Series looks at how Native American communities are responding to COVID-19

Our Native American communities endure with the help of spirituality and the bonds of community. But they face challenges many other groups don’t, such as a lack of public health infrastructure, challenging economic circumstances and institutional roadblocks.

“Indigenous Impacts,” a new special report from Forum News Service, aims to shine a light on these unique issues and the resilient people meeting them head-on. This groundbreaking series was developed over the course of four months and includes the work of more than a dozen contributors from Native American communities in a four-state region.

See the entire project on our website by visiting Indigenous Impacts under the Special Interests section of the homepage's navigation bar. There, readers will find original reporting alongside the voices of Native American writers and artists. These personal essays will tell of struggle, of resolve and of hope in the age of COVID-19.

Find online-only exclusives, including original reporting, audio from contributors and video, such as:

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• The saga of two Dakota Sioux reservations, born of injustice, but enduring cultural homelands.

• In late March as COVID-19 was making its first imprint across the United States, its weight fell especially hard on Native American communities.

• In American Indian communities, questions about COVID-19 test access remain.

• The South Dakota tribal checkpoint battle has thrown into sharp relief the jurisdictional lines, and sometimes blurred boundaries, of the relationships between sovereign Indigenous tribes and state and local governments.

• Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan discusses what it’s been like governing through the COVID-19 pandemic and how she’s faced the loss of her brother to the illness.

• Tribal casinos are huge economic engines for tribes, serving as major sources of revenues to support programs and provide jobs for members. But the coronavirus pandemic has severely crimped casino profits.

• Federal COVID-19 relief poured millions of dollars into Indian Country. Was it enough?