‘Mōhiti E’: Empowering (Trans) Indigenous Performance

How might a collaborative performance staged across indigenous cultures – in this case Māori and Native American – be seen to create a shared wairua that leads to mārama? For this Symposium, Valance Smith (Ngāpuhi/Waikato) will compose a waiata as the starting point for a hoop dance choreographed and performed by Eddie Madril (Pascua Yaqui) from the Sewan American Indian Dance company. Waiata is, at its simplest, song. It is a vessel for a kaupapa, in the lyrics and also in its music, an embodiment of the singer’s mauri that, in the ideal, resonates in the listener. Hoop dancing has many purposes. It describes the complexities of life, expresses many aspects of the scientific nature of the world through the art form, and invokes the meaning behind the cycle of all living things. In bringing together two distinctive performance languages and cultures, we will be looking for common ground, exploring possible synergies and seeking an experience of the metaphysical in the physicality of our song and dance that can be translated back into a deeper understanding of the potential power of (trans) indigenous performance. How might such a shared, cross-cultural performance not only inform the way we think about the particular practices involved, but also challenge our assumptions about what it means, both in theory and in practice, to perform as Māori and as Native American?

Community Computing and Literacy in Pascua Yaqui Pueblo

In 1998, the U.S. Department of Commerce Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program funded the Pascua Yaqui Connection project. This grant initiative was created to address the Digital Divide. Programs were established to bridge this gap for communities traditionally behind in information and communications technology (ICT) and underserved by connectivity and access to the Internet and advanced computer systems. The Pascua Yaqui Community Resource Lab was established by the joint effort of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, Pima Community College and the University of Arizona (Betts, 2002).

Team Policing In A Yaqui Community

The most persistent problem in American policing is style: the police are continually challenged to perform according to the community's expectations of how police ought to perform. During the 1960's, the violent confrontations between police and minority communities forced the convening of the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals which examined the entire criminal justice system and offered recommendations for improvement. In the case of poor minority communities, the Commission recommended that the police adopt a particular style, the team policing model, in order to obtain better cooperation from citizens and, ultimately, greater assistance in solving and preventing crimes. Team policing projects have emerged in many cities. Some have failed, others prosper. During 1977-78, I scrutinized one such program that failed. I chronicled the demise of a two-year team policing project conducted by the Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff's Department (PCSD) in the New Pascua Yaqui community located twenty miles southwest of Tucson, Arizona.