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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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Picture: Pat Taylor, ED of Faces and Voices of Recovery (on the right), Carla Ayres, a Boardmember for Faces and Voices for Recovery (in the middle) and Harlan Pruden

On Saturday, September 27, Harlan Pruden, NE2SS councilmember, joined thousands of individuals and families in recovery, treatment partners and advocates from all fifty states to form a human chain – a living symbol of recovery - across the historic Brooklyn Bridge and marched to a rally at City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan featuring a special solo musical performance by singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright. The Recovery Rally - organized in partnership with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD) – marks the launch of The Recovery Project, a wide-ranging, multi-year initiative of A&E Network, federal agencies and leading non-profit organizations designed to help raise awareness that addiction is a treatable disease and recovery is possible.

Befitting the enormous interest in the upcoming election, advocacy will be in evidence at this year’s Rally. There will be an Advocacy Tent set up to register voters as part of this year’s Recovery Voices Count Campaign and to encourage rally participants to advocate for policy change. Harlan helped with this effort to register people to vote and helped collect 100’s of names of people that endorsed the “Recovery Bill of Rights.”

Recovery Voices Count is part of a national movement spearheaded by Faces and Voices of Recovery to make it possible for even more of our friends, neighbors and family members to experience long-term recovery from addiction by building recognition of the recovery community as a constituency of consequence.

The Bay State Banner

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

There it was, the ever-so-fleeting moment during her speech at the Republican National Convention when vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin paid tribute to her hubby, Todd — her brief mention that he’s of Yup’ik Eskimo background. Todd Palin beamed with pride at the acknowledgement in front of the packed convention crowd and one of the largest TV audiences to ever watch a candidate’s convention speech.But the cheering convention participants and millions of viewers won’t see the same smiles on the faces of scores of other Yup’ik Eskimos. Nor on many other Native Alaskans, who make up nearly 20 percent of Alaska’s population.

A devastating report by the Alaska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 2002, “Racism’s Frontier: The Untold Story of Discrimination and Division in Alaska,” painted a picture of decades-long economic misery, discrimination, neglect and alienation for Native Alaskans in Palin’s state.

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The LGBT Community Center launched a new social marketing campaign featuring Harlan Pruden, one of the leaders of NE2SS!

The above image is featured at the conner of 13th street and 6th avenue and it is also on 14th street and 8th avenue!

The campaign is of members of the NYC recovery community. Harlan Pruden has over 21 year of sobriety!

If you are in the West Village or Chelsea keep your eyes peeled for our dancing two-spirit leader on a telephone booth near you!

Kent Lebsock, Harlan Pruden and Kevin VanWanseele were profiled for a piece on the NorthEast Two-Spirit Society in today’s New York Times Metro section. Read about it here.
Here’s a snippet:

The bias that many gay Indians say they have experienced from other Indians is a legacy of the encounter between Indians and white European colonizers, according to Brian J. Gilley, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Vermont, who is the author of “Becoming Two-Spirit: Gay Identity and Social Acceptance in Indian Country.”

Historically, in many tribes, individuals who entered into same-sex relationships were considered holy and treated with utmost respect and acceptance, said Dr. Gilley. “Prior to European contact, sexuality was not a determining factor in someone’s identity,” he said. “It was the role in the community. Gender was tied to that role. Who you had sex with was not a concern. The Europeans come, Native American societies are thrust in rapid change, and some societies incorporate European ideals quickly.”

And because the European settlers, influenced in part by their religious beliefs, were largely intolerant of homosexuality, they helped reshape long-held practices among many Indians, Dr. Gilley said.

Congratulations to the leadership of the NorthEast Two-Spirit Society. Special thanks go out to NE2SS member, Othell, for introducing the reporter Dalton Walker to our organization.

This weekend Roger Kuhn was named the NEXT Gay Megastar by a panel of judges of this years GLBT Expo in New York. The contest was help over 3 days.

We learned about his accomplishment soon after he won. Roger sent us an E-mail telling us what it was like to win such an honor! “It was a lot of fun and I feel honored to have been chosen.

“Now the NE2SS has the Sexiest Gay Alive (Kevin) and the NEXT Gay Megastar (Roger). Rock on NE2SS!!!”

To learn more about Roger Kuhn check out his profile on NE2SS and listen to his music at his website World of Roger Kuhn (WORK)