Native America Calling

The Trump administration’s proposal to remove questions about a person’s race for the U.S. Census is sparking alarm among tribal leaders, voting rights advocates, and social service providers. They say it will significantly impede tribes’ political representation at the state and federal levels and reduce access to federal resources, adding up to a serious erosion of tribal sovereignty. Counting the racial makeup of the country has been a function of the constitutionally mandated decennial census since it started in 1790. The Census Bureau proposes changing it to help improve response rates. We’ll hear what changes are potentially in store from the U.S. Census and what the implications are for Native residents.

At a time when tribes across the country are working to shut down prediction market companies, the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana is embracing them by launching its own mobile app with the help of industry giant, Kalshi. The Tunica-Biloxi chairman says his tribe is “creating a new source of economic opportunity and doing it on its own terms.” That is decidedly counter to the other tribes that argue the prediction market platforms pose a direct threat, siphoning off gaming revenue, and sidestepping the strictly regulated federal laws governing Indian casinos. We’ll hear about the plans for the new app — and potential hurdles.

We’ll also hear from entrepreneur, writer, and computer programmer Miguel Douglas (Puyallup Tribe of Indians) about his work to improve visibility for Native-owned businesses with his latest app, Nativepreneurs.

From the original Cherokee syllabary to banners waved by Native American demonstrators, graphic works by Native people carry a thread through the centuries that operate within their own design framework. A new book and accompanying gallery exhibition, “Designed to be Red”, documents and celebrates that thread of visual works by Native designers that exert agency and authority over their own stories. The project compiles examples of purposeful visual rhetoric by Native Americans meant to teach, persuade, resist, and share within an environment that so often dismisses Native input. We’ll talk with Native designers about the project and the unique role Native designs play.

At a time when Canada is reflecting on the painful history of residential schools, Indigenous leaders are having to speak out against organized efforts to minimize the harms inflicted on generations of Indigenous children. Just days before Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, white nationalists gathered near the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. The incident drew condemnation from Prime Minister Mark Carney and First Nations leaders. After witnessing what they say is an increase in sophisticated misleading public messages, Canadian elected officials are considering legislation to ban residential school denialism. We’ll explore the trend to minimize and distort an era of forced assimilation of subsequent abuse of children and the challenges for addressing it.