This thesis examines the extent to which the Karuk Tribe has participated in natural resource management regulatory processes, using the Klamath River Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) process as a particular case study for evaluation. One of the most effective ways that the Tribe participates in the TMDL process is through the rigorous adoption of the technical tools of regulatory science. Collaboration with nontribal organizations is also used to build capacity for participation. The Tribe’s active participation in the TMDL process has in turn shaped the process, making it more inclusive of tribal values and traditional knowledge, improving overall scientific inquiry, and facilitating increased cooperation among tribal and non-tribal resource managers. At the same time, the Tribe’s participation in the process remains “uneven,” underscoring the ongoing challenge of making regulatory processes that recognize the legitimacy of tribal knowledge and values.

Doctor of Philosophy / History / Bonnie Lynn-Sherow / This dissertation is a case study of the Isleta Pueblos of central New Mexico, the Quapaw tribe of northeast Oklahoma, and the Osage Nation of northcentral Oklahoma, and their relationship with the federal government, and specifically the Environmental Protection Agency. As one of the youngest federal agencies, operating during the Self-Determination Era, it seems the EPA would be open to new approaches in federal Indian policy. In reality, the EPA has not reacted much differently than any other historical agency of the federal government. The EPA has rarely recognized the ability of Indians to take care of their own environmental problems. The EPA’s unwillingness to recognize tribal sovereignty was no where clearer than in 2005, when Republican Senator James Inhof of Oklahoma added a rider to his transportation bill that made it illegal in Oklahoma for tribes to gain primary control over their environmental protection programs without first negotiating with, and gaining permission of, the state government of Oklahoma. The rider was an erosion of the federal trust relationship with American Indian tribes (as tribes do not need to heed state laws over federal laws) and an attack on native ability to judge tribal affairs. Oklahoma’s tribes, and Indian leaders from around the nation, worked to get the new law overturned, but the EPA decided to help tribes work within the confines of the new law. Despite the EPA’s stance on the new law, the tribes continued to try to fight back, as they had in the past when challenged by paternalistic federal policy. The EPA treated the Quapaws and Isletas in a similar fashion. Thus, the thesis of this study is that the EPA failed to respect the abilities of American Indian nations, as did federal agencies of years before, to manage their own affairs. Historians have largely neglected the role the EPA has played in recent Indian history and are just now beginning to document how deliberate efforts at self-determination have been employed by tribes for centuries in America.

When the first Europeans set foot on the North American continent, they clashed, both physically and culturally, with the native inhabitants. The Indian practice of taking, adopting, and sometimes torturing captives offended the Europeans more than any other practice. The treatment afforded to captives varied from tribe to tribe and tended to change as the Indians adapted to the new environment and adjusted to the increased pressure thrust upon them by the advancing whites. The primary sources used were Indian captivity narratives. The 111-volume "Garland Library of North American Indian Captivities" has made many of the better known narratives more readily available.

abstract: Due to the history of colonization, disruption of Indigenous life ways, and encroachment of external Western ideals and practices upon tribal peoples in New Mexico, the protection and preservation of tribal customs, values, traditions, and ways of thinking are critical to the continued existence of the tribes. It has taken many years for tribal communities, such as the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico, to get to where they find themselves today: In a paradoxical situation stemming from the fact that Pueblo people are told to pursue the iconic American Dream, which was not actually designed or intended for tribal peoples and that always seems to be just out of reach for many community members. Yet many of them do their best to emulate the capitalistic consumption and the Western way of life. What is troubling about this is that perhaps many of these people are starting to forget that it was the strength of their ancestors and their dreams that allowed Pueblo people to be here today. So, how do Pueblo people address this paradox? How do they begin to give newer generations, such as the youth, the tools to question and to assess future programs and the future of the tribal communities? Furthermore, what does such a process of preserving and reclaiming mean for future governance? Are these communities prepared to accept the outcomes? This compilation seeks to address these issues by examining a) the creation and delivery of Western medicine for American Indians in New Mexico and b) a discussion of Pueblo culture and belief systems. The exploration will include not only discussing health and health care concerns, but it will also engage the future considerations that tribal governments in New Mexico, specifically Pueblo Indian communities, must reflect on to ensure the preservation of the culture and values of Pueblo people. Finally, specific recommendations for action and discussion will be delivered in the form of a policy paper that is designed for tribal leadership and tribal administrative audiences and suggested for implementation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Social Justice and Human Rights 2015

abstract: Tewa Women United (TWU) is a Native women-founded, centered and run organization located in northern New Mexico, in the original boundaries of the Tewa homelands. TWU is the only independent Native women’s non-profit organization providing direct services, advocacy and prevention services in the Pojoaque-Española Valley area within Northern Santa Fe and Rio Arriba Counties. TWU believes in building beloved families and communities to end all forms of violence against women, girls and Mother Earth and have been working for the past 25 years toward fulfillment of this vision. This dissertation, including a journal article, book chapter, and policy red paper, looks at what happens when Pueblo/ Tewa women become active agents in resistance to the Colonial-White Supremacist Capitalist Scientist Patriarchy. In these distinct dissertation pieces, I examine how TWU has developed a theory of Opide (pronounced Oh-Peh-dee) and Research Methodology to design and implement culturally responsive programs and projects which support ending violence against Pueblo/ Tewa women, girls and Mother Earth. In this instance looking at a campaign and project that Tewa Women United has developed: The Protect Those Most Vulnerable Campaign under the Environmental Justice and Health Program and A’gin Healthy Sexuality and Body Sovereignty project under the Women’s Leadership and Economic Freedom Program. Opide means braiding and weaving together, it is a theory of practice to action. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Justice Studies 2015

abstract: Connecting the three pieces of this dissertation is the foundation of our land or Mother Earth. Our relationship with our Mother is key to our indigenous legal tradition, as it both defines and is shaped by indigenous laws. These laws set forth the values and rules for relationships between humans, and between humans and the environment, including non-human beings. How we live in this environment, how we nurture our relationship with our Mother, and how we emulate our original instructions in treatment of one another are integral to our indigenous legal traditions. With this connection in mind, the three parts of this dissertation address the status of Pueblo women in colonial New Mexico, a study of attitudes toward preservation of traditional structures, and the ways in which we seek to protect our sacred places. The journal article will focus on the impact of Spanish colonial laws on pueblo people in New Mexico, and pueblo women in particular. I propose the usefulness of comparing the Pueblo chthonic legal tradition with that of the colonial Spanish civil legal tradition as an approach to a fuller understanding of the impact of Spanish colonial laws on Pueblo peoples. As pueblo peoples move into the future with a focus on core values, this comparison can assist in determining what traces of the Spanish colonial, often patriarchal, systems might continue to exist among our Pueblos, to our detriment. The book chapter looks at a survey on attitudes toward preservation of traditional Laguna housing in Paguate Village, at Laguna Pueblo, and its possible uses for community planning. This is done within the context of a community whose traditional housing has been interrupted by 30 years of uranium mining and decades of government (HUD) housing, both of which worked against Pueblo indigenous paradigms for how to live in the environment and how to live together. The policy briefing paper makes a case for using international human rights instruments and fora to protect sacred places where United States law and policy cannot provide the degree of protection that indigenous peoples seek. In all three pieces is a question of how we essentially reclaim the gift of our original relationship with Mother Earth. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Justice Studies 2015

abstract: In 2005 the Navajo Nation Tribal Council passed the Navajo Sovereignty in Education Act (NSEA). The NSEA has been herald as a decisive new direction in Diné education with implications for Diné language and cultural revitalization. However, research has assumed the NSEA will lead to decolonizing efforts such as language revitalization and has yet to critically analyze how the NSEA is decolonizing or maintains settler colonial educational structures. In order to critically investigate the NSEA this thesis develops a framework of educational elimination through a literature review on the history of United States settler colonial elimination of Indigeneity through schooling and a framework of decolonizing education through a review of literature on promising practices in Indigenous education and culturally responsive schooling. The NSEA is analyzed through the decolonizing education framework and educational elimination framework. I argue the NSEA provides potential leverage for both decolonizing educational practices and the continuation of educational elimination. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Social Justice and Human Rights 2015

abstract: This study sought the lived and told stories of Native American women working in engineering and technology so that their voices may be heard in engineering education scholarship and challenge assumptions surrounding universal understandings of what it means to be a minority woman in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The study was directed by two research questions: (1) What are the lived and told stories of Native women in engineering and technology who are leading initiatives to improve their Native communities and (2) How do Native women’s understandings of their identities influence their work and acts of leadership? The study employed narrative inquiry as the methodological framework and was guided by theoretical frameworks of identities as constructed, multiple, and intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989; Tajfel & Turner, 1979), hybridity, and “third spaces” (Bhabha, 2012). The inquiry was also informed by feminist theories of Native scholars (Green, 1983; Kidwell, 1978) and engineering education (Beddoes & Borrego, 2011; Riley, Pawley, Tucker, & Catalano, 2009). The narrative analysis presented three narratives, based upon interviews, field notes, observations, and documents: (1) the story of a Navajo woman working within a large technical corporation (Jaemie); (2) the story of an Akimel O’odham-Mexican woman working within a tribally-owned technical business (Mia); and (3) the story of a Navajo woman growing her own technical business (Catherine). The narratives revealed a series of impactful transitions that enabled Jaemie, Mia, and Catherine to work and lead in engineering and technology. The transitions revolved around themes of becoming professionals, encountering and overcoming hardship, seeking to connect and contribute to Natives through work, leading change for their Native communities, and advancing their professional selves and their Native communities. Across the transitions, a transformation emerged from cultural navigation to leadership for the creation of new hybrid spaces that represented innovative sites of opportunity for Native communities. The strength of the Native spaces enabled Jaemie, Mia, and Catherine to leverage their identities as Native women within the global context of engineering and technology. The narratives denote the power of story by contributing the depth and richness of lived realities in engineering and technology. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2016

abstract: This thesis examines literacy development among the Algonquian-speaking Indian peoples of New England from approximately the years 1600-1775. Indians had forms of literacy prior to the coming of European settlers, who introduced them to English literacy for the purpose of proselytization. I describe the process of English-language literacy taking hold during colonization and argue that Indians in the colonial period subverted the colonizing intent of English-language literacy to preserve their mother tongues, their claims to land and affirm their nationhood as a people. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis American Indian Studies 2016

abstract: The Hopi people have the distinct term mongwi applied to a person who is charged with leadership of a group. According to Hopi oral history and some contemporary Hopi thought, a mongwi (leader) or group of momngwit (leaders), gain their foremost positions in Hopi society after being recognizably able to fulfill numerous qualifications linked to their respective clan identity, ceremonial initiation, and personal conduct. Numerous occurrences related to the Hopis historical experiences have rendered a substantial record of what are considered the qualifications of a Hopi leader. This thesis is an extensive examination of the language used and the context wherein Hopi people express leadership qualities in the written and documentary record. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis American Indian Studies 2016