Recently in Native News

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt the general news landscape. We’re sharing some of April’s most critical headlines around COVID-19 and its impact on Native Americans. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and stay up to date with the latest headlines all year long.

How Native Americans Are Fighting a Food Crisis via The New York Times

• “For the roughly 20,000 members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation — a vast, two million-acre expanse in southern South Dakota — social distancing is certainly feasible. Putting food on the table? Less so. Getting to food has long been a challenge for Pine Ridge residents. For a lot of people, the nearest grocery store is a two-hour drive away. Many rely on food stamps or the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, a federal initiative that provides boxes of food (historically lacking in healthy options) to low-income families. Diabetes rates run very high.”

Indian Health Service Doctor Details Heavy COVID-19 Impact on Navajo Nation via NPR

• “There are 574 federally recognized Native American tribes across the U.S., and while the numbers vary from state to state and tribe to tribe, it is becoming clear that Native Americans are being hit harder by the coronavirus than the overall population. How much harder and why and what might be done about this are questions for our next guest. Loretta Christensen is the Navajo area chief medical officer at Indian Health Service, which serves as the federal health program for American Indians and Alaska Natives.”

New Mexico governor says state faces ‘unique challenges’ responding to COVID-19 in Native American communities via The Hill

• “New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said her state is facing unique challenges posed by responding to the coronavirus pandemic in Native American communities. The governor said Sunday on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ that as of a couple of days ago, 25 percent of New Mexico’s positive COVID-19 cases were Native American. ‘Some of these areas, particularly in Navajo nation, you’re in a situation where you’ve got folks living without access to water and electricity and this creates unique challenges,’ Lujan Grisham said. Six percent of New Mexico’s population is Native American with 23 distinct sovereign nations, she said.”

Native Communities Face Higher Risks During Coronavirus Pandemic Thanks to Legacy of Colonization via Teen Vogue

• “When my medical school asked its first-year students to move out, I had to decide where to go, and quickly. I could go to South Dakota, where one of my Chiefs had invited me to a thunder-welcoming ceremony, or Arizona, where a healing ceremony was taking place for a family member. I chose neither. A few days earlier, I had been in two of Boston’s major health care centers and had recently been with patients. Cases of COVID-19 had already popped up in the city. I couldn’t risk bringing the virus to my two Indigenous communities.”

The Chef Bringing Native American Flavors to Communities in Quarantine via Atlas Obscura

• “What’s in your kitchen pantry? If you answered quinoa, green beans, or potatoes, you have, perhaps unbeknownst to you, been eating Native American heritage. ‘They might not know they have indigenous foods in their cupboard: might be canned corn, canned beans, squash,’ says Brian Yazzie, a Twin Cities-based chef and food activist from the Navajo Nation, of his YouTube channel’s at-home viewers. But thanks to the ingenuity of indigenous farmers, who domesticated these crops over millennia, much of the world relies on Native American staples when times get lean.”

Wes Studi’s Latest Outreach Partnership via Cowboys & Indians

• “Wes Studi recently became the on-camera face of a series of important public-service announcement videos by the nonprofit Partnership With Native Americans. Since 1990, PWNA has been working with Native Americans living on remote, geographically isolated, and under-resourced reservations and supporting reservation programs to serve immediate needs for 250,000 Native Americans annually. The five-part Realities Video Series With Wes Studi includes an accurate portrayal of life on the reservation and dispels long-held myths that continue to impact Native communities today.”