US Congress Increases Funding for Native American Language Programs

from Cultural Survival News:

Date: 01/14/2010

Hundreds of Native language advocates convened on Capitol Hill this past May, asking Congress to approve a minimum of $10 million in additional federal support for the Esther Martinez Act, which funds Native American language immersion schools, master-apprentice programs, and other revitalization projects. Native language advocates have made the $10 million request in earnest since 2007, and the new administration heard the call. In May during the Cultural Survival and National Alliance to Save Native Languages summit, Congressional appropriators welcomed the language revitalization funding request from Code talkers, fluent speakers, and novice learners alike in nearly three dozen meetings with key members of Congress and their staffers. A $12 million increase for the Esther Martinez Native American Languages Preservation Act of 2006 was signed by President Obama on December 16, 2009 as part of the omnibus fiscal year 2010 appropriations bill (HR 3288, which included HR 3293). The $12 million in increased funds for Native languages will be administered in a competitive grants program by the Administration for Native Americans within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Will Settle Native American Lawsuit for $3.4 Billion

from the NYT:

The federal government announced on Tuesday that it intends to pay $3.4 billion to settle claims that it has mismanaged the revenue in American Indian trust funds, potentially ending one of the largest and most complicated class-action lawsuits ever brought against the United States.

The tentative agreement, reached late Monday, would resolve a 13-year-old lawsuit over hundreds of thousands of land trust accounts that date to the 19th century. Specialists in federal tribal law described the lawsuit as one of the most important in the history of legal disputes involving the government’s treatment of American Indians.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/09tribes.html