indigenous people

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Discrimination against Indigenous students.

 

As a native woman and student that has attended years of private, public and boarding schools, I have seen my fair share of bullies from all social classes. I have also found that bullying can be from adults towards their students. This situation is one that I have experienced personally as well.

My professor at the time had suggested I should get my learning capabilities tested to determine whether I was a visual learner, a student that focused better via lecture, or if just by reading.

 

– Click through to read more –

 

Source: ndnimpact.wordpress.com

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Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

 

RCMP report on Aboriginal women puts numbers to our national shame: Tim Harper

We are quick to work to protect women’s rights abroad, but when it comes to murdered Aboriginals at home, we are quick to look the other way.


Tim Harper – TheStar.com – May 18

Last week, while Aboriginal demonstrators were marching outside the Centre Block, New Democratic MP Niki Ashton rose in the Commons and asked the government — again — to convene a national inquiry to provide answers and justice for the families of missing and murdered aboriginal women.
– See more at: http://www.ammsa.com/content/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls#sthash.tWPSkhjc.dpuf

 

Source: www.ammsa.com

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Colonialism Never Ended [VIDEO]

 

Awqa Colque speaking about the ongoing colonialism on Nican Tlaca (Indigenous) land at Birmingham University at the event “Far From Post-Colonial: The continued struggles of indigenous peoples”.

 

Source: xicanation.com

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Last speaker of Native Californian Wukchumni Language

 

Wukchumni is both a Native Californian language and people. They are of the Yokuts tribe residing on the Tule River Reservation.

 

The Tule River Reservation was established in 1873 by a US Executive Order in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It is south of Fresno and north of Bakersfield. It occupies 55,356 acres. -Wikipedia

 

“This short documentary profiles the last fluent speaker of Wukchumni, a Native American language, and her creation of a comprehensive dictionary.” -NY Times

 

– Click through for more and [VIDEO] –

 

Source: 500nations.us

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The U.S. Roots of the Central American Immigrant Influx

Before dying of pneumonia at a Guatemala hospital in late May, the recently deported 21-year-old Gustavo Antonio Vásquez Chaj told his family that the U.S. Border Patrol had kept him, at some point, wet, stripped of a layer of clothing, and in a cold cell during several days in detention.
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The tragic journey of Vásquez Chaj and Tucux Chiché is one story among many of how harmful U.S. political and economic policies in Latin America violently intersect with a hardening and brutal system of U.S. immigration control. In their case, the young men’s voyage was first and foremost one of necessity rather than of choice. Vásquez Chaj and Tucux Chiché were economic migrants fleeing a country of wreck and ruin that decades of harmful U.S. foreign and economic policies have helped to bring about.

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It is indisputable that the United States shares significant responsibility for the genocide of tens of thousands of Guatemalans—mainly indigenous Mayans, including members of Gustavo and Maximiliano’s community, who comprised a majority of the (at least) 150,000 killed in the 1980s alone.
Click through for whole article.

Source: nacla.org

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Video interview: Harsha Walia on Anti-Oppression, Decolonization and Responsible Allyship

See on Scoop.it – Community Village Daily

 

“Given the devastating cultural, spiritual, economic, linguistic and political impacts of colonialism on Indigenous people in Canada, any serious attempt by non-natives at allying with Indigenous struggles must entail solidarity in the fight against colonization.

Non-natives must be able to position ourselves as active and integral participants in a decolonization movement for political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens our collective life on this planet.
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A growing number of social movements are recognizing that Indigenous self-determination must become the foundation for all our broader social justice mobilizing.”

– Harsha Walia, from the article Decolonizing Together

 

 

Community Village‘s insight:

 

Harsha Walia is the author of Undoing Border Imperialism

 

See on ipsmo.wordpress.com

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Thirty Seven: Life Expectancy for Onkwehón:we in Toronto

 

“I was interested in what their life was like,” Shah says. So in addition to the quantitative chart, they also did a qualitative analysis interviewing 20 people close to the deceased.

 

“I went to a residential school and the things that happened there – I can’t even talk about…that’s why I drank so much. I just couldn’t be a father,” said one of the people interviewed about what a deceased said.

“I really think it’s like a broken heart syndrome. It was [the deceased’s] loneliness for his true identity, like not knowing anything about who his people are because his family and his parents and his traditions were all lost,” said another.

 

The report shows much of the causes lie in the history of colonization, marginalization, discrimination and racism. Shah adds everything from treaties to the Indian Act result in losing cultures, languages and a way of living. Many of the deceased had a lack of housing, education and stable employment. This manifests in different ways such as finding happiness elsewhere such as drugs and alcohol.

 

“I call this a delayed tsunami effect,” says Shah. He suggests the only way to solve the problem is with an upstream approach of more housing and employment opportunities. “People have to have a sense of identity and empowerment.”

 

The report also suggests an increase in partnerships with the Aboriginal community and cultural competency training.

 

He says our policies are “screwed up” because most of us non-Aboriginals don’t know anything about Aboriginal issues and as a result there is no empathy. A lot of people don’t understand how some people can’t get a job or rent an apartment and this creates an empathy gap.“

 

 

Community Village‘s insight:

See on onkwehonwerising.wordpress.com

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Decolonizing the Mind: Healing Through Neurodecolonization and Mindfulness

 

“Decolonizing the Mind: Healing Through Neurodecolonization and Mindfulness –

Author, educator, medical social worker and citizen of the Arikara (Sahnish) and Hidatsa Nations in North Dakota, Michael Yellow Bird, MSW, Ph.D. works with indigenous communities, teaching about healing the trauma of colonialism.

 

On January 24, 2014 he spoke about his experiences at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, sharing his ideas about how to go about doing this through techniques of mindfulness, thought and behavior which he refers to as neurodecolonization. ”

 
See on unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com

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How Children’s Books Fuel Mascot Stereotypes – COLORLINES

 

“This brings me to the issue of how we frame diversity. I want to ask you whether you think it’s helpful to refer to Natives as people of color—or if this ultimately obscures political status. 
It absolutely works against our best interest to be placed in the framework of people of color. White children’s authors, for example, write about American Indians and civil rights. And my response is that it’s not about civil rights, it’s about treaty rights. And that’s an encapsulation of what goes wrong when you use a civil rights framework. To start with, people don’t know that we’re sovereign nations, that we have a political status in the United States, as opposed to a racial, cultural or ethnic one. So it’s easy to see why people fall into that multicultural framework. But it’s really not culture—it’s really politics. When people in education start developing these frameworks and chart out the ways that people of color have a history in the United States, they’ll slot us in there, too. But that collapses, erases and obscures our distinct political designation in the United States.”

 
See on colorlines.com