Realizing Native Dreams

AFN's president assesses the convention, and award winners are honored

by Alex DeMarban

President of the Alaska Federation of Natives Julie Kitka reflects on the past year with much satisfaction. But she's even more focused on upcoming opportunities with subsistence and education. In November, First Alaskans spoke with Kitka.

First Alaskans: What are some of AFN's top accomplishments this year?

Julie Kitka: Well, there's been a lot of exciting things happen this past year.

And probably at the top of the list is the outstanding convention which just concluded at the end of October. I would describe and I've heard other people describe it as one of the best we've had in a long time.

It was high energy. It was full of substance. It was the highest participation in numbers of people, the broad reach through the live-streaming on the Internet, the television and the radio. The reach of the convention has really grown along with the quality of information that's being shared, plus that incredible social connection between people getting together has just been strengthened.

We had the most Native arts in our arts and crafts area. We had the most exhibitors. We fully utilized the Dena'ina Convention Center in Anchorage for the first time.

The health care that was on the second floor of the convention center was great. And whoever we talk to wants to make the health fair a regular part of every AFN convention.

So, overall, just very stunning.

The issues that were debated in our resolutions process were important ones, ones that needed to be debated and discussed. And I think we have a roadmap of where we need to go based on the discussions there.

We are doing preliminary thinking for the 2010 convention, which will be in Fairbanks in October. And we are looking at raising the whole issue of Native education as being the major theme for the 2010 convention.

So we are looking for input from our folks around the state. From our Native teachers, our Native principals, our Native parents, organizations, associations, groups, whatever, for ideas on that.

We want to raise education as a major issue at the convention because we also feel that by being the subject of the convention, it can help attract some top education speakers in the state for the convention.

It can help facilitate pre-meetings with decision-makers in D.C. and in Juneau on education, and we also believe that having education as the focus can help drive some educational reform and initiative and exciting things in the legislative and congressional process.

First Alaskans: What were some of the most prominent or important issues that came out of the resolutions process?

Kitka: Well, there was a lot of important resolutions that came out in all the major areas, education, health care, subsistence, as well as internal ones, such as taking a look at the structure of AFN and figuring out plans on how to strengthen AFN and broaden its reach in the Native community.

If I had to single out just one resolution it probably is resolution No. 1 on subsistence.

I think what you see through the resolutions process if you step back from them is there's a lot of hope and optimism with the new Obama administration that people's concerns can get incorporated into the administrative process and to the congressional level.

People aren't giving up, throwing up their hands, saying nothing can be done. People are saying we have an opportunity, let's go for it, let's try to be as smart as we can, let's put forward what we really need and let's do it.

First Alaskans: Can you describe the process AFN will follow regarding the subsistence review?

Kitka: Basically, what we have done so far is we have assembled a legal team, and a staffing team and scoped out the work that needs to be done based on the resolutions and there were six subsistence resolutions. …

We have hand-delivered a letter to President Obama, when he was up here at Elmendorf, and one component of that letter that we gave to the president acknowledged how delighted we were with the secretarial review and asked for senior White House participation in the review.

We sent a letter to Secretary [Ken] Salazar, asking for a high-level meeting on this prior to his review being completed because we still need to know more on the parameters and how far reaching the review is.

All of this is going to happen very quickly. I understand that here in Alaska the department is going to try to get their recommendations done by the 18th of December and into the secretary for him to be able to make his decision in January.

We don't know how that time-frame will be impacted by the new executive order President Obama signed at the Tribal Nations conference signed back in D.C.

The time frame may be impacted by that because the president just signed the major consultation order directing all his Cabinet secretaries to come up with plans and implement it in their departments.

We're going to focus on encouraging our regional folks and village folks to participate in the secretary review, get the best spokesmen out there, identify problems people have had, both with the regional advisory councils, things like budgets, things like staffing, things like travel, all the way to the makeup of the Federal Subsistence Board and whether or not it's appropriate to have heads of federal agencies make up the board or whether we should have subsistence users there.

Our approach with the secretary review is we're taking it very seriously. We're going to try to make sure we capture the major changes that need to happen and not get buried in the fine details that you could complain about with any bureaucracy.

What we intend to do after the secretary review is to talk to our delegation continually, but also the committees and Congress that have juridisction on this. And it is our plan to request oversight hearings following secretary review, so you have the chance for the policy-makers in the Congress to weigh in with questions, but you also have the chance for Native people to talk directly to the committees of jurisdiction, and convey what we like and what we don't like.

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