Each year, Americans observe National Native American Heritage Month throughout the month of November, by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of indigenous community members. NorCal Public Media celebrates Native contributions to the Bay Area throughout the entire year with feature presentations on KRCB TV, KPJK TV, and KRCB 104.9 FM.

Connect the Bay: Indian Health Center

Culture is Medicine—that’s the belief of Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley, where American Indians and Alaska Natives can find high quality, culturally competent medical and wellness services. Communications coordinator Marissa Hemstreet shows how this federally qualified health center addresses physical and mental health needs with a uniquely Native American perspective. IHC’s services are open to everyone. For more information visit: indianhealthcenter.org Special thanks to Marissa Hemstreet and Gerardo Loera.

Honoring Ohlone Land & Spirit

Join us for a visit to Saratoga’s Montalvo Arts Center to experience “A Path Forward: Honoring Ohlone Land & Spirit.” This brand-new work includes both actual and virtual artwork in a cutting-edge combination of tech and culture. Our tour guide is artist/activist Charlene Eigen-Vasquez, who is lead artist for the installation. Special thanks to Kelly Sicat and Pallavi Nemali. For more information visit https://montalvoarts.org/a-path-forward/

I'm a Burner

Trina Cunningham, a member of the Mountain Maidu tribe in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, continues the wisdom of her elders about fire by teaching a small group of non-native wild land fighters how to do a cultural burn. Premiered at the 2022 Mill Valley Film Festival Produced by Kelly + Yamamoto Productions Presented by Northern California Public Media

Connect the Bay: Ohlone Gathering

Every year in the East Bay, indigenous Ohlone from diverse tribal communities share their living history through music, song, dance, and stories at the Gathering of Ohlone Peoples. Together, they teach, celebrate, and honor the first stewards of this land. Special thanks to Gregg Castro, The Hummaya Singers & Dancers, and East Bay Regional Parks District. For more information visit: https://www.ebparks.org/Gathering-of-Ohlone-Peoples

Berkeley Breathes Life into Native Languages

The UC Berkeley Linguistics Department has led the way in the effort to document and preserve California's native languages. The Breath of Life Workshop for California Indian Languages is a biennial workshop designed for California Indians whose languages have no fluent speakers. The goal is for the participants to access, understand, and do research on materials on their languages, and to use them for language revitalization. With the first linguistics department to be established in North America (in 1901), Berkeley has a rich and distinguished tradition of rigorous linguistic documentation and theoretical innovation, making it an exciting and fulfilling place to carry out linguistic research. Its original mission, due to the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and the Sanskrit and Dravidian scholar Murray B. Emeneau, was the recording and describing of unwritten languages, especially American Indian languages spoken in California and elsewhere in the United States. The current Department of Linguistics continues this tradition, integrating careful, scholarly documentation with cutting-edge theoretical work in phonetics, phonology and morphology. Video footage excerpted from the forthcoming documentary, "Breath of LIfe," by Rick Bacigalupi. Edited by Roxanne Makasdjian and Phil Ebiner, UC Berkeley Media Relations Related New York Times article about UC Berkeley's efforts to revitalize the Yurok language: nyti.ms/1qwSVa4 http://newscenter.berkeley.edu http://www.facebook.com/UCBerkeley http://twitter.com/UCBerkeley http://instagram.com/ucberkeleyofficial https://plus.google.com/+berkeley

Fire Stewardship with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band Short Story

Amah Mutsun Tribal Chair Val Lopez and CSU Chico's Don Hankins explain the vital potential that controlled burning has, both in terms of the health of California's wildlands and its indigenous people. For more information: http://amahmutsun.org

Two-Spirit Powwow Trailer

San Francisco nonprofit Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS) has hosted the first LGBTQ-sponsored native powwow in the country since 2012. A welcoming and inclusive event, it harkens back to pre-contact traditional native times when all were embraced. http://www.ALotinCommon.com

Connect The Bay: Clapper Stick

For this Connect the Bay segment, Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Indian Canyon Mutsun) offers a song about Hummingbird while demonstrating the indigenous California instrument, the clapper stick. She reminds viewers that California native people are very much present today and must be included when considering both the past and future of the state. For more information: https://indiancanyonlife.org

"We enjoy ... seasonal foods that are grown in a sustainable way. The land is providing for us exactly what we need in that moment, and the earth has a way of always taking care of us." - Vincent Medina, Co-founder, Cafe Ohlone.

Episode 8 of Climate California, Encapsulated Memory: Our world is changing - and it's speaking through flavor, color, and nutrition. So we followed the signals: from regenerative wine to indigenous meals, cow feed innovations to labor demonstrations. What is our food trying to tell us?

"We look up the river where the fish went before - that's the past, and we learn from that. And we're looking downriver for the future. We have to make these connections and make sure we continue to be here." - Tiger O'Rourke, Yurok Tribe.

Episode 1 of Climate California, Reclamation: Extracting Earth’s resources got us to where we are today - but it’s led to dire consequences. We follow trailblazers as they help us reimagine our future - from science fiction with Kim Stanley Robinson to the Yurok tribe's dam removal project, to community organizing in Kern County and a trip through human irrationality.

"When we come out here and conduct these cultural burns, it's a connection to our ancestors and to the land. It’s a prayer for our people." - Blaine McKinnon, Yurok Fire Division Chief.

Episode 5 of Climate California, Run Towards the Fire: Rising seas. Wildfires. Extreme heat: all consequences of a warming planet that threaten our story of home. But what if facing these threats head-on could lead us to something better? This episode dives into what it really takes to confront an uncertain future, find common ground, and imagine a new story of home - together.

First Nations Experience TV (FNX)

FNX is the first and only national broadcast television network in the United States exclusively devoted to Native American and World Indigenous content. Through Native-produced and themed documentaries, dramatic series, nature, cooking, gardening, children's and arts programming, FNX strives to accurately illustrate the lives and cultures of Native people around the world.

Northern California Tribe Works to Reclaim Their Language

This summer, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs announced it was awarding $7 million to American Indian and Alaska native tribes under the Living Languages Grant Program. The program is geared towards helping the tribes revitalize languages once thought to be lost.