(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll meet North Dakota High School, Poetry Out Loud Champion Mya Tena.

But first joining me now is Ken Hall, a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota.

Ken thanks for joining us today.

- Yeah, it's good to be here.

Thank for inviting me.

- Well as we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background.

- Okay, my name's Ken Hall as you mentioned.

I'm a member of the Three Affiliate Tribes.

And that's the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people.

It's located on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in Northwest North Dakota.

I've been married.

I've been married for 20 years going on 21.

Cara Currie Hall is the spouse.

And we have a daughter Faith Alice Hall.

Who's a senior at Child Christian.

And just announced she's going to Arizona State University as of yesterday.

- Well, congratulations.

Ken you're here today mainly to talk about a bill that passed in North Dakota.

Senate Bill 2304 is to develop a Native American curriculum for K-12 school systems in North Dakota.

Can you tell us about this bill and what it means?

- Okay, I mean I think it's pretty exciting because we're trying new territories, it's historic.

This SB 2304 no longer a bill, but its law as of August 1st, 2021.

So all the schools start across the state of North Dakota K-12 by law are required to implement Native American history and to their current curriculum.

And by 2025, it's a graduation requirement.

So it's very important.

I think one of the testimonies that we had was before you can teach North Dakota history, you have to teach Native American history.

And as far as the United States, before you can teach US history, you have to talk about Native American history.

It makes total sense and it's long overdue.

And we're very proud of all the legislators that were really came on board with this.

Including the Governor's office, of course Indian Affair Commission.

And then the senior leadership.

A lot of credit goes to Senator Rich Wardner who is the Senate majority leader on the Senate side.

And he really helped push it forward.

And earlier on I was meeting with him in his office and talking about it initially.

And he said, "yes, I can support this.

And I'll lay the ground work so well."

- You're talking about it already.

But this has been a long time in coming and rightfully so.

But a long fight and battle to get it passed.

Why is that?

- Yeah, I do not sure why.

That's a good question because there's been many attempts in the past.

I believe in the 90s and probably early 2000s.

And then I had a meeting with Kirsten Basler the Superintendent of schools for the North Dakota Public Instruction a few years ago on this very issue.

And she said a lot of schools don't like the word mandated.

And then the word I used was how about integration?

Or pick a subject, pick any subject.

Art, history, physical education.

I mean government, you name it.

You can integrate it.

And she thought that was a great idea.

But fast forward to two years later, nothing's been done.

And so now we have to take the next step.

Okay, let's try to make this a law.

And then I think part of that is a lot of how our Native American kids have been treated in a public school setting was part of that motivation as well.

And I think that Senator Wardner took off with that and he said, "Yes, this is long overdue."

A lot of legislators thought it was already implemented.

I thought it was already implemented.

It was a lot of the conversation."

And we said, "No, it's not, it's optional."

- Prior to this it was individual school districts.

It was up to them to teach a curriculum or not.

Can you talk about that and how it went in past years or?

- Well I think when you look at the reservation schools, the BIE schools, the public schools.

They basically do it.

That's part of the who they are.

And the people around the surrounding area.

But it was part of the other schools.

The bigger schools, the smaller rural schools that weren't even teaching Native American history into their classes or to their curriculum.

So, that's why this bill is so important.

I think is that now it's required by all schools.

And it's now no longer optional.

It's required and it's by law.

So makes a difference.

- Yeah, talk a little bit more I guess.

I got some who all helped.

You talked about Senator Wardner, and I understand representative Ruth Buffalo had efforts in this or had done things .

How much of a difference did it make getting everybody in line, everybody on board?

- Well, if anybody understands legislative authority and the majority.

You knew that if a Democrat's gonna bring this forward, it was gonna be quite a challenge.

And that's what actually happened.

It actually the language that you mentioned Representative Buffalo used, it pretty much gutted out at committee and didn't carry a whole lot.

I mean they were saying at committee level, it was too specific when you talk about sovereignty, when you talk about treaty rights.

So they thought it was too specific.

They wanted more of a broad language to help assist us.

And after some language, and amendments, and edits and all that, they brought it back again.

Because initially the North Dakota School Board Association opposed it.

And also the North Dakota Council of Education Leaders, opposed it as well.

So we knew it was gonna be a fight day one.

But back to, if you understand North Dakota politics and the majority Senator Wardner, he was a Corsican Republican.

And also a senior leader in government.

So he carries a lot of weight and a lot of authority.

And so the interesting thing about Senator Wadner, he used to be our basketball coach at Mohall whenever in match madness.

So I gotta throw that plug in there.

So our relationship went back to when I was in high school.

And he was a coach at Mohall and I was a high school player at New Town.

And so we go back that far.

And so he was the gentleman that really supported this and got his party to back this.

- Oh, good.

Can you talk about growing up in school.

And how you felt knowing that what you learned was really not sharing your stories in the history of the Native people?

- All right, well growing up in the reservation, it's pretty unique.

And I think the younger kids don't see color as so much.

Because I had friends that were non-Indian.

I grew up with them.

I think our high school was about 60% non-native and 40% at native.

So we all got along together.

A small town and just everybody knew each other.

It was more like family, more like community.

And of course the values that you grew up with.

And a lot of people don't understand is, I grew up with 12 people in a two bedroom home.

Grandpa, grandma, my aunt and my uncle, my cousins.

And my grandpa even had a non-native friend that lived with us.

And so it was all about family, it was all about unity.

And the values that our grandparents taught us.

About kindness, and generosity, and sharing, and caring, and love.

Those were taught at a young age.

And so we didn't see color of skin when we grew up.

We just seen human beings and people for who they were.

And we were supposed to respect.

Respect was one of the most important things that we grew up with.

And to respect people.

No matter color, race, handicapped, or elderly, whatever.

Mainly handicapped that you were to respect them.

And so, those values still continue to this day.

That were taught to us at a young age.

And I didn't really know, it was culture shock when I got away and went to college.

Being one of the minorities in college only native on the basketball team and in the classroom.

It was quite a change and quite a culture shock.

- When did you learn that the new material would be implemented in the North Dakota schools?

- Well the governor once he signs it.

I think he signed it back in, I wanna say June or July.

I could have my dates wrong here.

But once he signed it, it became law as of August 1st, 2021.

And of course we were very excited.

And a lot of people to thank along the way.

- Yeah, but so probably I didn't say it right.

When will it be available?

So when will be implemented?

- Yeah, it's being implemented now as we speak.

Yeah like I said, it became law August 1st, 2021.

So a lot of the schools are already working towards implementation.

And that's where our working group.

We had a working group that's been established with partners.

Prairie Public is one of the partners.

The North Dakota State, Historical Society, Some of our superintendents in the state.

And then we have a few nonprofits.

Of course the NIEA, which is the National Indian Education Association is another partner.

So this has a national attention.

This is a bipartisan bill.

If Democrats and Republicans get along and create a bill, that's historic.

It sends a message to the rest of the country.

Hey, these guys can get along in North Dakota.

And pass some bills, and make legislation.

North Dakota is not only in the spotlight for oil and gas and everything that's going on in North Dakota.

Already spotlight for a lot of things.

And this particular bill gives it some more spotlight too as well.

- Yeah, you mentioned at the beginning of this journey, it was basically you and cara your wife pushing for a bill mandating this curriculum.

Tell us about that.

- Yes, well it was personal.

I think that our daughter in her testimony, and part of her, and she was part of that as well Faith.

Coming, growing up in New Town on the reservation where she started elementary.

She was being taught her language.

The Hidatsa language, about her culture, and her ways.

And then once she left the reservation setting to come to Bismark, nothing was being taught.

So she felt like she was getting cheated of leaving some of her history back home.

And I think that one of the things that she mentioned during her lobby and efforts was, the sooner you can teach this history to the younger kids, the less they'll resist as they get older.

What a profound statement.

And also, if any parents, the listening audience here that had their child hurt through say maybe derogatory comments or racism.

It's pretty painful and it's traumatic.

And that's the part that I think this education bill will help bring awareness to those teachers that are in a classroom with some of these kids .

That a lot of them experience trauma.

And are carrying trauma with them.

And so how do you handle that as a classroom teacher?

How do you address that?

So those are the things that we're gonna be talking about during some of our train the trainers, and workshops, and everything.

- Yeah but I asked you, you said it's already being implemented.

Is there an overall curriculum that was ready to go?

Or is it being developed and being introduced?

- What we shared at our two day workshop back in May was that there's resources readily available.

And like the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction, they have a video series called the Essential Understandings.

The Indian Affairs Commission has a website with a lot of the history of all the five sovereign tribes in North Dakota.

The five tribal community colleges have a website where you can go on and get some resources.

And of course the tribes themselves.

Each tribe has a website that has a lot of history that they put on their website.

So there's resources readily available.

And then now, what this working group is doing is trying to update some of them.

And then look at maybe evaluate some of the content that's currently in place, and do like a review on them.

So a lot of work is being done as we speak.

- And specifically, what types of classes will be taught?

- Well, that's up to the local school district.

And everybody likes to talk about local control.

And so they have this opportunity to do that.

They can look at all the resources that are available, and they can pick and choose what they want to teach.

- Let's take a moment for our viewers out there that may not know.

What are the Three Affiliate Tribes.

And can you give us just a little history?

- Well, the government refers to us as the Three Affiliated Tribes.

It's the Mandan, the Hidatsa, and the Arikara.

So there are three unique tribes of their own.

They have their own language and their own customs.

And a couple of them have their clanships.

They have clanships.

And the Arikara have societies.

And the Mandan have been here the longest.

In fact, Bismarck Mandan area is a original territory of the Mandan people.

And the Hidatsa and the Crow used to be together at one time.

Actually they have blood relatives and with the Crow tribe.

And then of course the Arikara their blood relatives are the Pawnee.

So they were chased up by up to heart neck of the woods by the Sioux.

And that's how the three tribes came together.

And are currently still residing there to this day.

So that's a little bit of the history.

Like I said, they have their own language.

Their own culture and own customs.

- So how does that tribal government work with the three?

- It's one government for three tribes?

So it's a three branch government of course.

Executive, Judicial.

They operate just like any other government.

Like the United States Government, like the State Government.

They have a tribal chairman.

And then they have of representatives from each community.

The Garrison Dam project, which has flooded our land out back in 1953, separated all the communities.

And so now we have three communities on the west side of the river.

And three communities on the east side of the river.

Which is Twin Buttes, Mandanree, and Four Bears on the west side.

And then you come to the east side.

There's New Town, Parshall, and White Shield.

But they have a tribal government.

And they have just like any other government, how they operate.

They have their policies which governs them.

And then the decision makers are the tribal chairman and the tribal council.

- Okay, well Ken as I introduced you, I said you wear many hats, I think.

And let's talk some other things you're involved with.

The Kingdom Business Fellowship you're involved with it.

What's that about?

- Yes well, that was a download.

Cara, myself, and one of our friends from Bismarck, pastor Bob Grael.

It was triggered by a TBN special on Martin Luther king day.

Dr. Samuel Rodriguez was facilitating a panel with him and Dr. Martin Luther King's daughter and another pastor friend from DC.

And their topic of discussion was racism in America, and the role of the church.

That was the topic.

And at the end of their discussion they said, "Doing nothing is not the solution, we all can do something."

And then we all.

Cara and I said, "You know what?

We can do something.

Because we ran a lot of conferences back home on the reservation, on big energy conferences.

We brought all the players to get all the stakeholders.

So we said, "Well, we could do something."

So we ended up renting the Bismark Event Center out.

Called some world renowned speakers in.

And we had a two day conference and it.

It was really well attended, well received.

And people got motivated, inspired.

So we did leadership conferences, leadership trainings before COVID.

And then when COVID hit, there was a pause like everybody else was doing, there was a pause.

And then what happened is we worked with another outreach in Kentucky.

our friend CLA Keith out there and his adopted son, David mud.

They're like first responders.

They were at Hurricane Katrina.

They were also at the Western Kentucky tornadoes.

And so they called us and asked if we want to give away a million dollars worth of clothes during COVID.

So we did.

We said, "yes."

And they sent out a truckload of clothes.

We've had four truckloads.

Now that's keeping was wholesale price, but it's more like 2.5 to $3 million worth of clothes.

We've given out $12 million worth of clothes in the last couple years through our nonprofit.

And the latest we gave out a million dollars worth of toys right before Christmas.

It's just giving back because we've been very blessed.

And just giving back to people in need.

- Well Ken, we are really almost out of time.

I know you do other things.

The chairman of the Missouri River Resources Board and other things.

We'll have to bring you back to talk about.

But real quick, what do you want people to know about the Three Affiliated Tribes and this curriculum that we talked about earlier that perhaps they don't know?

- Okay, Well Three Affiliated Tribe is they're treaty as the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty.

And that's what shrunk us up to our current size.

At one time we had 12.8 million acres of territory going into part of Montana, scrape the Black Kas and into Wyoming.

And then where we're currently at.

And then also the Southwestern part of North Dakota.

That was our whole territory.

And we were international traders.

We were nodded for an abundance of flint, an abundance of corn.

Our corn was known worldwide.

And we actually traded CARA is from Alberta Canada, the Mackenzie people.

And we traded with the Sampson Cree 400 years ago.

Because where we are at is a trade corridor for international trade corridor.

So we were business people, we're entrepreneurs, we're scientists.

And we were very healthy and prosperous people.

And we're getting back on our feet again.

We're currently we're an economic power and a political power, the MHA Nation.

And so that's when people wanna get things done.

The governor or some of the legislators, they know that MHA carries a big stick.

- Okay well Ken, a deep rich history and we look forward to that being out there in that curriculum.

Thanks for joining us today.

- Thank you very much, I appreciate it.

- Stay tuned for more.

Poetry Out Loud is a high school program that encourages students to learn about poetry while they master public speaking skills and build self-confidence.

Mya Tena from Bismarck High School is the 2022 North Dakota State Poetry Out Loud Champion.

- (speaks in foreign language) Spanglish, bi-cultural systems, scientific Lexicographical, Inter-textual integrations.

Two expressions, existentially wired.

I am mostly involved in the music programs.

I play 10 saxophone.

And my favorite thing to do is jazz.

Because the improvisation that goes with it, everyone shows their uniqueness in it.

And it's fun because you're really going off the page.

And that's what I like with poetry.

You have to interpret what the author was trying to say.

Poetry Out Loud is a competition where students recite poems that we have to choose from the anthology of poems on the Poetry Out Loud Website.

The first stage is the school competition.

And then it was state competition.

It was similar to the school competition where there's one round of poems.

Then there's a second round.

And the only difference is, they pick five finalists.

And those finalists have to recite a third poem.

- The judges are judging us on a few sets of criteria.

One of the criteria that we're judged on, is how accurate we interpret the poem.

We can't be overly dramatic, but they don't want us to be stoic.

They're judging us of course, on the accuracy.

We also get judged on our voice, and how our voice carries the poem into the audience.

My own dear love, he is sweet and bold.

And he cares not what comes after.

His words ring sweet as the chime of gold, and his eyes are lit with laughter.

I was definitely nervous as most of us were.

It's just you and the audience.

And of course the judges.

I cannot see anything, I have to wear glasses.

So I took them off while I was was on stage so that I couldn't see the audience, and it did help a lot.

I'm sure I was making eye contact with people, but I couldn't see any faces just forms.

So that made it a lot easier for me.

- [Announcer] Congratulations.

The North Dakota 2022 Poetry Out Loud State Champion, is Mya Tena Bismarck High School.

- From Poetry Out Loud and competing in the competition, I've gotten a lot of support.

I love seeing that my family really cares about me and my friends, and my teachers.

My English teacher Mrs. Lord Olson, She helped me.

She did such a great job of coaching me, and guiding me.

She always had something new to contribute that eventually led to me succeeding in the State Competition as I did.

Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair, and gaze upon her smile; Seem as you drank the very air.

Her breath perfumed the while; And wake for her the gifted line, that wild and witching lay.

Before I started critically analyzing the poems for Poetry Out Loud, I didn't pay much attention to poems.

I didn't realize the amount of critical thinking that has to go into analyzing a poem.

From Poetry Out Loud, I mean participating in the competition, I've gotten greater appreciation for poetry and writers.

And all that they have to do to put their words artistically onto the page.

It's an art, and I see it as that.

Now I fully appreciate what poetry is.

And there is a lot of technique that has to be involved.

Spanglish is by Tato Laviera.

And I chose that poem because there is some Spanish in the poem that you have to recite.

And I thought that would be a lot of fun.

Because my parents are from Mexico and I grew up speaking Spanish.

That was my first language.

And I thought it would be a really fun experience to use that in my poem.

Spanglish by Tato Laviera.

(speaks in foreign language) Spanglish bi-cultural systems, scientific Lexicographical.

Inter-textual integrations.

Two expressions existentially wired.

Two dominant languages continentally (speaks in foreign language) immigrant/migrant, (speaks in foreign language) Standard English classroom with computer technicalities.

Spanglish is literally perfect.

Spanglish is ethnically snobbish.

Spanglish is (speaks in foreign language) Which US slang do you speak?

- Well, that's all we have on Prairie Pulse for this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the North Dakota Council on the Arts.

And by the members of Prairie Public.