At Native News Online, our editorial finds that important events that have a long-lasting impact on Indian Country aren’t necessarily the most read stories by our readers. On June 15, The United States Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated ruling that protects tribal sovereignty and the rights of Native American families when it comes to adoption and foster-care proceedings involving Native children. The court’s opinion in the case Haaland v. Brackeen upheld the federal Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a 1978 law that gives tribal governments exclusive jurisdiction over Native children who live on reservations.
The Department of the Interior’s Road to Healing tour began in July 2022 in Anadarko, Oklahoma, with one goal in mind: for the federal government to document, for the first time, oral histories from Indian Boarding School survivors and their descendants. Over the course of 16 months, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) and Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland (Bay Mills Indian Community) traveled to 12 communities across the United States to hear testimonies from boarding school survivors and their descendants.
WASHINGTON The federal government announced Dec. 6 a major overhaul to a decades-old law that governs the return of Native American ancestral remains and artifacts to their tribal nations.
December is an exciting time to be in Washington, D.C. The glittering lights of the National Christmas Tree and the 30-foot-tall National Menorah that stands on the northeast side of the Eclipse near the White House are beautiful to view.