 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you Hello and welcome to the Amherst weekly report from Amherst media. I'm Claire Healy and here are the stories out of Amherst, Massachusetts Craig's door will be opening a new 24-hour shelter November 1st for those experiencing homelessness They've secured a 24-hour shelter for people in need at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst at 121 North Pleasant Street The shelter will be staffed 24-7 by Craig's door staff They plan to accommodate up to 16 guests and will provide on-site meals Guests will also have access to medical care, counseling, job and housing assistance, laundry services and case management through Craig's doors Those interested in volunteering or donating should contact Kevin Noonan at kevin at craigsdoors.org The outbreak of COVID-19 has hit small businesses across the country particularly hard and Amherst is no exception In fact, many of Amherst's small businesses have found themselves struggling to survive the loss of business as a result of the pandemic and Six businesses in Amherst have closed The Amherst business improvement district has launched a new initiative as a response that urges residents to support local businesses The effort called take the pledge encourages residents to shop at their local businesses by giving them a checklist with all the small businesses in the area Residents can win gift cards ranging from a hundred dollars to five hundred dollars if they prove they have shopped at the required number of businesses We spoke with Gabrielle Gold the executive director at Amherst BID About what prompted her to take action to support local businesses and what she envisions for take the pledge So the rat cards, which I can hold one up are these nifty little Fun things and they have all of our businesses listed in a little checkbox next to them my family's keeping this on our refrigerator and we're checking them off as we as we support them and That this is also in the back of the Gazette newspaper once a month. It's the whole page It's on our website at downtown amherst.com And it's really accessible and basically what we're encouraging people to do is as you are supporting local Check it off keep your receipt take a photo of it throw the receipt out keep the photo and then On December 31st when this particular campaign wraps up Whoever does send us in there their card with the businesses checked off and proof that they've been to these places Will be entered into a drawing for a 100 a 250 and a $500 gift card She said that she believes Amherst was one of the hardest hit areas economically in Massachusetts for local businesses following the onset of the pandemic and Explained why support like this could determine whether or not a store opens in the spring with the shelter in place and with the closing last Spring of UMass and our four other college campuses our businesses suffered a loss that I think is Really far greater than the rest of Massachusetts and I say that based on numbers Amherst had one of the highest unemployment rates And that was during summer. So that was small business driven not university and higher education driven our businesses have been as low as 20 percent While they were allowed to be open and then there was a period of time where during essentials only they were at literally 0% and even as restrictions have eased up and Governor Baker has moved us into greater phases Our college and our university did not come back in the way that is benefiting our downtown. We are 30,000 bodies light in our area and that's a huge amount of attrition for any kind of Economic stimulus. So we remain one of the higher in Massachusetts unemployment areas and we remain 30,000 people less than we would have had at this time last year and it is absolutely impacting our businesses Following indigenous people's day. We spoke with professors from the five colleges that work in indigenous studies Kathleen Brown Perez is a professor at UMass Amherst in the anthropology department and in the commonwealth honors college She's also a lawyer specializing in federal Indian policy and law And currently focuses on consulting with law firms that are suing the federal government on behalf of tribes I For many years in addition to corporate law was involved in federal Indian law I am a member of the brother town Indian nation Uh in mohegan if you'd like to learn it. It's em quiddoo iconic But we say brother town in English because it's easier We were formed In the 1700s by my 10th great grandfather a man by the name of samson oakum who was a mohegan and A presbyterian minister and and many other things But he formed us from the christian mohegan pequot narragans at montauk tunksis in niantic tribes Moved us up to from connecticut and long island up to Upstate new york where the united gave us land and we stayed there till the 1830s And now we are in wisconsin where we've been almost 200 years So I can use my personal experience to inform my research And I've worked I actually started learning federal indian law when I was about 12 years old My uncle is a federal indian law attorney and i have a cousin who was deputy regional director of the bureau of indian affairs in the american southwest So, um, I had a lot of of personal learning Outside the classroom on that brown Perez explained what that term means legally and her experience working within this section of us law federal indian law is a very unique body of law So you might think of you know, first year law students studying contracts and tortson and constitutional law. Well, there's also federal indian law. There is a an actual chapter within the us code that's just called indians on chapter title 25 And it addresses You know indigenous peoples and their governments, which are the tribes In a way that sets sets us apart very distinctly from non-indigenous people separates us Out of other away from other minority categories Because we didn't, you know, our ancestors didn't immigrate here. They were here in 1491. So When the europeans arrived We were already that force to be reckoned with there were millions and millions of indigenous people who had, you know, cities and buildings and engineering feats already on, you know, just thinking of the what's now the united states of america and So the law laws had to be put in place Right away in terms of or Oh, you might call it governmental dealings like treaties between uh american indian tribes and european powers after the usa united states was formed us government was formed They had to deal with us as Nations that existed within the external boundaries of the united states and that's complicated to say the very least and So as years went by US government stopped making treaties with indian tribes in 1871 And so they weren't looking at tribes As individual governments as much as they were just how do we deal with the and this is a quote from government documents the indian problem the problem being that we're still here and So they they started formulating laws such as separate criminal laws to deal with american indians separate civil laws, especially for indians living on The way that I see it having spent Decades and really most of my life researching all of this says there's really just one There's really just one policy And is it is the result of the united states being a settler colonial society with just like canada new zealand australia In a settler colonial society you have people come from elsewhere to your land and rather than just thinking Oh, maybe we could live here. We could live with the people who are already here. We could learn a little bit about themselves In a settler colonial society you have these outsiders moving in and their goal is destroyed to replace To quote patrick wolf who is a fabulous scholar destroyed to replace is If you look at each of the policies That have been in place really the goal of the united states to come in and replace indigenous people When asked what she wants people to pay attention to she said poverty And what that encompasses and exacerbates with issues like substandard education access I would like to draw people's attention to I think the poverty that american indians live in Um, you know the poorest place in this country Is not harlem or the south side of chicago the poorest place in this country is the pine ridge indian reservation Where you know a lot of us give money every year to help provide, you know heating for people They are it's so cold in the winter. Um, you know to provide ways to heat their homes um So I would say, you know the poverty which encompasses so much really Substandard education. There's actually a indian education bureau Where a lot of american indians now especially since so many now live off the reservation just have you know Like I went through regular public schools k through 12 But a lot of american indians who live on the reservation are Being educated through the indian education bureau and That it has been Substandard for as long as it has existed She is co-convener of the melanchrant a 2.5 million dollar grant that people within the five colleges Can apply to and use to expand or create coursework on indigeneity We've all heard the old saying That those of us who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it And we keep repeating it over and over and over again And you know, we would love to think that some of those bad things Will never happen again like like the holocaust, you know in germany But I mean look at what's happening in germany now, right? Things are not going so well We we really haven't learned about you know, how to avoid Allowing these things to happen again Um And American indians are still very much in in the the american government's crosshairs So we would just like people to be a little more informed about us about our issues About our diversity. We are 800 tribes And we have different religions and cultures and half of all american indian people are christian right now So just to to help people understand a little better about who we are Not just historically but in 2020 where for example Coronavirus is hitting american indians harder than others, especially on the reservation So as soon as I heard of you know, navo who was getting coronavirus I was it broke my heart because I just knew You know, this was going to snowball into something horrible and it has As of october 21st 2020 at 3 p.m There are 19 active laboratory confirmed positive covet 19 cases in amherst, massachusetts Bringing the cumulative case count to 270 according to amherstcovid19.org A mask order remains in effect for downtown amherst to mitigate the spread of covet 19 For more information or to share a concern email covet concerns at amherstma.gov That's all for this week. Thank you for tuning into the amherst weekly report from amherst media I'm claire healy and we'll see you again at the same time next week