Indigenous affairs coverage has been growing in recent years, as more news publications (ahem) discover the value of hiring Native reporters and editors, and as the public awakens to the richness, complexity and importance of current events in Indian Country. And yet the sheer volume of urgent and untold stories far outweighs the number of reporters and editors working to publish them. Which makes it exciting to watch this field grow.
At HCN, we like to think this beat requires a certain panache — an acumen that can’t really be taught but can be learned over time. Few non-Native writers in America, for example, would dare to mention that George Washington dallied in ethnic cleansing; it takes an Indigenous gall to acknowledge that historical fact. But non-Native reporters can still do excellent work by immersing themselves in the worldviews and stories of the people living outside of America’s most ludicrous assumptions about itself.
Here’s a sampling of Indigenous affairs stories from other publications that we’ve admired over the past year.
I’ll Show You My Indian If You Show Me Yours
By Morgan Talty for Esquire
I loved this piece about blood quantum by Morgan Talty. Talty, who is Penobscot, weaves the many threads of blood quantum — its colonial history and contemporary usage, and its many repercussions — into one braid: Native identity, and what it can, and might, and will mean for his child to wear it. — McKenna Stayner, features director
Rez dogs are feeling the heat from climate change
By Taylar Dawn Stagner for Grist
Who doesn’t love a dog story? Good ones abound, but this piece by former HCN intern Taylar Dawn Stagner (Arapahoe and Shoshone) pursues a unique angle on our best friend, highlighting how human-caused climate change affects shelter pups on reservations. It could be an entirely sad tale, but Taylar leaves us with hope. —Gretchen King, executive editor
Four-year-old Oregon report identifies missing Native American women as an ‘emergency’ — but progress has been limited
By Melanie Henshaw for InvestigateWest
One thing that sets Indigenous reporting apart is the kind of questions Native journalists ask. For instance, when a white state lawmaker helps pass MMIW legislation and then, years later, becomes governor, a Native reporter might wonder: Whatever happened with all that? Is the state actually doing anything about the ongoing MMIW crisis? And that reporter — who in this case is Melanie Henshaw (Mvskoke), InvestigateWest’s first Indigenous affairs journalist — might end up getting a rather staggering admission from that governor. —B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster, staff writer
Is the state actually doing anything about the ongoing MMIW crisis?
Piñon nuts in the Navajo Nation are bountiful as harvest draws pickers
By Arlyssa Becenti for AZ Central / The Arizona Republic
If you’re a person who enjoys nuts, and pine nuts in particular, then you’ll appreciate Diné journalist Arlyssa D. Becenti’s story in the Arizona Republic. Let’s start with the basics: Pine nuts, like all nuts, are seeds, in this case the seeds of pine trees. And the Southwestern U.S. is blessed with piñon pines, which produce piñon nuts, a traditional Navajo food. This dispatch takes us into the heart of a bountiful nut-picking season, following families through the forest as they lay out blankets or tarps at the base of a tree, shake its branches, then gather the harvest, nut by nut, into buckets, bags or coffee cans before moving on to the next tree. Many families store their harvest to last through lean years, since good piñon years seem to occur every three or four years. Other pickers choose to sell part or all of their harvest to earn some cash. Just thinking about roasted, salted piñon nuts may leave you salivating, as it did me. But mostly I enjoyed reading about the harvest of an easily accessible traditional food on the Navajo Nation, especially in a year when there appeared to be more than enough for everybody. —Jennifer Sahn, editor-in-chief
Cabin of Ho-tah-moie, aka John Stink, lost to wildfire
By Shannon Shaw-Duty for Osage News
I like a good profile piece, especially if it doesn’t quite start out as one. This story is about how a wildfire destroyed a cabin that belonged to a famous Osage recluse known as John Stink. Shaw-Duty (Osage from the Grayhorse District) weaves the story with a mixture of community anecdotes, documented historical information and outsider knowledge, producing a tale that demonstrates how much we can learn when we simply ask questions. Historical stories about Indigenous people are often written by outsiders, but this one isn’t. I enjoyed the reminder that while there are many places a reader can go to learn about who John Stink was, this article shares what his own people knew about him, in a perhaps unintentional reclamation of Indigenous storytelling. —Sunnie Clahchischiligi, Indigenous affairs editor
My firsthand experience with the unique barriers to voting that face Indigenous Arizonans
By Shondiin Silversmith for AZ Mirror
Voting barriers are worse than ever for Natives, as reported by former HCNer Graham Lee Brewer, among others. Before the Nov. 5 presidential election, Diné reporter Shondiin Silversmith found a straightforward and effective way to cover this issue: She spent a day driving from one polling station to another on the Navajo Nation to see what she could learn in person about the problems. It proved a deceptively simple way to explore a complicated system of entrenched injustice. —B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster, staff writer
The tiny potato at the heart of one tribe’s fight against climate change
By Joseph Lee for Vox
Transport yourself to the shore of Idaho’s Lake Coeur d’Alene with Joseph Lee’s (Aquinnah Wampanoag) scenic and inspiring story about the environmental and cultural restoration the Coeur d’Alene Tribe is doing as they work to bring back the water potato (and beavers and salmon as well!) – and, at the same time, battle climate change. —Gretchen King, executive editor
Federal leaders knew Northwest dams would hurt Native communities — and they approved
By Tony Schick for OPB
This year, for the first time in U.S. history, the Biden administration acknowledged the historic and ongoing damage done by the Columbia River dam system. But OPB’s Tony Schick did them one better. He pointed out something the federal government was unwilling to admit: that the government anticipated the harm dams would do, even as it planned to colonize the river by building them. We love to see this kind of audacious truth-telling from a non-Native reporter. —B. ‘Toastie’ Oaster, staff writer
Happy July Fourth from your friendly local ‘merciless Indian’
By Shaun Griswold for Source New Mexico
Shaun Griswold, a citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna with Jemez and Zuni ancestry, gives everyone a lot to consider in this Fourth of July perspective piece about the meaning of truth and what it’s like for an Indigenous person to read the Declaration of Independence. Somehow, he manages to maintain good humor in the face of our country’s ongoing self-deception. —Gretchen King, executive editor
Somehow, he manages to maintain good humor in the face of our country’s ongoing self-deception.
‘The gap filler’: One woman’s mission to improve health outcomes on Fort Belknap Reservation
By Nora Mable for the Missoulian
I enjoyed this three-part series, which Lee Enterprises published in The Missoulian this year. “Gone Too Soon” examines the life expectancy gap in Montana, where Indigenous people die a generation earlier than their white neighbors. The project was informed by almost 300 Indigenous community members, health experts and leaders, and included listening sessions and community engagement on the Crow, Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations. My favorite story, “The gap filler,” focuses on possible solutions through the eyes of one woman on the Fort Belknap Reservation. —Kylie Mohr, correspondent
The Great Serengeti Land Grab
By Stephanie McCrummen for The Atlantic
In The Atlantic’s “The Great Serengeti Land Grab,” reporter Stephanie McCrummen details how the Tanzanian government and private companies are forcibly removing Maasai people from their homelands in the name of conservation. It’s a story with international resonance — and somethingIndigenous people experience around the world, including here in the Western U.S. (How else did you think national parks and other “public lands” were created?) McCrummen’s reporting focuses on the Maasai perspective, describing the impact this takeover has had on their way of life, as well as their continuing efforts to resist displacement. The reader comes away understanding that the dispossession of Indigenous lands is not an issue relegated to history: It’s still happening now, and it is urgent. —Anna V. Smith, associate editor
Feather-tying ceremony honors Bismark-Mandan Native Graduates’ protected cultural rights
By Adrianna Adame for Buffalo’s Fire
This story exemplifies why we need more Indigenous journalism — including both journalists and outlets. About a week before this story ran, a Lakota student graduating from an off-reservation high school in New Mexico was ordered to remove her beaded cap, which was adorned with an aópazan (the Lakota word for plume). Adrianna Adame’s (Chippewa Cree) story, while unrelated to that unfortunate incident, stood in contrast to it, educating readers about the cultural significance and power of something important to many Indigenous people by describing a unique event that few outsiders are likely know about. It’s a story that provides an uplifting example of how Indigenous media and storytelling can perpetuate Indigenous knowledge. —Sunnie Clahchischiligi, Indigenous affairs editor
Image credits:“I voted” stickers in English and Spanish. GPA Photo Archive/CC via Flickr; Custer National Cemetery, a military cemetery in Garryowen, Montana. Aboveicefog/CC via Flickr; United States Declaration of Independence. Wikipedia; Navajo Nation Reservation, Arizona. Wikimedia Commons.
United States Declaration of Independence. Wikipedia; A good crop of piñones in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sharon Sperry Bloom/CC via Flickr; A tweet from Governor Tina Kotek. Screenshot from X; Mist on Lake Coeur d’Alene, ID. LibertyLakeAnne/CC via Flickr; Pine nuts. Swetlana P./CC via Flickr; John Stink. wheatiron/CC via Flickr; Native Americans shine light on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (#MMIW) as the 40 day Poor People’s Campaign kicks off in California on the stairs of the State Capital in Sacramento. Peg Hunter/CC via Flickr; The Dalles Dam, and Highway 97 bridge over the Columbia River. Bruce Fingerhood/CC via Flickr.
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