Indian Country Blog Posts

Like the rest of Indian Country, I was excited when I saw the trailer for Rutherford Falls. What initially stood out to me is that the show takes place in the present day. This represented a welcome change from the way I’m used to seeing Native Americans represented in mass media. Unlike other forms of Native representation, Rutherford Falls illustrates the modern Native American experience in all its complexity. By developing a wide range of characters, the show works to diminish the one-dimensional way Native Americans are generally portrayed: either in Western films and TV shows, or as people who are only defined by our historical trauma.

 Just when I...

Wow! Broadband is a “thing.” I know, I know, it has been for a while now, but the fact that it still is a thing a year later is remarkable. It may sound silly, but it used to be that broadband was such an esoteric topic only discussed in the realm of computer science and IT. Now, broadband is in the top three topics that are important to Tribal communities, Tribal leaders, and pretty much everyone else. After the pandemic and the lockdown, everything has changed. And as someone who specializes in broadband research, it’s still surprising. But then, the world has changed. I am thankful that AIPI was in a...

The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) granted a total of $31.2 Billion to Indian Country, including the agencies that serve Tribal nations. The bill was signed on March 11, 2021, and federal agencies are still currently working on the disbursement formulas for the ARPA funds.  However, on Friday, April 30, 2021, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) announced their plan to disperse the $900 million appropriated to them in the ARPA.

ARPA funds are intended to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the BIA’s disbursement plan goes to address many of the necessary services that arose during the pandemic. The disbursement plan consists of:

• $20 million for potable

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You may have heard that AIPI is creating an Indigenous Leadership Academy.

Last week on social media, we asked how you say the word, “leader” in your Indigenous language. We heard the word “nongialam” in the Khasi language, “sogemo” in the Abenaki Penobscot language, “nat’aani” in the Navajo language and “tikba’ ishtaya” in Chickasaw . Being from Minnesota where the Dakota and Ojibwe people are, “ogimaa” is leader in the Ojibwe language, and “itancan” is a leader in the Dakota language. As a student of the Dakota language, I encourage Indigenous people to speak their language whenever possible. 

My family and I use “itancan” when hiking. To elaborate, when we start the...