Library:Speaking of Indigenous Politics

Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations With Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders
Author	J. Kēhaulani Kauanui
First published	2018

The interview with Jean M. O'Brien was previously published as "Settler Logics and Writ- ing Indians Out of Existence: A Conversation between J. Kehaulani Kauanui and Jean M. O'Brien," special issue on settler colonialism for Politica & Società, Michele Spanò, guest ed- itor (June 2012): 259-78. The interview with Patrick Wolfe was previously published as "Set- tler Colonialism Then and Now: A Conversation between J. Kehaulani Kauanui and Patrick Wolfe," special issue on settler colonialism for Politica & Società, Michele Spanò, guest editor (June 2012): 235-58. Reprinted with permission.

In memory of Gale Courey Toensing (1946-2018), a Connecticut-based journalist of Palestinian and Lebanese descent who was an outstanding staff reporter for Indian Country Today. Her friendship and significant work covering Indigenous issues in Native North America were instructive and continue to inspire me.

Foreword

Robert Warrior

Though you won't hear it said directly in the interviews collected here from

J. Kehaulani Kauanui's radio show Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond, one way to read this book is as an Indigenous subversion of one of the basic tools of settler-colonial intervention, scholarship, and even entertain- ment. From police and military interrogation to social and behavioral scientific research to sensationalistic journalistic or travelogues, interviewing-too often of rude and invasive imposition-is central to the exercise of the power of white- ness over Native peoples and the places they inhabit.

    Kauanui fights back against those centuries of imposition by showing that a recorded conversation around prepared questions can break its own mold to become something else. She's far from the first Indigenous interviewer to use the form in this way, but the conversations collected here are especially successful at demonstrating that it's possible to achieve the kind of scholarly and intellectual subversion of which Indigenous thinkers so often speak.

    Kauanui harnessed that subversive energy at a particularly opportune mo- ment, just as international Indigenous politics was coming to a critical juncture with the adoption, in 2007, of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The emergence of global Indigenous studies as a field be- came possible due to, among other things, the development of the Native Amer- ican and Indigenous Studies Association, for which Kauanui and I served on the founding steering committee, acting council, and elected council from 2005 to 2012. Kauanui's radio show is an invaluable chronicle of that crucial period in the intellectual and political life of the Indigenous world. Among her guests are many of the leading figures in global Indigenous studies, including Aileen Moreton-Robinson, Steven Salaita, and Margo Tamez, among many others.

    The interviews from Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Be- yond remain lively reading, though not just because of a happy coincidence of timing. I want to suggest three factors that imbue them with energy that makes them compelling years later. First, Kauanui clearly becomes masterful at the art

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of the broadcast interview over the life of her show. Along with her interview of me in this book, I've been an interviewee many times for a broad range of radio and television shows, and I can say with some authority that being a good interviewer requires much more than being a raconteur with a quality recording deck and a good Rolodex. Amid the deeply informed questions and sometimes playful back-and-forth in the interviews in this volume, what we can't see is Kau- anui looking ahead at the next question and the next segment, getting ready for a news break or a station identification, and checking sound levels all while keeping an eye on the clock and making notes about any glitches that can be fixed through editing.

    Those things we can't see are part of the magic of radio, its artifice. The fact that in this case the host is also the producer, director, and sound engineer rolled into one behind this aural veil makes that artifice even more impressive. (Another part of the artifice is that the guests sound like they might be sitting in a quiet studio with the host when in fact they are almost always joining the conversation by phone and could very well be wearing pajamas or some other form of loungewear, which is why I love doing radio-but I digress.) The art of the interview, especially for a solo host/producer like Kauanui, is wrapped up in keeping up with the technical aspects while managing simultaneously to keep a high-level conversation moving along seamlessly. Even though the interviews published here come from the radio, they carry with them on the page the cool vibe of the easy (natural) but revealing conversation that one associates with Playboy, Rolling Stone, and, of course, Interview.

    The second factor that gives these interviews such long-lasting impact is the high level of knowledge about so many different places and fields of scholarship Kauanui brings to them. Listening to Kauanui having a detailed conversation with Aileen Moreton-Robinson, for instance, about the military intervention by Australian armed forces that was happening in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territories in Australia in 2007 is much more meaningful than a lec- ture or prepared talk on the topic. It matters, in other words, that the host of the show knows enough about what is happening halfway around the world to be able to create a meaningful context for dialogue. The same is true for interviews that focus on South America, Palestine, or Florida.

    Factor three has to do with the way Kauanui manages to highlight local and regional Indigenous communities in the midst of a global agenda, which leads us back to the idea of subversion that I started with. The name of the show, Indige- nous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond, is, in fact, a statement of an ethical imperative that provides a fundamental grounding to the show even as it also embraces a global agenda. At the beginning of each show, Kauanui remind- ed listeners that she was speaking from the homelands of the Wangunk people, and she returned often to stories and people from the region. In this, the show is itself a lesson in how to practice recognizing the fundamental truth that every inch of the Americas is Indigenous territory.

Foreword    xi

    What I loved about the show and what I appreciate about these interviews today is how they provide us as listeners and readers with a guide to how to act on the Indigenous ethical imperative of starting where you are. That imperative can seem daunting, especially when you are starting out. In the end, though, the way to build success will involve some version of what you see happening in these interviews: You have to get into conversations with people about what's happening in their communities. To do that, you are going to have to do some reading and some preparation to learn something about the people you are try- ing to be in conversation with. That reading and preparation might very well require you to develop some expertise you don't already have.

    Let me end by pointing out the very first thing that this Indigenous ethical imperative is going to demand, which is this: regardless of whom in the Indige- nous world you are talking to and where you are hoping to make an impact, the first thing you should do is take a good look around and figure out where you are. Whether or not that sounds simple or complicated, do yourself a favor and read these interviews for a great example of how to start from where you are.

Introduction

Indigenous Politics from Native New England and Beyond

The state of Native and Indigenous political resurgence and resistance in this twenty-first century moment is exciting and has much to teach the rest of the world. We can see this in the ongoing #NoDAPL struggle to stop the Dako- ta Access Pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who led this effort is guid- ed by the principle of "Mni wiconi": "Water is life." We have also witnessed a fierce stance in the battle over the Thirty Meter Telescope at Mauna a Wakea on Hawai'i Island, a $1.4 billion project for an eighteen-story observatory on the summit that Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) consider sacred. Calling out to "Ku Kia'i Mauna," Kanaka Maoli protectors have taken up the struggle to guard the mountain. Both are cases of Indigenous resistance to extractive economies, rampant capitalism, and militarized violence and involve thousands of Indig- enous individuals and diverse allies lending their support and solidarity. And in December 2017, Trump announced he would reduce the size of Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah-a site sacred to Indigenous peoples in the region-in order to open it up for mining. Leading the resistance, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition-launched by the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, and the Ute Indian Tribe-has amassed the support of thirty tribal nations with ancestral, historical, and contemporary ties to the Bears Ears region committed to protecting the site and advancing their own Bears Ears conservation proposal. While these struggles eventually gained some mainstream media attention, most Indigenous peoples' activism is too often invisible to the dominant, settler-colonial society. This underscores the importance of independent media in making visible the diverse struggles and forms of resistance.

    In February 2007, I launched a public-affairs radio show called Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond at WESU, a radio station affili- ated with Wesleyan University, where I teach.1 The use of "Native New England and Beyond" in the subtitle of the program was a political decision, part of my commitment to support the struggles of Indigenous peoples of the region as well

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as to cover those issues in relation to global Indigenous struggles "beyond." I featured interviews with nearly two hundred Indigenous officials, political lead- ers, activists, scholars, cultural workers, and artists about a range of topics docu- menting Native resistance to settler colonialism. The thirty interviews included here are just a slice of the vast audio archive.2 One of the aims of Indigenous Pol- itics was to address the politics of erasure. Notably, the conversations the radio show produced were themselves a political act against that ongoing violence and the logic of elimination endemic to settler colonialism.

    Patrick Wolfe contrasts settler colonialism with franchise colonialism- through comparative work focused on Australia, Israel-Palestine, and the Unit- ed States-showing how the former is premised on the logic of elimination of Indigenous peoples.3 As Wolfe theorized, and as he discussed in his interview included here, because settler colonialism "destroys to replace," it is "inherently eliminatory but not invariably genocidal."4 He was careful to point out that there are cases of genocide without settler colonialism and that, in the context of set- tler colonialism, "elimination refers to more than the summary liquidation of Indigenous peoples, though it includes that."5 Hence, he suggested that structur- al genocide avoids the question of degree and enables an understanding of the relationships between spatial removal, mass killings, and biocultural assimila- tion. In other words, the logic of elimination of the Native is also about the elim- ination of the Native as Native. Because settler colonialism is a land-centered project entailing permanent settlement, Wolfe says, "settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event."6 As a result, settler colonialism cannot be relegated to the past; it is an ongoing process. Importantly, indigeneity is a counterpart analytic to settler colonialism, and indigeneity itself is enduring; hence the operative logic of settler colonialism may be to "eliminate the Native," but Indigenous peoples exist, resist, and persist. Moreover, settler colonialism is a structure that endures indigeneity, even as it holds out against it.7

    Wesleyan University, and its listener-supported radio station WESU, are lo- cated in Middletown, Connecticut. The Indigenous place-name is Mattabesset, and the Indigenous people of the land are the Wangunk, part of the Algonquin cultural-linguistic group. Although regarded as largely "extinct" prior to the American Revolution, Wangunks continue to live into the twenty-first century. This is a little-known history-one submerged within a landscape overdeter- mined by settler colonialism. The history of erasure of this place and its original inhabitants is common not just in Middletown but throughout the Northeast. When I first moved to Connecticut from California in 2000, I wanted to find out who the people of the land in the place we call Middletown are. I called the city council and asked, but was told there were none, and my asking was not taken kindly to.8 Others I asked mentioned the Mashantucket Pequots and the Mohegans-the only two federally recognized tribes in Connecticut, both better known in some part due to their casinos, Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun, respectively.

    It wasn't long before I caught wind of the anti-Indian initiatives emanat- ing from officials in the state, including then-Attorney General Richard Blu- menthal (now a U.S. senator) and then-U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd. The tribes' wealth had visibly stirred non-Native (predominantly white) resentment by those I call the "twenty-first-century Indian haters." During that same period in the early 2000s, some even held town hall meetings to confer on "the Indi- an problem," namely, the possibility of new Indian casinos of the three tribal nations-the Schaghticoke, Eastern Pequots, and the Golden Hill Paugussetts- that were petitioning for federal recognition at the time.

    One way I made a few inroads within that climate was through the an- choring of the radio program. To my knowledge, it was the only Native-issues show produced in New England at the time.9 However, I didn't come at it with a journalistic approach, but out of a responsibility to the Indigenous peoples of the region where I reside (as someone not of that place) and in an effort to en- gage in the work of a public intellectual. The show was explicitly pro-sovereignty and in solidarity with Indigenous people(s). My aim was to connect my ongoing academic work to my political activism to the public realm to address what I see as major social concerns. The program aimed to reach multiple audiences about serious political and cultural issues. I designed it to provide a platform for the general public to think carefully about a range of Indigenous politics that shape everyday life in "Native New England and beyond" in an accessible language that was also analytically rigorous. This was my own version of "digital humanities," engaging the public in critical conversations. As such, the show became an ex- periment in civic education by, in part, unpacking legal issues for a lay audience.

    The program included episodes on Indigenous activism in various parts of Canada, Latin America (including Mexico, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru), Pales- tine, Hawai'i, Australia, and Aotearoa (New Zealand). I focused on themes such as land desecration, treaty rights, political status, and cultural revitalization. I aimed to bring American Indian and other Indigenous voices to the airways by providing crucial commentary rooted in the scholarly research and activism of Native peoples and our allies.

    The air dates of the program-from 2007 to 2013-spanned many criti- cal developments in the Indigenous world globally. An international academic meeting held at the University of Oklahoma in April 2007 led to the establish- ment of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association the following year, which I helped found as part of a six-person steering committee. On Sep- tember 13, 2007, the UN General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, despite opposition from the United States, Canada, Aus- tralia, and New Zealand. Other exciting developments during the years the show aired include the launching of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which is part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement called for by Palestine civil society to put nonviolent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law. That same year, we saw Bolivia write provisions

for Indigenous peoples into its state constitution through a narrow but major referendum. The year 2011 saw the founding of the Maori Party, a New Zealand political party with Hone Harawira initially at the helm. And in 2012 we saw the formation of Idle No More, an ongoing grassroots movement among the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples along with non-Indigenous supporters chal- lenging Canadian state power. These are just a few important developments that occurred during the program's airing.

    For readers (and past listeners) asking what the value of publishing these interviews is now, after the show has ended, I suggest that they can still teach us about the politics of settler colonialism and Indigenous resistance. In relation to Native and Indigenous studies alone, the interviews provide a window into an entire field in an accessible form from some high-profile scholars. They also serve to document a period of history in terms of regional and global Indigenous resistance. But besides offering a rich archive of these myriad developments, be- cause the struggles facing Indigenous peoples have not changed in structural terms, but have intensified in many ways-especially with the onslaught of neo- liberal policies-most of these interviews offer crucial genealogical contexts for so many ongoing political cases.

    Most immediately, in the U.S. context, the show sought to address the gen- eral public's profound and pervasive ignorance and denial regarding the legal rights of Indigenous peoples, especially since they are often treated as racial mi- norities rather than sovereigns. For example, the conflation of race and indi- geneity is one issue American Indians face in confronting challenges to their distinct legal status that presume their rights are based on "racial privileges" rather than political formations as nations. In American Indian Politics and the American Political System, David E. Wilkins (Lumbee) and Heidi Kiiwetinepine- siik Stark (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe) outline four realities that set American In- dians apart from racial minorities in the United States.10 First, American Indians were the original inhabitants of what is now considered the United States. Sec- ond, this preexistence necessitated the negotiation of political compacts, treaties, and alliances with European nations and the United States. Third, as recognized sovereigns, Indian peoples are subject to the Federal Trust Doctrine, which is supposed to be a unique legal relationship with the U.S. federal government that entails protection. Finally, stemming from the trust relationship, the United States asserts plenary power over tribal nations, which is exclusive and preemp- tive. The latter issue is the most difficult due to the ways in which the U.S. judi- ciary has interpreted the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution to mean full and total power over tribal nations. The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to "regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes."11 In other words, the U.S. government will not allow any state or foreign nation to interfere in commerce with tribal nations, since the government reserves the right to interact in a nation-to-nation capacity.

    Historical recognition for state-recognized tribes from the original thirteen colonies is different from that of the "treaty tribes" in the western states or the Pueblo Indians because of their earlier incorporation into the U.S. nation-state. Furthermore, the contemporary backlash against casino development through- out the United States continues to be instrumental in the opposition to federal recognition. It appears that most non-Native residents and U.S. citizens have a difficult time uncoupling the question of tribal economic development, which is about the political economy of a nation, and the issue of social justice in honor- ing the U.S. trust doctrine.

    The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988-a U.S. federal law passed to regulate the conduct of gaming on Indian lands-served as a catalyst for re- newed political opposition to Native sovereignty movements throughout the United States. This took the form of "reverse racism" arguments to challenge laws recognizing Native rights to sovereignty and self-determination. As such, the identification of Indigenous peoples as both "special interest groups" and "racial minorities" is used to undermine the unique status of Indigenous peo- ples under U.S. federal law and international law. This changing political terrain creates the need for multiple interventions on different fronts when challenging the logic and workings of settler colonialism and how the logic of capital func- tions in relation to settler colonialism. Here we see the distinct ways capital- ism acts in these different contexts-whether through the gaming industry or the commodification of land-both tied to state economics. This is all the more complicated because non-Native communities can be affected by Indian gam- ing establishments in both positive and negative ways. Also, there is growing resentment among some Americans who see Indian gaming rights as an unfair advantage based on race privileges. This climate grossly affected Connecticut tribes, an issue featured on the program.

    The show also closely tracked the long-drawn-out federal recognition case of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation (and intervention by the Connecticut state government) and the protracted battle over federal recognition in Hawai'i con- cerning Native Hawaiians. Briefly examining them here together gets at the heart of what my show aimed to do-to educate listeners about the distinctions regarding Indigenous politics as they differ from region to region and are often determined by their own settler-colonial historical specificities.

    In the Connecticut case, the conflation of federal recognition with the specter of Indian casinos indicates that most non-tribal residents in these states refuse to uncouple questions of tribal economic development-that is, tribal nations' political economies-and the social justice issues of honoring the U.S. trust doctrine. This is yet another reason why independent community radio is so crucial to the democracy project and self-determination struggles. The prob- lem with mainstream coverage of the Indigenous sovereignty struggle in Con- necticut is that the media venues and individual journalists have aligned with

the state instead of conducting investigative research and reporting on the issues they cover. In Connecticut, citizens' rights groups have bolstered the hostile re- sponse by state officials, who have implicated the federal process for tribes across the entire United States as they intervene to change policy more broadly through their extralegal meddling.

    While tribes can secure federal recognition via judicial ruling and con- gressional legislation, the most common path in the last three decades has been through the Department of the Interior. From 1978 to 2015 (the regulations were revised after that under the Washburn administration at the Bureau of Indian Affairs), tribes seeking federal recognition were required to satisfy seven crite- ria according to the Office of Federal Acknowledgment of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), including one requirement that they prove they have maintained political authority or influence on a "substantially continuous basis from his- torical times until the present," and another that they be externally viewed as a tribe on a continuous basis since 1900.12 The criteria have changed slightly since then,13 but essentially tribes are still expected to show that they have survived every government policy and doctrine designed to destroy them-markers of settler-colonial violence and its attendant structural genocide-as distinct, col- lective entities.

    Nowhere was (and still is) this more apparent than in Connecticut, where the state government set new legal precedents in cases involving the Schaghti- coke Tribal Nation.14 As journalist Gale Courey Toensing reported extensively for Indian Country Today throughout that period, State Attorney General Rich- ard Blumenthal, with support from Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman, interfered in the BIA's decision. In these cases, we saw the misuse of the concep- tion of tribes as racial minorities-and in a way that fueled ignorance and ha- tred. My show featured the political leader of the Schaghticokes, Chief Richard Velky, twice at different stages of the tribe's struggle. Despite the fact that the tribe had painstakingly followed the process and achieved recognition on their thirty-thousand-page petition's merits, political opponents launched a public- relations campaign accusing the tribe of politically manipulating the process to gain federal recognition. Then they launched their own secret campaign to politically manipulate the process to reverse that decision. In 2005, under pres- sure and illegal lobbying that violated a court order, the BIA reversed its federal acknowledgment of the Schaghticoke in 2004 (the BIA also did the same thing that same year with the Eastern Pequots, who had received a positive acknowl- edgment decision in 2002).

    The state defended its actions by saying it speaks for the non-Native res- idents of Connecticut. It is also bolstered by "citizens' rights" groups such as Town Action to Save Kent (TASK) and the Connecticut Alliance against Ca- sino Expansion, both of which hired one of the most powerful lobbying firms in the world, Barbour, Griffith and Rogers, to try to stop regional tribes from

securing federal recognition. TASK argued that the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation's impending recognition was a threat to the "traditions" that "took settlers more than three hundred years to build" and that their ability to "preserve them for generations to come" was at risk. Thus, TASK positioned the Schaghticoke as the "colonizers" and reversed the usual position regarding whose traditions have been attacked by settler colonialism.

    The Schaghticoke appealed their case in the federal court in January 2006 and followed up with a motion for summary judgment for their claim that their loss of federal status resulted from unlawful political influence by pow- erful politicians and a White House-connected lobbyist, who violated federal laws, agency regulations, congressional ethics rules, and court orders to have the BIA decision reversed. But, in his fifty-four-page ruling, the judge opined that pressure on agency officials did not amount to undue political influence on the agency process.

    The state of Connecticut's current stance marked a 180-degree shift com- pared to earlier cases of federal recognition. In 1983, Connecticut and feder- al representatives recognized the Mashantucket Pequot's tribal status via the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Land Claims Settlement Act. Arguably, the po- litical terrain was quite different at the time, given that the tribe had not yet gained the wealth and power for which it is notable today and was not then a major contender. In any case, the state benefits financially from the Foxwoods Resort Casino owned by the Mashantucket Pequots, as it does from the revenue (25 percent) brought in by the Mohegan tribal nation's gaming establishment.

    This contrast reveals the differences and overlaps at work in confronting present-day conditions of settler colonialism in the United States, in which a state may take a different stance depending on what it may gain financially. This means that some states may support a Native nation's quest for federal recog- nition, while others remain strongly opposed. But it also indicates a different political climate overall, given the political and economic power among the Mashantucket Pequot and the Mohegan tribal nations (at least prior to the finan- cial crisis of 2007-8)-presumably as a result of casino revenues that have state budget implications as well as political lobbying within and beyond the state.

    Unlike the cases in Connecticut, from 2000 to 2012 the government of Hawai'i pushed a federally driven bill in favor of Native Hawaiian federal recog- nition known as the "Akaka Bill," named after then-U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka. The legislative proposal aimed to reconstitute a Native Hawaiian governing entity under U.S. federal law. The bill, officially named the Native Hawaiian Reorgani- zation Act, stalled in the Senate due to Republican opposition and has been de- feated each session since 2000, with neoconservatives in the Senate condemning it as a proposal for "race-based government." The proposal was hotly contested and repeatedly reintroduced until 2012, when it finally seemed to die. However, those driving the legislation found an alternative route through the executive

branch by appealing to the Department of the Interior to craft a new administra- tive rule to recognize a "Native Hawaiian governing entity" that would have the political status comparable to Native American tribal nations without having to meet the same criteria they are subject to.15

    In the Hawaiian context, federal recognition would allow for nothing more than a Hawaiian nation as a domestic and dependent entity under the full and exclusive plenary power of the federal government. Most immediately, it would set up a process for the termination of Hawaiian land claims in exchange for that recognition. And if past versions of the Akaka Bill are any indication, this form of federal recognition would mean a degraded version of the tribal na- tion model, since past proposals specified that Hawai'i state law would apply in both civil and criminal application, and there was no land designated for the projected Native Hawaiian governing entity (NHGE). At stake here is the oblit- eration of unadjudicated claims to the former Crown and Government Lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which amount to 1.8 million acres. These lands are currently held in trust by the state, which leases them out to select corporate entities. The U.S. government would then have its federally reorganized NHGE empowered to negotiate a cash settlement in exchange for forfeiting land title, which is why many Hawaiian activists oppose federal recognition in favor of full independence under international law. One of the factors fueling this problem is that the government wants to clear the way for U.S. military expansion on sub- stantial part of the lands, and the state wants to sell the rest.

    In February 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court heard a major case on Hawaiian land issues, State of Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, et al., which addressed whether or not the state has the authority to sell, exchange, or transfer these same lands. Included in this volume is my interview with one of the original plaintiffs in the case, Jonathan Kamakawiwo'ole Osorio, who fought the state's attempt to sell. This land base constitutes 29 percent of the total land area of what is now known as the State of Hawai'i, and almost all the land claimed by the state as "public lands." These lands were claimed by the U.S. government when it unilaterally annexed the Hawaiian Islands through a joint resolution by the U.S. Congress in 1898, after they had been "ceded" by the Republic of Hawaii, which had established itself a year after the armed and unlawful overthrow of the Ha- waiian monarchy under Queen Liliuokalani in 1893. These are the same lands mentioned in a 1993 joint resolution "To acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii," in which Congress acknowledged and apologized for the United States' role. Specifically, the apol- ogy affirmed that "the indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people or over their national lands to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum."

    Prior to the state government's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the state supreme court ruled unanimously, based on the 1993 joint resolution, that the

state should keep the land trust intact until Native Hawaiian claims to these lands are settled, and it prohibited the state from selling or otherwise disposing of the properties to private parties. What looms in the background of all of this is the question of a political settlement with Native Hawaiians about the status of and title to these lands and the potential to restore Hawaiian nationhood. What kind of nation would it be? An independent nation-state, or a domestic depen- dent nation under U.S. federal policy?

I understood my radio show to be playing a critical role in bringing these con- tested histories into the public sphere. As the dominant culture continues to marginalize Native issues, so too does the academy see them as "niche." This double discount needs urgent attention as the detrimental state policies against Indigenous peoples arguably constitute a new wave of twenty-first-century at- tempts at genocide. In other words, the politics of settler colonialism and their ramifications continue to deal hard blows to Native nations, despite the UN's adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

     The ongoing relevancy of the interviews included here also point to the high stakes involved. For example, the two interviews with Margo Tamez-cofounder of the Lipan Apache Women Defense-provide a crucial genealogy for the con- temporary politics of the U.S.-Mexico border wall. The interviews detail her and her mother's legal battle with the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to prevent the Texas-Mexico border wall from cutting through Indigenous lands in El Calaboz ranchería in South Texas. These interviews take on added significance when situated in relation to candidate Trump's calls to "build the wall." On January 25, 2017, just days after his inau- guration, President Trump signed two executive orders related to immigration and border security.16 The orders are related, as one concerns the active depor- tation of people who are in the country illegally, while the other focuses on his plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Related to this development, DHS announced on August 1, 2017, that it will use its authority to bypass envi- ronmental laws and other regulations to "ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads" near the U.S.-Mexico border south of San Diego.17 The waiver focuses on fifteen miles of contiguous land stretching eastward from the Pacific Ocean and enables the avoidance of the legal requirement to complete an environmental impact study before building on public lands.18 DHS says it has "the authority to waive all legal requirements" that its secretary deems necessary "to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry into the United States." The waiver is pursuant to authority granted to the DHS secretary by Congress and covers a variety of environmental, natural resource, and land-management laws.19 This development has broad implications for Indigenous peoples across the country. Tamez recently explained to me that this "no-constitution zone" prevails because neither Bush nor Obama repealed section 102 of the Secure

Fence Act, which she addressed in her two interviews included here.20 Hence we see the significance of this volume in providing critical genealogies to ongoing obstacles to Native self-determination and Indigenous peoples' efforts to chal- lenge the states that dominate them.

    In another example, the interviews included here with Steven Salaita and Omar Barghouti on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign pro- vide a foundation for comprehending Israel as a settler-colonial state and for understanding the legal and social challenges to BDS and Palestinian activism today by both the Israeli and U.S. governments. In my interview with Salaita, besides discussing the ethics of BDS and its resonance with conditions in Native America (a comparison addressed in his book The Holy Land in Transit: Colo- nialism and the Quest for Canaan), including a comparative analysis of colonial- ism in the New World and the Holy Land, exploring the ways in which settler societies transform theological narratives into national histories to justify their occupation of foreign land. As part of the backlash against BDS and Palestin- ian advocacy, Salaita gained a heightened public profile after writing a series of editorials in the wake of the backlash against the resolution for academic boy- cott of Israel passed by the American Studies Association. Increased surveil- lance has greatly affected his livelihood, and in 2014 the University of Illinois withdrew or "de-hired" Salaita from a professorial post in the American Indian Studies Program after the university's board of trustees' attention was drawn to his tweets on the Israeli military's onslaught in Gaza.21 The following year, the Illinois legislature unanimously passed a bill that prevents the state's pension fund from investing in companies that boycott Israel.22 This was the first anti- BDS law passed in the country, and governments across the United States have passed comparable legislation since then. 23 At the time of this writing there is a bill before the U.S. Congress, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (H.R. 1697/S. 720). The radio archive and interviews included here offer vital, prescient insight into these developments.

    In the case of the interview with Omar Barghouti, it is important to note that he is a cofounder of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cul- tural Boycott of Israel, founded in 2004, as well as cofounder of the broader BDS movement and call issued in 2005. He is arguably one of the best-known spokes- persons about the issue and has gained notoriety for his indefatigable activism. As a result, he has also endured repeated attacks by the Israeli state, including re- pression, attempts to undermine his residency, and travel bans to prevent his in- ternational advocacy and hinder his work. In March 2017, Israeli tax authorities invaded his home and detained and interrogated him on unfounded tax fraud charges.24 Again, the significance of Barghouti's interview, like so many others from Indigenous Politics radio, is in offering a foundation for understanding the current moment and beyond.

From Palestine to Aotearoa, the interviews included here offer a platform

for critical voices-highlighting Indigenous agency and resurgence-in their immediate context through a global approach to addressing the ongoing nature of settler-colonial domination and Indigenous resistance. These conversations about the past and future, then, enable public engagement that can lead to mobi- lization and broad-based solidarity. This book is meant to provide both context for contemporary Indigenous resurgence and inspiration for its continuance.

Individuals Included on the Program

Ali Abunimah

Tupac Enrique Acosta (Nahuatl-Xicano) Czarina Aggabao Thelen

Julian Aguon (Chamorro) Christina Akanoa

Z 'Aki (Kanaka Maoli) Ahmad Amara

S. James Anaya (Purepecha and Chiricahua Apache) Chris Andersen (Métis)

Michael Anderson (Nyoongar Ghurradjong Murri Ghillar) Mikki Anganstata (Eastern Cherokee)

Tim Aqukkasuk Argetsinger (Iñupiaq) José Aylwin

Jessie Little Doe Baird (Mashpee Wampanoag) Omar Barghouti

Joanne Barker (Delaware Tribe of Indians) Giovanni Batz (K'iche' Maya)

Shanadeen Begay (Diné) Nicholas F. Bellantoni Clayson Benally (Diné) Jeneda Benally (Diné) Sherna Berger Gluck

Ned Blackhawk (Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone) Eva Blake (Assonet Wampanoag)*25

Victoria Bomberry (Muscogee) Alexis Bonogofsky

Jesse Bowman Bruchac (St Francis/Sokoki band of the Abenaki) Steve Brady (Northern Cheyenne Tribe)

James BrownEagle (Elem Pomo Tribe) Lisa Brooks (Abenaki)

Kathleen A. Brown-Pérez (Brothertown Indian Nation) Margaret Bruchac (Abenaki)

Luis E. Cárcamo-Huechante (Mapuche)

Andrea Carmen (Yacqui) Tony Castanha (Jibaro)

'Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar (Kanaka Maoli) Jessica Cattelino

Clarence Kukauakahi Ching (Kanaka Maoli) Marty Cobenais (Red Lake Ojibwe) Radmilla Cody (Diné)

Betsy Conway*

David Cornsilk (Cherokee Nation)

Glen Coulthard (Yellowknives Dene First Nation)* Sarah Croucher

Sarah Deer (Muscogee [Creek] Nation) Philip J. Deloria (Dakota descent)

Paul DeMain (Oneida)* Jennifer Denetdale (Diné) Amy Den Ouden

Judy Dow (Abenaki)

Sir Edward Taikahurei Durie (Ngati Kauwhata) Bruce Duthu (Houma)

Tom Dye

Angelique EagleWoman (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate) Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee)

John EchoHawk (Pawnee)* Jorge Estevez (Taino) Alicia Ivonne Estrada Farrett (Cree)

Stephanie Morning Fire Mugford Fielding (Mohegan) Maurice Fox (Mashpee Wampanoag)*

Katherine Fuchs Nancy Gallagher

Ruth Garby Torres (Schaghticoke Tribal Nation) Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Cheyenne River Lakota) Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca)*

Tonya Gonnella Frichner (Onondaga Nation, Snipe clan) Wendy Gonyea (Onandaga)

J. Noelani Goodyear-Ka?opua (Kanaka Maoli)* Corrina Gould (Karkin and Chochenyo Ohone) Rae Gould (Nipmuc)*

Shane Greene

Hone Harawira (Ngati Hau, Ngati Wai, Ngati Hine, Te Aupouri, Ngapuhi, and Ngati Whatua)

Joy Harjo (Mvskoke)

Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee) Kimberly Hatcher-White (Mashantucket Pequot)

Stanley Heller

Mose Herne (Akwesasne Mohawk) Susana Hito

Santi Hitorangi (Ma?ohi)

James T. Jackson* (Mashantucket Pequot) Moonanum James (Aquinnah Wampanoag) Hannibal B. Johnson

Tevita O. Ka?ili (Tongan) Kamuela Kala'i (Kanaka Maoli)

Ka'anohi Kaleikini (Kanaka Maoli) John Kane (Mohawk)*

Philomena Kebec (Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa) Taylor Keen (Cherokee Nation)

Rashid Khalidi Jackson T. King Jr.* Suzanne Koepplinger Annette Kolodny

Mike Krebs (Blackfoot descent)* Jennifer Kreisberg (Tuscarora) Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe)

Richard Anguksuar LaFortune (Yup'ik), Maria LaHood

Gloria Larocque (Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation) Kent Lebsock (Lakota descent)

Erica Lee (Cree)

Stacy Leeds (Cherokee Nation) Randolph Lewis

José Antonio Lucero

James Luna (Luiseño, La Jolla band of Mission Indians) Andy Mager

Ka'iulani Mahuka (Kanaka Maoli) Lynn Malerba (Mohegan)

Daniel Mandell*

Wilma Mankiller (Cherokee)* Desireé Reneé Martinez (Gabrieliño) Jose R. Matus (Yaqui)

Malinda Maynor Lowry (Lumbee) Kevin A. McBride

Steven Paul McSloy*

Marianela Medrano-Marra (Taino)*

Rigoberta Menchú Tum (Quiche-Mayan)*

Robert J. Miller (Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma) Sherri L. Mitchell (Penobscot)

Cindi Moar Alvitre (Tongva) Rosa Moiwend

Richard Monette (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) Tristan Moone (Diné)

Aileen Moreton-Robinson (Quandamooka) Alyssa Mt. Pleasant (Tuscorora)

Kaimana Namihira (Kanaka Maoli) Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) Vivian Newdick

Jean M. O'Brien (White Earth Ojibwe) Dana Olwan

Paco de Onís

Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo?ole Osorio (Kanaka Maoli) Karla Palma (Mapuche)*

Pamela Palmater (Mi'kmaq) Lorrin Pang

Violet Parrish (Kashi Pomo)

Vivian Parrish Wilder (Kashi Pomo) Sherman Paul (Maliseet)

Andre Perez (Kanaka Maoli)

Ramona Nosapocket Peters (Mashpee Wampanoag) Victoria Phillips

Alexandra Pierce (Seneca) Kealoha Pisciotta (Kanaka Maoli) Robert Odawi Porter (Seneca)*

Rick Pouliot (Megantiquois Abenaki) Evan Pritchard (Mi'kmaq descendant) Mazin Qumsiyeh

Renya Ramirez (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska) Jonathan Ramones (Mi'kmaq)

Madeleine Redfern (Inuit) Debbie Reese (Nambe Pueblo)

Trudie Lamb Richmond (Schaghticoke) Janet Marie Rogers (Mohawk)

Judy Rohrer

Loriene Roy (Minnesota Chippewa)

L. Mixashawn Rozie (Mahicanu) Keanu Sai (Kanaka Maoli)* Katoa Sailusi

Steven Salaita Dean Saranillio

Katherine Saunders

Brandon J. Sazue Sr. (Crow Creek Sioux Tribe) Binayak Sen

Charles Norman Shay (Penobscot Nation)

Moana Sinclair (Ngati Rangatahi, Kauwhata, Raukawa, and Maniapoto) Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair (Anishinaabe, St. Peter's/Little Peguis) Sonia Smallacombe (Maramanindji)

Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche)

Alex Soto (Tohono O'odham Nation) Loren Spears (Narragansett)

Circe Sturm (Mississippi Choctaw descendant) Annette Sykes (Te Arawa)

Margo Tamez (Ndé Konitsaaiigokiyaa'en) Wendy Giddens Teeter

Ty Kawika Tengan (Kanaka Maoli) Gale Courey Toensing

Rebecca Tsosie (Yaqui)*

Dale Turner (Temagami First Nation) Marilyn Vann (Cherokee Nation) Valerie Nana Ture Varges (Taino) Chief Richard Velky (Schaghticoke) Herman Wainggai

Harry B. Wallace (Unkechaug)

Wanbli (Sioux Valley Dakota descendant) Robert Warrior (Osage Nation)

Brian Baguck Wescott (Koyukon and Yup'ik) Charles Whalen (Oglala Lakota)

Philip Whiteman (Northern Cheyenne Tribe) Deborah White Plume (Oglala Lakota)

Violet Wilder (Kashi Pomo) David E. Wilkins (Lumbee)*

Alexandra Wilson (Opaskwayak Cree Nation) Patrick Wolfe

Cedric Woods (Lumbee)

Kristen Wyman (Natick Nipmuc) Jessica Yee (Mohawk)

Michael Yellow Bird (Sahnish/Arikara and Hidatsa Nations)* William S. YellowRobe Jr. (Assiniboine Tribe of the Assiniboine and

  Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation) Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel (Mohegan)

Notes

    1. Notably, WESU is the second-oldest student-run college radio station in the Unit- ed States. It is unique in that it also allows community members who are not affiliat- ed with the university to produce and host programs. See www.wesufm.org for more information.

2. The archive can be accessed at www.indigenouspolitics.com.

    3. Patrick Wolfe, "Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native," Journal of Genocide Research 8, no. 4 (December 2006): 387-409.

4. Ibid., 387.

5. Ibid., 390.

    6. Ibid., 388. Wolfe's earlier work advanced the same analysis: "The colonizers come to stay-invasion is a structure not an event." See Settler Colonialism and the Transfor- mation of Anthropology (London: Continuum International, 1998), 2. Wolfe's first book provided a history of settler colonialism in Australia through a history of anthropology that explores the links between metropolitan anthropological theory and local colonial politics from the nineteenth century up to the late twentieth century, settler colonial- ism, and the ideological and sexual regimes that characterize it. The work is an incisive analysis of the politics of anthropological knowledge given its production through the historical dispossession and continuing oppression of Indigenous peoples.

    7. J. Kehaulani Kauanui, "'A Structure, Not an Event': Settler Colonialism and En- during Indigeneity," Lateral 5, no. 1 (Spring 2016), http://csalateral.org/wp/issue/5-1/ forum-alt-humanities-settler-colonialism-enduring-indigeneity-kauanui/#fnref-351-4.

    8. The radio program eventually served as one of the catalysts for my teaching a service-learning course in the fall of 2015, "Decolonizing Indigenous Middletown: Na- tive Histories of the Wangunk Indian People." The course engaged the field of settler- colonial studies and critical Indigenous studies, along with Native American history and historiography addressing southern New England. Taking up a decolonizing method- ological approach, the class focused on the sparsely documented history of the Wan- gunk, with students conducting primary research through the seventeenth-century archives of the Middlesex Historical Society and eventually launching a Wikipedia entry about the Wangunk.

    9. Further south, in New York City, there was and still is Tiokasin Ghosthorse's pro- gram First Voices Indigenous Radio on WBAI.

   10. David E. Wilkins and Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark, American Indian Politics and the American Political System, 4th ed. (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 33-37.

11. Ibid., 37.

   12. The criteria until 2015 were: "1. a statement of facts establishing that the tribe has been identified as an Indian entity by reliable external sources on a substantially continuous basis since 1900; 2. evidence that it has maintained a continuous communi- ty; 3. evidence that it has maintained political authority or influence on a substantially continuous basis from historical times until the present; 4. a copy of its governing docu- ment, or if it does not have one, a statement describing its membership criteria and gov- erning procedures; 5. a list of all current members, who as a whole must descend from

a historic tribe or tribes that amalgamated; 6. evidence that it consists mainly of people who are not already federally recognized; and 7. a statement that it is not the subject of congressional legislation that has terminated or forbidden the federal trust relationship." Bureau of Indian Affairs, "Revisions to Regulations on Federal Acknowledgment of In- dian Tribes (25 CFR 83 or Part 83)," June 29, 2015, https://www.bia.gov/WhoWeAre/ AS-IA/ORM/83revise/index.htm.

   13. In 2014, the same summer that DOI officials held public meetings in Hawai'i on the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making, another set of public meetings was held on the federal regulations for tribal acknowledgment. As a result, the regulations on federal acknowledgment were revised in 2015 (https://www.doi.gov/hawaiian/reorg). See Bureau of Indian Affairs, "Revisions to Regulations on Federal Acknowledgment of Indian Tribes (25 CFR 83 or Part 83)," June 29, 2015, https://www.bia.gov/WhoWeAre/ AS-IA/ORM/83revise/index.htm.

   14. This also affected the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation in Connecticut, but it did not result in a legal battle afterward.

   15. U.S. Department of the Interior press release, "Considers Procedures to Reestab- lish a Government-to-Government Relationship with the Native Hawaiian Community," June 18. 2014, http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/interior-considers-procedures-to

-reestablish-a-government-to-government-relationship-with-the-native-hawaiian

-community.cfm.

   16. President Donald Trump, "Executive Order: Border Security and Immigra- tion Enforcement Improvements," The White House, January 25, 2017, https://www

.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/25/executive-order-border-security-and

-immigration-enforcement-improvements; Bill Chappell et al., "'A Nation without Bor- ders Is Not a Nation': Trump Moves Forward with U.S.-Mexico Wall," National Public Ra- dio, January 25, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/25/511565740/ trump-expected-to-order-building-of-u-s-mexico-wall-wednesday.

   17. Colin Dywer, "Homeland Security to Waive Environmental Rules on Border Wall Projects," National Public Radio, August 1, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/ thetwo-way/2017/08/01/540892890/homeland-security-to-waive-environmental

-rules-on-border-wall-projects?sc=17&f=1003&utm_source=iosnewsapp&utm_ medium=Email&utm_campaign=app.

18. Ibid.

   19. Department of Homeland Security press release, "DHS Issues Waiver to Expe- dite Border Construction Projects in San Diego Area," August 1, 2017, https://www.dhs

.gov/news/2017/08/01/dhs-issues-waiver-expedite-border-construction-projects-san

-diego-area.

   20. As a now permanent fixture of the state, in conjunction with the authority being imposed by federal agencies, the Secure Fence Act threatens federally recognized tribes, including those located far from the border, as evidenced in the logic already applied in the Standing Rock case.

   21. For an overview of the legal case, see Center for Constitutional Rights, "Professor Steven Salaita," February 9, 2015, https://ccrjustice.org/professor-steven-salaita.

   22. Eugene Kantorovich, "Illinois Passes Historic Anti-BDS Bill, as Congress Mulls Similar Moves," Washington Post, May 18, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/

volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/18/illinois-passes-historic-anti-bds-bill-as-congress

-mulls-similar-moves/?utm_term=.9b986cbbb97b.

  23. "Anti-BDS Legislation Updates: Illinois, Florida, Colorado, Arizona (Up- dated)," Palestine Legal, March 24, 2016, http://palestinelegal.org/news/2016/3/24/ antibds-leg-update-co-fl-il.

   24. Amnesty International, "Israeli Government Must Cease Intimidation of Human Rights Defenders, Protect Them from Attacks," April 12, 2016, https://www.amnestyusa

.org/press-releases/israeli-government-must-cease-intimidation-of-human-rights

-defenders-protect-them-from-attacks/; "Israeli Attacks on Omar Barghouti Part of Ongoing Attempt to Silence and Criminalize Growing BDS Movement," Samidoun: Palestine Prisoner Solidarity Network, March 22, 2017, http://samidoun.net/2017/03/ israeli-attacks-on-omar-barghouti-part-of-ongoing-attempt-to-silence-and-criminalize

-growing-bds-movement/.

   25. An asterisk following the name indicates an occasion when a talk by that individ- ual was aired, rather than an interview.