Expanded Job Board, Streamlined Tools at IMDiversity.com

Following IMDiversity's recent migration to a new jobs database and job tools format at http://jobsearch.imdiversity.com, the editors have begun to restore a number of previously popular jobs quicksearch features including our jobs by location and jobs by occupation quicksearches, our $100K-Plus Featured Jobs section, and our weekly Featured Jobs section.

Just one one new improvement to our job tools is that jobseekers can now quickly and easily schedule a Saved Search from any search results page to send them a job alert email whenever any new jobs match their custom criteria. Jobseekers can "subscribe" to a Saved Search agent without opening a full job tools account, but they will enjoy improved tools for managing multiple alerts and posting employer-searchable resume by creating a quick Job Tools account first

We've also added a much expanded network job search, greatly extending the range and variety of the job postings searchable from one site.

Stop back for updates about the new jobs center in coming weeks.

Guidelines, applications for tax-exempt bonds now available

Filing deadline, 15 August.
Read the story in Indian Country Today

Journalist Webinar Briefing: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap

The Media Consortium, the Insight Center

MC Contact: Tracy Van Slyke
tracy@themediaconsortium.com

America's most glaring economic injustice is the racial wealth gap: families of color have only 15 cents of wealth to the white family's dollar. The racial wealth gap has been caused by government policies from the expropriation of Indian lands and slavery, to many aspects of the New Deal like the GI bill and Social Security, to current policies like the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction and unregulated housing and financial markets. The Oakland-based Insight Center's Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative has over 120 experts of color across the country who are resources to journalists and elected officials on federal, state and local economic stories and policies.

On Tuesday, June 16, this call will feature story ideas and investigative journalism proposals from:

Michael E. Roberts, President, First Nations Development Institute, on Closing the Racial Wealth Gap in Indian country

Avis A. Jones-DeWeever, Ph.D., Director, National Council of Negro Women, Research, Public Policy, and Information Center, on her new report Assessing the Double Burden: Examining Racial and Gender Disparities in Mortgage Lending, co-released with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition

Janis Bowdler, Senior Housing Policy Analyst, National Council of La Raza on the housing crisis and Latinos

Short presentations will be followed by Q&A.

To access ECON, the Experts of Color Network, visit www.expertsofcolor.org. For narratives on the racial wealth gap and proposals to close it, visit www.racialweathgap.org. For more information on The Media Consortium, visit www.themediaconsortium.org.

WHAT: Journalist Webinar Briefing: Closing the Racial Wealth Gap
WHEN: 9 a.m. PST/12 p.m. EST, Tuesday, June 16 (40 minutes)
WHO: Insight Center Closing The Racial Wealth Gap Initiative and The Media Consortium

To RSVP: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/854239593.
Please RSVP by Monday, June 15 at 3 EST.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE:

About The Media Consortium
The Media Consortium, a network of the country’s leading, independent media outlets has formed to amplify our voices; increase our collective clout; leverage our current audience and reach out to new ones; transform our sector’s position in a rapidly changing media and political environment; and redefine ourselves and progressivism for a new century.

About NAM
New America Media is the country's first and largest national collaboration and advocate for more than 2500 ethnic news organizations. Over 51 million ethnic adults connect to each other, to home countries and to America through 3000+ ethnic media, the fastest growing sector of American journalism. Founded by the nonprofit Pacific News Service in 1996, NAM is headquartered in California with offices in New York and Washington D.C. NAM also partners with journalism schools to grow local associations of ethnic media around the nation.

Visit NAM's homepage for news and updates on our programs here.

Featured Job: Associate Director Heart of American Indian Center (MO)

Recently posted on our new job bank:

The Heart of American Indian Center of Kansas City, Missouri, seeks applicants for an Associate Director to provide support to the Acting Executive Director and serve the will of the Board of Directors. The Associate Director will perform administrative duties and will over see; operational, fiscal, personnel and program functions of the Heart of American Indian Center. This Position requires the ability to maintain confidentiality, exercise sound independent judgment and take initiative. Inquiries will be accepted until position is filled.

Read the full posting and apply here:
Featured Job: Associate Director Heart of American Indian Center (MO)

Navajo Fashion Show at Trickster Gallery, IL

June 13th, 2009 Schaumburg, IL-The American Indian Center of Chicago s Trickster Gallery is excited to announce its very first Navajo Fashion Show. Up-and-coming Navajo designer, LeAnn Ward, along with her mother Lillian Bancroft from Arizona, will showcase their one-of-a-kind traditional and contemporary designs on the runway. Their beautiful fashions will be modeled by young Native American girls and boys, ages newborn to teens, from the Chicago area. This event is the first of its kind in Chicago.

I started sewing in mid-2007, but before that I always used to design my own clothing in high school and have my mom sew them for me. I knew that I always wanted to carry on the tradition of sewing, and once I became a mother, it was my calling to start, says designer LeAnn Ward. My mother Lillian Bancroft has been sewing since junior high. To this day she sews for her mother, my Grandma Nez Bancroft, whose naturally woven rug will be in the show as well. My Grandma is a rug weaver and pottery maker who speaks only Navajo.

The public is welcome to attend at 190 South Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL. There you can enjoy music performed by the current Miss Indian Chicago 2009, Arissa Yolanda St. Germaine, as well as 2008 s Miss Indian Chicago, Jasmine Alfonso. On hand will be local Native arts and crafts vendors, with traditional Native American food being served.

Designs by LeAnn Ward have previously been exhibited as part of the Native American Women s Artists Guild and Spirited Daughters, which are both Chicago area organizations featuring Native American female artists. This is her and her mother s first show, and will represent three generations, as LeAnn s daughters will be modeling during the show. The designs will be on display in the gallery through the end of August and available for purchase.

In addition to the Navajo Fashion Show, Trickster Gallery will be opening two new exhibits June 13: The Office of Indian Education s 2008 student competition exhibit Circle of Empowerment: Education, Language, Culture, Tradition and its first multicultural show by 2009 graduates of the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

For additional information on the Navajo Fashion Show and other events, contact LeAnn or Monica, or visit www.myspace.com/trickstergallery.

Trickster Gallery opened its doors in 2005, as an extension of the American Indian Center of Chicago s arts programming. The American Indian Center is the oldest urban Indian Center in the country, serving the Chicago area for almost 56 years. The gallery features contemporary art from Native artists from all over the country, and has featured award-winning Native performers. The gallery regularly conducts school and group tours, has film screenings every Friday, and Native American book club bi-monthly. Events include cultural workshops, powwows, concerts, Native arts market, book signings, artist talks, demonstrations and more.

Are Native Americans finally making inroads into journalism?

With cautious optimism, we can digest a recent India Country Today article that points to a slight rise in the pitifully low numbers of Indian journalists, and think that maybe the tide against the white male press establishment is beginning to change. Asians and Latinos have also gained in numbers, but the number of African American journalists has declined.
Here's the article.

Deadline: HBS Summer Venture in Management Program 2009

Release from Harvard Business School:

The Summer Venture in Management Program (SVMP) is a week of Harvard Business School instruction that exposes high-potential college students in the summer between their junior and senior year to the HBS MBA experience and the variety of opportunities a degree in management can afford. Participants from diverse backgrounds spend the week on campus living the MBA student experience - attending classes, analyzing case studies, and debating management issues with peers and faculty. This unique educational experience, in combination with a summer internship at a sponsoring company or organization, gives participants a broader understanding of the challenges business leaders face, the innumerable opportunities that exist in management, and the impact they can have on their community and the world through leadership.

In order to attend, a completed application is due by May 11, 2009. Click here for particulars on the application process.

For more information about this program, please visit the SVMP Website.

Best regards,
MBA Admissions
Harvard Business School

More on imperiled Native languages

From the Seattle Times
This on a last-ditch gathering of Salish speakers from the Pacific Northwest.

Merrie Monarch Festival Winners for 2009 (w/ clip)

Posted by our sister site, IMDiversity Asian-American Village:

The results of the 46th Merrie Monarch Festival, held in Hilo, Hawai'i last week. The new overall winners were Ke Kai O Kahiki, and the Miss Aloha Hula 2009 honor goes to Cherissa Henoheanapuaikawaokele Kane.

The Merrie Monarch Festival was founded for "the perpetuation, preservation, and promotion of the art of hula and the Hawaiian culture through education. The festival is considered the world's premier forum for people of all ages to display their skills and knowledge of the art of ancient and modern hula."

To learn more, see: http://www.merriemonarchfestival.org

The fate of imperiled Native languages

For many indigenous people world-wide, language is an endangered species, and when language dies, so, too, in many ways, does a people. I've seen it in more veiled, deceptive circumstances in the non-indigenous world, such as in Italy where the replacing of perfectly useful Italian words by English is a signpost for the Americanization of the whole society. The disappearance of Native American languages, though, is even more portentous, as it signals the absorption of a people into the culture that historically would rather have been rid of them completely.
Kara Brigg's article in India Today is both a perceptive analysis and a call to action.

Should Columbus Day be shunned?

The recent decision by Brown University to rename Columbus Day "Fall Weekend," and to rededicate the day to educating people about Columbus' legacy as a conquistador and the true history of Native American peoples has caused much controversy around town.
The article I've linked to, thanks much to Patty Talahongva's headsup, talks to the precarious position of the prestigious university, which, having taken the decision, finds itself in the midst of the debate between activist students and Italian-American supporters of Columbus.

Revitalizing Native Languages Campaign

After weeks of intensive advocacy by Cultural Survival, tribal leaders, the National Alliance to Save Native Languages, and leading Native American policy groups, the United States Congress has appropriated an additional $1.5 million over the enacted 2008 budget (which was $2 million) for the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act. This means that there is $3.5 million in the 2009 budget for Native American language restoration, programs, or schools, in addition to the funds that the Administration for Native Americans makes available out of its overall budget for language revitalization. Cultural Survival and the National Alliance to Save Native Languages also pushed for $5 million in Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) funding in the federal economic stimulus package for "shovel ready" projects at Native language immersion schools desperately in need of repairs and renovations. The BIA's Office of Economic Development Workforce Construction Training Programs will be funded at $6 million, according to the best current estimates available from NCAI, but it is still unclear how much of this allocation will support local renovation projects at immersion schools. The National Alliance continues to monitor local language school construction projects. Read the Alliance's congressional testimony submitted to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs summarizing immersion school facilities needs.

Scholarship Deadline March 1: Chemistry Majors

African-American, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian students who are high school seniors, or college freshmen, sophomores or juniors are among those who can now apply for a scholarship from the American Chemical Society Scholars Program. Applications will be accepted through March 1, 2009, for the 2009-2010 school year.

Students must plan to major in or already be majoring in chemistry, biochemistry, chemical engineering or a chemically-related science, and they must plan to pursue a career in the chemical sciences. Scholarships range from $1,000 to $5,000, depending on college level and economic need.

For full description, see the complete release published on our sister-site, THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online: ACS Scholars Program Accepting Applications for Minority Students Studying Chemistry.

Notes from Antigua, Guatemala

I’m in Guatemala for a week, visiting a friend, staying mostly in Antigua, a jewel of colonial grace and comfort. Antigua is arguably the most prosperous of Guatemala’s cities. It is top-heavy with ladinos (Guatemalans—and other Central Americans--of Spanish or mixed European and Amerindian descent) and foreigners, come either to study Spanish or to stay as pensioners or workers in the many NGOs trying to make life bearable for the country’s overflow of orphans, war-wounded, battered women, and more.
Indigenous Maya weave through the town, come down from the nearby hilltowns, most of them women in multi-hued traditional dress. The cloth for their magnificent ancestral traje--a cotton poncho-like huipil, sometimes elaborated with embroidery, worn over a corte, or woven panel that gets wrapped in layers around the waist and secured under a yards-long cloth sash—is becoming harder to come by as the weaving is so labor intensive. Much of the tela found now is computer woven in Indonesia and recognizably inferior. They used to sell trajes on the streets and in the parques, but now most of the wares are smaller woven tourist items and trinkets.
Other indigenous women walk the streets or settle onto the narrow sidewalk, selling tamales or dulces (sweets) to native Guatemalans from checkered cloth lined baskets.
Antigua is an anomaly, its Western face and well-being contrasting unsettlingly with the grime the pollution and grinding poverty of neighboring Guatemala City and the insularity and, again, extreme poverty of the highlands.
I’d recently posted an AP story about the growing indigenous presence in the U.S. Mexican, Guatemalan, Ecuadorian and other Latin American indigenous have been arriving to work the fields in increased numbers. For the first time, we have to recognize folks from “Latin” America who have never learned Spanish nor adopted European ways of dress, food, and social structure. Some withstood the pressure to embrace Christianity, or have done so only half-heartedly.
These new indigenous arrivals may look like our accepted image of a Latino and bear a Hispanic surname (many do not), but their ethos is not Latin. Moreover they may have almost nothing in common with Native Americans, already having a hard time with inclusionism—is an Alaska Native or a Native Hawaiian an American Indian?—yet they are being tossed in together with all of North America’s First Peoples. Some day these new indigenous will compete with Hopi and Oglala and other “card carrying” indigenous groups for the benefits (or the crumbs) they’d fought so long to win.
When I sit in the parque central or go to the market, especially when I go out of town, I can’t help but wonder how difficult the decision must be to face the perils of coming north, and I imagine, despite their clear marginalization in their own land (a civil war that was essentially one of genocide endured from 1960 to 1996), how much more poignant and scary it becomes once they exchange their traje for farmworkers’ overalls and aprons.