First Voices Radio

Tiokasin Ghosthorse's guest in the first half-hour is Shelley Buck, President of the Prairie Island Mdewakanton Indian Community in Minnesota. The Prairie Island Indian Community, a federally recognized Indian Nation, is located in southeastern Minnesota along the banks of the Mississippi River, approximately 30 miles from the Minneapolis and St. Paul. Tiokasin and President Buck discuss a November 13, 2021 article in the New York Times: "Flooding and Nuclear Waste Eat Away at a Tribe's Ancestral Home."

President Shelley Buck is serving her fifth term on Prairie Island Tribal Council and third term as president. Prior to being elected Tribal Council president, President Buck held other positions within the Prairie Island Indian Community government, including Tribal Council secretary and assistant secretary/treasurer, enrollment clerk in the Prairie Island Enrollment Office and government relations specialist for the Tribe. She has also served on the Pow Wow and Constitution Revision Committees.

She is currently working on a second masters degree in tribal Indian law from the University of Tulsa. President Buck is vice-chair of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council.

In the second half-hour, First Voices Radio remembers the late John Trudell, who left us in 2015. Although his remarks are from 1980, his observations have stood the test of time and still resonate today.

The names of U.S. politicians that John mentions have changed over the years but the issues that Indigenous peoples faced then and now remain the same. John Trudell has been identified as a poet, a fighter for Indigenous rights, an agitator, and many other things. But if you were to have asked him which of these descriptions best suited him, he would have refused to be pinned down. John said, "Actually, I don't consider myself to be any of those things. They are things that I do but they are parts of me. They are not the total."

John Trudell was the complex sum of all that he saw, endured and accomplished in his 69 years, a time in which he experienced more than most people might in several lifetimes. More information about John Trudell can be found at https://www.johntrudell.com/.

Production Credits:
Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Lakota), Host and Executive Producer
Liz Hill (Red Lake Ojibwe), Producer
Malcolm Burn, Studio Engineer, Radio Kingston, WKNY 1490 AM and 107.9 FM, Kingston, NY
Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Audio Editor

Music and Selections:
1. Song Title: Tahi Roots Mix (First Voices Radio Theme Song)
Artist: Moana and the Moa Hunters
CD: Tahi (1993)
Label: Southside Records (Australia and New Zealand)
(00:00:44)

2. Song Title: Caravan of Fools
Artist: John Prine
CD: The Tree of Forgiveness (2018)
Label: Oh Boy Records
(00:17:38)

3. Song Title: Wildseed
Artist: John Trudell and Kwest
CD: Through the Dust (2014)
Label: Dialect Records
(00:53:53)