Covering Indian Country Blog

Notes from the Road

The ugly truth about frybread

I have had such a rude awakening about frybread. I said earlier that I associate it with tribal meals because it was so prevalent at Swinomish events.

The first time I had it was at the Earth Day celebration in 2003. I wasn’t even there as a reporter. (I so rarely eat when reporting anyway, because it’s hard to eat and write—or talk). A reporter from an area weekly asked if I’d ever had it and told me it was good. I was surprised to see so many people pile more than one piece of the fattening carb on their plates.

It was basically a donut that wasn’t sweet and yes, it was very good.

But since the first day of the seminar, when I so joyfully ate the frybread at the National Museum of the American Indian, not a day has gone by that someone hasn’t brought it up. And not in a good way.

What I’ve learned is that frybread is not part of the traditional diet, but rather a byproduct of colonizing Indians and giving them nothing but flour and lard.

One of our speakers, Suzanne Shown Harjo, wrote about getting rid of frybread in this article, and it caused such a stir, several other speakers have brought it up, not realizing we’d met Harjo.

Harjo was even a speaker on a Native America Calling radio show about frybread.

“Frybread has killed more of my people than the U.S. government,” radio host Patty Talahongva said.

Everyone curious about frybread had their chance to eat it Friday at the Diné Café Quality Inn Navajo Nation Capital (its full name). Our lunch options were mutton stew, beef stew, Navajo sandwich, Navajo taco, Navajo burger and Navajo vegetarian burrito.

“Navajo” meant on frybread.

--Kari Neumeyer, The Olympian (Olympia, WA)

Posted on 03.13.05 at 11:01 PM by Kari Neumeyer, The Olympian (Olympia, WA)
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How to make people care about Indian stories? Find the compelling people

What story are you working on? As a journalist, I get asked this question often. And when I mention that it’s a story about Indians, the response is usually: ‘’Oh.’’ Some are intrigued, but the topic usually doesn’t spark a lot of dialogue. Why is that?

We have just finished day six of the ‘’Covering Indian Country’’ fellowship. We’ve toured the National Museum of the American Indian, met with policy folks in Washington, D.C., and heard from academics.

But Thursday and Friday, we met members of the Navajo Nation and Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. On the Navajo reservation, 43 percent of the population falls below the poverty level and the unemployment rate is too high. Homes are overcrowded and lack plumbing and electricity.

Jennifer Watchman lived with her Navajo husband and her two children in a tiny trailer for years, never able to save enough money to buy a home. The Navajo Partnership for Housing helped them repair their credit, taught them about home buying and today they live in a three-bedroom home.

But her husband has struggled with alcohol and abused his wife; he is in a rehabilitation center. This, said Richard Kontz, executive director of the partnership, is a family trying to break the cycle of poverty and abuse.

So how do we make people care about stories like this?

We listen, and we watch mothers like Jennifer Watchman tear up when she talks about finally owning her own home. Kontz was emotional, too, saying he hoped her husband eventually becomes a leader in the community.

Too many times our stories are so full of comments from officials and experts that we forget the real story _ the people. It’s up to us to find them, no matter the topic, and tell the larger story through them. And next time someone asks me what story I’m working on and I tell them it’s about Indians, I hope they’ll say ‘’Wow. What a great story.’’

-- Angie Wagner, The Associated Press

Posted on 03.12.05 at 3:58 AM by Angie Wagner, The Associated Press
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To blog or not to blog?

Three days into our cross-country trip and the group is split. Not along lines of native v. nonnative or print v. radio/TV, but blog v. nonblog.

Some of the journalists here have this idea that we should maintain standards that don’t lend themselves to blogs.

There’s also the argument that blogs go against journalistic training of maintaining objectivity. One reporter pointed out that a flippant blog remark could come back and bite you in the rear.

I’ll share two thoughts on the topic. One is that a journalist can reach expert status when she spends years covering a subject. At this point, objectivity is an ideal, but not a reality. I’m human and I won’t pretend not to form opinions. I’ll stand behind them and am not afraid to share them.

Second, blogs can be fun. Our tour guide at the National Museum of the American Indian, Phillip Hillaire, a Lummi, at one point said, “Humor is a really important part of our culture. We’ve had it for a long time.”

This seminar so far has been interesting and packed with facts, with a certain stress on the importance and urgency of some of the issues in Indian Country. The blog is a way of highlighting the lighter side of things.

Don’t all cultures like to laugh and appreciate a look at the lighter side of things? Look at what many people turn to first in the newspaper: the comics.

--Jill Ingram, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times

Posted on 03.10.05 at 2:57 AM by Victor Merina
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