Washington Supreme Court Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis didn't meet a lawyer until law school. Now she wants others from underrepresented communities to picture themselves in the legal system.Read More
The newest monument on the National Mall, which opens on Veterans Day, will provide a quiet shrine for Native vets to visit. Native Americans have traditionally served in high numbers.Read More
The two Puget Sound-region Democrats running to be Washington’s next lieutenant governor had the chance to distinguish themselves in a statewide debate Thursday night. Washington’s election system advances the top-two vote getters from the primary to the general election. Read More
The book is called “Journey of the Freckled Indian.” It tells the story of a young girl called Freckles who gets bullied by her classmates after sharing that she’s Native American. Author Alyssa London says it’s loosely based on her experience growing up in Bothell and sharing her Tlingit heritage in a show and tell.Read More
Sarah Deer, citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and University of Kansas professor, discusses the measures to strengthen investigation procedures and why it's taken so long to address the issue.Read More
The Yakama Nation seeks to stop gravel mining near a historic village and burial ground near Selah, Washington. The litigation could change the way tribal sites can be developed.Read More
A new distillery will soon begin making whiskey, vodka and gin on Chehalis tribal land in southwest Washington state. It's the first legal, Native-owned distillery to open on tribal land in the nation. The Chehalis Tribe's effort to diversify its economy by joining the craft spirits boom had to first overcome a nearly two century old prohibition on liquor production in Read More
Faced with the threat of forced removal or worse, in 1855 leaders of the Warm Springs and Wasco Tribes forfeited their claim to roughly ten million acres, and moved to a reservation. In exchange for land to offer white settlers, brokers for the United States government made promises. Among those: Tribal members would not be stopped from traveling off the reservation to Read More
The first Native American woman elected to the Washington State House of Representatives says she is drafting legislation to retire Native-themed mascots and team names at public schools. This has been a goal of Native American leaders for a while, but has new-found momentum in the wake of the Washington, DC, NFL football team’s name change.Read More
When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through collects the work of more than 160 poets. "A poem opens up time, it opens up memory, it opens up place," says Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate.Read More
About a month after her divorce last year, Scott signed a pledge to donate the majority of her fortune in her lifetime. Now, the Seattle author, philanthropist and mother of four is providing a glimpse at how she will give her money away.Read More
The Washington Redskins have announced the team will be dropping its moniker, which is widely considered a slur against Native Americans. The head coach and team owner are developing a new name.Read More
In the wake of George Floyd's killing, Confederate monuments have fallen, food companies have scrubbed racist imagery from labels, and now, pro sports teams names are under fresh review.Read More
"Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation. ... Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word," wrote Justice Gorsuch.Read More
A group of Coeur d’Alene tribal students is learning how to tell stories and make podcasts. The program they’re making tackles a pretty weighty subject. The tribe is working with the University of Idaho and the state University of New York at Buffalo to prepare young people to become tribal leaders.Read More
The coronavirus pandemic is also crushing to many traditions and religions trying to mourn their dead — no matter the cause of death. But for Native Americans in the Northwest, normal funerals can last two to three days and involve physical contact among tribal members. Read More
Amid a widespread shutdown of athletic events, Washington state has become the 21st state to legalize betting on sports. Gov. Jay Inslee on Wednesday signed legislation to authorize sports wagers in tribal casinos only.Read More
Across the country, public health workers on Native reservations are scrambling to prepare for COVID-19. In Washington, one of those who died at the hard-struck nursing home in Kirkland was a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe. But tribes are expecting much worse to come, and they're trying to get ready.Read More
Poet Natalie Diaz returns, interrogating the lasting effects of colonization asking: If a colonizer's influence can't be eradicated from a culture, how can you push back against violence and erasure?Read More
In Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga, Native artists retell the events of a brutal massacre in pre-Revolutionary Pennsylvania and bring a painful history to life on the page.Read More
Tribes had sued because the law required voters to present identification with their home's street address — which often doesn't exist on reservations. Emergency rules will broaden the ID allowed.Read More
The Federal Communications Commission opened a window Monday for federally recognized tribes to apply for licenses that could help establish or expand internet access on their lands. The FCC estimates that about one-third of people living on tribal lands don’t have access to high-speed internet, but others say the figure is twice as high.Read More
National Park Service police have been investigating the illegal excavation of an ancient mountain-goat hunting camp. They discovered someone had dug up the “Rock Shelter” site outside the town of Newhalem, Washington, last summer.Read More
The decades-long quest of Chinook tribal members to regain federal recognition gets another airing in court on Monday. A U.S. District Court judge is scheduled to hear oral arguments on cross-claims for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by the tribe against the Department of the Interior.Read More
Our kids' books columnist, Juanita Giles, gave her daughter Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story for Christmas; she says the book's depiction of food and history mirrors her family's experiences.Read More
A new homeless shelter in Seattle is exclusively serving Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Pacific Islanders. It's one of the first facilities of its kind in the country helping to house the more than 1,000 Native people in the city experiencing homelessness.Read More
The Rise of Skywalker speaks to the historical experiences of many in the Indigenous community. An exhibit by Native artists attempts to shed light on those connections.Read More
The U.S. House voted on Monday to pay compensation to the tribe for its losses when Grand Coulee Dam was built in the 1930s and 1940s.Read More
The Columbia River Treaty is costing U.S. ratepayers and public utility districts too much. That was the broad sentiment at a sometimes-tense town hall Monday about ongoing treaty negotiations. At the Richland meeting Monday night, negotiating officials laid out the complicated back-and-forth between the U.S. and Canada.Read More
Peter Marbach says he wanted to use his photography to tell the story of the Columbia River, to move from purely landscape images to a more social justice-driven book. To do that, he needed help -- from the First Nations communities most affected by the development of dams along the river.Read More
In a barrier-breaking appointment, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has selected a Whatcom County judge to serve as the first known Native American justice on the state Supreme Court since its founding in 1889.Read More
Journalist Michael Powell's book is about basketball the same way that Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights is about football — sports are the ostensible focus, but the real interest is the community.Read More
Part of the difficulty in teaching Thanksgiving is that the story of the first Thanksgiving is incomplete, according to Edwin Schupman, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma who helps educators talk about Native American history and culture.Read More
Studies find that Native Americans, especially women, are victims of disproportionate levels of violence, and state and federal databases inadequately track the crisis.Read More
A new report from DigDeep and the U.S. Water Alliance found race is the strongest predictor of water and sanitation access. This has implications for public health.Read More
The tribe’s plans have been tied up in legal fights and layers of scientific review. The next step is a week-long administrative hearing that began Thursday in Seattle. Whatever the result, it’s likely to be stuck in further court challenges, as animal rights activists have vowed to block the practice they call unnecessary and barbaric.Read More
This week, two Native American men, Faran Sohappy and Tim Brooks, who live in the Grand Coulee area, are going back east to complete what has been a surprising adventure. They are finalists, along with Chicago singer/songwriter Joan Hammel (who is not Native), for a Native American Music Award. Read More
The tribe made the purchase — which includes the surrounding land and nearby hotel —from the Muckleshoot Tribe for $125 million. The falls are sacred to the Snoqualmie people, and their traditional burial site is right above the falls.Read More
"It goes deeper than what you're dressed like," she said. "When you really look at it and you really study these tropes and stereotypes and what they mean and how they affect us as Native people, you know they're all rooted in a historically violent past."Read More
Standing on the banks of the Columbia River, near the remnants of Celilo Falls in the Columbia River Gorge, Yakama Nation Chairman JoDe Goudy traced the history of decrees, congressional acts and court cases that led to the damming of the river.Read More
"Growing up I would hear about our peoples being 'discovered' ... " says author Brittany Luby. "I would go home and my parents would tell me: That's not actually how things happened."Read More
Almost a year later, KYNR, "the voice of the Yakama Nation," is broadcasting again after a burglary knocked them off the air. Staff were heartbroken for themselves and their listeners. Tribal members and others in the community depend on the station for news and information.Read More
Lee Francis IV, who owns his own comic book shop Red Planet Books & Comics in Albuquerque, said his comic work acts as a “counterpoint” to the way Native people have been portrayed in popular media over the last 400 years. Read More
The Cherokee Nation is appointing former Obama advisor Kimberly Teehee as the tribe's first-ever delegate to the U.S. House. The position is outlined in an 1835 treaty but has never been filled.Read More
An archaeological dig along the Salmon River in western Idaho has yielded evidence of one of the oldest human settlements in the Americas yet found. Newly published findings from the excavation give impetus to a scientific rethinking of when and how the first people arrived in North America.Read More
A ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week reversed an opinion from a federal judge in Idaho. In the overturned opinion, Judge Lynn Winmill said federal courts didn’t have jurisdiction to enforce a ruling from the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Court against non-tribal members.Read More
Salmon are now swimming in the upper Columbia River for the first time in decades. For regional Native tribes, Friday’s ceremonial fish release is a big step toward catching fish in traditional waters. Cheers erupted from the crowd as the first salmon was released since 1955 into the Columbia River above Chief Joseph Dam.Read More
The Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Central Oregon has been without safe drinking water all summer. Some people don’t have running water at all. In May, a burst pipe led to a cascade of infrastructure failures. That leaves around 4,000 people improvising for an essential human need.Read More
The fire that engulfed Notre Dame cathedral shocked the world earlier this year. And a wildfire in July on Rattlesnake Mountain in southeast Washington similarly shocked Northwest tribes.Read More
An Alaska Native girl (Molly of Denali), an Andean boy (Pachamama), two half-brothers in Mesoamerica (Victor and Valentino): Three new animations feature Native people without bygone-era baggage.Read More
