Latest news with #CowlitzIndianTribe
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Mount St. Helens visitor center to reopen this weekend with upgrades
A view of Mount St. Helens. (Photo by) The Mount St. Helens visitor center is reopening its doors with the first major renovations since it opened in 1986. Starting on May 31, the center will be open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Prior to the renovation, exhibits remained largely unchanged since they were first installed nearly four decades ago, and only six years after the volcano erupted. The center closed Sept. 30, 2024, and work began on upgrades with funding from the state. The $1.1 million renovation will be centered around the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and the 1980 eruption and will feature more tactile, sensory, interactive exhibits tailored to kids and families. Mount St. Helens is famous for its massive eruption on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people, blasted away part of the mountain, and spewed about 540 million tons of ash. The mountain has played a central role in the customs and culture of the Cowlitz Tribe and other Indigenous people across this region. Washington State Parks worked closely with the tribe to highlight its culture and traditions and provide visitors a holistic understanding of the mountain and the tribe's perspective. New exhibits include contemporary and historic works by Cowlitz artists and in the Cowlitz language. One of the exhibits includes a new film of a Cowlitz spiritual leader, Tanna Engdahl. Additionally, there are several short films that highlight the tribe's use of natural resources. Since the eruption, the mountain's landscape has undergone significant changes. Scientists have since deepened their understanding of both the eruption and ongoing volcanic activity within the mountain, said Sarah Fronk, a spokesperson for Washington State Parks. 'The exhibits have been updated to reflect current science and to provide a broader story about the mountain's long history of eruptions,' she added. Visitors can expect an enhanced experience with hands-on learning through interactive displays and storytelling, along with improvements to the reception desk design and the flow of the building. Accessibility improvements have also been made inside and outside the building. Some of the new offerings include a 'Make-a-Quake' exhibit that lets you create your own shockwaves with a seismograph, a new and improved 'walk-in' volcano that takes you inside a replica of the mountain, and a 'Volcano Blasters' pinball machine. There are also over 80 historic artifacts, volcanic rocks, a wetland exploration area, and a three-dimensional relief map of the mountain. A new 'Junior Volcano Explorer' activity booklet and badge program is also offered to kids. Admission for children under 7 is free. The cost is $2.50 for youth ages 7 to 17 and $5 for adults.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Comedy, community, and the evening star
In a corner of Seattle where laughter meets resistance and rhythm becomes ritual, a star arose. Their name is dk echo-hawk, but you can also call them by their stage name — the evening star. A celestial being, more closely related to a mountain than a pronoun, but they will accept they, them, she and her. The little Athabascan and Pawnee kid playing in the woods in Alaska has grown into a comedian, musician, DJ, writer, visual artist, host and founder of Indigik'were, formerly known as Indigequeer. As a kid they grew up as an Ahtna Athabascan between a small Mendaesde village and their school in Delta Junction, Alaska. There was joy, and there was a lot of grief carried through generational trauma, according to echo-hawk. During the Native boarding school era government agents forcibly abducted Native children and sent them to what they called 'boarding schools' hundreds of miles away to places where physical, sexual, cultural and spiritual abuse and neglect were experienced in an effort to 'kill the Indian, save the man' from 1891 until 1978. The generational impact on the mental and spiritual health of of those who experienced the cultural genocide of the 'boarding schools' has often resulted in addiction and high suicide rates among them and their descendants all across Native country. In a chat in June 2023 with Joey Clift about Native comedy, echo-hawk explained that their favorite Native comedy is 'the thing that my auntie would say at probably a funeral that was the most inappropriate thing you ever heard but you were weeping 10 seconds before that. Now, you're laughing as hard as you possibly can.' Clift is an award-winning comedy writer and Cowlitz Indian Tribe citizen. 'I admired the aunties who make people laugh after crying because that's what I wanted to do,' echo-hawk told MoPOP + RIZE. He went on to explain that understanding and making the people around him laugh wasn't just natural for the aunties, it was something that lifted their entire community culturally. 'Performing in the village is like culture,' echo-hawk said. 'You don't do it for money, you just do it because you and your hundred friends need to have a good night, and it's 40 below outside.' When echo-hawk began getting paid for their comedy in Seattle, they held a mirror up to the world and did not hold back. The history and ongoing genocidal actions against Native people were reflected back to the audience. The style of comedy that echo-hawk became known for, was coined 'punish comedy.' While it was satisfying to watch white Seattlites squirm during their sets, echo-hawk said that comedy in this format became difficult for their mental health. 'I got kind of famous real fast and I was not ready,' echo-hawk said. 'I am thankful that somewhere in my head I consciously knew that if I pursued this, I might die. I just felt very ungrounded and was falling apart and thankfully had some wherewithal to not do that. But I do understand that it was really empowering. I'm ultimately very impressed with what I was able to do.' Comedy has been both a weapon and salve. A method of navigating a world on fire and pulling others through with a glittery wink and a red rose colored grin. They pivoted to focus on Indigik'were and their music. 'It is hilarious, it's silly, it's sexy,' echohawk said of Indigik'were. 'There's mistakes, there's mirrors on stage, and I change on stage, and there's altars, and roses, and cheese whiz.' Indigik'were started in 2022 because echo-hawk wanted a place to feel free to be their authentic self. The first Indigik'were event invited attendees to, 'shake their asses like Columbus never sailed the ocean blue,' and has continued to showcase queer and trans Indigenous joy through their events. It has brought Native people who were also in need of community joy together and has had a larger impact than echo-hawk ever imagined. 'People have told me that the spaces I bring are healing and helped them when they were suicidal or helped them when they had been assaulted and helped them find community and family,' echo-hawk said. 'But when it was starting to happen, I was still just a deeply traumatized kid, and that felt like so much responsibility. I didn't want to be a leader. I just wanted to have a village again.' And that's exactly what they began building. Comedy is naturally interwoven into the event planning for Indigik'were in a way that could only come from , including celebrating the anniversary of the death of U.S. Cavalry commander George Armstrong Custer. Custer launched a surprise attack against an encampment of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho along the Little Bighorn River in 1876 and was struck down by a Cheyenne woman. echo-hawk's celebration of the death of Custer included a piñata with Custer's likeness. 'I went to the Battle of the Little Bighorn Reenactment when I was f*cking 13 or something on the road to f*cking Oklahoma and was like, 'Yeah, b*tch!'' echo-hawk said. 'My dad, my big Native dad and me were cheering as Custer got killed. That's just the kind of Native that I am.' 'It's just ingrained in my being to celebrate the death of colonizers always,' echo-hawk continued. '…and I found that humor is the best way to keep a crowd happy and moving and to feel like they're in good hands. Being a host is probably my strongest quality.' If you've ever been to any of their comedy or Indigik'were events, you'd likely agree. There is always an elaborate storytelling element that shocks, disarms and gets you laughing. 'There's active genocides all over the place,' echo-hawk said. 'There are people who are just trying to recover from those genocides, witnessing other genocides. There are people who went through a genocide, now genocideing. There's all sorts of wild things happening. I don't know how everybody else is processing it without doing crazy things like I'm doing. [Indigik'were] is somatics for me, it's spiritual. It is deeply important to me.' echo-hawk encourages others to also discover what truly ignites their passion and defiant spirit, something deeply personal and entirely their own — to do what makes you feel free. 'Every day I get to wake up and ask myself, what would the evening star like to look like today?,' echo-hawk said. 'How would I like to be free today? What would I like to try? And the more and more I do that, the more and more I dance, the more and more I sweat, the more I eat healthy and the more and more I don't have to block out parts of life. I have enough space in myself to feel and I highly recommend it. It's doable. It's not easy all the time, but it is doable. I promise you.' the evening star's next appearance is called Hot Wet Native Summer in Juneau, Alaska for the Lingit AANI Pride Festival. 'As many in this world continue to fight against the beautiful path we are on, it is vital that we come together and show each other our beauty and our strength, to be a testament that we are unconquered!,' an Instagram post shares. The full length interview can be found here. The interviews were video and audio recorded and saved in the MoPop Online Collections Vault with over 1,000 others. : In collaboration with MoPop for their 'WA Untold Pop Culture Stories' series, MoPop wanted to focus on the stories of King County pop culture creators in order to ensure that a more accurate representation of culture artists in America are preserved for future generations. RIZE came to this project hoping to bring varying Indigenous stories, identities and perspectives to the forefront. Oral histories are traditionally how many Indigenous people have passed down culture, customs, and tradition. Through this series, we explore pop culture voices of Indigenous creators in what is now Washington state.
Los Angeles Times
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
The 10 best memoirs of the 2020s, from Mariah Carey to Michelle Zauner
Calling all bookworms! Welcome to the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter. Calling all bookworms! Welcome to the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter. I'm Meg. I write shut up and read, a book newsletter. I'm also on BookTok. I just flew through Amy Griffin's 'The Tell.' Her memoir — a powerful investigation of repressed memories, sexual trauma and the quest for perfection — took me less than two days to finish. Instead of walking to the gym, I took the train, just so I could have more time to read. Then I picked up Lauren Christensen's 'Firstborn.' My waking hours were at the mercy of the memoir, a moving account of the loss of her first child, Simone. I fought off sleep to keep reading and when I awoke, the book was the first thing I reached for. I turn to the stories of other people's lives to make sense of my own. There's no memoir I won't read, except for Melania Trump's. I'm a glutton for the juicy celebrity tell-all, but there is nothing like being surprised by an unexpected or unknown author. As we approach the decade's halfway mark, I thought I'd share some of my favorite memoirs from the past 5 years, as well as the titles I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this year. 'The Meaning of Mariah Carey' is best experienced as an audiobook. Carey's memoir is an incisive deep dive into her elusive persona. Come for the reflections on her long-spanning career — and the true account of her rags-to-riches story — but stay for Mimi bursting sporadically into song. André Leon Talley's 'The Chiffon Trenches' is also a wonderful audio experience. His distinctive voice oozes charisma and authority, and his front row seat to the fashion world provides 50 years' worth of stories—about Karl Lagerfeld, Diana Vreeland, and of course, Anna Wintour. Dr. Michele Harper pulls back the curtain on life as an emergency room physician in her debut memoir, 'The Beauty in Breaking.' Through her patients, Harper discovers how to heal, all while contending with the racism and sexism in an overwhelmingly white and male-dominated profession. 'Minor Feelings,' Cathy Park Hong's book of essays, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir. In her collection, Park Hong blends cultural criticism and memoir to examine the covert racism that is pervasive in our country. Her work is a celebration of her identity as an Asian American artist and a call to question white colonialist notions. A member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, Elissa Washuta unpacks the commodification of Native American spirituality in 'White Magic.' Through layered essays, Washuta explores the effects of colonialism on sacred practices, as well as her heritage, and her struggles with men, drugs and alcohol — and how magic runs through it all. When I first read 'Crying in H Mart' by Michelle Zauner, I stayed up all night to finish, and I wept the whole way through. In her debut memoir, Zauner (who performs under the alias Japanese Breakfast) celebrates mother Chongmi's life, and mourns her early death. Zauner's tender tribute — and reckoning of who she is without her mother — is transformative. Suleika Jaouad's 'Between Two Kingdoms' is one of those memoirs that will knock the wind out of you. Jaouad's world turns upside down when she receives a leukemia diagnosis at 23. Four years later, she has survived, but is unsure of how to reenter the world, so she set out on a 100-day road trip to find out. My copy of 'In Love' by Amy Bloom is stained with fat teardrops. After Brian Ameche, Bloom's husband, receives an Alzheimer's diagnosis, he decides to end his life on his own terms. Bloom details their journey to Switzerland, where a nonprofit offers legal suicide, and paints us full vignettes of their love story along the way. Ina Garten's 'Be Ready When the Luck Happens' is a a four-course meal — plus dessert. Garten's words sing off the page. Reading her memoir makes you feel like you're in the kitchen with her, and Jeffrey! Getting a glimpse into Garten's life story is fascinating, and her cheerful demeanor and can-do attitude will galvanize you to chase your dreams. 'Grief Is For People' by Sloane Crosley grapples with the complexities of loss. She shared a piece of advice in an opinion piece she wrote for The Times in 2024: 'Give the grieving person a reprieve from the interrogation, the lion's share of which they will conduct themselves. Give them this for the same reason you would offer to do their dishes or run their errands: so they can get some rest.' Honorable mentions: (Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to whose fees support independent bookstores.) Anyone who's anyone is going to be at The Times' Festival of Books next month, including National Book Award winner Percival Everett, 'Wicked' director Jon M. Chu and aughts pop icon Joanna 'Jojo' Levesque. Scheduled for April 26 and 27, the 30th anniversary of the annual literary festival brings more than 550 storytellers to the USC campus across seven outdoor stages and 15 indoor venues. Itching for a mystery? Here are the four best crime novels to read right now, taking you everywhere from Alaska to Maine to Kaua'i to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is pressing pause on his press tour for his new book following his vote to move forward with Republican spending legislation last week. In 'A Better Ending,' James Whitfield Thomson looks back on the events of summer 1974, when his younger sister Eileen died at the age of 27 from a gunshot wound to the chest. His sister's death was quickly ruled a suicide, although it bore all the hallmarks of murder. There have been so many noteworthy memoirs released in the last five years, and the next five promise to make this a decade filled with notable works. Here are 10 due out in 2025 we can't wait to read. See you in the stacks — or on Goodreads!
