WORKERS STRIKE WITH THEIR FEET

A California restaurant shut on Thanksgiving after workers didn't show up, as hospitality staff continue resigning from the industry in droves

Grace Dean

Fri, November 26, 2021

A Boston Market restaurant in San Francisco, California. Staff at one of the chain's restaurants in Los Angeles didn't show on Thanksgiving, reports say.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

• A Boston Market restaurant shut on Thanksgiving after staff didn't show, reports say.

• "No employees showing up today… We are unable to fulfill the orders," a sign at the restaurant read.

• The company said it was refunding people who had preordered Thanksgiving meals.

A California restaurant shut on Thanksgiving after staff didn't show up, leaving customers unable to collect preordered meals, per reports by The Daily Bulletin and KTLA. It comes amid a surge in hospitality staff resigning from the industry.

The Rancho Cucamonga branch of Boston Market, a restaurant chain specializing in rotisserie chicken, was closed when customers arrived to collect their meals, The Daily Bulletin reported.

The publication shared a photo of a sign it said was posted on the restaurant door, which read: "No employees showing up today… We are unable to fulfill the orders!!! We are sorry!!!" It's unclear who the sign was written by.

A second sign underneath it appeared to encourage customers to instead order from a nearby bakery, which it said was accepting orders.

A spokesperson for the company told Insider that it was investigating the incident.

"We are in the process of refunding the Thanksgiving order(s) of every guest impacted by our Rancho Cucamonga location," the spokesperson said. "We sincerely apologize to every guest who placed an order and came to the restaurant today."

As well as having dining rooms, Boston Market restaurants offer catering services, including premade Thanksgiving meals that customers can preorder, collect from the location, and heat at home.

Adam Sharp told KTLA that his family had preordered a meal for 12 people that cost around $400. He said that the food was visible inside the store but that customers weren't able to access it, and that the restaurant had never contacted him to say that the order wouldn't be available.

Joseph Amato, who had also preordered a Thanksgiving meal, told The Bulletin that he had similarly never been contacted about the restaurant's closure.

"And there's food sitting in there, food sitting in the truck on the side, just waiting to see if someone shows up," he told the publication. "Now it's just everyone out here without food."

The Rancho Cucamonga restaurant is usually open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., per opening times listed on its website.

Record numbers of Americans have quit their jobs in recent months, and restaurants have been especially hard hit. The industry is known for its low wages, poor benefits, long hours, and stressful working conditions.

Restaurants have been raising prices, cutting opening hours, closing their dining rooms, and even shutting for good because they can't find enough staff.

Like the Boston Market restaurant, other restaurants have temporarily closed after finding themselves short-staffed. This includes a Chipotle restaurant in Austin, which closed for a day after its general manager and four of his employees quit.

It's unclear why staff didn't show up to the Boston Market Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday. On its website, it has 18 job listings, including positions as cashiers, cooks, and as well as a general manager role. The listings say that hourly employees can get discounted meals while they're working and are eligible for medical, dental, and vision insurance after a year, though wages aren't listed.

Retail won't tackle the labor shortage until it reverses decades of worker neglect and becomes a viable, long-term career again

Mary Hanbury

Thu, November 25, 2021, 

The invention of discount stores in the US in the 1960s changed retail jobs.Joe Raedle/Getty Images

• A record number of US retail workers are quitting their jobs.

• Decades of low wages and a lack of career progression are taking their toll, making the labor shortage worse.

• Retailers need to start offering sustainable jobs again to fix this crisis, experts say.

After 15 months of working in a pandemic, Michael quit his job as an associate at a furniture store in Arkansas in May 2021.

He'd reached breaking point. Long shifts hauling furniture around the store, unpleasant customers, inconsistent scheduling that made his home life hard, and a rat infestation that wasn't addressed for months in the store had taken their toll on his mental health.

Michael, who requested his last name remain anonymous but whose identity is known to Insider, said he tried his best to get along with managers and supervisors, "but at the end of the day, poor communication, unrealistic expectations, and looming punishment for not meeting certain standards is the end-all of healthy work dynamics."

"Unemployment is scary, but I knew there had to be more to life than this," he told Insider. "There had to be more to life than getting screamed at by random strangers. There had to be more to life than retail."

Michael is among thousands of retail workers who have quit their jobs this year hoping to move to better-paying positions in more stable industries. He has since accepted a new job as a teaching assistant at an elementary school, initially taking a pay cut, which he says is well worth it.

While the "Great Resignation" was born out of the pandemic, the sentiments behind it have been brewing for years in retail. Decades of stores neglecting workers has turned retail work into a CV stop-gap rather than a viable career, experts tell Insider — and it's now coming back to haunt the industry. Retail and foodservice has been the sector worst hit by workers quitting their jobs, and now the industry faces a crippling labor shortage that became more intense as the holiday season approached.

Big-box stores changed retail work

Pre-1960s, working in retail was considered a solid, sustainable job, Marc Perrone, president of UFCW, the US' largest retail worker union, told Insider.

The wages weren't the best but they also weren't the worst, he said, and when you factored in extra benefits – overtime, bonuses, pensions, employee discounts, medical, disability, and life insurance – workers felt like the futures of them and their families were taken care of. These were attractive jobs.

This began to change in the early 1960s with the arrival of big-box stores such as Walmart and Target, whose business model was to offer low prices to customers by keeping labor costs down.

It was also the start of a shift away from full-time to part-time work. Stores realized they could hire double the workers without having to pay overtime or benefits, and could schedule employees' work around consumer demand.

Some retailers view labor as a cost rather than an investment.Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle/Getty Images

This had a huge impact on retail jobs, Perrone said — and for many people, it was no longer possible to make a sustainable living.

Workers were given limited benefits with little to no long-term career opportunities, Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia Business School, told Insider, adding that staff became "commoditized and somewhat dehumanized as a result."

Their roles changed, too. Workers were hired to stock shelves and run the checkout rather than to be customer-service experts, which meant personal relationships between customers and workers evaporated. The loyalty between employer and employee soon followed. The rise of technology for certain tasks further made each individual less valuable.

"There was no need for employee loyalty," Ed Delaney, a state representative for Indiana, who has campaigned for worker rights, told Insider. "Retailers could just churn workers and get a new one in," he said.

Balance of power back with workers

Now, for the first time in decades, the balance of power has shifted, and retail businesses are realizing that they need to address working conditions, wages, and career prospects if they want their jobs to be seen as desirable.

Progress has been limited so far. Some stores have raised wages, while others are offering perks such as signing-on bonuses to incentivize workers — but this is no guarantee of a stable career or long-term higher pay, according to Delaney. "It's just: 'I need you now and I'm stuck with paying you this.'"

With thousands of jobs still to fill, retailers are at a crunch point. "Retail employment will have to once again be seen as an entry-level career starter rather than just a lowly paid 'job,'" Cohen said.

Workers who have left the sector will take a lot of convincing to go back. Michael, for example, tells Insider he'd need more than a wage hike.

"The entire culture and process of retail would need to change," he said.

"I can't take back the years in retail and foodservice that have aged and weakened me," he said, "but I can move forward knowing I don't have to be trapped in that environment any longer."

Corals spawning gives scientists hope for ‘vulnerable ecosystem’

The spawning, which was seen from recorded videos off the coast of Cairns, Queensland, "gives the scientists who observed it hope for the vulnerable ecosystem."

By Ashley Curtin

 -

November 26, 2021

SOURCENationofChange

Image Credit: Mikaela Nordborg

Scientists bare witness to coral spawning in the Great Barrier Reef calling it good news for the reef after years of coral bleaching. This form of coral reproduction happens once every year when corals send tiny balls containing sperm and eggs into the water.

The spawning, which was seen from recorded videos, happened Tuesday night off the coast of Cairns, Queensland and “gives the scientists who observed it hope for the vulnerable ecosystem,” EcoWatch reported.

“Nothing makes people happier than new life, and coral spawning is the world’s biggest proof of that,” Gareth Phillips, principal marine scientist at Reef Teach, said. “I’ve seen the corals all go off at once, but this time there seemed to be different species spawning in waves, one after the other. The conditions were magical with the water like glass and beautiful light coming from the moon.”

During spawning, the balls containing egg and sperm break open and the sperm and egg unite creating coral babies. Aside from spawning taking place once a year, corals regularly reproduce asexually.

The Great Barrier Reef has suffered five mass bleaching events since 1998, leaving on 2 percent of the reef unscathed, according to a recent study. Coral bleaching occurs as ocean temperatures rise causing “the coral expel the algae that give them both nutrients and color,” EcoWatch reported. But the recent spawning en masse is “a strong demonstration that its ecological functions are intact and working,” Phillips said.

“The reef has gone through its own troubles like we all have, but it can still respond, and that gives us hope,” Phillips said. “I think we must all focus on the victories as we emerge from the pandemic.”

Ashley Curtin

Ashley is an editor, social media content manager and writer at NationofChange. Before joining NoC, she was a features reporter at The Daily Breeze – a local newspaper in Southern California – writing a variety of stories on current topics including politics, the economy, human rights, the environment and the arts. Ashley is a transplant from the East Coast calling Los Angeles home.

The big industry that COP26 failed to tackle

Our broken and inhumane food system is a huge source of emissions, so why isn’t it a major part of the climate solution?

By

 Reynard Loki

 -

November 26, 2021

SOURCEIndependent Media Institute

Cruelty and climate change on the COP26 menu: Cattle are transported for slaughter across the Bulgarian-Turkish border. (Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals Media)

The impact of agriculture on climate change is significant. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the agriculture sector is responsible for 10 percent of the total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, after transportation (29 percent), electricity production (25 percent), industry (23 percent), and commercial and residential usage (13 percent). However, according to Peter Lehner, managing attorney for EarthJustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm, the EPA estimate is “almost certainly significantly quite low.”

Lehner argues that most analyses exclude five unique sources of emissions from the farming sector: soil carbon (carbon released during the disturbance of soil), lost sequestration (carbon that would still be sequestered in the ground had that land not been converted into farmland), input footprints (carbon footprint for products used in agriculture, like the manufacturing of fertilizer), difficult measurements (it is harder to measure the carbon emissions of biological systems like agriculture than it is to measure the emissions of other industries that are not biological, like transportation), and potent gases (like methane and nitrous oxide).

Regarding that last source: Focusing on carbon dioxide as the main greenhouse gas often ignores powerful planet-warming gases that are emitted by agriculture and that are even more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane, which is emitted by the burps and farts of ruminants like cows and sheep, has up to 86 times more global warming potential over a 20-year period than carbon dioxide (and also impacts public health, particularly in frontline communities). Nitrous oxide, a byproduct of fertilizer runoff, has 300 times more warming potential than carbon dioxide (and also harms plants and animals).

“Most other studies, including by the [United Nations (UN)] and others, say that agriculture contributes much closer to 15 or 20 percent or more of world greenhouse gas emissions,” Lehner points out.

Disappointingly, agriculture was not a central topic of discussion at COP26, the international climate summit that recently concluded in Glasgow, Scotland. “Despite [the] huge impact to ecological systems and climate,” writes Suzannah Gerber, a nutrition scientist and fellow of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture—a research agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture—“specific high-level talks about agriculture comprised less than 5 percent of all official negotiations and less than 10 percent of side events, favoring the less controversial topic of renewable energy.”

And while renewable energy supporters cheered the fact that the Glasgow Climate Pact is the first UN climate agreement to explicitly mention “coal” and “fossil fuels”—something that the fossil fuel industry fought hard against in previous summits, and that China and India managed to water down in the current agreement—the pact makes no mention of the words “agriculture” or “food.”

Meat Is Murder—for Animals and the Environment

Forests continue to be clear-cut to make room for farms, such as factory farms—which supply humans’ appetite for meat—and plantations that produce the world’s most used vegetable oil: palm oil. And while deforestation and methane emissions were main topics at COP26 (resulting in pledges to reduce both), agriculture—which is intimately linked to deforestation and land-use change—was relegated to a sideline topic. “Unlike forest, finance and transport—that got the feted ‘title of a day’ at … [COP26]—agriculture was taken up as part of ‘Nature Day’ on a Saturday,” reported Richard Mahapatra for Down to Earth. “Outside the venue, thousands protested against a gamut of things, including step-motherly treatment to food systems that have been a major source of greenhouse gas… emissions.”

Within agriculture, producing meat is the main climate problem: Plant-based foods account for 29 percent of the global food production greenhouse gas emissions, while animal-based food accounts for almost twice as much—57 percent—with beef being the main contributor. “Every bite of burger boosts harmful greenhouse gases,” said the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). “Research shows that if cows were a nation, they would be the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter,” according to UNEP. “As humans, meat production is one of the most destructive ways in which we leave our footprint on the planet.”

And many, many more human footprints are on the way. By 2050, the human population is expected to reach a staggering 9.9 billion people. (Today, there are 7.7 billion people on the planet; just 50 years ago, the global population was less than half that number.) To ensure global food security in 2050, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that food production must increase by 60 percent.

A More Sustainable Future Is Plant-Powered

Animal-based agriculture is ultimately a poor way to feed a skyrocketing human population. “Farming animals is notoriously inefficient and wasteful when compared to growing plants to feed humans directly, with the end result that ‘livestock’ animals take drastically more food from the global food supply than they provide,” writes Ashley Capps, a researcher specializing in farmed animal welfare for A Well-Fed World, an international food security organization advocating for the transition to plant-based agriculture.

“This is because in order to eat farmed animals, we have to grow the crops necessary to feed them, which amounts to vastly more crops than it would take to feed humans directly,” writes Capps. “To give one example, it takes 25 pounds of grain to yield just one pound of beef—while crops such as soy and lentils produce, pound for pound, as much protein as beef, and sometimes more.”

Switching to plant-based agriculture would help prevent food shortages, hunger and even famine at a time when climate change is creating food insecurity across the globe. Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, had warned during the Saudi Green Initiative Forum on October 24 that failure to stem the climate crisis “would mean less food, so probably a crisis in food security.”

A Well-Fed World points out that “[c]limate change is a hunger risk multiplier, with 20 percent more people projected to be at risk of hunger by 2050 due to extreme weather events. Unfortunately, the world’s most food insecure populations are also those disproportionately harmed by climate-related events, including increased heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, tsunamis and flooding.”

Climate, Conflict and COVID-19: A Perfect Storm

“A perfect storm of conflict, climate crises, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising costs for reaching people in need is causing a seismic hunger crisis,” warns the World Food Program, the food assistance branch of the UN. The agency has recently launched a public appeal to the world’s billionaires to donate $6.6 billion to save 42 million people across 43 countries from famine.

“Concurrently replacing all animal-based items in the U.S. diet with plant-based alternatives will add enough food to feed, in full, 350 million additional people, well above the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food waste,” according to a 2018 study by an international team of researchers published in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. The authors note that the results of their study “highlight the importance of dietary shifts to improving food availability and security.”

The dietary shift from meat to plants is something that UNEP has underscored as a way to combat climate change and increase the efficiency of our food system. In their Emissions Gap Report 2021, the agency noted that—in addition to switching from the combustion of natural gas to renewables—“behavioral changes such as reduced consumption of cattle-based foods and reduced food waste and loss” present a significant opportunity to reduce methane emissions. “[F]ast methane action, as opposed to slower or delayed action, can contribute greatly to reducing midterm (2050) temperatures,” the report states.

COP26’s Missed Opportunity

In many ways, this behavioral change is already underway, as veganism is on the rise. “It can be difficult to get an accurate picture of how many vegans there are in the U.S., but one survey found a 300 percent increase in vegans between 2004 and 2019, amounting to about 3 percent of the total population or nearly 10 million people,” notes Sentient Media, a nonprofit animal rights journalism organization. Still, even though there has been a steady increase in plant-based diets, meat consumption is hitting record levels, aided by carnivores in low- and middle-income countries where incomes are on the rise, like India and China.

Considering the growing interest in plant-based eating, the COP26 negotiators missed an opportunity to make dietary and agricultural changes a main thrust of the global climate solution. “Without positions and main messages from COP26 leadership, the need to address the climate change contributions from diet will not be able to gain ground,” writes Gerber. In the UN-managed “Blue Zone” at the Glasgow Science Center, for example, while COP26 attendees were presented with mainly animal-based food choices, only 38 percent of the menu was plant-based, as opposed to the earlier promise of ensuring “50 percent plant-based offerings within the Blue Zone.”

In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels (which will help avoid the worst impacts of climate change), the world must achieve net zero emissions by 2050. To meet this goal, the COP26 organizers listed four distinct strategies: accelerate the phase-out of coal; curtail deforestation; speed up the switch to electric vehicles, and encourage investment in renewables.

They would have done well to add a fifth: transition the world to a plant-based diet.

Reynard Loki

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He previously served as the environment, food and animal rights editor at AlterNet and as a reporter for Justmeans/3BL Media covering sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He was named one of FilterBuy’s “Top 50 Health & Environmental Journalists to Follow” in 2016. His work has been published by Truthout, Salon, BillMoyers.com, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Jordanians protest against water-for-energy deal with Israel


Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Muath Freij
Fri, November 26, 2021

AMMAN (Reuters) - Several thousand Jordanians protested on Friday against a water-for-energy deal with Israel and the United Emirates, calling on their government to scrap its peace agreement with Israel and saying any normalisation was a humiliating submission.

Police were deployed heavily around a downtown area of the capital Amman leading to the Husseini mosque where demonstrators marched after Friday prayers.

"No to the agreement of shame," protesters chanted, some carrying banners such as "Normalisation is Treason" in a protest organized by a mix of opposition parties including Islamists and leftists as well as tribal groups and unions.

Jordan, Israel and the UAE signed the deal https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/israel-jordan-partner-water-for-energy-deal-israeli-ministry-says-2021-11-22/#:~:text=JERUSALEM%2FDUBAI%2C%20Nov%2022%20(,deal%20between%20the%20two%20countries last Monday in the presence of U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.

Under the agreement, Jordan would install 600 megawatts of solar power generating capacity to be exported to Israel, while Israel would provide water-scarce Jordan with 200 million cubic metres of desalinated water.

The UAE, which became the first Gulf state to normalise relations with Israel last year, was expected build the solar plant in Jordan.

The initiative is subject to feasibility studies, but if it comes to fruition it will be one of the largest regional cooperation projects undertaken between Israel and Arab countries, Western diplomats say.

"This deal is aimed at linking Jordan with the Zionist entity completely. It is not a trade deal, it is a normalization deal that is shameful and humiliating,” said Ali Abu Sukkar, a prominent Islamist opposition figure.

Many Jordanians oppose the normalisation of ties with Israel that resulted from a landmark peace deal in 1994, which opened the way for far-reaching cooperation in energy, water and gas.

Anti-Israel sentiment runs high in a country where most of the 10 million citizens are of Palestinian origin. They or their parents were expelled or fled to Jordan in the fighting that accompanied the creation of Israel in 1948.

After the deal was announced this week sporadic demonstrations sprang up at university campuses across the country in defiance of a ban on protests. Hundreds of students chanted anti-Israel slogans and called on the government to sever ties with its neighbour and scrap the project.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi Additional reporting by Jehad Abu Shalbak, Editing by William Maclean)

A Native American photographer is taking powerful portraits of members of every tribe across the US


Talia Lakritz
Fri, November 26, 2021, 

Matika Wilbur takes intimate portraits of Native people across America.Matika Wilbur


Matika Wilbur is photographing members of every federally recognized Native American tribe.


She asks people about themselves and their identies and records their answers for an archive.


She calls the series Project 562 after the over 562 federally recognized tribes in the US.

Photographer Matika Wilbur is on a mission to photograph members of every federally recognized Native tribe in North America.

Matika Wilbur.Matika Wilbur

Wilbur herself is Swinomish and Tulalip. She began Project 562 after her grandmother appeared to her in a dream and told her to leave an assignment in South America and photograph her own people.

She's driven hundreds of thousands of miles and photographed members of over 400 tribes for Project 562.

The Walkers on their "Journey for Existence."Matika Wilbur


When Wilbur began her project in 2012, there were 562 federally recognized Native American tribes. Now, there are 574.

The project has grown from a photo series to a documentary project to a full-blown archive of Native people, their communities, and their stories.

Chief Bill James, Lummi Nation.Matika Wilbur

"We're always redrafting the language to describe this project," Wilbur told Insider in 2016.

Wilbur photographs her subjects on black-and-white film using a method called the Zone System.

Bahazhoni Tso, Navajo Nation.Matika Wilbur

The Zone System creates more dynamic range in the images.

She's drawn to peer portraiture with simple landscape backdrops.

Dr. Mary Evelyn Belgarde, Pueblo of Isleta and Ohkay Owingeh.Matika Wilbur

"I figured that that was sort of irresponsible when I started this project, to travel all over the country and not show the landscape," Wilbur said.

She lets her subjects choose where and how they'd like to be photographed, providing them with agency over the way they'll be represented.

Leon Grant, Omaha.Matika Wilbur

"Sometimes I'll be in the Grand Canyon and I'd rather take somebody's picture at Havasupai Falls because it's magnificent and there's this incredible blue-green water coming out of the ground ... and they want to be photographed on their front porch because they love where they live," she said. "I'll do what they want to do because people should be represented in a way that is important to them, especially in Indian Country."

"We've been photographed so many times by non-Indians and we've had our stories told so many times by people outside our community, and they get the story wrong," Wilbur said.

Darkfeather, Bibiana, and Eckos Ancheta from the Tulalip tribe.Matika Wilbur

In the above portrait, Wilbur photographed three members of the Tulalip tribe: Darkfeather, Bibiana, and Eckos Ancheta.

"We aim to correct that narrative through honest individual agency and storytelling," she said.

Jaclyn Roessel, Dine' (Navajo Nation).Matika Wilbur

Dine' (Navajo Nation) member Jaclyn Roessel posed for one of Wilbur's portraits.

Wilbur asks them questions about themselves and their lives as she takes their picture.

Jennie Parker and granddaughter Sharlyce, Northern Cheyenne.Matika Wilbur

Their conversations touch on family, love, heartbreak, moments that shaped them, and their hopes for the future.

She also asks about their Native American identities.

Rupert Steele, Goshute.Matika Wilbur

"I find that people have really interesting things to say when you ask them what it means to be whatever their tribe is, and then when you ask them what it means to be an 'Indian,'" she said. "I'm fascinated by that."

Sometimes her subjects wear traditional Native clothing, while others wear their everyday outfits.

Ailee Fregoso, Cheyenne River Sioux.Matika Wilbur

Ailee Fregoso of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe showed off her colorful fringed shawl.

Project 562 is still ongoing.

Rosebud Quintana, Northern Ute and Dine.Matika Wilbur

You can follow her work on Project 562's Instagram and website.

What began as a photo series has become an archive rich with history, culture, language, and resilience.

Kumu Ka'eo Izon, Kanaka Maoli.Matika Wilbur

Wilbur also co-hosts the podcast All My Relations, in which she, Desi Small-Rodriguez, and Adrienne Keene discuss their relationships to land, ancestors, and other Native peoples.

"I feel so blessed to know so many wonderful people," Wilbur said.

Myra Masiel Zamora, Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians.Matika Wilbur

"I didn't know that strangers can become family relatively quickly," she said. "It's such a whirlwind of a journey."

How one Native American tribe is working to restore Montana's buffalo population

Michelle Miller
Thu, November 25, 2021

American Buffalo are currently an elusive breed on the eastern border of Glacier National Park — but one Native American tribe is working to return the species to their old roaming grounds. So far, the Blackfeet Nation has returned 90 of the buffalo to their territory in Montana.

"They were our food, our clothing our lodging, our tools," said Ervin Carlson, the director of the Blackfeet Buffalo Program and president of the Intertribal Buffalo Council. "They were our whole economy … we existed on them."

When European settlers arrived in the 1800s, that delicate balance shifted, until they were hunted to near extinction. But the tribe took action to save the animals.

"The Blackfeet captured those calves and they took them across the mountains," Carlson said. "They sold it to the Canadian government, and that's how they got into Canada and they eventually ended up at Elk Island National Park."

In 2016, Canada allowed 100 buffalo to be returned to the Blackfeet Reservation.

"That was a real great day for us," Carlson said.

They've been living there peacefully ever since. Thirteen of the buffalo even made a detour to California's Oakland Zoo.

"We were able to secure some of these to bring them here to Oakland for an incredible, not only exhibit, but really the educational purpose of why they're here," Oakland Zoo CEO Nik Dehejia said.

Dehejia said he plans to return the 10 babies born and bred at the zoo to the Montana plains. The goal is to increase this herd's size and even its territory.

"You know, it's to me, it keeps our history and our culture alive," Carlson said. "This is home to them."

Indigenous activists want to change a California town’s racist name. Officials are pushing back

Dani Anguiano in Fresno county

THE GUARDIAN
Thu, November 25, 2021

In September, the popular Lake Tahoe ski resort Squaw Valley announced it would change its name, recognizing that the term was “derogatory and offensive”. It became official with a press release and a new sign.

But that’s not the end of the name in California. Hundreds of miles south in Fresno county, near Kings Canyon national park, there is another Squaw Valley. The central California town of about 3,500 people dates back to the 19th century, and is one of nearly 100 places in California to use the controversial term in its name.

Derived from the Algonquin language, the word “squaw” is believed to have once meant “woman”, however, it has become a misogynistic and racist term used to disparage Indigenous women. It’s also a commonly used placename in the US – more than 650 federal sites include it in their names.

After 2020’s historic protests against racism and white supremacy in the US after the murder of George Floyd, cities, schools and parks across the US began reconsidering controversial names with racist histories. A California commission renamed a park that had been named for a white settler accused of murdering Indigenous people. The Placer county board of supervisors voted to change a racist street name in north Lake Tahoe in response to concerns from residents. This month Deb Haaland, the interior secretary, announced she would take steps to remove the misogynist and racist term from federal lands across the US.

Deb Haaland, interior secretary, declared ‘squaw’ to be a derogatory term on 19 November and said she is taking steps to remove the term from federal place names. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

The renaming efforts in Fresno county accelerated after the Tahoe ski resort first announced its planned change. Roman Rain Tree, a member of the local Dunlap Band of Mono Indians and Choinumni tribes who lives 30 miles away from the land he calls S-Valley, hoped the Tahoe decision would convince officials in Fresno county that it was time for a change there, too, and do away with a name that he says “memorializes the sexualized and genocidal acts that early settlers have perpetrated on Indigenous people in this country”.

But the effort has turned into a sometimes tense battle between activists such as Rain Tree and officials in this conservative region, who argue that the name is part of the area’s identity and any plan to change it must come from residents themselves.

“The process has to be driven by the community,” said Nathan Magsig, the Fresno county supervisor who represents the area. “A name is not just something on a piece of paper. Names are identity.”

When Rain Tree tried to meet with the board of supervisors, he says, he was told he would first need to show there was support for a name change. Rain Tree started an online petition, which has since gathered nearly 20,000 signatures from people across the US.

He and other activists have since held panels and released public service announcements about the name. They have also started working with the ACLU, who say evaluating names, and who and what they honor, is important.

“There is no reason why there continue to be placenames that are racial and misogynist slurs,” said Tedde Simon, an Indigenous justice advocate with the ACLU of northern California.

It’s embarrassing to even put my return address on envelopes. Words send a message and that’s something that I understand as a social studies teacher

Linda Tubach, resident

That message has resonated with Linda Tubach, who has lived in the rural Fresno county outpost for 10 years. During that time, the retired high school social studies teacher has been embarrassed to tell colleagues and friends where she lives. When her husband was introduced at a recent event, the host didn’t want to say where the couple lived.

“It’s embarrassing to even put my return address on envelopes,” she said. “Words send a message and that’s something that I understand as a social studies teacher.”

Tubach and her husband, Bob McCloskey, have wanted to see the name change for years, but this is the first time there’s been an organized effort to do so, the couple said. They have written to the county supervisors to express their support for the change and have started writing “S… Valley” on their mail.

“There’s plenty of local residents that are horrified by the name and would prefer a different name,” Tubach said.

“It’s not just the area that residents are affected by this, it’s everybody throughout California,” McCloskey added.

But not everyone supports the change. The “overwhelming” majority of correspondence Magsig says he has received is from residents opposed to changing the name, he said. Among those is Lonnie Work, a fifth-generation Fresno county resident, who owns a realty company and motel named for the town. Work said he was concerned that the effort didn’t originate with someone who currently lives in the community.

“I am not against the name being changed to something, if it’s something that the people that live here want to do. I am against people using it for a political agenda,” Work said. “Regardless, I’m not going to change the name of my business.”

Rain Tree is open about the fact that he and some other activists don’t live in the town, but says that is due, in part, to racist policies that pushed their ancestors out. He and others have been treated as outsiders rather than people with ties to the area, he said. Simon, the ACLU advocate, said county officials have tried to paint the movement as being driven by the organization.

“One of the things we’ve heard lobbed back from the board of supervisors is we are outside agitators. ‘This is to cancel culture,’” Simon said. “It’s being led by local Indigenous people and blaming the ACLU is a way of silencing and devaluing local Indigenous leadership.”

When Rain Tree drives past the town’s sign as he visits, it serves as a grim reminder of the atrocities Indigenous people have suffered, and the disproportionate rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

“Besides it being repugnant, it’s a reminder of how much I kind of feel like people want the Indigenous people to go away and ‘get rid of the Indian problem’,” Rain Tree said. “‘Let’s just glorify our version of history.’”

Doing away with the name will require educating residents about its history, he said, and the pain it brings for many Indigenous people. But local officials haven’t taken the effort seriously, he said. Activists recently held a protest outside the board of supervisors meeting where Rain Tree was escorted out while offering public comment. While speaking he had turned his back on the board to demonstrate how he felt the supervisors were treating activists.

Magsig, who represents the area, said he is open to changing the name if that’s what residents want, but that it wouldn’t undo the past, and could cause harm.

“Would you be willing to change your name? Or does [it] have significance to you?” he said. “There are names and things which were very hurtful in the past but by changing a name it doesn’t erase the past but it does cause harm. To the extent there are wounds attached to a name, for healing what needs to be done is to talk about these things more.”

Despite the lack of support from local officials, Rain Tree is hopeful that one day the town will be known by a different name. He and other activists have suggested Nim Valley, which means human, or Bear Mountain Valley, a name shared by the local library.

“The spirit of the community is not defined in the name,” he said. “The spirit of the community is defined by how people come together and how people respond in adverse moments that challenge the community as a whole. This is one of those moments.”