Sunnie R. Clahchischiligi's Avatar

Sunnie R. Clahchischiligi

@clahchischiligi.bsky.social

Diné. Indigenous Affairs Editor at High Country News. Board president at Indigenous Journalists Association. Rhetorician at Arizona State University.

519 Followers  |  167 Following  |  31 Posts  |  Joined: 13.11.2024  |  2.251

Latest posts by clahchischiligi.bsky.social on Bluesky

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What inspires Indigenous ballet dancer Jock Soto - High Country News The dancer seeks to preserve his legacy while educating others about his time on the biggest ballet stage.

Retired principal ballet dancer Jock Soto (Puerto Rican/Diné) shares his story and how the world can now learn about his time in the New York City ballet through a newly launched digital archive.

By @shaun505.bsky.social for our Indigenous Affairs desk at HCN.

22.10.2025 18:05 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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How tribal educators are navigating budget challenges - High Country News Tribal college and university leaders lean on their resiliency and cultural values in the face of federal funding unknowns.

Our Indigenous Affairs fellow @chadebradley.bsky.social chatted with higher education Indigenous leaders to discuss how they've been supporting their students and colleagues during turbulent times.

Read what they had to say in the latest piece from our IA desk.

14.10.2025 15:08 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I sat down with @willvh.bsky.social and @theopennotebook.bsky.social to discuss points for reporters to keep in mind when covering communities that are not their own, specifically Indigenous communities.
Grateful to share the pages w/ @mariaparazorose.bsky.social who brings up some important points.

01.10.2025 15:52 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

Tomorrow:

22.09.2025 16:59 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0

High Country News & the @indigenousja.bsky.social join forces next week to host a free webinar for Indigenous photojournalists interested in collaborating with HCN and to learn about freelancing in general.

Join us at 11 a.m. MT, Sept. 23.

Register here: indigenousjournalists.org/2025/09/call...

19.09.2025 20:59 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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Native languages need radio, which is at risk of being lost As public media is threatened after cuts from Trump administration, Indigenous radio also face threats to how they preserve and grow language.

Currently, 42 Western radio stations are considered vulnerable because over 30% of their annual funding is federal. Twenty of those stations serve Indigenous communities in the rural reaches of reservations and Alaska Native villages.

(From @highcountrynews.org)

07.08.2025 22:23 — 👍 14    🔁 8    💬 1    📌 1
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Native languages need radio, which is at risk of being lost - High Country News As public media is threatened after cuts from Trump administration, Indigenous radio also face threats to how they preserve and grow language.

The growth of Indigenous language through radio is at risk, along with the rest of public media, but cultural reclamation at large will persevere.

04.08.2025 21:01 — 👍 41    🔁 17    💬 0    📌 2
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Native languages need radio, which is at risk of being lost - High Country News As public media is threatened after cuts from Trump administration, Indigenous radio also face threats to how they preserve and grow language.

"Indigenous radio and media help Indigenous communities engage and grow in their understanding of their language and show them how they can better connect with their culture."

By @chadebradley.bsky.social, from HCN's Indigenous Affairs desk.

04.08.2025 12:08 — 👍 2    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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What the presence of sheep means to the Diné - High Country News How to look at Milton Snow’s historical images of a livestock genocide on the Navajo Nation.

"For Diné people, sheep are a blessing with responsibilities that link us to the Diyin Dine’é (Holy People). But to the U.S. government, they were an ecological proxy to 'The Navajo Problem.'"

By Christine Ami.

01.08.2025 13:30 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Finding your ancestors in the archives - High Country News Author Joseph Lee explores Wampanoag family history in a new book of memoir and reportage.

Wampanoag writer @josephvlee.bsky.social discusses his newly released book in a Q&A with @shaun505.bsky.social.

Lee's book, Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity, is out today.

15.07.2025 12:54 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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In Sitka, Łingít fishers share herring harvests with a surprise influx of grey whales - High Country News An unprecedented whale surge in Alaska waters has changed how humans interact with a vital yaaw fishery.

Łingít, Haida and Híɫzaqv people have gathered haaw da.aa and kelp to share, trade and gift. Now, grey whales have joined the harvest. Their presence brings a new pressure — one that both humans/non-humans are learning to navigate.

Writes @amyromer.bsky.social, in collab w/ @indiginews.bsky.social

07.07.2025 21:18 — 👍 14    🔁 6    💬 0    📌 1
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When wildfire hits your doorstep - High Country News A Diné writer confronts how to offer a hand from far away as tragedy strikes on the Navajo Nation.

No matter the distance, helping one’s Indigenous community during a disaster is possible.

buff.ly/AqLVoHO

03.07.2025 21:01 — 👍 18    🔁 7    💬 1    📌 0
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When wildfire hits your doorstep - High Country News A Diné writer confronts how to offer a hand from far away as tragedy strikes on the Navajo Nation.

As the Oak Ridge Fire on the Navajo Nation continues, those who live away from the reservation might feel a sense of urgency to help.

Here is a little something for those who live away from home and are feeling a sense of guilt or helplessness.

You are not alone.

03.07.2025 18:57 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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How the feds abandoned reservations to burn  - High Country News Tribal wildfire programs are underfunded and overburdened.

As of July 1, the Oak Ridge Fire on the Navajo Nation in Arizona burns nearly 10,000 acres as hundreds are forced to evacuate. Earlier this year, we wrote about how tribal wildfire programs in the West are underfunded and overburdened.

www.hcn.org/issues/57-5/...

01.07.2025 17:07 — 👍 47    🔁 28    💬 0    📌 0
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Protests greet Western governors in Santa Fe - High Country News After a bipartisan outcry, Senate proposal to sell public lands is blocked for now.

Protests over the sell off of public lands were hard loud and bipartisan at a gathering of the Western Governors’ Association

25.06.2025 22:30 — 👍 36    🔁 13    💬 0    📌 0
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The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe is bridging Nevada’s healthcare gap - High Country News A new mobile clinic serves 2,000 Indigenous patients.

The tribe’s mobile clinic serves its members and drives to the Lovelock Paiute and Yomba Shoshone reservations, covering a territory of about 200 miles. It can treat any member of a tribe in Nevada. They serve about 2,000 patients, averaging about 20 patients each month.

Shared by KUNR Public Radio

25.06.2025 19:25 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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When we harm wolves, we harm ourselves - High Country News Anger over these wild creatures shows a lack of perspective.

"Hopi have our own word for wolves, Kwewu. Much like wolves, we have now been confined to a remnant of our original lands, fenced in with arbitrary lines that do not represent our deep history, knowledge and kinship to the land."

By Clark Tenakhongva

www.hcn.org/articles/whe...

23.06.2025 18:41 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
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What defunding public media would mean for the West - High Country News Data show that rural, tribal and Western stations would be the most impacted by Trump’s attempt to cut CPB funding.

Defunding public media would hurt stations across the U.S.

The data show that stations serving rural and Indigenous audiences in the West would be the hardest hit.

Here’s why, by the numbers.

By @annierosenthal.bsky.social & @chadebradley.bsky.social

09.06.2025 14:46 — 👍 3    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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Class of 2025 leads the way for Indigenous graduation regalia - High Country News High school graduates are the first to walk with the protected right to wear cultural attire after the state of New Mexico passed legislation this spring.

“To be able to wear our regalia, especially during graduation ceremony, which is so many years of hard work being put into a single five-second walk across the stage — it’s so important."

By @shaun505.bsky.social & Bella Davis, in partnership w/ @nmindepth.bsky.social

27.05.2025 13:35 — 👍 5    🔁 4    💬 0    📌 0
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Trump admin speaker at UNPFII met with silence - High Country News During a discussion on the rights of Indigenous women at the United Nations Monday, a U.S. representative made a statement so strange you could hear a pin drop afterward.

"Heartney’s pro-Trump statement felt abrupt and out of place to attendees. It echoed messaging from right-wing think tanks, which use economic development, job creation and even so-called protection as Trojan horses for resource extraction."

By @btoastie.bsky.social

06.05.2025 18:03 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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How the feds abandoned reservations to burn  - High Country News Tribal wildfire programs are underfunded and overburdened.

"Tribal wildfire fighters are stretched to their limits... Long-term federal land mismanagement and climate change have caused the number and intensity of reservation fires to soar. About 7% of the 4 million acres of tribal lands in the country burned between 2010 and 2020."

By Lachlan Hyatt

05.05.2025 16:41 — 👍 13    🔁 8    💬 0    📌 0
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Grist organizes international pooled coverage of the 2025 UNPFII High Country News, Mongabay, ICT, APTN, Whakaata Māori, IndigiNews, Osage News, the Associated Press, and Grist will report together and share their journalism among newsrooms.

Big news! For the fourth year in a row, High Country News is teaming up with Indigenous-led and allied newsrooms to cover the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) — the largest global gathering of Indigenous leaders and advocates.

buff.ly/Rb7xMEd

09.04.2025 13:02 — 👍 44    🔁 8    💬 1    📌 0
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📣 Starting now, @HighCountryNews will provide free digital access to all of our reporting to any federal employee, including those who have recently lost jobs due to government layoffs. 📣

13.03.2025 14:00 — 👍 205    🔁 92    💬 4    📌 7
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Forest Service pauses commercial huckleberry picking in Gifford Pinchot National Forest - High Country News The berries are a critical resource for the Ḱamíłpa Band of the Yakama Nation and have become a big market of the Pacific Northwest food industry.

The U.S. Forest Service announced Monday that it will temporarily prohibit commercial picking of huckleberries this summer in Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southwestern Washington.

✏️ @jwoolington.bsky.social

01.04.2025 21:51 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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How Alaska Native youth are protecting the land for their future ancestors - High Country News With climate change threatening Indigenous lifeways in Alaska, these four young women are devoting their careers to their preservation.

Alaska Native youth are living through a pivotal time, bearing witness to the dramatic impacts of climate change that have occurred during their lifetimes: rapidly melting permafrost, warming oceans and declining salmon runs.

Meet four of them below.

By Lyndsey Brollini & Meghan Sullivan

01.04.2025 14:17 — 👍 5    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 0
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How Trump's funding freeze for Indigenous food programs may violate treaty law According to Indigenous legal experts, the freeze erodes the little trust Indian country has in the federal government.

How Trump’s funding freeze for Indigenous food programs may violate treaty law.

According to Indigenous legal experts, the freeze erodes the little trust Indian country has in the federal government.

grist.org/indigenous/h...

#Food #Indigenous #Trump #DOGE #Tribes

31.03.2025 12:49 — 👍 40    🔁 21    💬 1    📌 4
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Rebecca Nagle considers Supreme Court wins and what’s at stake for tribes under Trump - High Country News The author of ’By the Fire We Carry’ notes the nation’s power of empire while looking to history to frame our present.

"One of the things that’s really shocked me is how often our government institutions ignore the law when it comes to tribes and how hard tribes have to fight for just the law to be followed. Those weaknesses in our democracy have been there for a long time."

By IA Associate Editor Anna V. Smith

25.03.2025 13:47 — 👍 4    🔁 2    💬 0    📌 1
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Raúl Grijalva: A patriot for public lands - High Country News The legacy and words left by the committed and compassionate politician carry forward with public servants across the world.

“Congressman Grijalva’s voice was one of strength, compassion and integrity — qualities that defined his life’s work and his deep connection to the communities he served.”

By @chadebradley.bsky.social

20.03.2025 18:12 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
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Days before Trump took office, Interior approved oil and gas leases for land bought during 2019 public auction - High Country News Company can begin to issue plans for drilling near Chaco Canyon buffer zone on Navajo Nation allotment.

“Secretary Burgum has to decide if he will be a force for chaos or consistency on America’s public lands. When Donald Trump invariably orders him to illegally revoke existing permits for renewable energy, will he have the spine to tell the president ‘no’?“

By @chadebradley.bsky.social

12.02.2025 14:01 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 1
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The Indian education of Charles Sams - High Country News How the first Native director of the National Park Service drew from a legacy of federal boarding schools and Indigenous teachings.

Guided by the teachings of his late grandfather and former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Charles “Chuck” Sams III became the first-ever Indigenous director of the National Park Service. It was through storytelling and education that he helmed the Parks.

From our IA desk, by @btoastie.bsky.social

05.02.2025 15:39 — 👍 11    🔁 9    💬 0    📌 0

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