Hopi Tribe

Hopi Farm Talk Podcast: Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network Gathering with Mary Beth Jäger

Producer
Hopi Farm Talk Podcast
Year

On September 12-16, 2022, the Natwani Coalition & Hopi Foundation hosted the Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network (IFKN) on Hopi Territory. This historic gathering connected Indigenous communities from Alaska and the Southwest in spaces provided for a sharing of knowledge. Tribal food and data sovereignty were areas of focus as the growing conversation over the unique responses to rapid environmental changes that bond geographically distant Indigenous communities. IFKN's Mary Beth Jäger, Citizen Band Potawatomi, sits down with the Natwani Coalition to reflect on time spend in Hopi and Tewa communities.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Hopi Farm Talk. "Indigenous Foods Knowledges Network Gathering: Mary Beth Jäger". October 2022. Spotify. Podcast. https://open.spotify.com/episode/...

Transcripts for all videos are available by request. Please email us: nni@arizona.edu.

Webinar: Rebuilding Native Nations and Strategies for Governance and Development

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

The Indigenous Governance Program (IGP) at the University of Arizona has long been at the vanguard of delivering Indigenous Governance Education. To do our part at this critical time, IGP was pleased to offer our January in Tucson Courses in May event free of charge, live streamed via Zoom to participants seeking non-credit courses for professional development.

As partners of Indian country, we understand the difficult challenge facing all Native nations and Indigenous peoples across the world. We are also mindful that as the world confronts the COVID-19 pandemic, developing leadership capacity and governance skills is more critical to Indian country than ever before.

Since we announced this first-of-its kind resource, the online course opportunity reached capacity within five days, drawing registrants from the State of Vermont to Perth, Western Australia.  However, anyone interested in the event was eligible to participate in a free one hour webinar on MAY 27th at 12pm PST covering the principles of Native nation building and their relevance to Indigenous peoples in a time of global pandemic. Guests panelists included Karen Diver, Director of Business Development, Native Nations Institute; Miriam Jorgensen, Research Director, Native Nations Institute; Joan Timeche, Executive Director, Native Nations Institute; moderated by Torivio Fodder, Manager, Indigenous Governance Program, Native Nations Institute. 

Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Webinar: Rebuilding Native Nations and Strategies for Governance and Development" Indigenous Governance Program and Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. May 27, 2020

Native Nations Institute. "Webinar: Rebuilding Native Nations and Strategies for Governance and Development" Indigenous Governance Program and Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. May 27, 2020

 

Tory Fodder:

Everyone thanks for joining us, this afternoon wherever you're zooming in from. We're glad to have ya. Before we get started the first thing on our agenda, we'd like to acknowledge the land on which the University of Arizona sits. The University of Arizona is located on the traditional homelands of the Tohono O'odham Nation of Arizona and is the current modern-day homelands of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, so we just want to do a brief acknowledgement of the land. This afternoon we've got kind of a full, full program so we're going to try to get through it as quickly as possible but...

 

My name is Tory Fodder. I manage the Indigenous Governance Program at the Native Nations Institute. NNI, we've existed for um 30 years 30 odd years or so and our mission is to help strengthen indigenous governance you can see on the slide a bit about what we do, but this, this event is hosted by the Indigenous Governance Program, and we offer our January In Tucson courses, which is sort of a comprehensive curriculum devoted toward the Indigenous Governance

education. And out of that program that we offer both on a not for credit professional development basis but also as a master's degree program that we've recently launched at the University of Arizona and as a graduate certificate program.

 

So again, we're glad to welcome all of you. We hosted our first may in Tucson session a few... a few weeks ago I suppose... um, but um, we were… we were glad to do this as a service to Indian Country to... make some of our curriculum available particularly in this critical time. When we need

strong indigenous nations. And uh... I’ll be the moderator. I'm going to introduce our… our panelists. Karen Diver, former Chairwoman of the Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe. She's our current Director of business development at the Native Nations Institute. Miriam Jorgensen is our Research

Director for the… for the Native Nations Institute, formerly of the Harvard Project on American

Indian Economic Development. And last but certainly not least, our Executive Director of the Native Nations Institute. Joan Timeche is here with us and they're going to go over kind of key principles of Native Nation Building, but also looking at a lot of other kind of contemporary topics that have beset tribes in our research. And then we'll... after, after our panelists give remarks, we'll move into a Q and A portion. So, if you could, any questions you have please add them…

 

(inaudible noise)

 

please add them to the chat and we'll... uh, we'll carry on from there. okay, I will turn it over... uh, to Joan.

 

Joan Timeche:

(Greeting in Hopi) Thank you for joining us here today. We wanted you to... as you begin to listen to the presentation and you're going to see Miriam, myself, and Karen going in and out to... out the… the rest of the hour and... um, what we wanted to do is have you think. Do a little bit of thinking as we share with you this information. At NNI, we think about indigenous governance and government... indigenous government all the time everything that we do is all on that. And... but right now we are... in unprecedented times. You know, with the COVID pandemic... COVID pandemic. It's really just elevated the importance of tribal governments and having good governance. So... um, so as you think about, as we proceed through this presentation think ways that good governance is evident within your own communities. So, you know, our work in this

content focuses entirely on Native nation building. So maybe folks can put in the chat box, you

know, some of the... you know what comes to mind when you hear the term nation building. So, if you can just drop in some of those comments, we would appreciate that.

 

Here's our definition of Native nation building. We believe that it refers to the processes by which a Native nation enhances its own foundational capacities, the governmental capacities for effective self-governance, and self-determined community and economic development. We know that you know some of us have written constitutions and some there's still a few of us that have unwritten constitutions as well where they're all oral rules that have been passed on. But you know, we wanted to share with you our research findings and so I’m going to turn it over to Miriam to tell us about the first finding.

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

Sorry about that I was muted. Hello everyone. It's great to have you here. It's exciting to see so many folks online joining us for this. It's just going to be kind of a quick introduction and overview. And hopefully, a chance to take some questions and have a bit of conversation

The first sort of principle of Native nation building and I know many of you are acquainted with the principles, but we wanted to… to provide them just in kind of quick succession with some examples that we see from Indian Country that hopefully will spur some ideas for… for you all in the work that you do in... out, in the... in... in communities and with the organizations and tribes that you... you work for.

 

So, the first principle of Native nation building is practical self-determination, and as you can see on the slide this is really the idea that the nation itself is calling the shots. It's the one that's making the major decisions on the Nation's land, for its citizenry, and around the issues that are important to it it's getting out there and exercising its jurisdiction it's kind of in the driver's seat evidence shows that native nations that have been willing to exercise self-determination, that are willing to really exert their sovereignty, are the ones that are really making significant gains toward moving toward the kinds of communities and nations that they desire. They're the ones that are achieving the goals that they've set for themselves. To give you one example of this... if you could go to the next slide. Thanks Joan ...of this exercise of practical self-determination.

 

This is an older example, and any of you who know Brian Cladoosby the former Chairman of the Board for the National Congress of American Indians... I will recognize this is an older photo of him... but I think it demonstrates that nations have been involved in the nation building process now for more than 30 almost 40 years. And so, here's an example that came from the early part of the 2000s, but it's still reaping benefits for the nation today. The Swinomish Indian tribal community...

uh, was... is in a wetlands area. It's... uh, in an area it shares the geography with Washington state, and it's in an area that is right above the ocean, and is... uh, is... uh, an area where water is

coming off the mountains and meeting the ocean, and it's a very delicate environmental situation. It shares the geography not just with Washington state but with the sub... sub state county of Skagit County, and Skagit County wanted to be the one that was permitting development in the area and then Swinomish Indian tribal community said "No" this is our reservation. We want to within the external boundaries of the reservation be the one to do any permitting for development.

 

So, there was a fight that developed between the county and the tribe to resolve this, after some mediation and some good thinking, the tribe basically said why don't we both ensure that we're permitting but we're going to follow exactly the same rules. So why don't we sit down and agree what those permitting rules are and Skagit County you will enforce them, and we will enforce them. And if somebody wants to do development in this area whether or not they're on tribal land or on fee simple land that's under the county's jurisdiction within the boundaries of the reservation. They could come to the tribe for a permit if they wanted to... um, instead. So, the tribe was exercising its jurisdiction by saying we're not ceding our sovereignty we're going to be exercising our jurisdiction by being the permitting authority here, but by the way we have the same rules as the county because we've agreed what to do. And the tribe got really good at this. They got very good at being the permitting authority and in fact became quickly known as the entity that if you wanted to get worked on within this particular land area, you're going to get it done more quickly if you went to the permitting office of the tribe. In a more clear and clarified manner and that way the tribe also was the one making the rules.

 

So, after much many years now of this working the county and the tribe are still happy with the process, and it's really making sure that the tribe has its imprint of what it wants to see go on in terms of development within the exterior boundaries of its reservation. So that's one example. I'd like to go on to some other examples and Karen's going to give the next one.

 

Karen Diver:

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, this is actually pretty newsworthy... um, they were worried about the spread of COVID within its borders, so it actually enacted checkpoints on a federal highway. And a state... a co... co state highway wanting to make sure who was coming in was absolutely necessary so if it was vendors or delivery people that was fine but... um, you know not random visitors or people driving through. And immediately upon exercising their own self-rule over who comes into their homelands and in order to protect their citizens the governor of that state, Noem, challenged their authority to do that. And they rightfully cited to her their ability to self-rule under treaty where it was very explicit. The tribe is in great legal standing in this because this was litigated once... um, I believe it was in the 90s, or so. So, they… they actually you know aren't trying to reinterpret an 1850 treaty in modern day. This has already been an argument that they made so they knew what their authority was... um, to protect their own citizens and they've been very clear that they're doing this in the absence of South Dakota taking care of them as citizens of South Dakota. That they had to exert their own ability for self-rule, so this has been actually really interesting to watch. Partly because they're getting a lot of support. Really mainstream of saying, you know, they have a right to protect their citizens when the

gov... broader government is willing to do so.

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

So, you can... Thanks Karen... um, you can already get a sense of this next principle of indigenous nation building which is tribes that go out there and assert their sovereignty seek to exercise self-determination. Also... um, need to, to take that second step, which is to back it up with the creation of capable institutions of government. To really exercise that self-determination and say we're not just talking about doing it. We're getting it down into the brass tax, into the nitty gritty, and do this work. For a lot of Native nations some of this work gets caught up in the really critically important task of creating a government. Writing, re-writing constitution, or a new one revising it putting in place the government that it wants to have. So that's kind of the biggest picture of building capable institutions but it's also useful to think kind of beneath the surface a little bit... So, Joan could you go on to the next slide... and that's the next level down which is it's not just creating that that upper level how does government operate, but then saying what are all the laws, policies, regulations, and protocols that we need to put in place too because those specify the structure of agencies, departments, programs, the kind of hiring you want to put in place even the sorts of grants that you would go after. So that next level down is creating that administrative and legal structure necessary to fulfill the assertions of self-determination and here we've just shown you a couple of pictures of how some tribes have done this even by codifying those... those... um, ideas into law. Karen is going to share another example that really talks about how her nation the Fond du Lac Nation has been able to do this in a particular way.

 

Karen Diver:

So Fond du Lac when it was first allowed, so to speak, that the federal government allowed us to compact tribes... to compact we didn't have any health services. We had an IHS clinic that was closed down in order for the border town to get one of their own hospitals and so we had no healthcare. So, one of the first two hires they made under self-governance was a dentist and a nutritionist, and it was really to respond to... um, the need to get... get a handle on what was wellness, and you can tell a lot about a person's health from dentistry, and we also knew that

we were losing our elders too young, and we wanted to be able to have some information about how to do an elderly nutrition program and increase wellness through diet. So, we weren't focused on... we were focused on long-term health outcomes not just treating symptoms. This grew over time to add actual physicians and other... um, nurses, nurse practitioners. Totally building on increasing what was available underneath the… the roof. So much like any other tribe the money

for referral purchase and referred care it would run out, right. So, what we learned was the more we put under the roof we could bill for that and we could preserve our ability then to say purchase and refer care for specialty care. Through that we also learned that it was this rotating funding structure right and so then we needed to learn how to bill because as the reservation was growing, we offered our own health insurance plan and so we were building our own health insurance plan.

And then we learned that, that money came with less restrictions than the IHS money. Then we learned that you know some of our folks were eligible for Medicaid at the time, but they weren't going and signing up you know because they view anything having to do with counties as "the man" so how do we protect them and their right to privacy but still get them the services that they're... um, able to and entitled to. So, we work with the county to bring intake into our own clinic, so it was our own staff doing intakes for Medicaid. But that gave us a billing source for folks without insurance. And so, and then with that money we built out more spaces, added a pharmacy... um, care services, child protection services to fully implement ICWA... um, from that we learned that wellness... we started looking holistically at what is really wellness. Wellness is also about... um, you know, taking care of children and making sure they have safe places and culturally competent care. Wellness in a family is removing stressors around summer childcare so we started adding a summer camp.

 

So really looking at that broad spectrum of community wellness and saying that that's a health care issue, a public health issue... um, so it just was growing and growing and growing. And then we had a need to really look at our own regulatory systems. Many tribes are faced with the lack of foster care families that are within the tribe so that you can maintain that children's contact within the tribe... um, and the counties were having a tough time understanding our families. So... um, the tribe passed an ordinance that allowed our health care facility through a board. An advisory board made of tribal members to license our own foster care families. To do emergency placements with families and then do long... long term licensure, and then also we expanded that and started under our own authority licensing off reservation foster care families. So that we could get to the border towns and to Duluth which is about 20 miles away. But a different county than the southern part of the reservation so we could start to meet that need off reservation and not keep losing our children. Joan if you could advance, please. We continue to look at... um, you know... so not one tribal council member is a physician. We're not social workers... um, you know, we're not... we're not dentists... um, you know, we really had to kind of check our own authority as tribal council members and say, you know, if we're going to build a capable governing institution then we need to let the experts be experts. But our job is to make sure that they are serving the needs of this community. So how we inform them is really making sure that they are staying grounded in what the needs of the community are and voicing those from what we're hearing from our tribal members, and helping them prioritize their growth and new initiatives, but it's also to challenge them upon occasion about what does that holistic wellness look like. And one of those examples was our supportive housing facility. The human services division would say, well we don't do housing we have a housing department, and housing would say well we don't do services but yet we had a chronic and long-term homeless population because of our lack of capacity. And it wasn't always around lack of housing. Sometimes it was really around social issues, chemical dependency mental health... um, what we call dual diagnosis... um, and they need a spot... or leaving domestic violence, and they needed a place to get on their feet... um, and that was stable enough. And so, it was the tribal council then who work with that institution to say... um, there's a lot of stressors that come with homelessness you can't manage chronic health conditions, you can't make sure children are safe. That wrapping around supportive services and behavioral health in a stable housing environment these are the same clients in both of those divisions, and you really must work together to provide some of our neediest tribal members. And so that started happening and... and the... the clinic

got used to understanding housing issues and how that contributes to public health outcomes,

and public safety outcomes, and the housing department learned that a more stable tenant and dealing with all of those other issues made them much more likely to come into the housing program and be more successful at it. Rather than having to get... um, kind of kicked out in six months because they couldn't manage all of the other social issues. But we also delegated things like workforce development strategies and recruiting dentists, and… and doing... um, loan repayment programs so that we could attract the workforce to our rural community. Where it's really hard to get technical... um, help sometime, and letting them know that they were going to be as a part of a holistic health care system that was integrated. So that we have a combined medical record... um, that you're a part of looking at that overall long-term wellness where you're going to deal generationally.

 

And that appeals to a lot of folks... um, Financial stability... um, we do Medicare and Medicaid subsidies if people are in the state exchanges to access affordable care act. So that we keep that billing strategy for Medicare part B and D for our elder folks. We pay those premiums. Once again, it's cheaper to pay the premiums than carry unpaid co-pays and pay through that through our Indian Health Service and then also looking at partnerships within the tribe to help expand. Bringing our clinic into our community centers. To do WIC appointments and wellness checks and helping us run our youth programs so... you know, it's the capable governing institution is giving yourself a bit of permission to think entrepreneurially about service delivery and not just taking over substandard service that the Feds do. And thinking about how it needed to meet our own community's needs. So, thank you.

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

That was awesome, Karen. I think you can really hear in that story both the asserting sovereignty, asserting the exercise of self-determination, and then figuring out a way to really do that capably and well. But you also start to hear in it the third point which is the third principle of nation building that of cultural match. That it's not just about asserting self-determination and then backing it up with a capable governing institution. That institution to be effective also needs to be accepted by the community as one that's achieving its goals, is making sense to the nation, that fits within the expectations of the people about how this job gets done. And that's this notion of cultural match. Does this institution, and the way it's operating, and the goals that it's moving toward, make sense to the people. Is this how authority ought to be organized and exercised? And you really heard this on what Karen was talking about too. This is about putting in the... the community, the nation, the tribal view of how to get work done and you could hear that when she was talking for instance about the holistic health care and how they conceived of supportive housing. Joan's going to give us another example by taking us way up north and giving us an example of some... a community that she's worked with some and how they approach the... um, cultural match issues.

 

Joan Timeche:

Actually, we're going to...

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

oh sorry. So, I got, yes.

 

 Joan Timeche:

We're going to go up north next... on the next point.

 

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

Sorry, Joan.

 

Joan Timeche:

It's all right no problem... so um, this is... um, an example from the Tohono O'odham nation... and... um, as many nations across the United States have that you may have an economic development corporation, an authority in this case. And one of the things that... um, that happened in its development... um, as... as the board was determining what it...how do we want to approach development in across the nation. And Tohono O'odham has over 2 million acres of land. They have 11... sub-political districts, and those 11 districts wield actually quite a bit of power. In that they have to approve any type of development that might occur, and the economic development authority was set up like many other development corps where they were expected to change the economy to help contribute to job creation. And hopefully to be able to generate revenue back into the tribal coffers. Well, when the development of the Tohono O'odham economic development authority was set up. It... it... um, didn't have any rights... um, over the land because of how it... how they were structured within the Tohono O'odham Nation. So, one of the things that became critical at the onset was for the board and staff to recognize that whatever development occurs on this nation it has to be hand in hand with the local communities and with their political districts. These 11 who actually then have coun... their own council... they have to review, and they have approval authority over any development. And one of the other things that also came into play here was that... that no... none of the work that... or any of the development work that the authority was going to be involved in, whether it's a purchase of a business or whether it's from the ground up, whatever the case may be, that it could not harm the "Himdag" of the nation. And that's their culture. That was something that we all agreed upon as board members saying that... you know, we're just a entity that's set up, and a mechanism that's set up, to do the development. But again, it was very important that we got community buy-in and projects that were being developed. The other thing that also we made a decision about, which sometimes this was difficult for us... in terms of financial feasibility, was not to compete with... um... um... a nation's district because some of them own their own business... um, or either individuals. And that's at times has come back to bite us but... um... in... um, but it's actually worked for the betterment of the community. So again, it's recognizing that there are that there are values here in place and being respectful of it and making sure that... that you... um, are following that as well.

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

Thanks, Joan. I think that that's such a great example because it reminds us that this notion this third principle of nation building of cultural match. Isn't just about organization... you know, it says culture is a guide to organization, but it's also a guide to action. Exactly what you do. So, how you organize to do things and what you do. Culture should be taken into account... um, in order to have that legitimacy for what government is up to. I want to go onto the fourth point to the fourth principle in the nation-building model, and that's having a strategic orientation. You can certainly feel how these pieces are woven together. You're asserting self-determination as a nation, you're backing that up with institutions that are effective and culturally matched, and you're doing so with this strategic orientation that decisions are made with the long term in mind. And with the... the visions and goals of where the nation wants to be going and what its values are in mind. So successful Native nations tend to approach development and the decisions... um, about what it needs to kind of do next in order to move in the direction it wants to go. These are not just about quick fixes to say, poverty, or other... um, issues that are entrenched in the community. They're not trying to kind of just put a band-aid on things. They're about trying to figure out what it is that's not working and then build a society that works.

 

So again, as I mentioned these are knitted together. So, the example that Karen gave... um, when she was discussing building... um, effective institutions, which is principle two. You, as I noted, you could feel a lot of principle three of cultural match in that, but you could certainly feel principle four in it too. Of not just kind of going for the quick fix. Remember how when she was talking about how in developing their health care system, they ultimately thought about the fact that they needed to involve their housing system too because they were dealing with an issue of homelessness and the interrelated client pools. Well, that certainly wasn't a quick fix notion. That was thinking with the long view in mind and saying we're not just about trying to get somebody housed for six months. We're about trying to build a society that works, and therefore creating a situation... um, where we can house those people and keep them healthy for a long time. Because that's the kind of society we want. I'm going to turn... um, first to Joan and then again to Karen. So, I’ll have Joan... you take off to Karen. To hear a couple other examples of this long-term strategic orientation and working on behalf of the values and mission and vision of the community.

 

Joan Timeche:

So, the Native Nations Institute had an opportunity to work with an Alaska

Native community the Ketchikan Indian Community...

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

See, I told you we were going to go north I was just wrong about when.

 

Joan Timeche:

(laughing) Yep, so we're up in Alaska up in northern part of the U.S.

and so, one of the things that they had started to do... It's a very small community... um, they are also um... um, checker-boarded in that they've had to as part of their tribal facilities and their headquarters is in the right in the city of Ketchikan, but their residential areas are on the border outside of the city limits and so on. So, it's... you know, they have buildings all over. All across the... um, all across the city, and one of the things that they were wanting to do was begin to really think through how do we meet the needs of our citizens. As many as many of us experience in our tribal communities, we're inundated with all kinds of issues whether it's environmental, social, economic, political, whatever the case may be, and so they begin to tackle this process. So, they engaged... um, they've been... they've been doing this for a while, and so we had an opportunity to work with them a couple of years ago. And one of the things that they did is they developed their strategic plan. Actually, starting from the council based on some previous work that they had done with the community, and began to really try to get their staff to begin to think about, how are we going to achieve some of these goals? And initially they started out with... um, in... kind of in a silo approach where every department had their own goal. They were thinking... you know, a lot of it was based on meeting... um, the… the criteria of federal funding sources. And so, they were writing a lot of that information as their goals, and what ended up happening is after the council and the directors had met a couple of times, they realized that what they needed was an overarching goal. And for them they decided that they needed... what they were really wanting to work towards... was working towards a healthy citizen and having a healthy tribe. And so, if you go to their website, it has all of these four categories and you know what came up as important to them were living their culture, the building the healthy tribe and the citizen, which actually was overall, but it's listed as a category here. Making sure that they exercise their sovereignty so that they protect their rights, their lands, and that they have economic self-sufficiency.

 

So, the... the process worked. So, everybody... um, each of the departments were required to then figure out, how does my department as the health department or as education contribute to any one of these four pillars? These became... um, in a sense a mechanism for the council to hold them accountable. They set up together with department staff and the council. Set up... um... deliverables and measures that they both could live with. So, if our goal is to infuse culture in all aspects of operations, what does that mean in a year's time? How will the council come back and reassess that? And how will citizens know that... um, those are being achieved? And so, they created this fantastic program that set up these desired outcomes, and that were actually measurable for their citizens, and they continue to work at it. And every time I go back to their website, I see that they plugged away a little bit at some of these programs. So, it's just another example of one nation taking what might have been done orally, but now... is now doing it in a more western style. If you want to call it that, in that... you know, a lot of have of us have grants and we have to be able to provide services to our programs, and it's helping the council understand what the goals are. Holding their staff accountable... uh, the departments know what the... what the council expects from them, and then so do the citizens. So, it involved all of those facets within the community. So, I’m going to turn over the next example to Karen.

 

 

Karen Diver:

So, you might see... um, the... on the photo there. So that is wild rice... um, it's actually a grass feed that grows in the water. So... um, it was a part of our prophecy that we needed to move where the food grows on the water, and that ended up being our sacred "Manoomin" or wild rice. And... wild rice ends up being a real indicator of environmental health particularly in water, and it needs a very particular growing environment. And it's very much impacted by human stressors... um, you know, sewage... you know, non-compliant systems, upstream pollutants from mining activities, and we had seen within the borders of the reservation that... um, our wild rice was greatly, greatly diminished. And from our elders we knew that the range of where we were able to get it was being diminished. That waters that used to have it where they used to go, and gather were no longer. So, we started building up a water quality department and actually started promulgating... um, regulations... um within the borders around... you know, what was impacting, and that was sulfides, and that was a lot from non-compliant septic systems. So, we ended up having to really work with other jurisdictions and create innovative partnerships, but we also had to exert our sovereignty and our right to... um, set water quality standards within our borders. We… we received... um, treatment as a state status from the EPA. So, we could... um, have authority and participate in permitting decisions not only on the reservation, but in our seated territory which is all of northeastern Minnesota. So, we would know when new industry was coming in that would impact water quality... um, we had... um, science... um, because one of the things that happens when other jurisdictions don't like tribes exerting their jurisdiction, and their authority, and their self-governance, and saying that their culture matters, and... and... and cultural patrimony matters... um, is they use western science. So, we had western scientists on staff so we could say... um, you know, why... um, these things were impactful... um, that we knew that it was coming from non-compliant septics, and that we were going to enact an ordinance that everyone even non-natives had to comply, but we could help them do that. And we could look at large mining project... projects upstream and say to the army corps of engineers how this impacted a traditional food. Partnered with the Minnesota Department of Health that says that exercising treaty rights and cultural activities is a part of spiritual wellness, but also that as a staple in our diet that it was a healthy part of our diet and contributed to good dietary.

 

So, we had a mainstream... um, organization the Minnesota Department of Health saying that... um, you know, that this was an important food and important to preserve for Anishinaabe people, my people. So, all of it was guided by... um, our traditional values our traditional culture... um, hunting fishing gathering... um, but then we even took it a step further. And people would say, well, when you want to preserve the environment... you know, it impacts our jobs and our... our way of life, our mining way of life, or our economy. So, we work with vendors and actually put a value on what a healthy water ecosystem in northeastern Minnesota how that contributes to the economy. So, we use all of these things very broadly, and a part of it is… is we know that we will cease to be who we are without access to traditional ways. So, you're in this for the long haul, right. And so, then you have these minor skirmishes along the way, and you have setbacks, and you just persevere. And we know this because our language and culture and spirituality are all tied... um, to our caretaking for the land and the water. So, our natural resources department and our resource management is staffed... and... and guided by elders who teach young Native tribal people who have fancy western educations, and fancy titles, and their scientists that they marry those things with traditional knowledge. So that they can be good stewards over time because it is a really a generational... um, issue around land management. So strategic orientation is that your government whether you write things down and have ordinances that it reflects who you are as people. And that's that... that cultural match, but it also gives you the kind of that long generational view of taking care of for your children and your grandchildren.

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

So, I think in everything that you've just heard you could also feel the importance of the fifth principle of indigenous nation building, which is the important of public-spirited community serving servant leadership, which is really working toward building a nation... um, building an indigenous society that really works for that people. And helps it sustain itself over the long term. Here's a beautiful picture of Chief Oren Lyons who is an Onondaga man who exemplifies these characteristics of nation-building leadership. Over almost 90 years he's worked... um, on behalf of his nation and other indigenous nations, and he's been one of those people who helps recognize need for fundamental change. And can engage with his community to make it happen, and in fact has engaged with many commun... indigenous communities around the world in helping be an indigenous nation builder. You know, one of the things that we recognize is that indigenous nation-building leaders public-spirited leaders oftentimes are elected leaders, but they don't have to be elected leaders... Joan can you go on to the next slide... um, I wanted to kind of put an aside here that says there is a way to use your tribal codes, your tribal ordinances, and some of your protocols and expectations on behavior to help create public spirited leaders. To help kind of put... create lanes for people to operate in... um, and many nations are starting to do this through ethics codes. By on... on one hand maybe they're some... sometimes they have some punitive language like don't do this, but... um, we're starting to see a lot of tribal ethics codes go the other direction, which is really saying here's what... what good leaders in our society do. Here's what... how they... how they operate and how they behave... um, and so that's an opportunity to kind of put that sort of expectation out there... Joan we'll go down to the next slide... and that would affect in many cases elected leaders.

 

And here's another... um, picture of another Haudenosaunee leader Mike Mitchell who's an example of an elected leader who really set the standard... um, for his nation of how to behave in a nation-building fashion. And exemplifies a lot of those kinds of principles of serving the community. I wanted to tell a little bit of a story that Mike Mitchell tells about himself when he was a younger man, and first elected to be Grand Chief of his nation. He's an interesting guy because he was essentially told by the traditional leaders of the nation the two folks who tended to not seek elected leadership but exercised their authority through those more traditional channels. He was told by them. "Hey, you were raised in the longhouse, you're a traditional guy. We need you. Somebody like you over there in elected government so that we can make these systems work more harmoniously." So, he went there he... he got elected. He ran, he got elected, and he began a real campaign within the elected system to say, this is... we're going to make this ours. We're not going to be some mimicking Canada system, or mimicking the U.S. kind of system. We're going to make it ours and we're going to start to use our kinds of terms and language. Even down to the... the... the way we talk about ourselves has to be ours. So, we actually took and put a coffee cup in the middle of the table and when the council would gather to meet... um, he would say there are certain words we're not going to be using. We're not going to be talking about ourselves as a band, we're not going to be talking about the... you know, our authorities under the Indian Act. This is again a nation that shares its geography with Canada so a set of laws there that are different from the U.S. laws. He said we're not going to talk about our reserve. We're going to talk about our homeland.

 

So, we had these words that were off limits in order for them to assert their sovereignty and practice their self-determination, and he was leading them through his example. And every time somebody used one of those off-limits words, money would go into the coffee cup and people began to speak in a wholly different way. And really start to think in a different way and behave in a different way from that little piece of public-spirited nation-building leadership that he was demonstrating. Sure, enough pretty soon they had money to go buy coffee, but they were also able to behave in a way that was quite different. So that's elected leadership behaving in a public-spirited fashion. But I also want to give one final example and that's the picture at the bottom right of your screen. Here are some women who are involved in a really important project at the White Mountain Apache tribe, which is a suicide prevention program. We all know that suicide, particularly youth suicide, has been a really prevalent problem across lots of Native communities, indigenous communities worldwide in fact. And the White Mountain Apache Tribe didn't wait in a sense for, "Hey tribal council to do something about it." Social workers nurses... um, school... uh, schoolteachers, other people involved in education, and critically elders stepped in and took a public-spirited nation-building leadership role to address this issue. They got engaged with some outside researchers from Johns Hopkins University. They created programs that came from their traditional knowledge about how things would work. They tested some things, tried some other things, and have now over the course of about 15 years created one of the most successful suicide intervention and prevention programs there in Indian Country. And that came not from elected leadership but from people within the community. So again, nation building comes from lots of different places. um... I just wanted to go on and re-summarize about the kinds of things that we've found. That for Indigenous nations to be successful on all their measures culturally, socially, politically they have to be given the opportunity, and then seize that opportunity to make decisions for themselves. And that's the way they'll reach their visions. This is underscored by lots of research that's quantitative and qualitative, and by the demonstrated experience and testimony of many folks working in indigenous communities. So, I think a really critical question we want to leave you guys with is, does your governing system create an environment that can support development of the kind that you want and that you imagine really is needed for your people and for your nation? In other words, do you have the right tools. Here's just a summary of the nation building principles. And because we're down to our last 12 minutes, Karen, I’m going to just make an executive decision and skip that last little bit of your presentation because I think we'd really like to get to our questions... um, and maybe some of the things that we're going to talk about will come up in the Question and Answer period. But just to summarize we've talked about these five principles of nation building. These are the kinds of things that in our indigenous government program we... we drill down into through a lot of our courses and classes, but hopefully we've given you some examples of how they can apply and inspired you to think about that question... you'v... we've raised of what are some of the things you'd like to see done in terms of nation building in your communities? Tory has been minding the chat box where he's also asked people to raise questions that they have them. And so, I’m going to turn to Tory to ask some questions, and I’m going to primarily rely on Joan and Karen who are kind of subject matter experts... um, to respond to some of these questions that have been raised in the chat.

 

Tory Fodder:

Great! Well, thanks to our...our panelists for sort of an engaging overview of the Native nation building principles... uh, there are a few questions in the chat box and a lot of comments which are most appreciated. We'll get to those... um, in just a second. Let's start with the questions. And we'll kind of... I’ll work in reverse order because I think the... the last question that was asked that was an actual direct question is... is interesting. Someone writes... um, a second question, can... what... what are the examples of differences regarding a deputized government versus being micromanaged by a tribal council?

 

Karen Diver:

This is Karen... um, so anybody who's worked for tribal government would say that you know the council gets involved in decision making they should let their staff do their jobs, and... and exercise their expertise... um, when we were looking at Fond du Lac's human services division, the Health Division. I was talking about bringing intake workers... um, to take Medicaid applications. There was more than one tribal member who said, "well, I shouldn't have to sign up through health care through the state... um, you know, this is a... a treaty right... you know, that I shouldn't have to try to find funding sources for the tribe." The politically expedient thing on the part of the tribal council in the day would have been to say you know this is causing conflict... you know, just serve them, just go ahead and serve them, don't make them... um, you know fill out this application. What was best for the tribe as a whole, however, which meant absorbing some of that conflict with tribal members. Was to say our health system will be better and be able to provide more robust services and be more financially stable when we promote that self-sufficiency... um, and personal responsibility... um, and say that this is good for the whole tribe. And as a citizen you have a duty... um, to help us be the best that we can be. So, the micromanaging... um, and... and the

self-governing, and the deputizing is to say,

you know, the health clinic requires this. This is

their policy... um, the tribal council has approved it

and we're not going to get involved in it. So, by

way of answering your question I offer you that example.

 

Joan Timeche:

I would like to also add a couple more. I think one of the ways that you might be able to overcome some of the politicism of it all is to... um, include those authorities in some of your codes. Like you know, Department of Natural Resources might be authorized to go out and do X, Y, and Z, you know... um, and so you... you write them in there. So, it doesn't matter who the person is and who's in counsel at the time. You're just giving authority to a department with the ex... you're setting out expectations. That did they... they do X... um, Y and Z for the benefit of the nation. Same thing can be done in corporate charters for some of your development authorities. If you lay out what their authorities are, and make clear the distinction between when the tribe can be engaged in some of the decisions, and when not to. It'll help set... um, clear roles will be identified there.

 

Tory Fodder:

Great! Thank you both. Following up on with another question... um, and this is sort of a... this is also very interesting... um, one individual comments. Nation is a Western term. So, it seems as though it's an element of sovereignty, but it also has some assimilative interaction with Euro-Western culture. I think this kind of gets it to a better bit of a deeper critique of the term nation building in general... um, what's in an eye's response to that... um, and how does it kind of fit within

the framework that was outlined today.

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

So, I’ll jump in and... um, just say a few things. I think that one of the challenges is to find a word... um, across many different indigenous languages and indigenous world views and... um, uh, continents even of what, what... what word would capture kind of this notion of peoplehood... um, and moving forward as a political collective... uh, so political scientists, you know, front use words like nation to capture that... um, but in indigenous nation building we really try to recognize that we're looking for a word that more or less fits, but then encourage as part of that self-determination process for... for nations for political collectives, for indigenous communities to figure out what it is that works for them. So of course, many nations already have a word like this um Navajo the word is Diné, right, which is the people..., uh and so... um, so nation building is kind of like strengthening Diné and through indigenous governance. We've seen a couple of communities, one of indigenous nations tribes in the United States... um, the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo, which doesn't talk really about nation building at all. It talks about Tigua work and an-tiguaizing their efforts to do all of this work. And they've tried to put it in language for terms that... uh, make sense to their community and to their people. The same thing we've seen in Australia. The "Radri" people talk a lot about... um, the... in... in their own language. The... the terms about what it means to... in a sense be a good Radri, and create community, and build nation, and create and govern a political collective that's theirs. They're still pretty early on that pathway, but one of their first steps has been to say how do we... how do we claim this as our words again? We use nation because it's... um, a way to… to talk more generally, but we encourage communities to figure out terms that work for them.

 

 

Joan Timeche:

And I think that it's a better word than calling us a tribe because to me tribe implies you know a

cultural... has a cultural sense to it, but a nation to me means also that we are citizens. We have responsibilities back to... you know, not just rights from an entity, but we have responsibilities back to the society and to the community in general.

 

Tory Fodder:

Great! I don't want to cut off conversation. Karen did you have anything to... anything to add or...

 

Karen Diver:

I'm good?

 

Tory Fodder:

It's... um, I’ll go to our last... uh, sort of comment. I think is... um, actually a question but... um, the actual definition of Native Nation Building... uh, early on one person noted that I guess for Navajo it's about creating livable healthy communities through k... relations and kin for your children, elders, and families... um, and I guess maybe, if there is a question, it's you know, about Native Nation Building as a definition, and the kind of the scope of the language that we use... uh, in in our definition. Whether it's sort of more flexible, or… or maybe even more broad?

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

Well, I'll kick start and then I’ll quickly pass off to Karen and Joan to close things out. But you know... um, the definition that we put up on the screen earlier comes from a book that I edited and called Rebuilding Native Nations which is a textbook that we use in a lot of the work that we do. And this whole notion of strengthening the foundations...  um, for governance is... uh, kind of where we come from... uh, in our perspective. Joan kicked off by saying we think about tribal governance all the time because we think that if we... and we think that research points to the fact that Native nations need strong governance and successful governments, effective governance, competent governance. I mean that comes from both tribal governments and the sort of cultural surround of that in order to get to those dreams. In order to get to those goals that they set for themselves. So, you can't kind of get to that outcome that people want to build, the kind of society they want to build, without putting those firm foundations in place. So, for us at Native Nations Institute, when we talk about Native Nation Building. What we mean by that is strengthening those foundations of tribal government of Native nation government, so that that political collective can achieve the goals that it sets for itself. And other people will define it in other ways, but that's what our focus is.

 

Joan Timeche:

And it's going to be different. You know, what that looks like is going to be different for every nation. You know, because of how we're organized and how we recognize authority to be exercised. So not every nation is going to look the same and to me it's a general definition that can apply to many nations but allowing each one to determine specifically what that means for them.

 

Karen Diver:

And for me, this is really about... um, day-to-day resiliency of indigenous peoples because we had natural organizing principles long before the first settler ever showed up. You know, we had organized groups. We were in... in clans. We were in bands. We were in tribes, and although we had different language for it at that time perhaps. We did know how to organize ourselves. We did know how to resolve conflict. We did know how to make decisions. We did know how to work intergovernmentally across tribes and across these clans. And the modern-day version of that may be structured different, but it's going to be informed by that past, right. And what fits well for the needs today, and... and that's really a part of our resiliency. Is our adaptability in the face of all of these years of colonization. The practice matters more than the words.

 

Joan Timeche:

So, we're up...

 

Tory Fodder:

Go ahead.

 

Joan Timeche:

Okay, so we're up to... um very close to our close here and I just wanted to point out that we hope that you found... um, the session useful... um, to you. We we're sorry that you were not able to participate in one of our May in Tucson courses. We are going to have another session that's coming up in January. We hope you'll consider registering for one of those courses, but in the meantime, we have a number of resources that are available to you. Much of these are also free. We have our Indigenous Governance Database. Once we get this cleaned up, we'll have this... um, put out... um, likely put on our database as well.

 

Miriam Jorgensen:

For this session is what you're saying.

 

Joan Timeche:

I'm sorry, yeah, this session we will put it out on our database... um, our Constitution's Resource Center for those of you that might be contemplating either moving from an oral... um, governmental forum to one that's written, or either to just updating and revising to reflect some of your needs. We have that in place. We have of course our Indigenous Governance Programs. You can go to the website. If you go to our website, click on any of these tiles. It'll lead you right to that. We also have an online courses. It's based off of the book that Miriam edited and mentioned previously about Rebuilding Native Nations. It's nine modules. They're self-paced, and they're for non-credit... um, we have services that we provide on a fee-for-service basis, and although COVID-19 is...

limiting us to online only. We do normally go out and work on the ground with Indian Country. There might be some interviews out there that you might be interested in... um, you know, on tribal leaders talking about some of the challenges that they face. Our sister organization, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. This allows you to get to them and hear about all of these wonderful examples. Some of the ones that we shared. And then we have a number of resources for students, whether it's youth camps, youth workshops, such as an entrepreneurship session we're going to be offering in June, or either for graduate students who might be doing research on a nation-building topic. So, we greatly appreciate your time with us and here's our contact information. And Tory, I don't know if you have any last words to say...

 

Tory Fodder:

You know, just on behalf of the Indigenous Governance Program at the Native Nations Institute and our colleagues at the Indigenous People's Law and Policy Program all at the University of Arizona. I just want to say thanks for joining us. We've had folks from around the world call in across the

United States... uh, really glad you could join us and thanks so much for your time. We'll look forward to connecting with you, and yes, we will make the PowerPoint available take care all.

 

Joan Timeche:

Thank you.

 

 

Vernon Masayesva: Self-Governance and Protecting Water

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Former Tribal Chairman of the Hopi Nation and Executive Director of Black Mesa Trust, Vernon Masayesva relays his thoughts about advocating for self-governance and protection of water rights for Indigenous people. His pursuits in holding accountability of mining in Hopi territory has made Vernon into a leading respected voice on maintaining the sovereignty of water for tribes and intervention toward both entities and pixies that threaten environmental harm on Native lands. Vernon describes his efforts through the creation of Black Mesa Trust and their activities while continuing to be active in keeping the Hopi Nation focused on self-governance that matches the sacred values toward natural resources.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Vernon Masayesva: Self-Governance and Protecting Water." University of Arizona Water Ethics Symposium, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, October 20, 2018

Transcript available upon request. Please email: nni@email.arizona.edu

Vernon Masayesva Keynote: Water Ethics Symposium

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Vernon Masayesva (Hopi) is the Executive Director of Black Mesa Trust and leading advocate for protecting water resources for the Hopi Nation. He's a Hopi Leader of the Coyote Clan and former Chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council from the village of Hotevilla who has worked for decades on bringing awarenes and action toward the damaging effects that nearby mines have had on the precious water systems for the Hopi people. In this video, Vernon gives a keyntoe speech at the 3rd annual University of Arizona Water Ethics Symposium on October 19, 2018 focused on Indigenous Water Ethics: Sacred Waters Connecting Culture, People, & Place.  The perspectives of culture, water rights, traditional knowledge, and leadership are revelaed in a Hopi context.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Vernon Masayesva Keynote Water Ethics Symposium." University of Arizona Water Ethics Symposium, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, October 19, 2018

Leroy Shingoitewa: Self-Governance with Hopi Values

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Leroy Shingoitewa, member of the bear clan, and served as chairman of the Hopi tribe and since January 2016, has served as a councilman representing the village of Upper Moenkopi.  He recalls the intricacies of governing while maintiang Hopi values and traditions.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Shingoitewa, Leroy, "Leroy Shingoitewa: Self-Governance with Hopi Values," Leading Native Nations, Native Nations Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, March 01, 2016

Verónica Hirsch:

Welcome to Leading Native Nations. I’m your host, Verónica Hirsch. On today’s program, we are honored to have with us Councilman Leroy Shingoitewa, who is a Hopi tribal citizen and a member of the bear clan. Councilman Shingoitewa previously served as chairman of the Hopi tribe and since January 2016, has served as a councilman representing the village of Upper Moenkopi. Councilman Shingoitewa received his bachelor’s degree from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, earned his master’s in Educational Leadership and Administration from Penn State University and has over 30 years of experience as a teacher and principal within the Arizona public school system and Bureau of Indian Education schools. He served as the first Native American principal for the Flagstaff Unified School District, helped establish the Hopi tribe’s first tribal grant school and currently works with school boards, schools and their staff and tribal organizations to find, develop, and train effective leadership. Councilman Shingoitewa, welcome.

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Thank you, it’s an honor to be here.

Verónica Hirsch:

I’ve shared a little bit about who you are but would you please begin by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well, I’m from the Hopi tribe, live in Moenkopi, was born and raised on the Hopi Reservation at Keams Canyon, Arizona. Grew up knowing and living in the traditional Hopi way with my father, my mother, and my grandparents, and all of my extended family. I’ve lived away from the reservation as well in the outside world so I’ve learned how to become balanced living in both cultures. I feel that whatever experiences that I’ve had hopefully will be of benefit who may hear today’s interview.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. I’d like to begin by asking some basic questions regarding this topic of Native nation building and my first question is, in your opinion, how do you define nation building?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I guess there’s two forms to me of nation building. First of all, there’s your own tribal affiliation like me with the Hopi. I believe that in building of the Hopi tribe there needs to be strong partnerships with the 12 villages we have, partnerships among the tribal council of men that serve, and strengthening the way governance is operated on our reservation. That’s a quick synopsis of our local government. On the other side in the United States and probably in other areas like Canada and Mexico, in order for tribes to become strong, we need to start to learn how to work together. In other words, we can belong to our individual tribes, when it comes to national issues we need to band together to show strength in that area of concern or issues that will affect all of our tribes. To me, this is called nation building. If we do not come together as a nation, we become individualistic and we lose out on a fight that has died before our people.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. I’d like to ask a little more in depth question regarding part of your answer of what nation building entails for the Hopi tribe, and what does it entail?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

For the Hopi, it pushes us or makes us think more realistically going beyond what we call our traditional form of governance. We’ve adopted a way of governance in 1936 when the Indian Reorganization Act was passed. It made it so that as a tribe we were able to have a relationship with the United States government on a government to government relation. Our role is a find a way that we can effectively operate in that manner without pushing ourselves to a point that we, as the 12 villages are, would become individualistic in what we want to do. For us in the Hopi tribe, it is very difficult; we have 12 different villages, each individually with their own form of government in their villages with operation of their own village. With a tribal government, we must then consolidate all 12 villages, bring them together and become one of mind especially on the ordinances or laws or issues that face us. It will protect and save all the people involved. In a lot of ways, governing as a group takes a lot of effort. You may have an individual who serves for their village but also once he comes to college he must also change his mind set to serve all the Hopi people.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. I’d next like to ask, in your opinion, what do nation building leaders do? By that, I mean how do they conduct business both on a daily basis and with a long term perspective in mind?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

This is a challenge for both since I served as a chairman and now as a councilman that you have to have a vision of what you’re looking for. Once you have that vision, you find a strategy on how to achieve that vision with the help of all the other members of council. In turn with that you must also not forget the people you serve. You must be able to go out and search and talk to people away from the tribal government, asking of their opinion, asking if the vision you’re looking at is going in the right direction. On a daily basis, you must be willing to listen to people; You can’t go out and say, ‘Well, this is the way it’s going to be.’ Not only that, you’re going to have to love what you’re doing. If you don’t love serving people, then you shouldn’t be in the service of a councilman or chairman because it’s just a title, it doesn’t make you all everything. In order to be the most effective, you have to be willing to allow yourself that flexibility to listen and once you’ve listened, form a plan on how you’d like to go forth and get that plan completed. I think a lot of times you have to forget the title you have and become part of the group that you serve and that way when you talk to them you’re on equal levels. Many times, even today, a lot of people are still a chairman because serving that capacity but on the other side because I’m not in the position they approach me very differently and say, ‘Well, you’re one of us now.’ In many ways every day is a challenge. Every day when you wake up, the first thought in your mind is ‘Ok, what can I do today? Who will I go see and who will I talk to?’ Your daily basis – as a councilman, you serve on a daily basis and I’m talking 24/7. You can’t take your hat off on the weekend because you’ll always be approached by somebody. Anywhere you go, you will be approached and someone will have something complimentary or they may be concerned about issues. To me, serving in that capacity, if you do it with enthusiasm and with a zeal of accomplishing something, it’s a good way to go.

Verónica Hirsch:

Based upon your experience, what are the unique challenges of serving as an elected councilman? You mentioned a moment ago about how people might still approach you and bearing in mind your former capacity as Hopi tribe chairman but are there any differences between your former position of chairman of the Hopi tribe and your current capacity as councilman representing the village of Upper Moenkopi?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

There is a big difference. As a chairman, people look at you as being the leader of everybody. You are showing the face of the Hopi people, when you go out to meetings you are the representative of the Hopi people. When you go out to the counties or the cities or the state or even the national level you are the one they will ask questions of. What you end up doing is you have to project what Hopi is and to go out and become an individual that says, ‘Well, now I’m the chairman and I can say whatever I want’ and that’s not true because you learn to become very selective in what you say and you have to think about it before you speak your mind because in that capacity anything you say to some people says. ‘Ok, here is what the Hopi people stand on.’ Now as a councilman, I’m a little more of an individual, I speak for our village at Moenkopi so I’m probably a little more specific on what I say. I’m not fearful of saying something in a meeting because as a councilman I’m one of 22 people and I have an opinion. I can express my opinion and I also have a vote in a decision. As a chairman, you don’t have a vote. There’s a misconception that the chairman is the chairman so he is the government of all; but in our system of government, the tribal council is the decision making body. All of the councilmen have a vote and the chairman doesn’t. The only time the chairman votes is when there’s a tie in the council, he breaks the tie. In that respect, there is a huge difference in the capacity and responsibility of what the chairman does but his main role is to serve and show the true face of the people he serves, in other words the Hopi people.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. I’d like to ask you now a question reflecting back on your experience as Hopi tribal chairman and then also your current capacity. What do you wish you knew before you first began serving as an elected leader of the Hopi tribe?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I wish I knew that it was hard to serve young people. If anything, that was something I came to a quick realization. Also, I felt that sometimes you have to be able to be aware of all the things that’s happening around you, all the issues that occur. You have to be ready to explain immediately when somebody asks you a question especially at the state and national level. I find that if you surround yourself with resources, with expertise, with people who are experts in those areas of concern; they will feed you information so when you go in you’re ready to answer the questions you’ve been asked. I find that those who are not ready for this begin to look like, ‘Wow that person doesn’t know anything’ or ‘He’s fumbling for words.’ The biggest thing that I learned quickly was that you have to study the things in front of you. You can’t just go and say, ‘Ok, we’re going to talk about this today,’ and if you don’t have the understanding of it you have to be careful that you don’t look like you don’t know anything in front of all the people you’re going to be there with. As a councilman, it’s still the same way. When we have issues with land, with water, housing, with a village it concerns…all these have the same bearing that you have to be willing to go out and understand and learn the issues that are in front of you. In the long run, the positives are that once you learn, you build on those reserves that you’ve found that you have the knowledge of. Example, all those things I learned as chairman now as a councilman, all those things that I learned are now coming out to help with the present issues; water, land. Example, a thing called the Snowbowl Ski Resort in Flagstaff. Learning about the issues of the local towns. These are the things that I found for me were very positive because now I’m probably a lot more knowledgeable now than I was when I first went in to serve my people. I’ll tell you the greatest joy was being able to serve my people, being able to and say, ‘I did this on behalf of my people.’ For me – see there’s a history with me – my father was a chairman in 1940 and ’41. In some respects, I grew up with the knowledge of what our Hopi people were hoping to learn and have. For me, maybe it’s a different type of commitment because I saw my father go through these; I saw my father when he was a first member of the tribal council, first secretary, first interpreter for the tribal council, law enforcement officer – all these things had a bearing on my commitment to come back and serve my people.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you, thank you for sharing the legacy of your family’s involvement with service to the Hopi tribe. I’d like to now transition into discussing what Hopi traditional governance looks like and my first questions is, what does the Hopi – and I’ll call it “indigenous constitution” – or traditional form of governance look like?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well, like I stated in Hopi we have 12 villages and traditionally the Hopi villages each had a leader that was trained and was appointed by the leaders of that village…chosen, trained, and nurtured to take over that role which became a lifelong position. It wasn’t just for one or two years; once you were put in that position, you stayed there until you moved on from this world. That was the traditional form of government. Because of that, when the constitution came in there was a discussion, probably among our people, that how do we make these two governments work together. What I hear from like my father and my grandparents and those other older leaders that I knew, that the traditional form of governance state in the village that whatever way they were going to govern, they chose to do so in their village. In that form, the kikmongwi was the leader in that village but around him he also had a council – if you want to call it – of religious leaders who sat with him, who provided him with information when there’s issues in that community that came up in that village, they would discuss it and come to a consensus. At that point, the leader then would make his decision but also that community as whole, as a village, involved the people themselves. That was the village form of government and that form of government is disappearing from the Hopi. At this stage there are probably two villages that try to possess that type of government and right now leadership is chose by the few who still try to practice the way of life. Again, that type of life is slowly disappearing because out of the 12 villages, 10 of the villages have their own board of governors – board of directors if you want to call it – maybe a governor or maybe a chairperson of that board who then makes decisions on behalf of that village as a whole. As you see, we’ve moved from what traditionally we lived by on a daily basis to now a more modernistic type of government, which we learned from the outside world.

Verónica Hirsch:

You mentioned that some of the format that you described of Hopi traditional governance –  that it has diminished in more contemporary times. My next question is to what extent does it operate today? You mentioned two villages in particular have made consorted efforts to operate in the very same way, do you see elements of traditional government apparent in the other 10 villages?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

In watching them, they internally – and they really try to separate them but sometimes they’ll combine them and some of their decision making – but in the long run there is still an attempt at the separation of church and state. In the villages, they will have their decisions in a village board meeting then it comes to a traditionalism type of activity that transitions to what we call a kiva. That’s where all the men gather, that’s where ceremonies take place, that’s where religious activities take place that are based on our Hopi way of living; our values, our traditions, our beliefs. Even within the villages there is a separation but when it comes to issues like water, like housing, like land, that takes place in the village board of directors meeting.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. You mentioned, Councilman Shingoitewa, briefly about how in traditional context leaders would be identified and trained. I’d like to ask you a little bit more about that point and ask, traditionally, how were Hopi governance roles and responsibilities allocated?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well, depending on which village it was, there were certain clans that were identified in the leadership role. I think some tribes throughout the United States also have that type of structure. An example is in certain religions; the bear clan was considered the clan that was on the top. They were believed to be the leadership of the Hopi people and traditionally they are considered to be the father of all the Hopi people. An example, that’s what I believe in myself as a Bear Clan; my responsibility is to the people and therefore I believe in my mind that I am a father of the people so therefore my commitment goes to serving the people. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I become the kikmongwi or the chief of that village; its only upon the fact that if they find me worthy enough that I were to be designated with that role that I would play that role. There are other clans within the tribe that hold certain roles and responsibilities that they must fulfill in the religious portion of daily life or in their role of serving the people. Again, each of the clans play their role. To give you an example, my father’s Sun clan; his role was to protect the people. He believed he was there to protect our people from harm and he was – I guess the other word would be a soldier – his role was to just be out there, stand guard, and make sure nothing bad happened to the people and that if he didn’t do it right, he would’ve failed in his role. So we in our way or thinking and our values structure believe that our clanship plays a huge role in the way we conduct our life. But as time goes on and our younger generations have grown and are growing, sometimes we forget to train our young people what their roles are as clan individuals. Now, the dominance of tribal governments – that seems to be taking a little more stronger role than what the traditional governance once was.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. You mentioned how among villages there might be some differences in terms of how leaders might be identified or what specific roles might be ascribed, for instance, to particular clans, but I’d like to ask you perhaps a general question, and if you have examples to offer, we’d appreciate hearing from you. How were Hopi leaders traditionally identified and then held accountable?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well, of the village that I came from – Mishongnovi, which is one of the traditional villages that are trying to exist the way they were – there was a clan that would look and find an individual who they found worthy. When I say worthy that means the way they conducted themselves, their personality, their way of looking at things, patience, a listener maybe…different values they would look at. Then the present person who was in that leadership roles would say, ‘This person looks like he’s an individual who I think could take over this position.’ Then they would let that individual know and say. ‘You’ve been chosen to step in when the present kikmongwi, or chief, passes on so therefore we’re going to train you.’ They were not just put in there; they went through a regular ceremony in order to be designated to be that person. Again, they were selected with very particular values involved with them and once they were selected, they knew they would be in that position for life. The tradition commitment was life; it wasn’t just for one year or two years. Now, in the society that we live in, which is a tribal government, we’re looking at someone who fills the role for four years and a consulate for two years so longevity is very different from what the traditional form of government is. There are still religious leaders who have gone up through the ranks, earned their authorities as they moved up, and those are now in those positions in the religious and traditional way of life.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. Councilman Shingoitewa, you mentioned some of these differences between the contemporary Hopi tribal governance structure and that of a more traditional context and I’d like to ask you two questions pertaining to that. How are governance roles and responsibilities defined in the Hopi tribe’s current govern acne system?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well, of course you got three forms of government. You have the executive branch, which is your chairman, vice chairman, your secretary and your treasurer, they form the one layer which is the executive branch. You’ve got your legislative branch which is your tribal council and what’s interesting is also even with that legislative branch, in our tribe the chairman and vice chairman are a part of that as well. Those two are the main groups that do that. The other form of government are all the other entities that are under that, the finances, the personal, all those form under the day-to-day type activity. The most critical ones in the tribal government is your two levels, executive and legislative. If you look at it, that’s how the government is formed in the United States and earlier we talked about the constitution. When 1936 came about, the United States government gave us a generic constitution and said, ‘Tribes, this is a constitution that you will form and use.’ So, if you’re going to go to many other tribes a day you’re going to find that their constitutions are very similar; the only thing was that they put the different tribe’s name in there. When they came to the Hopi tribe, ‘The Hopi tribal government and constitution will be…’ Well, the same one could be for the Lumbee, the same one could be for the Jicarilla Apache, etcetera. When we came into existence as a government under the United States, we were given a generic constitution to use. In today’s present government, it comes down to those two layers of government that now form how we operate.

Verónica Hirsch:

You mentioned the two layers of a three-branch system, what is that third branch?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I was just trying to think and it completely left my mind. I knew that was going to come up…where did it go?

Verónica Hirsch:

Does the Hopi tribe have a court system? A judicial branch?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Oh, that’s right, judicial system. You got it. We do have a judicial system. We have both the appeals court and the trial court. I think one of the greatest things that occurred was that when the United States government allowed us to change our law and order code. The Hopi tribe became the first tribe that changed its total system where the judicial branch now has BAR attorneys, they have to be barred in the state of Arizona. The judges, all of them, have to be certified barred attorneys and even those practicing in the court have to be attorneys. Part of it is because it allowed us to also – instead of waiting for the Bureau of Indian Affairs judicial system, the government system to come in and do felonies and misdemeanors – the Hopi tribe now gets to do it. We get to do longer sentences for felonies that are committed on the reservation. This has helped us. I think with the three branches of government that we have, the one that has to stay the most neutral is the judicial. They have to separate themselves completely away from the other two so they can be as fair as possible with the people that come through their system.

Verónica Hirsch:

You’ve mentioned the importance of the various branches of the Hopi tribe’s government structure and I’d like to ask, within that structure, what roles and responsibilities did the 12 villages possess?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

The roles that all 12 villages have is first of all they come in representing their villages. When they come in, their role is to serve that village that elected them. Notice how I used the world elected. Two of the villages at this stage or one other village has not elected their officials, they’re still appointed by their leader. The rest of us, we are all elected by the people of that village so our roles and responsibilities are to the people, not to governor of the village, not to village consul…we serve the people. When issues come up that will affect our village we are usually very adamant about protecting what is rightfully ours. We can come in there individually as a village but when it comes to a total issue of the total governance body of the tribal issues as a whole, we then have to know how to play the role and take our hats off. Not only are we just a village issue, but now we take on the total tribe issue. We have to play the role of what’s going to be best be good for our people. I think that maybe this is part of the issues that I see in tribal council. Some of our councilmembers don’t know how to play roles; they don’t know how to switch hats. As a political body, which I’m going to mention now, even in today’s United States government, people switch hats all the time to fit the situation you are in. That is our role as tribal council members. We have to learn to switch our hats. When we come off the reservation we have to know how to dress, we have to know how to speak, we have to know how to act around people. We have to conduct ourselves in a way that’s best going to reflect who we serve. Those are things that you have to learn to do if you’re an elected official otherwise, as tribes, we get labeled with different things that aren’t the truth about our tribes. As an individual for myself, when I come here, for example with you, I am doing the best I can to reflect what a Hopi person is. My role is to let people outside of our reservation know that a true Hopi is one that thinks the best for the Hopi, believes that what we’re doing in the best to serve our younger generation as well as our older generation and also to play the role that says we want the best for our people and we’re going to do everything we can to get that.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. Councilman Shingoitewa, you mentioned previously the 1936 date of the Hopi tribe’s written constitutional government and I’d like to ask you maybe a few more questions on that topic. You mentioned how the tribe’s constitution at that time was a type of boiler-plate document but could you provide us a little bit more information on the origin of the Hopi tribe’s written constitutional government?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well, the origin came out when the Indian Reorganization Act was passed. Up until that point, the Indian nations really had no way of dealing with the United States government and at that point I’m sure many of our tribal leaders were very frustrated with the fact that they were being ignored because we were the first people in this country and yet we had no say so. At that point, the United States government said, ‘You know what? Maybe we need to start treating Indian nations in a manner that will be protective for not only us but also our Indian nations.’ If you recall, the history was basically the lands of Indian country disappeared with the western movement of civilization and we were put into places that probably no other individual would want to live but they felt if they put use there we wouldn’t survive and therefore we would disappear. We didn’t disappear but voices continue to be raised like we are a nation; we want to have relationships with the United States government. At that time, the ruling body to be said, ‘let’s put something together,’ because they were watching us as wards of the government, they were providing us some things but never one where we could go one-on-one with them on a government-to-government basis. In 1936, they passed that act; it gave the right for every Indian tribe throughout this country to establish a government and so we did. Because of that act, in that act it says that we now have the right to be recognized as a sovereign government. We have the right now to negotiate with the United States government on issues that would affect our people. Somebody in their wisdom, our leaders of old, never gave up and because of their fortitude and strength and bravery it happened. Because of that, today we still have that right. We still have the sovereignty of how our future for our people will look like. We still have the right to demand of the United States government, under the treaties they served with us, that they have the right and responsibility to take care of the health, education and welfare of our people. Sometimes, I look at what took place and I hear people complaining about the fact that tribes don’t give anything back to the United States and how wrong the people of this country are because we provided soldiers, we provided people who gave up their talents, the history of this country, came down and our Indian people opened up their arms and welcomed people into this country. In reality, Indian tribes were the builders of this nation, it wasn’t the pilgrims that came here. Maybe if we’d thought about it, maybe if the tribes at that time had known what would happen we might’ve said, ‘Turn your boats arounds and go back home.’ It didn’t happen that way so in a lot of ways this is where my pride comes from. I believe that our people were destined to do what they’re doing today. I believe that is a time that our leaders of our tribe need to step up and live by the constitution that they have so our children can move forward and be a part of this country because we are the true leaders of this country and we do have a place in this society.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. I wanted to ask a question again regarding the constitution. When the Hopi tribe chose to adopt this constitution in 1936, you had mentioned that much of that language was very similar to another native nation entirely.

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Yes.

Verónica Hirsch:

Were there any features that were unique in the constitution? For instance, was there any language that specified that the 12 villages would still maintain a measure of their autonomy or was that not mentioned at all?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

It was. Each of the 12 villages were given the right to choose how they wanted to be govern; it’s in the constitution which gives them to the right to exist the way they have. It gives them the right to also be responsible over certain things in their village by constitution. They also have the right to decide who can be a member of their village. It gives them the right to provide permission to do certain things. For example, if there’s an issue with children that village has the right to assign those children to someone else to take care of them. There are specific things in that constitution that are given back to the villages. They have the right to choose whether they want the traditional way of governance or the way it is now today with board of directors or governors or whatever; those are stated in the constitution. It also identifies them as individual villages. Instead of saying the 12 villages it says every one of them, Shitchumovi, Walpi, Moenkopi, Kykotsmovi so forth and so on. All the 12 villages are named and it gives the tribe to right to develop another community if they so choose and which they did. By using the constitution, they are able to make changes within their framework that meets the requirements of the constitution.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. I’d like to ask you, in your opinion, what governance challenges exists within the current structure of the Hopi tribe?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I think the challenges we have is how do we use this constitution to do a better job and what is needed for our people. There are some limitations; that constitution says you can’t do certain things. In reality, a constitution is like any document or instrument, there’s ways of working with that constitution to make the correct changes. I know that the constitution hasn’t changed much since we started; if anything, our enrolled membership of the tribe has changed in the blood quantum. At one point – an example of what changes were needed – traditionally only the women’s side were identified as being Hopi, the children of the women. But as time went, the men folk who were full-blood Hopi, but were maybe married to another tribe member and their children still had at least half of blood quantum, were not allowed to be enrolled in the Hopi tribe. Then the blood diminished because only the women’s side existed and if the women continued to marry a non-tribal member the blood quantum got less and less. In the wisdom of some of the leaders at the time, we said, ‘We can’t let the blood disappear; let us now redo our enrollment for the Hopi tribe.’ So at that time, they then passed a law that says, ‘We are now going to accept up to a fourth of Hopi Indian blood.’ With that, that is how tribal membership is now recognized. This is a critical area because it’s not just with the Hopi tribe, I think every tribe is running into this now because of inner marriage between us and other nationalities.

Verónica Hirsch:

Councilman Shingoitewa, you mentioned this blood quantum threshold of being one-fourth; now, is that regarded on both mother’s and father’s sides?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Yes, yes it is. Yes, it is. Fortunately for me, right now, all my children are full-bloods but after them some of them have married other tribes so they have the choice to enroll in a Hopi tribe or maybe another tribe; but, I leave that decision to them. For myself and for my children, I chose to be married to a Hopi so therefore all my children are full-blooded Hopi. I tell you this because right now in the Hopi tribe, 60 percent of our members are not full-blooded tribal members. It is slowly diminishing. In some ways, that concerns me because how far down the road will that enrollment of full-blooded people exist? I predict that it’s moving quickly to the other side but then we have no one to blame but ourselves; we chose to do that. Those of us who see this as a concern, we are trying to tell our children, ‘you need to look at Hopi girls or Hopi men.’ But again, it’s a running topic within our families but as our children grow they have to make some decisions, they choose with who they want to be a companion with.

Verónica Hirsch:

Councilman Shingoitewa, I’d like to return to a couple more questions on the current Hopi tribal governance structure and I’d like to ask, what aspects of the current structure effectively work?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I think in most cases, most of the constitution works. It comes down to how you use the constitution on a daily basis. Interpretation is always the major concern among us in the tribal council. Sometimes, we forget we have a constitution so when decisions are made we have to look and discuss whether or not our decision met the requirements of the constitution. But like with any government, if you’re going to have a structure, you must follow that structure. Otherwise, just like the with the outside world, we have courts that help us interpret the law and if we don’t follow the law correctly, that law can be overturned or that decision can be overturned. Interpretation, understanding what’s in that constitution, educating councilmembers, educating the chairman and the vice chairman that yes, we are the ruling body or the decision-making body, but we are also held to the laws and rules of the constitution and you have to know what you’re looking at in order to make the right decision. I guess we’ve learned you have to be cautious about how you make that decision because if you want it to be a good one you don’t want it to be overturned. Again, this is learning an outside form of government that we had not had but are now using predominantly in our lives with tribal governance.

Verónica Hirsch:

You mentioned how this outside form of government has very much impacted the structure of the current Hopi tribe’s tribal council system; but I’d like to ask, to what extent has the Hopi tribe intergraded aspects of traditional governance into this system? Or has it not? I believe you mentioned earlier there’s this desire – I don’t know if it’s recent or it’s been a long time – to have a separation of the church and state.

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I think if anything we bring back into our governance at the tribal level is the values that we have. We remind ourselves that here is the values and morals that we live by. As far as the traditional form of government, it’s tied very closely to our beliefs and our ways of life, our religious portion. That has no place in the tribal government. This is what we’re told by our elders, ‘That form of government in only in the village, only by those chosen to remind us to practice that way,’ but when it comes the tribal council, as I remember being told, that’s the white man’s form of government that we chose to follow; therefore, we will not take those things that we believe that are personal into the tribal government. But when it comes to values, we still have to remember our values. We still have to remember who we are. A quick example that we have to be reminded of is if you have an older person talking to you, you don’t go and argue with that older person. You’re supposed to respect that elder for the wisdom he has. That’s a real conflict for our younger people who are now getting more educated, they want to challenge some things that we may have to say, ‘Well, they have to play with that value.’ That’s why I say, I guess this is what you call roleplay; you look at what the situation is. If it’s called that you must state your own opinion, then you have to do it in a way that is respectful to the person you’re talking to…these are the values. An example, right now I am the oldest in the tribal council so every once and a while I use it to my advantage when somebody is getting carried away. I’ll say, ‘Wait a minute, you’re younger than I am; listen to what I say before you answer.’ I guess maybe I’m playing politics at the same time; I’m intergrading the outside world with our own values structure. This is where that portion comes back into the tribal council so there is a trying to separate the beliefs from the government portion of our tribal government.

Verónica Hirsch:

Councilman Shingoitewa, you’ve mentioned previously efforts to address change in realities within the Hopi tribe, so my next series of questions has to do with any changes that the Hopi tribe has engaged in regarding constitutional reform since the adoption of the Hopi Constitution Bylaws on December 19, 1936; have there been any efforts?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

There have been some efforts. Like I said, the biggest change is the enrollment. That went through, that was taken care of. The next biggest challenge was approximately seven years ago when there was a move to totally revamp the constitution. It took us approximately four years, meeting with people constantly, taking the constitution, listening to the people. Once we listened to them, we would make the changes in the proposed constitution. We did approximately 24 revisions of the constitution when we finally went to the tribal council and asked them to hold a referendum with our people. Before we could do that, we had to have the approval from the federal government to hold this referendum to change the constitution. It went to vote and got defeated. Right now, there is a movement that people, once that got defeated, they realized that there were some things we need to change in the constitution. I think with the latest movement they’re looking at specific areas rather than an overall revision of the constitution. This is left up to the people and there is a committee that’s been put together that it working on revising the constitution. Personally, I think the constitution needs to be revised to meet today’s needs and demands; otherwise, we’re behind the times and if we don’t make improvements we will get further and further behind as time comes.

Verónica Hirsch:

Are there specific areas that you think need to be addressed to meet some of the contemporary demands?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I think so. I think this comes down to the villages; what is their authority and rights that they have? I think the area of elected people to the tribal council…I think we’ve talked – some people said they want some educated people on the tribal council. In some respects, that’s probably true. Out of the 22 that sits on council, there’s only four of us who are what you would call college-educated people; meaning, the council members have never really worked off the reservation, they’ve always lived on the reservation. They want some council members who are more exposed to what occurs outside of the reservation. They want to see a portion that says, ‘If the tribal council or the chairman or vice chairman are not performing their duties as they had promised to do, then there should be a recall.’ This is a portion that has been looked at. There’s also the portion where it says that we need to have the ability to do taxes on our reservation and who we can tax. So, there are portions in that tribal constitution that do need to be taken a look at, do need to be revised and also would benefit the new changes in modern society.

Verónica Hirsch:

Councilman Shingoitewa, regarding previous constitution reform efforts, what did you learn from those experiences? What were your takeaways?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

What I learned was that you really need to work hard at explaining what the reforms were, not only in English but also in Hopi. You need to be mindful of the people you’re talking to and when it comes down to producing the product that you let people know that they were all involved in this process. One of the things that came out was that people said, ‘Well, it’s just this group that put this reform together,’ and yet it was all the people who gave suggestions, gave opinions where they felt the main concerns were. To me, what I learned was that from the start to the finish you have the people involved constantly. Those that have worked on this, if it’s a reform that’s going to happen again, bring them back in so they can tell you what they felt that they ran into. This is what I learned. I learned that being patient, learning to really listen, really learning to understand what the concerns were. This is something that I learned and it’s been valuable to me because that helped me in my role as a councilman and has now helped me when I served as a chairman. Those were values that I held very dearly, even to this day.

Verónica Hirsch:

Are there now processes in place to amend the constitution if other people, maybe people who were involved in previous efforts or others, perhaps even young people might want to become involved in any future constitutional reform efforts; what processes are in place for that to happen?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well, I think that the council has been talking about. We have heard young people’s concern that they are not allowed to be involved with tribal government and part of it is…let me give you an example of one of those areas that has come up and that has concerned me as well. One is that you have to be fluent in the Hopi language. Among our young people, there are very few people that would be classified as fluent speakers because they don’t know the language that well. They can speak it, they can understand it but fluency – interpretation and fluency – prevents them a younger person from running for the chairman of the Hopi tribe or the vice chairman of the Hopi tribe or a councilman because that is a stipulation that is placed in the constitution. I think the young people are saying, ‘We want to be part of you but you have to allow us to be part of you.’ Right now, I think that’s a hindrance, to bring the young people in to help us with the operation of the government. We have people who work within the departments, we have people in the outside world who work like here at the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, ASU, who are ready to help out but we have not allowed them to open the door so they can come in. I think constitutional reform is needed in several areas and I think we can do it. I believe this is where the people who are now clamoring to be a part of it, we allow it happen.

Verónica Hirsch:

If the Hopi tribe does choose to reengage in constitution reform and wants to revisit and perhaps revise its written constitution, what challenges exist? Are there challenges based on current government structure? Do you think there are challenges in terms of, let’s say, community attitudes or concerns regarding what reform might mean or how it might impact the Hopi tribe?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I think the biggest requirement is commitment. Those that choose to want to do this, they have to be committed. If you want to be on that committee, you have to understand that you will have meetings on a constant basis, maybe covering anywhere from two to four years to take a look at what we need to change. Then, you also have to be willing to take the time to travel to those places. When we talk about 12 villages, you’re looking at a span of 100 miles within which those villages exist. An example, if I live in Moenkopi and I want to help present over in First Mesa, I must be able to go 75 miles just to go visit and meet and stay there for maybe three hours and then drive home after a long meeting. If somebody lives in Flagstaff and wanted to come up to Hopi to help, the commute from Flagstaff to even the tribal headquarters is 90 miles one way. Commitment to get this thing accomplished, time, is what’s needed. Many of the people that were involved in the initial constitutional reform – which I was involved in; I spent easily three days a week meeting at various communities in Flagstaff, Phoenix, down here in Tucson – the commitment of time is really critical. Also, the tribal council must be able to provide some type of funds to cover the paperwork, the taking of minutes, recordings, legal counsel…all these things are needed. Those are critical areas of, ‘How do we get it done? Who is willing to do it and when are we going to do it?’ I think that the question now, when are we going to do it? Somebody needs to be willing to do it, somebody has got to be willing to take the time. I know the people who did the initial constitutional reform with me was a group of about eight to ten people who constantly worked on this and they were representatives of all the villages plus other community people that wanted to make this happen.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. I’d like to now ask…my next series of questions is pertaining to how the Hopi tribe currently lives within its own governance structure. My first question is, how does the Hopi tribe ensures that its written constitution, as it is right now, is followed and upheld?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well, I think this is where many of us who have worked with this constitution, work very hard to remind people on a constant basis, ‘Here is what the constitution says.’ Within the government, it is the responsibility of the secretary’s office, the chairman, and vice chairman to be aware of what’s in that constitution because that constitution also defines the roles of those offices. Those other councilmen have some rules in there but they’re very generic, representing villages. It talks about the conducting of meetings, how many times the meetings should be held, when we make decisions, who makes the motions, what rules are we following when we hold meetings, how long do we hold meetings… you know, those are decisions that are tied into that constitution. For those of us that go into the council and those executive offices, we have to make ourselves knowledgeable about that constitution. We have to pick up the constitution, we have to look at it. This is how the tribal government lives within that constitution because our responsibility isn’t only the ordinances we pass, the laws that we pass, the judicial portion of our tribal government, the departments that we allow and give authority to act on behalf of our government…these are those things that we have to work with. That’s why the constitution is law. If we don’t follow the constitution and we break that law, the question is, who is responsible? Ultimately, the tribal council is responsible. We are the law making body and we can’t pass that on to anyone else. Therefore, why is it critical we operate within those bounds? If we don’t, the rest of the people can do whatever we want because they’re watching us. If we can break the law, why not them? That constitution must be followed and worked with as a tribal government and we must know what we’re working with.

Verónica Hirsch:

If there are any infractions of the constitution, are there processes in place – you mentioned that it is ultimately the responsibility of the tribal council to ensure that the constitution is understood and followed – but, what might happen if there was an instance of infraction? Are there mechanisms in place to address that?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Very limited. One of the things that many governments will fall into – and I’m not just talking about tribal government, even the United States government – when the fault of the legislative body makes a mistake, they use the protection of sovereign immunity. ‘Oh, we’re protected, you can’t file suit against us.’ The question is, can we file suit against each of those individuals separately and are they held liable for breaking that law? Those are legal questions that are now affecting all constitutions. Can we always declare sovereign immunity? Because when we do this, we also limit ourselves in economic development. In order for tribes to, in example, do gaming. I speak of this only as someone who has watched them and has looked at some of the rules in gaming that a tribe will wave some of their sovereign immunity so they can be held liable for any mistakes they make. If we go into deals with other entities, our tribal governments now must weigh how much of our sovereignty can we give up in order to progress forward in making example business economic decisions. Lands outside of our reservations; can we purchase the land and use it for other means? These are the things that are in the constitution. That’s the reason I say, you need to know your constitution. That’s why I say we can only go so long continuing to carry, ‘I’m a sovereign immunity, you can’t file this against me,’ because it does limit us and it hinders us sometimes in some of our dealings with outside entities.

Verónica Hirsch:

Councilman Shingoitewa, how are written Hopi tribal laws currently made and enforced?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Well with how the ordnances are made and laws are made, we run through legal consult anything we want to change into a law. What they will do is they will look at it to make sure the language is done correctly. They will then bring that action item to the council and with it is a resolution that is acted upon. It is brought before us, we discuss it; we ask for assistance from legal consults or any other group that is representing to this. An example might be having to deal with a water ordinance, the water department will be there. They will tell us why they are doing this and once we’ve had a discussion, we will take a vote on whether we approve or disapprove. If it is approved, we will have the chairman sign the resolution saying that we, as a body, approved this law. Once he signs it, it becomes law. The only way it will change is if we decide to resend the resolution somewhere down the line, then it becomes a non-ordinance or a non-law at that point. So, there is a process on how we approve our laws that we make for our tribe.

Verónica Hirsch:

What body bears the responsibility to make sure those laws are enforced?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

Once we’ve approved them, then depending on which ordnance is passed whether it deals with the land or whether it deals with law and order, whether it deals with the water portion of it, those departments are the ones who are asked to enforce those ordinances and laws. Now, I need to make very clear that these ordinances are only for the total tribe…but what about the villages? Within the villages they may pass their own resolution or law that abides only to their law, to their village. For the tribal council, when we pass a law it’s for all the tribal land that we own therefore enforcement becomes reservation-wide, Hopi land-wide. Therefore, the villages have to then fall within jurisdiction of that law. But again, like I say, within the villages they have the right to create their own laws but the laws that they write will not supersede what we have passed at the higher level. That is kind of the limits that the villages will have.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. To what extent do unwritten Hopi traditional laws and morals impact current Hopi tribal council decisions? You mentioned an example of, let’s say a particular village would create a resolution that would apply to itself alone but that in no instance would that particular supersede a decision that might be worded differently or have different intent on the Hopi tribal council level. Perhaps using that as an example, how then do unwritten Hopi traditional laws and moral impact, or do they impact, current Hopi tribal council decisions?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I think the only way it impacts current tribal laws and ordinances is that it’s something we grew up with so internally we know ourselves what it means but when it comes the decisions of an ordinance or law, we may discuss it but it doesn’t become part of a written law. We will discuss the value of it, we will discuss the reason why maybe our elders, our people before us, put it there for us to think about. Once the ordinance or the law is made, in order to put it into the English language is the most difficult part. If we make what we call an implied law into the ordinance, then we will explain it that way. But using traditional what our beliefs are and putting it into that, that’s a difficult portion for us to do. In the long run, what we will do is we’ll talk about an implied understanding of that law ordinance. For example, I’ll talk about water. Water is previous to the Hopi people. Where we come from, we’re very limited in water. When we talk about wasting water, you won’t see a grass lawn on the Hopi reservation because we don’t believe in wasting water. When we pass a law on water we will make sure that it states that this water is for the use of plants, of animals, and our families. We will make a reference that this is to not be used for things that are not part of our way of life which is grass. It’s not written in there but we already understand what we’re talking about. In that respect, that is probably how we understand the laws we make because the law is a Hopi law, it’s not intended to be with anyone else. On the judicial side, when we make laws that govern the reservation we also will then take those laws to be applied to also outsiders as well. Again, it’s a check and balance system we work with. Yes, it some ways we do think of those things we were taught by our elders, our parents, and we will use those in our thinking patterns before we finalize any law or ordinance.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you. Councilman Shingoitewa, my last question is, how does the Hopi tribe relate to other peoples and governments including perhaps other tribal nations?

Leroy Shingoitewa:

I always believed that one of the things that’s truly a word that implies or is used with everybody is the word respect. In order for us to work with other governments, tribal or non-governments, in order to be effective you must respect one another in order to understand what we’re trying to accomplish. When I go into someone else’s world; example, when I walk into Tohono O’odham; one of the first things we’ll do is introduce ourselves to each other and maybe the next thing out would be, ‘what clan do you belong to?’ If they say, ‘Well, I’m an eagle clan.’ My father’s clanship was Sun and of course related to that was Eagle. The first thing I say is, ‘Oh, you’re my father.’ That breaks that barrier of saying, ‘Oh you’re a visitor. Now you’re family.’ That’s where the respect begins to happen. When you go into another person’s house, you don’t go in there to criticize the makeup of that house or what’s in that house. You go in there to accept what they’re offering you by opening their door to you. For example, when I deal with other tribal governments, I walk in with the fact that I’m meeting another person who is a good friend of mine, whether I know them or not, he’s a friend automatically. Same way with the federal government when I meet with senators and the house people, congressmen. I walk in with the understanding that we’re getting ready to break bread, we’re getting ready to talk with one another. What I must do is respect the person who holds that office because he has a title. That’s why I say that’s the difference between being a chairman and a councilman is when you walk into anybody’s office, if you’re the chairman the first thing they say to you is, ‘Welcome Chairman, it’s good to meet you.’ That’s the respect we give to one another. I think when you work with other people, respect, understanding and willing to commit to sit and talk and discuss what is of concern with all of us. All and all the total package is that how can we be partners in solving an issue that effects all Indian nations? If I’m working in Indian country, I go in with the understanding of what we will do to support one another. I believe that one of the biggest obstacles that we have right now among Indian country is too many times we forget that we’re all one people. We might have different titles as tribes but we’re all one people. If we will do that together we will become a strong nation. I think that’s one of the questions you asked me, how do you build a nation? How you build a nation is with people who will sit and talk with one another, that will take care of each other and with the vision and knowledge that we are speaking for the future generations. I’m not speaking for myself anymore because my life on this earth is very short. I’m very fortunate to have lived as long as I have. Verónica, you know you think about it, I’ve been very blessed with all the people I’ve met. In the long run, if any legacy that I leave for my people is that, ‘He did the best he could to make it better for our people.’ That’s the way I look at life today. Life is but a fleeting moment, and then we move on to the next world.

Verónica Hirsch:

Thank you, Councilman Shingoitewa.

Leroy Shingoitewa:

You’re welcome.

Verónica Hirsch:

That’s all the time we have on today’s episode of Leading Native Nations. To learn more about Leading Native Nations please visit NNI’s Indigenous Governance Database website, which can be found at www.IGovDatabase.com. Thank you for joining us.

Hopi Tribe: Governmental Structure Excerpt

Year

ARTICLE III-ORGANIZATION

SECTION 1. The Hopi Tribe is a union of self-governing villages sharing common interests and working for the common welfare of all. It consists of the following recognized villages:

  • First Mesa (consolidated villages of Walpi, Shitchumovi, and Tewa).
  • Mishongnovi.
  • Sipaulavi.
  • Shungopavi.
  • Oraibi.
  • Kyakotsmovi.
  • Bakabi.
  • Hotevilla.
  • Moenkopi.

SEC. 2. The following powers which the Tribe now has under existing law or which have been given by the Act of June 18, 1934, (48 Stat. 984) and acts amendatory thereof or supplemental thereto, are reserved to the individual villages:

(a) To appoint guardians for orphan children and incompetent members.

(b) To adjust family disputes and regulate family relations of members of the villages.

(c) To regulate the inheritance of property of the members of the villages.

(d) To assign farming land, subject to the provisions of Article VII.

SEC. 3. Each village shall decide for itself how it shall be organized. Until a village shall decide to organize in another manner, it shall be considered as being under the traditional Hopi organization and the Kikmongwi of such village shall be recognized as its leader.

SEC. 4. Any village which does not possess the traditional Hopi self-government, or which wishes to make a change in that government or add something to it, may adopt a village Constitution in the following manner: A Constitution, consistent with this Constitution and Bylaws, shall be drawn up, and made known to all the voting members of such village and a copy shall be given to the Superintendent of the Hopi jurisdiction. Upon the request of the Kikmongwi of such village or of 25% of the voting members thereof, for an election on such Constitution, the Superintendent shall make sure that all voting members have had ample opportunity to study the proposed Constitution. He shall then call a special meeting of the voting members of such village, for the purpose of voting on the adoption of the proposed Constitution, and shall see that there is a fair vote. If at such referendum, not less than half of the voting members of the village cast their votes, and if a majority of those voting accepts the proposed Constitution, it shall then become the Constitution of that village, and only officials chosen according to its provisions shall be recognized.

The village Constitution shall clearly say how the Council representatives and other village officials shall be chosen, as well as the official who shall perform the duties placed upon the Kikmongwi in this Constitution. Such village Constitution may be amended or abolished in the same manner as provided for its adoption. 

Native Nations
Topics
Citation

The Hopi Tribe. 1936. "Constitution and By-Laws of the Hopi Tribe." Kykotsmovi, AZ. 

Hopi Tribe: Preamble Excerpt

Year

Preamble:

This Constitution, to be known as the Constitution and By-laws of the Hopi Tribe, is adopted by the self-governing Hopi and Tewa Villages of Arizona to provide a way of working together for peace and agreement between the villages, and of preserving the good things of Hopi life, and to provide a way of organizing to deal with modern problems, with the United States government and with the outside world generally.

Native Nations
Topics
Citation

The Hopi Tribe. 1936. "Constitution and By-Laws of the Hopi Tribe." Kykotsmovi, AZ. 

A Call to Action

Year

As Native peoples across the country celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Indian occupation of Alcatraz (1969-1971) this fall, many newspapers, magazines and networks are filing stories that attempt to assess both the event's immediate impact as well as its cultural legacy. While many of these stories center on the perspectives of occupation leaders like John Trudell -- who appropriately deemed the Alcatraz occupation "a rekindling of the spirit" for Native peoples -- few of these retrospectives delve into how the event transformed the lives of the many young people who took part in the occupation. The following first-person essay reflects the experiences of Sylvia Polacca (Hopi/Tewa/Havasupai), who as a young teen left her reservation to join the group that occupied the island of Alcatraz, the group that called itself "Indians of All Nations." The photos in this special section of RED INK depict daily life on the island during the occupation as seen through the eyes of Polacca...

Resource Type
Citation

Polacca, Sylvia. "A Call to Action." Red Ink: A Native American Student Publication. Vol. 8, No. 1. American Indian Studies Program, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 1999: 20-27. Article.

The Two-Plus-Two-Plus-Two Program: Building an Educational Bridge to the Future for the Youth of the Hopi Tribe from High School to College and Beyond

Year

Over the last 30 years, Native nations across North America have been taking control of their educational systems in the belief that American Indian “self-determination and local control [are] means of cultural preservation and growth.” Disturbed by the low achievement scores and high dropout rates of American Indian youth in schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and local public educational agencies, tribes have been finding ways to create tribally run schools. Recent federal legislation emphasizing a focus on standardization has created an increased incentive for local control over schools and curriculum as a means for developing culturally and community relevant systems while promoting achievement and respect for the traditions and identities of Native populations. For a deeply traditional and conservative society like the Hopi Tribe, autonomy and self-determination in education are the keys to guaranteeing modern success in both traditional and mainstream worlds. How the Hopi Tribe constructed its Two-Plus-Two-Plus-Two college transition program as a way of maintaining traditional ways of life, promoting academic excellence, and ensuring the development of qualified Hopi professionals returning to the reservation offers a model of sovereignty in action. 

Native Nations
Citation

Venegas, Kerry R. "The Two-Plus-Two-Plus-Two Program: Building an Educational Bridge to the Future for the Youth of the Hopi Tribe from High School to College and Beyond." Honoring Nations. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. November 2006. Case Study. 

Permissions

This Honoring Nations case study is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.