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Message from the Director

Dear Friends of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center,

The 2011-12 academic year is officially drawing to a close. We thank you all for your generous support of the American Indian Studies Center during the past year. And we congratulate our outstanding students on all their accomplishments and look forward to honoring our graduates at commencement exercises this weekend.

In addition, it is with deeply mixed emotions that I inform you that DeAnna Rivera has resigned as Director of the Tribal Learning Community and Educational Exchange (TLCEE) effective August 31, 2012.  Though TLCEE functions under the Native Nations Law and Policy Center at the UCLA School of Law rather than the AISC, DeAnna has been a deeply valuable member of our entire American Indian Studies community at UCLA for almost 7 years.  We commend her on her outstanding  service and for her efforts to better connect the academic community of UCLA to the many indigenous communities of Southern California, the greater United States, and beyond.  We know her insights, energy, and intellect will be deeply valued in her next post, and we wish her great success as she moves on in her career.

Have a wonderful summer!

Megwetch,
Angela R. Riley
Director, American Indian Studies Center
Professor of Law

(www.aisc.ucla.edu)

Recap: The Native American Student Advocacy Institute 2012

The Native American Student Advocacy Institute (NASAI), in collaboration with the College Board and UCLA, hosted a conference, Reflecting on the Past, Continuing Traditions, Redefining the Future at UCLA May 22-23, 2012.  This multi-organizational event brought together educators, administrators and students from throughout the United States, with a focus on supporting recruitment and retention of American Indian students with college preparation and attendance.  Chancellor Gene Block and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Janina Montero opened the conference with greetings and a warm welcome. Renee White Eyes, Native American/Alaska Native Recruiter at UCLA played a pivotal role in the success of the event.  Highlights included outstanding presentations by UCLA's own Retention of American Indians Now! (RAIN) and the American Indian Recruitment (AIR) Project, as well as an address by Nancy Reifel, Assistant Professor at the UCLA School of Dentistry.

The conference provided a wonderful opportunity to meet and converse with a wide cross section of educators and administrators about the exciting work being done with and for Native students, all with the hope of a brighter future for all of us. We commend all the students, staff, and faculty who worked to make this a such an outstanding and successful event.

Other News and Events

"Celebrating All Life & Creation" Pow Wow

RE-SCHEDULED
"Celebrating All Life & Creation" Pow Wow
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Plummer Park
7377 Santa Monica Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90046
For Information Call: 323-329-9905

Presented by the Red Circle Project at AIDS Project Los Angeles with support from the City of West Hollywood and National Native American AIDS Prevention Center.

New Book: "Captured Justice: Native Nations and Public Law 280" by Duane Champagne and Carole Goldberg

Captured Justice: Native Nations and Public Law 280 by Duane Champagne and Carole Goldberg

$30.00 • 244 pp • paper
ISBN: 978-1-61163-043-5
LCCN 2011034877
The policy of forced assimilation, called "termination,” that Congress pressed upon Native Americans in the 1950s brought state criminal jurisdiction to more than half of all Indian reservations for the first time in American history. The law that accomplished most of this shift from a combination of tribal and federal control to state control is widely known as Public Law 280. Tribes did not consent to the new and alien forms of criminal justice, and the federal government provided no funding to state or local governments to ease the new burdens thrust upon them.
Present-day concerns about community safety in Indian country raise questions about the appropriate strategy for achieving that end. Is expanded state criminal jurisdiction an appropriate response, or should that option be off the table? Does the experience with Public Law 280 suggest conditions under which state jurisdiction is more or less successful?
Captured Justice is the first systematic investigation of the success or failure of the Public Law 280 program substituting state for tribal and federal criminal justice in Indian country. The authors first identify a set of six conditions that are necessary for criminal justice to succeed in Indian country. They then present the results of hundreds of interviews and surveys at sixteen reservations across the United States, tapping reservation residents, tribal officials and staff, and state and federal law enforcement officers and criminal justice personnel, to find out how the state jurisdiction regime is faring and to compare experiences on Public Law 280 reservations with those on non-Public Law 280 reservations. Before-and-after case studies of tribes that were able to remove state jurisdiction from their reservations complete the book.

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