By Miriam Raftery

August 24, 2015 (Bonita) – The Sweetwater Little League team is vying for a championship in the Little League World Series.  The team won its first game in a blow-out 14-2 victory, but lost Sunday’s game, so now must score four more victories to clinch the world championship.

August 13, 2015 (San Diego's East County) – The Pala Band of Mission Indians announced today that it has donated $10,000 to the San Diego Reach Out and Read program. The funds will be used to support Reach Out and Read’s education and literacy efforts throughout the region including at the four Native American clinics that the program operates.

August 11, 2015 (Pala)--The Pala Band of Mission Indians announced today that it has donated $140,000 to the Bonsall Union School District for the 2015-2016 school year.

By Miriam Raftery

June 25, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) – Only about 100 fluent speakers of the Kuyemaay dialect remain -- and most of thoe are in Mexico, Margaret Field, a professor of American Indian Studies at San Diego State University told the San Diego Union-Tribune. She added, “All indigenous languages around the world are endangered, in that they could disappear within a generation or two.”

But here in San Diego’s East County, local Native American tribal members are making efforts to keep their language alive.

Abused child’s death is symptom of national high rate of violence suffered by Native American children

By Miriam Raftery

Photo courtesy ECM news partner 10 News

June 15, 2015 (Lakeside) – An autopsy report released this week reveals disturbing details in the death of 3-year-old Roland Eagle Eyes Meza Sandoval, whose body was found in a home freezer on the Barona Indian Reservation in January. The child's death is symbolic of the high rate of violence suffered by Native American children on reservations, often at the hands of non-Indian men.

According to the Medical Examiner, the child died of asphyxiation after beatings and abuse that also resulted in blunt force injuries of his head, neck, and torso as wella s bruising on his limbs, a fracture of his upper jaw, hemorrhaging and organ damage.

East County News Service

May 26, 2015 (Jamul) – Penn National Gaming, Inc. (PENN: Nasdaq) announced today that Richard St. Jean has been named General Manager of Hollywood Casino Jamul-San Diego. Mr. St. Jean, who currently serves as General Manager of Hollywood Casino Toledo, will also assume an oversight role at Zia Park Casino Hotel & Racetrack in Hobbs, New Mexico.

Mr. St. Jean will have full responsibility for the opening and management of the planned $360 million Hollywood Casino Jamul-San Diego, which will be owned by the Jamul Indian Village of California and managed by Penn National Gaming.

Originally Published on the ECOreport

By Roy L Hales

May 22, 2015 (San Diego's East County) - Christopher McLeod was disturbed by the environmental injustice. He saw Native Americans subjected to airborne coal pollution, and their water being taken for slurry lines. The Hopi elders told him there was a spiritual side to the injustice. These violations were taking place within a network of sacred places that their people had preserved for countless generations. These consisted of a sacred mountain, sacred springs that gave the Hopi life, and their ancestral burial grounds. The elders told him the cause of the West’s environmental crises is the disconnect from their spiritual link to the earth. This has become the message behind Standing on Sacred Ground, a four part documentary which can be seen on the WORLD Channel, Sundays at 9:00 PM (ET) until June 14, 2015. See video.

Pala receives largest On-Bill Financing loan in California for energy efficiency initiatives

May 14, 2015 (San Diego)-- San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) presented a $1,246,692.70 check to the Pala Band of Mission Indians and Pala Casino Spa & Resort for energy-efficient equipment scheduled to be installed in the nearly 630,000 square feet property on May 4^th, , making it the largest On-Bill Financing loan ever issued in California.

Originally Published on the ECOreport

By Roy L Hales & Robert Lundahl

April 22, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) - Native American spiritual beliefs are under attack. On Friday, April 10, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments for, and against, Native Americans being allowed to worship at their ancient sacred site inside Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Facility. The immediate concern is gaining access; the larger issue is freedom of religion.

East County News Service

April 16, 2015 (San Diego) — Internationally acclaimed Native American and environmental activist Winona LaDuke will be the keynote speaker at San Diego State University’s GreenFest on Earth Day, April 22^nd.  She will appear at Montezuma Hall in the Conrad Prebys Student Center at 4:30 p.m. The speech is free and open to the public.

LaDuke is the Executive Director of Honor the Earth, the largest Indigenous environmental organization in North America, and the author of 6 books. She is an Anishinaabe from the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota. La Duke also served as Ralph Nader’s vice-presidential running mate on the Green Party ticket in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections. In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

She is also a cousin of East County Magazine co-founder Leon Thompson.

By Miriam Raftery

April 9, 2015 (Manzanita Reservation)—For the past 18 years, Leroy Joseph Elliott has served as Chairman of the Manzanita Band of the Kumeyaay Nation.  A respected leader and elder in the Native American community who led efforts to revive cultural traditions, Chairman Elliott passed away on March 18, 2015.

Born on April 18, 1943 to John Elliott and Adelina Aswayo at the Soboda Indian Hospital in Riverside County, Elliott was raised on the Manzanita Indian reservation in East County and attended Mountain Empire High School.  He served as a firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service and as Assistant Fire Chief of the Campo Reservation Fire Department.    

According to California Indian Education, Elliott was the last fluent speaker of the Kumeyaay language at Manzanita.  He dedicated himself to preserving and teaching the Kumeyaay language to his people, advocating for continuance of the language, traditions, cultures and beliefs.   He led efforts to revive bird songs, traditions passed down through thousands of years of Kumeyaay history, preserving them for future generations.

By Grey Feathers

March 12^th, 2015 (Viejas) - A huge throng of people from all over came to say goodbye to Roy Cook in the gym at the heart of the Viejas Reservation on Saturday.  Roy died suddenly and we are overwhelmed with a sense of loss.  It was comforting to hear from so many friends how they were touched by his magic.  The prayers, the songs, the Honor Guard, the Soaring Eagles, the drums building up to heaven and the wailing releasing our anguish.  We cried in each other's arms.

The first day I met Roy Cook was at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Jamul Casino in 2005.  I was proud and happy for the Jamul Indian Village and perplexed by the angry faces marching with signs on the street.  Roy sensed the vicious opposition would eventually delay the project and he was right.  He told me some of the history of the Jamul Band.  He said they were the poorest of the poor.  Their little village had dirt roads, their homes had dirt floors.

That encounter changed my life because Roy spoke with such certainty and compassion I began reading everything he wrote.  The words lifted off the pages like they were written in my heart.  Being indigenous became more than a card I carried in my wallet.

Originally Published on the ECOreport

Editor’s Note: The ECOreport is pleased to present a unique article by Dr. Allan Hoffman, former senior executive at the Department of Energy, who served under five Presidents between 1978 and 2012, reviewing ECOreport partner, Robert Lundahl’s film, “Who Are My People?”

At the ECOreport, we have been aware that Lundahl’s film captures a key transition in the history of renewable energy, as concentrating solar, which had been developed in the US, began to return in the hands of international firms building large solar facilities in the Mojave desert.

Lundahl ventured to these remote locations to capture responses from Native American elders whose communities and tribal groups have had a connection to the land since time immemorial. The film is about resulting conflicts in values that define renewable energy in its current form, and provide a consultative view about how we implement these technologies today, and in the future.

March 6, 2015--I was invited to review the documentary film “Who Are My People?” because of my professional familiarity with concentrating solar power technologies. I was responsible for the U.S. Department of Energy’s broad range of renewable energy electricity programs for several years during the Clinton Administration. “Who Are My People?” is well worth watching.

By Leon Thompson, Tribal Beat

February 26, 2015 (Rancho San Diego) The new Native American Student Alliance (NASA) at Cuyamaca College hosted the first annual Cuyamaca Pow Wow earlier this month.

“Our goal is to share the rich heritage of our region’s Native culture” said Teka Tsosie, vice president of the student organization, and coordinator of the event.

An interview with Wayne William Smoke-Snellgrove

by KB Schaller

Reprinted with permission of Indian Life Newspaper

"The hardest thing I ever did in my whole life was to grow up."

--Wayne William Smoke-Snellgrove

February 7, 2015 (San Diego's East County) - The tone of my friend, Beaded Wing's, email was excited: "You really need to talk to this brother and write his story. I've already told him you'll be contacting him."

"Brother" or otherwise, I wondered what he could share that I had not heard before. But, when Wayne William Snellgrove  mentioned the term "60's Baby Scoop" during our first telephone conversation, I knew that his story would be as riveting as any tale of fiction in its unearthing of an era largely cloaked in secrecy.