Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:24 — 25.8MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

It’s the day to question (more than usual) every news article, social media post, and conversation. Every year, April Fools’ Day recalibrates our gullibility meter. We’ll spend an hour getting the absolute truth from Native comedians and others about what makes things funny.

GUESTS

Break 1 Music: Truck Stop Cheii (song) James Bilagody (artist) Sacred Stage (album)

Break 2 Music: 10000 Generations (song) Khu.éex’ (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:29 — 25.9MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

Itinerant farm work means putting in long, hard hours. It’s a job most people pass up. But it’s long been an avenue for employment for people from south of the U.S. border. Numbers are hard to come by, but one survey found the number of Indigenous farmworkers in California alone reached 140,000. On a day set aside to recognize noted farmworker advocate Cesar Chavez, we’ll get a better understanding of the role Indigenous people play in working the nation’s agricultural economy.

GUESTS

Chuy Martinez, cultural activist and a co-founder of the Recuerda a César Chávez Committee

Matt Nelson, executive director of Presente.org

Felipe Guevara, workers’ rights attorney at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty

Rosalinda Guillen, founder of Community to Community

BREAK MUSIC (BROADCAST ONLY)

Break 1: People of the Sun (song) Rage Against the Machine (artist) Evil Empire (album)

Break 2: 10000 Generations (song) Khu.éex’ (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:25 — 38.7MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

Native Americans are well-represented on the wrestling mat at the high school and college levels. The NCAA wrestling championships have just ended and athletes and coaches are already eyeing prospects for next season. We’ll hear about notable Native wrestlers and find out the appeal wrestling presents for Native athletes.

GUESTS

Mark Branch (Kaw Nation) – head wrestling coach for the University of Wyoming Cowboys

Kirk Bahr, outgoing wrestling coach at Menominee Indian High School in Shawano, WI

Zach Blankenship (Cherokee and Navajo) – senior at Bixby Oklahoma High School and a wrestling recruit for Oklahoma State University

Seth Duckworth (Muscogee (Creek) Nation) – wrestling reporter for Pistols Firing

Break 1 Music: Electric Pow Wow Drum (song) The Halluci Nation (artist) A Tribe Called Red (album)

Break 2 music: 10000 Generations (song) Khu.éex’ (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:25 — 38.7MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

More than 42,000 Native Americans fought in Vietnam. Nearly all were volunteers. We’ll take time on Vietnam Veterans Day to honor all those who served during what was initially called “a policy action” – and hear the stories of heroism and healing from and about those who were there.

GUESTS

Michael Coon (Muskogee Creek ) – Vietnam War-era veteran

Tinisha Mitchell (Muskogee) – president of the Broken Arrow Intertribal Veterans Association

Walter Larney (Absentee Shawnee and Seminole) – lance corporal in the United States Marine Corps

Gerald Williams (Seminole) – Cold War veteran

Break 1 Music: Remembering the Warrior (song) Porcupine Singers (artist) Alowanpi – Songs of Honoring – Lakota Classics: Past & Present, Vol. 1 (album)

Break 2 music: 10000 Generations (song) Khu.éex’ (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:25 — 38.7MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

A series of troubling incidents around the country appear to harken to a time of unchecked discrimination, racism and basic disregard for Native people. A South Dakota hotel owner publicly announces a ban on all Native Americans. Students at an Oklahoma school forcibly cut off a Kickapoo first grader’s hair. And a Texas high school doubles down on fake headdresses and other made-up imagery to bolster its “Cherokee values” brand. How, after all the media interviews, op-eds, awareness campaigns and personal pleas for change, can such ignorance of fundamental respect keep surfacing in 2022?

GUESTS

Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation) – attorney and co-founder of Not Your Mascot

Nick Tilsen (Oglala Lakota) – CEO of the NDN Collective

Break 1 music: The Real People (song) RiverFlowz (artist) RiverFlowz (album)

Break 2 music: 10000 Generations (song) Khu.éex’ (artist)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:25 — 38.8MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

Affording the basics is becoming harder every day as inflation continues to creep higher. Add to that the rising costs for gas and lingering supply-chain breakdowns. And a new study reminds us that people of color pay a steeper cost during economic hard times than the rest of the population. Shawn Spruce examines where and how inflation is surfacing and points out some hopeful signs that put the current financial concerns in context. This is an encore show so we won’t be taking live phone calls)

GUESTS

Eric Henson, research fellow at The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and lecturer at Harvard University

Toni Stanger-McLaughlin, CEO of the Native America Agriculture Fund

Richard Driskell, director for retail operations for FireLake Discount Foods and the FireLake Express Grocery stores in Tecumseh and McLoud for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation

Break 1 Music: Oldest Rabbit Dance Song (song) William Horncloud (artist) Rabbit Dance Songs of The Lakota (album)

Break 2 music: Sisters (song) The Halluci Nation (artist) Nation II Nation (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:25 — 38.7MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

After decades of legal and political battles have pushed Nevada’s Yucca Mountain out of discussion as the permanent nuclear waste repository. But that means tribes like the Prairie Island Indian Community and the Yakama Nation in Washington will have to endure waste storage at temporary holding sites nearby.

GUESTS

BROADCAST-ONLY MUSIC BEDS (Tune In Live 1-2pm ET)

Break 1 music: For the Light (song) Digging Roots (artist) For the Light (song)

Break 2 music: Sisters (song) The Halluci Nation (artist) Nation II Nation (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:25 — 38.7MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

As the Academy Awards show approaches, audiences are catching up on the nominees and weighing in on their top movies of the year. Native talent is largely absent from this year’s Oscars, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some standout work on screens. We go over the media that has Native audiences buzzing.

GUESTS

Vincent Schilling (Akwesasne Mohawk) – author and editor of Native Viewpoint

Charlie Perry (Prairie Band Potawatomi and Salish Kootenai) – filmmaker and journalist

Break 1 Music: Lummi Morning Song (song) Chenoa (artist) Spirit of Salishan (album)

Break 2 music: Sisters (song) The Halluci Nation (artist) Nation II Nation (album)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:18 — 38.7MB) | Embed

Host: Shawn Spruce

Affording the basics is becoming harder every day as inflation continues to creep higher. Add to that the rising costs for gas and lingering supply-chain breakdowns. And a new study reminds us that people of color pay a steeper cost during economic hard times than the rest of the population. Shawn Spruce examines where and how inflation is surfacing and points out some hopeful signs that put the current financial concerns in context.

 

GUESTS

Eric Henson, research fellow at The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and lecturer at Harvard University

Toni Stanger-McLaughlin, CEO of the Native America Agriculture Fund

Richard Driskell, director for retail operations for FireLake Discount Foods and the FireLake Express Grocery stores in Tecumseh and McLoud for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation