Homelands -- Going Home to Unalaska, Reflecting on Palestine

 Photo by Make Access Iqyax Apprenticeships

It is one of the most important stories we've ever shared at Censored News. Thank you Mike Ferguson for sharing your journey home with us. During WWII, Mike's ancestors, Unangax (Aleuts) in the village of Attu were taken as prisoners of war to Japan. Aleuts that remained in their villages were forcibly removed by the US government and placed in internment camps in southeast Alaska, where many died of starvation and disease. Today, Mike is learning to build the iqyax̂, traditional seagoing vessel, and the youths are bringing back their dance that almost disappeared.

Mike Ferguson, Qawalangin, showing photo of his grandpa Alec McGlashan Jr (left) and his brother Tommy (right) courtesy Mike Ferguson.

Homelands, Going Home to Unalaska, Reflecting on Palestine

By Mike Ferguson

Unalaska, Aleutian Islands

Censored News

April 12, 2024

After the work day building iqyan (kayaks) for the Qawalangin tribe here in Unalaska, I joined a poetry reading at the library. I chose to read a short segment from Journal of an Ordinary Grief written by the Palestinian National Poet, Mahmoud Darwish.

I hadn’t previously read the chapter titled, ‘The Homeland: Between Memory and History,' which asks (through a conversation) what it means to lose a homeland.

San Carlos Apache Protest Congressman and Dilution of Environmental Laws: Censored by Indian Country Today in 2004

San Carlos Apache Protest Congressman and Dilution of Environmental Laws: Censored by Indian Country Today in 2004

Twenty years ago, San Carlos Apache elders were censored by Indian Country Today, after the newspaper was sold to new owners. Today, their words are as important as ever, on the land and water stolen. 

Representatives of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation had a different take on Renzi and the ESA. They held signs with slogans like "Make Renzi an endangered species," "Clear cut Renzi, not squirrels," and "Renzi insults Apache beliefs."

By Brenda Norrell

(September 20, 2004) SAFFORD, Arizona – San Carlos Apache protested outside a Congressional field hearing and accused Congressman Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., of attempting to water down environmental protection laws aimed at protecting the red squirrel and other species in the fragile environment of sacred Mount Graham.

Ola Cassadore Davis, chair of the Apache Survival Coalition, said Renzi was promoting unprincipled developers like the University of Arizona astronomers, at the expense of Apache religious life and Apache family values.