16
NOVEMBER 15, 2022
NATIVE
AMERICAN
WATCHLIST
Watchlist: ‘Welcome to Native
American Heritage Month 2021’
(Editor’s note: It is estimated that there are approximately 149
billion videos on YouTube, and the number continues to grow.
Grand Ronde Tribal member and Social Media/Digital Journalist
Kamiah Koch sifts through those myriad videos twice a month to
recommend a worthwhile Indigenous video to watch. Follow her
bimonthly recommendations and enjoy!)
Smoke Signals
White House slates
Tribal Nations Summit
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Biden White House will hold its second
Tribal Nations Summit on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at the Department of the
Interior.
The event will build on the 2021 summit and the progress made to
strengthen nation-to-nation relationships and invest record levels of re-
sources to Tribal communities, the White House said.
The summit will feature new administration announcements and efforts
to implement key policy initiatives supporting Tribal communities. It also
provides an opportunity for Tribal leaders to engage directly with officials
in the highest levels of the administration.
Started by the Obama administration, the Tribal Nations Summit was
not held during the four years of the Trump administration.
"We don't have to do it
all alone. We were
never meant to."
-Brene Brown
By Kamiah Koch
Social media/digital journalist
To honor Native American Heritage Month in 2021, the Sa-
lem-Keizer School District posted a video to its YouTube channel
with a Grand Ronde focus.
Salem-Keizer School District Superintendent Christy Perry and
Native Education Program Associate Shelby Maerz begin the video
by introducing what Native American Heritage Month is in front of
Grand Ronde’s Chachalu Museum.
“This month we are honoring the unique heritage and culture of
the Native American community,” Perry says. “Our district serves
more than 1,800 students who identify as American Indian/Alaskan
Native, and they represent more than 65 Tribes.”
Perry shares that the school district has a Native American Ed-
ucation Program that supports almost 700 families with learning
resources.
The video then switches to Grand Ronde Tribal member Seq’hiya
Simmons sharing a land acknowledgment.
“Land acknowledgments are a way to resist erasure of Indigenous
people and the land that we all live and learn on,” Simmons begins.
Simmon’s father, Grand Ronde Tribal member Kevin Simmons,
also shares a blessing in Chinuk Wawa and in English.
“The importance of a blessing – the importance of starting out this
way – is it provides us with an opportunity to align our hearts, our
minds and our spirits in the true value of Indigenous education,”
Kevin Simmons says.
Toward the end of the video, more Grand Ronde Tribal members
join to sing a song as a way to welcome the school district, its em-
ployees and its students on to ancestral Tribal lands.
You can watch the entire video for yourself at www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mAAPjRdjgSk or find it linked in the Watchlist playlist
on the Smoke Signals YouTube channel.
Mental Health Texts
iLAUNCH presents
!
On Fridays you will receive a message
about mental health, a social
emotional tip or a simple quote or
message of encouragement.
Text JOIN to
(971) 318-3459
Veterans, do you want to file for a service-connected disability?
This is all you need (the 3 legged-stool):
Link between the In-Service
Event and Current Diagnosis
To file a successful claim for
service-connection