Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Native Americans

Native Americans

  • A Tale of Two Indigenous Monuments in New York

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    (photo: Matt Ballard)


    The New York State Department of Transportation (NYS DOT) recently began installing engraved murals of New York’s Native American history on the Capital Region’s Northway. A few days later, the same NYS DOT ...

  • 'They're Conditioned to Just Ignore or Erase Us': Native Americans in New York Fear Another Census Undercount

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    American Indian Community House is working on the 2020 Census (photo: @AICHNYC)


    The decennial Census is an exercise in counting every single resident of the United States of America, but the tragic irony of the process is that it routinely undercounts the very people who first called this continent their home. Native Americans, who now make up about 1% of New York State’s population, worry that it may happen again this year, perpetuating the official apathy to their people that they have come to expect from the federal government.

    About 194,000 New Yorkers

    ...
  • A Monument to an Indigenous Future, Worthy of Attorney General James’ Support

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    The Shinnecock billboard on Route 27 (photo via a Shinnecock Nation member)


    New York State Attorney General Letitia James earned a reputation as a relentless fighter for working people in the Brooklyn gentrification struggles of the early 21st century. Representing parts of Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and Bedford-Stuyvesant in the early 2000s, City Council Member James insisted that low-income and working people must have a place and a future in Brooklyn.

    Block by block, James helped community members keep their

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