A state commission’s proposal to remove Wintu and other federally non-recognized tribes from a consultation contact list would leave cultural sites vulnerable to destruction, tribal members say, and represents a form of unconstitutional discrimination.
After recent erasures of the historical contributions and experiences of Indigenous people from public sites, the work of an early 20th century Wintu poet provides poignant insights into how local Native people have fought against invisibility for centuries.
Similar to the Amber Alert, the newly established Feather Alert system was meant to be a vital tool for Native families searching for missing relatives. Native policymakers and families say law enforcement agents are unnecessarily rejecting the majority of Feather Alert requests. Amendments to the law are already in process.
The designation would ban the kind of new leases for geothermal energy drilling that Pit River people have fought for decades and bestow far stronger protections for the culturally and ecologically important sacred landscape.
The state is deciding whether to approve a PG&E proposal to sell most of its hydroelectric dams, including McCloud and other non-nuclear energy facilities, to a smaller subsidiary company it controls. Environmental groups argue the transaction may slow already long-delayed repairs, increasing current flood risks.
In 2021, Shasta County officials definitively rejected the Fountain Wind mega-energy project, twice. But now a new California law may allow Texas-based ConnectGen to build the mammoth wind turbine project anyway, despite local decisions based on years of complex environmental studies, hours of testimonies, and in-depth Tribal consultations. Fountain Wind is poised to become a first test of how much the state is willing to bypass local and Tribal governments to meet its clean energy goals.
Long romanticized as an era of unbridled freedom, migration and entrepreneurial spirit, California’s Gold Rush was also a time of enslavement and hateful racial violence. In a new book titled Voices of the Golden Ghosts, a collective of North State authors reveals the fascinating 19th century Black Californians who fought against systemic discrimination in sophisticated ways to free themselves from bondage and establish a sense of belonging in their new home.
Shasta County’s affordable housing and emergency shelter crisis has spurred serious community discussions about how to respond to the needs of the region’s growing unhoused community. Community Voices writer Alissa Johnson and others in the unhoused community respond to reader questions about the causes of homelessness and the solutions they'd like to see the community pursue.
A state law passed last fall encourages districts to develop culturally appropriate history lessons. The groundbreaking work of Shasta County's American Indian Advisory (AIA) is providing a model for districts seeking to implement the new law statewide. Now an additional $1.1 million in grant funds will take the AIA's work even further.
For many years Lim’s Café on Market Street was known as an oasis of hospitality for the Native community. Its closure this September marked the end of a remarkable space of connection created by two communities with complicated histories. Their collective pasts contain more intersections and encounters than is widely known.
