LaDonna Harris, Alfredo Corchado, Joan Naviyuk Kane

This week, New Mexico in Focus features new one-on-one interviews with three important guests.

Since the 1970s, LaDonna Harris has led Americans for Indian Opportunity, which is based in New Mexico. The organization created the Ambassadors program to support upcoming Native American leaders and connect them with other Indigenous groups around the world.Correspondent Megan Kamerick sits down with Harris to talk about her career and what’s changed in the past 50 years.

Correspondent Russell Contreras interviews author Alfredo Corchado, who also reports on the US-Mexico border for the Dallas Morning News. Corchado’s latest book, “Homelands,” examines immigration and identity through his own experiences and his friendship with four other Mexican Americans he first met while working on the East Coast.

Writers often wrestle with history and contemporary challenges when telling stories about our changing world. That includes poet Joan Naviyuk Kane. She lives in Alaska but teaches part of the year at the Institute of American Indian Arts, or IAIA, in Santa Fe. Correspondent Russell Contreras sits down with Kane to talk about writing on climate change, teaching, and how her life in Alaska shapes her work.

Host: Gene Grant

Correspondents:
Russell Contreras
Megan Kamerick 

Studio Guests:
LaDonna Harris, founder of Americans for Indian Opportunity & Native American advocate
Alfredo Corchado, journalist and author of “Homelands”
Joan Naviyuk Kane (Iñupiaq,  author & faculty member in the MFA in Creative Writing program at the Institute for American Indian Arts (IAIA)