Kauanui Radio 'Indigenous Politics' Crisis in Schaghticoke

CRISIS ON THE SCHAGHTICOKE RESERVATION

"Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond" radio program on WESU, Middletown, CT, 88.1fm.

LISTEN ONLINE while the program airs from 4-4:55pm (EST): www.wesufm.org
On Tuesday's program, January 27, 2009, join your host, Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui for an episode focusing on a crisis on the Schaghticoke reservation in Kent, CT. A non-Indian male intruder who claims to be the spokesman of an un-enrolled Schaghticoke woman who says she is the chief of the Schaghticoke Indian Nation is bull-dozing land to create road, cutting down trees, and even desecrating sacred sites. The reservation land is held in trust by the state Department of Environmental Protection. However, state officials and even state police have refused to stop the non-Native trespasser. Guests will discuss the course of events, and the barriers they face in trying to get the attention of state officials who claim their hands are tied because of a "leadership conflict." Hear from: Katherine Saunders, Chair of the Preservation Committee for the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation; esteemed Schaghticoke elder, Trudie Lamb Richmond, Connecticut Native American Heritage Advisory Council, and the Preservation Committee for the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation; Nicholas F. Bellantoni, the state archaeologist with the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History and Archaeology Center at the University of Connecticut; and the Chief of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, Richard Velky.
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In response to the latest situation of destruction on their reservation, the Schaghticoke plan to rally against state neglect with a march on the Capitol in Hartford. Native and non-Native supporters will gather on the south side of the state capitol building and the legislative office building Jan. 29 between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to protest the state's refusal to stop the non-Schaghticoke trespasser. Tribal members also posted a petition at petitiononline.com, which they intend to present to Gov. Jodi Rell at the rally. The petition calls on the governor "to investigate and order an immediate halt to the hate crimes, destruction, desecration of sacred lands and encroachment" that continues despite the tribe's requests for help. Russell Means will be flying in to support at the rally as well.
~~~ Past programs of "Indigenous Politics" are now archived online: www.indigenouspolitics.com.
~~~ "Indigenous Politics" is syndicated weekly on Pacifica-affiliate stations: WNJR, 91.7 FM, "Washington & Jefferson College Radio"
in Washington, PA, and WETX-LP, 105.3 FM, "The independent voice of Appalachia," which includes a region encompassing TWELVE STATES and 20 million people: east Tennessee, southwest Virginia, west Kentucky, all of West Virginia, most of Pennsylvania, south New York, west Maryland, west North Carolina, west South Carolina, north Georgia, north Alabama, and northeast Mississippi. In addition, next month, WBCR-lp in Massachusetts will begin to syndicate the show.
~~~ The show's producer and host, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Ph.D. is an associate professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University. She is the author of a newly released book, Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press, 2008). http://jkauanui.faculty.wesleyan.edu/