center .. .. .. .. .. ....
IN case ya'll where wondering why I added all you kats is for networking till ya neck hurt purposes. I really want to make big moves and do big things.. but at the monent, I am just tryin to get mines... I'M Lakota/ Ojibwe born and raised South-Side Minneapolis. I am very educated in Native American Law and History.. Now I just need to get in where I fit In...I recently graduated from college at Metro State U, I am working on a dope azz project to start a some chapters within Indian Country. Can't give out too much info, so if you want to know more get at me. I am founder of All My Relatives Inc. whom will be bringing some power to the Hood in order to Educate, Empower, Provide Services, and Resources to Natives in the Metro Area Twin Cities./ I am also working on making moves on another scene..working with music see what kinda trees I can shake..sky is the limit.. That lil man in the photo with me is my son Iyomakipi we are from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Sicangu Band. I live my everyday life for the people Wolakota don't get it twisted cause I rep my Ojibwe side to the fullest if you want to know more hit me up a message stay up. mo love then a cupids dove.. dat sista Arlana WATCH THIS DOPE AZZ VIDEO UNDER HERE I DID IT AT A TRAINING IN TEXAS ITS ABOUT MY FAMILY TREE
COOL COOL..SO WE HAD OUT FIRST MEETING NAMED THE GROUP DECIDED DATE AND TIME TO MEET ESTALISHED OBJECTIVES..NOW IM HELLA HYPHY TO GET THIS GROUP GOING FOR ALL YOU LADIES WHO COULDN'T MAKE IT COME TO MIGIZI THURSDAY ..h AT 6PM POTLUCK..WE WILL GET THIS POPPIN FROM THERE..STAY UP HAVE A BEAUITFUL WEEKEND AND STAY SAFE..MAD LOVE DAT SISTA ARLANA CHECK THIS OUT..I HAVE BEEN READING OLD ARTICLES THAT PAST LEADERS WROTE ABOUT NATIVE AMERICAN STRUGGLE AND OUR BATTLE TO EMPOWER OURSELVES AND IT ALMOST FEELS LIKE IT HAS BEEN A CONSTANT STRUGGLE WITHIN OUR OWN COMMUNITIES AND WE ARE NOT MAKING MUCH PROGRESS I CHOOSE NOT TO GET DISCOURAGED BY THIS INSTEAD I CHOOSE TO BE MORE DETERMINED TO FIGHT FOR MY PEOPLE BUT FIRST I THINK WE NEED TO HEAL WE MUST DO SOME INNER HEALING AND COMMUNITY HEALING BEFORE WE CAN BE SUCCESSFUL, IT IS TIME FOR US TO STEP UP OUR PAST LEADERS ARE PASSING AWAY, THEY ARE PASSING THE TORCH TO US WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? WE MUST STEP UP FOR OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN REMEMBER THOSE WHO SUFFERED SO THAT WE MAY LIVE..(what can we do?) WE CAN GET EDUCATED WE CAN READ UP ON TREATYS, ACTS, POLICIES, WE CAN MAKE SURE OUR CHILDREN OBTAIN EDUCATION, WE CAN LEARN OUR WAYS AND CULTURE AND MAKE SURE OUR CHILDREN KNOW THE IMPORTANCE OF WHO THEY ARE AND WHERE THEY COME FROM, WE CAN LEARN HOW TO WORK TOGETHER WE CAN MENTOR AND HELP ONE ANOTHER LIKE WE USED TO, WE MUST LEARN THO HARDSHIPS AND MISTAKES AND ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO CHANGE, THERE IS SO MUCH WE CAN DO START BY THANKING THE CREATOR EACH DAY WHEN YOU LEAVE THE HOUSE WORK IN SMALL STEPS, LITTLE AT A TIME THERE IS SO MUCH WORK WE CAN DO...ALL MY RELATIVES....
IN LOVING MEMORY OF Manuel Archambault Shug Mantiou Ishnala 1-21-1980-3-16-2004Three Years have passed since the Great Spirit came for you. Now you’re an angel a spirit helper, You left behind heart filled memories of good time’s laughs and smiles, Your smiling face is imprinted on our hearts forever, Not a day goes by where we don’t think of you and miss you, Many tears were shed on your departure, And throughout the years, Your time here was short and yet your smile and your big heart touch many hearts, We understand now creator needed you to help, We will never forget you, and we will continue to carry you, In our hearts and minds until you welcome us home, We miss and love you Man Ducks, aka Manny Fresh WE LOVE YOU MANNY..IAM KEEPIN THIS UP IN HONOR OF YOU..
Little Something I wrote one Night When I couldn't sleep..Think Spirits were talking though me on this one...hope you can relate..nuthing but Love..P.S. sorry its not edited Choices I have been in school almost all my life and I have been living in poverty. The path to completing an education has been a long one, yet I have been driven and determined to not give up. I have attended five different universities within seven years I have dropped out, took breaks, and moved away from home. I have gone to extreme measures to explore an education. I have done all this raising a son, and maintaining employment. Some of the places I attended school I didn't have family there and some I Did,To make a short story longer I have discovered along my path with education and daily hardships of going from being raised in a multicultural environment. I had no idea racism existed then, as I attended different colleges in towns surrounded by reservations. What I learned was that people in general have different stereotypes about Native Americans, and they are so uneducated on the true history of Native Americans because they are not taught in school or do not state realist facts about Natives. They hold common stereotypes like we are all drunks and we receive free education. Little do they know Natives American's have only been introduced to Alcohol for the past two hundred years and their bodies do not filter alcohol like non-natives so they are more at risk then other races. And not all Natives receive free school money. I owe about $20,000 in loans and I am sure I am not the only one. So people can be uneducated about our race and people can judge, but they will be the ones missing out on wonderful friendships and will never understand how rich Native Americans truly are in values and culture. It was hard for me to go from not knowing racism existed to walking around a college campus not knowing whether to smile at someone walking by because, what if they are racist? But then I used to say to myself, you know what I am not here for other people, I am here for me -- to better myself to create a better future for myself and my son. If they want to make friends and talk to me, if they are worth it, they will. Otherwise I don't waste time and energy on worrying about what other people think. That can just take take much out of you. Most of the time the other students in school were nice. No one ever said anything to me in regards to race. If they ever asked me questions or brought anything UP, I simply corrected their common mis-education on Native Americans and said that's just a stereotype. They were always like, really, I didn't know that. So I spent some of my time breaking stereotypes. I felt like it was time well spent. The point I am trying to make is, Life is mainly about Choices. We can choose to judge people and put people down, and sit and dwell on the way things are, sit and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can take a stand and choose to do something about it. Dwelling, running, never facing problems, and issues do not solve them. Making a difference in your life will not happen overnight. You've got to want it and you've got to be determined to work at it on a daily basis, on a minute to minute basis. Gang bangers and kids who run the streets, they are very smart, talented, and very business orientated. People who use drugs and alcohol, they put all that energy into using "where they are going to get their next high" when they should be thinking about going to school, obtaining a career and making a positive change in their life not only for themselves but for their children and grandchildren. When our ancestors were making choices and choosing paths they thought of the future of their tribes, and the future of their people. They lived harder lives then us. Yes, America came and took all this away from us. They took the way we lived, they took the roles of the people in the villages, the way of life, but we are still here. We still breathe. We still exist. They did not take our ways completely away. We still preserve some of the songs and some of the ceremonies. Even the generations before us suffered to take our ways underground, so that they could pass them down to us now. If we don't learn our ceremonies, songs, and our language, they will die. The generations that do speak fluent languages are all on the streets homeless or they are dying. They are our drunken aunts and uncles who we continuously disrespect or take for granted. We never stop to ask for stories or songs because we are too caught in the new style or new rap songs. We do still hold the essence of Native Pride and we do still have culture, yet some of it is fading. We cannot sit and dwell; we must walk the walk. It's possible to live in two worlds -- to go to school and to go to ceremonies and learn songs. Whenever I am in a college classroom learning non-native information. I always think in my mind now how is this going to apply in Indian Country and how can I take what I am learning here and work in Indian Country or how can I use this information to help my people? I leave there and go to work. I have to use customer service skills and I have to deal with people, and yes, sometimes its hard, but its a choice I make to provide a better future for myself and my son. But I am not only thinking of my family when I go to school and work. I think about THE PEOPLE -- what I want to do when I am done with college and I always come up with these different ideas and different projects I want to work on for example: I wanted to start businesses on the reservations to provide jobs to lower the unemployment rates. That was my first dream when I was like 15. Then as I grew and learned more my dreams, goals, and plans kept changing, the more I myself as a person grew and changed. Now I want to finish school and help high school students get into college. It's not selling out ... it's not assimilating because face it, we have to depend on the ways of America; and we have to utilize them in order to survive. We have to make a choice to do this as a community it takes a whole community, I don't understand why Natives are so shy. It really limits us. Yes we have our Adam Beaches and our Indigenous but we need more of them. We need positive role models we need Warriors and Chiefs to make good choices for our future. I watch movies about what happened to my grandparents and my ancestors, and I cry. It hurts, but I needed to see their pain and suffering was not for nothing, it was for us to live to exist, to make them proud. I can sit and talk about Native American history and yes, it's important because it has made us as Native Americans who we are and it effects what is going on in Indian Country today, but I take from it, and what I choose to learn from it is positive. I choose to make decisions and choices based on the past. I understand what happened. I understand where I come from, I am proud to be Who I am. I would not have chosen to be any other person or race. We as Native Americans we hold a different value system, a different belief, and sometimes it holds us back but more of the time it's a family first value system, our families come because anything in our lives. We need to use that value to support others to attend college to do things. Our ancestors, our Chiefs, exist in every one of us. We keep them alive, we honor them, we keep their values and beliefs alive though our ways. They watch over us and they need to see us succeed. I often tell people even if you help yourself its helping others. Do what you can. You do not have to save the world, you have to start small. Make the choice to do what you think you need to do to help yourself and by doing that slowly you will be healing and helping others. I know I am not perfect I have been an alcoholic and I had a child when I was 20, but that has not stopped me. Maybe sometimes the alcoholism takes over and sets me back, but I get back up, dust myself off and I keep going back to school. So I am not directing this at any certain person and I am not trying to judge. I am just sharing some of what I know and have learned within my lifetime of being a single parent college student. I started school when my son was eight months old. I went to school, worked if I could do it. Its possible, you just got to want it, be determined, and do it. Life is not easy. If you want something you have to work at it. I have been in jail. I have been in gangs. I have been there - did that, so I can understand the lifestyle may seem glamorous, and you may think some of those people are your friends; but really the only place that lifestyle gets you is in jail or dead. It is truly a dead end path. You can choose to surround yourself with positive people. You pick your friends. You can still come from a poor family and be successful -- it is the choices you make and what you decide to do. I never knew my family was poor until I asked my sister, "...well what class are we middle or lower?" She said we are lower. I didn't like that at first. I guess I never cared because I always had food, clothes, and shelter. Natives are not taught the values of money and bank accounts and saving money to make house loans. We rent when are happy to get on section 8 or we live in reservation housing. It wasn't till my recent relationship where I started thinking about my credit. I was like damn "I better start trying to pay off my loan". I have been so worried about just getting done with school. My point is we need Warriors. We need our men to step up, and we need our woman to step up. We need the whole community to make positive choices. Our people are so traditional. Whole families can help each other, and support each other, because even if we send a few of the family members to college, they can come back and help other family members. Or, if we send some of the members to treatment. I learned the only way treatment works is if the person wants to quit. Look at the addiction rates. We have all the highest rates. We have the highest drop out rates, the lowest income rates. We have the highest suicide rates, the highest alcoholism and drug rates. What's up with that? Where did we go wrong? We have programs and resources out there. We just need to use them ... work for them. Put that same energy into healing. You will fall, you will have hardships; but you just have got to make the choice to get up and keep going, to not let the negativity or the criticism get to you or affect you in a bad way. Learn to positively communicate. Do not attack one another do not attack your family and loved ones or make it sound like an attack. Be open minded. Try to talk in way where you get your message across without hurting or upsetting. Its a positive healing. We are all human, we make mistakes, we all have skeletons, we all have issues and problems. There is always positive and negative to everything. It's what we take from the situations. It's how we choose to react. It was hard for me to learn to grow up, to walk away, to be a woman of the situation. When I was a teen I used to get kicked out of all the schools I attended and then I learned that "Hey you know what the only person getting hurt here is Me" I am the only one that can not go back to school. I am the only one getting suspended. This stuff shows up on my record, not the teacher or the principals' record. Man was I foolish. It took a few schools getting kicked out ,then I grew learned and realized not to act out or not to react - to be positive. Be a woman; take a positive stand and learn to deal. Make that choice, and then I just wanted to graduate high school. High school was a whole other long path, but I achieved it because I made the choice to cut all my friends off, to not hang with the bangers, to get a job, and to just worry about going to school and myself. Sometimes you have to learn from your friendships too and the only way to learn is to The Hard Way. Same with relationships. See my theory is the creator puts people in our paths for a reason to learn from one another, and once we have learned what was meant we move on, or if we were meant to be with that person we would. I guess I just believe things and people happen for a reason. You can learn from every experience every mistake, or should I say you can choose to learn from those mistakes. You take what you can from the experience and move on. If you sit and dwell it only sets and holds you back. I am not an expert and I don't have all the answers and I am not a know it all. I do not claim to be. All I can say is it is important to do something positive and successful for yourself and others. You can be anything and anyone you choose to be. Sky is the limit. I often have talks with my nephews and nieces and ask them well what do you want to do when you get older? I offer them the choices and tell them what's out there, because there are a lot of business career fields' and options. You just have to make the choice to pursue your dreams, goals, and plans. THE CHOICE IS YOURS. Make positive choices for yourself and your future grandchildren.
Create cool Profile Comments
My Baby N I....
Spotted Tail Sicangu Lakota Tetunwan OyateSOME IMPORTANT ISSUES I THINK PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT.
I'M DOING A PAPER ON NUCLEAR DUMPING ON RESERVATIONS. IT NEEDS TO STOP. THEY ARE TRYING TO DO SOME STUFF AT BEAR BUTTE AND THE BLACK HILLS. THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON IN INDIAN COUNTRY WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT. RESEARCH IT LEARN ABOUT IT USE THE NEGITIVE INFORMATION AS MOTIVATION TO DO SOMETHING POSTIVE AND SUSSESSFULL NOT ONLY FOR YOURSELFWounded Heart: Pine Ridge and the Sioux Trailer
..
Add to My Profile | More Videos