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‘Race against time’: Pandemic propels fight to save Native American languages
Covid hit Indian Country hard. As elders die, tribes are fighting to preserve their languages. Congress is sending cash.
Maxine Wildcat Barnett at an event to celebrate her 94th birthday. | Yuchi Language Project
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The news of Maxine Wildcat Barnett’s Covid hospitalization in November shook the Yuchi community of Sapulpa, a small Oklahoma city named after its first settler, a Creek Native American. At 95, Barnett is the last tribal elder who speaks the Yuchi language fluently which means she’s one of the few remaining links to a culture her tribe is fighting to preserve.
Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma Air National Guard break ground on housing addition for Cherokee veterans in Tahlequah
21 new homes to be built for eligible Cherokee veterans and their families
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Cherokee Nation
The Cherokee Nation and Oklahoma Air National Guard broke ground Monday at the future site of 21 new homes for eligible Cherokee veterans and their families.
The project is part of the Cherokee Veterans Housing Initiative through the U.S. Department of Defense Innovative Readiness Training program. Plans for the new Mige Glory Addition include a total of 21 new homes over the next three years, with the first seven new single-family subsidized homes to be built in the first year along with the necessary infrastructure to support the housing addition.
When that happens, federal prosecutors will become responsible for retrying old state cases involving American Indians in all five reservations and trying new cases involving American Indians a huge increase in caseload for U.S. attorney offices.
Brian J. Kuester, who was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma until March, said the re-recognition of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation alone led to more than a 1,500% increase in Violent Crime in Indian Country matters referred to the U.S. attorney’s office in just seven months.
“We have worked closely with federal, state and tribal agencies to prepare for the exponential increase in criminal cases over which the federal government will have primary jurisdiction, Kuester said.