Review: Dianne E Bechtel, "Review of Louellyn White Free to Be Mohawk"

Ph.D. Dissertations from Universities Around the World on Topics Relating to Indians in the Americas

Useful Websites

REVIEW OF LOUELLYN WHITE, FREE TO BE MOHAWK by Dianne E Bechtel, MFA, University of New Mexico

Free to be Mohawk: Indigenous Education at the Akwesasne Freedom School by Louellyn White, Assistant Professor, School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Published in 2015 by the University of Oklahoma Press with six chapters, extensive notes, and references. ISBN: 978-0-8061-4865-6

Louellyn White's book, Free to be Mohawk: Indigenous Education at the Akwesasne Freedom School, describes the ongoing issue of educational self-determination for the Mohawk community. White's book shows the possibility of educational reform, self-sufficiency, and future improvements that can be made through the restoration of language and culture. Education through language immersion necessarily requires a strong alternative to the traditional curriculum dictated by dominant culture. The dominant culture's ideological style of pedagogy, as White describes, has led to existential crisis and educational debilitation for the Mohawks and other indigenous groups. In addition to this historical problem, the Mohawk experience of education, its administration, and reform has been much more complicated than it has been for other tribes, setting up a key factor in White's research narrative. The Mohawks' Akwesasne territory straddles the United States and Canada, and they have had to deal with both governments in establishing their independence from educational paradigms that have not served their needs. This political impediment is described at length in order to show the blocks to educational self-determination that the Akwesasne Freedom School (AFS) has had to endure to survive. Politics set the stage for understanding the profound difficulties the Mohawks have encountered, and thus their remarkable story of persistence. White gets to the most interesting and important part of her book for all educators in Chapter 3, where she describes the indigenous model of holistic education, which must include the life and educational experiences of the whole person: the spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical

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Useful Web Sites
Environmental Web Sites

Indigenous Environmental Network serves as an Indigenous voice on environmental issues, at: http://www.ienearth.org/ .

UN NGO Climate Change Caucus , with numerous task forces, is at: http://climatecaucus.net.

On the Frontlines of Climate Change: A global forum for indigenous peoples, small islands and vulnerable communities can be subscribed to at: http://www.climatefrontlines.org/lists/?p=subscribe . See postings on the website at: http://www.climatefrontlines.org/en-GB/node/148.

350.org works around the world on climate change related issued, at: www.350.org.

Greenpeace engages on many environmental concerns, at: greenpeace.org/usa/ and greenpeace.org/.

Friends of the Earth is involved world wide in environmental advocacy, at: foei.org.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) works on a variety of environmental, as well as other, issues, at: www.ucsusa.org.

Environmental Action is active on numerous environmental issue, at: environmental-action.org.

Environment America works on environmental issue in the U.S. at: https://environmentamerica.webaction.org.

Food and Water Watch is active on a variety of issues relating to water and food, at: https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org and https://secure.foodandwaterwatch.org .

The Wilderness Society works on environmental issues, particularly concerning preserving "wild places." at: wilderness.org.

Ocean River Institute works on river and other water issue, at: oceanriver.org.

The National Wildlife Federation, at: nwf.org, and The National Wildlife Federation Action Fund, at: https://online.nwf.org/site/SPageNavigator/ActionCenter, are concerned with environmental issues involving wildlife in the U.S.

The Nuclear Information and Resource Service includes in its work nuclear environmental issues, at: nirs.org.

The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) includes in its concerns environmental issues relating to U.S. national parks , at: npca,org and https://secure.npca.org/

Earth Policy Institute, dedicated to building a sustainable future as well as providing a plan of how to get from here to there: www.earthpolicy.org.

Wiser Earth lists more than 10,700 environmental and environmental justice organizations at: http://www.wiserearth.org/organization/

Earthwatch, the world's largest environmental volunteer organization, founded in 1971, works globally to help the people of the planet volunteer realize a sustainable environment: http://www.earthwatch.org/.

Avaaz.org works internationally on environmental and peace and justice issues: http://www.avaaz.org .

The Environmental Defense Fund works on a variety of environmental issues and policy, including global warming induced climate change, primarily in the U.S.: http://edf.org.

Earthjustice focuses on environmental issues and action: http://action.earthjustice.org.

The Sierra Club works on environmental issues in the United States: http://action.sierraclub.org.

SaveOurEnvironemnt.org , a coalition of environmental organizations acting politically in the U.S.: http://ga3.org/campaign/0908_endangered_species/xuninw84p7m8mxxm .

The National Resources Defense Council works on a variety of environmental issues in the U.S.: NRhttp://www.nrdconline.org/

Care 2 is concerned about a variety of issues, including the environment: http://www.care2.com/.

Rainmakers Oceania studies possibilities for restoring the natural environment and humanity's rightful place in it, at: http://rainmakers-ozeania.com/0annexanchorc/about-rainmakers.html.

Green Ships , in fall 2008, was is asking Congress to act to speed the development of new energy efficient ships that can take thousands of trucks off Atlantic and Pacific Coast highways, moving freight up and down the costs with far less carbon emissions and more cheaply: http://www.greenships.org.

Carbon Fund Blog carries climate change news, links to green blogs, and a green resource list, at: http://carbonfund.blogspot.com/2008/03/sky-is-falling.html . Carbon Fund is certifying carbon free products at: http://www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/businesses/category/CarbonFree .

Grist carries environmental news and commentary : http://www.grist.org/news/,

Green Inc . is a new blog from The New York Times devoted to energy and the environment at: greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com.

Planting Peace is, "A Resource Center for news and activities that seek to build a powerful coalition to bring about cooperation and synergy between the peace movement, the climate crisis movement, and the organic community ." Their web site includes extensive links to organizations, articles, videos and books that make the connections, at: http://organicconsumers.org/plantingpeace/index.cfm , Planting Peace is sponsored by the Organic Consumers Association: http://organicconsumers.org/.

The Global Climate Change Campaign : http://www.globalclimatecampaign.org/ .

The Audubon Society reports on and works on issues focused on birds, at: audubon.org .

Peace & Security Funding Index: An Analysis of Global Foundation Grantmaking is available at: http://peaceandsecurityindex.org.

The center for defense information now carries regular reports on Global Warming & International Security at: http://www.cdi.org.

CELANEN: A Journal of Indigenous Governance is produced by the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Victoria, at: http://web.uvic.ca/igov/research/journal/index.htm. CELANEN (pronounced CHEL-LANG-GEN) is a Saanich word for "our birthright, our ancestry, sovereignty" and sets the tone for this annual publication containing articles, poetry, and commentary.

Native Research Network is now at: www.nativeresearchnetwork.org . Its vision statement is: "A leadership community of American Indian, Alaska Native, Kanaka Maoli, and Canadian Aboriginal persons promoting integrity and excellence in research". Its mission is "To provide a pro-active network of American Indian, Alaska Native, Kanaka Maoli, and Canadian Aboriginal persons to promote and advocate for high quality research that is collaborative, supportive and builds capacity, and to promote an environment for research that operates on the principles of integrity, respect, trust, ethics, cooperation and open communication in multidisciplinary fields". The Native Research Network (NRN) provides networking and mentoring opportunities, a forum to share research expertise, sponsorship of research events, assistance to communities and tribes, and enhanced research communication. The NRN places a special emphasis on ensuring that research with Indigenous people is conducted in a culturally sensitive and respectful manner. Its Member List serve: NRN@lists.apa.org.

The American Journal of Indigenous Studies is a quarterly journal by the American Scholarly Research Association (ASRA), at: www.ASRAresearch.or.

The Enduring Legacies Native Cases In itiative began in 2006 as a partnership between The Evergreen State College, Northwest Indian College, Salish Kootenai College, and Grays Harbor College. Our goal is to develop and widely disseminate culturally relevant curriculum and teaching resources in the form of case studies on key issues in Indian Country: http://nativecases.evergreen.edu/about.html.

The National Indian Housing Council offers a number of reports at: http://www.naihc.indian.com/.

The American Indian Studies Consortium is at: http://www.cic.uiuc.edu/programs/AmericanIndianStudiesConsortium/.

Some news sources that have been useful in putting the issues of Indigenous Policy together are:

For reports of U.S. government legislation, agency action, and court decisions: Hobbs, Straus, Dean and Walker, LLP, 2120 L Street NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037, http://www.hobbsstraus.com .

Indian Country Today : http://www.indiancountry.com/index.cfm?key=15.

News from Indian Country : http://www.indiancountrynews.com/.

The Navajo Times : http://www.navajotimes.com/ .

IndianZ.com: http://www.indianz.com .

Pechanga Net: http://www.pechanga.net/NativeNews.html

Survival International: http://www.survival-international.org/.

Cultural Survival : http://209.200.101.189/publications/win/ , or http://www.cs.org/ .

Censored (in Indian Country): http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/.

ArizonaNativeNet is a virtual university outreach and distance learning telecommunications center devoted to the higher educational needs of Native Nations in Arizona, the United States and the world through the utilization of the worldwide web and the knowledge-based and technical resources and expertise of the University of Arizona, providing resources for Native Nations nation-building, at: www.arizonanativenet.com

The Forum for 'friends of Peoples close to Nature ' is a movement of groups and individuals, concerned with the survival of Tribal peoples and their culture, in particular hunter-gatherers: http://ipwp.org/how.html .

Tebtebba (Indigenous Peoples' International Centre for Policy Research and Education ), with lists of projects and publications, and reports of numerous Indigenous meetings: http://www.tebtebba.org/ .

Andre Cramblit ( andrekar@ncidc.org) has begun a new Native news blog continuing his former Native list serve to provide information pertinent to the American Indian community . The blog contains news of interest to Native Americans, Hawaiian Natives and Alaskan Natives. It is a briefing of items that he comes across that are of broad interest to American Indians. News and action requests are posted as are the occasional humorous entry. The newsletter is designed to inform you, make you think and keep a pipeline of information that is outside the mainstream media. "I try and post to it as often as my schedule permits I scan a wide range of sources on the net to get a different perspective on Native issues and try not to post stuff that is already posted on multiple sources such as websites or other lists". To subscribe to go to: http://andrekaruk.posterous.com/ .

Sacred Places Convention For Indigenous Peoples provides resources for protecting sacred places world wide. Including, news, journals, books and publishing online Weekly News and providing an E-mail list serve, as well as holding conferences. For information go to: http://www.indigenouspeoplesissues.com .

Mark Trahant Blog, Trahant Reports , is at: http://www.marktrahant.org/marktrahant.org/Mark_Trahant.html

UANativeNet, formerly Arizona NativeNet, is a resource of topics relevant to tribal nations and Indigenous Peoples, particularly on matters of law and governance.

The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development offers a number of reports and its "Honoring Indian Nations" at:  http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied/res_main.htm .

The Seventh generation Fund online Media Center : www.7genfund.org

Native Earthworks Preservation , an organization committed to preserving American Indian sacred sites, is at: http://nativeearthworkspreservation.org/ .

Indianz.Com has posted Version 2.0 of the Federal Recognition Database, an online version of the Acknowledgment Decision Compilation (ADC), a record of documents that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has on file for dozens of groups that have made it through the federal recognition process. The ADC contains over 750 MB of documents -- up from over 600MB in version 1.2 -- that were scanned in and cataloged by the agency's Office of Federal Acknowledgment. The new version includes has additional documents and is easier to use. It is available at: http://www.indianz.com/adc20/adc20.html .

Tribal Link has an online blog at: http://triballinknewsonline.blogspot.com .

The National Indian Education Association : http://www.niea.org/ .

Climate Frontlines is a global forum for indigenous peoples, small islands and vulnerable communities, running discussions, conferences and field projects: http://www.climatefrontlines.org/ .

Cry of the Native Refugee web site, http://cryofthenativerefugee.com, is dedicated to "The True Native American History."

First Peoples World Wide, focuses "on funding local development projects in Indigenous communities all over the world while creating bridges between our communities and corporations, governments, academics, NGOs and investors in their regions. We facilitate the use of traditional Indigenous knowledge in solving today's challenges, including climate change, food security, medicine, governance and sustainable development:" http://firstpeoples.org

The RaceProject has a Facebook Page that is a forum for the dissemination and discussion of contemporary Race and Politics issues. It includes a continuing archive of news stories, editorial opinion, audio, video and pointed exchanges between academics, graduate students and members of the lay-public. Those interested can visit and sign up to the page at: http://www.facebook.com/RaceProject.

Rainmakers Oceania studies possibilities for restoring the natural environment and humanity's rightful place in it, at: http://rainmakers-ozeania.com/0annexanchorc/about-rainmakers.html .

Oxfam America's interactive website: http://adapt.oxfamamerica.org shows how social vulnerability and climate variability impact each county in the U.S. Southwest region. The methodology exposes how social vulnerability, not science, determines the human risk to climate change.

The International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management is at: http://tinyurl.com/yaykznz.

The Newberry Library received a grant in August, 2007, from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund " Indians of the Midwest and Contemporary Issues." The McNickle Center will construct this multimedia website designed to marry the Library's rich collections on Native American history with state-of-the art interactive web capabilities to reveal the cultural and historical roots of controversial issues involving Native Americans today. These include conflicts over gaming and casinos, fishing and hunting rights, the disposition of Indian artifacts and archeological sites, and the use of Indian images in the media. In addition to historical collections, the site will also feature interviews with contemporary Native Americans, interactive maps, links to tribal and other websites, and social networking. For more information contact Céline Swicegood, swicegoodc@newberry.org.

The site www.pressdisplay.com has scanned and searchable versions of thousands of newspapers daily from around the world . These are not truncated "online versions". You can view the actually pages of the paper published for that day. There are also 100's of US papers included daily. The service also allows you to set search terms or search particular papers daily. The service will also translate papers into English.

Native Voice Network (NVN: www.NativeVoiceNetwork.org), is a national alliance of Organizations interested in collaborative advocacy on issues impacting Native people locally and nationally.

The Northern California Indian Development Council has a web-based archive of traditional images and sounds at : http://www.ncidc.org/ .

Resource sites in the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) : National Indian Child Welfare
Association: http://www.nicwa.org, offers include publications, a library, information packets, policy information and research. NICWA's Publication Catalog is at: Http://www.nicwa.org/resources/catalog/index.asp ' Information Packets are at:
http://www.nicwa.org/resources/infopackets/index.asp . Online ICWA Courses are at: http://www.nicwa.org/services/icwa/index.asp . The Indian Child Welfare Act: An Examination of State Compliance , from the Casey Foundation is at: http://www.casey.org/Resources/Publications/NICWAComplianceInArizona.htm . Tribal Court
Clearinghouse ICWA Pages, with a brief review of ICWA and links to many valuable resources including Federal agencies and Native organizations. http://www.tribal-institute.org/lists/icwa.htm . Other resource sources are: the Indian Law Resource
Center: www.indianlaw.org, the National Indian Justice Center: www.nijc.indian.com . Other sites can be found through internet search engines such as Google.
Some research web sites for ICWA include: http://www.calindian.org/legalcenter_icwa.htm , http://www.narf.org/nill/resources/indianchildwelfare.htm , http://www.tribal-institute.org/lists/icwa.htm , http://www.nicwa.org/library/library.htm , http://www.nationalcasa.org/JudgesPage/Newsletter-4-04.htm , http://www.dlncoalition.org/dln_issues/2003_icwaresolution.htm , http://www.helpstartshere.org/Default.aspx?PageID=401 , http://cbexpress.acf.hhs.gov/articles.cfm?section_id=2&issue_id=2001-0, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?i104:I04296:i104HUGHES.html , http://nccrest.edreform.net/resource/13704 , http://www.naicja.org ,
http://www.tribal-institute.org/ .

Tribal College Journal (TCJ) provides to news related to American Indian higher education: tribalcollegejournal.org .

American Indian Graduate Center : http://www.aigcs.org.

The Minneapolis American Indian Center's Native Path To Wellness Project of the Golden Eagle Program has developed a publication, Intergenerational Activities from a Native American Perspective that has been accepted by Penn State for their Intergenerational Web site: http://intergenerational.cas.psu.edu/Global.html .

The Indigenous Nations and Peoples Law, Legal Scholarship Journal has recently been created on line by the Social Science Research Network, with sponsorship by the
Center for Indigenous Law, Governance & Citizenship at Syracuse University College of Law. Subscription to the journal is free, by clicking on: http://hq.ssrn.com/ .

The National Council Of Urban Indian Health is at: http://www.ncuih.org/ .

A web site dedicated to tribal finance, www.tribalfinance.org .

Lessons In Tribal Sovereignty , at: http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~go1/kellogg/intro.html , features Welcome to American Indian Issues: An Introductory and Curricular Guide for Educators. The contents were made possible by the American Indian Civics Project (AICP), a project initially funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Native American Higher Education Initiative, The primary goal of the AICP is to provide educators with the tools to educate secondary students - Indian and non-Native alike - about the historical and contemporary political, economic, and social characteristics of sovereign tribal nations throughout the United States.

The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) has a blog as part of its Celilo Legacy project, serving as a clearinghouse for public discourse, information, events, activities, and memorials. The blog is accessible by going to www.critfc.org and clicking on the "Celilo Legacy blog" image, or by simply entering: www.critfc.org/celilo .

The Coeur d'Alene Tribe of Idaho has Rezkast, a Web site of Native affairs and culture at: www.rezkast.com.

A listing of the different Alaska Native groups' values and other traditional information is on the Alaska Native Knowledge website  at: www.ankn.uaf.edu .

Red Nation Web Television: www.rednation.com .

A list of Indigenous Language Conferences is kept at the Teaching Indigenous Languages web site at Northern Arizona University: http://www2.nau.edu/jar/Conf.html .

UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger is at http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?pg=00206 . For a detailed cautionary note about the usefulness of the UNESCO Atlas, see Peter K. Austin's comments. He is the Marit Rausing chair in field linguistics and director of linguistics at SOAS in the UK: http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/elac/2009/02/unescos_atlas_of_the_worlds_la_1.htm

The Council of Elders, the governing authority of the Government Katalla-Chilkat Tlingit (provisional government): Kaliakh Nation (Region XVII) has initiated a web site in order to expose crimes against humanity committed upon the original inhabitants of Alaska, at: http://www.katalla-chilkat-tlingit.com/.

An interactive website, www.cherokee.org/allotment , focuses on the Allotment Era in Cherokee History during the period from 1887 to 1934 , when Congress divided American Indian reservation lands into privately owned parcels that could be (and widely were) sold to non Indians, threatening tribal existence.

The Blue Lake Rancheria of California launched a web site, Fall 2007, featuring the nation's history, philosophy, economic enterprise, community involvement, and other topics, with many-links. One purpose of the site is to make tribal operations transparent. It is at: www.bluelakerancheria-nsn.gov.

UN Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues: www.un.org/indigenous , The newsletter Message Stick highlighting the activities of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) and its Secretariat 05 is available at: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/news/quarterlynewsle_home1.htm .

Indigenous Rights Quarterly can be accessed at: http://www.aitpn.org/irq.htm .

NGO Society for Threatened Peoples International , in consultative status to the United Nations ECOSOC, and in participatory status with the Council of Europe, Indigenous Peoples Department, USA: http://www.gfbv.de .

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO): http://www.unpo.org/ .

The Native Studies Research Network, UK, University of East Anglia, Norwich is at: http://www.nsrn-uk.org/.

The World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC) and its Journal are online at: http://www.win-hec.org/. (See the Ongoing Activities Section for more on WINHEC). The WINHEC site includes links to other Indigenous organizations and institutions.

A link on Latin American Indigenous Peoples: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/LACEXT/0,,contentMDK:20505834~menuPK:258559~pagePK:146736~piPK:226340~theSitePK:258554,00.html

The Asian Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Network produces occasional papers and reports at: http://www.aitpn.org/Issues/II-08-07.htm.