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Among the big wins in athletic competition this summer is the victory by the Haudenosaunee Nationals at the Pan-American Women’s Lacrosse Championship. They are first time medalists at the senior level and their win over Puerto Rico has far-reaching implications. We’ll hear from a player and a coach for the team and take the opportunity to catch up with some other notable Native athletes, from a Comanche professional boxer to the Diné college swimmer.

GUESTS

Carli Upton (Chickasaw and Choctaw), student and golfer at Tishomingo High School

Bean Minerd (Onondaga Nation), Haudenosaunee Nationals women’s lacrosse team member and head women’s lacrosse coach of Buffalo State University

George “Comanche Boy” Tahdooahnippah (Comanche), former professional boxer, North American Indigenous Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, and CEO of Numunu

Kaylah Yazzie (Navajo, Comanche, and Sac and Fox), swimmer for the University of New Mexico

Claudia Jimerson (Cayuga Nation), director of lacrosse operations and board member for the Haudenosaunee Nationals

 

Break 1 Music: Different Build (song) Nige B (artist) Reshape – Refashion (album)

Break 2 Music: Real Things (song) Joe H Henry (artist) Real Things (album)

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News consumers have a constant stream of information at their fingertips, but how reliable is it and how do people check the facts? Indigenous journalists are a means to bring balanced viewpoints to newsrooms that typically have limited interaction with Indigenous populations. As the annual gathering of the Indigenous Journalists Association gets underway in Albuquerque, N.M., we’ll discuss how journalism is changing and how Indigenous journalists are responding to new pressures for transparency, fact-checking, and bias.

GUESTS

Angel Ellis (Muscogee), director of Mvskoke Media and on board of directors for Indigenous Journalists Association and Oklahoma Media Center

Shaun Griswold (Laguna, Jemez and Zuni Pueblo), correspondent at High Country News and Native News Online

Nancy Marie Spears (Cherokee), Indigenous Children and Families Reporter for The Imprint

Hattie Kauffman (Nez Perce), journalist and first Native American to file a report on a national news broadcast

 

Break 1 Music: On the Road Missing Home (Corn Dance) (song) Sheldon Sundown (artist) Hand Drum/Smoke N’ Round Dance (album)

Break 2 Music: The Gift of Life (song) Randy Wood (artist) The Gift of Life (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:14 — 38.6MB) | Embed

The summer of 1945 saw three nuclear explosions that ushered in a new era of experimentation, development, and fear when it comes to the potential for such a powerful weapon. Native people are among those suffering the most from the consequences of that path. The first test of the atomic bomb at the Trinity site in New Mexico, and the subsequent use of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, signaled the U.S. Government’s new push to develop nuclear weapons, fueled by millions of tons of uranium ore mined near Native land in New Mexico and Arizona. And ongoing nuclear tests exposed thousands of Native people in the Southwest and in Alaska to dangerous levels of radiation. We’ll explore the ongoing effects on Native people of nuclear weapons and power development, in this encore presentation.

GUESTS

Marissa Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo), deputy director of Sovereign Energy and board member for Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE)

Loretta Anderson (Laguna Pueblo), co-sponsor of the Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post-71

Tina Cordova, co-founder and executive director of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium

 

Break 1 Music: Atomic (song) Sunburnt Stone (artist) El Navaho (album)

Break 2 Music: I Am the Beginning and the End (song) Dorothy Tsatoke (artist) Native American Healing Songs Come to me Great Mystery (album)

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Another year and another record revenue report for the tribal gaming industry. The annual report by the National Indian Gaming Commission finds slot machines, table games, sports betting, and other enterprises reaped $43.9 billion in 2024. That’s up more than $2 billion from the previous year. But there are potential setbacks on the horizon that could affect gaming, including flagging consumer confidence, confusing foreign trade policies, and federal government’s diminished regard for tribal sovereignty. We’ll get a status update and a look ahead for tribal gaming.

GUESTS

Ernie Stevens Jr. (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin), chairman of the National Indian Gaming Association

Derrick Beetso (Navajo), professor of practice and executive director of Indian Gaming and Self-Governance at Arizona State University

 

Break 1 Music: Happy Sundance (song) Dallas Arcand (artist) Modern Day Warrior (album)

Break 2 Music: The Gift of Life (song) Randy Wood (artist) The Gift of Life (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:36 — 38.2MB) | Embed

Hopes to fix the Santee Sioux Nation’s lack of clean drinking water faded as federal funding for a pipeline project is increasingly tangled in government turmoil. Tribal citizens are forced to drink bottled water to avoid the high levels of manganese in well water. On the Navajo Nation, dozens of people’s water wells are contaminated with chemicals, like benzene, associated with the oil and gas drilling industry. There are many mysterious, uncapped wells that could be contributing to the problem. They are just two of the problems tribal citizens are having when it comes to accessing the most basic resource.

GUESTS

Heather Tanana (Diné), initiative lead of the Universal Access to Clean Water for Tribal Communities and law professor at the University of Denver

Nicole Horseherder (Navajo), executive director of Tó Nizhóní Ání

Kameron Runnels (Santee Sioux), vice chairman of the Santee Sioux Nation

Jerry Redfern, staff reporter for Capital & Main

 

Break 1 Music: The Four Essential Elements [Diigo Bee’iináanii] (song) Radmilla Cody (artist) K’é Hasin (album)

Break 2 Music: The Gift of Life (song) Randy Wood (artist) The Gift of Life (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:25 — 38.7MB) | Embed

Sitting Bull is remembered for strong leadership and resistance against the U.S. government, but a series of songs by and about him reveal another side to the renowned Lakota leader. Courtney Yellow Fat (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe) has been sifting through oral and written history to identify the songs that are known to the tribe, but only recently attributed to Sitting Bull. Yellow Fat and others are recording those songs through the Densmore/Lakota Songs Repatriation Project.

And Hopi radio station KUYI is marking 25 years on the air. The celebration comes amid new uncertainty about the future of many public and tribal radio stations. We’ll talk with the station manager about the milestone for the station and the role community radio plays for Hopi citizens.

GUESTS

Courtney Yellow Fat (Hunkpapa Lakota), chief cultural consultant and co-producer with the Densmore/Lakota Songs Repatriation Project

John Eagleshield Jr. (Hunkpapa Lakota), singer

Samantha Honani Molina (Hopi), KUYI general manager

 

Break 1 Music: Fearless I Live by Chief Sitting Bull (song) Courtney Yellow Fat (artist)

Break 2 Music: I Am the Beginning and the End (song) Dorothy Tsatoke (artist) Native American Healing Songs Come to me Great Mystery (album)

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Some Native Americans are already bracing for next year’s semiquincentennial with worries about how patriotism might cloud historical accounts from a Native perspective. Now, the Trump Administration is promoting a program to teach “the first principles of the Founding” in classrooms. The program uses money previously meant to help low-income and underserved students. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s push to end what he says is the “radical indoctrination” of public school students. We’ll talk about what’s being done to include Native voices into an accurate accounting of history.

GUESTS

Jason Dropik (Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians), National Indian Education Association (NIEA) executive director

Julia Wakeford (Muscogee and Yuchi), NIEA policy director

Dr. Sandy Grande (Quechua), professor of political science and Native American and Indigenous studies at the University of Connecticut

Lenzy Krehbiel-Burton (Cherokee), member of the Alpha Pi Omega Sorority

 

Break 1 Music: Reservation of Education (song) XIT (artist) Silent Warrior (album)

Break 2 Music: I Am the Beginning and the End (song) Dorothy Tsatoke (artist) Native American Healing Songs Come to me Great Mystery (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:25 — 38.7MB) | Embed

The summer of 1945 saw three nuclear explosions that ushered in a new era of experimentation, development, and fear when it comes to the potential for such a powerful weapon. Native people are among those suffering the most from the consequences of that path. The first test of the atomic bomb at the Trinity site in New Mexico, and the subsequent use of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, signaled the U.S. Government’s new push to develop nuclear weapons, fueled by millions of tons of uranium ore mined near Native land in New Mexico and Arizona. And ongoing nuclear tests exposed thousands of Native people in the Southwest and in Alaska to dangerous levels of radiation. We’ll explore the ongoing effects on Native people of nuclear weapons and power development.

GUESTS

Marissa Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo), deputy director of Sovereign Energy and board member for Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE)

Loretta Anderson (Laguna Pueblo), co-sponsor of the Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post-71

Tina Cordova, co-founder and executive director of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium

 

Break 1 Music: Atomic (song) Sunburnt Stone (artist) El Navaho (album)

Break 2 Music: I Am the Beginning and the End (song) Dorothy Tsatoke (artist) Native American Healing Songs Come to me Great Mystery (album)