First Voices Radio

Jonathan Gonzales was born in Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico and grew up in southern California. He has spent the last 12 years learning earth living skills and ancestral ceremonial ways with many teachers and elders, combined with participating in Indigenous, earth-based ceremonies along with a quest to connect more deeply with his ancestral lineage, which is Indigenous Taino from Puerto Rico, Chinante...

In the first half-hour “First Voices Radio,” Co-Host Anne Keala Kelly (Kanaka Maoli) talks with Mikilani Young , Kanaka Maoli cultural practitioner and kahu. Their conversation begins with a prayer for one Hawaiian elder, and then goes onto the cultural and spiritual connections between Indigenous peoples, the protection of Mauna Kea, and Mikilani Young’s own prayerful path, living here on Turtle...

Sitting in for Host Tiokasin Ghosthorse this week is First Voices Radio’s Guest Host Anne Keala Kelly , (Kanaka Maoli), who is an independent journalist, filmmaker and activist from Moku Nui (Big Island) in the illegally occupied Hawaiian Islands. For the full hour, she speaks with Ronny Kareni , a Canberra-based West Papuan activist, musician, youth worker and bilingual health educator. Ronny dis...

In a country where land is seen as a commodity and a means to generate wealth, what does it mean when the land has been stolen? Democratizing wealth is not an easy topic, and in order to sort it out, we must rectify a past filled with enslavement, genocide, brutality, and thievery. NDN Collective defines LANDBACK "as a movement that has existed for generations with a long legacy of organizing and...

First Voices Radio digs deep into our 30-year-old archive and brings listeners another interpretation and observation surrounding the American holiday known as “Thanksgiving.” The late John Trudell’s “Thanksgiving Day Address” is from 1980 but how his observations have stood the test of time and still ring true. The names of U.S. politicians that John mentions have changed over the years but the i...

Tiokasin welcomes three guests this week: J onathan Gonzales, Lucas Jatobá and Christian Matute Sagbay . Jonathan was born in Tuxtepec, Oaxaca, Mexico and grew up in southern California. He has spent the last 12 years learning earth living skills and ancestral ceremonial ways with many teachers and elders, combined with participating in Indigenous, earth-based ceremonies along with a quest to conn...

Tiokasin’s guest for the full hour is Dr. Tink Tinker . They discuss the 50th anniversary of the publication of "God is Red" by Vine Deloria, Jr. Dr. Tinker is the Clifford Baldridge Emeritus Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. He is a citizen of the Osage Nation (wazhazhe) and has been an activist in urban American Indian...

Repeated by popular demand. Tiokasin talks with Kerri Kelly , author of “American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal” (North Atlantic Books, 2022). The book dives deep into wellness culture and economy while asserting a central thesis: When we are preoccupied with our own pursuit of wellness we fail to see and work toward a culture of collective care and wellbeing that actually...

Tiokasin’s guests for the full hour are Lynn Murphy and Alnoor Ladha . Lynn Murphy is a strategic advisor for foundations and NGOs working in the geopolitical South. She was a senior fellow and program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she focused on international education and global development. She resigned as a ”‘conscientious objector” to neocolonial philanthropy. Alno...

Linford D. Fisher is an Associate Professor of History at Brown University. He is the author of “The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America” (2012) and the co-author of “Decoding Roger Williams: The Lost Essay of Rhode Island’s Founding Father” (2014). Professor Fisher is the Principal Investigator of a digital project titled “Stolen Relations: Recover...

Tiokasin spends the entire hour with Marley Shebala (Diné and A:shiwi) — investigative journalist, photographer, videographer and blogger. In the Diné way, she is Tó'aheedlíinii (Water Flows Together clan), her mother’s clan, and born for Cha’al (Frog clan), which is her father’s clan. Her mom is from Lake Valley, New Mexico, which is in the eastern part of the Navajo Nation and next to Chaco Cany...

In the first half of the show , Tiokasin welcomes back longtime friend of “First Voices Radio” Gregg Deal , (Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe). Gregg is a multi-disciplinary artist, activist, and "disruptor." His work is informed by his Native identity and includes exhaustive critiques of American society, politics, popular culture and history. Through paintings, murals, performance work, filmmaking, spo...

Tiokasin’s guest for the full hour is Anne Keala Kelly . Keala is a Kānaka Maoli filmmaker, journalist and activist living on Hawai‘i Island. Her works address the critical links between cultural, environmental and spiritual survival in the movement for Hawaiian self-determination, and Indigenous peoples’ struggles for territorial and political autonomy. She is an outspoken advocate for Indigenous...

Dr. Marlina Rose Selva (Psy. D., LMFT) lives in the San Francisco Bay Area on traditional Ohlone land. Dr. Selva is of Nicaraguan, Mexican, Mescalero Apache and Greek descent.  Marlina is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and has worked in the field since 2005. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). She earned her Master of Arts...

Synopsis: Colonization is a political agenda of an ideology quite often associated with forcing non-westernized peoples who suffer from the consequences of colonization, in the appropriation of land use benefiting the colonizer. This is quite often rationalized as the eminent good for all people, including the Original Peoples of a particular region, in this case the Indigenous peoples of Cauca in...

Debra Utacia Krol returns to “First Voices Radio” for the full hour. Debra is an award-winning Indigenous affairs reporter at The Arizona Republic in Phoenix. She is a citizen of the Xolon SalinanTribe. Debra’s current coverage area — which is supported by the Catena Foundation and the Water Funder Initiative — is the intersection of climate, culture and commerce. Debra has more than two decades o...

Tiokasin's guest in the first half-hour is Candice Hopkins , a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation. Candice is executive director of Forge Project in Taghkanic, NY. Forge Project is a Native-led initiative centered on Indigenous art, decolonial education and supporting leaders in culture, food security and land justice. Candice's writing and curatorial practice explore the intersections of his...

In 1993, Indigenous peoples, including the Yakima, Klickitat and other area nations gathered to stop the violent disrespect to a time immemorial place of sustenance called Nanainmi Waki ‘Uulktt for the Klickitat Nation. John Trudell (Dakota, d. 2015) spoke to bring attention and support to efforts of recognizing and honoring treaty rights often dismissed by Western concepts of property, the guise...

Host Tiokasin Ghosthorse talks with Martín Prechtel for the full hour about grief and praise. Martín is a leading thinker, writer and teacher in the search for the Indigenous soul in all people — a dedicated student of eloquence, history, language and an ongoing fresh approach. In his native New Mexico, Martín teaches at his international school Bolad’s Kitchen, a hands-on historical and spiritual...

Tiokasin welcomes back Jennifer Robin (Choctaw) aka "Miss Jiff" to the show. Jennifer is the owner of Ofi Ni Productions and is a multiple award-winning producer and radio host, and television segment producer. Her weekly two-hour live program, "Resilience Radio," airs on KVMR 89.5 FM in Nevada City, CA. It presents Native American authors, artists, musicians, storytellers and activists and showca...

Tiokasin talks with Kerri Kelly, author of American Detox: The Myth of Wellness and How We Can Truly Heal, (North Atlantic Books, 2022). The book dives deep into wellness culture and economy while asserting a central thesis: When we are preoccupied with our own pursuit of wellness, we fail to see and work toward a culture of collective care and wellbeing that actually works for everyone. Kerri is...

Tiokasin's guest is Will Falk, who will give an update on Thacker Pass in northern Nevada. In January 2021, Will and Max Wilbert launched an occupation of a proposed lithium mine at Thacker Pass. Will is a writer, lawyer, and environmental activist. He believes the ongoing destruction of the natural world is the most pressing issue confronting us today. Activism has taken Will to the Unist'ot'en C...

In the first half-hour Tiokasin welcomes film Director Jesse Short Bull. Jesse wrote and produced the 2013 short Istinma , set in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Jesse received a 2016 Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program Development Grant and also attended the Creative Producing Sum...

Joe Pitawanakwat is Tiokasin Ghosthorse's guest for the full hour of this week's episode. Joe is Ojibway from Wiikwemkoong and is married with one daughter. He is the Founder and Director of Creators Garden, an Indigenous outdoor, and now fully online, education based business, focused on plant identification, beyond-sustainable harvesting, and teaching every one of their linguistic, historical, c...

Tanya Mailelani Naehu is an educator, performer, artist, community organizer, and activist of Aloha 'Āina from the island of Moloka'i, Hawaiʻi. Stemming from a very diverse multi-racial genealogy, she is Boricua being of African, Taino and Spanish descent as well as Kanaka Maoli, Portuguese and Chinese. As co-founder of Ka Hale Hoaka, an online school of Hawaiian knowledge, her teachings are groun...