Voicing Indigeneity

Ethnic Studies Students are Cuteness

2008-11-20T03:54:00.000-08:00

Even at the end of a long week, after a long podcast and under a bright unflattering light, Ethnic Studies brings the cuteness. This is Rashne, Maile, Ma and Kit (who just defended his MA thesis, congratulations Kit!) after our podcast last week.

I'll try to get some folks together for another one soon, I had lots of time to read and write on the train to and from Oregon. My panel went really well at ethnohistory, I brought the race card and I played it.

It was hard for me to find pictures of the longhouse where our panel was that showed it in any way how I feel about it. When I came to University of Oregon the NA students met in old ratty (the scrabbling eating food kind) barracks behind the swanky law school. We ate there, sang there, attended ceremonies. It was our place, our kids played outside, it was crappy and broke ass and ours, set in back of the shiny expensive Knight Law Center at Nike U, by the parking lots.

The longhouse went up quickly it seemed and was so beautiful, huge kitchen, fireplace, wood everywhere and many windows. The last time I was there was one of the best days of my life, after graduating from Ethnic Studies my friend Chris Finley (my sister really) and I had our families and friends there to eat and visit. So coming back three years later and reading a paper as a graduate student was meaningful.

These pictures are from the architects website, they come closest to how it looks to me.

A Change Is Gonna Come

2008-11-07T00:47:00.000-08:00

Tonight Ma Vang, Rashne Limki, Maile Arvin, and Kit Myers came over to my apartment to record a podcast. Rashne is fresh from long hours canvassing in Las Vegas, she and Kit are our obsessive politicos so they take on election talk with some input from the rest of us. We talked for nearly an hour, a little about our work but mostly about the state of the union, race and Ethnic Studies. The title is a link that will take you to the podcast.

I'll post pictures when I get them, they are on Rashne's camera with her personal photos of Barack and Michelle Obama.

I'm leaving town to go read a paper at the Ethnohistory conference at my alma mater, University of Oregon. The conference is at the Hilton but our panel is at the Many Nations Longhouse, a beautiful building on campus near the law school. We used to have a WWII barracks we used for our gatherings, and that was good, we had our own space, there was room for the kids to play outside. But this newer building is something. The last time I was there was the day I graduated in 2005, we had food and family and friends came to spend time after the ceremony. It was such a happy day.

Here is the panel I am on, my family is coming, I'm looking forward to it.

9:30-11:45

Practicing Native-Centered Ethnohistory in Oregon

Gray Whaley (Southern Illinois University), Organizer

Lynn Stephen (University of Oregon), Chair

Gray Whaley (Southern Illinois University) and George Wasson (Coquille Indian
Tribe/University of Oregon)
"Collaborating on Ethnohistorical/Family Biography";

Robert Kentta (Confederated Tribes of Siletz)
“The Siletz and History(s): Old Friend and Familiar Foe"

David Lewis (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, University of Oregon)
“Termination of Western Oregon Indians: Economics, Politics, and Oral
Histories”
Angela Morrill (University of California, San Diego)
“Colonialism, Factionalism, and Klamath Termination”

Pam Endzweig (University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History),
Stephanie M. Wood (University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History) and
Elizabeth Kallenbach (University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History)
“Weaving History and Community through Museums Collections: Documenting
Native American Baskets at the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History”

Lynn Stephen (University of Oregon), Discussant

I know that there is pain but you hold on for one more day, things will go your way! Hold on for one more day!

2008-11-05T05:14:00.000-08:00

I'll be putting up a new podcast in a few days. Certain current events, writing a prospectus, Maile is working on her MA thesis and recently spent a month in Hawai'i. I'm hoping we can get Kit Myers and maybe even Rashne Limki to come and talk, they have been true believers and taken more than a little crap from me, who wants to believe but has been Scully to their Mulders.

They get to gloat. So, new podcast coming soon!

Glen Coulthard's "Subjects of Empire"

2008-04-19T17:51:00.000-07:00

I've been having a fling with this paper by Glen Coulthard "Subjects of Empire: Indigenous Peoples and the 'Politics of Recognition' in Canada" and clicking on the title of this post will link you to a website where you can read it for yourself. A few months ago my friend Chris emailed it to me and I read it, gave a copy to my advisor and two other professors, including Denise Ferreira da Silva with the suggestion he be invited to speak at our weekly Ethnic Studies colloquium. I also gave a copy to Maile and I realized that I should just post the link.

I met him at the conference in Athens although I missed seeing him on a panel. I introduced myself, told him how much I liked his paper, that I was starting a fan club and would need head shots. I KNOW! I know.

It's just so smart and helps me in thinking about my prospectus for my dissertation. I agree that recognition from the state only reinforces those colonial relationships and is not transformative. What he suggests, based on the work of Frantz Fanon, is "collective self-recognition" and that is what I am hoping to find examples of for my project although articulating it is not getting easier. Well, not getting easier as quickly as I would like.

Native American and Indigenous Studies Conference

2008-04-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to Athens, Georgia to present a paper at the NAIS conference. I wanted to spend the least amount of time away from my son, so I arrived Friday afternoon missing a day and a half of the conference. There was plenty of conference left to blow my mind.

Andrea Smith read a paper that nailed me to the wall. I'm going to write about it from memory because I cannot find my notes, please know any mistakes in understanding are mine. Using Audra Simpson's theory of "ethnographic refusal" she said that when we as indigenous scholars refuse to be containers of truth we become unintelligible to the academy. She said we have to be revealed as containers of truth and do not have rhetorical agency, it is not our ideas that are valuable but ourselves as indigenous truth-tellers and when we refuse that role and theorize we cannot be understood. She got a big laugh when she asked, "Does Foucault tell the truth about French people?"

She said that we struggle for inclusion, and that if they only knew how nice we were they would let us in. That becomes our job, berating them for not including us. I felt like she was singing my life with her words.

Before I left I had lunch with my advisor and he was telling me about the proposed description for an indigenous studies faculty position. There are NO indigenous faculty at UCSD. There are few students. The description had to include California as a focus of research and I found it limiting. I was also troubled by the inference, that Andrea Smith made clear to me, that the scholar will be the "container of truth." My advisor is excellent and I was able to talk to him about all of this for over an hour when I came back from the conference, and the job description is proposed only and will change. Still, coming home from this amazing conference has been a letdown, the mirror Andrea Smith held up showed me how isolated I often am.

I decided to take a History seminar this term. I have never worked with this professor but I have met him, he is on the committee for several of my cohort members. The seminar is Race, Colonialism and Nationalism and there are a lot of basic texts I wanted to read before I qualify in the fall. The writing requirement is not heavy, it is enough to allow me to write towards finishing up my literature review for my dissertation prospectus which is my main task this term. Wednesday we were reading Lisa Lowe's Immigrant Acts. She is a professor at UCSD in literature, I know she is brilliant, we read most of her book as undergraduates and in some ways I felt the trauma of that time, always struggling with ethnic studies to recognize indigeneity.

In the class discussion I told myself to be quiet, not critical, even if Lowe assumes colonialism began in the Phillipines. If you have met me or listened to the podcast you know that I was not able to remain quiet for long. I gave her book respect and then said, what if she wrote this book with the assumption that this is a settler society? The three times she mentions Native Americans she includes them in the food group laundry list, Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans. I also mentioned that in her book Homebound, Yen Le Espiritu does what Lowe does not and connects colonialism here to the Phillipines and Vietnam.

The class was interested, then the professor talked back to my critique, I guess I did not smooth the way as well as I hoped, saying that Lowe is one of his best friends and one of the smartest people he knows and by that time I was in my safe place.

For three years I have not seen my sister, Chris Finley, my dear friend from our glory days at University of Oregon. She is a graduate student at University of Michigan and presented an excellent paper. Here is a picture of us, taken by Audra Simpson in between panels.

Lani, Me, Chris

Tenure For Andrea Smith

2008-02-27T19:21:00.001-08:00

If you listened to the first podcast, Madel and I were talking about Cherokee scholar Andrea Smith and how angry we were when Critical Gender Studies refused to hire her at UCSD. She is an amazing scholar and feminist and she was just denied tenure at University of Michigan. Here is a recent email that came to me:

--Please Distribute Widely and Join Our Local Action Campaign!--

Native Feminism Without Apology!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 25, 2008

Statement of University of Michigan Students and Faculty in Support of Andrea Smith's Tenure Case
CONTACT: TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

On February 22nd, 2008, University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) issued a negative tenure recommendation for Assistant Professor Andrea Lee Smith. Jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women's Studies, Dr. Smith's body of scholarship exemplifies scholarly excellence with widely circulated articles in peer-reviewed journals and numerous books in both university and independent presses including Native Americans and the Christian Right published this year by Duke University Press. Dr. Smith is one of the greatest indigenous feminist intellectuals of our time. A nominee for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Smith has an outstanding academic and community record of service that is internationally and nationally recognized. She is a dedicated professor and mentor and she is an integral member of the University of Michigan (UM) intellectual community. Her reputation and pedagogical practices draw undergraduate
and graduate students from all over campus and the nation.

Dr. Smith received the news about her tenure case while participating in the United States' hearings before the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Ironically, during those very same hearings, the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions that restricted affirmative action policies at UM specifically were cited as violations of international law. At the same time, there is an undeniable link between the Department of Women's Studies and LSA's current tenure recommendations and the long history of institutional restrictions against faculty of color. In 2008, students of color are coming together to protest the way UM's administration has fostered an environment wherein faculty of color are few and far between, Ethnic Studies course offerings have little financial and institutional support, and student services for students of color are decreasing each year.

To Support Professor Andrea Smith: The Provost must hear our responses! Write letters in support of Andrea Smith's tenure case. Address email letters to ALL of the following:

Teresa Sullivan, Provost and Executive VP for Academic Affairs, LSA, tsull@umich.edu
Lester Monts, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, LSA, lmonts@umich.edu
Mary Sue Coleman, President, PresOff@umich.edu
TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com
Voice your ideas on the web forum at http://www.woclockdown.org/

To Support Women of Color at Michigan and the Crisis of Women's Studies and Ethnic Studies: Attend the student organized March 15th Conference at UM!!!!
Campus Lockdown: Women of Color Negotiating the Academic Industrial Complex is free and open to the public. Speakers include renowned activists and scholars
Piya Chatterjee
Angela Davis
Rosa Linda Fregoso
Ruthie Gilmore
Fred Moten
Clarissa Rojas and
Haunani-Kay Trask.

For more information and to register, visit: http://www.woclockdown.org/.

-------------------------

Educated . United . Diverse . Supportive . Active . Powerful
The Students of Color Of Rackham
http://www.umich.edu/~scorweb

In my opinion, Andrea Smith is an exciting creative scholar who gives so much to students, not even necessarily her own. As an undergraduate I was a member of the Native American Student Union when one of our co-directors raped a member. She dropped out, he didn't and his friends joked about it in our student lounge. Some of us got together to address our safety and our expectations, also to alert the rapists home community about his actions. As a result when Andrea Smith came to our campus to give a talk she asked to have lunch with us and advised and encouraged us. She deserved better than this, and I'm glad that the students at University of Michigan are organizing to support her.

Don't Stop Believing

2008-02-02T13:00:00.000-08:00

Hello! I finally finished my thesis, "Deconstructing Factionalism in Klamath Termination" and sent it out to my committee, I am defending it on February 14th, tentatively. I learned so much about myself working on this thesis, and I learned so much from Madel and Miget. It was hard to let it go, I wanted to keep working and making it better. But I had to stop, now it is time to work on my prospectus for my dissertation. I really do not know what it will be about, when I do I am sure I will let everyone know.

Madel and family moved back to Belau! She kept saying she needed to go home and she did leave and I miss her so much already. She is going to be working on her dissertation, "Pacific Subjectivities: 'Routes and Roots' of Indigeneity and Militarism." She is an amazing scholar and I am so excited about her work. If you would like to read her prospectus move your mouse over the title and the link will take you to the site where it is posted.

Miget keeps up with his blog, No Rest for the Awake - Minahaget Chamorro, and is working on a conference here at UCSD in March, "Postcolonial" Futures in a Not Yet Postcolonial World that will offer some amazing scholars and speakers. Come if you can!

For now we are not doing any podcasts and so this blog will be on hiatus until I do not know when. I want to thank you for listening and reading and encouraging us with your support.

Here is a snippet from my thesis acknowledgments, it is the custom to give thanks and respect to everyone who helped you and you know if you are reading this that Madel and Miget have been a large part of my intellectual and academic life.

"During nearly the entire writing of this thesis two people, Michael Lujan Bevacqua and Madelsar Ngiraingas were a huge part of my intellectual life. Thank you for many conversations that became the podcast Voicing Indigeneity, and for your intellectual generosity and of course for the songs. From the start Madel offered her mentorship to me and helped me figure out the hard parts of this trip through academia. Miget also offered support and a new eye when I did not know how to see things. I am grateful to both of you."

Thank you to all the folks who talked with us on the podcasts, our guests and our listeners. It has been so worthwhile.

Madel told me her favorite pictures were the ones we took with Leroy's weapons so here is one for the road.

Lakota Sioux Secede from the US

2007-12-22T07:14:00.000-08:00

Published on Friday, December 21, 2007 by Rapid City Journal (South Dakota)
Lakota Sioux Secede From US, Declare Independence
by Bill Harlan

Political activist Russell Means, a founder of the American Indian Movement, says he and other members of Lakota tribes have renounced treaties and are withdrawing from the United States.

“We are now a free country and independent of the United States of America,” Means said in a telephone interview. “This is all completely legal.”

Means said a Lakota delegation on Monday delivered a statement of “unilateral withdrawal” from the United States to the U.S. State Department in Washington.

The State Department did not respond. “That’ll take some time,” Means said.

Meanwhile, the delegation has delivered copies of the letter to the embassies of Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile and South Africa. “We’re asking for recognition,” Means said, adding that Ireland and East Timor are “very interested” in the declaration.

Other countries will get copies of the same declaration, which Means said also would be delivered to the United Nations and to state and county governments covered by treaties, including treaties signed in 1851 and 1868. “We’re willing to negotiate with any American political entity,” Means said.

The United States could face international pressure if it doesn’t agree to negotiate, Means said. “The United State of America is an outlaw nation, we now know. We’ve understood that as a people for 155 years.”

Means also said his group would file liens on property in parts of South Dakota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming that were illegally homesteaded.

The Web site for the declaration, “Lakota Freedom,” briefly crashed Thursday as wire services picked up the story and the server was overwhelmed, Means said.

Delegation member Phyllis Young said in an online statement: “We are not trying to embarrass the United States. We are here to continue the struggle for our children and grandchildren.” Young was an organizer of Women of All Red Nations.

Other members of the delegation include Rapid City-area activist Duane Martin Sr. and Gary Rowland, a leader of the Chief Big Foot Riders.

Means said anyone could live in the Lakota Nation, tax free, as long as they renounced their U.S. citizenship. The nation would issue drivers licenses and passports, but each community would be independent. “It will be the epitome of individual liberty, with community control,” Means said.

To make his case, Means cited several articles of the U.S. Constitution, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and a recent nonbinding U.N. resolution on the rights of indigenous people.

He thinks there will be international pressure. “If the U.S. violates the law, the whole world will know it,” Means said.

Means’ group is based in Porcupine on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

It is not an agency or branch of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Means ran unsuccessfully for president of the tribe in 2006.

Lakota tribes have long claimed that the U.S. government stole land guaranteed by treaties — especially in western South Dakota. “The Missouri River is ours, and so are the Black Hills,” Means said.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1980 awarded the tribes $122 million as compensation, but the court did not award land. The Lakota have refused the settlement. (As interest accrues, the unclaimed award is approaching $1 billion.)

In the late 1980s, then-Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey introduced legislation to return federal land to the tribes, and California millionaire Phil Stevens also tried to win support for a proposal to return the Black Hills to the Lakota.

Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com

© 2007 The Rapid City Journal

Voicing Indigeneity Homegirls

2007-12-17T10:09:00.000-08:00

Madel is back! And we missed her. Miget is in Guam, so it's just me and Madel and Maile on the last day of the fall quarter, thinking about home and talking about everything.

(Not) Losing My Indigeneity

2007-12-13T07:06:00.000-08:00

I apologize, the end of the term rush and some technical difficulties stopped me from putting this podcast up immediately after we did it nearly two weeks ago. We have a lot to talk about, Miget went to the UN and describes that experience, there is a conference to discuss, I am closing in on my ma thesis and I ramble on about that for waaaay too long, my apologies, Maile describes a paper she is writing and we sing a little REM to wrap it up!

Watch this space, Madel, Maile and I are doing another podcast tomorrow so that should be up this weekend. We haven't heard from Madel since last spring so you know she has plenty on her mind!

Indigenous Peoples Shut Out of Climate Talks

2007-12-12T18:12:00.000-08:00

Published on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 by One World.net
Indigenous Peoples Shut Out of Climate Talks, Plans
by Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS - Global initiatives to reduce carbon emissions are bound to fail if the interests of indigenous communities are not taken into account, leaders of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples are warning.

“The success of efforts to lower carbon emissions from deforestation hinges primarily on whether indigenous peoples will throw their support behind proposed mechanisms,” said indigenous leader Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chair of the UN Permanent Forum.

Tauli-Corpuz told the UN Summit on Climate Change in Bali, Indonesia, this week that indigenous communities are increasingly worried about plans by governments and international financial institutions to control forest degradation.

The indigenous communities, according to her, are particularly concerned about the World Bank’s Carbon Partnership Facility, which is likely to provide large-scale incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

The tropical and subtropical forest, the subject of the Facility, is home to 160 million indigenous peoples who are seen by many scientists as custodians and managers of forest biodiversity.

“While the Facility can be a good thing, we are very apprehensive on how this will work,” Tauli-Corpuz continued, “because of our negative historical and present experiences with similar initiatives.”

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognizes native groups’ right to control their lands and resources, including forests, but many governments and corporations continue to abuse the rights of forest communities.

“We remain in a very vulnerable situation,” said Tauli Corpuz, “because most states do not recognize our rights to these forests and resources found therein.”

Last week, a report released by an international advocacy group raised similar concerns about the role of governments and corporations.

In its report, London-based Survival International named and shamed countries where the violations of tribal peoples’ rights are most egregious, including Botswana, Brazil, New Zealand, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States.

The report entitled, “The Terrible Ten: Key Abusers of Tribal Peoples’ Rights in 2007″ says tribal people in West Papua are facing appalling violence at the hands of Indonesia’s army, including killing, torture and rape. The natives’ lands are often exploited by the government and foreign companies.

In Botswana, the government continues to prevent Bushmen from returning to their home in the country’s diamond-producing area, despite a landmark court ruling that declared their 2002 eviction ‘unlawful and unconstitutional.’

According to Survival, cattle ranchers occupying Guarani Indian land in Paraguay are committing armed violence against the natives. This year they killed two Guarani leaders and raped two Guarani women. Fear of rape has led many women to commit suicide.

In Peru, which is home to an estimated 15 of the world’s last uncontacted tribes, the government has opened up the indigenous peoples’ territories to oil companies and illegal loggers. Paraguay’s Ayoreo-Totobiegosode people face a similar situation.

In Malaysia, land has been taken from the Sarawak tribe to make way for logging, dam construction, and oil palm plantations. The government has told the nomadic, hunter-gatherer Penan people that they have no land rights until they ’settle down’ and start farming.

Meanwhile at the UN Summit in Bali, many indigenous groups protested against their exclusion from the climate change negotiations. They wore symbolic gags that read UNFCCC, the acronym of the United UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Last week, an indigenous delegation charged that despite having received an invitation, it was forcibly barred from entering the meeting between the UNFCCC executive secretary and civil society representatives.

“There is no seat or name plate for indigenous peoples in the plenary,” stated Hubertus Samangun, the representative for English-speaking Indigenous Peoples of the Global Forest Coalition.

“Indigenous peoples are not only marginalized from the discussion, but there is virtually no mention of indigenous peoples in the more that 5 million words of UNFCCC documents,” argued Alfred Ilenre of the Edo People of Nigeria.

“This is occurring despite the fact that indigenous peoples are suffering the most from climate change and climate change mitigation projects that directly impact their lands,” IIenre added in a statement.

UN Permanent Forum’s Tauli-Corpuz demanded the governments and corporations must obtain the “free and prior” consent of indigenous peoples before taking any initiative on forest protections.

“I imagine that donors and the private sector would not like to put their resources in high-risk projects which will not genuinely involve indigenous and other forest-dwellers,” she said. “If there is an acceptance of the Facility, indigenous peoples must have a representation in [its] governance.”

© 2007 One World.net

US Troop Increase, indigenous Rights Decrease?

2007-11-29T00:56:00.000-08:00

Apex Express: Asian Pacific Islander radio
Thursdays 7PM-8PM, KPFA 94.1 FM, KFCF Fresno,
www.kpfa.org

Thurs. Nov. 29th:
US Troop Increase, Indigenous Rights Decrease? And will there be Pacific Islander Studies at UC Berkeley? Hear how Native Gumanians face military might as they try to re-claim land,
language, political power. We talk with Michael Lujan Bevacqua--who testified at the UN--as well as Michael Tuncap who will also talk about plans for starting Pacific Islander Studies at UC Berkeley. Island music and more during Indigenous Peoples' Month.
Contact: 510-848-6767x464; apex@... ;
for more stories: www.apexexpress.org . For Apex 's hip -hop
site: www.myspace.com/apexexpress

Postcolonial Futures in a Not Yet Postcolonial World

2007-11-20T18:27:00.001-08:00

CALL FOR PAPERS

"POSTCOLONIAL" FUTURES IN A NOT-YET POSTCOLONIAL WORLD:
Locating the Intersections of Ethnic, Indigenous, and Postcolonial Studies

March 5-7, 2008
Ethnic Studies Department
University of California, San Diego

In September 2007, after twenty years of debate, the United Nations finally passed the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a huge symbolic victory for indigenous peoples around the world who struggle under predatory and exploitative relationships with(in) existing nation-states. At the same moment, the UN was lumbering along in the 18th year of its impossible attempts to eradicate colonialism, with groups from around the world flocking to it to petition for the decolonization of their territories or to demand that their situations at least be recognized as "colonial."

Across all continents, indigenous and stateless peoples are struggling for and demanding various forms of sovereignty, as the recently decolonized world is sobering up from the learning of its limits and pratfalls. Postcolonial societies that were born of sometimes radical anti-colonial spirits, now appear to be taking on the role of the colonizer, often against the indigenous peoples that reside within their borders. In places such as Central and Latin America, a resurgence of Third World Leftist politics is being accompanied by a resurgence of indigenous populism. Meanwhile the recent arrests of sovereignty/environmental activists in New Zealand represents another instance where those from the 3rd and 4th worlds who dare to challenge the current make up of today's "postcolonial world" are branded as terrorists.

As scholars involved in critical ethnic studies engage with these ever more complex worlds, they are increasingly resorting to the lenses provided by postcolonial and indigenous studies. This engagement however is not without its limits or problems. As ethnic studies scholars seek to make their vision and scholarship more transnational and global, this push is nonetheless accompanied by gestures that, at the expense of indigenous and postcolonial frameworks, re-center the United States and reaffirm the solvency of its nation-state. In addition, despite their various commonalities, indigenous and postcolonial studies represent intellectual bodies of knowledge that are fundamentally divided over issues such as hybridity, sovereignty, nation, citizenship and subjectivity.

The purpose of this conference, then, is to create a space where scholars and activists engaged in these various projects, in various forms, can congregate to share ideas, hash out differences and move beyond caricatured understandings of each of these intellectual projects. It seeks to ask how, by putting ethnic, indigenous and postcolonial studies in conversation with each other, we may theorize new epistemologies that may better address the violences and injustices of the contemporary world.

To this end we solicit papers that address questions including, but in no way limited to, the following:

- What are the epistemological frameworks that inform postcolonial, ethnic and indigenous studies? What is their relationship to modernity and how do they challenge and/or complement each other?

- What constitutes the subject of postcolonial and ethnic studies? How does the construction of these subjectivities limit possible conversations with indigenous studies?

- What are the limitations and pitfalls of sovereignty as popularly envisioned? How do postcolonial and indigenous communities reaffirm or rearticulate sovereignty within their respective contexts?

- What are the different theories and strategies of decolonization as laid out by postcolonial and indigenous studies, and how do they inform each other?

- How does the political status of indigenous peoples complicate dominant discourses on immigration and citizenship? Moreover, with regards to settler nation-states such as the U.S., how does the "nations-within-nations" status of indigenous communities complicate the project of ethnic and transnational studies?

Abstracts must be submitted to: futures0308@gmail.com

Requirements:
250-word abstract, specifying if the proposal is for individual or roundtable presentations
Information including name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, e-mail address

Deadline for Submission: January 7th, 2008

For more information please contact: Michael Lujan Bevacqua at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com or Rashné Limki at rashne.limki@gmail.com

Website: http://futures0308.blogspot.com/

An Islander Daughter's Reading

2007-11-13T00:16:00.001-08:00

Island Daughter Reading in San Francisco

Independent Press Spotlight
Sponsored by Intersection for the Arts

Tuesday, 20 November 2007
7:30 PM
$5 - $15

Intersection for the Arts
446 Valencia (btwn 15/16 St.)
Mission District, San Francisco
415.626.2787
http://www.theintersection.org

Reading an excerpt from her novel-in-progress, Chamoru writer, journalist and children’s book author Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero joins fellow poets Truong Tran and Dustin Heron to feature this evening’s publisher, Achiote Press.

Victoria will be reading from Embodiment of Thoughts and Dreams, a love story that takes place on Guam during the 1950s, and flashes back to the Japanese occupation of the island during World War II. The story explores love in the backdrop of tragedy, and the effects of war and colonization on a young Chamoru woman and her family.

Victoria is completing her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing at Mills College in Oakland, CA. She also works as a media coordinator at the California Reinvestment Coalition in San Francisco, teaches a basic composition workshop to freshwomen at Mills College, and is actively involved in Guam’s decolonization movement.

The excerpt from tonight’s reading will be printed in the Fall edition of Achiote Seeds, a journal published by Achiote Press. http://www.achiotepress.com.

NPIEN

2007-11-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

The National Pacific Islander Educator Network (NPIEN) annual education conference is on November 17, 2007, 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Paramount High School in Paramount, CA.

Visit www.npien.com for registration, which includes breakfast and lunch.

Keynote speakers will be Dr. Maenette Benham, Michigan State University professor, who will discuss instructional strategies for teachers working with Pacific Islander students, and Dr. Aloha, Saitia Fa’aifo, Hawaii’s top motivational speaker, who will also conduct our student workshops Dr. Aloha’s book, The Riches of Respect, will be on sale.

Presenters include Uncle Henry Kamae, ukulele extraordinaire and instructor, Michael Lujan Bevacqua, College Student Networking facilitator, Zobeida Castillo and the Cabrillo High School Pacific Islander Club, Dance Workshop, and The Thompson Family, Arts and Crafts.

Major sponsors of the event are Majestic Realty, TEAM Referral Network, and the American University of Health Sciences.

Entertainment will be provided by the following Pacific Islander student clubs: Cabrillo High School, Long Beach, CA, Paramount High School, Paramount, CA, Carson, High School, Carson, CA, Davis Middle School, Compton, CA. Paramount High School’s Drumline will lead the processional, and Boy Scout Troop 348 the color guard.

DOOR PRIZES include Disneyland and Los Angeles Dodger Tickets!

Indigenous Politics: The Declaration of Indigenous Rights

2007-10-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

~TUESDAYS from 4-5pm (EST)
"INDIGENOUS POLITICS: FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND"
WESU (88.1 FM), Middletown,
CTLISTEN ONLINE LIVE from WESU website:www.wesufm.org

On Tuesday, October 30, join your host, Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui for a critical exploration of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that was recently adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. The program will feature an interview with Tonya Gonnella Frichner(Onondaga Nation, Snipe Clan), founder and president of the American Indian Law Alliance. AILA is an indigenous, non-profit organization that works with Indigenous nations, communities and organizations in the struggle for sovereignty, human rights, and social justice. Topics for discussion will focus on the politics of indigenous self-determination under international law, the distinction between minorities and Indigenous peoples, and the decades-long struggle to draft and pass the Declaration,as well as the opposition by New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the United States (the only four States that voted against it).

Fires Hits Reservations in San Diego

2007-10-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

Tribal volunteers tackle blaze
By Scott Gold, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 26, 2007

LA JOLLA INDIAN RESERVATION, Calif. -- One by one, they returned from the fire lines and steered their clunkers into a gravel parking lot. The dust from their wheels rose into the Pauma Valley and blended into the smoke billowing from three mountaintops behind them.

One had two chain saws in the bed of a rusty pickup truck, another a portable generator and a shovel in the back of an SUV. One walked with a limp; another was covered in tattoos. Several had long, black braids swaying behind their helmets or from under the bandannas they had wrapped around their heads.

After the Poomacha fire started here Tuesday morning, the 10 members of the La Jolla Indian Reservation Volunteer Fire Department found themselves surrounded by flames and stranded without electricity or running water.

They decided to stay and fight. By Thursday, they had assembled a ragtag, 52-person army -- unpaid and, largely, untrained. It wasn't a bucket brigade, but it was close. Most, but not all, were La Jolla Indians. Some had firefighting experience, but many did not.

One worked as a chef at a nearby country club. The reservation's 65-year-old environmental officer, who typically coordinates trash pickup, among other tasks, was placed in charge of security. A young construction worker stood at a checkpoint to guard against looters.

One coordinated the maps, tracking the active fires and plotting a defense. Another ordered walkie-talkies and had them shipped overnight to her hotel room in nearby Rincon.

Someone brought sandwiches.

Someone brought bulldozers.

By Thursday evening, the Poomacha fire had destroyed 50 houses here -- about a third of the homes on the tiny, isolated reservation in northern San Diego County, southeast of Temecula. It's a forgotten pocket of the county, where it's far easier to find ostrich jerky than a latte.

Among the losses were believed to be irreplaceable artifacts, including handmade, fire-burned ceramic bowls that were used to carry water long before the reservation for the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians was established here by Ulysses S. Grant in 1875.

The crew members had ashes caked in their ears. Their leader had slept only nine hours from Monday through Thursday afternoon.

But even though they lost the 50th house Thursday morning after a flare-up, they were winning. No one had been hurt. No one had been killed. And unless conditions changed markedly, they were unlikely to lose any more houses, said their leader, 36-year-old Joseph Ruise, the youngest of seven siblings raised on the reservation and the acting chief of the volunteer fire department.

"Since the resources are so thin, we developed our own," he said Thursday. "A lot of us just decided to stay."

He spoke, a map unfurled on the table in front of him, inside the reservation's tribal hall. The pre-fab building, in the center of the gravel lot off California 76, is typically used for tribal government and reservation meetings -- the education committee, the water committee. It had been turned into a fire station, mess hall and, for several crew members, bunk house. A handwritten sign on the wall listed the newly appointed commanders: Wally, Bro, Tracy, Cat.

The fire erupted on the reservation at 3 a.m. Tuesday. At the time, the volunteer fire department had been summoned to fight the Witch fire and was trying to cut a fire break into a patch of woods south of the reservation. The firefighters sped toward the first call, outside a La Jolla home in the Poomacha Valley. The first firefighter to reach the scene radioed to the others: "5 acres. Rapid rate of spread."

Within 15 minutes, the fire grew to 500 acres and was spreading in every direction at once.

Tribal leaders had already evacuated many members as a precaution, and tribal firefighters, along with 40 state firefighters and sheriff's deputies, were able to roust everyone else and get them out of town. The firefighters then raced away from the flames on California 76.

The trucks were going 60 mph, and "the fire was passing us," said Calvin Rodriguez, 30, part of the initial firefighting crew. "I thought I was taking a one-way ticket to hell. The visibility went from 20 feet to the other side of the windshield."

As soon as they could, the volunteers returned to the reservation. Others soon followed. They couldn't stay away.

"It was the right thing to do," said Ryan Adams, 20, the construction worker currently deputized to staff a roadblock. "It feels good."

The reservation has by no means been abandoned by the outside world; there were state firefighting crews on the reservation Thursday, as well as sheriff's deputies assisting on the roads. Aircraft fought one nasty patch of flames a mile or so south.

"We're getting help from the outside," Ruise said. "But it's not enough -- which is understandable considering what's going on. So we had to do more. It seemed like a pretty simple decision. You've gotta take care of your own. You've gotta do what you've gotta do."

With the Santa Ana winds that fueled the initial fires ebbing, evacuation requests were lifted in many communities, and there was a sense that the firestorm was winding to a close. But in certain areas -- particularly in this corner of San Diego County -- that's nowhere close to true.

Nearby, state firefighting crews mounted a defense to save several hundred homes atop Palomar Mountain from the Witch fire. "There seems to be this sense that it's over," said Dave Sossaman, the police chief on the nearby Los Coyotes Indian Reservation. "We're still in crisis here."

Alleged Maori Plot Against Whites

2007-10-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

Alleged Maori plot against whites
BBC News, October 17, 2007

Maori activist Tame Iti remains behind bars after the police raidsProsecutors in New Zealand have accused a group of Maori activists arrested on Monday of planning a violent campaign against the country's white majority.

Prosecutors allege one of the defendants sent mobile phone text messages saying he was going to declare war and that white men would die.

The man, Jamie Lockett, said his words had been taken out of context.

Police arrested 17 people on Monday, during anti-terror raids targeting Maori and environmental activists.

The raids were carried out in a mountainous region where it has been claimed that guerrilla-style training camps were set up.

Police commissioner Howard Broad said those arrested had used firearms and other weapons at the military-style training camps.

One of the text messages from Mr Lockett, intercepted by police, said: "White men are going to die in this country".

Another reputedly read: "I'm declaring war on this country very soon."

'Reality check'

Prosecutors also said police had intercepted phone calls from Mr Lockett in which he allegedly said he was training to become a commando, that he did not want to see any white faces in his country and that he would kill if he did.

The New Zealand media has also obtained documents relating to another of the men arrested, Maori sovereignty campaigner Tame Iti.

The documents show that police had been monitoring him for 18 months, videoing his training camps and intercepting his text messages.

Again they claim he intended to wage war on New Zealand.

But police sources describe the movement as "comical" and "amateurish", saying that at one stage the group had bought military uniforms from an army surplus store.

Most of the suspects remain in custody although Mr Lockett has been given bail, despite police opposition.

Tame Iti was denied bail and has been remanded in custody until 24 October.

Police Association president Greg O'Connor said the operation was a "reality check" for New Zealanders who dismissed the threat of home-grown terrorism.

"This operation has been triggered by credible intelligence of a serious threat to New Zealand's safety and security, and the Police Association fully supports the actions taken by police yesterday," he said.

"We need to realise there are fringe elements in our society, as in all others, that draw inspiration and encouragement from extremist activities overseas that most of us would find horrifying," he added.

World Indigenous Forum

2007-10-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

We are back for the new school year! If the forum I'm posting about below materializes, then we should probably make plans to attend!

*****************

Bolivia's president proposes convening UN world indigenous forum
26 September 2007 –

The President of Bolivia today called for the United Nations to convene a world indigenous forum to foster a new approach to economic relations based on an appreciation of natural resources and not their exploitation.

Addressing the General Assembly's annual high-level debate, Evo Morales welcomed the recent approval of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, thanking all countries, except the four which voted against it.

“Our culture is a culture of life,” said the President, the first indigenous leader of Bolivia.

He called on the UN to convene a world indigenous forum to “understand different ways of life.”

Questioning whether it was necessary to exploit and plunder in order to live well, he suggested instead that living well is living within a community – not having an excess of material wealth.

To indigenous communities, he said, the Earth is sacred, as demonstrated by their practices. “Let us gather these experiences to defend life and to save humankind,” he said.

President Morales said natural resources should be used to benefit nations, he said, adding that while companies have a right to profit, they do not have a right to plunder.

Natural resources should be accessible to all, he argued. “Water is a human right. Energy is a human right,” he said, stressing that these should not be considered commodities to be exploited by private businesses.

He said talk of biofuels was confusing. “I don't understand how we can produce food for cars. Soil should be for life! Because there is a lack of gas we are going to divert food for automobiles?” He called for giving up luxury. “We cannot continue to accumulate garbage,” he said.

President Morales spoke out against “economic policies that have caused genocide” and denounced the arms race. “War is the industry of death,” he declared.

He decried the economic imbalance of the world, where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. “Collective globalization that does not respect plurality or differences is the source of the problem,” he said.

The President also spoke of his own difficulties traveling to the UN Assembly. “I don't know how all of you managed to come here to the United States but at least my delegation had a great deal of visa problems,” he said, proposing that “perhaps we should change the site of the United Nations.”

The Indigenous View

2007-09-29T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's been a long summer but we are back! In this short, nearly twenty minute podcast Miget, Angie and new graduate student Maile discuss our first Indigenous Epistemologies class, muse over where Madel is and what she is doing, Miget discusses indigenous language and sings his baby daughter a lullaby and Long provides a shout out to all our Asian studies allies! It's a new academic year and we are ready for it.

UN Adopts Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

2007-09-17T00:31:00.000-07:00

Published on Friday, September 14, 2007 by OneWorld.net
UN Adopts Historic Statement on Native Rights
by Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS - Despite strong objections from the United States and some of its allies, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution Thursday calling for the recognition of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and control over their lands and resources.

The adoption of the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples comes after 22 years of diplomatic negotiations at the United Nations involving its member states, international civil society groups, and representatives of the world’s aboriginal communities.

An overwhelming majority of UN member countries endorsed the Declaration, with 143 voting in favor, 4 against, and 11 abstaining.

The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand stood alone in voting against the resolution. The nations that neither supported nor objected were Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Samoa, and Ukraine.

“It’s a triumph for indigenous peoples around the world,” said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after the General Assembly vote. “This marks a historic moment when member states and indigenous peoples have reconciled with their painful histories.”

In her comments, General Assembly President Haya Al Khalifa described the outcome of the vote as a “major step forward towards the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.”

Pleased with the General Assembly’s decision, indigenous leaders told OneWorld they wanted the declaration to be adopted by consensus, but since certain countries remained unwilling to recognize their rights until the end, a majority vote was the only possible option left.

“If a few states do not accept the declaration, then it would be a reflection on them rather than the document,” said Les Malezer, an aboriginal leader from Australia, before the resolution was presented to the General Assembly.

Before the vote many indigenous leaders accused the United States and Canada of pressuring economically weak and vulnerable nations to reject calls for the Declaration’s adoption. Initially, some African countries were also reluctant to vote in favor, but later changed their position after the indigenous leadership accepted their demand to introduce certain amendments in the text.

The Declaration emphasizes the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their institutions, cultures, and traditions and pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and aspirations.

It also calls for recognition of the indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, a principle fully recognized by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, but deemed controversial by the United States and some of its allies who fear that it could undermine their rights to rule over all their current territory.

In return for their support, the African countries wanted the declaration to mention that it does not encourage any actions that would undermine the “territorial integrity” or “political unity” of sovereign states.

Though the African viewpoint was incorporated into the final version, the Declaration remains assertive of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and control over their land and resources.

“It is subject to interpretation, but we can work with this,” Malezer said last week.

Thursday, Malezer and his colleagues in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues described the world body’s decision as “a major victory.”

“The 13th of September 2007 will be remembered as an international human rights day for the indigenous peoples of the world,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairperson of the Permanent Forum, in an emotional tone filled with joy.

International civil society groups working for the rights of indigenous peoples also expressed extreme pleasure with Thursday’s vote.

“We are really very happy and thrilled to hear about the adoption of the Declaration,” said Botswana Bushman Jumanda Gakelebone of First People of the Kalahari, who works with the independent advocacy group Survival International.

“It recognizes that governments can no longer treat us as second-class citizens, and it gives protection to tribal peoples so that they will not be thrown off their lands like we were,” Gakelebone added in a statement.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry said he hoped the declaration would raise international standards in the same way the Universal Declaration of Human Rights did nearly 60 years ago.

“It sets a benchmark by which the treatment of tribal and indigenous peoples can be judged, and we hope it will usher in an era in which abuse of their rights is no longer tolerated,” he added.

Vivian Stromberg, executive director of the New York-based rights group MADRE, said Thursday that the Declaration’s passage “will signal a major shift in the landscape of international human rights law, in which the collective rights of indigenous peoples will finally be recognized and defended.”

At the UN, indigenous leaders, however, cautioned against a possible gap between rhetoric and effective implementation of the Declaration.

“It will be the test of commitment of states and the whole international community to protect, respect, and fulfill indigenous peoples’ collective and individual human rights,” Tauli-Corpuz said.

“I call on governments, the UN system, indigenous peoples, and civil society at large to rise to the historic task before us and make the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples a living document for the common future of humanity,” she said in a statement.

Though pleased with the General Assembly’s decision, some indigenous leaders seemed unhappy that the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand did not accept the Declaration.

“Canada has shown its true colors on our human rights,” Arthur Manuel, a leader of Canada’s indigenous peoples, told OneWorld.

Those in opposition have said the Declaration is “flawed,” mainly because of its strong emphasis on the right to indigenous self-determination and full control over lands and resources. In their view, these clauses would hinder economic development efforts and undermine so-called “established democratic norms.”

The United States has also refused to sign on to a UN treaty on biological diversity, which calls for a “fair and equitable” sharing of the benefits derived from indigenous lands by commercial enterprises.

Meanwhile, threats to indigenous lands and resources persist, say rights activists, in the form of mining, logging, toxic contamination, privatization, large-scale development projects, and the use of genetically modified seeds.

“The entire wealth of the United States, Canada, and other so-called modern states is built on the poverty and human rights violations of their indigenous peoples,” said Manuel. “The international community needs to understand how hypocritical Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States are.”

Recent scientific studies have repeatedly warned of devastating consequences for indigenous communities in particular as changing climates are expected to cause more floods, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events across the world.

The United States and Australia have taken particular criticism also for their refusal to join the majority of the world’s nations in efforts to combat climate change.

© 2007 OneWorld.net

Dakota Commemorative March

2007-09-06T00:46:00.000-07:00

Bunita na Pinenta-Ku, Bunita na Tano'-Hu

2007-08-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

Bunita yan taiparehu i tano’-hu, ko’lo’lo’ña annai siña hu siesiente na para Guahu ha’ na mafa’tinas.

Bunita yan fotte i kinalamten i hinasso-ku siha, pi’ot annai manhuhuyong siha gi i pinentå-ku siha.

List of Podcasts

2007-08-23T05:49:00.000-07:00

For those of you lamenting our absence over the summer, or for those of you who at least noticed that we were gone, I'm pasting below links to all of our podcasts over the past year. We did 17 total, which is pretty good considering how many classes, proposals and thesises the three of us had to complete.

The summer's almost over and so I'm sure we'll be back soon.

*************************************

17. A Visit From Long: Defining Indigeneity
Special Guest: Long Bui

16. Ethnic Studies and Sovereignty: The Difficulties in Critiquing a Settler Society

15. Sovereignty and Decolonization

14. Airport Thoughts: Indigenous Studies Conference Wrap Up

13. Good Morning Norman! The Indigenous Strike Back...With a Conference!

12. A Visit To Hogwarts: Group Guest Lecture at a Social Movements Class Special Guest: Roberto Alvarez

11. The Wrath of Ross: A Reportback from The Ghosts, Monsters and the Dead Conference Special Guest: Ross Frank

10. Lost Podcast: Decolonization and Decoloniality Special Guest: Jose Fuste

9. Harry Potter and the 45th Generation Roman: Live from The Ghosts, Monsters and the Dead Conference

8. Onward Indigenous Soldiers: Let's Talk About Religion, Ba-by

7. Harry Potter and the Indigenous of Azkaban: Home, The Military, and a Surprise

6. Sound of Indigeneity: Songs From Our Lives

5. East of Indigenous: Special People in Our Lives

4. Indigenous Jane: Our Work

3. The Indigenous of the Ring: Why We're Here (in Ethnic Studies)

2. Second Podcast: Describing Indigeneity

1. First Podcast: Madel's Kitchen Table

Antiwar.com

2007-08-18T07:26:00.000-07:00

The website Antiwar.com is having some financial difficulties and so they're looking for donations to keep them going for another quarter.

If you've got some extra money in your bank account head over to their donation page at, http://antiwar.com/donate

Last year, they featured an article on Guam by Aaron Glantz titled "Natives of Guam Decry US Military Expansion," which had a quote from me and other members of Famoksaiyan.

Ward Churchill Fired

2007-07-31T17:42:00.000-07:00

Ward Churchill was fired recently by the University of Colorado.

Its a pretty scary development that militant idiots and right wing fanatics could get a fairly prestigious and tenured full professor fired. The tone of the 9/11 statement that started Churchill's controversy was harsh, but nonetheless true, from any perspective which isn't blinded by an American flag, or choking on the elixir of nationalism. I won't weigh in on my opinions here since I will get fired up, angry and end up typing for the next hour. Instead I'll post some links to some statements and articles on the scandal.

Here's a statement by Churchill after the whole mess started.

A very reactionary and twisted column on why its GREAT that Churchill was fired from the LA Times.

An article on "the banality of evil" and its role in Churchill's article.

An annoying and useless article from Slate on Churchill's firing and scholarship.

Statement from the President of FIRE on the firing.

Churchill is Welcomed Warmly for a Speech in Hawai'i.

A defense of Churchill's essay from Commondreams.

Indigenous Studies Conference

2007-07-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

Some photos of Madel, Angie and me at the Indigenous Studies Conference at University of Oklahoma in May.

United Nations, United Natives

2007-06-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEADIATE RELEASE
Contact: Keith Camacho
Email: decolonizeguam@gmail.com

Chamorro Delegation Urges United Nations Intervention on Human Rights Violations in Guam

New York City, June 20, 2007 — Chamorros from Guam today testified before the United Nations Special Committee of 24 on Decolonization to insist the international community pay closer attention to Guam's continued colonial status as the United States, its Administering Power, increases its already large military presence on the island.

The UN General Assembly created the Committee of 24 to consider appropriate forms of self-government for the world's 16 remaining Non-Self-Governing Territories (NSGT), including Guam.

Delagations from Guam have appealed to the Committee of 24 for more than 20 years regarding Guam's political status and the United States' refusal to respect the Chamorro people's right to self-determination. Today's delegation represents a second wave of Chamorros demanding their right to sovereignty.

Hope Antoinette Cristobal, a Chamorro and Doctor of Psychology called attention to the health effects colonization has had on the people of Guam.

"The colonization of Guam has had an impact on the psychological disposition of my people," said Cristobal, who has dedicated her academic training and career to the study of colonized and marginalized indigenous communities. "The Chamorro population in Guam experiences a wide array of health, mental health, and legal problems. My people are over-represented in correctional facilities, probation rolls, and within the mental health system. My people suffer high rates of family violence, substance abuse, teenage suicides, school drop-outs, and other social problems."

The United Nations is obligated to do more to address the continued colonial status of Guam, which remains on the UN list of Non-Self Governing Territories said Keith L. Camacho, an assistant professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"To date, neither the United States nor the United Nations has made any sustained attempt to prepare the Chamorro people of Guam toward 'self-determination,' as defined by United Nations Resolution 1541," said Camacho, a researcher in issues of colonization and decolonization in the Pacific Islands and elsewhere. "In fact, the United States history of political relations with Guam can be best described as one of apathy, ignorance, racism and unilateralism. On the other hand, Chamorro activists, attorneys, community organizers, educators, policy makers and religious leaders boast a history of critical anti-colonialism that has not been heeded by the United States and the United Nations. Thus, the question of political status in Guam remains unresolved, if not temporarily stalled."

Sabina Flores Perez, an indigenous Chamorro who testified before the UN Special Political and Decolonization Committee in October 2006 said after 20 years of appeals, it is time for the United Nations and the International community to respond to Guam.

"In this time of great need for Chamorros and Guam, with the overwhelming burden of inequality accumulating, the expediting of the current US militarization, the huge conflicts of interest of those entrusted with preserving our human rights and their subsequent disregard for it, it is essential to ensure that all the accomplishments of our forebears on behalf of decolonization and self-determination be maintained," said Perez, who has organized educational campaigns against privatization of natural resources, environmental contamination and militarization on Guam. "Moreover, it is essential that greater attention is paid to the situation of Guam and that the island receives an appropriate response from the international community."

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Long Visits Voicing Indigeneity

2007-06-09T08:11:00.000-07:00

This discussion between Miget, Long and I focuses on our department, the challenges of doing indigenous studies in ethnic studies and the work of our cohort.

Songs of Sovereignty

2007-06-09T07:30:00.000-07:00

Hello friends, Miget and I got together yesterday afternoon for a podcast, unfortunately Madel is out of town and we missed her wisdom but we struggled through and had a good discussion about sovereignty. Hope you enjoy it!

Indigenous Politics: Summer Schedule

2007-06-03T01:10:00.000-07:00

From Kehaulani Kauanui:

Greetings, My radio program has a new time slot for the summer season:
Friday from 4-5pm EST. Starting this Friday, May 25, and for the rest of
the summer, all fifteen shows from the Spring season will be broadcast
during this new time slot. SEE BELOW FOR A FULL SCHEDULE. You can listen
online LIVE when they air at: www.wesufm.org. Mahalo, Kehaulani

````````````````
Please tune in each Friday from 4-5pm (Eastern Standard Time) for
"INDIGENOUS POLITICS: FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND"
on WESU (88.1 FM), Middletown, Connecticut
with host J. Kehaulani Kauanui
Listen online via LIVE stream from WESU website:
www.wesufm.org

Friday, May 25: Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne & Hodulgee Muscogee) President
and Executive Director of The Morning Star Institute, discusses the state
of Indian Country on Capitol Hill.

Friday, June 1: Richard Velky (Schaghticoke) Chief of the Schaghticoke
Tribal Nation on the politics of their struggle for federal recognition
and the role of the state of Connecticut in opposing them;

Friday, June 8: Randolph Lewis, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Oklahoma
University, and author of, Alanis Obomsawin: The Vision of a Native
Filmmaker, the first book devoted to any Native filmmaker;

Friday, June 15: J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Ph.D. (Kanaka Maoli) offers an
overview of Hawaiian sovereignty politics;

Friday, June 22: Robert J. Miller (citizen of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of
Oklahoma) Associate Professor, Lewis & Clark Law School, and author of new
book, Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis &
Clark, and Manifest Destiny;

Friday, June 29: David Cornsilk (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) discusses
the recent vote at Cherokee Nation to disenfranchise the Freedman
descendants and the history of Cherokee slave holding, citizenship, and
sovereignty issues;

Friday, July 6: Ned Blackhawk, Ph.D. (Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone),
Associate Professor of History and American Indian Studies at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, and author of new book, Violence over
the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West;

Friday, July 13: Richard Anguksuar LaFortune (Yup'ik), Director, 2SPR- Two
Spirit Press Room, a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Native media
& cultural literacy project;

Friday, July 20: Dale Turner, Ph.D. (Temagami First Nation in Northern
Ontario, Canada), Associate Professor of Government and American Indian
Studies at Dartmouth College, author of new book, This is Not a Peace
Pipe: Towards a Critical Indigenous Philosophy;

Friday, July 27: Brian Baguck Wescott, Ph.D. (Koyukon and Yup'ik nations),
is a co-producer, filmmaker, and actor currently producing and acts in the
docudrama, "We Are Still Here," an educational biopic about Cahuilla elder
Katherine Siva Saubel from Banning, CA, and also has a major documentary
series in development, tentatively titled "The 20th Century Indian Show,"
which will be written by novelist Thomas King, and directed by Chris Eyre;

Friday, August 3: Host J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Ph.D. (Kanaka Maoli) offers
an overview of current political issues facing tribal nations in New
England and the role of the states in opposing their quest for sovereign
recognition.

Friday, August 10: Sarah Deer (Muscogee) attorney who serves as a Victim
Advocacy Legal Specialist for the Tribal Law & Policy Institute in Saint
Paul, Minnesota discusses a report just released by Amnesty International
USA on April 24, 2007, titled, "Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect
Indigenous Women From Sexual Violence in the USA".

Friday, August 17: J. Kehaulani Kauanui (Kanaka Maoli), Ph.D. discusses a
proposal awaiting a vote in the US Senate for the federal recognition of
Native Hawaiians as a domestic dependent governing entity.

***

Che on Imperialism

2007-05-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to be working on my prospectus today, but instead I'm surfing around Youtube for cool stuff to put on my blog. I came across this and thought I'd share:

As A Sovereign Nation...

2007-05-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

I know how much Angie has been struggling lately about issues of sovereignty, especially after learning the recent Cherokee disenrollment. I came across this while I was surfing the internet, and thought I'd post it here for all, and to provide another possibly ill-fitting piece of the puzzle for Angie's project.

I got to hear Sheryl Lightfoot's presentation at the Indigenous Studies Conference last week, and was very impressed by it. She was discussing the limits of current frameworks of international relations to capture, describe and assist in indigenous movements for sovereignty or internationalism. It was perfect for my prospectus that I'm writing right now.

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Reconciling moral outrage with self-determination
Indiancountry.com
Posted: March 09, 2007
by: Sheryl Lightfoot

Chad Smith, the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, claims that amending the Cherokee Nation Constitution to restrict membership to the descendents of the Dawes Rolls, a move that expels approximately 2,800 descendants of the freedmen from the nation, is an exercise of sovereignty. In a statement issued by the Cherokee Nation, Smith said: ''The Cherokee people have exercised their most basic democratic right, the right to vote. Their voice is clear as to who should be citizens of the Cherokee Nation. No one else has the right to make that determination. It was a right of self-government, affirmed in 23 treaties with Great Britain and the United States, and paid dearly with 4,000 lives on the Trail of Tears.''

Smith is right. The power and inherent right of tribal nations to determine and define their own citizenry is one of the strongest rights of self-determination that indigenous nations have retained during our more than 200 years' experience with interference by the U.S. colonial government. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized this right. No one should determine tribal citizenship except the tribe itself.

We, as citizens of other sovereign indigenous nations, are absolutely and completely compelled to support the right of the Cherokee Nation to exercise this power. But at the same time, it makes many of us squirm in our chairs to feel compelled to support an action that involves the active disenrollment of members, an action that results in stripping away citizenship rights of certain individuals, especially where issues of race, slavery and historical racism are involved. Should a person really be stripped of tribal citizenship merely because part of their ancestry can be traced to the slaves once held by the Cherokee? Can we truly support this move, which is a deeply disturbing trend in Indian country? It places us in a moral dilemma.

Some in Indian country and in the wider U.S. society advocate an appeal to the BIA to intervene in tribal enrollment decisions. However, if we are serious about self-determination,

then we must never turn to our colonial administrators for help when, through an act of self-determination, something happens within an indigenous nation that we disagree with. To do so would be to act like the ''wards'' that our ''guardian'' Great White Father wishes upon us rather than the self-determining sovereigns that we wish to be. So, how can those of us from other indigenous nations or even citizens of non-indigenous nations (like the United States or Canada) reconcile this moral dilemma? How do we support the principle, yet disapprove of an action? How do we, as citizens of other sovereign nations, register our moral disagreement with this act of disenrollment, yet still respect the right of the Cherokee Nation to make its own enrollment decision?

In order to be sovereign nations, we must act like sovereign nations. But that does not mean that in order to support self-determination in principle, we need to agree with every decision of other sovereign nations. Nation-states in the international system do not always agree with the internal actions of other nation-states, yet they nearly always accept the principle of the equal sovereignty of all nation-states within the international system (with certain notable exceptions like the Iraq invasion or humanitarian interventions). When a nation-state, a group of nation-states, or private citizens of other nation-states disagree with the internal actions of another nation-state, there are a number of possible avenues of action.

First, sovereign nation-states can register a diplomatic complaint with the government of the offending nation-state. This is done all the time in the international system. The U.S. Department of State often drafts and delivers letters of protest to the diplomats and officials of other governments over areas of disagreement. Likewise, the executives of our indigenous nations have the right, if not the moral responsibility, to send letters and make phone calls of complaint directly to the executives of the Cherokee Nation, expressing their concern over the disenrollment decision. This can be done while supporting the inherent right of an indigenous nation to determine its own membership.

Another tactic which can be employed by other indigenous nations or the private citizens of other nations is the art of moral persuasion, or ''moral suasion,'' as it has also been termed. This involves a campaign of exposure and embarrassment. This tactic has most often been employed in international human rights campaigns, with the purpose being to expose the immoral government action in the media and open up international discussion in order to embarrass the target government into changing its policy to better conform to international norms. This was done in the early days of the campaign against apartheid in South Africa and has been used often by groups like Amnesty International to urge governments to stop human rights abuses.

Finally, follow the money. Those of us who find the actions of the sovereign Cherokee Nation disturbing or morally questionable also have some economic options. Again, sovereign nations take these actions against other sovereign nations all the time. Witness the economic embargos against Cuba and North Korea, and the sanctions that were placed by many nations against South Africa in the last days of apartheid. In none of these cases was there overt intervention (setting aside for the moment the Bay of Pigs invasion) by other nations in the internal affairs of another nation and the legal sovereignty of the target nations was respected. Following this model, we have a right to boycott all Cherokee businesses and still respect the sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. Even the U.S. federal government could conceivably express its outrage at the decision of the Cherokee Nation, not by intervening directly and exercising colonial authority as it has usually done, but rather, by cutting off or threatening to cut off non-treaty-based federally funded programs to the Cherokee Nation. In fact, the federal government did exercise this option by withholding funding when the Seminole Nation disenfranchised its freedmen.

Through all of these avenues, we cannot only find our way out of what appears at first glance to be a moral dilemma, but we also advance our own sovereignty in the process. We do not have to sit back and accept all the decisions of a fellow sovereign in order to respect their sovereignty and show solidarity with them. Nation-states in the international system do not; and we should not, either. We have options available to us that allow us to register our moral protest at another state's actions which will, at the same time, help us act more like the self-determining sovereign nations that we are.

Sheryl Lightfoot, Keweenaw Bay Ojibwe, is a Ph.D. candidate, International Relations and Comparative Politics Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, and chair of the American Indian Policy Center, St. Paul, Minn.

Some Life at UCSD

2007-05-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

The three of us, Madel, Angie and me are all from UCSD in case you didn't know, and I just came across this on youtube, which is a controversy brewing on our campus. There's been a bunch of different protests and organizing around the watering down and destroying of the social justice and racial critique that a particular program, Thurgood Marshall College at UCSD was created with. The Lumuba-Zapata Coalition has come out full force in protest of these changes, and rallied around two exemplary TAs which were "fired" or not rehired into the program this year. In a moment very similar to the Alberto Gonzalez, eight men out scandal. At first these TAs were fired because of public statements that they had made criticizing the direction towards conservatism that their program was taking, but later the program director retracted this statement claiming that it was "performance problems" that had led to their firing. This despite the fact that one of the TAs had excellent reviews and the other won a distinguished teaching award last year.

For more information check out the Lumuba Zapata blog. And I'm also posting the videos from a post down below.

Back in San Diego Miget Explains it All

2007-05-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

I hope you can hear Miget as he gets his philosopher on in the latter part of the podcast, I was waving him closer to the mic. We didn't sing or take pictures today but we did have a good discussion about the Indigenous Studies conference, our work and Miget shares some interesting thoughts about decolonization and sovereignty. All in less than forty minutes! Enjoy!

Airport Thoughts

2007-05-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

We had some time waiting for our plane to board so Miget and I did a quick podcast despite waking up before 4am. We begin well but my son wanders off and so I leave to find him and Miget finishes alone, meanwhile how can it be all it should without Madelsar? So it's short and sweet but there will be more to come later this week!

Good Mornin' Norman!

2007-05-06T23:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning Madel, Miget and I were a little nervous, a little sleep deprived and so we did a quick half-hour podcast before we got ready for our panel. The conference was interesting, stimulating, I thought the University of Oklahoma was beautiful, the people we met were so kind. It's heading towards midnight and we woke up early to get to the airport this morning so maybe Miget will come and add/edit this post later, I just wanted to get the first podcast up, another is coming that Miget and I started at the airport this morning but Miget had to end it when I walked away to find out where my son went. We had a time and we'll talk more about it later this week as well as post our papers. We really enjoyed meeting people and it was so nice to hear that people do come and read this blog and listen to these podcasts, thank you so much for listening!

I am so sorry I didn't take more pictures! Here are some of Miget, Madel and Leroy our first night there outside the Fred Jones Museum.

I edited this to add that the podcast was incomplete but now the link is right, sorry about that!

More than a Mine, a Metaphor

2007-05-04T23:07:00.000-07:00

Published on Friday, May 4, 2007 by The Globe and Mail (Canada)
More Than a Mine, A Metaphor
While The Mohawks and Ottawa Negotiated For The Land, The Land Itself Was Disappearing

by Naomi Klein
After a group of Mohawks from the Tyendinaga reserve blockaded the railway between Kingston and Toronto two weeks ago, a near unanimous cry rose up from the editorial pages of Ontario newspapers and talk radio: Get Shawn Brant. Yesterday, Mr. Brant, a beanpole of a man, walked into a packed Napanee courtroom with his wrists and ankles shackled after handing himself over to the Ontario Provincial Police.

According to court testimony, the arrest warrant on charges of mischief, disobeying a court order and breach of recognizance violated an agreement between police and demonstrators, who were given immunity when they peacefully ended the blockade. But Mr. Brant worried that the warrant for him would be used as a pretext for raiding a gravel quarry that he and several other community members from Tyendinaga have been occupying for the past six weeks. “We don’t want to bring that into the camp,” he told me.

The court granted Mr. Brant bail on condition that he is not allowed to “plan, incite, initiate, encourage or participate in any unlawful protest,” including those “that interfere in any way with commercial or non-commercial traffic on all public and private roads, airports, railways or waterways.” A trial date has not been set.

Why the determination to get Shawn Brant, and Shawn Brant alone? On the surface, the broken immunity agreement seems sure to inflame tensions. And whatever crimes Mr. Brant may have committed, he had plenty of company. But Mr. Brant has a theory. “Right now, I’m the voice. They think if they take away the people’s voice, the people will stop. They’ll see that they’re wrong, and that’s not all bad.”

Mr. Brant is more than a voice. He has become a symbol for the new militancy that is spreading through first nations communities across the country. Sitting beside the campfire at the occupied quarry a few days ago, Mr. Brant told me that since he was a kid, people in his community have been telling him to keep quiet. “It used to be, ‘Shawn, shut up, don’t say those things about the government, they’ll cut off our funding.’ Now it’s ‘Shawn, shut up, they’ll walk away from the negotiating table.’ ”

The reason Mr. Brant isn’t willing to let the negotiations take their course is that these talks are designed to take decades. And as the time passes, the land disappears. Forests are clear-cut, mountains are carved up, suburbs creep outward. Ineffective negotiations do not hold the line on an already unacceptable status quo - they contribute to the losing of very real ground.

At the gravel quarry near Deseronto, the loss of land is painfully, insultingly literal. The quarry is on land never ceded by the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, a fact the federal government has acknowledged. The only question is what form compensation for the theft will take. The Tyendinaga band council and Ottawa have been negotiating over that question since last November. The problem arose because, as the two parties talked, trucks were carrying 10,000 loads of newly crushed gravel out of the pit every year - an estimated 100,000 tonnes. While they bargained for the land, the land itself was disappearing.

When 150 people from the reservation took over the quarry and planted the Mohawk flag at the top of a mount of gravel, they had, and continue to have a single demand: Revoke the quarry’s licence until the negotiations have concluded. Or, as 28-year-old Jason Maracle put it to me, rather succinctly: “You’re not hauling away the very land we’re talking about.”

But it got worse. There was a pile of wood on the edge of the gravel pit that the people occupying the quarry used to feed their bonfire. As the pile depleted, it became apparent the wood had been covering up a large pile of garbage: old washing machines, leaking industrial batteries, oil filters, hydraulic fluid, bed frames, antifreeze. They explored some more and discovered it was all over the pit: piles of hastily covered junk, some of it half-burned, much of it toxic, including broken up pieces of asphalt from the highway. (You can still see the yellow lines.)

“When it rains, the whole mountain turns into a rainbow of chemical fluids and oils, all flowing down into the water. Then it all leeches into the ground water,” Mr. Maracle told me, pointing to the murky green pool at the bottom of the pit.

Not surprisingly, the mine has become a powerful metaphor, a vivid illustration of the failures of the negotiation process, and the problems with being patient. While the experts talk, good land is trucked out and toxic junk is trucked in - and without direct action, there would have been nothing left to talk about.

It’s an image with resonance on reservations across the country. With commodities from fuels to metals commanding record prices on the world market, the slow erosion of land has suddenly jumped into fast-forward, with a frantic push to open new mines and pipelines. Add to that the race to cut new ski hills and highways out of pristine mountains for the B.C. Olympics in 2010 and to build new town homes to feed Ontario’s housing boom and it’s easy to see why more and more native people are telling Shawn Brant to keep talking.

The final insult came when the federal Tories handed down a budget with next to nothing new in it to address first nations poverty. Mr. Brant makes an analogy between the way land disappears while negotiations stall and the way lives are degraded while funding is frozen. Birth rates are high, he points out, “so getting nothing means moving backward - more suicides, more disease, more contamination.” When “nothing” happens at the negotiation table, mountains and trees disappear; when “nothing” is in the budget, lives are extinguished.

The budget blow prompted Assembly of First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine to call for a national day of action on June 29. Though Mr. Fontaine insists he is not calling for cross-country blockades, many first nations are already planning them, with talk of a co-ordinated targeting of key infrastructure, from rails to roads. “It’s the same notion as a general strike,” Mr. Brant explains with a smile.

If the blockade strategy goes ahead, one thing is certain: There will be rivers of ink spilled explaining that, while native grievances are legitimate, there is no excuse for such disruptive tactics. Protesters will be told they are discrediting their cause, and they will be described as “violent” whether or not violence takes place. Mr. Fontaine has taken this finger-wagging to heart. “Let’s face it, if you irritate Canadians, they’re not going to listen to your message,” his spokesperson said recently.

Mr. Brant has a different message for non-native Canada - don’t just listen to us, join us. He points out that Canadians, even those who tell themselves they support native rights, “still treat them as a government problem.” But that’s not how social issues ever gain the kind of critical mass that leads to real change. “The environment is an issue right now because people told the government it was an issue,” Mr. Brant says. “If they said our concerns were an issue, they would be addressed too.”

Right now, everything is lining up for June 29 to be a day for natives to act and the rest of us to whine about late trains and traffic jams. But listening to Mr. Brant, it struck me that it could be something else: a day of action on native rights for the entire country, one when we all refuse to shut up.

Naomi Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, to be published in September.

© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.

The Akaka Bill

2007-04-22T16:12:00.000-07:00

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Why should Native Hawaiians who have never relinquished their inherent sovereignty settle for the lesser status of federal recognition that is being put forward in the ''Akaka Bill''?

They shouldn't, says J. Kehaulani Kauanui.

Kauanui, a Native Hawaiian and an assistant professor of anthropology and American studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, presented a short history of Hawaii/U.S. relations and her views of the Akaka Bill in a talk called ''The Politics of Native Hawaiian Self-Determination: U.S. Federal Policy v. International law'' at Yale University on April 4.

She began with thanks to the event sponsors - the Yale Group for the Study of Native America and the Program in Ethnicity, Race and Migration - and acknowledged the land now known as New Haven as the original homeland of the Quinnipiac people.

A heated debate about Hawaiian sovereignty now centers on the proposed Hawaiian federal recognition bill reintroduced into Congress by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, in January after six years of defeat in the Senate, Kauanui said.

The Hawaiian sovereignty movement is split between those who support federal recognition and those who want full independence from the United States based on decolonization and de-occupation under international law, Kauanui said.

''At the heart of this division between federal recognition and independence is the debate as to whether or not, and if so, how Native Hawaiians fit into U.S. policy on Native American governing entities,'' Kauanui said.

A compelling argument against federal recognition is how federally recognized tribes are treated now,

Kauanui said.

''You have a backlash against tribal nations in this area who are absolutely entitled to

federal recognition and you have the state bearing down on them, and the courts continue to erode tribal sovereignty. So the challenge for me, intellectually, legally and politically, has been how to formulate my critique of federal recognition for Hawaiians without it ever being misinterpreted as something that can be used against tribes here, because I support the federal recognition of tribes here,'' Kauanui said.

But the central argument against federal recognition rests on ''the particularity of the Hawaiian claims given the legal history of the Hawaiian kingdom,'' Kauanui said.

Those particularities are embedded as facts in Public Law 103-150 - an apology to the Hawaiian people that was signed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton.

The apology acknowledges the illegality of the U.S. government's military-backed regime change of ''the sovereign Hawaii nation'' in 1893 and its support for the illegally created ''provisional government'' in violation of treaties and international law. The insurgents were wealthy American and European financiers and colonists who owned sugar plantations.

The key statement in the apology reiterates Hawaii's continuing independence: ''The indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people or over their national lands to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum.

''This legal genealogy makes the current push for federal recognition as reflected in the Akaka Bill extremely problematic,'' Kauanui said.

The word ''people'' itself puts Hawaiians in line with international law that says all

peoples have the right to determine their political structures.

''When you say 'people,' you're saying a nation. A people is not an ethnic group,'' Kauanui said, quoting Lumbee legal scholar David Wilkins, who outlined four elements that set American Indians apart from racial minorities.

''Indians are nations, not minorities,'' Wilkins said, because they were the original inhabitants of the land; their pre-existence necessitated the negotiation of political compacts, treaties and alliances with European nations and the United States. As treaty-recognized sovereigns, Indian peoples are subject to U.S. trust doctrine, which is supposed to be a unique legal relationship with the federal government that entails protection; and, stemming from the trust relationship, the United States asserts plenary power of tribal nations, which it deems exclusive and pre-emptive.

Native Hawaiians who want to pursue self-determination through international law contest this U.S. use of the ''doctrine of discovery'' to indigenous peoples' lands and U.S. assertion to legal title to those lands while only recognizing tribal nations' use of the land, Kauanui said.

The ''provisional government'' ceded 1.8 million acres of Hawaiian lands to the United States in 1898, but those lands have never fallen into private hands.

''These are lands the U.S. government accepted from the people that stole them from the Hawaiian monarchy. Never has a penny exchanged hands and never has a case about the legal title of these lands ever been adjudicated so this is a major outstanding land claim - 1.8 million acres of some of the most expensive real estate in the world and one of the most militarized place in the world,'' Kauanui said, referring to the massive U.S. nuclear base in Honolulu, which is the central command for U.S. military interests in the Pacific Ocean.

Supporters of federal recognition say there is nothing in the Akaka Bill that would compromise or foreclose Hawaiian national claims under international law, but U.S. actions in asserting its plenary power to keep tribal nations both domestic and dependent belie that claim, Kauanui said.

Hawaiians may not be able to realize their independence right now, ''but just because you can't see it come to fruition right now doesn't mean you throw it down the toilet. You protect the claims. I'd rather stick with the status quo for the moment and work on cultural sovereignty, get the people stronger and work on educating people about their political rights,'' Kauanui said.

Under the Akaka Bill, Hawaii could never have casinos, never have criminal and civil jurisdiction, never petition the secretary of the Interior Department to take land into trust and never be able to make land claims under the 1790 Non-Intercourse Act, which would mean ''there goes those 1.8 million acres,'' Kauanui said.

No competing Hawaiian sovereignty group would have legal standing in any domestic court or at the United Nations. The Native Hawaiian government would be formed by a commission appointed by and answerable to the Interior secretary, unlike federally recognized Indian tribes who determine their own leadership and membership. And Hawaiians could not have their own civil or criminal jurisdiction.

''Why should we do that? It seems a more critical time than ever for Hawaiians and all U.S. citizens to critically question why there should not be a Hawaiian embassy in Washington, D.C. Instead of negotiating with the Department of the Interior, Hawaiians have the un-extinguished right to negotiate instead with the U.S. Department of State,'' Kauanui said.

2007-04-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has been so long between podcasts! We probably won't be podcasting for another three weeks when we are at the Indigeous Studies Meeting in May. Miget is in Guam, Madel is preparing to defend her prospectus and qualify, go Madel! My defense for my MA thesis defense is postponed until late summer but I am reading and researching. This morning after I dropped my son off at school I ran into Madel heading to her office hours, looking great and it was nice to catch up, I miss our talks! So I wanted to let the faithful know that we will return, soon and singing, as always!

Indigeneity and Militarism

2007-03-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Check out the speech below given by Kanak Maoli activist Ikaika Hussey, a student at the University of Hawai'i. Here are two articles about a seven-day protest he organized in 2005 against the intrusion of the United States Navy into the University of Hawai'i.

"Students and faculty oppose Navy research," Friday, April 29, 2005
http://starbulletin.com/2005/04/29/news/story4.html

"UH protesters declare victory as sit-in ends," Thursday, May 5, 2005
http://starbulletin.com/2005/05/05/news/story6.html

******************

Indigeneity and militarism: aloha aina contra empire

In his book “Imperial Grunts,” U.S. conservative writer Robert Kaplan notes the historic interrelationship between the US wars with the first nations of North America and the modern US imperial experience from Indochina to the present: “Injun Country” is the term which he hears from soldiers abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq, a reference to the undomesticated world which the US aims to tame.

The term is important in two respects. First, it signals the American tendency to see the world outside of North America as subject to its assimiliating tendencies, just as it attempted to do with Turtle Island. In this manner, the anti-Indian wars of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries are the template for the new Indian wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and possibly Iran, North Korea, the Mindanao, and China. From this perspective, the unique identities and soveriegnties of the world’s peoples are just open spaces for the projection of US military force, to make way for WalMart, McDonalds, and MTV.

But in another way, the term is important, for it a sign of the resilience and resistance of the world’s peoples against US expansion. In North America, Indian Country has become a way of talking about the places where the US assumes it has control and domination, but the first peoples do not agree. Indian Country is free country – under the jurisdiction of the gun, but still fighting. And so I derive both a sobering appreciation for the power of military power from this term, but also a deeply-rooted faith in the ability for the first peoples of this world, the peoples of the eagle, the condor, and the frigate bird, to sustain our fight against empire, and be victorious in time.

The experiences of indigenous peoples vis-à-vis the militarized empire are multiple and unique. That is, in fact, one of the foundational ideas that indigenous peoples bring to the world: we are not singular, but plural; we obtain our life and very existence from the specificities of our particular ancestors, our particular gods, our named and worshipped sacred sites. As a indigenous person of Hawaii, I can really only speak for myself and my immediate ancestors; I couldn’t casually speak for my next-door neighbors, let alone the peoples of other Oceanic nations, or of the Americas. So in making these remarks, I will try to speak from our own experience in Hawaii, and only by extension refer to other indigenous experiences.

My country, Hawaii, has been under US occupation since the end of the 19th century. US interest in Hawaii is primarily geostrategic. We have the dubious distinction of being used as the headquarters of the Pacific Command, the largest of the U.S. unified commands. In the 161 military installations throughout Hawaii, every aspect of U.S. military activity takes place, including ocean, land, air, and space operations; training; storage; command & control; research; housing; and even specialized rest & recreation facilities for the military. The military-connected population is 17% of the population; by comparison, Native Hawaiians comprise barely 20% of the island population.

On my home island of O‘ahu, the metropolitan island of Hawaii, the US military controls one-quarter of the land in terms of base territory and formal military jurisdiction. Much of the remaining three-quarters is also injected with militarization, with federal highways connecting the bases, discounts for servicepersons in restaurants and theatres, military bases used as place names, military service projects in public schools, and servicepersons living in our communities because of a cost-of-living-adjustment which allows them to outprice local people from the rental market. Oahu is one of the most militarized places in the world, together with fellow Pacific nations such as Guam.

By contrast, to bring out the impact of the military presence on the indigneous economy and culture of Hawaii, let us focus on a place that we have all heard of: Ke Awalau o Puuloa. Many know this place as Pearl Harbor. In our history, Puuloa is known as the food-basket of our islands, with a remarkable series of 36 stone and coral fishponds built along the shore, allowing our people to maintain and replenish a steady supply of fish protein, all within walking distance. In the traditional land apportionment system, each district along the shore of Ke Awalau o Puuloa had access to this incredible resource, because we recognized that this wealth should be shared. Puuloa is also known as the dwelling for our spiritual protector Kaahupahau, a benevolent shark who protected the people of the surrounding Ewa district from other predators.

Juxtaposed against the current (mis)use of Puuloa, we can see how native subsistence wealth has been damaged to make way for US imperial ambitions. Today, Puuloa is a Superfund site, meaning that the Environmental Protection Agency has declared it one of the most polluted areas in the United States. The shared access to the economy of the oceanic resource has also been interrupted, with barbed walls and military police preventing entry to our fishponds.

This story isn’t unique to Puuloa, nor is it unique to Hawaii. At the most recent meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Indigneous Populations, the indigneous delegates considered the impact of militarism on their territories and peoples. Below is a portion of a longer conference report covering a variety of issues; this excerpt is the full text concerning militarism.

[According to indigneous participants,] militarization often involved the use of weapons and vehicles that polluted ancestral and sacred lands, forests and water, and harmed wildlife. Participants expressed their strong opposition to the dumping of toxic military waste, and even nuclear waste, on their lands, which rendered them unproductive and forced people from their traditional lands. Unexploded ordnance and landmines from conflicts or training exercises also contaminated indigenous peoples’ lands and caused injuries, ill-health and even death to the civilian indigenous population.

One issue that was raised frequently by indigenous people during the session was the use of militarization as a pretext to gain control over the natural resources in indigenous traditional lands without adequate compensation. A large number of participants from many different countries and regions cited cases of the use of the military to ensure access to land, minerals, oil and other resources on their ancestral lands.

Indigenous representatives also voiced their opposition to development projects, which they said were used as a justification for controlling areas that belong to their communities, as well as a justification for the presence of large numbers of soldiers on those lands. Many indigenous representatives spoke of long histories of forced resettlement for military use of their lands. Often this was done with neither consultation nor redress.

A number of participants cited the war on terror as a pretext for militarization, in particular in Arab regions. It was noted that a large military presence was often accompanied by human rights abuses by the military, including rape and sexual harassment that disproportionately affected women and children in indigenous communities. Indigenous representatives gave examples of the resulting climate of violence and fear. They cited a number of cases of military forces committing human rights abuses with impunity. Several indigenous participants expressed their concern about military recruitment of indigenous youth, which, they said, was a threat to their way of life. Whilst in some cases, recruitment might appear to be voluntary, indigenous youth who were living in poverty might see military service as their only option to earn a living.

As you see, the themes raised by indigneous nations are familiar to many of us in this conference. Clearly, many nation-states regard indigneous rights as a lesser right to the interests of developers or the military – this tendency is an example of a recurring problem that indigenous peoples face, which is the reluctance and often outright refusal for states to recognize indigneous land and sovereignty claims. The international law doctrine of self-determination, enshrined in the United Nations charter and in human rights instruments, is poorly applied, if at all, to indigneous peoples. Our movement for demilitarization and peace must be cognizant if this fact. It would also be appropriate to remind the body of the lessons learned in the Pacific, where some in the Nuclear Free Pacific movement objected to the tendency for the Pacific Islanders themselves to raise the issue of decolonization and independence. The natives demanded that demilitarization be coupled with a push for sovereignty, thus the name Nuclear Free & Independent Pacific was born. But this was indeed a line struggle, painful yet necessary.

Aloha Aina

In closing, I’d like to share our indigenous term for describing our movement in Hawaii. We use the words “aloha aina,” literally “love of land,” but also meaning patriotism. It is a word that was born out of the late-19th century struggle against annexation, and was also reinvigorated with meaning in the 1970s movement to stop the bombing of Kahoolawe island. The term also incorporates a vision for ecological sustainability, for community, and shared responsibility for our island homeland. We could never accept the harming of the land which have so much “aloha” for. Nor could we countenance the use of our land, which is the source of all life, to perpetrate violence on others. Our vision is for an independent Hawaii and a demilitarized Pacific that opposes all empires.

Mahalo nui, aloha aina.

Voicing Indigeneity: A Visit to Hogwarts

2007-03-17T14:22:00.000-07:00

A professor from our department, Robert Alvarez, asked us to visit his class on Organic Social Movements and we were happy to talk to them! The podcast is long so I suggest skipping the first 12 minutes when I am talking because the conversation really centers around the topics Madel brings up, militarism and sovereignty and takes off. I thought it was great, I learn so much from Madel and Miget. We had fun taking our show on the road and and there are some questions and answers at the end.

Summit on Decolonization and Native Self-Determination

2007-03-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

FAMOKSAIYAN: “Our Time to Paddle Forward”
Summit on Decolonization and Native Self-Determination
April 20-22, 2007

History:
On 14 & 15 April 2006 more than 100 Chamorro scholars, activists, and community leaders gathered at the Sons and Daughters of Guam Club in San Diego to share their work and research, and to participate in discussions relating to the future of their people and native homelands. The name of this gathering was Famoksaiyan: Decolonizing Chamorro Histories, Identities and Futures. This initial meeting of native leaders inspired such a great deal of research questions and possibilities that concrete action plans were soon implemented on an international forum.

Over the past year we have held regional meetings in Berkeley, Long Beach, Oakland, Camas, and Guam and helped plan a number of historic events. In October of 2006, several members of Famoksaiyan organized a trip to New York City to testify before the United Nations Committee on Decolonization, about the question of Guam’s continuing colonial status. During that same month a representative of Famoksaiyan presented at the National Pacific American Leadership Institute before a delegation of three hundred distinguished leaders and professionals in Hawai’i.
In November 2007 a town hall forum and report on the United Nation’s trip called “Remembering Our Roots: Decolonization in Guahan” was held in Berkeley, and was attended by Berkeley students and bay area residents interested in learning more about Chamorros and their struggles. In January of this year, Famoksaiyan participated in and helped coordinate the forum “Decolonizing Our Lives: A Progress Report on the Status of Human Rights on Guam” which brought more than 250 community members together at the University of Guam, to learn what different organizations are doing to facilitate Guam’s political and cultural decolonization.

The Future:
As part of Famoksaiyan’s continuing commitment to building progressive networks within the Chamorro community and among Pacific Islander, Native American, Puerto Rican and Chicano organizations throughout the world, with the shared goals of decolonization and self determination, we are pleased to announce:

Famoksaiyan: Summit on Decolonization and Native Self-Determination
April 20 -22, 2007 in Berkeley and Oakland, California.

This year we are interested in strengthening existing networks, building new ones, and more importantly, giving those interested the skills to promote the work of decolonization and cultural and historical revitalization in their politics, their creative work and everyday interactions. We are pleased to announce that this year’s conference will include: Chicanos, Pacific Islanders, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans and others interested in improving the opportunities and life conditions of indigenous peoples throughout the world. The conference is open to the public, and there is no fee to attend.

We therefore invite individuals or organizations to submit proposals for workshops, presentations or working groups related, but not limited to the following suggested formats:

1). A workshop designed to teach important skills: creative writing, how to talk to your family about decolonization, web development or graphic design, Chamorro language, etc.
2). An informational session designed to teach attendees or enhance their understanding about historical or contemporary issues such as: Guam history, the military build up in Guam, the state of Guam’s environment, US/Guam territorial relations, etc.
3). A working group which will strategize or develop plans and goals around a particular topic or issue such as: sustainable economics, how to reform media, how to revitalize Chamorro language, coalition building with other Pacific Islander groups, etc.
4). Updates on ongoing artistic or community projects such as films, research studies, events, grants, etc.

Your submission should include a proposal (no more than one page), describing the nature of the working group or panel presentation that you intend to organize, along with your contact information (mailing address, telephone and email). Please list which topic most appropriately describes your presentation:

1) Decolonization 2) Self Determination 3) Education 4) Research 5) Healthcare 6) Public Policy 7) Law 8) Employment 9) Community Activism 10) Stewardship/Leadership 11) Cultural Preservation 12) Language

The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2007. Proposals will be accepted after this date, only if space is available. Please email your submissions and any questions to Miget (Michael) Lujan Bevacqua at mbevacqua@ucsd.edu or to Migetu (Michael) Tuncap kupua@berkeley.edu

Si Yu’us Ma’ase. Biba i mannatibu! Biba Chamoru! Na’la’l’a mo’ña i taotao Marianas!

Voicing Indigeneity #10 - The Wrath of Ross

2007-03-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

It is our tenth podcast! Ross Frank is our distinguished guest for this podcast where we talk about the conference last weekend and what we learned about ourselves and others in the world of Ethnic Studies.

Lost Podcast Found!

2007-03-04T14:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon Miget, Jose and I ran up to my office with Leroy and his Pikachu gameboy to make a second podcast. We talked about decolonial studies and the papers and ideas we planned to present and it was all good, Jose is a wonderful musician and he sang a song for us, beautifully!

I posted that I lost the podcast - then I was trying to burn some podcasts onto a cd for my mom (she does not internet) and I saw this one that was labeled Songs of Indigeneity but it wasn't, when I played it, hola Jose! You know Mercury is out of retrograde and here is proof if you needed it. Hope you enjoy this bonus from the lost files!

A special stealthy picture from the panel Jose, Madel & I did at the conference, the aptly titled "The Ghosts of the Past Prey Upon the Souls of the Living" where we are listening to feedback:

Harry Potter and the 45th Generation Roman

2007-03-03T18:48:00.000-08:00

Hey, it's Angie and Miget podcasting while we are manning the registration desk at the 5th Annual Crossing Borders Ethnic Studies Conference at UCSD - Ghosts, Monsters and the Dead. Madel couldn't make it but we give it our best! Now it is time for the Monster's Ball but I will post pictures later!

Feeling pretty blue about Madel's absence!

We are stoic. Look for a new podcast tomorrow, with Madel we hope.

Ghosts, Monsters and the Dead..at UCSD

2007-02-25T01:55:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let everyone know about a conference that our department is hosting next weekend, titled Crossing Borders 2007: Ghosts, Monsters and the Dead. The three of us will be presenting along with dozens of other graduate students. Although the three of us won't all be on the same panel, we'll be presenting the papers that we are working on for the big Indigenous Studies Conference later this year.

************

CALL FOR PAPERS
CROSSING BORDERS 2007:
GHOSTS, MONSTERS, AND THE DEAD

5th Annual Conference of Ethnic Studies in California co-sponsored by:
Department of Ethnic Studies and California Cultures in Comparative Perspective,
University of California, San Diego
Program in American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California
Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday March 2 – 4, 2007
University of California, San Diego

Do you have this frightening sensation that issues of race and ethnicity are being erased from public and academic discourse? This might explain why on college campuses around the country, Ethnic Studies scholars and students are often regarded as either monsters or boogeymen providing an unsettling presence. The discipline itself is often treated as a ghostly world, populated by howling specters that refuse to relinquish the sins of the past, and have therefore not been properly laid to rest. Given this declining significance of race both as an analytical tool and an object of public discussion, both the work Ethnic Studies scholars produce and the communities they are engaged with appear to be banished to an obscene world, beyond intellectual mapping or recognition, which enters into the political in an almost horrific fashion.

Within this obscene world we find three key figures, ghosts, the dead, and monsters, which are not simply anachronistic grotesque echoes of an abstract past, but rather crucial reflections of the present moment. There are the ghosts, which always embody a violence that the nation struggles to forget, and create a persistent anxiety in their resistance to their “necessary” exorcism. Then there are the walking dead, forms of bare life, which exist as objects producing sovereignty, and whose only recognition lies in the calculus of domestic tragedy or international genocide. Lastly, there are the monsters, “unnatural” existences which mark a lack of rationality, and therefore defy belief and justify violence.

The focus for the 2007 Crossing Borders Conference is to present papers that go beyond an engagement at the level of a formal absence, and instead engage at the level of this obscene world, by interrogating the horrifying themes of Ghosts, Monsters, and The Dead. This conference will feature the work of graduate students in Ethnic Studies and related disciplines which comprise critical inquires which either directly or indirectly relate to these domains of “terror,” and how they are deployed, produced, and contained in processes of racialization.

For updates, more information, and a list of presenters please head to the conference website:
http://ethnicstudies.ucsd.edu/crossingborders
Or email:
crossingborders2007@gmail.com

Onward Indigenous Soldier

2007-02-17T04:10:00.000-08:00

Madel, Miget and I met at my apartment yesterday to record a podcast. We were inspired by my son Leroy's toys to play dress up, and then we were inspired to talk about religion. We are also excited about the upcoming Indigenous Studies meeting at the University of Oklahoma where we are presenting in May and I tried to get my Karaoke Revolution game up for a grand finale but it was not very grand. We leave you with the hope of better songs ahead and hey, February cannot last forever. I don't know about you, but I am done!

Harry Potter and the Indigenous of Azkaban! Podcast #7 is here!

2007-02-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

It's been too long! In this podcast we promise to never stop singing, Miget has some good news and we talk about setbacks, and overcoming them. Madel touches the heart and talks about home. It's popular culture, decolonization, sovereignty, the military and whatever else we can think of. It's good to be back, we'll be putting another one together next week! Just click the title or subscribe by clicking the chicklet in sidebar.

Indigenous Politics

2007-01-25T11:13:00.000-08:00

We were supposed to do a podcast this week, but it doesn't look like its going to happen. We'll try again next week though, but in the meantime, you can wait in eager anticipation for this new radio program on indigenous politics that I'm posting about below:

Please tune in each Monday from 5:10-6pm (Eastern Standard Time) for:

"INDIGENOUS POLITICS: FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND" a new radio program on WESU, Middletown, Connecticut with host J. Kehaulani Kauanui on 88.1 FM (The WESU transmitter covers two-thirds of the state of CT and reaches as far north as Springfield, MA, and south to Long Island, NY.)

Or, listen online LIVE via the stream from WESU website: www.wesufm.org

***
The show will be launched on Monday, February 5th by J. Kehaulani Kauanui, with production support from Kalia Lydgate (Wes `07), Amelia Dean Walker (Wes `07) and Raffi Stern (Wes `07). Presented as a talk show, this multi-media program will feature interviews with political leaders, community activists, cultural authorities, filmmakers & artists, as well
as academics and independent scholars whose work addresses indigenous politics related to cultural politics and sovereignty struggles.

Future topics will include: tribal nations in Connecticut and the state backlash against their quest for federal recognition, Native feminisms, the same-sex marriage bans in Indian Country, indigenous environmental issues, US militarism and indigenous peoples’ service, domestic violence and restorative justice, Hawaiians and the politics of federal
recognition, indigenous language revitalization, sports teams and Indian mascots, The US presidential election and American Indian voters, indigenous peoples and the prison industrial complex, contemporary land rights Indian gaming and the politics of casinos, and indigenous youth movements.

For more information, email:
kauanui@hotmail.com

Biba Nuebu na Sakkan

2007-01-15T13:39:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to say Happy New Year to everyone, and that I'm back in the states. Both Angie and me are eager to start the podcasts again. I haven't heard from Madel though, which means she probably snuck off to Palau during the break and then decided not to come back. Lucky...

We've got plenty to talk about for the podcasts though, most importantly, decolonization.

While I was on Guam for the break, me and several others organized a forum on political status titled Decolonizing Our Lives. We had more than 200 people attend, from all over Guam, hoben, amko', gefsaga' popble, malate', brodie.

Since I've been back in the states the conversation has continued about the politics of decolonization, albeit with a wider scope now, involving Latin American communities and Native Americans. For the Crossing Borders Conference that our department is organizing this year, Ghosts, Monsters and The Dead, it looks like we'll have at least one panel focusing on decolonial studies and philosophies.

Back to Guahan

2006-12-19T12:18:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'll be out of "this country" for the next few weeks visiting a few of its colonial possessions, Guam and Hawai'i for the break.

Me and Angie and Madel swear however that when school starts up next quarter we will continue making podcasts, at least until me and Madel return to our islands to not finish our dissertations. We wish to thank all seven of you dedicated listeners and also the twenty two or so casual and ocassional listeners, and it is because of your prayers for more coherent and directed conversations and our emotional/intellectual well being, that we will continue to be making podcasts into the next year.

I'm feeling a little pikaru today because I'll be back home soon, and my life is changing much faster than I can blog about. Soon I'll be able to put it out for everyone to read about, gasp at and chuckle about, but for now, I'll let the words and music of i che'lu-hu Si Erica Nalani Benton stand in for me. Click on the link below to check out a video of her performing the beautiful song she wrote titled "Back to Guahan." I'm sorry but I still haven't figured out how to effectively embed Youtube videos, so I'll just leave the link for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYFujbFIvzA

She performed the song last month at the Famoksaiyan event we had in Berkeley, which by the way was a great success, with close to a hundred people attending our three hour presentation about the recent trip Famoksaiyan members made to the UN, as well as musical and historical presentation about Chamorros. Right now, we're planning on having a similar event when a few of us are on Guam over the break.

Bula na cho'cho', kao nahong i tiempo? Kao nahong i minetgot gi i korason-hu?

Hekkua' lao bai hu usuni mo'na.

Resisting Democracy in Guam

2006-12-06T17:33:00.000-08:00

I was going through some of my old file on my laptop and stumbled across this. I wrote it for a small zine called Salty Zine published out of the Women's Studies Department at UC Riverside a few years ago. This notion of "resisting democracy" later played a huge role in getting through my master's thesis in Ethnic Studies. I just thought I'd share it here.

"Resisting Democracy in Guam"
Michael Lujan Bevacqua
University of California, San Diego, Ethnic Studies

If you believe the hype of American imperialism, something called freedom is on the march, and “democracy” is being spread across the world’s oil rich nations. Democracy is invoked like a blessed universal, something which can traverse any borders and bring the light of civilization with it. Equality! Fraternity! Justice for all! How could anyone who hasn’t committed mass genocide be against it?

Paradoxically, because of this overwhelmingly positive imagining of democracy, so many terrible things can be done in its name. “The hand that gives, rules,” says a Bantu proverb, describing perfectly the hidden side of “democratic” dispersals. There is no doubt that President Bush would refer to US nation-building in Iraq as a “gift” to the Iraqi people, thereby excusing his illegal war on democratizing grounds. But far from an innocent act, Bush’s war was an intervention designed to dictate and map out the future of Iraq, based on American strategic desires. “Democracy,” was the means through which the country could be invaded and then confined within certain political and ideological limits.

Iraq is a violent example, but more subtle processes can be found across the world, as nations such as the US create neo-colonial empires. This leads me to my island of Guam. A strategic US military colony since 1898, it was given “democracy” in 1950 with the establishment of a local representative government, fashioned after the American model. Since that time however public discussions in Guam have bemoaned how this blessed gift is constantly being threatened, and not by terrorists or Diebold voting machines, but by the culture of the island’s indigenous inhabitants, the Chamorros.

Throughout Guam’s new media and Internet presence, the incapacity of Chamorros to fulfill the promises of American democracy can be found. As one poster on Chamorro.com cynically posted, “saying democratic Chamorros is like saying democratic Talibans.” Even Guam’s politicians join in the attack on culture, as one noted in the 2002 elections, “only when we can learn to let go of our traditions that hold us back, from getting the American dream of democracy and capitalism, then we can move forward.” To be more specific, Chamorro culture is articulated as a corrupting influence in Guam, keeping the island from being properly democratic. Practitioners of the culture are spitting in the face of American politics by focusing on family networks and relationships first, and the island’s polity second. In this context, Chamorro culture is equated with nepotism, illegal political favors and government waste.

Why is American democracy seen as the uncontested ideal that must be lived up to, and culture sacrificed to achieve? Why is Chamorro culture relegated to a kink which must be ironed out? In analyzing these attacks, we can see American power being maintained through the defense of “democracy.”

Since 1898, the US has desired to control Guam’s strategic space. All the island’s governments since then have fulfilled this task. According to one Governor of Guam, despite the democratic smell of the Guam’s current government, with three branches, a system of checks and balances, etc, it does not provide more autonomy for Chamorros or for Guam, it instead enhances the colonial authority of the US, by trapping Guam within a particular form and culture of government, namely an American one. This democratic gift came filled with American symbols and principles, and exists not as a testament to anything Chamorro, but instead to the greatness of America. The colonizing of Guam therefore continues, but in more subtle ways, as Guam’s continuing existence is dictated by explicit political and ideological connections to the US.

As the US military shifts its troops from Europe to Asia, Guam’s value as a strategic outpost continues to grow. The American character of Guam’s government will ensure that Guam remains intimately linked to the US. Certain issues, such as decolonization or more autonomy for Guam will never be seriously considered, because of the invisible hegemonies the establishment of American democracy has instilled. The island will therefore remain “democratically” linked to the US, as a forward military base and a footnote to its empire.

Those who attack Chamorro culture as something intensely corrupting are defending this control. Convinced of American ideological dominance through education, the media or public discourse, they see Chamorro culture as something which must be neutralized. Why? Because Chamorro culture offers alternative common sense notions about how society should function and where everyone’s place is within it. American liberal democracy is maintained by the great/noble lie of “everyone being equal” within the polity and therefore no one should be judged on their individual merits. This idea has a way of masking and excusing social inequalities, by saying that those who are less equal, have only themselves and their abilities to blame.

When people on Guam attack Chamorro culture as being a rampant source of political favors for family members, they are attacking the cultural proposition that maybe it is more important to serve the needs of your family, than some mythical idea of a political collective. It recommends something that contests the imagined community that liberal democracy requires in order to exist. Chamorro culture asserts a different form of social collectivity, between people and between people and the world around them, which conflicts with American political culture. It recommends living through inafa’maolek, or reciprocal interdependence, through which tangible links amongst community members, families, clans or groups should be made, as opposed to imaginary ones.

In these lessons in how to exist we find small ways in which American ideological dominance is complicated, but more importantly small sites of resistance. This is what Subcomandante Marcos is addressing when he says that resistance can be found in our cultures, our arts. In that which the First World disregards as “culture” or threats to modernization, we can find important ideas for how our futures should be. Arundhati Roy has said that the “American way of life is simply not sustainable,” and this is particularly true on an island, where balance equals survival. In many ways, cultures like that of the Chamorros learned to deal with their environment and social relationships better than what exists in today’s world addicted to capitalism and militarism. And it is important that we recognize the possibility of a better past in order to make possible a better future. This can be done by critiquing the ways that seemingly benevolent ideas such as democracy are employed to further colonize indigenous cultures, thereby helping us to avoid futures dictated by imperial or neo-colonial powers, but instead reflect the hopes, dreams and traditions of peoples such as the Chamorros.

Songs of Indigeneity - Extra!

2006-12-01T20:16:00.000-08:00

Here it is, for those of you who didn't get enough of our -ahem- velvet voices, we sang at lunch too and I turned on the computer to record it. We were sitting outside so if you hear passersby and traffic you know why. The extra is only six plus minutes, hope you enjoy it!

I also want to apologize for taking so long to fix the links, they should be working now and if they don't please let us know. I was finishing up school the past few weeks and so I put off taking care of the problem until now. Thank you for your patience. We should be back with another podcast soon after the first of the year.

Podcast #6 - Sound of Indigeneity

2006-11-28T20:01:00.000-08:00

Dear listeners, in this podcast, recorded earlier today, we sing songs that mean a great deal to us. It was Miget's idea, and like most of his ideas, inspired. We all love to sing, nervousness may have tripped us up more than usual, but you can be the judge. I will tell you that we had a good time but you can see that for yourself.

Miget has some Chamorro mojo that gets me and Madel to do things I suspect we would never do otherwise. Did I mention we had fun?

Soon I'll post the six minute plus bonus track of us singing at lunchtime, I think our rendition of The Beatles' Yesterday is a counter hegemonic narrative for sure!

Number 6 is on the way!

2006-11-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

Madel, Miget and I are meeting tomorrow to record another podcast so there should be something new to listen to by late afternoon. Last time we met we sang and sounded pretty good so keep an open mind because we might just serenade you all!

Happy Indigenous Genocide Day!

2006-11-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

Just in time for "Thanksgiving" or as I've heard it referred to over the past few years,

Thanks"taking" Day!
Indigenous Genocide Day!
Why are White People so Scared Day!

Democracy Now dedicated an entire show this week to how Indigenous peoples around the world are successfully resisting economic globalization. As I see kids walking around, coming out of school with feathers on their heads or poorly constructed construction paper Pilgrim hats, I know for those who identify as Native American here (and possibly those who resist it as well), this must be a depressing time of year. It is times like this that the theme of "playing Indian" becomes so appropriate and so crystal clear that sumen tahdong i piniti para siha ni' manindigenous.

*********************

Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Economic Globalization:
A Celebration of Victories, Rights and Cultures

Hundreds of people from around the world recently gathered in New York for the "Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Economic Globalization a Celebration of Victories, Rights and Cultures" teach-in put on by the International Forum on Globalization and the Tebtebba Foundation. Today, we'll play some of the speeches from the event:

* Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet Indian and the plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit Cobell v. Kempthorne. The suit was filed on behalf of 300,000 Native Americans and is the largest class action lawsuit ever filed against the U.S. government.

* Felix Villca, an Aymara Indian and a senior advisor to the Bolivian Foreign Ministry in the government of Evo Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president.

* Sheila Watt-Cloutier, former chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council that represents the more than 150,000 Inuit of Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Russia.

* Mililani Trask, a native Hawaiian attorney.

"Declaration" of Indigeneity

2006-11-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post here the recent invite to our podcast which I finally sent out today. It basically articulates where me, Angie and Madel are coming from when we say crazy things or why we even chose to share our conversations in the first place.

**********

Alii, el mor kemiu el rokui,
Hafa adai, mañelu-hu yan mañainå-hu,
Hello, friends and family,

Indigenous peoples and their struggles are often diminished or dismissed today as being either racist, parochial, essentialist or just too plain particular. As the majority of the world’s population is brought together in more and more tangible ways through ”international” and “transnational” narratives, it might be expected then that indigenous peoples, most of whom exist “intra-nationally,” or as nations within nations, might be dismissed as inconsequential or kind of distracting from the big picture and more universal concerns. In the United States today, terms such as sovereignty, decolonization and self-determination, which are common in the politics of indigenous peoples, are either completely foreign, or distasteful in the way they echo broken promises of failed revolutions and the dangers of modern utopianism.

In most academic disciplines we find a difficulty in seeing the importance of reckoning with indigenous struggles or epistemologies, except as just another ethnic group to be incorporated, an anachronism to be collected and catalogued, or colorful exceptions, footnotes on modernity’s journey forward.

We, the three “voices” of the Voicing Indigeneity podcast and blog are all graduate students in the Ethnic Studies department at the University of California, San Diego, and in different ways, both in and outside of our department often find ourselves entangled in the limits and resistances mentioned above. Over the past year, the three of us have had intense, inspiring and occasionally productive conversations about the difficulties and possibilities for articulating concepts such as sovereignty or decolonization in an Ethnic Studies framework.

Our decision to start to record and disseminate these conversations stems from our belief that indigenous studies and epistemological work, far from being racist, limited or essentialist, is in fact very global and holds important potential for reshaping academic disciplines such as Ethnic Studies. In our short time here at UCSD, we have already begun to see important of shifts of vision, and so we voice our critiques, precisely because we believe in the critical potential for the Ethnic Studies project. We feel that it is unfortunate that most potential indigenous scholars today do not see our Ethnic Studies department or the larger discipline as places where they can produce work which is relevant to issues of decolonization and sovereignty, and want to change this perception.

We therefore invite you to visit our website http://voicingindigeneity.blogspot.com, and download our podcasts, which range from serious to silly, frustrating to therapeutic. We also welcome you to leave comments, or join our conversation by emailing us with critiques, questions, suggestions and support at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com.

Struggles for sovereignty and acts of decolonization are taking place all the time, at multiple levels attached to different dreams and nightmares. Both with these conversations and within these conversations you will find a number of ours.

Ko meral mesulang
Si Yu’us Ma’ase para i tiempon-miyu
Thank you

Madelsar Tmetuchl Ngiraingas (Belauan – Beliliou, Orreor, Irrai)
Angela Morrill (Modoc-Klamath)
Michael Lujan Bevacqua (Chamorro, familian Kabesa/Bittot)

Native FAQS

2006-11-17T11:36:00.000-08:00

I will be heading out of San Diego tomorrow morning for a week of work and family fun.

On Saturday, me and my cousin Alfred Peredo Flores Jr. (familian Robot/Kabesa) and our favorite palao'an Palauan Madelsar Tmetuchl Ngiraingas will be running two counseling/networking sessions at the National Pacific Islander Education Network conference. Our sessions will cover first questions about appyling for college and getting financial (non-military) support for Pacific Islanders, and second how to network, organize and meet other Pacific Islanders in higher education or in the community.

This is the fourth year that I've done this conference, if you are in the area and would like to attend please click on the link above. For the first two years I participated on these panels Michael Perez who is in Socioogy at CSU Fullerton was in charge. Last year however since i kayu-hu couldn't make it, I took over and brought on Madel and Alfred. Here's a photo of us from last year.

A conference like this is especially important given the education statistics and report released recently by Asian American Studies Center at UCLA. For those of you who check out the report and press release, I'll warn you ahead of time, while it is informative and insightful for thinking about the economic and educational position of Pacific Islanders today, it does take the typical social science position of not just comparing numbers of groups, but by making clear the gravity of a situation by comparing Pacific Islanders to some eternally poor performing and pathological group. For example, "these numbers reach almost African American proportions."

The day after this, Sunday the 19th I'll be participating in the Famoksaiyan Southern California meeting to be held at The Guam Communications Network office in Long Beach. If you are interested in attending or knowing more here's the tentative schedule. Although this meeting will be primarily for Chamorros, any and all Pacific Islanders are welcome to attend as allies as are other groups from Guam or interested in progressive politics related to Chamorros and Guam.

If you would like to know more about the group Famoksaiyan you can check out the archives for our listerv (famoksaiyan@lists.riseup.net) through this link. Or we also have a myspace account which has profiles of members and articles and more info. We are basically a progressive Chamorro organization working on different forms of decolonization both in Guam and in the diaspora. Here's a photo from the conference in April.

After the weekend I'll be driving up north to visit my mom and family for Thanksgiving. Although I have made some weak promises to work on my prospectus and other projects, I will most likely end up throwing away most of the weekend playing the new Nintendo Wii with my brother Jack and sister Alina.

One thing which Angie requested I do though over the Thanksgiving break is come up with a sort of either written or recorded Frequently Asked Questions piece for those of you who may not be very familiar with the concepts or discussions we are discussing in our podcasts or posts.

If you have any particular questions that you would like answered or would like to see me try and answer please email them to me at mlbasquiat@hotmail.com

Indigeneity in the 21st Century

2006-11-16T01:33:00.000-08:00

I just came across this conference, I really wish I had known about it and attended.

Here's the conference link and you can even buy DVDs of the presentations.

As we begin the 21st century, political recognition – within the context of great population displacements and current globalization processes – has been and continues to be a primary locus of struggle for Indigenous nations, international confederations, national, regional, and local organizations, and Indigenous persons at large. In striving for recognition, Indigenous peoples have made a critique of the terms of recognition a critical part of the political struggle. Recognizing legal and racial identities as legacies of imperialism, Indigenous activists and scholars are probing the ways that individual-centered western concepts embody gender- and culture-specific norms of citizenship. Indigenous groups are reimagining, challenging, and inventing new modes of political activism that are reshaping the contours of political recognition. Equally importantly, these re/memberings and reimaginings are taking a multiplicity of paths and forms: legal, cultural, artistic, academic, socio-political, and economic.

The purpose of this conference is to provide a forum for Indigenous scholars from a broad range of disciplines both from within California and from other parts of the United States, including Hawai’i as well as the Solomon Islands, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Canada and New Zealand to address and reflect upon the most recent forms of “Indigeneity” and its politics of re/membering Indigenous identity in a global and local context. The conference will be organized around panels addressing specific sites in which Indigeneity is being played out. The panels are tied together by several interwoven themes: alternative meanings of sovereignty; the politics of inclusion and exclusion; critical traditions of Indigenous local knowledge; and the essentialism-anti-essentialism dialectic.

No. 5 - East of Indigenous

2006-11-14T20:18:00.000-08:00

To listen to podcast number five just move your mouse over the title of this post and click. In this short 21 minute episode Madel, Miget and I discuss our influences close to home. Feedback is always welcome!

I bought a new computer this week (not with real money, I charged it to my student account) and so we had fun with the Photo Booth program on my MacBook. Check it out:

Madel smiling through.

Madel & Miget want world peace.

Our lovely tech support and friend Erin Malone.

Miget x two.

I don't know if we are Trekkies or Trekkers.

We were in the International Relations/Pacific Studies library this week, it was a central location for a busy eighth week but I missed Madel's kitchen table.

I edited this post to add that we did record a sixth podcast. We invited Professor Ross Frank to be our guest and all went well until I copied the track onto my computer. I thought it copied and it did not. By the time I realized it the original track was erased from the flash where we recorded it. I regret my mistake. Professor Frank agreed to be our guest again in the near future.

Google Guam Indigenous

2006-11-13T01:44:00.000-08:00

Whenever my brain doesn't seem to be working, I do a silly intentionally egotistical exercise about my blog, where I google random combinations of words in hopes of finding my blog high up on the list of results. Click here to check out my most recent adventure with google.

This blog is relatively new right now, we haven't even sent out the official call inviting people to check it out, so I wouldn't expect it to be placing high on google searches. So for today I'll use my other blog No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro.

indigenous and Guam = #10

indigenous and Chamorro = #38

indigenous and Chamoru = #15

sovereignty and Guam = #4

decolonization and Guam = #9

colonization and Guam = #20

indigenous myspace and Guam = #9

native Guam Chamorro = #16

Guam islander Chamorro = #5

Guahan = #15

indigenous indian Guam = #59

"indigenous epistemology" = #122

Indigenous Indians

2006-11-09T13:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a question was posed to me about "hayi indigenous siha?" for which I did have an answer, but not a real convincing answer. The question was who in India counts as the "indigenous people" there.

Three obvious points come to mind:

1. India has only existed for a few hundred years, and the term indigenous of India cannot be adequately conceived of at the national level, only at the local level in different regions. As far as I know, India has not produced a strong ethnic category to contain, fix or homogenize the figure of the native, like the United States has been able to do.

2. Postcolonialism which has derived much of its genesis and flavor from the Indian example, is not really associated with the question of indigenous people in India. It seems more focused on the gestures, the innovations and the exclusions of the nationalist and independence movements. Postcolonial studies as a whole bears an interesting resistance to indigenous issues because of the wariness to "nativist" sentiments. The language of revolutionary nationalism always has an indigenous edge to it, meaning that it posits itself as the source or the origin of an order. The problem with this of course is that this "original" declaration of a nation, is always an independence against the being and possibility of those who remain as the "indigenous people" of this newly asserted nation.

3. The term indigenous today refers to not just attachment to land, but also an ambiguous or antagonistic relation to the state, which is often visible as an abject or tragic position. Indigenous people are those who are too attached to their land and their way of life, so that they can never break with it to enjoy the comforts and advances of modern life. The definition of indigenous people in India lies at this connection, between people who are tied to a "previous" way of life and live in poverty because of it.

I am on a listserv for information about indigenous people resisting militarization and recently I received this email from India, which makes the issues of indigenous people in India, far from merely an academic exercise.

**********
EMPOWERING THE JUMMA INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE CHT ACCORD

Prajnalankar Bhikkhu

Introduction:

The term “empowerment” is used in various contexts. Generally it refers to increasing the political, social and economic strength of individuals. It involves the empowered developing confidence in their own capacities.

Sociological empowerment addresses social discrimination processes that exclude members of groups or a particular group in society from decision-making processes through -- for example -- discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion and gender.

In economic development, the empowerment approach focuses on mobilizing the self-help efforts of the poor rather than providing them with social welfare services.

Political empowerment means giving lawful rights or authority to a body or a community so that it can freely make decisions on certain matters and execute those decisions for development and welfare of the people. Decision execution requires administrative staff and fund. Therefore, administrative staff and fund are also essential elements of empowerment.

The CHT Accord of 1997:

The government of Bangladesh and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti [(PCJSS= People’s United Party, the political organization representing the 11 indigenous peoples/communities of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) collectively known as “Jumma” and resisting Bangladeshi integrationist and ethnic-cleansing policy locally known as “Islamization policy”)] reached an agreement popularly known as the “CHT Accord” in 1997. The CHT Accord officially put an end to the decades-old conflict between the indigenous peoples and the Bangladesh authorities and opened a new phase in the history of the very lesser known part of the world. It empowers the indigenous peoples with the decision-making authority on certain local affairs.

How CHT Accord empowers Jumma indigenous people:

The CHT Accord introduces a unique local government system in the CHT within the framework of a Regional Council (RC) and three Hill District Councils (HDCs) -- both consisting of indigenous people and “non-indigenous permanent residents”. The system provides a federal state-like structure to the CHT region. The RC is the chief policy-and-decision-making body, the nucleolus of the local government in the region. It is formed with the members elected by the members of the HDCs[1], while the HDCs are formed with the members directly elected by the people (indigenous people and “non-indigenous permanent residents”) of the CHT.[2] The RC supervises and coordinates the functions of the HDCs, general administration, law and order and all developmental activities including that of the CHT Development Board (CHTDB) and NGOs.

The RC and HDCs work like the legislative body of the CHT local government. They are accountable to the people for their functions.

The CHT Accord empowers the HDCs to undertake, design, implement, monitor and evaluate all kinds of development projects on the 33 subjects such as land, local police, development etc.

The Deputy Commissioner (DC), Thana Nirbahi Officers (TNO) and all the subordinate officers under them including police are administrative components of the CHT local government. They are called civil servants, popularly bureaucrats. They are, by rules, accountable to the CHT local government (RC and HDCs) for their functions. They are permanent part of the local government. RC and HDCs members could be changed, but these bureaucrats are not -- they continue to work at their offices until their age-limit for service is over. However, on recommendation of the RC, Dhaka (the government) could transfer, suspend, and dismiss the DCs and TNOs from their posts, if (1) they differ with the RC and HDCs on certain policy and administrative matters; (2) they fail to discharge their duties properly; (3) they do not follow the directives of the CHT local government no matter which authority appoints them; (4) they are charged with criminal offences.

The CHT Accord says that all the officers/bureaucrats of the CHT administration will be appointed from amongst the “permanent residents” of the CHT giving “priority” to the indigenous candidates.[3]

As said above, fund is an essential part of empowerment. No body can work for development without fund. The CHT local government raises its fund from the government[4] and other resources like tax and contribution.[5] It formulates and approves its budget according to the manner laid down by rules for this purpose.[6]

The Ministry of CHT Affairs headed by a Minister from amongst the Jumma indigenous people looks after the overall development and welfare of the people of the CHT.[7]

In a given functional democracy, this is what the CHT Accord says about the CHT local government system, empowerment of the Jumma indigenous peoples and “non-indigenous permanent residents” and decentralization of power.

Challenges:

The CHT local government system as stated above will be in effect if Dhaka respects democracy and rule of law and Acts concerning the CHT. But Dhaka does not.

Presently there is no proper system of governance in the CHT. The Ministry of CHT Affairs is under the Prime Minister of Bangladesh Ms. Begum Khaleda Zia. Dhaka has formed the HDCs with the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) workers and Islamic fundamentalist leaders rather than with the members directly elected by the people of the CHT. The HDCs do not listen to the RC predominantly formed with PCJSS members. They are implementing Dhaka’s “Islamization policy” and programs in the CHT. The three DCs appointed from amongst the majority ethnic Bengalis in violation of the CHT Accord[8] are like the kings of the three hill districts. They work as Dhaka’s special agents in the CHT. So they are accountable to Dhaka rather than to the CHT local government (RC and HDCs) for their functions. Like the HDCs, they are also implementing Dhaka’s “Islamization policy” and programs in the region. Dhaka has appointed a ruling party MP and an influential Islamic fundamentalist leader Mohammad Abdul Wadud Bhuiyan as the head of the CHTDB. The CHTDB has been “communalized”, as said by the PCJSS, for exclusive development and welfare of the ethnic Bengali settlers or exclusion of the indigenous peoples from development opportunities. As a result, the Jumma indigenous peoples are yet to realize the CHT Accord in practice. They continue to be excluded from empowerment in the real sense of the term. Its reason is one -- only one, and that is Dhaka’s “Islamization policy” and programs in the CHT.

Since the very beginning Dhaka has been showing no political commitment and sincerity for implementation of the CHT Accord. Rather, it has violated or manipulated most of the fundamental terms of the Accord for continuation of its “Islamization policy” and programs in the region. This policy thought out by the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the early 1970s and consistently executed by his two successive military regimes respectively headed by Major General Ziaur Rahman (1975-1981) and Lt. General Hussein Mohammad Ershad (1982-1990) seeks to integrate the indigenous peoples and their lands and resources with the mono-cultural Islamic State[9], Bangladesh, with force and other illegal means, such as forcible land confiscation and settlement of ethnic Bengali settlers from plain districts in the CHT, militarization and atrocities like rape, murder and religious persecution, and imposition of Islam and Bengali cultural values on the indigenous peoples. Under this policy the successive governments of Bangladesh sponsored settlement of more than 400,000 ethnic Bengali settlers from various plain districts of Bangladesh in the three Hill districts in the CHT in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It resulted in an alarming increase in the ethnic Bengali population from nearly 2% in 1947 to more than 60% in 2001 in the CHT. The state-sponsored settlement of ethnic Bengali settlers has accelerated smoothly in the “post-conflict” CHT in the absence of armed resistance from the indigenous peoples. It is now a continuous process threatening the identity and culture of the indigenous peoples. In fact, it has converted the home of the indigenous peoples into a virtual colony of ethnic Bengali settlers surrounded by hundreds of Bangladeshi military camps, mosques and madrassas (Islamic schools). All the successive governments including the present one have been using its military and police forces and bureaucratic establishments as a tool to put this policy into practice. Needless to say, this policy does not respect the ideals and principles of human rights and democracy. Its impacts on the indigenous people have been terrible and shocking.

Solution:

Solution to the challenges of empowering the Jumma indigenous peoples and “non-indigenous permanent residents” within the framework the CHT Accord lies in Dhaka’s policy on the CHT. Dhaka must change its integrationist and ethnic-cleansing policy on the indigenous people. It must respect its obligation to the Acts passed on the CHT Accord. It must comply with its obligation to the International Human Rights Treaties it has ratified.[10]

There can be no sustainable peace and development in the CHT without healing the wounds inflicted on the indigenous people over decades. To heal the wounds of the indigenous people Dhaka needs to rehabilitate ethnic Bengali settlers outside the CHT in compliance with the “Unwritten Part of the CHT Accord”.[11] It is a complicated, although not an impossible task. There are around 100,000 ethnic Bengali settler families in the CHT. They could easily be rehabilitated outside the CHT, if one or so family is rehabilitated in each of the 68,000 villages in Bangladesh. It may be noted that some years ago the European Union expressed its readiness to provide necessary funds to the government of Bangladesh for this purpose. So the rehabilitation of the settlers outside the CHT is possible, and the government can have necessary funds for that purpose. The only thing the government needs to have is political commitment, wisdom and courage.

Notes & References:

[1] Part C, Article 5 of the CHT Accord
[2] Part B, Article 4 (b) (2) of the CHT Accord
[3] Part D, Article 18 of the CHT Accord
[4] Part B, Article 19 of the CHT Accord
[5] Part B, Article 35 of the CHT Accord
[6] Part B, Article 18 of the CHT Accord
[7] Part D, Article 19 of the CHT Accord
[8] Part D, Article 18 of the CHT Accord
[9] Bangladesh is a mono-cultural Islamic state in the sense of recognition of Islam as the only “state-religion” (Part 1, Article 2A, Bangladesh Constitution) and Bangla as the only “state-language” (Part 1, Article 3, Bangladesh Constitution)
[10] International Human Rights Treaties Ratified by Bangladesh as on 7 July 2003

Peace Campaign Group (PCG) RZ-I-91/211, West Sagarpur, New Delhi-110046,
IndiaTel: + 91-11-2 539 8383 Telefax: + 91-11-2 539 4277
E-mail: pcgoffice@yahoo.co.in, pcgonline@gmail.com

Episode #4 such as it is

2006-11-03T18:40:00.000-08:00

This is where we really missed Erin's skills, did I mention she'll be back next podcast? Yes she will. And I am glad because we talk for about thirty minutes and then the podcast stops abruptly because I did not know how to use the equipment. We end with Miget talking about Micronesia. I am sorry for the abrupt ending and I hope you still enjoy the podcast. We'll be doing another in about ten days.

Here is Erin, she'll be bringing her skills back next time!

Podcast #3 is live!

2006-11-03T18:07:00.000-08:00

Today Madel, Miget and I met at Madel's kitchen table once again, unfortunately without the help of Erin Malone, our friend and graduate student in Communications. I was at the technological wheel and it was a bumpier ride but to compensate, we decided to get personal and tell our listeners why we chose Ethnic Studies and what we are doing here. Hope you enjoy it, please feel free to give feedback. Here are a few photos of us today:

This is the one where Madel looks cute, I think she shines!

This is the one where I look cute:

And Miget always looks cute.

Bush on Sovereignty

2006-10-30T11:40:00.000-08:00

Since there will be elections taking place around the country next week between Republicans and Democrats, I thought it interesting that we engage with that political world in terms of sovereignty.

A few weeks ago, Madel (one of the hosts of this blog) passed along to everyone in the department a video of Bush providing a surprisingly accurate definition of what sovereignty is for Native American tribes.

Here's a transcript, for the video clink on this link

Question: What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century, and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and the state governments?

President Bush: Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. You're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities.

I'm posting an article about the small controversy that this (mis)statement formed below, which is interesting, because basically Bush is exactly right, when he states that the sovereignty of Native Americans is "given." Here we reach the crucial difference between the formal and the obscene. Formally sovereignty is never GIVEN! It exists always, in and of itself, unto itself, immanent in its contents and accountability, and unfettered and untouchable by those outside its borders. This concept is both bullshit however in the abstract and in the material, and indigenous peoples, such as Native Americans know this best of all. There is a convoluted, patronizing and infantilizing legal hedge maze which basically does all the "giving" of sovereignty, beneath the surface.

Given the work I'm doing right now on how sovereignty is produced and where Chamorros lie outside of the political domain in producing the sovereignty of the United States, this sort of dead zone, which is so minute, yet which appears in mainstream political discourse as if they are in different dimensions is crucial.

Watch the video I linked and also read the article below, the best line from the article is this one, from a Republican Native American activist from South Dakota, "As our sacred ways and traditions are coming back, we're recognizing that tribes and Republicans are a lot alike."

************

Friday, August 13, 2004
Bush's comment on tribal sovereignty creates a buzz
By LEWIS KAMB - SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

One word caused the most stir.

A five-letter word that George W. Bush uttered 3,000 miles away, one week ago today, at a gathering of minority journalists.

A word that has since raised eyebrows across Indian country, and one that, almost immediately after leaving the president's lips, had Democrats licking theirs:

Given.

Speaking at the Unity: Journalists of Color convention in Washington, D.C., last Friday, President Bush, responding to a question about what tribal sovereignty meant in the 21st century, said: "Tribal sovereignty means just that; it's sovereign. You're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity."

To many Native Americans -- and Democrats, alike -- the president's answer spoke volumes about what they see as his ignorance of Indian issues. And to many, the operative word in Bush's response was the verb "given."

As the continent's first societies, American Indian tribes hold their status as sovereign nations with an almost sacred reverence; an inherent standing as self-governing, independent bodies dating back millennia, something that's always existed.

Sovereignty is "the nearest and dearest, No. 1 issue in Indian Country," said Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Congress of American Indians. "It's not something that was given to us. As tribes, we see sovereignty as something we've always had."

As both campaigns swing into the Northwest today, with Bush speaking at a Medina fund-raiser this evening, they are "putting a lot of focus on Indian country and the Native vote," said Alyssa Burhans, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Oregon and the Native Americans organizing director for National Voice, a non-partisan get-out-the-vote project.
And for good reason. In recent elections, the Indian vote, which political observers say traditionally has gone to Democrats, has been credited with deciding several prominent elections.

In Washington's U.S. Senate race in 2000, Slade Gorton arguably lost his re-election bid due to Indian voters and those sympathetic to issues affecting them -- thanks in large part to a negative ad campaign against Gorton run by the First American Education Project, an Olympia-based political advocacy group founded by several prominent tribal leaders.

And in South Dakota in 2002, Tim Johnson squeaked out a 524-vote victory for a U.S. Senate seat -- a win he has since credited to the strong voter turnout among that state's prominent Indian population.

This week, both Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry campaigned in Southwestern states, with Kerry meeting tribal leaders in Arizona and New Mexico and Bush touting his Indian housing and health care policies in New Mexico, where about 9.5 percent of the state's population is Indian.

To prospective Indian voters, sovereignty is an issue steeped in legal meaning that drives Native American stances on public policy, court cases and tribes' core "government-to-government" dealings with the United States. And it's a status that many indigenous people see as falling increasingly under attack.

With the erosion of tribal sovereignty, some say, so too comes the weakening of tribal rights, traditions and customs, and essentially, the American Indian's way of life.

So, unsurprisingly, the president's view that sovereignty was something "given" to tribes -- and conversely, some fear, is something that could be taken away -- carried much weight in Indian Country.

And now, against the backdrop of a tight presidential race, some see Bush's statements as a potential factor in the election's outcome -- particularly in coveted swing states with significant Indian populations.

"There's a huge potential that the Native vote can really make a difference this election," Burhans said.

"It's hard to predict if this one statement will have an impact, but I think it will make many people, particularly tribal leaders, stop and think."

After Bush's statements last week, Democrats quickly seized an opportunity to woo the hotly contested Indian vote in this year's campaign -- and to emphasize differences between Kerry and the president. Washington state Democrats immediately issued a press release chastising Bush's "lack of understanding" of Native issues.

Likewise, Kerry campaigners in Washington and elsewhere quickly distributed press announcements of key Native American endorsements of Kerry that also detailed his "plan to strengthen Indian Country." The release also made reference to Bush's statements at Unity.
Simply put, said J.B. Tengco, spokesman for the Kerry Campaign in Washington, "At least we know what sovereignty means."

It's statements like that that have the Bush campaign fuming that Team Kerry is simply "making personal attacks," said Sharon Castillo, a Bush campaign spokeswoman. "The president understands clearly the unique legal relationship between tribes and the federal government," she said.

Castillo added that the president recently drafted an executive order to improve Indian education by developing strategies with tribal leaders to meet "No Child Left Behind" goals, as well as created an advisory board to advance Native higher education.

"He has a strong record," Castillo said. "I think Native Americans are going to make their decisions based on the issues."

Can one word really have that much of an impact on Indians? At the very least, both Johnson and Burhans agreed, Bush's recent statements have created a buzz.

The president's words likely will strengthen individual Indian voters' support of the candidate they already support, said Ron Allen, longtime chairman of the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe, and a Republican who opposes the president.

"It was disappointing to hear his statements," said Allen, who also serves as NCAI's treasurer.

"It was clear to us that he didn't know what he was talking about."

More so than anything, Allen said, the president's statements only underscore what he and many others see as the Bush administration's poor record on Native American issues.

To Bruce Whalen, an Oglala Sioux Indian in South Dakota and a Republican activist, Bush opponents are quibbling over "one or two words, and not seeing the full record."

"Democrats will inflate anything to protect their turf -- and Indian Country is their traditional turf," said Whalen, who later this month will attend the Republican National Convention as an alternate delegate.

While Whalen agrees most Indian voters now overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, he added, "I think there are a lot of Native Americans who are Republicans, they just don't know it yet."

The Republican platform on issues such as abortion and No Child Left Behind are "values that align better with Native Americans than Democratic values do," Whalen said.

"As our sacred ways and traditions are coming back, we're recognizing that tribes and Republicans are a lot alike," Whalen said. "I don't think a few words here or there can change that."

John Gonzales, a San Ildefonso Pueblo tribal member in New Mexico, and a Republican delegate, agreed. "If Native Americans do their own research and make up their own minds, they'll find that yes, President Bush is in touch with Native America," Gonzales said.

It has been Republican -- not Democratic -- policies that have long been the most beneficial to Indians, Gonzales added. The Nixon administration's Indian Self Determination Act promoted tribal self-governance, he said. Likewise, Gonzales said, Bush's Indian policies have lifted tribal communities. He noted that, lost in all the fallout from Bush's statements on sovereignty, were statements he made later about his administration's substantial increase to Indian education funding.

But it's the failure of America's education system that continues to ignore Native culture and history, said state Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip and a Tulalip Indian.

He said the president's statements can only be viewed as part of that "systemic problem." "If the leader of this nation doesn't understand the most important issue to Native Americans, we have a lot more work to do," he said.

P-I reporter Lewis Kamb can be reached at 206-448-8336 or lewiskamb@seattlepi.com

Famoksaiyan: Decolonizing Chamorro Histories, Identities and Futures

2006-10-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

For several months now, myself along with a number of other Chamorros and people from Guam have been working to develop our group called Famoksaiyan.

Famoksaiyan is the Chamorro word meaning, "the place or time to nurture and grow" and the "time to paddle ahead and move forward." It began as a conference, Famoksaiyan: Decolonizing Chamorro Histories, Identities and Futures which took place April 14 and 15th of this year in San Diego, where more then 60 Chamorro and other allies from around the country (and even a few who flew from Guam) attended to present their academic or activist work. With that many people, gathered together all concerned about doing something for the future of Guam and Chamorros, it was inevitable that something concrete and committed to effecting political change would emerge from that meeting.

Ya i hiniyong este na dinaña Famoksaiyan. We've had several meetings since that first one in April. The first in Berkeley and Oakland in May, the second in Guam in August, and the next is scheduled for November 19th at the Guam Communications Network Office in Long Beach.

If any random Chamorros or people from Guam happen to wander into this blog and would like to know more about Famoksaiyan, you can email me, check out our myspace page, or sign up for the listserv.

I'm posting this here, because it has relevance to the issues to the ones that me, Madel and Angie are all working on or working with. At some point I'll post here the draft mission statement/goal of the group, but for the moment I'll just make some cursory comments. Famoksaiyan is first and foremost an organization committed to decolonization. There are different ways that this can be taken, the most commonly known, an intervention which appeals to legal frameworks and formal requests. For the handful of non-self-governing territories left in the world, this means bowing before and begging the United Nations and your governing power for autonomy or sovereignty. To this end, members of Famoksaiyan participated in and helped plan a landmark trip to New York, just this month, to meet with mainland social justice and anti-war activist groups and also testify before the United Nations Committee on Decolonization.

For alas, this framework is limited, because of the fact that its ability to "recognize" colonization is severly limited. While Guam makes it onto the list as one of the world's last "official" colonies, this legal world is unable to address productively (for a number of reasons which have to be blamed primarily on nations such as the United States) the instances of colonization which continue to thrive, but have been renamed, or hidden within the folds of some fictional legal maze. It is for this reason, that Famoksaiyan is also committed to forms of decolonization which must and do take place everyday. But more on that later, both in our podcasts and in our work.

Esta ki ayu, estague i listan i fina'pos gi i miteng:

Hafa Adai Todus Hamyo,

I'm pasting below the tentative schedule and other information for the Famoksaiyan Southern California Meeting in Long Beach on November 19th at the Guam Communications Network Office.

If you are interested in attending please get in touch with me so we can have an estimate for how much food to provide. If you know someone, have friends or relatives in the area who would be interested please get them in touch with me, or please give me their contact info and I'll invite them. This meeting is not just for Chamorros, but for anyone who is concerned about effecting the future of Guam and about connecting Chamorros from the states and the islands in productive cultural and political ways.

Part of the reasoning behind scheduling the meeting for this date is to take advantage of the National Pacific Islander Education Network meeting which is taking place the day before (November 18th) in Long Beach as well. This conference is geared towards helping Pacific Islander high school students apply for college and financial aid, and also help current college students network with other Pacific Islanders and learn about higher educational options. Me, my friend Madel and i primu-hu Si Alfred will be running two of the conference's workshops.

For more info you can check out this dr.viti@verizon.net

Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions.

Sahuma Minagahet ya Na'suha Dinagi

Miget

Tentative Schedule
Diñanan Famoksaiyan VI Southern California

Where:
Guam Communications Network
4201 Long Beach Blvd. Suite 218
Long Beach, CA 90807

When:
November 19, 2006
10 am – 5 pm

10:00 – 10:30: Tiempon Hafa Adai yan Mañanan Si Yu’us!

10:30 – 11:00: Famoksaiyan update
How Famoksaiyan started, what has happened since April 2006 and the first conference. Where is it headed.

11:00 – 12:00: United Nations report back
A report back on the recent trip Famoksaiyan members participated in to the United Nations in New York. It will cover where Guam is at as a colony, what role the United States and the United Nations have in keeping it as such, and what power they have in changing that.

12:00 – 1:00: Na’talo’ani
Food provided by the family of Josette Lujan Quinata

1:00 – 2:00: Lepblon Famoksaiyan
An update on the Famoksaiyan book, and what will be in it. A call for consciousness articles on the experiences and dreams of young Chamorros from the islands and the states.

2:00 – 3:00: Chamorros and the military
A review of the historical and statistical relationship between Chamorros and the United States military. What the military has done for Guam, meaning both good and bad. This will be followed by a discussion about what Chamorros in the states can do to help ensure that the relationship between the people of Guam and the military is one of partnership and equality.

3:00 – 4:00: Language and Culture
A conversation about what we can do to revitalize and promote Chamorro language and culture, with the hopes of creating some concrete plans and groups.

4:00 – 5:00: Sustaining/Funding Famoksaiyan A discussion about how Famoksaiyan can operate, can work, can sustain itself, and what its organization should or can be.

Indigenous Studies Conference

2006-10-26T20:04:00.000-07:00

Angie, Madel and I are working on a panel for the Indigenous Studies Conference taking place next year in Oaklahoma. As soon as we've finalized the panel theme and our individual abstracts I'll post them here, but in the meantime, check out the conference's call for papers, which just from the diversity on its steering committee is very very exciting.

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Native American Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma is hosting an interdisciplinary meeting in Indigenous studies May 3-5, 2007 to share research and discuss the development of an academic association for our field. We invite submissions of individual papers or panels of papers on any topic in Indigenous studies. All persons working in the field are invited and encouraged to submit proposals. Individual paper proposals should include a title and précis of no more than 250 words. Panel proposals should include a title and brief description of the panel and a title and précis for each paper. Proposals can be sent electronically or by regular mail to:

Robert Warrior (warrior@ou.edu)
Native American Studies
633 Elm Avenue, Room 216
University of Oklahoma
Norman, OK 73019

Review of proposals will begin October 15, 2006, and proposals will be accepted until January 15, 2007.

For more information, contact a member of the steering committee of this effort:

Ines Hernandez-Avila (University of California-Davis) ighernandez@ucdavis.edu
J. Kehaulani Kauanui (Wesleyan University) jkauanui@wesleyan.edu
K. Tsianina Lomawaima (University of Arizona) lomawaim@email.arizona.edu
Jean O'Brien (University of Minnesota) obrie002@tc.umn.edu
Robert Warrior (University of Oklahoma) warrior@ou.edu
Jace Weaver (University of Georgia) jweaver@uga.edu

Planned follow up meetings to be hosted by:
University of Georgia (spring 2008)
University of Minnesota (spring 2009)
University of Arizona (spring 2010)

No. 2 - Describing Indigeneity

2006-10-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

Miget leads us in a conversation about the category of indigeneity.

Third and final part of first podcast.

2006-10-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

We end on an up note.

Back to the Kitchen Table - part two

2006-10-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

You do not want to miss Madel telling what happened next with the letter she drafted and sent to Critical Gender Studies.

Madel's Kitchen Table: Beginning a Conversation

2006-10-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

Took me long enough but the podcast is finally coming. The first one is in three pieces because of my son Leroy knocking at the door mostly, still here is part one. Meet Angie Morrill, Michael Lujan Bevacqua and Madel Tmetuchl Ngiraingas. To hear the podcast just click on the title of the post.

Native Feminisms Without Apology

2006-10-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

Miget had a link to this Native Feminisms Conference last April at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in his footnotes to a paper he wrote and I have been watching the panel while I am waiting for ourmedia.org to recognize the files I uploaded. It is an awesome panel of indigenous women scholars, if you click on the title to this post you will go to the website where there is a link to realplayer and you can see for yourself.
Angie