S4E6 / Right to Water / Ernestine Chaco, Brianna Johnson, George McGraw, Jeanette Wolfley, Zoel Zohnnie

03/29/22 • 29 min

3 Listeners

AMERICAN DIAGNOSIS with Dr. Céline Gounder

In 2020, during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Zoel Zohnnie was feeling restless. Growing up on the Navajo Nation, he said, the importance of caring for family and community was instilled at an early age. So Zohnnie wanted to find a way to help members of his tribe. One need in particular stood out: water.

American Indian and Alaska Native households are 3.7 times more likely to lack complete plumbing compared with households whose members do not identify as Indigenous or Black, according to a 2019 mapping report on plumbing poverty in the United States.

“Climate change and excessive water use is exacerbating these struggles,” explained George McGraw, CEO of DigDeep. “Much of the western United States has been in severe drought for years. Many rivers and wells on or near the Navajo land have dried up. As groundwater recedes, people are forced to seek water from unsafe sources.”

To answer that need, Zohnnie began hauling water to people who were without, and he founded Water Warriors United. In this episode, listeners come along for the ride as he ― and his truck ― make one herculean trek across snow-covered roads in New Mexico.

Episode 6 is an exploration of the root causes behind the Navajo Nation’s water accessibility challenges and a story about the water rights that some communities have effectively lost.

Click here for a transcript of the episode.

Voices from the Episode:

Dr. Ernestine Chaco, emergency medicine physician and lawyer — Twitter
Brianna Johnson, community health representative with the Naschitti Chapter, Navajo Nation
George McGraw, CEO of DigDeep — LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter
Jeanette Wolfley, assistant professor of law at the University of New Mexico — LinkedIn
Zoel Zohnnie, founder of Collective Medicine and actor — TikTok

Season 4 of “American Diagnosis” is a co-production of KHN and Just Human Productions.

Our Editorial Advisory Board includes Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, Alastair Bitsóí, and Bryan Pollard.

Episode 6 is an exploration of the root causes behind the Navajo Nation’s water accessibility challenges and a story about the water rights that some communities have effectively lost.

Click here for a transcript of the episode.

Voices from the Episode:

Dr. Ernestine Chaco, emergency medicine physician and lawyer — Twitter
Brianna Johnson, community health representative with the Naschitti Chapter, Navajo Nation
George McGraw, CEO of DigDeep — LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter
Jeanette Wolfley, assistant professor of law at the University of New Mexico — LinkedIn
Zoel Zohnnie, founder of Collective Medicine and actor — TikTok

Season 4 of “American Diagnosis” is a co-production of KHN and Just Human Productions.

Our Editorial Advisory Board includes Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, Alastair Bitsóí, and Bryan Pollard.

Previous Episode

S4E5 / Power to Police Perpetrators / Lisa Brunner, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Alfred Urbina

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Editor’s Note: This episode includes descriptions of violence that some might find disturbing. Intimate partner violence, also known as domestic violence, can take the form of physical, sexual, or psychological abuse. If you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner violence, help is available.

StrongHearts Native Helpline provides culturally appropriate support and advocacy for Indigenous women. Call 1-844-7-NATIVE or text the corresponding number: 1-844-762-8483.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233.

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Mary Kathryn Nagle is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, an attorney, a playwright ― and an advocate working to increase protections for Native women in the U.S. justice system.

Not long after the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, was reauthorized in 2013, she sat with fellow activist Lisa Brunner to talk about a new play Nagle was working on in response to the ruling.

Brunner said she told the playwright that VAWA is just a “sliver of a full moon” of the protection Native women need.

The metaphor resonated with Nagle, and “Sliver of a Full Moon” would become the title of her play. It shares the stories of Native survivors of domestic abuse, and exposes the gaps in the justice system that often let non-Native perpetrators commit crime without consequence. Critics say that over decades those gaps became an opportunity for abusers to flourish on Native land.

“Just imagine your own community,” said attorney Alfred Urbina, “where certain people weren't prosecuted or arrested for crimes. If you lived in an area where certain people didn't have to abide by the law, what does that do to a community?”

Urbina is the attorney general for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in southwestern Arizona, one of the first tribes to begin prosecuting non-Native offenders under the VAWA 2013 rules.

Among Native survivors of violence, more than 90% reported they had experienced violence from a perpetrator who was non-Native, according to a survey funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized on March 10, 2022, reaffirming tribes’ authority to prosecute non-Native perpetrators of sexual violence and certain other crimes. It expands prosecution power for tribal nations in Maine and Alaska and offers funding to support law enforcement implementation of VAWA.

“It's not the totality of everything that we need. Right?” said Brunner. “But, you know, the full moon is bright. And we're just starting with the moon. I'm after the universe.”

Click here for a transcript of the episode.

Voices from the episode:

Lisa Brunner, founding member of the Violence Against Women Task Force, adjunct professor at the White Earth Tribal & Community College — LinkedIn
Mary Kathryn Nagle, playwright, partner at Pipestem Law, specializing in tribal sovereignty of Native nations and peoples, executive director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program — Twitter, Instagram
Alfred Urbina, attorney general for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Arizona — Twitter

Season 4 of “American Diagnosis” is a co-production of KHN and Just Human Productions.

Our Editorial Advisory Board includes Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, Alastair Bitsóí, and Bryan Pollard.

Next Episode

S4E7 / Fighting for Reproductive Sovereignty / Rachael Lorenzo, Sarah Deer, Sunny Clifford, Elizabeth Rink

Rachael Lorenzo works to address reproductive health disparities in Native communities. In 2018, they founded Indigenous Women Rising, a fund that provides financial help for Native people seeking an abortion.

Historically, the federal government has restricted Native people’s reproductive autonomy. Between 1973 and 1976, more than 3,500 Native people were sterilized without their consent.

Today, the chronic underfunding of the Indian Health Service (IHS) and remote location of many reservations create barriers for Native people to access testing for sexually transmitted infections, prenatal care, and contraception.

Lorenzo is determined to fight for their community.

“My people deserve accessible health care, and I will make it happen no matter what, because this is our land,” they said.

Episode 7 explores efforts to protect and expand access to comprehensive reproductive and sexual health care in the face of historical and contemporary efforts of the government to control Native people’s fertility.

Click here for a transcript of the episode.

Voices from the Episode:

Rachael Lorenzo — Twitter – Co- Founder, Indigenous Women Rising (Twitter, Instagram)
Sarah Deer — Twitter – Distinguished Professor at the University of Kansas
Sunny Clifford, Reproductive Rights Advocate
Elizabeth Rink, Professor of Community Health at Montana State University