Kahentinetha Horn and daughter on 'Coffee with My Ma' -- 'Ma Goes to Cuba in 1959: Just to See'

Kahentinetha Horn (right) with daughter Kaniehtiio Horn (left). Photo, courtesy Coffee With My Ma.

Listen to the incredible Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and her daughter, actress Kaniehtiio Horn. On this episode, Kahentinetha, 19, and friends, went to Cuba and met Fidel Castro in 1959. It was years before they shared their story.

Article by Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Coffee with My Ma, broadcast by Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and her daughter, actress Kaniehtiio Horn, is featured in an article on Flare, which shares nine Indigenous women's podcasts.

"Coffee with My Ma: The Premise: It is an incredibly simple set-up—a daughter asks her mother questions over coffee. But in the hands of actress Kaniehtiio Horn (Letterkenny, The Man in the High Castle) and her mom, Kahentinetha Horn, the results are fascinating," Flare writes.

Kahentinetha and family members were on the frontline at Oka. On the podcasts, she shares her rich history and memories, including attacks on the Mohawks throughout the decades, and the oppression and media misinformation they faced.

One of the duo's podcasts shares the story of Kahentinetha, when she went to Cuba at the age of 19, "Just to see."

It was 1959.

Kaniehtiio begins by describing how Fidel Castro, Che Guevaro, and farmers, overthrew the regime in control of the Cuban government -- because Cuba had become the playground of rich Americans.

Sharing her trip to Cuba, Kahentinetha tells how she and her three friends didn't have any money, but one wanted to interview Fidel Castro, so they drove down to Miami on their way to Cuba.

They had enough money for sandwiches.

One of her buddies had a relative in Miami, who slammed the door in their faces, since anyone trying to go to Cuba in those days was considered a 'Commie.'

So, they slept on the beach.

On the drive down, in Georgia, she wasn't allowed to use the white bathroom.
The sign said, "Whites Only."

Kahentinetha and her buddies bought Pan Am tickets from Miami to Cuba. It was the only flight they could find. The fares were  $15 and they had one credit card to put the fares on.

"No one was going there," she said of the flight. Most passengers were headed to Venezuela.

"The Americans were terrified," she said of visiting Cuba at the time.

So, they flew down to Havana. It was full of young people from all over, who were invited there by Castro.

 

They stayed in Havana at the Hilton with these young people.

 

"In the evening, Fidel would come over."

People were coming with baskets on their heads, she remembers.

Fidel's people drove the friends around, and they had a look at the mansions that Castro and his people had taken over. Their driver looked just like Fidel.

She said when they went to take their flight home, the lines were too long to reach the airport. The people that supported the oppressors were fleeing.

They believed they would have to take a raft back to Miami. So, they started asking around for a raft so they could paddle back home.

So, one of Fidel's people took them to the airport by another route.

They still had little money, so riding in their jalopy back home, they picked food along the way, including pecans in Georgia.

For years, she never talked about the trip to Cuba.

Kahentinetha said what Fidel faced was an impossible situation. The people had become slaves to the white American casino owners.

Then, Russia went in to help them.

"I didn't meet Che," she said of the freedom fighter assassinated by CIA forces, while trying to bring freedom to the Indigenous miners in Bolivia, South America.
Che was still alive when she visited Cuba.

"The only one I saw was Fidel."

Tall, imposing, and very dedicated, is the way Kahentinetha describes Fidel Castro.

"I think the Americans absolutely hated him."

"He stood up to the Americans, and they couldn't get back in there."

Kahentinetha liked what she saw in Cuba.

She said in 1959 in Cuba, the people were starving to death. The people were skinny like skeletons.

 

"When I saw that, and what he wanted to do, I saw he was going to keep his promises."

"He did it," she said of Castro's advances in education, literacy and Medicare.

Listen to Coffee with My Ma:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/coffee-with-my-ma/id1372866076?mt=2

Read more about the dynamic 9 podcasts featured on Flare.com:

https://www.flare.com/identity/indigenous-women-podcasts/?fbclid=IwAR3i9sf3F_dQ7TdTnWbfjTwf8MKcDoam-xvSKHEZgNj1rNr9CDpZc12J1vA

Censored News on the Border: When the Mohawks came to the Tohono O'odham Nation
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-border-when-mohawks-came-to-tohono.html?fbclid=IwAR2zFb6oWIxoTLgFIvmvXG-xm1tj2tw3_2__RN_MZbXO1UZJPrFnQcs1ces

Revolutionary Native Women Writers -- Twelve Years of Original Energies at Censored News

Ofelia Rivas, Kahentinetha Horn, Sandra Rambler, Debra White Plume, Michelle Cook, Buffy Sainte Marie, Louise Benally.

Revolutionary Native Women Writers -- Twelve Years of Original Energies at Censored News

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

Censored News begins its 13th year of publishing in late September. Today we honor the Native women who were the first to share their voices and work with us. In the beginning, Censored News was a humble effort to reveal what had been censored when I was a staff writer at Indian Country Today. Through the years, it emerged, growing organically, as a platform for Indigenous Peoples and global human rights.
Kahentinetha Horn, long known for her defense of Oka, was among the first to generously share her work with Censored News. When Mohawks came to the southern border in 2006 and 2007, a powerful solidarity began between the north and the south, including the Zapatistas when Marcos and the Comandantes came to Sonora in 2007. Living in her homeland at Kahnawake, Kahentinetha publishes Mohawk Nation News, sharing guidance and words from the traditional teachings and the Mohawk Warrior Society. Kahentinetha writes the history that she lives.
Debra White Plume, revolutionary thinker and writer, living on her Lakota homeland on Pine Ridge, has shared her writings since the beginning. As the founder of Owe Aku International Justice Project, Debra has fought for the land, water and people, fighting against uranium mining and corruption, and fighting for truth and in defense of the land and water. When the Lewis and Clark re-enactors arrived in South Dakota, Debra gave them a symbolic "blanket of small pox." Censored News honored Debra twice previously as our 'Woman of Year' for her resistance.
Ofelia Rivas, O'odham lives on the Tohono O'odham Nation, at the so-called border that divides her family's homelands in what is now Sonora, Mexico, and Arizona. Ofelia exposed the construction crew on the border barrier digging up the remains of O'odham ancestors. The ancestors were later returned to their resting place with ceremony. She also exposed the Israeli spy towers now threatening O'odham communities. She has led the resistance to abuses by the U.S. Border Patrol in her homelands, and now delivers food and supplies to O'odham south of the border who are cut off from grocery stores by new border crossing  restrictions and closures of traditional routes. When the current US government halted migrants at the border, Ofelia welcomed them.
Michelle Cook, Dine' lawyer, has been a voice at Censored News since the beginning, sharing her experiences as a university student, first at the border, then in Iran, and later as she traveled from New Zealand, where she was a Fulbright scholar sharing with Maori, to the Mother Earth Conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia. At Standing Rock, she founded the Water Protector Legal Collective, and co-produced with Govinda Dalton, Standing Rock Spirit Resistance Radio, live from Oceti Sakowin. Michelle organized the bank divestment teams of Native women to Europe, hosted by WECAN International, in the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The long censored words of Louise Benally of Big Mountain, and Cree singer Buffy Sainte Marie, finally became known when I was terminated at Indian Country Today in 2006.
Earlier, Louise Benally spoke out against the bombing of Iraq on the day it was bombed by the United States, comparing it to the atrocities of the Dine' walking, suffering and dying on the Longest Walk to imprisonment. Louise remembered her ancestors at Fort Sumner, Bosque Redondo.
Indian Country Today censored Louise's voice and refused to publish a retraction. Louise continues to resist relocation at Big Mountain, orchestrated by Peabody Coal, energy barons and politicians.
Buffy Sainte Marie was at Dine' College on the Navajo Nation in 1999, joining John Trudell and other great Native musicians in concert. It was here that Buffy described how she was censored out of the music business by two U.S. Presidents -- Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan. The US Presidents disappeared her shipments of records and told radio stations not to play her songs. Buffy's stance against the Vietnam War, and her song "Universal Soldier," made her a target for the war machine. 
Buffy's words at Dine' College were censored for seven years by Indian Country Today, Even when some of those words were published in 2006, the portion about uranium mining on Pine Ridge was censored by Indian Country Today. Buffy has generously shared her work with Censored News since the beginning.
Sandra Rambler, San Carlos Apache writer and photographer, was among those censored by Indian Country Today, in the struggle of Apaches to protect their land and water from politicians and corporations. Sandra shared the voices of San Carlos Apache elders -- the force behind protecting the land and water, sacred Mount Graham and Oak Flat -- before the elders made their journey to the Spirit World.
These revolutionary Native women writers and thinkers share the same love, tenacity and freedom of spirit shown by Che in South America. It is their willingness to sacrifice and arise that inspires new generations and generates hope.
There are no words adequate to express gratitude to these revolutionary writers, thinkers and organizers who were the first to share their words, photos, travels and clear thoughts  with Censored News.
Today, their voices are joined with Indigenous women from around the Earth, and their words of resistance, dignity, autonomy and self-reliance, without compromise, are translated into languages worldwide.
We say 'thank you' for your original energies. Your love, passion and clarity has steadily exploded into inspiration and movements in the homelands and around the world.

In memory of the children, Dine' and Apache imprisoned at Bosque Redondo,
during the Longest Walk.

Dedicated to my friends, Cate Gilles, journalist on Navajo and Hopi lands, and Leroy Jackson, cofounder
of Dine' Citizens against Ruining the Environment, who were both found dead.
Without their running ahead, and showing the way, this ongoing work would not be possible.
Thank you.

Links:
Mohawk Nation News
http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

Owe Aku International Justice Project
http://oweakuinternational.org

Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, founder of O'odham Voice against the Wall
http://www.solidarity-project.org/

Louise Benally, uncensored on bombing of Iraq and the Longest Walk to imprisonment
http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/id78.html

The Blacklisting of Buffy Sainte Marie, by Censored News
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-blacklisting-of-buffy-sainte-marie.html

Michelle Cook, divestment team in Europe. Read more at WECAN, International
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2018/04/indigenous-womens-delegation-in.html

Sandra Ramber, Apache, The Gift of Water and the Apache Burden Basket
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/03/sandra-rambler-at-oak-flat-gift-of.html

Notes:
At Censored News, everyone is a volunteer. Censored News has published for 12 years with no salaries, grants, or revenues. Please donate to these powerful writers. Contact Censored News for contact information for writers, Brenda Norrell, publisher: brendanorrell@gmail.com 

Indian Country Today was created in the mid 1990s by Tim Giago, Lakota, who never censored my articles. After ICT was sold to the Oneida Nation in New York in the late 1990s, the censorship began. ICT was recently acquired by the National Congress of American Indians in Washington, D.C.

Copyright Brenda Norrell, Censored News

No jail time for Kahentinetha Horn

No jail time for Kahentinetha Horn
Jan. 26, 2011
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
On January 21, 2011, Kahentinetha Horn pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting police officers and obstructing justice. The charges arose when the publisher and editor of Mohawk Nation News was attacked at the Akwesasne Canada-US border on June 14, 2008 by Canadian Border Service Agents (CBSA.)

Her lawyer, Phil Schneider, and the crown attorney at Cornwall Court agreed that if she pleaded guilty to the obstruction, the assault charge would be withdrawn. The judge gave her a sentence of an absolute discharge, with no criminal record.

Background: Kahentinetha had a problem that occurred at the border two and a half years ago one June 14, 2008. She drove to the Canada-US checkpoint on Cornwall Island with two Mohawks, a man and a woman. They were pulled over allegedly because the woman passenger had an outstanding arrest warrant.
An hour went by. She said that around 2:15 pm, “We were surrounded by about a dozen flak jacketed, steel toe booted, gloved and well armed special squad."

The male passenger got out and sat on the nearby bench. The customs officers wanted to speak to her female passenger, who was reluctant to get out. The CBSA pulled her out, pushed her to the ground, handcuffed, subdued her and took her away.

Kahentinetha said, “I became afraid for my safety. They had no reason to stop me. When they asked me to get out of the car, I became scared after I saw what they did to her."

The mob of guards came around to her side ordering her to get out without giving a reason. She hesitated.

She told them, “I’ve done nothing wrong, have no outstanding charges, contraband, or reason to be questioned.”

After the treatment of the others who were under her protection, she wondered what they would do the owner of the car. “I told one customs officer after another, “I refuse to be mistreated like my passengers." They gave her no guarantees this was not going to happen to her or worse. She had no independent witnesses.

Twelve large male and two female customs officers swarmed around. “I saw big trouble for me if I got out," Kahentinetha said.

At a signal from a guy taking orders by cell phone, they pounced on her, pulled her out and started twisting her left arm. The pain was so severe she thought they were trying to break it. She screamed and tried to pull her arm away. (This is all on the Canada Customs video.)

She began to think they were after her, not her passenger. They obviously knew who she was. They kept calling their superiors and must have been told to take her out and arrest her, no matter what.

The question is why did they need so many large male guards to deal with a 68-year old woman? They had taken a long time verifying her age, address, background and car.

“I’ve been through this before with police officers who have tried to put me in hospital or a morgue. There seems to be a lot of anger towards me."
They finally dragged her handcuffed behind her back into the customs house where she was out of sight. She was put alone in a cell and treated roughly. One of the guards would tighten the cuffs. He tried to bend her over and push her arm up to stop the blood from circulating into her arms and across her chest. It seemed like they knew what they were doing.

“An officer stood in front of me and tried to pull my head down towards her crotch area. I found that very disgusting." They both kept yelling at her to bend forward.

"What really scared me was I could feel them trying to pull my pants down as I was being bent over. At that moment I saw stars, became dizzy, starting panting and having pains in my shoulder and across my chest and back. I almost passed out," said Kahentinetha. The guards had tasers, which is electric shock that can kill a person. “They thought they could get rid of me without using it," Kahentinetha believed.

It was at that moment her brother, Taiotekane, a lawyer, and his son Kanatase appeared. Everybody backed off. He wanted to talk to her privately. They went to a room. He realized she was having serious physical problems. Her eyes were becoming glazed, her face was flushed and she had a hard time breathing. He demanded she be taken immediately to the hospital.

Mohawk Constable Pyke contacted the emergency team from Hogansburg, New York, who rushed an ambulance. His sister, a paramedic, began to deal with Kahentinetha. Her quick work saved her life.

When she got to Cornwall Community Hospital, doctors told her she had suffered a heart attack. Before this she never had problems with her heart or health. Her heart was damaged permanently. Since then, she had to stop a lot of activities.

Kahentinetha realizes that every indigenous person who crosses the border could be subjected to this treatment. It looks like the CBSA have hired those who have no concern for the lives of those who traverse the border.
The border guards deliberately misstated the facts. They knew Kahentinetha’s true age. Yet they described her as being a “large strong 55-year-old woman," which is untrue. Such disinformation is sent out to keep the public uninformed. Don’t believe anything the CBSA says. Beware!
.
Contact her at:
kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
Also read: 'Kahentinetha Horn: Resistance'
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/01/mohawk-kahentinetha-horn-resistance.html

Mohawk Kahentinetha Horn: Resistance

Mohawk Kahentinetha Horn: Resistance

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

UPDATE: No jail time for Kahentinetha Horn (Jan. 26, 2011)
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/01/no-jail-time-for-kahentinetha-horn.html

Photo: Kahentinetha Horn holds the Haudenosaunee passport, while a Mohawk warrior holds the sacred Two Row belt, at the Indigenous Border Summit 2007 on T0hono O'odham land. Photo Brenda Norrell.

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Kahentinetha Horn, 71, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, was beaten by Canadian Border Guards on June 14, 2008, at the Akwesasne border crossing. Kahentinetha is now charged with assaulting those officers and obstruction of justice. This week, she faces a court decision on penalties for those charges.

During a radio interview with Kevin Annett on Hidden from History on Saturday, Jan. 8, Kahentinetha described the media boycott of the attack by Canada Border Services Agents and her history of resistance.

Kahentinetha described how Julian Assange of Wikileaks exposed the truth through documents. She exposed the truth of the Canadian government and colonial powers through her writings and her life.

The imperialists try to eliminate people who do this, she said.

The media boycotted the attack of Kahentinetha and another Mohawk grandmother who were peacefully crossing the border. “They beat up the other woman first.” Kahentinetha described the stress hold performed on her inside the customs house to induce a heart attack.

The handcuffs behind her back were tightened until there was no circulation. Then she experienced pain up her arms and across her chest and upper back which was the start of the heart attack. Then her head was pushed forward to cause death. She was close to death when her brother arrived on the scene. He called an ambulance and saved her life. She has since been in Kahnewake under medical care.

She said at least 300 Mohawks have been assaulted by border guards. Many others have not reported the beatings. One young man was rammed on the St. Lawrence River and was left paralyzed.

She was never notified of two charges and two Canada wide warrants for her arrest until recently. She remained homebound for the past two and a half years. On July 7, 2010 she was driving to the motor vehicle department to pay her registration. She was pulled over immediately. “It looked like a setup,” she recalls. She was arrested and the Chateauguay Quebec officers made arrangements to transport her to “parts unknown.” She was not allowed to call her family.

The patrol car was hot. She began having heart palpitations, sweating and shortness of breath. She waved her nitrate stick. The officers called an ambulance and she was taken to the hospital.
Kahentinetha said she does not have enough money to defend herself against Canada’s charges. She lives on a pension and has to make a difficult choice. “If I go ahead, I need a lot of money. If I plead guilty, we could ask for leniency, or something.”

At the time of the 2008 attack Kahentinetha had a large audience for her articles at Mohawk Nation News. With a background in research, she documented the facts. After the attack, her website was hacked. Her large list of subscribers was lost. She did not have the energy to rebuild the site.

“I’ve written and posted almost 929 articles,” based on facts and her right to freedom of speech[ http://www.mohawknationnews.com/]. “I think Indigenous Peoples are the canary in the mine. We have withstood brutal treatment through the centuries … other people will now be getting the brunt of cruelty we have endured for 500 years”.

As a traditionalist Kahentinetha said she was raised with knowledge of Indigenous inherent rights. Describing her life of resistance, she recalled the 1968 public protest at the Akwesasne border, the same checkpoint where the assault incident occurred 40 years later, in 2008. After this protest, Kahentinetha, small in physical frame, was charged with beating up 23 Cornwall policemen. “They were a lot bigger than me.” As the names of the supposed victims were read in court, everyone started laughing. The charges were dropped except for two, which were also eventually dropped.

A film about this incident was made and is available on the Internet: “You are on Indian land," by the National Film Board.

Three years earlier, the Civil Rights Movement brought her together with American Indian leaders. She knew the people in the American Indian Movement, Dennis Banks and Russell Means. She was the only indigenous from Canada to attend the Indian Conference on Poverty in 1965. “We discussed our role in the Movement.”

They decided to support Black people, “Their objectives were different from us”. Blacks wanted to become equals in mainstream society, with the same access. “We wanted to stay separate, protect our land, language, elders and children and maintain our culture.”

“We supported the Blacks but told them to honor our right to speak for ourselves”.

After Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed, Rev. Ralph Abernathy was speaking in Washington, on issues including native issues. The Native Americans wrote a letter to Rev. Abernathy. Kahentinetha and a Mexican American, delivered it. Rev. Abernathy was reminded of the position of Native people and respected it. In 1968 Kahentinetha was selected to be at the gravesite of President Robert Kennedy.

Kahentinetha points out that “half of North America is the territory of the Haudenosaunee and our allies.” The Iroquois Confederacy signed agreements on behalf of about 300 other Indigenous nations.

Kahentinetha spent 20 years raising her five children. In 1990, she rose once again to defend sacred land. “The Oka golf club wanted to increase their golf course to 18 holes on top of our burial grounds and ceremonial site." She was studying for her master’s degree at the time. “We resisted.” On July 11 1990, the Quebec para-military police came in and started shooting. “One of their policemen was killed.” It led to a 78-day siege.

“In the end, the Canadian army was sent in,” and surrounded Kahnewake, Kanesatake and Akwesasne. The Mohawks of Kahnewake shut down the Mercer Bridge, which connects Montreal with the south shore communities.

After Canada’s Prime Minister Mulroney met with President Bush, Sr., he announced in Parliament that the army would be brought in. Kahentinetha and two of her children were stuck behind the army’s razor wire. “We thought they were going to shoot us.”
.
“We got badly beaten up by Quebec police and Canadian soldiers,”Kahentinetha said. There were about 4,000 soldiers with tanks, weaponry and snipers.

“Apparently I was one of those who was supposed to be taken out by a sniper," she said.

Mohawk women prevented shooting from both sides. If one shot had been fired, it would have meant “the slaughter of our people.” There were choppers flying over their heads and they stopped them from getting food. The army put three levels of razor wire around them. “I’ll never forget that, standing there and being put inside razor wire on my own land”.

On Sept 26, they came out. “We were very badly beaten up.” A soldier stabbed her daughter in the chest.

The first group went to trial for one year. Then the second group, with Kahentinetha, went to trial for another year. Mohawks were fired from their jobs in Ottawa. It was almost impossible for them to find work, even cleaning floors.

“We have a reputation of resistance. It is our right to resist and defend ourselves,” Kahentinetha said. Later, the Canadian Army put in their training manual that Mohawks are insurgents, terrorists.

Kahentinetha said that women are the foundation of the communities, but the government and media portrays them as sexual objects or street workers. They are not protected. Currently, there are about 600 indigenous girls who have disappeared. Police refuse to investigate. She believes they are killed because they have too much information on the ruling class.

“Maybe when they abuse these girls, they have to kill them.”

Kahentinetha said the abuse at the border is part of the larger picture. The government wants to abuse, criminalize and arrest her people, especially the young men who want to protect the people.

“When is the outcry for us?” she asked. “They tried to kill me,” she said of the heart attack induced by the Border Guards. “I had the first pangs of death. Then I came back.”

She described a natural justice and unnatural justice. With unnatural justice, people are trying to rule the world with killing and cruelty.

She looked into the faces of the border guards when they were assaulting her. “There was no empathy.”

Natural justice is the connection between our intuition, which is the natural world, and our intellect.

She pointed out that the police, courts and military have been used against her and her people. The Border Guards routinely pull the people out of their cars by twisting the arm and trying to dislocate it. Many of these injuries remain with people for the rest of their lives.

“The enemy of the enemy is not our friend,” she said.

In closing, Kahentinetha told a traditional legend of the two headed serpent. One head was gold and the other was silver. The skin was hide of many colors. One head was peaceful and the other was violent. The people found the sickly serpent and cured its diseases. Everyday the serpent got stronger and wanted more. He multiplied, began killing and taking everything the people had. The serpent needed the constant flow of murder and the land was stained with blood. The serpent only wanted those that could be enslaved.

Then, a young boy made a bow with a hair of the clan mothers. The serpent was slain. The boy climbed on top, cut the serpent open and released what had been devoured.

Kahentinetha said, “We have to stay out of this fight.”
--

Listen to this interview on Hidden from History:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hiddenfromhistory/2011/01/08/resurrection-kevin-annett-is-back-on-the-air

Donations can be sent to her PayPal on Mohawk Nation News

http://www.mohawknationnews.com/

contact: kahentinetha2@yahoo.com

Listen to internet radio with Hiddenfromhistory on Blog Talk Radio

.

You Are on Indian Land by Mort Ransen, - NFB
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