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| Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved. |
MAJOR LEGACY OF NEW MEXICO'S BUFFALO SOLDIERS NOW AWAITING DESTRUCTION
I wrote a few days ago about the impending threat to Fort Bayard, a state and federal historic site in southwestern New Mexico that embodies a major part of the state's African American history.
Since the 2014 legislative session ended yesterday with no attempt to salvage the historically significant landmark (nor to accomplish much else, as is usual with the state Lege), it appears that the old fort and its campus await destruction, with the land to be sold off to monied private interests.
Obstacles to its sale remain, to be sure, but General Services Secretary Ed Burckle appears to be pushing for a fast track to privatization:
"We believe the removal of the old hospital will increase the value of Fort Bayard and make it better suited for greater economic development," Secretary of New Mexico General Services Department Ed Burckle said. "If a firm wanted to bring the hospital up to standard, it would cost upward of $30 million and that's a conservative estimate. We don't believe anyone is willing to do that.". . .
According to members of the preservation society, the state gained ownership of Fort Bayard in 1965, but has not kept up the grounds or most of the buildings. Consequently, every building but one has been boarded up and cannot be used. Even many of the trees on the parade ground are now dead from lack of watering.
"Really, that goes to the heart of the state budget, the lack of resources over the last five years," Burckle said. "Now the tide is beginning to turn. But the state didn't have sufficient funds for maintenance."
Of course, politics and bureaucracy could have also played a part in the lack of care.
"We have a new state government and new Cabinet secretaries, so priorities change," Korfe said. "Plus the Department of Health is the using agency up through today. Some of the other buildings on Fort Bayard aren't within their scope."It's clear that in Burckle's mind, the decision has already been made. He says that the hospital will be razed, "probably, within a year's time," according to the Silver City Sun-News.
One that first domino falls, I think it's unlikely in the extreme that the remainder of the campus will be salvaged. Worse, it opens up the mouth of the Gila Wilderness to development. Until now, Fort Bayard has served as an effective bulwark in that regard.
But Susana Martinez's administration will have one more privatization notch on its belt as she girds for a run at higher office. And one more element of the state Native and African American history will be turned to dust and erased from memory.
BIGOTED JUDGES STOP PERFORMING WEDDINGS TO AVOID OFFICIATING FOR GAY AND LESBIAN COUPLES
[Sigh] another reason to loathe Little Texas.
The headlines for this story reference judges "in two counties." I knew, without having to look, which two counties. And, of course, I was right: Chaves County and Eddy County, which are part of the southeastern corner of the state, an arch-conservative pro-Palin-esque aptly nicknamed "Little Texas." Sadly, I'm all too familiar with both counties.
Last December 19th, the New Mexico Supreme Court did the right thing, ruling that counties could no longer deny marriage licenses to couples on the basis of sexual orientation.
The Eddy County Clerk's Office said the decision was made a few months ago. Jeff Ortega, chief deputy clerk for Chaves County, said judges informed the county of their decision months before the Supreme Court decision.
State law does not require judges to officiate weddings, but county clerks are required to issue licenses that must be signed by a judge, minister or tribal representative.
"I don't have a problem with who wants to get married," said Eddy County Magistrate Judge Henry Castaneda. "But we don't have to compromise our beliefs."
Still a bigot, eh, Henry? Well, at least you're halfway to owning it, unlike your Eddy County counterpart:
Meanwhile, Carlsbad Municipal Judge David Redford said his caseload was too much to bear to continue performing marriage ceremonies.Uh-huh.
Oddly enough, judges in Lea County, which actually sits between Chaves and Eddy Counties and the Texas state line, have said they will continue to perform marriages. Under state law, that means that they will be required to officiate at the weddings of gay and lesbian couples as well as heterosexual couples.
The trigger for the judges' childishness was no doubt the fact that Eddy County recorded a historic first on the day after Christmas, when its first marriage licenses were issued under the new ruling, to three gay and lesbian couples. One of the couples got married on the same day.
I know that there is a sizeable LGBTQI population in both counties — a population still forced to live much of its collective life below the radar. I also know that this childish bigotry will, of course, change. Eventually. But as with so much else, the hidebound bigots of Little Texas won't go down without a fight.
It's time to take the fight to them. Democratic Party of New Mexico, it's your job to recruit candidates for all offices who support fundamental civil rights for everyone. Do your job.
EFFORT TO SECURE FUNDING FOR TRIBAL YOUTH SUICIDE PREVENTION BLOCKED FOR FOURTH YEAR IN A ROW
I've written elsewhere, at some length, about the astronomical rate of suicide, both attempted and successful, among our Native youth. From a public health standpoint, it's legitimately classified as an epidemic.
New Mexico is no exception:
In the fall of 2009, four young people in the southeastern part of the state died by suicide. Three were Mescalero Apaches.And as is common elsewhere in Indian Country, the suicide rate is much, much higher among American Indian young people than among their peers of other ethnic backgrounds. Here in New Mexico, the state health department's own research uncovered a suicide rate among Indian youth that is four times that of the national average.
Just a few months later, in the spring of 2010, five Navajo teens also died by suicide in Thoreau, a town in Western New Mexico of fewer than 2,000.
Supposedly, the state was committed to "doing something." Susana Martinez made a big production of signing into law the Native American Suicide Prevention Bill. Whether the law actually does much to prevent suicide among Native youth is another matter altogether.
First, the law created a clearinghouse, headquartered at the University of New Mexico, that is supposed to provide resources of and referrals to "culturally appropriate" programs. Sounds great, right?
Well, in its original incarnation, it probably was: After all, it was sponsored by then-state senator Lynda Lovejoy, D-Crownpoint, who is Diné and who has a long record of service to her own Navajo Nation and to our Native peoples generally.
But the bill included none of the funding requested for the clearinghouse or prevention programs for Native youth. The Legislature had stripped $150,000 for the clearinghouse and $300,000 for prevention programs for Native youth before the legislation reached Martinez’s desk.
Established but unfunded, the clearinghouse was set up through UNM’s Center for Rural and Community Behavioral Health, with technical assistance from the New Mexico Department of Health (DOH). According to DOH spokesman Kenny Vigil, the state initially helped supervise an AmeriCorps volunteer to assist with the project; the state’s youth suicide prevention coordinator also offered guidance and attended workgroup meetings.
The next year, 2012, lawmakers and the governor approved $100,000 for UNM’s work on the clearinghouse in Fiscal Year 2013, which ended June 30.
What didn’t make it into the state budget was $300,000 sought by Rep. James Roger Madalena, D-Jemez Pueblo, for three culturally-based Native American youth suicide prevention initiatives. That bill failed.
In other words, it's the same old story. Tribes do as every other segment of the population does: recognize a need; design a solution; and then seek the resources to implement it. But in our case, the dominant culture says, "Okay, we'll fund it. A little bit. But you can't control the dollars, how they're used, or where they go. We need to make sure that's done by someone else (read: someone from the dominant culture). and son instead of ensuring that the tribes can design effective (and efficient) programs for themselves, we must have multiple layers of bureaucracy housed at a thoroughly establishment (and powerful) institution of the dominant culture. Yes, I know that UNM does better than many in that regard. I also know that the clearinghouse program has put together a "tribal consultation board" and has an Indian woman as program director. None of that erases the essential dominant-culture paternalism and privilege that has saturated this entire process. And it is not the most effective way to help tribes save our young people.
As Laura Paskus, who writes on this topic for New Mexico In Depth, reported back in January:
Researchers and public health workers must engage directly with individual tribes and draw on the experts already present within each community, says Robyn Atencio, a mental health counselor at Five Sandoval Indian Pueblos, a nonprofit that administers grants and provides services for the pueblos of Cochiti, Jemez, Sandia, Santa Ana and Zia in central New Mexico.
“Intervention needs to be unique,” she says, “and tailored to communities.”
Tribal input is important for another reason: Historically, university researchers have visited tribal communities, gleaned stories and information, and then taken ownership of that “data,” Atencio says. In other words, Native American people would talk about their culture, religion, and family and cultural histories. Departing from the community, researchers would weave that information into books, academic dissertations or articles. Oftentimes, trust was betrayed; but almost always, that information was co-opted by “experts” whose work never reached — or benefited — Native people.
“We don’t want to do that,” says Sheri Lesansee, Native American behavioral health program manager at UNM’s Center for Rural and Community Behavioral Health, which houses the clearinghouse.
A tribal consultation board, created by the Legislature and made up of leaders within Native American communities, is supposed to advise UNM on the clearinghouse. The group held its first meeting in December.
Bird, the community-based research specialist at the UNM center, has spent time listening to tribes’ concerns, meeting leaders and community members. Building trust is critical, she says.
I do not want to seem to denigrate the efforts of Ms. Lesansee or Ms. Bird. They have an extraordinarily difficult road ahead of them, and I'm sure that they are doing everything they can to make this work. But the fact of the matter is that this needs to led by the individual tribal nations, with each of them tailoring the programs to their own specific cultural needs.
As Ms. Paskus now reports, Rep. Madalena tried again in the session that just ended. That attempt was, of course, blocked:
House Bill 61, which never made it out of the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, would have given $300,000 to the Human Services Department (HSD) to fund three culturally-based Native American youth suicide prevention initiatives focused on suicide prevention, intervention, and post-event assistance for Native Americans living in rural, frontier and urban communities.
For the fourth consecutive year, legislators also did not add that money to the budget bill or any other legislation.
That leaves a scant $100,000 in the budget earmarked for the clearinghouse effort.
This is a crisis that will not magically disappear if it's ignored. Of course, I realize that to most of the state, and especially to most of our state elected officials, it's not a crisis, because it doesn't affect them or anyone like them.
But New Mexico — and New Mexico Democrats — have a responsibility to our state's children. Even when they're the state's first children.
Time to start lobbying, people. Time to get this done. Our children's lives and our peoples' futures depend on it.
Copyright Ajijaakwe, 2014; all rights reserved.
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