Cherokee language board will play vital role in revitalization efforts

Part of my sworn oath as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation is to preserve, promote and advance the language and culture of the Cherokee Nation. We’ve seen some wonderful examples of that recently, including concentrated revitalization efforts for the Cherokee language. This week, we took another important step by creating a new Cherokee Language Advisory Board.


Cherokee language experts and speakers Durbin Feeling, Rosa Carter and Wyman Kirk will make up the inaugural board, and as this effort’s first members, they are charged with ensuring all of Cherokee Nation’s language programs and all the efforts to educate our citizens in our communities have a united vision, implementation method and mission. This coordination will enable all our language programs to synchronize, giving us better management, tracking and verification abilities.


Today, Cherokee Nation operates several language programs, including the Cherokee Translation Department, Cherokee Language Master Apprentice Program, Cherokee Language Technology Program and the Cherokee Immersion School. The widespread success and recognition of these respected programs are a testament to the efforts and investments we have made into language programs.


The formation of the Cherokee Language Advisory Board is part of the tribe’s Native Language Community Coordination ANA Grant, received in 2016.


In addition to the creation of the advisory board, we will also develop a coordinated, standardized Cherokee language curriculum that will be available for each level of language learning. We also plan to establish a Cherokee Nation Cherokee Language Teacher Certification to solidify the standards of proficiency for those teaching Cherokee.


Through the execution of these new initiatives, prompted by the national grant, we can keep striving for our cultural preservation goal: Within 20 years, Cherokee communities are living, speaking and thinking in Cherokee and the Cherokee language is the first language of the Cherokee Nation.


Our Cherokee language is the most fundamental aspect of our culture as Cherokee people. That’s why we are developing more avenues and partnerships that will ensure the Cherokee language endures.  

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Investing in education, investing in the future

In the Cherokee Nation, education is the foundation of our success. That has been true for generations. Even prior to our removal to Indian Territory, education was critical. Renowned statesman Sequoyah invented a written syllabary, which enabled better communication and expanded knowledge opportunities. Increased literacy happened very quickly, making us stronger and more sophisticated as a tribal nation. After removal, education was the first thing our ancestors invested in to build our tribe back up. Decades before Oklahoma statehood, our ancestors established the Cherokee National Female Seminary, the oldest educational institution west of the Mississippi River for women of any race. Upon graduation, many of those young women became public school teachers in our Cherokee communities.


During my tenure as Principal Chief, the tribe has nearly doubled its scholarship funding, from $8.5 million to almost $16 million. Since 2010, more than 27,000 scholarships have been awarded through the Cherokee Nation higher education program. We have increased the number of scholarships awarded by nearly 45 percent.


More Cherokees are benefitting from tribal college scholarships than ever before. Right now, almost 5,000 tribal citizens are fulfilling their dream of earning an undergraduate degree. Every qualified Cherokee student who applied in the last funding cycle was issued a Cherokee Nation scholarship. These recipients embody some of the most important values we hold as a tribe, including personal accountability, community and responsibility.


Additionally, the Cherokee Nation Foundation offers multiple scholarship opportunities, including the growing “Leave a Legacy” endowment effort. It is another way that the Cherokee Nation invests in our future. Cherokee Nation’s economic future, along with Oklahoma’s, depends on a well-educated workforce and college graduates. The education staff at Cherokee Nation works diligently to expand opportunities for young people.


Cherokee Nation recently announced a new partnership with Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine for a Tahlequah branch campus. As part of that effort, $350,000 was donated to scholarships for students to attend the new school. Cherokee Nation Businesses contributed $100,000 of the amount raised. Many Cherokee Nation citizens will be the recipients of these scholarships at the future OSU Medical School.


Sometimes an opportunity is all a young person needs to reach their potential. As we continue to strengthen and grow the Cherokee Nation, education and opportunities for our people remain a strategic priority. Education is a vital part of our history, and it is equally important to our bright future. When we invest in education, we invest in our people and their collective ability to lift us all to greater heights.

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Reforming Johnson-O’Malley can change lives

The Johnson-O’Malley Supplemental Indian Education Program Modernization Act, recently signed into law, requires the U.S. Department of the Interior to update the count of Native American students eligible for the JOM program annually. The bill will establish a new baseline count of JOM-eligible students, which includes thousands of Cherokee youth. The new modern, accurate allocation funding formula will better meet the needs of Native students across the country.

This issue is one Cherokee Nation has been advocating to change for years, since I was a member of the Tribal Council. When federal funding was frozen at the 1995 level and capped at 278,000 students nationally, it negatively impacted our families, schools and communities. By law, the U.S. has a trust responsibility to tribal nations. But the population and funding formulas to fund that trust never grew, even though Indian Country has grown rapidly since 1995.

The U.S. Census confirms American Indians are among the fastest-growing populations in America. According to the National Indian Education Association, the FY18 federal budget allocated only $15 million of the estimated $42 million required for fully funding JOM in the United States. That’s why we have spent more than two decades advocating for JOM reform. It is an incredibly important program for regional students. In northeast Oklahoma, JOM’s mission is to ensure every Indian child in the Cherokee Nation’s service area receives educational opportunities – books, fees, equipment – that their schools would not otherwise provide. Additionally, successful JOM programs incorporate tribal culture and heritage as part of a base curriculum.

There are more than 130,000 American Indian school-aged children in our state’s public schools – the highest number in the country. Oklahoma continues to be one of the worst states for K–12 school funding cuts. Since 2008, Oklahoma has slashed education funding by almost 25 percent. In the Cherokee Nation alone, we have more than 26,000 Native students. That’s why this new act is so very important.  The JOM program awards contracts based on the number of Native students served, making it imperative that updated, accurate numbers be reflected in those contracts.

The JOM Modernization Act is a major step in the right direction, and I look forward to seeing the positive ripple effect it will have throughout Indian Country. With the passage of this bill, I believe we are poised to build a stronger future for the Cherokee Nation, for Oklahoma and for all of Indian Country. It is our responsibility to keep pushing for greater successes and raising the bar for our JOM programs. Every child deserves an education that meets his or her needs, and we want our youth to become everything God intended them to be.

To learn more about Cherokee Nation JOM or other education services, visit www.cherokee.org/services/education.

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Years in the making: radioactive waste removed from Cherokee Nation

It was a historic day in December when we celebrated the final removal of more than 10,000 tons of nuclear waste that have plagued Sequoyah County and its citizens for decades. More than 500 semi-tractor loads removed the dangerous substances from the former Sequoyah Fuels Corporation site near Gore. Our Cherokee Nation Attorney General’s office and Secretary of Natural Resources office collaborated with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office to undertake this immense task.

The original uranium processing plant was opened by Kerr-McGee in 1970 and converted yellowcake uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors. However, over the years, the plant changed several times before General Atomics began operations as Sequoyah Fuels Corporation. Many of the residents who live in Gore and who worked at the site over the years are Cherokee.

Our tribal government has been involved in litigation over the Sequoyah Fuels site since 2004. I’m proud that Cherokee Nation took the lead in removing a risk that would have threatened our communities forever. This would not have been possible if the tribe and state had not worked cooperatively, presenting a united front in court to ensure removal of this material.

The removal process took 18 months and leaves the riverbed area where the Arkansas River and Illinois River meet free of nuclear waste for the first time in almost 50 years. Tons of radioactive waste remained at the facility when it closed in 1993 after multiple lethal accidents. In 2004, Cherokee Nation and the state of Oklahoma entered into a settlement agreement that required the highest-risk waste be removed from the site. The owners of Sequoyah Fuels Corporation announced in 2016 their intention to bury the waste on site. Thankfully, a judge forced the company to comply with the original agreement, clearing the way for complete removal instead.

This material is no longer a ticking time bomb on the banks of two of our most precious natural resources – waterways along the Arkansas and Illinois rivers. Our tribe’s natural resources remain protected, and the 41,000 residents of Sequoyah County will no longer be in harm’s way. The radioactive waste has been transported to a disposal site in Utah, where the uranium will be recycled and reused.

Sara Hill, Cherokee Nation’s secretary of Natural Resources, said it best: “Decommissioning this plant was never enough to satisfy our goals for a clean and safe environment…removal of this highly contaminated waste was our goal all along.”

Mission accomplished. Cherokee Nation will continue to step up, lead and forge the partnerships that will protect our citizens, families and communities for generations.

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New VA center in Sequoyah County expands health care capabilities in northeast Oklahoma

America’s veterans, including many Cherokee men and women, committed a portion of their lives to preserving our collective freedoms. They deserve the best possible health care we, as a country, can provide. I am proud the Oklahoma Veterans Commission recently selected the city of Sallisaw, a community in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, for a new state veterans center in Oklahoma. The planned veterans center in Sequoyah County will be located on a 90-acre plot on Sallisaw’s south side for easy accessibility. It will be a great complement to our Redbird Smith Health Center, located nearby.


In fact, the commission’s selection of Sallisaw for the new center will be an excellent addition to the wide range of health advances and investments Cherokee Nation has already made throughout northeastern Oklahoma. We’ve expanded and built new clinics across our 14 counties. Next year we will dedicate a new, 469,000-square-foot health care facility at the W.W. Hastings campus in Tahlequah, and we’ve secured an agreement with the OSU School of Medicine to launch the first-ever medical school on tribal land.


The center is a relocation from Talihina to Sallisaw. The commission could have selected many terrific locations from across our great state, but they chose to be right here in Cherokee Nation. That’s not by accident. Our corporate arm, Cherokee Nation Businesses, stepped up to make investments that made relocation to Sequoyah County viable and attractive for such a move. The leadership of Cherokee Nation Tribal Council members E.O. Smith and Bryan Warner was essential to help form the alliances that made this possible. This outcome is a model for how public-private-tribal partnerships should work. Successful partnerships like this one will only make our entire region stronger and healthier.


The brand-new facility will be constructed and opened within three to five years, and will employ about 275 people, adding a large number of quality jobs that will support economic growth and add to the area’s tax base. Cherokee Nation’s Career Services Department will lend its support to recruit and fulfill the new center’s workforce needs. We know the people of Sallisaw will embrace this new opportunity and be warm and welcoming not just to the veterans and veterans’ families, but to the center’s employees and their families as well.


It is my honor to say that Cherokee Nation supports veterans through many means. Our Cherokee Nation Veterans Center provides a place for veterans of all eras to gather for fellowship. Employees there assist veterans in accessing necessary Veterans Administration benefits. The Cherokee Nation and VA hospitals have an agreement to provide better care for Native veterans by providing primary care and sharing chart information. We provide veterans across our region access to healthy food via a unique partnership with the Eastern Oklahoma Food Bank. Cherokee veterans are honored monthly during Tribal Council meetings, and our annual Cherokee Warrior Flight takes Cherokee veterans to Washington, D.C., to see the memorials built in their honor.


It’s exciting to see our vision at Cherokee Nation for healthier citizens and communities, especially for veterans, is shared by others. We welcome the new VA center at Sallisaw with open hearts and open arms.

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Saving our Cherokee language by identifying fluent speakers

Cherokee Nation is embarking on a huge undertaking: surveying our citizens for an accurate number of fluent Cherokee speakers. Knowing our baseline number of speakers is essential as we continue our aggressive work in Cherokee language revitalization. As of today, our Community & Cultural Outreach department has identified nearly 2,000 fluent speakers. Just a few years back, we estimated that number at about 4,000. We are losing our speakers at an incredibly rapid rate.

Our Cherokee language is sacred, and we have an obligation to save it. It’s a battle we must win. Toward that end, we are investing more than $50,000 to conduct this community survey. Once it is finalized and complete, we can use the data to apply for additional national funding for language preservation programs.

This survey and the information collected are critical steps in growing the Cherokee language.  The vast majority of our fluent speakers are over the age of 60. As those elders pass away, we lose speakers far more quickly than new speakers emerge. Thus, this effort becomes even more urgent, as we know we must identify as many first-language speakers as possible so that they can share their knowledge with a new generation. As part of the survey, Cherokee Nation will award special medallions to the identified fluent Cherokee speakers.

Recently, we hosted our first Cherokee Language Speaking Employee Appreciation Day. It was exciting to see more than 150 fluent Cherokee-speaking employees gather to discuss ways to continue growing the language. All of the tribal government’s various language programs, including the Cherokee Immersion School, the Cherokee Language Master Apprentice program and the Cherokee Translation Department came together to share ideas and look at ways to coordinate efforts.


Our investments in language are having a visible impact. I now see young Cherokee children and even teens who are becoming fluent, something we once thought was gone forever. We are experiencing a true language revival. I believe through our hard work the Cherokee language is regularly heard, seen, appreciated and being used more by all generations.

The Cherokee language is a defining aspect of our culture; it is an integral part of our identity as Cherokee people. If our language disappears, we will be without the core of the vibrant and thriving culture we share from generation to generation.

I commend the commitment and determination of our CCO department and look forward to what this survey will yield in our language efforts. For more information on the identification survey of Cherokee speakers, contact the Cherokee Nation’s CCO department at 918-207-4995.

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Cherokee Nation Angel Project: A brighter holiday for children in need

All children deserve the joy of a bountiful Christmas morning and the experience of tearing open a gift especially selected and wrapped for them. As a father, grandfather and now great-grandfather, it is a tradition I never grow tired of watching. At the Cherokee Nation, we are blessed to have a wonderful program in place for low-income children that ensures they don’t miss out on that magical feeling on Christmas morning.

 

Cherokee Nation’s Angel Project is gearing up to serve thousands of children in need, allowing them the special feeling of knowing there is a present waiting under the Christmas tree for them this holiday season. Last Christmas, almost 2,000 Cherokee children were provided for—kids who might not otherwise have had anything to celebrate on Christmas morning.

 

Our Angel Project started in the early 1990s and has continued to expand each year. It serves Cherokees 16 and younger who reside within our 14-county tribal jurisdiction.

 

The angel tree stands in the lobby of the main tribal complex in Tahlequah, and the paper angels hanging on it represent children in our communities. Each ornament contains a child’s information and his or her Christmas wish list. The children’s needs range from simple necessities like socks, shoes and coats, to the fun toys and games little ones enjoy so much. No matter the gift, we know with your help, we will create a happy holiday memory that will last these children a lifetime.

 

I also want to take this opportunity to thank our generous employees for their participation in the annual program. Every year, I am amazed at how they pull together and ensure all the angels are provided for. And for the team of Cherokee Nation employees who run the Angel Project, it is a massive undertaking. They coordinate this program during one of the busiest times for families, while still keeping up with their regular job duties. Wado, Angel Project staff!

 

The Angel Project runs completely on donations with the assistance of the local community, but it also draws interest far and wide. People throughout the country often send donations, if they aren’t able to travel here to pick up an angel in person.

 

As Christmas draws closer, please help us make sure that every wish of every angel is fulfilled. To adopt an angel, visit the W.W. Keeler Tribal Complex, 17675 S. Muskogee Ave., Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and select an angel ornament off the tree. Presents should be returned unwrapped to our Cherokee FIRST desk in the lobby by Dec. 7. Our staff will wrap and deliver them anonymously to the angel’s family. Additionally, if you want to make a financial donation to the Cherokee Nation Angel Project, please visit www.cherokee.org, scroll to the bottom and click on “Giving to the Cherokee Nation.” You can designate “Angel Project” as your intended recipient.

 

I encourage each of you to find it in your heart to adopt a Cherokee angel, even two or three, if you have the means.

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