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      Trump chose the wrong hill to DEI on | Stewart Lee

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      In the second world war, Navajo code talkers transmitted sensitive US military information in their own undocumented language. Which was nice of them, as their immediate ancestors had been dispossessed and destroyed by white settlers, and then had all their water poisoned with uranium. “Were it not for the Navajos,” concluded major Howard Connor, at the time, “the marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.” And that famous photo of the American soldiers raising a flag would just have shown some Japanese boy scouts letting off a party popper.But last month Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said: “I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength’.” Predictably, some Navajo code talkers had to have bodyguards to protect them from white American servicemen who thought they were Japanese. Plus ça change, as they say over there in that Europe.The Navajos’ efforts went unrecognised. When the son of one of the code talkers got to live the American dream by opening a Burger King in Kayenta on Navajo lands in 1986, he made the building a partial museum of his father’s unit. I visited it 30 years ago, with the comedian Kevin Eldon (Narvi the dwarf smith in TV’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power), and it remains the most edifying fast food restaurant I ever ate in. It was even better than that KFC near Bletchley Park that does that delicious Alan Turing chicken strips and alphabetti spaghetti meal deal ™ ®.The Kayenta Burger King also has a more extensive archive of code talker artefacts than any official government repository. Especially since, last week, videos, photos and stories of the Navajo code talkers were temporarily removed online as part of Trump’s assault on diversity. A page commemorating corporal Ira Hayes, a Pima of the Gila River Indian Community, and one of the servicemen photographed raising that Stars and Stripes at Iwo Jima, also disappeared for a while in Trump’s thwarting of the woke. Boris Johnson must be delighted. But I wonder if Trump’s actions please the British daytime TV treasure Lorraine Kelly?Kelly’s interview in the Times on 14 March, culled from a book promotion appearance on Times Radio, seemed to suggest she believed gender and racial diversity are wrongly prioritised in the workplace at the expense of offering opportunities to the (presumably white) working class. The headline spoke for itself: “Lorraine Kelly: Diversity push is leaving working-class people behind.” Was our Lorraine an unexpected supporter of Trump’s anti-diversity agenda?Probably not. This is the rightwing press, or the press as I call it, that we’re talking about, and Kelly didn’t quite espouse the view the headline implies. Even the elements of the radio interview that the paper chose to transcribe show a Lorraine Kelly principally concerned about how the cost of living affects working-class access to media jobs, and she made explicit that she hoped to see diversity initiatives tackle exclusion on the basis of class in addition to concentrating on gender and race. It’s a subtly different position and an example of the nuanced thought that has made Kelly the Socrates of the sofa, while her competitor Richard Madeley stares out of his kitchen window at a donkey in a field while thinking about bread.But this is how papers work. For two decades I was lucky enough to review records (remember them?) for the Sunday Times. So when they asked me, 20 years back, to write an insider comedian’s view of attempts to boycott the Edinburgh comedy awards because the sponsor, Perrier, was owned by Nestlé, which pushed unsafe formula milk initiatives to the developing world, what could possibly go wrong? And the money didn’t hurt either!I wrote a balanced piece about how the boycott was morally the right thing to do, with the appended caveat that high-profile supporters were asking a lot of young broke performers to walk away from a cash bung of £10,000 that might shift at least some of their debts. The headline? “‘Emma Thompson needs to grow up’, says comedian Stewart Lee”, which wasn’t anything I said, but perhaps fitted the paper’s agenda better, and left me apologising, cap in hand, to the charity Baby Milk Action and Miss Thompson herself, who has conspicuously failed to cast me in any of her hit films since.Despite the fun-size fascism we’re seeing across the Atlantic, the woke folk panic still sells papers and farms online engagement. The Times got what it wanted out of massaging Kelly’s quotes, and in the US the fourth estate is finished, jeopardising democracy worldwide. Maybe it’s time for writers to work out what they believe and stand up for it. But the British press is staffed by a class of professionals happy to drift between the Times, the Telegraph, the New European and yes, even the last liberal papers, refining their opinions as required by their offshore billionaire employers. It’s as easy as changing the look of your byline photo from sensible suit and tie to a beatnik polar neck jumper and beard. And that’s just the women. These days.Ironically, some wag at the Times has chosen to illustrate Kelly’s interview with an old photo of her GMTV colleague, the black fitness expert Mr Motivator, holding her aloft on the roof of a building. Presumably there were dozens of more motivated white working-class Mr Motivators, but the woke agenda meant they never got the opportunity to lift a Scottish woman. Let’s see if we can’t see a white working-class TV fitness instructor raising Lorraine Kelly high above their head by the end of 2025, but ideally let’s do it without playing into the divisive playbook of Trump, Musk, Vance and Farage, apportioning blame to the disadvantaged, while consolidating their own chrome-plated futures. More

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      ‘A slap in the face’: activists reel as Trump administration removes crucial missing Indigenous peoples report

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      Since January, Donald Trump’s presidency has been marked by a series of radical changes. Of note is the way troves of previously publicly available information on government websites such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or National Institutes of Health (NIH) have quietly gone dark.One such page is the Not Invisible Act Commission’s final report from November 2023. The Not Invisible Act Commission was mandated by bipartisan legislation and signed into law by Trump himself. The report was a collaboration between the justice department and the interior department to address, document and respond to the missing and murdered Indigenous peoples (MMIP) crisis, in which Indigenous communities experience disproportionate rates of abduction, assault and murder. Accurate statistics about the MMIP and missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) crises can be limited and dated, but, as of 2019, homicide was the third most common cause of death for Indigenous girls aged 15 to 19 and Indigenous women aged 20 to 24.The Not Invisible Act Commission’s final report was a culmination of seven in-person field hearings held across the country and a one-day virtual national hearing. Nearly 600 people attended the hearings and 260 people, including survivors, victims, family members, advocates and law enforcement gave testimony to the commission. As a result of those hearings, the commission issued its final report of recommendations to address the crisis.Having a resource like the Not Invisible Act Commission’s final report provided Indigenous people and governments, as well as federal, state and local branches of the US government, with data and suggestions on how to reduce the crises. The act itself was historic, not only because it shed light on an issue that Indian Country has faced for decades, but also because it was the first bill that was introduced and passed by four Indigenous US congressional members.Despite the report no longer being available online, advocates say the fight to bring light to and end the MMIP and MMIW crises continues.Tracking numbersCharolette Gonzales, the policy and advocacy director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (CSVANW) said that she and other staffers were shocked when the Not Invisible Act Commission’s report was removed from the federal website.“They were like, ‘What does this mean for the future of other information that supports our work?’” said Gonzales, who is Diné and San Ildefonso Pueblo. “[We] make sure that our communities are informed. What does that mean for them?”The coalition focuses on preventive work, or trying to stop violence against Indigenous women before it happens.“When doing this education, we are better able to equip them with the ability to advocate for themselves, and that work is really important as we move forward, especially with these unprecedented times of this current presidential administration,” she said.Karrisa Newkirk, of the Oklahoma-based MMIW Chahta, an organization that supports affected families through financial assistance, provides training opportunities for law enforcement agencies, and works with victims to help them heal after experiencing violence, said that the work doesn’t stop just because of a decision made in Washington.“When it comes to our work and what we do, I don’t feel like we’ve missed a step,” she said. “We’re going to continue to serve our families exactly how we should and always have. When it comes to other MMIWs across the United States, I truly feel like it kind of puts us back in time a little bit, where people aren’t going to see what a real crisis it is.”Newkirk said that after the commission collected the data, it should have been used to make tangible changes. Still, having a national database that tracked MMIW cases was vital.“Even though there were great strides in the last couple years, them removing that was like a slap in the face. It was a huge step back.” she said. “It felt like we were being heard and recognized, and then all of a sudden it felt like that was no longer what it was any more … When you think about that as someone that’s in the work and you know how many people already don’t know about it, and then it’s removed from the United States website, it’s definitely disheartening.”The CSVANW has begun discussing creating a database of its own, one built with information that the organization has collected over the years, including documents and reports that the Department of Justice previously issued. This method of ensuring that vital documents and resources are stored somewhere other than on government agencies’ websites is something that some advocates have been pushing for since the website purges began.The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, Inc (NIWRC), a non-profit organization that works to end violence against Native women, children and communities, for example, has a version of the Not Invisible Act Commission’s report that is still accessible.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We’re taking it upon ourselves to collect as much information as we can as it slowly becomes unavailable to us on purpose,” Gonzales said. “I think the censorship is a really hard hit to our communities, especially to our work. We already have limited resources as not only just a Native organization and survivor-led organization, but also as tribal people who live in these pueblos and work with our people.”MMIW Chahta also tracks its own numbers, and is trying to overcome racial misclassification by law enforcement.Tribal communities are also concerned about whether treaties, agreements made between sovereign nations, will be upheld by the US government, Gonzales said. The US has had a long history of violating treaties even before Trump’s election.Since he was sworn in, Trump and Elon Musk have called on the General Services Administration to terminate the leases of roughly 7,500 federal offices, including 25 regional offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. On Friday, Trump rescinded a Biden-era executive order, which aimed to strengthen tribal sovereignty for the 574 federally recognized tribes in the nation.Following the removal of the Not Invisible Act Commission’s final report page, federal agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or avoid, including, “indigenous community”, “tribal”, and “Native American”. Defense department websites removed pages about Indigenous code talkers, whose usage of Choctaw and Navajo languages to communicate messages were vital for winning the first and second world wars.Of the extreme changes being made by the administration and their implications for Indigenous people, Gonzales said: “A lot of community members, along with our staff, are emotionally exhausted every day we hear about new executive orders coming out.“Our survivors and our resources truly help decrease the violence that happens in our communities … And so, once we heard this, I think our mind instantly went to the fact that Native women will die if we don’t have federal funding. That’s just a fact.” More

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      Tribes and Students Sue Trump Administration Over Firings at Native Schools

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      A group of Native American tribes and students is suing the Trump administration to reverse its recent firing of federal workers at Native schools that they said has severely lowered their quality of education.The firings, part of the series of layoffs led by the Department of Government Efficiency that have cut thousands of federal jobs since January, included nearly one quarter of the staff members at the only two federally run colleges for Native people in the country: Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in Albuquerque.Instructors, a basketball coach, and security and maintenance workers were among those who were fired or forced to resign in February. Although the total number of layoffs was not clear on Sunday, the reductions also included employees at the central and regional offices of the Bureau of Indian Education, a federal agency. Some staff members, but not all, have been rehired, according to a statement from the Native American Rights Fund, which filed the suit on Friday in federal court in Washington. About 45,000 children are enrolled in bureau-funded schools in 23 states.As a result of the cuts, dozens of courses at the two colleges lost instructors, according to the lawsuit. And because of the loss of support staff and maintenance workers, school dorms were quickly overrun with garbage, students reported undrinkable brown water, dining halls failed to adequately feed students, and widespread power outages hampered students’ ability to study.“Unfortunately, these firings were done without preparation and without regard to the health and safety of the students, and that is a continuation of a history of neglect and disrespect,” Jacqueline De León, a lawyer for the tribes and students, said. “We are here to fight to make sure that it doesn’t continue.”Lawyers with the Native American Rights Fund filed the suit against the heads of the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Office of Indian Education Programs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Histories of Native America and the Port of Los Angeles Win Bancroft Prize

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      The award, one of the most prestigious among scholars of American history, honors “scope, significance, depth of research and richness of interpretation.”A sweeping history of Native Americans and a study of the creation of the port of Los Angeles in the 19th century have won this year’s Bancroft Prize, one of the most distinguished honors for scholars of American history.Kathleen DuVal’s “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America,” published by Random House, was described by the prize jurors as “a seamless panorama of 1,000 years of American history,” which draws on both written records and Native oral histories to tie together the stories of the more than 500 Indigenous nations who inhabit what is now the United States. “By crafting a historical narrative that introduces readers to a new national story,” the jurors write, “DuVal helps explain the Indigenous cultural and political renaissance of our own age.”DuVal, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is part of a new wave of scholars of Native America, who challenge the idea that the defeat of Indigenous people was inevitable, and who emphasize their resilience and continued cultural vitality. Hamilton Cain, reviewing the 752-page volume in The Minneapolis Star Tribune, called it “intimate yet comprehensive,” adding, “No single volume can adequately depict the gamut of Indigenous cultures, but DuVal‘s comes close.”The second winner, James Tejani’s “A Machine to Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles and America,” published by W.W. Norton, reconstructs the complex interactions between 19th-century engineers, merchants, military, Native tribes and others that turned the tiny San Pedro estuary into what is today the busiest seaport in the Western Hemisphere.“By returning the attention of historians to infrastructure, material objects, and logistics,” the Bancroft jurors wrote, “Tejani opens our eyes to a new way of thinking about the trans-Mississippi West.”Tejani, an associate professor at California State University, grew up near San Pedro Bay, and occasionally weaves personal observations into the history. Julia Flynn Siler, reviewing the book in The Wall Street Journal, described it as packed with “detailed, careful scholarship” that turns the story into “a lens through which to view American expansionism.”The prize, which awards $10,000 to each winner, was created in 1948 by the trustees of Columbia University, with a bequest from the historian Frederic Bancroft. Entries — 249 this year — are evaluated for “scope, significance, depth of research and richness of interpretation,” according to the prize announcement. More

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      ‘Day of Reckoning’: Trial Over Greenpeace’s Role in Pipeline Protest Begins

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      Energy Transfer, which owns the Dakota Access Pipeline, is seeking $300 million, a sum that Greenpeace says could bankrupt the storied environmental group.Lawyers for the pipeline company Energy Transfer and Greenpeace fired their opening salvos in a North Dakota courtroom Wednesday morning in a civil trial that could bankrupt the storied environmental group.The suit revolves around the role Greenpeace played in massive protests against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline nearly a decade ago. The pipeline, which carries crude oil from North Dakota across several states to a transfer point in Illinois, was delayed for months in 2016 and 2017 amid lawsuits and protests.The trial commenced on Wednesday with opening arguments in a quiet county courthouse in Mandan, N.D. Greenpeace says Energy Transfer, which built the Dakota Access Pipeline, is seeking $300 million in damages.Energy Transfer, one of the largest pipeline firms in the country, accused Greenpeace of inciting unrest that cost it millions of dollars in lost financing, construction delays, and security and public-relations expenses. Trey Cox, its lead lawyer, told the nine-person jury that his team would prove that Greenpeace had “planned, organized and funded” unlawful protests. He called the trial a “day of reckoning.”Everett Jack Jr., the lead lawyer for Greenpeace, gave a detailed timeline to rebut aspects of that account, saying Greenpeace played a minor role in the demonstrations, which drew an estimated 100,000 people to the rural area.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Deb Haaland, Ex-Interior Secretary, Is Running for Governor of New Mexico

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      Ms. Haaland, one of the first former cabinet officials in the Biden administration to announce a run for office, would be the first Native American woman to serve as governor of a state.Deb Haaland, the former secretary of the Interior who was the first Native American to serve in a presidential cabinet, on Tuesday announced a bid for governor of New Mexico.Ms. Haaland, a Democrat, previously served as a congresswoman from the state. She is widely seen as a favorite to succeed Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is not running again in 2026 because of term limits.Ms. Haaland, 64, a member of the Laguna Pueblo, would be the first Native American woman to serve as governor of a state. Her campaign described her as a “35th generation” New Mexican.She is one of the first top alumni of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s administration to announce a run for office since Democrats lost power.This article will be updated. More

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      ‘Disenfranchised and demobilized’: Native Americans face ballot box barriers in Arizona

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      The calls started coming in to the Arizona Native vote election protection hotline around 6am on election day.Voters in Apache county, where a sizable chunk of the population is Diné, also known as Navajo, were seeing problems at the polls. One location was locked and several others were having trouble printing ballots, according to an affidavit filed in state court. As the day went on, voters reported hours-long waits and observers reported that people were leaving. A local judge would eventually agree to extend voting in nine precincts in the county by two hours.“It was just a mess from what we could tell and from our folks,” said Jaynie Parrish, the executive director of Arizona Native Vote, a nonprofit civic engagement organization focused on Native communities.While delays in opening polling sites and glitches that lead to long lines are not uncommon, they can be particularly acute in Native communities, where voters can travel hours to get to the polls and face other unique barriers, like non-traditional addresses and language access issues. Taken together, those barriers result in a significant gap between turnout among those living on tribal lands and those who live off of them, according to a new study from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonprofit that studies voting rights and elections.“There are systemic issues that prevent Natives from getting to the ballot box – some intentional,” said Samantha Blencke, a staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, which had poll watchers in six states this election. For a voter who travels a far distance to cast a ballot, a polling place not opening on time could make a big difference, she said. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s their one shot to vote.”Native American voters are an influential voting bloc in Arizona, where they comprise 5% of the population. Both Republicans and Democrats courted Native voters this year. Election results analyzed by the New York Times showed that Donald Trump gained in many counties where Native Americans comprise a majority of the population.In addition to long travel times, Native voters also face a litany of unique hurdles. Many lack traditional addresses, making it more difficult to vote by mail. Tribal identification cards can get rejected at the polls. And there can be significant issues in translating ballots into Native languages.Turnout among those living on tribal lands was on average 11 points lower than turnout among people living off them between 2012 and 2022, according to the Brennan Center’s study. In presidential elections, the gap was 15 points.Tribal lands that had the highest share of Native voters also had the lowest turnout rates, the study found. And those who live on tribal lands were also less likely to use mail-in voting than those who lived off them.“These findings demonstrate that Native Americans living on tribal lands are uniquely disenfranchised and demobilized from participating in federal elections,” the report says.This year, after election day, Navajo voters sued Apache county again. Arizona gives voters five days after election day to address any issues with mail-in ballots. But county officials had delayed making public the number of voters who had problems with their ballots until two days before the deadline, the lawsuit said. With just two days left, they notified that there were 182 people who needed to cure their ballots, setting off a scramble to contact them.A judge rejected the request after elections employees said they had made a reasonable effort to contact anyone who was at risk of having their ballot rejected.For years, Leonard Gorman, the executive director of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission has been concerned about the way ballots have been translated into Navajo. Translation is required under the Voting Rights Act, and accurately describing things like ballot measures on abortion and fentanyl can be immensely challenging, Votebeat reported earlier this year. Navajo is a historically oral language, and translators come up with audio that those who are not proficient in English can listen to at the polls, according to Votebeat.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOver the years, Gorman said he’s heard glitches and poorly worded audio. And when he showed up at a polling location in Apache county in late October, the machine that offered the audio translation wasn’t working, he said.“It only said in literal translation or interpretation: ‘If you want to listen to the ballot, press any button,’” he said. When he pressed a button, the instruction would simply repeat. “That was the worst experience I’ve ever had.”Apache county election officials did not respond to an interview request.Chelsea Jones, a researcher at the Brennan Center who co-authored the nonprofit’s study, said its findings showed that people who live on tribal lands face unique barriers that haven’t thus far been addressed by federal laws. A piece of legislation, the Native American Voting Rights Act, that would address many of the systemic challenges Native voters face, has stalled in Congress.“Any of these common ways that we participate in elections have really layers of barriers for people who live on tribal lands,” Jones said. “Each of those numbers represent hundreds of thousands of people who are not able to or have a harder time participating. And so that’s what’s the hardest for us to grasp is that this many people are being left out of what is a fundamental right for all Americans.” More

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      This Diné leader is using horses to bring ‘the greatest Native turnout ever’ to the polls

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      In Diné, or Navajo, culture, the horse symbolizes strength and resilience, as well as a connection to the earth. Cowboy culture is so relevant to Native communities, that horseback trail rides are used to draw awareness to issues within the community including suicide prevention, and alcohol and drug use, said Allie Young, a 34-year-old Diné grassroots organizer. This fall, Young has harnessed the trail ride to engage Diné voters for the presidential election: her group’s voter-registration events will culminate with 100 Indigenous voters riding on horseback to a polling station in Arizona on election day.“When one mounts a horse and is in rhythm with the horse, that reconnection happens,” Young, founder of the Indigenous-led civic engagement program Protect the Sacred, told the Guardian. “So when we’re connected with the horse, we’re then reconnected to Mother Earth and reminded of our cultural values and what we’re fighting for, what we’re protecting.”Native American turnout is especially critical in the upcoming election, when tribal sovereignty could be threatened by the conservative blueprint Project 2025, which states that fossil fuel drilling should be facilitated on tribal lands. Political representation that brings needed resources into Native communities is particularly important on tribal lands, where 75% of roads remain unpaved. In part due to Young’s advocacy, Native American voters are credited with flipping the historically red state of Arizona to Democrat during the 2020 election. That year, up to 90% of the roughly 67,000 eligible voters in the Navajo Nation voted for Joe Biden, according to data.Young said she hopes that the success of the Ride to the Polls campaign in 2020 and 2022 will encourage “the greatest Native turnout ever” in the upcoming election. This year, the campaign has extended its reach with events such as skateboarding and bull-riding competitions, heavy metal and country music concerts.View image in fullscreen“We’re trying to communicate to our community that we need to protect our tribal sovereignty,” said Young, “and with that, protect our sacred sites, protect our lands, our cultures, our languages, our traditions.”Young launched the Ride to the Polls campaign in 2020 in response to the rapid spread of Covid-19 infections in the Navajo Nation, where some counties saw the highest death rates per capita in the nation. She wanted to ensure that her community filled out the US census to receive the funding they deserved and to elect politicians who prioritize the concerns of Native communities.“Our nation and many tribal nations across the country were devastated by the onset of Covid-19 because our system is being chronically underfunded,” said Young, “which revealed to the rest of the world what we already know: that the government is not honoring our treaty, which says that we are to receive good healthcare and education.” She began creating culturally relevant initiatives so that young Diné citizens who felt disenfranchised would see voting as a tool to “rebuild our power as a community”.The campaign’s goal in 2024 is to register 1,500 new voters during their in-person initiatives and more than 5,000 voters through online efforts. So far, they have registered 200 new voters and checked or updated the registrations of about 400 people.On 12 October, the actor Mark Ruffalo will join Ride to the Polls to help mobilize Native voters and to mark the 100th anniversary of Native Americans being granted the right to vote. Ruffalo and Indigenous voters wearing traditional clothing will walk three miles to vote early at a community ballot drop box in Fort Defiance, Arizona – the site where the forced removal called the Long Walk of the Navajo began in 1863.View image in fullscreen“Indigenous people have only been able to fight for their future at the ballot box for 76 years,” Ruffalo said in a statement. “Now we’re seeing a massive movement of young Indigenous folk exercise their power at the polls … I hope their resilience will inspire other young Indigenous folks from all communities to do the same.”While US citizenship was granted to most Native Americans under the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, some state constitutions continued to block the voting rights of Native Americans who lived among their nations. In Arizona, pollsters required English literacy tests to cast a ballot. All Native Americans were finally granted the right to vote under the federal voting rights act of 1965.Still, barriers have remained that make it difficult for Diné to register to vote and cast ballots, including a lack of residential addresses since many people on the Navajo Nation use post office boxes. It also can take up to an hour to drive to a polling location, said Young. And this summer, the US supreme court ruled that Arizona can enforce a state law requiring prospective voters to include proof of US citizenship in registration forms, which Young said was a “slap in the face to Native Americans, who are the first peoples of this land, to be asked to prove their citizenship”.To help address some of those hurdles, Protect the Sacred is partnering with the Indigenous-led voter-engagement non-profit Arizona Native Vote. Indigenous organizers register voters and help residents find their addresses by locating their houses on Google Maps. “A key talking point when we talk to voters is letting them know that voting and registering to vote should not be this hard,” Jaynie Parrish, executive director of Arizona Native Vote, said. “For example, the form itself – what will take five minutes or less from someone in Flagstaff or Phoenix or in a city that has a physical address or town, that’s not what happens here.”During a six-stop trail ride to register Diné citizens throughout the Navajo Nation in mid-September, Indigenous organizers discussed with voters the importance of casting ballots in every election. They served citizens stew and frybread while explaining to them that county elections can determine how local government operations are funded. Young said: “I believe that we started a movement around the power of the Native vote.” More