Thursday, August 30, 2018
OFF PAGE ONE
EDUCATING: ‘American Indian is a political subset of the U.S. population’
Page 8A
East Oregonian
Continued from 1A
ber, he told them, who each
day have to balance their
lives as citizens of the
United States of America
and members of American
Indian tribes.
Bevis said during a brief
break that some of the stu-
dents will take something
away from the program
and others not so much.
But maybe sometime when
they hear something about
American Indians, this day
will make them think.
“But at least they hear
it,” he said.
Students also prac-
ticed with an atlatl, a
spear-throwing tool tribal
people once used to bring
down game. Tamástslikt
collection curator Randall
Melton guided them in the
use of the device, which
uses leverage to launch the
spear at a greater veloc-
ity, just as the sport jai alai
uses the hand-held “cesta”
to throw balls at more than
100 mph.
The goal Wednesday was
to stick spears into a couple
of hay stacks, which proved
easier said than done.
Melton asked students to
imagine using the atlatl to
bring down live, moving
game. The upshot, he said,
was tribal people had the
time to put in the practice to
become proficient.
Following a hot dog
lunch, the students heard
from Chuck Sams, com-
munications director for the
tribes, who spoke on the
political history of Ameri-
can Indians. “Native Amer-
ican,” he said, is an eth-
nic group, but “American
Indian” is in the United
States Constitution.
“American Indian is a
political subset of the U.S.
population,” Sams told
them, and that comes with
consequences, such as laws
that apply to American
Indians but not to the rest of
the population.
For example, he said,
Oregon had a law requiring
American Indians traveling
through Salem to call the
Capitol and let people know
they were in town. Sams
said he did that in the 1990s
and when the staff finally
asked why, he said because
it was the law. That and
similar laws allowed the
government to track Amer-
ican Indians, Sams said.
Oregon finally dropped the
law in the early 2000s.
He also explained how
tribal values inform their
way of life. Western values,
he said, hold that a person
Staff photo by Kathy Aney
High school athletes, from teams that play Nixyaawii, get some insight on tribal his-
tory and beliefs from CTUIR Communications Director Chuck Sams on Wednesday
at the longhouse.
has unlimited wants and
limited resources, while
tribal values hold a per-
son has limited wants and
unlimited resources. That
means wanting good air,
clean water, abundant food
and timber.
“This mindset is what
has allowed us to survive
and thrive on this land for
thousands of years,” Sams
said.
Kelly Foster is the asso-
ciate director of the Oregon
School Activities Associa-
tion and also manages the
state’s Class 1A high school
basketball tournament in
Baker City. She said Noisey
told her about the cultural
experiment and it piqued
her interest.
“This was kind of the
perfect spot to start this,”
she said.
Educational opportuni-
ties for students to broaden
their minds are good, she
said, and this program
could serve as a model for
other schools, including in
Washington, where Herm-
iston now competes.
Anika McDonald is a
sophomore at Imbler High
School and plays basket-
ball, volleyball and golf.
She had little knowledge
of the tribal experience,
she said, so the day was a
boon to her education. She
also said some of the little
details of life on the reser-
vation were interesting.
“I never knew they had
sweat houses in their back
yards,” she said.
McDonald said see-
ing the tribe’s way of liv-
ing revealed differences but
also plenty of similarities to
build relationships on.
Noisey said that was the
aim Wednesday, and the
program could continue,
involving other schools and
communities.
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0833.
“I never knew they had sweat houses in their back yards”
— Anika McDonald, sophmore at Imbler High School
HOUSING: ‘The demographic of south county — it’s an aging population’
Continued from 1A
development, but they want
to be conscientious of how
to balance it.”
She said the planning
commission acknowledged
those were concerns that
may need to be addressed
down the road, but seven
of the nine commission-
ers voted in favor of the
development.
McLane said there has
been some growth in the
northern part of the county,
both in and out of city
limits.
“I’ve been here 17 years
and have probably seen
half a dozen subdivisions
approved and built,” she
said.
But she added that many
of those subdivisions are
reaching full capacity now.
“I think (Gala Springs)
will begin to meet this next
set of demands,” she said.
She said they have not
yet found a developer
for the land, and that it’s
unlikely there will be any
construction on the site
until spring.
A 120-unit apartment
complex being built in
Boardman, McLane said,
may soon pave the way for
more housing within city
limits.
“Depending on how
quickly that fills up, they
have another phase planned,
another 120 units,” she said.
McLane said as the
north end of the county has
attracted business, the south
end has struggled, both with
jobs and with housing.
“The demographic of
south county — it’s an
aging population,” she said.
She noted that the area
saw a lot of foreclosures
between 2007 and 2009,
and there has been a push to
get those homes back on the
market.
She added that in the
past 20 years or so, there
have been two subdivisions
built in Ione, but even those
are almost at capacity. Geo-
graphical concerns such
as hillier terrain, she said,
make the south end of the
county more challenging
for finding buildable lots,
as well.
“People
are
figur-
ing it out, but it’s hard to
find places to live in south
county,” she said.
McLane said the plan-
ning commission will
launch its Buildable Lands
Inventory and Housing
Analysis in early Septem-
ber. Those involved in the
project will collect data
about potential residential
land throughout the county.
All five incorporated cit-
ies will participate, and
the project should be com-
pleted by March 2019.
“We have lots of anec-
dotal information, but this is
much bigger and broader,”
McLane said.
———
Contact
Jayati
Ramakrishnan
at
jra-
makrishnan@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4534.
BIGFOOT: Database shows one
reported sighting for Morrow County
Continued from 1A
“If all of a sudden I was
face-to-face with the big
guy,” she speculated, “I
might be freaking out a lit-
tle bit.”
The
Bigfoot
Field
Research
Organization
claims to be the only scien-
tific research organization
delving into the mystery.
The BFRO collects reports
of encounters and publishes
that information on its web-
site. The organization’s most
recent report of an encounter
in Oregon was in September
2017 near Dufur in Wasco
County, when archery hunt-
ers heard a “loud whoop-type
sound” several times. Big-
foot researchers and believ-
ers assert Bigfoot makes
whoops, yowls and screams.
Clackamas County earns
the top Bigfoot encounter
area with 27 in the organi-
zation’s database. Josephine
County comes in second
with 21 and Douglas is third
with 17. Umatilla and Lane
are next with 16 sightings
each.
Umatilla County seemed
to have a spike in encounters
and sightings in the 1990s.
The most recent in the data-
base happened in Novem-
ber 2012, when locals heard
strange shrieks near Mis-
sion on the Umatilla Indian
Reservation.
The database has one
sighting for Morrow County.
Two men in March of 1995
reported they were driv-
ing in the dark eastbound on
Interstate 84 near Boardman
when the driver swerved to
avoid hitting a possible juve-
nile Bigfoot.
Howland said her inter-
ests have grown in the para-
normal and cryptozoology
— the study of unknown ani-
mals but not an actual sci-
ence. Her sister is the co-cre-
ator of the podcast “The
Caravan, The Library of
Lore,” which explores the
paranormal, and Howland
has been on that a couple of
times. She attended a few
hours of the Bigfoot confer-
ence last year and said she
found the speakers and their
theories interesting, includ-
ing Thomas Sewid of Vic-
toria, British Columbia, a
Canadian First Nations mem-
ber who spoke of his tribe’s
legends about Dzunukwa, a
type of wild woman of the
woods, and her relation to
myths of Bigfoot.
Howland said she enjoyed
the experience and wished
she could have stayed longer
and mingled a bit.
“I’m hoping I can connect
with a couple of people this
year and kind of chat,” she
said.
If this year’s conference
attendance resembles the
previous, finding someone
for a like-minded conver-
sation will not be nearly as
much effort as tracking down
a Bigfoot.
You can find out more
about the conference here:
https://www.international-
bigfootconference.com/
———
Contact Phil Wright at
pwright@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0833.
Firefighters who speak Spanish
struggle with training translations
By EMILY CURETON
Associated Press
PORTLAND (AP) —
Oscar Miranda spends about
100 nights a year in a tent.
“Mi casa,” he explained.
“I have a little cot, so I don’t
sleep on the ground.”
Miranda has been a wild-
land firefighter his entire
adult life. At 34, he’s the
boss of a crew that hikes into
forests too steep and dan-
gerous for fire engines to
reach. They work with hand
tools to dig up burning logs
and put out hidden embers.
And most of the crew speaks
Spanish.
“When I do my briefings,
I have to give them bilin-
gual. I know who I can talk
to in Spanish, and I know
who I can talk to in English,”
Miranda said.
His career started around
the time the government
developed bilingual certifi-
cations for crew bosses like
him, and training courses in
Spanish for the rank-and-file
firefighters he supervises.
But two years ago, the
National Wildfire Coordi-
nating Group stopped offer-
ing course materials in
Spanish. It said they were
out-of-date, and there wasn’t
enough demand to redo the
translations.
But leaders from private
contractors that fight fires
disagree.
“We’re like, ‘What the
hell. This is a safety issue,’”
said Dillon Sanders, presi-
dent of the Oregon Firefight-
ing Contractors Association.
He said the end of Span-
ish-language course offer-
ings blindsided them.
“We weren’t notified. We
went to order the material
and it wasn’t available,” he
said.
Sanders said the trade
association is preparing to do
the translations itself.
And to some firefighting
instructors, the materials are
essential. Jaime Pickering
works for MQ Franco, one of
the largest Hispanic-owned
contractors in the Northwest.
He trains about 500 new fire-
fighters every year; the vast
majority speak Spanish as
their first language.
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