Pine Ridge Indian Reservation – Page 3

NYTs Magazine: “Who Killed Anna Mae?”

April 25, 2014April 25, 2014Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here. An excerpt:

On Feb. 24, 1976, a rancher in South Dakota was installing a fence on land situated along the edge of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation when he spotted a body at the bottom of a 30-foot embankment. The badly decomposed corpse, in jeans and a maroon ski jacket, lay with knees pushed up toward chest. A coroner later determined that the woman had been dead for more than two months. The back of her head was matted with blood, and there was a single bullet wound at the base of her skull. She had been shot at close range.

NYTs Video Report on Impact of Sequestration at Pine Ridge

July 13, 2013July 13, 2013Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

Here.

Sen. Dorgan NYTs Op/Ed: “Broken Promises” Attacking Sequestration

July 11, 2013Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here. An excerpt:

Tribal leaders, parents and some inspiring children I’ve met make valiant efforts every day to overcome unemployment, endemic poverty, historical trauma and a lack of housing, educational opportunity and health care.

But these leaders and communities are once again being mistreated by a failed American policy, this time going under the ugly name “sequestration.” This ignorant budget maneuvering requires across-the-board spending cuts to the most important programs along with the least important. American Indian kids living in poverty are paying a very high price for this misguided abandonment of Congressional decision-making.

“Housing Crisis on the Rez”

May 21, 2013May 20, 2013Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here.

NYTs Op/Ed on the Possible Sale of Wounded Knee

April 12, 2013April 12, 2013Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here.

By Chief Joseph Brings Plenty, a former chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, teaches Lakota culture at the Takini School on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.

NPR StoryCorps on American Indian Adoption

January 11, 2013Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here.

Transcript:

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And it’s time now for StoryCorps, the project recording the stories of everyday Americans. And today, we’re going to hear from Diane Tells His Name. She’s a Lakota Indian. Growing up, she never knew anything about her heritage. She was adopted when she was a baby. And at StoryCorps, her daughter, Bonnie Buchanan, asks Diane about her childhood.

BONNIE BUCHANAN: When did you first feel like you were different?

DIANE TELLS HIS NAME: Probably elementary school. I had a younger sister, and I really didn’t like doing the same things that she would do. She would do tea parties and play with dolls and things like that, and I was outside looking at the clouds and the stars. And my sister was blond, tall and thin like my mother, and I was round and brown.

(LAUGHTER)

NAME: I remember going through the family albums, looking for my face in the old photographs, and I didn’t see me. And eventually, when I was 37 years old, I happened to see a picture of my mom in October of 1951 – and it shocked me, because I was born in November of 1951 – and my mother was not pregnant. So that’s when I knew that I was adopted.

BUCHANAN: How did you feel?

NAME: It was very satisfying to know that I wasn’t crazy. I didn’t blame them. I wasn’t angry with them. In 1951, you just didn’t talk about those things. So when I got my original birth certificate, it said on there my birth mother’s name, and it said that she was born at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

So I went to South Dakota to receive my Indian name and get a crash course in how to be Indian. After that, my husband and I told Indian Family Services we wanted to adopt a child from my tribe, a Lakota child. And, finally, they faxed us a picture of a little Indian child, and she was drinking chocolate syrup out of a Hershey’s bottle. And our son said, that’s her. That’s the one we need to adopt. And it was you.

I started doing research on your family, and when I started looking at your family tree, I saw one of my relatives on your paper. So we are cousins. I thought that was just – that was amazing. I’m glad you’re my baby.

BUCHANAN: I know. I’m glad you adopted me.

NAME: I am, too. It’s like our whole family was just planned out so that it would be best for all of us.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

INSKEEP: You can take a moment to collect yourself. That’s Bonnie Buchanan with her mom, Diane Tells His Name, at StoryCorps in San Francisco. Their story will be archived with thousands of others at the Library of Congress. The podcast is at npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.

Tim Giago on Reporters in and Around Pine Ridge

May 13, 2012May 13, 2012Adrea Korthase

The founder of the Native American Journalists Association discusses the way in which reporters have treated recent stories here.

ICT on the Keystone Oil Pipeline that May Cross Sioux Nation Territory

September 22, 2011September 22, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here. Additional coverage of the lobbying efforts of TransCanada in the Washington Post today.

Keystone XL Pipeline Map

Eighth Circuit Affirms Conviction of Pine Ridge Man who Shot through Grill of BIA Truck

June 30, 2011Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion in United States v. Wisecarver: Wiscarver CA8 Opinion.

An excerpt:

Marc Wisecarver fired a rifle shot through the front grill of a government owned pickup truck in the custody of a Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”) land assessor. After we vacated his initial conviction for depredation of government property, a second jury found him guilty of the same charge, and the district court sentenced him to 36 months’ imprisonment. We affirm the conviction and term of imprisonment, but we vacate three special conditions of supervised release and remand to the district court for an individualized assessment with respect to those special conditions.