly sweeter than the brown variety.

Ke:li baso – (O’odham cantaloupe)
This wrinkly-skinned cantaloupe is also known as “old woman’s knees” or “old man’s chest”. It’s juicy flesh tastes like a cross between a regular cantaloupe and cucumber.

Ha:l – (O’odham squash)
The young squash is light yellow and similar to zucchini. It is sauteed or steamed. The mature squash is more like an orange-fleshed winter squash and is often steamed with brown sugar.

Milon – (O’odham watermelon)
This watermelon has sweet yellow flesh instead of the more common red flesh.

H’un – (O’odham corn)
This white-kernel corn is 6 inches long and takes only 60 days to grow as part of its adaptation to the desert’s short summer rains. The kernels are dried and cooked into a savory gruel.

DESERT BOUNTY:

Mesquite Pods
These are chewed raw, ground to make gruel or boiled in water to make a sweet drink. They are believed to be a good source of calcium. Manganese, iron and zinc.

Bahidaj (saguaro fruit)
Moist and sweet, these are harvested in June and July, eaten fresh or made into sryup, jam, snacks and wine. Saguaro seeds contain protein and fat. Bahidaj sitol (saguaro fruit syrup) tastes like molasses.

Prickly Pear Fruit
These are eaten fresh, or the juicy pulp is sun-dried , mashed and dried to make syrup. Prickly pear fruit is mild tasting and believed to be a good source of water and calcium.

Ciolim (Cholla buds)
These are picked and, after the spines are removed, roasted, sun-dried and stored. They are rehydrated by boiling in water and eaten plain or sauteed. Cholla buds taste like mild asparagus tips and are believed to be high in calcium.

This story was edited, in part, from an article in The Arizona Republic bylined Chen May Yee.