First Person Radio
Originally aired on Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Laura Waterman Wittstock and Miguel Vargas talk with Susana di Palma and Heid Erdrich who are collaborating on a new performance piece called Zorro: In the Land of the Yellow Breasted Woodpecker. It's a story about two Ojibwe girls who are rescued from boarding school by a masked trickster.
Originally aired on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Laura Waterman Wittstock and Miguel Vargas talk with Cantemaza (NEIL MCKAY) (Spirit Lake Dakota and Turtle Mountain Ojibwe)
Cantemaza has taught Dakota Language at the University Of Minnesota, Twin Cities for 12 years. He received a BA in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota in 1997. He is a Dakota language activist and his specific teaching and research interests are in the area of preservation and restoration of the Dakota language and culture by creating Dakota speakers at various levels of proficiency in both academic and informal settings. He is currently working on his Masters in second Languages and Cultures at the U of M.
Originally aired on Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Laura Waterman Wittstock and Miguel Vargas talk with Elaine Salinas and Joe Rice, members of Phillips Indian Educators, or PIE, and members of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors, the group that signed a historic second agreement with the Minneapolis School District that spells out how the Indian children of Minneapolis will be taught.
This Memorandum of Agreement between the Minneapolis Public School District and the American Indian Community of Minneapolis, represented by the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors and its member organizations recognizes that education failure has condemned generation of American Indian people to poverty and diminished life opportunities and that this failure must finally be put to an end.
Elaine Salinas is President and Chief Professional Officer of MIGIZI Communications. She is an educator with over thirty-five years of experience in k-12 and adult education in public and alternative school settings. She is an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Band and was born and educated in Minnesota. She holds undergraduate degrees from Moorhead State University and a Master’s Degree in Education Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota. Ms. Salinas’ was Director of Programs at Heart of the Earth Survival School, Education Program Officer for the Urban Coalition, Director of Community Education for the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, and Upper Midwest Regional Steward for the Rural School and Community Trust and she has been President and Chief Professional Officer for MIGIZI Communications, Inc. since 2004.
Joe Rice has been executive director of Center School in Minneapolis since 2001. Before that he taught high school in South Dakota for 17 years - at Little Wound Hight School on Pine Ridge and then Central High School in Rapid City. He serves as a member of the Minneapolis Urban Indian Directors and the Metropolitan Federation of Schools and is the chairperson of the group Phillips Indian Educators. He served on the United Way Investment Panel in 2003 and also lectures on Native American education and related issues. He graduated from Macalester College with a B.A. in History and earned a B.S. in Education secondary emphasis from Black Hills State University in Spearfish,South Dakota.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Laura Waterman Wittstock and Miguel Vargas talk about SOPA & PIPA with three experts from the field. Don't know what SOPA and PIPA are?
(Whatis.com) The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as House Bill 3261, is legislation introduced in the United States House of Representatives to enforce current laws that make stealing intellectual property and trafficking in counterfeit goods illegal.
The legislation will provide a way for United States courts to penalize foreign websites that are currently outside the reach of United States courts. If SOPA becomes law, Internet service providers (ISPs) will be required to filter domain names to identify sites that are found by federal courts to be in violation of the law. ISPs will be required to redirect traffic from such sites. The legislation also specifies that a federal court can order a direct payment company to sever ties with a site that has been found in violation.
Proponents of the legislation are eager to shut down sites that break United States laws, pointing out that online piracy and the trafficking of counterfeit goods deprives the United States economy of a highly significant amount of revenue each year.
Critics of the legislation and its United States Senate equivalent, the Protect IP Act, are concerned that legislators do not fully understand how the Internet works. On the technical side, IT security professionals throughout the world have raised concerns that PIPA's domain name system (DNS) filtering is incompatible with DNSSEC. DNSSEC is a set of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards that address vulnerabilities in the Domain Name System (DNS) and protect it from online threats.
Continue reading about SOPA and PIPA:
The United States House of Representatives website has more information about SOPA.
The United States Senate website has more information about PIPA.
Listen to the experts-
Steven Renderos leads Main Street Project's media justice and community building efforts, including the Minnesota Digital Justice Coalition and our collaborative work with the nationwide Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net). He brings more than seven years of community organizing and training experience, and more than ten years of filmmaking and media production experience.
Prior to joining Main Street Project, Steven served as Project Coordinator of the Minnesotano Media Empowerment Project, an initiative of the Department of Chicano Studies at the University of Minnesota focused on improving the quality and quantity of media coverage and representation of Latinos in Minnesota. He currently serves on the boards of Organizing Apprenticeship Project, La Asamblea de Derechos Civiles, and the Center for Media Justice. Steven (aka DJ Ren) also hosts a show called Radio Pocho on KFAI Radio heard on Wednesday Nights 8pm to 10pm.
Ernesto Falcon, Director of Government Affairs. He joined Public Knowledge from the office of Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), where he worked for three years as the senior legislative assistant dealing with issues related to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet. Ernesto previously worked on Capitol Hill for Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) for three years as a technology manager and legislative assistant. He originally came to Washington D.C. on an internship with Congressman George Miller (D-CA) in early 2004 shortly after graduating from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo with a degree in Political Science.
amalia coordinates the media policy initiatives of the Center for Media Justice and the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net). She has over 15 years of experience in community and cultural organizing, with a specific interest in human rights, cultural rights and traditional knowledge. At CMJ, amalia uses her extensive experience for field-building, community-building, and policy advocacy. Born in Guatemala, she worked for many years at the Main Street Project–a MAG-Net anchor–in her hometown of Minneapolis. While there, she co-directed a nationally recognized four-state rural Latino capacity-buliding initiative called The Raíces Project. Nationally, amalia is a board member of the Indigenous Women’s Network, Main Street Project and the Media and Democracy Coalition.
Originally aired on KFAI-FM Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Laura Waterman Wittstock and Miguel Vargas talk with author Rob Cabitto, Karuk Tribe. His book, "A Fractured Life of 3743: A Journey to Redemption." traces his life throughout separation from his family, severe abuse, and finally redemption.
Rob Cabitto is the Founder and CEO of Nine Mile Communications Inc., which provides installation services for data and telecommunication equipment covering North America. On any given day, Nine Mile Communications could have technicians working anywhere from the tip of Nova Scotia to Hawaii, from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Alaska, and everywhere in between.
Rob received his B.S. in Business Marketing from the University of Phoenix and an M.B.A. from the New York Institute of Technology. Rob also holds many specialty certificates in Data Networking, Data Storage, Telecommunications and Network Design.
Originally aired on KFAI-FM Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Laura Waterman Wittstock and Miguel Vargas talk with acclaimed artist and author Carl Gawboy, Anishinabe. He has exhibited his work nationwide, including at the Eitlejorg Museum, Indianapolis, and the Great Turtle Museum, Niagara Falls, New York. He was also a cartoonist for the "New World Finn" newspaper and these cartoons are collected in the book, "In With the Finn Crowd."
In 2008 Gawboy was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Depot Foundation in Duluth for his extensive contributions in the field of art and art education in the Duluth region.He graduated in 1965 from the University of Minnesota-Duluth with a B.A. in the arts, and in 1972 he received a masters degree in American Indian art from the University of Montana-Missoula. He taught Indian studies for six years at University of Minnesota-Duluth. From 1990-2005 Gawboy taught American Indian studies and watercolor painting at College of St. Scholastica, Minnesota. He is now retired and devotes much of his time to painting and is co-authoring a book.
Carl Gawboy wrote the play, The Great Hurt, about the American Indian boarding school experience, which premiers at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, January 31 in the College of St. Scholastica’s Mitchell Auditorium in Duluth, MN. It is based on his graduate study of the historical records of boarding schools for American Indians from the 1880’s to the 1940’s.
He then produced a dramatic reading from his research materials to bring the play to a wider audience. The readers’ theatre script comes from actual testimonies by Indians and staff of the boarding schools.
Originally aired on KFAI-FM Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Laura Waterman Wittstock and Miguel Vargas read and discuss the top headlines of 2011. And, they name Geoffrey Blackwell - First Person Radio First Person of the Year.
Geoffrey Blackwell is the Chief of the Office of Native Affairs and Policy (ONAP) at the Federal Communications Commission. On June 22, 2010, Mr. Blackwell was appointed by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to lead the Commission's efforts to work with Tribal Nations and Native communities. One of Mr. Blackwell’s first duties was to lead the FCC’s effort to establish ONAP, which was officially established by the Commission on August 12. Mr. Blackwell directs efforts to develop and drive a FCC-wide agenda to bring the benefits of modern communications technologies to Indian Country, including telecom, broadcast, and broadband internet services. The Office works with the FCC Commissioners, bureaus, and offices, as well as with other government agencies, private organizations, and the communications industries, to develop and implement FCC policies regarding Tribal Nations and Native communities, and ensure that Native concerns and voices are considered in all relevant Commission proceedings.
Mr. Blackwell previously worked as the Senior Attorney/Liaison to Tribal Governments at the FCC from 2000 to 2005, where he played a central role working throughout the agency in the FCC’s development of its 2000 Statement of Policy on Establishing a Government-to-Government Relationship with Indian Tribes, adoption of the Enhanced Lifeline and Link-Up support for residents of Tribal lands, and creation a new programmatic agreement rules for cultural preservation review and protection of Tribal sacred sites in the siting of communications towers.
Mr. Blackwell is an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and is also of Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Omaha heritage.
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