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The NorthEast Two-Spirit Society presents for this year’s National Native American Heritage Month:

Rights Denied: the Struggle for the Sacred and the Sovereign
An examination of the successes and failures of the American Indian Religious Freedom & Indian Child Welfare Acts.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of two significant laws in which the United States “gave” Native peoples’ the right to openly practice our traditional religions and a separate government “decree” that included Native American governments in the decisions about the fate of our children. Religious freedom and future generations are the heart of cultural preservation. A panel of distinguished Native American leaders and activists will examine the struggle for the sacred and the sovereign in the context of these two legislative acts.

Tuesday, Nov. 11th
6:00 to 8:00pmLGBT Community Center
208 West 13th Street, Room #301
New York, NY 10011

Panelists
Sharon Day, Executive Director of Indigenous Peoples Task Force, a full service urban Native American institution that helps Native peoples face the daily battles of survival in an urban environment including housing, health, food, spiritual access and child welfare.

Tonya Gonnella Frichner, President and Founder of the American Indian Law Alliance. Dedicated to preserving the sovereignty and human rights of all Indigenous peoples, Tonya is the current North American representative of Indigenous peoples on the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations.

Debra White Plume, Executive Director of Owe Aku, Bring Back the Way. Owe Aku is a cultural and educational organization of traditional Lakota people who fight for sovereignty. Deeply involved in preservation of cultural foundations, Owe Aku, under Debra’s guidance, is on the front lines of defending sacred sites and communicating cultural tradition to future generations.

Moderated by Harlan Pruden

Admission is always free, though donations are accepted.

A growing List of co-sponsors (as of 10/25/08):

Hosted by the NorthEast Two-Spirit Society with the help of:
American Indian Community House, Audre Lorde Project, American Indian Law Alliance, First Voices Indigenous Radio, Indigenous Peoples Task Force, Native Peoples Forum of New York University, Native American Council of Columbia University, National Native American AIDS Prevention Center and Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way).

Click here to see the story on the NYTimes site

By DAN FROSCH
NYTimes
October 17, 2008

RIVERTON, Wyo. — At 69, her eyes soft and creased with age, Alvena Oldman remembers how the teachers at St. Stephens boarding school on the Wind River Reservation would strike students with rulers if they dared to talk in their native Arapaho language.

“We were afraid to speak it,” she said. “We knew we would be punished.”

More than a half-century later, only about 200 Arapaho speakers are still alive, and tribal leaders at Wind River, Wyoming’s only Indian reservation, fear their language will not survive. As part of an intensifying effort to save that language, this tribe of 8,791, known as the Northern Arapaho, recently opened a new school where students will be taught in Arapaho. Elders and educators say they hope it will create a new generation of native speakers.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/opinion/10fri4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
New York Times - United States
Published: October 9, 2008

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, long a foe of smoking, has taken his opposition to a new territory — the American Indian shops on Long Island that sell cigarettes to non-Indians. By filing a series of federal lawsuits, the mayor is trying to force Gov. David Paterson to collect sales taxes on those cigarettes.

It’s not a welcome subject in New York politics. Former Gov. George Pataki tried collecting cigarette and gas taxes from Indian shops 11 years ago, but he backed away soon after protesters, burning automobile tires, closed Interstate 81 for more than 90 minutes.

States and cities cannot impose taxes on American Indians who buy cigarettes for personal use on sovereign Indian land. But non-Indians are not entitled to a similar break. Mr. Bloomberg has filed suit accusing some cigarette shops on Indian land of selling cigarettes in bulk to bootleggers who then resell them off tribal land. That is illegal in New York State; Mr. Bloomberg is trying to compel Mr. Paterson to enforce the law.

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