On Wednesday, January 26th, 2022, the Food for Tribal Families started off the new year.
This distribution was very late as a fatal accident blocked the main thoroughfare between the Motherlode counties of Amador and Calaveras. This was not the way to start the new year and our sympathies go out to the families of those affected.
This distribution was quite large and augmented by the addition of fresh fruits picked at the tribal offices and resupply of Covid-related preventative items to get tribal citizens through another month of the latest strains of the pandemic.
This month also saw an abundance of frozen meats, poultry, fish and pork from the markets whose monthly assistance is greatly appreciated.
We would like to thank The United States Department of Agriculture, The California Office of Emergency Services, The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Walmart Stores Inc., Food For Less Stores Inc., Cost Less Stores Inc., Morada and its surrounding communities, Office staff and tribal citizens alike who donated their time and resources and Program Director Mildred Burley who even though just overcoming her second bout of Covid, diligently stays strong in serving the needs of her fellow tribal citizens and her local Native American community
For more on this month’s delivery, please click on video below accompanied by the rest of this month’s story.
In this video, Mildred Burley, Tribal Elder, Tribal Artisan, Language retentionist and Food For Tribal Families Program Director, speaks while holding up another artistic endeavor in displaying one of her many skills and practicing social distancing due to another bout of Covid. Mildred is the last full blood Miwok, and the BIA is wholeheartedly trying to figure out how to disenroll her and throw her under the buss.
The tribe cut off from benefits for many years did not even receive Covid relief funds which most assuredly would have helped the tribe in protecting our precious elder from getting this recent reinfection and maybe from ever being infected at all. In this day and age of this administration’s pursuit of identity politics’, how is it that a fluent speaking, full blood, elder tribal citizen, faces disenrollment and extinction so that a non-native money-grubbing U.S. Senator and her billionaire husband can steal her tribe through illegal intergovernmental backroom deals in pursuit of their gaming and mecca entertainment aspirations?
Because when identity politics gets in the way of making money especially among their own, the BIA becomes a weapon by those who wish to take, not unlike when they were under the jurisdiction of the war department. All that have bought into this smash and steal opportunity that has plagued this tribe for decades started with the personal interference of one man who incapable of anything constructive himself, enticed those of immense greed and low moral stature, many in very prominent positions like U.S. Senator Feinstein, in hopes of forwarding his own personal interests. To actually hear the orchestrator of this crime against Native American peoples who talked candidly in a recorded conversation go to, http://californiavalleymiwoktribe.us/ and click on the Everone/Ludwig Audio Archive on the left hand side of page.
What does it say about the country we live in when one local street swindler can lead our government by the nose when all they see is dollar signs and destroy an Indian Nation in the process?
As a nation, we really have not come that far after all.
