Author

Shondiin Silversmith

Shondiin Silversmith

Shondiin Silversmith is the Indigenous communities reporter for the Arizona Mirror. She is an award-winning Native journalist based on the Navajo Nation. Silversmith has covered Indigenous communities for more than 10 years, and covers Arizona's 22 federally recognized sovereign tribal nations, as well as national and international Indigenous issues. Her digital, print and audio stories have been published by USA TODAY, The Arizona Republic, Navajo Times, The GroundTruth Project and PRX's "The World." Silversmith earned her master's degree in journalism and mass communication in Boston before moving back to Arizona to continue reporting stories on Indigenous communities. She is a member of the Native American Journalist Association and has made it a priority in her career to advocate, pitch and develop stories surrounding Indigenous communities in the newsrooms she works in.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland speaked on Aug. 22, 2023, at the start of a meeting with Native representatives in Anchorage. Next to him is Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who had invited the attorney general to the state. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Justice Department awards nearly $70 million to over 200 tribal victim service programs
By: - August 25, 2023

Crime victims from Indigenous communities will be getting some much needed help from the recent funding provided by the U.S. Justice Department to the Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside program.  The DOJ provided more than $69.6 million in funding for 212 awards through the program, which provides support to tribal nations across the country by supporting […]

(Image by John Lamb/Getty Images)

Nearly $1B available for broadband expansion on Tribal lands 
By: - August 2, 2023

To fill the gap in broadband service among Tribal Nations, the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration launched the second round of grant funding to expand Internet access and adoption on Tribal Lands. Approximately $980 million in funding is available through the Internet for All initiative’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program for Native American, […]

A tap drips water at a spigot on land of the Navajo Nation on June 6, 2019, in Thoreau, New Mexico. Due to disputed water rights and other factors, up to 40% of Navajo Nation households don’t have clean running water and are forced to rely on weekly and daily visits to water pumps. The problem for the Navajo Nation, a population of over 200,000 and the largest federally recognized sovereign tribe in the U.S., is so significant that generations of families have never experienced indoor plumbing. Rising temperatures associated with global warming have worsened drought conditions on their lands over recent decades. The reservation consists of a 27,000-square-mile area of desert and high plains in New Mexico, southern Utah and Arizona. The Navajo Water Project, a nonprofit from the water advocacy group Dig Deep, has been working on Navajo lands in New Mexico since 2013 funding a mobile water delivery truck and digging and installing water tanks to individual homes. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Supreme Court denies Navajo Nation water rights claim
By: - June 23, 2023

The Navajo Nation continues its fight for water after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the United States has no treaty obligation to identify and account for the Navajo Nation’s water rights in the Colorado River. The Supreme Court indicated that the 1868 treaty between the Navajo Nation and the federal government contained no […]

Getty Images

White House launches national plan to address gender-based violence in the U.S.
By: - June 7, 2023

For the first time in history, the White House has launched a national plan to address gender-based violence on a federal level, introducing seven strategic action plans to help communities across the United States. “As long as there are women in this country and around the world who live in fear of violence, there’s more […]

RETURN TO HOME