Native American
Heritage Month
November 1- 30, 2024
Banner Hanging in Honor of Native American Heritage Month
Monday, November 4 - 10 am, Building 65
Monday, November 4 - 10 am, Building 65
November is Native American Heritage Month, or as it is commonly referred to, American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the significant contributions of Native people.
Native American Heritage Month Zoom Background
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2023
LANA Hangs Banner in Honor of Native American Heritage Month
November is Native American Heritage Month, or as it is commonly referred to, American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the significant contributions of Native people.
The Department of Energy & Nuclear Energy Tribal Working Group (NETWG): A Model to Build Capacity and Strengthen Effective Government-to-Government Relations
Date: Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Time: 12 pm
NETWG was established in December 2014 to bring officials from the Office of Nuclear Energy and tribal leaders together to collaborate and gain insight into real-time tribal experiences representing obstacles and opportunities in nuclear energy and related infrastructure development in Indian Country.
The mission of NETWG is to engage federally recognized tribal governments and their designated representatives in DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy activities. NETWG serves as a conduit to foster communication, education of all generations, and promote active involvement of tribal governments. NETWG is dedicated to assisting in developing and maintaining the government-to-government relationship between DOE and Indian tribes, consistent with DOE’s American Indian policy.
NETWG is hosted, managed, and supported as a program initiative in the Office of Nuclear Energy. It is also supported by the National Conference of State Legislatures through a cooperative agreement..
SPEAKERS:
Ron Johnson, Prairie Island Indian Community
Ron Johnson currently serves as a Tribal Council member and Consultant for the Prairie Island Indian Community. He is an enrolled member of the tribe. He previously served seven two-year terms on Tribal Council, with six being consecutive terms. Johnson served in all capacities on the Council: President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and Assistant Secretary and Assistant Treasurer. He is an active member of the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee and is working on removal of spent nuclear fuel from Prairie Island Nuclear Plant. During his service on Tribal Council, Johnson has led important initiatives, including testifying before Congress on labor relations issues, serving as Co-Chair of the National Congress of American Indians’ Department of Homeland Security and discussing tribal nations’ public safety at the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant. He participated in inspections and air quality monitoring along with Nuclear Regulatory Commission resident inspectors and health physicists. Johnson’s current goals for the community are public health and safety for the next seven generations. In addition, as a Red Wing, Minnesota native, Johnson is involved in youth activities to promote the importance of education and to support the development of future leaders within the community.
Laurie Hernandez, Shoshone-Bannock Tribes
Laurie Hernandez is the Director for the Shoshone Bannock Tribes, Tribal Office of Emergency Management Program (TOEM) in Fort Hall, Idaho.
Laurie has extensive experience and certifications in the field of emergency management with a primary focus on administrative planning, response, and preparedness. She has worked with the department since 2015, while serving on numerous national and tribal working groups, along with state and local committees, to expand operational support and capacity to maximize services to tribal communities.
Laurie serves in executive roles on the Nuclear Energy Tribal Working Group (NETWG), and the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (TRMTC). She works closely with the Department of Energy National Transportation Stakeholders Forum and is a member of the Rail Routing Ad Hoc Working Group, Office of Nuclear Energy’s Core Group. Laurie works with the Office of Homeland Security Spent Nuclear Fuel Transportation Committee and is a member of the Department of Energy State and Tribal Government Working Group (STGWG). Her professional goals are to expand the efficiency of TOEM and guide the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) activities to effectively meet the needs of the Shoshone Bannock Tribes.
Richard Arnold, Consolidated Groups of Tribes and Organizations
Richard Arnold is Southern Paiute from Pahrump, Nevada and Spokesperson for the Consolidated Group of Tribes and Organizations (CGTO). The CGTO is comprised of 16 Tribes from Nevada, California, Utah, and Arizona which focuses on expanding government-to-government interactions among federal and state agencies. He has worked on various nuclear initiatives, including the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project and currently serves on the DOE Nuclear Power Plant Shutdown Site Evaluation Team to examine technology and related infrastructure.
Richard is a founding member and Chairperson of the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee, shaping national policy and working closely with the National Transportation Stakeholder’s Forum. In this capacity, Richard facilitates discussions with Tribes and other stakeholders on current and future DOE radioactive shipments. He works closely with the Federal Railroad Association, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Department of Homeland Security to collectively examine methods for safely transporting Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Waste and other classes of radioactive waste and materials throughout the DOE Complex and other approved locations.
Richard serves on the Office of Nuclear Energy-Nuclear Energy Tribal Working Group where he guides discussions with Tribes in the United States relating to domestic and international research and development that have the potential to impact Tribal interests.
In 2022, Richard was appointed to the DOE Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee where he serves as the first Native American committee member to provide tribal insight on Department of Energy research and development technology. Security, transportation, storage, and siting activities associated with the back end of the fuel cycle of interest to tribal communities remain a priority. Richard is actively involved in DOE’s clean-up efforts as a member of the State and Tribal Government Working Group.
Webinar with founders of Cafe Ohlone, Tues November 14
Date: Tuesday, November 14, 2023
Time: 12 pm
About the speakers
Vincent Medina is East Bay Ohlone, an Indigenous community from the San Francisco Bay Area. Vincent and Louis Trevino (Rumsen Ohlone) co-founded mak-‘amham, an organization and restaurant focused on reviving and strengthening traditional Ohlone foods and sharing them back with their communities, and educating the public of Ohlone culture through cuisine. He is a leader in the efforts to strengthen the Chochenyo Ohlone language. Vincent was born and lives in his family’s indigenous tribal area of Halkin (Southern Oakland/San Leandro/San Lorenzo/Hayward).
Louis Trevino is a Rumsen Ohlone community member active in the cultural revitalization efforts of his people. He is focused primarily on the revitalization of the Rumsen language and traditional Ohlone foods. He longs for a full and holistic revitalization of the lifeways of his ancestors, including language, story, song, art, food, and every other aspect of traditional Rumsen Ohlone culture, and he is grateful to contribute to the effort. With his partner, Vincent Medina, Louis co-founded mak-‘amham, which works to promote traditional Ohlone foods within their families, as well as to educate the public about Ohlone cuisine and identity.
To learn more about Café Ohlone, makamham.com
Sean Sherman, The Sioux Chef
Founder and Executive Director, North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NĀTIFS)
Founder, The Sioux Chef and Owamni by The Sioux Chef
Date: November 27, 2023
A member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, Chef Sean Sherman focuses on the revitalization and evolution of Indigenous foods systems throughout North America. Through his activism and advocacy, Sean is helping to reclaim and celebrate the rich culinary heritage of Indigenous communities around the world.
Sean has dedicated his career to supporting and promoting Indigenous food systems and Native food sovereignty. His goal is to make Indigenous foods more accessible to as many communities as possible through the non-profit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NĀTIFS) and its Indigenous Food Lab professional Indigenous kitchen and training center. Working to address the economic and health crises affecting Native communities by re-establishing Native foodways, NĀTIFS imagines a new North American food system that generates wealth and improves health in Native communities through food-related enterprises.
Sean’s first book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, received the James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook in 2018, and he was given the 2019 Leadership Award from the James Beard Foundation. In 2021, Sean opened Minnesota’s first full service Indigenous restaurant, Owamni, which received the 2022 James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant in America on top of numerous awards nationwide.
Sean has just been named one of the Time 100 Most Influential People of 2023. For more visit his website seansherman.com.
His book The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen
2022
LANA Hangs Banner in Honor of Native American Heritage Month
November is Native American Heritage Month, or as it is commonly referred to, American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people.
Fireside Chat with Suzanne Singer of Native Renewables - Dr. Suzanne Singer
Tuesday Nov 1, 2022
Tuesday Nov 1, 2022
Date: Tuesday, November 1
Time: 12 noon - 1 pm PT
In honor of Native American Heritage Month, Suzanne Singer, PhD, Co-Founder of Native Renewables, will be in conversation with Aditi Chakravarty, LBNL’s Chief DEI Officer, about Suzanne’s groundbreaking work delivering sustainable energy for Navajo (Dine) and Hopi communities in Arizona. Latin American/Native American Employee Resource Group (LANA ERG) invites you to join us!
Bio:
Co-Founder Suzanne Singer, PhD, is a member of the Navajo (Dine) tribe and grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona. Her mechanical engineering and energy analysis background provides the technical foundation to develop tribal energy independence. Prior to founding Native Renewables, Singer was a staff engineer and post-doc at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and an intern with Sandia National Laboratories’ Tribal Energy Program. Singer is a 2021 Echoing Green Fellow and the winner of the 2019 U.S. Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Entrepreneurship Award. She earned a PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arizona.
California Poetry with Stephen Meadows
Date: Monday, November 21
Time: 1 - 2 pm PT
Stephen Meadows, the author of Winter Work from Nomadic Press, is a Californian poet with roots in both the Ohlone and the pioneer soil of his home state. He was born and raised in the Monterey Bay of Central California and received his secondary education at U.C. Santa Barbara, U.C. Santa Cruz, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree and went on to earn a Master's Degree at San Francisco State University.
As a descendant of native peoples who built the Carmel Mission, gold rush families who settled in the gold country of the foothills and a farm family in Carmel Valley, Stephen’s poems are steeped in the indelible aura of California. His poems are concise elemental visions that capture the essential truths of his life and the beauty of the natural world around us.
Stephen has published poems in anthologies nationwide; The Sounds of Rattles and Clappers from the University of Arizona Press, The Dirt is Red Here from Heyday Books, and his first book also from Heyday Releasing the Days. Stephen is included in; Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California from Scarlet Tanager Books, edited by Lucille Lang Day and Ruth Nolan, and Red Indian Road West, also from the same press. In addition, his poems can be found on the spoken word CD Red Smoke Dawn Wind with background music by David Blonski as well as appearing on the CD from Mignon Geli entitled Under a Buffalo Sun. Since the early 1990’s Stephen’s poem “For the Living'' can be found on a bronze plaque along the Embarcadero on San Francisco’s waterfront.
On Indigenous Peoples Day 2019, to celebrate the Alcatraz Canoe Journey at Aquatic Park in San Francisco, Stephen was given the honor of reading his most requested poem In the Water Over Stones.
2021
Native American Heritage- Speaker Andrea Delgado Olsen
Wed Nov 17, 2021
Wed Nov 17, 2021
Andrea Delgado-Olson is the Founder and Chair of Native American Women in Computing. She is also the Program Manager for Systers and GHC Communities at the AnitaB.org. Andrea is a member of the Ione Band of Miwok Indians of the Northern Sierra region of California. She is a Computer Science Graduate Student with a background in Education with seventeen years of experience as a teacher. Her focus has shifted from teaching to working on outreach in Native Communities to teach various levels of Computer Science education and Gaming. While working on preserving her language within her family, Andrea collaborated with Google and Udacity to create a course under the Android Basics Nanodegree for Multiscreen Apps using her native language, Miwok. She is working to expand those efforts and gather teaching material to use as resources for other tribes to create curriculum to preserve language and culture for a multitude of indigenous tribes, not just from the Americas, but worldwide.
