Native Americans
New Mexican Spanish, a Unique American Dialect, Survives Mostly in Prayers
On a spring Saturday afternoon, two "hermanos" knelt to pray in the chapel of their Catholic brotherhood of St. Isidore the Farmer, nestled by the pine forest outside this hamlet in a high mountain valley.
Fidel Trujillo and Leo Paul Pacheco's words resounded in New Mexican Spanish, a unique dialect that evolved through the mixing of medieval Spanish and Indigenous forms. The historic, endangered dialect is as central to these communities as their iconic adobe churches, and its best chance of survival might be through faith, too.
"Prayers sung or recited are our sacred heritage," said Gabriel Meléndez, a professor emeritus of American Studies with the University of New Mexico who's also a hermano. "When prayers are said in Spanish, they're stronger. They connect us directly to people who came before us."
Preserved mostly in devotions, particularly in humble "moradas" – as the brotherhoods' chapels are called – built of mud and straw in rural communities across the northern reaches of the state, New Mexican Spanish is different from all other varieties of the language.
"Unlike most other forms of Spanish used in the U.S. today, it's not due to immigration in the last 100 years, but rooted back to the 1500s," said Israel Sanz-Sánchez, a professor of languages at West Chester University in Pennsylvania who has researched the dialect.
Spanish explorers and missionaries first reached these valleys isolated between mountains, deserts and plains at the end of the 16th century. Pushed back south by the Pueblo Native Americans, they resettled a century later – and their language evolved to incorporate not only words carried from medieval Spain but also a mixture of expressions derived from Mexican Spanish, Native forms and eventually some English after the territory became part of the United States.
Removed from the center of political and economic power for centuries, these villages preserved the dialect orally.
"You never heard English here," said Felix López of growing up in the 1950s in Truchas, a ridgetop village between Santa Fe and Taos, where this master "santero" – an artist specializing in devotional art – has been helping preserve the 1760s Holy Mission church.
But by the mid-20th century, the push to promote schooling in English led many educators to correct students who used New Mexican Spanish's idiosyncratic mix of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary, said Damián Vergara Wilson, a professor of Spanish at the University of New Mexico.
He has been working on teaching Spanish not as foreign but as a heritage language that has developed into something uniquely New Mexican.
It contains some words from medieval Spanish, but it also includes pronunciations that developed in New Mexico's villages and words unique to its geographical and historical place at a crossroads of American civilizations. There are several words for turkey, for instance, including an anglicized one used in the context of Thanksgiving.
With such code-switching sometimes disparaged in education and among the public, younger generations often stick to English only or learn contemporary Spanish, especially as spoken in Mexico, with which the state shares a border. That leads many villagers to worry about being able to preserve New Mexican Spanish.
"The dialect we speak is dying out. We're the last generation that learned it as a first language," said Angelo Sandoval, 45, who serves as the "mayordomo" or caretaker of the 1830s San Antonio Church in Cordova, a village just down the valley from Truchas.
Its best chance for survival is prayer. Traditional devotions have been passed down through generations by hermanos, easily memorized because of their ballad-style rhyming. Sometimes they are transcribed into notebooks called "cuadernos." In an adobe niche in a chapel in Holman, some of the handwritten notebooks are 120 years old.
Even in larger cities, people often request prayers in New Mexican Spanish for special occasions, like rosaries for the deceased or novenas for the holidays.
In Santa Fe, the prayer to the widely venerated statue of Our Lady of Peace contains some of the original Spanish terminology, such as "Sacratisimo Hijo" for the "most holy Son," said Bernadette Lucero, director, curator and archivist for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
A nearly century-old women's folklore society — Sociedad Folklórica de Nuevo México — also regularly practices the dialect for their hymns and nine-day "novenas" prayers to baby Jesus, Lucero added.
In the small town of Bernalillo, where the outskirts of Albuquerque fade into vast mesas, the mayordomos of San Lorenzo also preserve the dialect in their prayers and annual celebrations.
"When we sing an old 'alabado,' we can trace who wrote that," said Santiago Montoya of the Catholic praise (in Spanish, "alabar") hymns that have been passed down through New Mexican brotherhoods.
For 23 years, Montoya and his sister have been the mayordomos of San Lorenzo, a church that was constructed in the mid-19th century with 4-foot-wide adobe walls. The community fought to save it when a bigger, modern church was built next door.
But he's also a "rezador," reciting or singing the rosary — a prayer consisting of sets of Hail Marys called "decades" — which he does in the community and particularly for the deceased. He insists on using New Mexican Spanish even if the families speak only English.
"I tell them, 'I'll do three 'decades' in English, but let's teach the kids,'" Montoya said.
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Native American news roundup, Sept. 1-7, 2024
Montana Senate candidate accused of making racially charged remarks about Indians
Tim Sheehy, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Montana, is facing widespread criticism after the Flathead Reservation's Char-Koosta News this week published four audio clips in which the candidate appears to have made "racially tinged comments" about Native Americans on the Crow Reservation in Montana.
During a November 2023 fundraising event, Sheehy spoke about branding and roping cattle on the Crow Reservation alongside his Crow ranching partner, remarking that it was "a great way to bond with all the Indians being out there while they're drunk at 8 a.m."
During a separate event four days later, he described riding a horse in the Crow Reservation's annual parade, calling parade attendees a "tough crowd."
"They let you know if they like you or not. There's Coors Light [beer] cans flying by your head as you're riding by," the candidate said.
The Char-Koosta News reports it is working to verify the audio, and Sheehy's campaign has not issued any statement.
Levi Black Eagle, the Crow Nation's secretary for the executive branch, told Montana television station KTVQ that while Crows tolerate "good-natured ribbing," Sheehy's comments perpetuate old racist stereotypes.
"It's really disheartening, especially from an individual, a candidate running for such a high office, you would expect more from those individuals," Black Eagle said. "I think it's a majority of the community that fights hard to negate those stereotypes, and to have them perpetuate in such a way is just, it's really disgusting. And we don't stand for it."
The report has sparked outrage among other Native American communities in Montana, a state where Indigenous people make up about 6% of the population; they are calling for an apology.
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Arizona tribal enrollment numbers are valid proof of US citizenship
Voting advocacy groups in Arizona are working to clear up confusion over a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that may discourage Native Americans from voting in November's general election.
Through an unsigned order, the Supreme Court on August 22 sided with the Republican National Committee and Republican lawmakers in Arizona, reinstating a law that requires voter registrants to prove their U.S. citizenship when filling out state voter registration forms.
The decision suggests that anyone registering to vote using state-issued voter registration forms must provide documentation of U.S. citizenship such as a birth certificate or valid passport.
Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, a law professor at Arizona State University, called the ruling "discouraging" but pointed out that Native Americans were automatically made citizens a century ago.
That means that Native voters in Arizona need only to provide their tribal enrollment numbers as proof.
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Nevada tribes seek to protect 19th-century massacre site
Native American tribes in Nevada are concerned about a new federal solar development plan that could affect the proposed Bahsahwahbee National Monument.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Western Solar Plan, released August 29, designates 4.8 million hectares in Nevada for solar projects, including areas near the site of the Bahsahwahbee monument. The site is historically significant, as it was the location of massacres of the Newe people in the 19th century and remains a sacred space for tribes that hold ceremonies there.
While the solar plan excludes certain Native American cultural sites, tribes worry that the lack of formal national monument status leaves Bahsahwahbee vulnerable to development.
"I am stunned and confused that while our tribes are in discussions with the Biden-Harris administration about establishing this monument, the BLM just issued a plan allowing the graves of our massacred ancestors to be bulldozed," said Amos Murphy, chair of the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation.
The Ely Shoshone, Duckwater Shoshone and Goshute tribes call the area Bahsahwahbee (Sacred Water Valley). Located near Nevada's Great Basin National Park, it is the site of three massacres in which the U.S. Army and armed vigilantes killed hundreds of their ancestors.
Efforts to secure national monument designation for the site are ongoing, with support from Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat. Tribes are urging the Biden administration to take swift action to protect the area.
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Native Americans share stories about beings 'other than human'
South of the town of Toksook Bay on Nelson Island, Alaska, stands a hill known as Qasginguaq, which Yup'ik tradition says is the home of the Ircencerraat, beings described as "other than human."
"The young people that have seen them when they're playing state that they're about half their size," Toksook elder and cultural adviser Mark John told Native America Calling this week. "They have the ability to appear and disappear at will, and they live in a different dimension … if they appear to you in a human way out in the wilderness and they invite you to their home, spending a day at their home is like spending a year when you go back out."
John was among several guests and callers from across Indian Country this week who shared stories and traditions about "little people," beings that have parallels in cultures across the globe.
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Tribes celebrate Klamath River dam removal
Construction crews on August 28 removed the fourth and final dam on the Klamath River in Oregon. As VOA’s Matt Dibble reports (below), Klamath, Yurok and Karuk Tribe were there to celebrate.
- By Matt Dibble
Tribes celebrate removal of dam, revival of community along Klamath River
For more than a century, dams have blocked fish migration on California’s second-largest river. VOA’s Matt Dibble takes us to the removal of the last of four dams, a victory for Native Americans who depend on the river.
Native American news roundup August 25-31, 2024
Cherokee Nation denies it helped enable trafficking of migrant children
Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. has refuted allegations that Cherokee Federal, a division of the tribe’s business arm, Cherokee Nation Businesses, has played a role in the sex trafficking of migrant children at a California emergency intake facility.
"For over two years, Cherokee Nation and Cherokee Federal have been wrongly and unjustly smeared through unhinged conspiracy theories spread by a select few," Hoskin said.
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded Cherokee Federal a $706 million contract to process unaccompanied children at a facility in Pomona, California, and reunite them with families and/or sponsors.
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA,) Bill Cassidy (R-LA,) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) hosted a roundtable discussion in Washington July 9 in which HHS whistleblowers Deborah White and Tara Rodas accused the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and Cherokee Federal of prioritizing “speed over safety” in releasing unaccompanied minors.
They cited instances in which children were turned over to poorly or entirely unvetted “sponsors,” including criminals and, in one case, a member of the violent MS13 gang, despite an urgent “do not release advisory” which Rodas sent to HHS officials and Cherokee Federal staff.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who serves on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, participated in that roundtable. During a recent community meeting in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, he denied that Cherokee Federal engaged in placing children in unsafe situations.
"During that hearing, I was talking about HHS and their decision-making and some of my colleagues were talking about Cherokee Federal," Lankford said. "I think that was unfair of how that was pulled in, because that wasn't their job for the final selection."
Cherokee Federal's job was to take care of the children after they crossed the border, Lankford said.
The New York Times in 2023 reported that the Biden administration had lost track of 85,000 children.
The Center for Public Integrity says that figure is misleading and only represents the number of children who could not be reached during follow-up welfare checks.
Senators to Agriculture Department: Act swiftly to restore food deliveries to Indian reservations
A bipartisan group of senators is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, to address severe delays and issues in a federal food distribution program that delivers food to eligible households on Indian reservations and other designated areas. The program is known as the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, or FDPIR.
“Families that participate in this program do so at the expense of being eligible to participate in other federal food assistance, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),” reads an August 23 letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack and signed by Senator Jeffrey Merkley (D-OR) and six Senate colleagues.
“Further, many Tribal households choose to participate in FDPIR over SNAP because they do not have access to grocery stores so families have limited options for assistance, should they face delays in their FDPIR deliveries.”
In March, the USDA consolidated the food delivery contractors to a single contractor in Kansas City, Missouri, over the objection of tribal leaders. Since then, deliveries have been sporadic, at best.
A tribal program director on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity.
“The program usually serves 1,100-plus people a month; about a hundred of them are elders,” she said. “We usually get four to five trucks of food a month. But our May trucks were delayed, and by June, we ran out of meat and frozen foods. In July, we didn’t get our trucks until the end of the month.”
The FDPIR is billed as a supplemental food program, but for many families on the reservations, these deliveries make up their entire monthly food supply.
“We normally receive ours the third Monday of every month,” she added. “But in July, we didn't get our trucks until the end of the month, and we’re still waiting on our August deliveries.”
Some tribe members have the option of shopping off-reservation, using monthly, electronically-delivered SNAP benefits – that is, if they have transportation and can afford high supermarket prices.
“We also have a mobile vendor,” she said. “They come around the day before SNAP benefits come out. They charge whatever they want.”
Senate lawmakers have given the USDA until September 9 to report and document reasons for the delays. The USDA says it is working with the Missouri contractor to fix the backlog but tribal leaders say they aren’t working fast enough.
Democrats make strong appeals to Native voters, but have they missed the mark?
The Native American Caucus, meeting at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, opened its first meeting earlier this week with a prayer.
Amelia Flores, who chairs the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona, introduced herself in the Mojave language and called on "Father, Creator" to bless Democrat leaders.
"We ask that you grant them wisdom and that our spirits will remain in a positive attitude throughout the next four days here. … We are gung-ho for our vice president and newly elect, with your favor, the first woman president of the United States," she said.
More than 150 Native American delegates representing tribes across the U.S. participated in the convention this week. They brought a unique set of concerns that include safeguarding tribal sovereignty, clarifying their relationship with the federal government and overcoming voting barriers.
Native vote power
Speaking with VOA in July, Association on American Indian Affairs Director Shannon O'Loughlin, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, emphasized that Native Americans have become an increasingly important voting bloc.
"If we do show up, and we do vote locally and nationally, we have the power to change the direction of the candidates and who's chosen," O'Loughlin said to VOA in July. "We saw that in the last election."
That said, she notes some states' efforts to discourage Native voters. In 2020, for example, the Native vote in Arizona helped swing the election in Biden's favor. Two years later, Republican lawmakers passed a law requiring Arizonans to prove U.S. citizenship, a hardship for many Native voters.
Lower courts rejected the law, and the Republican National Committee has called on the U.S. Supreme Court to decide in time for the state to begin printing ballots.
A look at the numbers
According to the Native American Rights Fund, out of nearly 6.8 million American Indians and Alaskan Natives, 4.7 million are older than 18 and registered to vote.
It is commonly assumed that Native American voters favor the Democratic Party. But some studies show otherwise:
Oklahoma State University researchers in 2016 conducted an internet poll in which 46% of Native American respondents identified as Democrats, 26% as Republicans and 25% as independents.
A 2022 Midterm Voter Election Poll by the African American Research Collaborative showed similar numbers but also revealed that Native American voters are less likely to believe either political party is truly committed to advancing their issues and priorities.
"We obviously want to look at the numbers, which are very interesting and important, but I think what's more telling at the end of the day is the fact that Native Americans are not really attached and don't have a solidified relationship with either party," said Gabriel Sanchez, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institute.
"Native American voters overwhelmingly tell us they're not really partisan in how they approach voting decisions. It's more a campaign season to campaign season evaluation of which party they perceive to be better for their communities," he noted.
Sanchez told VOA that Native Americans are usually represented, at least symbolically, in political conventions. He observed, however, little Native presence at the Republican convention in mid-July.
In contrast, Native Americans showed up in force at the Democratic convention this week to support Kamala Harris' bid for the White House, and they heard from prominent Democrats, including Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), the vice presidential nominee.
"We have 11 sovereign nations, Anishinaabe and Dakota, and our history in Minnesota, just like the rest across this country, is dark," he said. "But in Minnesota, we've acknowledged it's not just enough to admire a problem.
"What are you going to do to make a difference? What are you going to do to partner? What are you going to do to acknowledge the first Americans? And what are you going to do to understand that our state of Minnesota is stronger because of our 11 sovereign nations?"
Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ) expressed solidarity with Native voters, noting that Black and Native Americans face similar challenges "with a justice system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent, with a health care system where literally the lowest life expectancy in the nation is Native American and African American men."
But will these messages resonate with Native voters, particularly those registered as Independents?
"An issue that's nowhere near on the radar of either party's platform is missing and murdered Indigenous women," Sanchez told VOA, citing a First Nations Development Institute survey of Native Americans showing this to be a top concern.
"And I think if either the Democrat or Republican Party can embrace that particular issue, it will go a long way."
Native American news roundup August 11-17, 2024
Researchers debunk myths about ballot collection on Indian reservations
A study by the University of Utah’s College of Social & Behavioral Science reveals that ballot collection on Native American reservations effectively lowers voting barriers without evidence of vote fraud.
Ballot collection is a system by which voters rely on third parties to collect and submit their absentee or mail-in ballots. Distances, poor mail service, bad roads and lack of transportation mean that Native Americans on rural reservations rely more on ballot harvesting than other voter blocs.
Despite its benefits, ballot collection faces opposition and restrictions in several states, including Utah, where it has been banned. Critics argue it is vulnerable to fraud, though the study finds no documented cases of such issues.
A father-son pair of researchers analyzed data from the conservative Heritage Foundation. They found that voter fraud related to ballot collection is extremely rare, occurring only in 0.00006% of votes cast – that is, six cases of proven fraud for every 10 million votes cast in the U.S.
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Child rights advocate: boarding school abuses continue globally
The U.S. Department of the Interior recently released the second volume of its investigation into the federal Indian boarding school system, revealing that at least 900 Native American children died in these schools after having been forcibly separated from their families, communities and cultural heritage.
An editorial in The Hill this week argues that residential schools, including modern orphanages and children’s homes, still cause harm across the world today.
“Residential education in many cases fulfills the definition of an institution and causes similar harm to children,” writes contributing author and British child rights advocate Enrique Restoy. “Children in residential facilities face an increased risk of abuse and often have a damaged sense of belonging and emotional health.”
Adding to the problem, Restoy says boarding schools are typically regulated by government ministries of education and often located in remote locations without proper oversight, which “intrinsically lends itself to students enduring abusive practices of various kinds from staff, including emotional, physical and sexual abuse.”
The writer calls for a shift in support towards keeping children within their families while providing education, rather than separating them for care and schooling.
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Clergy want role in boarding school truth and reconciliation process
In a related story, as Congress considers legislation that would create a federal commission to address the trauma from Native American boarding schools, U.S. Catholic bishops are calling for an amendment that would allow religious communities a role in the process.
The proposed Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act would set up a commission and various advisory committees to investigate and acknowledge past injustices at these schools. The bishops argue that since many of these schools were run by Catholic and Protestant groups representatives from these religious communities should also be included.
The bishops' letter, sent on July 25 to key congressional sponsors and signed by several high-ranking church officials, stresses that including religious communities is crucial for comprehensive healing and reconciliation. They also advocate for voluntary cooperation rather than broad subpoena powers, as they claim to have already been transparent and cooperative.
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Cheyenne Arapaho writer honored as part of unique literary project
Native American author Tommy Orange has already begun thinking about a new novel that none of us will live to read.
Orange, a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma born and raised in California, has been selected as the next writer for the Future Library Project (FLP).
An initiative launched by Scottish artist Katie Paterson in 2014, FLP aims to collect an original work by a popular writer every year for a century. The works will remain unread and unpublished until 2114, when they will be printed on paper made from trees the artist planted in Norway a decade ago.
Orange is the author of two novels exploring urban Native American identity. His 2019 debut novel “There There,” an examination of urban Native identity, earned him a Pulitzer nomination; his follow-up novel “Wandering Stars,” is on this year’s Booker Prize longlist.
He tells the Guardian newspaper that being involved in the Future Library means he still has hopes “that we will have a world to live in with books in it in a hundred years, or 90 I guess, and I think I need to keep that hope alive, need to actively cultivate that kind of hope in the longevity of the human project.”
Orange isn’t sure what kind of book he will write for the FLP and wonders what kind of reception it will get from critics in the 22nd Century.
“I think it’s a little scary writing for people who will most definitely deem us stupid and inferior in many ways just as when we look back a hundred years, we can see clearly all the problems we had just being decent human beings,” he said.
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