#Mary Kunesh

[minnesotafollower]

State of Minnesota Transferring State Park to Dakota Tribe

The State of Minnesota is now engaged in transferring the Upper Sioux Agency State Park in the southwestern part of the State to a Dakota Indian Tribe that was involved in its tragic history.[1] Historical Background The Treaty of Traverse Des Sioux of 1851 moved the Dakota Indians from Iowa and Minnesota to a reservation 20 miles wide in southwestern Minnesota along the Minnesota River Valley.…

[xtruss]

Native Tribe To Get Back Land 160 Years After Largest Mass Hanging In US History

Upper Sioux Agency state park in Minnesota, where bodies of those killed after US-Dakota war are buried, to be transferred

— Associated Press | Sunday 3 September, 2023

The Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls, Minnesota. Photograph: Trisha Ahmed/AP

Golden prairies and winding rivers of a Minnesota state park also hold the secret burial sites of Dakota people who died as the United States failed to fulfill treaties with Native Americans more than a century ago. Now their descendants are getting the land back.

The state is taking the rare step of transferring the park with a fraught history back to a Dakota tribe, trying to make amends for events that led to a war and the largest mass hanging in US history.

“It’s a place of holocaust. Our people starved to death there,” said Kevin Jensvold, chairman of the Upper Sioux Community, a small tribe with about 550 members just outside the park.

The Upper Sioux Agency state park in south-western Minnesota spans a little more than 2 sq miles (about 5 sq km) and includes the ruins of a federal complex where officers withheld supplies from Dakota people, leading to starvation and deaths.

Decades of tension exploded into the US-Dakota war of 1862 between settler-colonists and a faction of Dakota people, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. After the US won the war, the government hanged more people than in any other execution in the nation. A memorial honors the 38 Dakota men killed in Mankato, 110 miles (177km) from the park.

Jensvold said he has spent 18 years asking the state to return the park to his tribe. He began when a tribal elder told him it was unjust Dakota people at the time needed to pay a state fee for each visit to the graves of their ancestors there.

Native American tribe in Maine buys back Island taken 160 years ago! The Passamaquoddy’s purchase of Pine Island for $355,000 is the latest in a series of successful ‘land back’ campaigns for indigenous people in the US. Pine Island. Photograph: Courtesy the writer, Alice Hutton. Friday 4 June, 2021

Lawmakers finally authorized the transfer this year when Democrats took control of the house, senate and governor’s office for the first time in nearly a decade, said State Senator Mary Kunesh, a Democrat and descendant of the Standing Rock Nation.

Tribes speaking out about injustices have helped more people understand how lands were taken and treaties were often not upheld, Kunesh said, adding that people seem more interested now in “doing the right thing and getting lands back to tribes”.

But the transfer also would mean fewer tourists and less money for the nearby town of Granite Falls, said Mayor Dave Smiglewski. He and other opponents say recreational land and historic sites should be publicly owned, not given to a few people, though lawmakers set aside funding for the state to buy land to replace losses in the transfer.

The park is dotted with hiking trails, campsites, picnic tables, fishing access, snowmobiling and horseback riding routes and tall grasses with wildflowers that dance in hot summer winds.

“People that want to make things right with history’s injustices are compelled often to support action like this without thinking about other ramifications,” Smiglewski said. “A number, if not a majority, of state parks have similar sacred meaning to Indigenous tribes. So where would it stop?”

In recent years, some tribes in the US, Canada and Australia have gotten their rights to ancestral lands restored with the growth of the Land Back movement, which seeks to return lands to Indigenous people.

‘It’s a powerful feeling’: the Indigenous American tribe helping to bring back buffalo 🦬! Matt Krupnick in Wolakota Buffalo Range, South Dakota. Sunday 20 February, 2022. The Wolakota Buffalo Range in South Dakota has swelled to 750 bison with a goal of reaching 1,200. Photograph: Matt Krupnick

A National Park has never been transferred from the US government to a tribal nation, but a handful are Co-managed with Tribes, including Grand Portage National Nonument in northern Minnesota, Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona and Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles of the National Park Service said.

This will be the first time Minnesota transfers a state park to a Native American community, said Ann Pierce, director of Minnesota State Parks and trails at the natural resources department.

Minnesota’s transfer, expected to take years to finish, is tucked into several large bills covering several issues. The bills allocate more than $6m to facilitate the transfer by 2033. The money can be used to buy land with recreational opportunities and pay for appraisals, road and bridge demolition and other engineering.

Chris Swedzinski and Gary Dahms, the Republican lawmakers representing the portion of the state encompassing the park, declined through their aides to comment about their stances on the transfer.

— The Guardian USA

[puccadraws]

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Tiffany character spotlight! Learn about who inspired Tiffany's character, what inspired her design, and her colorful personality.

Edited by Elvis Kunesh

We have less than two days left on our campaign! Back Pen Pals Forever today: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/puccanoodles/pen-pals-forever-an-animated-pilot-by-marie-lum?ref=creator-nav

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Missing and Murdered Relatives Week of Awareness webinars, Feb. 9-11

Indigenous Environmental Network will be launching their Missing and Murdered Relatives Week of Awareness. Join them for their webinars over the next three days here via Facebook LIVE

Tues Feb. 9th | 6 pm CT Violence on the Land, Violence on the Body Featuring Simone Senogles, Anna Goldtooth, Nancy Beaulieu, Kandi White. Weds Feb. 10th | 6 pm CT Survivor Stories Tamika-jo Andy, Sasha Beaulieu, Stephanie St. Claire, Natasha Kingbird Thurs Feb. 11th | 6 pm CT MMIW Task Force Moderated by Great Grandmother Mary Lyons, Mary Kunesh-Podein, Nicole Matthews, Michelle Mountain

[mudwerks]

(via Ivanka Trump Is Trying to Act Like Her Father's Administration Cares About Native American Women)

“Donald Trump made a career demonstrating and celebrating behavior that perpetuates violence against Native women and girls,” Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, said in a statement.

and

“We, in Minnesota, had worked so hard for a genuine, community-led task force to address our missing and murdered Indigenous women,” state Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein, a member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party who is a descendant of the Standing Rock Lakota tribe, said in a statement. “This sudden interest and visit by Ivanka Trump feels disingenuous and smacks of manipulated political showcasing.” 

[notjustanyannie]

“We, in Minnesota, had worked so hard for a genuine, community-led task force to address our missing and murdered Indigenous women,” state Rep. Mary Kunesh-Podein, a member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party who is a descendant of the Standing Rock Lakota tribe, said in a statement. “This sudden interest and visit by Ivanka Trump feels disingenuous and smacks of manipulated political showcasing.”

[poetry-art-vivian]

HEY FEMINISTS

Yes, hello. Have you heard of Mary Kunesh-Podein (http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/members.asp?id=15466)  or Patrice Kunesh (https://www.energy.gov/indianenergy/contributors/patrice-kunesh).

They are two sisters from the Lakota tribe and they live in Minnesota. Mary is part of Minnesota legislation and just proposed a bill to protect and enact a reactionary team for the Missing and Murdered Native American Woman. May 5th was the national day of awareness (https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/culture/social-issues/may-5-national-day-awareness-missing-murdered-indigenous-women-girls/) in case you missed it, so I thought right now was a great time to bring up these two feminist icons (in my opinion. I’ve attached some quick facts about them, but please look into the bill Mary Kunesh-Podein has proposed. She talked to my class about it. She called upon victims and families of victims to help write this thing, and even had them write letters to legislation to really shed light on how serious this is. 

Please if you get the chance, look into the bill (https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF3375&version=0&session_year=2018&session_number=0) and CONTACT LEGISLATORS to make this something that happens across the United States. Really. This is important and these two women are awe inspiring, Patrice ran away to Paris and worked at a motel when she was a teenager and ended up working her way to the White House under Obama. 

#notinvisible

This was a PSA. 

[tripledivide]

State Rep. and Senator-Elect Mary Kunesh witnessed destruction by Enbridge from Honor the Earth on Vimeo.

State Rep. and Senator-Elect Mary Kunesh @mkmkunesh witnessed destruction of Enbridge construction of Line 3 at the Mississippi River in Palisade, MN.

On Friday, Anishinsaabekwewag Dawn Goodwin (Rice Lake, White Earth), Tania Aubid (East Lake Mille Lacs) and Winona LaDuke (White Earth, Round Lake) - all Mississippi Band Anishinaabe were at the Waaginoogan, located at the Mississippi River crossing of the Enbridge pipeline. We were joined by State Representative Mary Kunesh, Cloquet City Council Representative, Lyz Jakola, and a number of prominent church, organizational and media representatives.

Mary Kunesh has stated over and over > “Our state leaders had the chance to #StopLine3 by denying the clean water permits for this massive tar sands pipeline. Their failure to deny the permits is an offense to Minnesotan water and Minnesotan people.”

“We already know that Canadian owned Enbridge has not been a good neighbor. Just look to the decay and careless maintenance of the current Line 3 for evidence of ongoing negligence. How can we, in good conscience, allow for a new Line 3 pipeline to cross over 200 bodies of pristine water, including two crossings of our precious Mississippi River?” - Rep. Mary Kunesh

“… Anishinaabe people are not a dead culture to be dug up and inventoried. We are alive and the reaffirmation of relationship to spirit and creation is through the ongoing ceremony. The Midewin Waaginoogan on the banks of the Mississippi River is a part of a continuum which should not be interrupted for a Canadian pipeline corporation.” - Winona LaDuke

#WaterIsLife #DefendTheSacred #ProtectTheSacred #WaterProtectors #StopLine3

stopline3.org welcomewaterprotectors.com

[indigenousgov]

Register Now for NCAI’s “COVID-19: Economic Impacts and Implications for Indian Country” Forum on May 12th - Featuring Joe Kalt

HPAIED Co-Director Joseph Kalt will be speaking on a panel organized by NCAI this coming Tuesday, May 12th. See event details below and register now!

Part of NCAI’s ongoing COVID-19 Virtual Events series, this forum will document the data and other evidence emerging from Indian Country about the nature and gravity of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on tribal nations, and their necessary implications for tribal governmental action and federal funding support. Panelists include:

·     Joseph P. Kalt, Co-Director, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development  

·     Patrice Kunesh, Founder and Director, Pehin Haha Consulting

·     Casey Lozar, Director, Center for Indian Country Development, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis  

·     Aaron Payment, Chairman, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians

The forum will be held on Tuesday, May 12 from 1:00 to 2:15 p.m. EDT.

To register for the forum, please click HERE.

NCAI Contact: Ian Record, Vice President of Tribal Governance and Special Projects, irecord@ncai.org

[mystlnewsonline]

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M | States weigh bills addressing Native deaths, disappearances

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M | States weigh bills addressing Native deaths, disappearances

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Lawmakers in at least seven states have introduced legislation to address the unsolved deaths and disappearances of numerous Native American women and girls.

The legislation calls for state-funded task forces and other actions amid deepening concerns that law enforcement agencies lack the data and resources to understand the scope of the crisis .

On some reservations,…

[puccadraws]

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Brianna character spotlight featuring her designer, Lorraine Grate!!

Lorraine talks about Brianna’s inspiration and what she is looking forward to with Pen Pals Forever.

We are in our last two days of the campaign, support us today here to help make this project become a reality! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/puccanoodles/pen-pals-forever-an-animated-pilot-by-marie-lum?ref=user_menu

Edited by Elvis Kunesh