After a year and a half of disproportionately high rates of COVID-19, the major losses within Native and Indigenous communities have underlined just how deep-seated historical discrimination still is – evident in an overwhelming lack of access to water, electricity, and health care services on reservations. In this Season 1 episode, Julián is joined by Áshįįhí Clan member President Jonathan Nez of the Navajo Nation and climate activist and journalist Julian Brave NoiseCat of the Canim Lake Band Tsq'escen to talk about reopening Navajo land this past spring, the Biden/Harris American Rescue Plan’s investment in tribal lands, and what Secretary Deb Haaland’s historic confirmation to the Department of the Interior means for the health and environmental justice of Native and Indigenous communities.

Resources from the episode:

• Follow Julian Brave NoiseCat’s journalism
• The Indigenous Green New Deal, by the NDN Collective
• Navajo Nation Department of Health COVID data and resources
• Mapping Indigenous lands, by Native Land Digital
• The Navajo Water Project
• Color of Coronavirus project, by APM Research Lab
• An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Keep up with Julián on Twitter at @JulianCastro and Instagram at @JulianCastroTX. Sawyer can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @SawyerHackett. And stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. 

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‘Our America’ is presented in part by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. 

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