Tag: Albuquerque

news, politics

Vying for Native American Votes

Becca

ALBUQUERQUE — Native American voters, often treated as an afterthought in presidential elections, are receiving an unprecedented amount of attention from both presidential candidates this year in the battleground state of New Mexico.

It’s a development nearly two decades in the making in which a handful of Albuquerque–based activists have been working to create a well-organized and powerful Native American voice.

Today, with 63,000 registered voters, according to the Secretary of State’s Office, Native Americans may well be the swing constituency in one of the most politically volatile states in the country.

The Sacred Alliance for Grassroots Equality (SAGE) Council, founded in 1996 by brother and sister Sonny and Laurie Weahkee, was formed to protest the construction of a road through the Petroglyph National Monument on Albuquerque’s fast-growing westside….

For the rest of the article, see The New Mexico Independent.
Or cross-posted at The Huffington Post

travel

New Mexico

Becca

I am in New Mexico for a few days for a story I am doing, and so far all I’ve seen is Albuquerque. It’s a nice little city, if only for the fact that it lacks the crowded rush of Los Angeles. Leaving LA has really made me realize how much I have fallen comfortably in the ways of that city. Here, people drive slower. They talk slower. It’s a nice change, but it just reminds me of how much I love a real, big city.

But there’s no denying the sky of this place.

I’m off to Navajo Nation for the next couple of days. It will be my first time on Native American sovereign land, so it will be an interesting experience.