Uninsured Indigenous, Unhoused MMIP, and Defunded Indian Boarding School History
VNN Weekly Digest May 19 - May 25
Here’s a look at the week’s top stories:
More than a fifth of Indigenous Oklahomans are uninsured. The price they pay can be steep
(OKLAHOMA) Two years ago, Corey Still was diagnosed with an autoimmune liver disease and faced the most significant decision of his life: go into medical debt to receive life-saving care or start planning his funeral.
When Still heard the news, he was uninsured – as he has been for most of his life.
The 34-year-old citizen of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians has used the Indian Health Service (IHS) for his health care since he was born in W.W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah.
"The majority of my jobs – we've always opted out [of insurance] because we have IHS," said Still, who lives in Norman. "… I know what that system actually represents from a sovereignty and Native perspective."
MMIP relatives like Baylee Mason Good may choose to remain houseless
(OSAGE RESERVATION) Amidst cases of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP), it is uncommon for missing persons to be unhoused, according to Olivia Gray, who is the chair of Northeastern Oklahoma Indigenous Safety and Education’s (NOISE) Board of Directors.
This was the case for Baylee Mason Good.
Good is an Osage citizen who went missing after leaving the Tulsa County Courthouse on Aug. 19, 2024, after being let off for a traffic infraction. She was later found living in a houseless community in Tulsa, Okla., on Jan. 29, one month after her maternal aunt Sugar Good-Thompson and her father’s cousin, Deleana Lee Allen, reported her missing on Dec. 26, 2024.
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Federal funding cuts jeopardize access to Indian Boarding School history
(NATIONAL) The Indian Boarding School Era lasted over a century. It was a time of forced assimilation of Native American children and the attempted erasure of Native American culture, often at the protest of their families and communities. Thousands of children are believed to have died during the process. But while the most traumatic of the abuse is in the past, the impacts of those abuses continue to live on in Native American families across the U.S.
Fallon Carey (Cherokee) is the Digital Archives Manager of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS). After growing up in Oklahoma, just outside of Tahlequah, she now lives in Minneapolis, where NABS is headquartered.
“Part of the mission of NABS and the digital archives team is by providing access to this information, we're hoping that we can take back our own histories,” Carey said.
WEATHER ACROSS AMERICA
(NATIONAL) Thunderstorms and locally heavy rain over the southern Plains into the Mid-South, cool temperatures persist for the central Plains to the Northeast, and warm/hot temperatures for the Gulf Coast region.
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