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In May of 2020, the Navajo Nation reported one of the highest per-capita COVID-19 infection rates in the United States. Since that milestone, official data reveals that the Navajo Nation has been one of the hardest-hit populations during the pandemic. The Navajo Nation boasts the largest population of any Indigenous nation in the United States, and thousands of Navajos live outside the nation, in towns along the border, cities across the country, and in other parts of the world, making it difficult to tally the virus impacts on Navajo citizens.
It s made worse by a labyrinthian system of local, state, federal and tribal data-reporting systems that often do not communicate with each other or share information. In an effort to come up with a more reliable fatality count, reporters with the Indigenous Investigative Collective made multiple public-records requests for death records held by state medical examiners of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Those requests focuse
Lummi ceremony for missing and murdered Indigenous women. Photo by Tim Wheeler.
PORT ANGELES, Wash. Woodcarvers from the Lummi Tribe brought their 24-foot cedar totem pole to the North Olympic Peninsula for a ceremony here, urging President Joe Biden and Congress to take stronger measures to protect sacred places, the rights of the people, and to save salmon and orca whales and planet Earth itself.
The totem’s message is focused on two menacing realities the crisis of missing and murdered Native American women and the onslaught of human-created waste that threatens all life.
Members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe greeted the arrival of the totem pole at City Pier on the Port Angeles waterfront on May 25. Drummers pounded a rhythmic beat and sang a Klallam song. Nearly 200 were in the crowd, including members of the Jamestown S’Klallams, Hoh, Quileute, and Makah Tribes, environmental activists, and supporters of Black Lives Matter and Voices for Health and Healing, a grassroo
Tribal leaders attribute this success to several factors, including tribal sovereignty, which gave tribes the flexibility to create their own methods of distributing the vaccine, and cultural values that prioritize elders and community.
Tribal leaders attribute this success to several factors, including tribal sovereignty, which gave tribes the flexibility to create their own methods of distributing the vaccine, and cultural values that prioritize elders and community.
about participating in its COVID-19 vaccine trial.
Tribal officials asked the company to go through its media team, meet face-to-face or arrange an online video meeting, Hualapai Chairman Damon Clarke said. The small community of 2,300 registered members was fearful of becoming mere test subjects in a larger experiment.
In the end, Moderna representatives did nothing outside of email and, with so little information and no trusted relationship with the company, Clarke said Hualapai leaders declined to participate. It s just like being hesitant about having someone come in and saying, Can I borrow your vehicle for a week? I mean that s how we take it, he said. We re protective of our nation.