American Indian Airwaves

About American Indian Airwaves

American Indian Airwaves (AIA), an Indigenous public affairs radio porgram and, perhaps, the longest running Native American radio program within both Indigenous and the United States broadcast communication histories. Also, AIA broadcast weekly every Thursday from 7pm to 8pm (PCT) on KPFK FM 90.7 Los Angeles (http://www.kpfk.org). Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aiacr American Indian Airwaves is produced in Burntswamp Studios and started broadcasting on March 1st, 1973 on KPFK in order to give Indigenous peoples and their respective First Nations a voice about the continuous struggles against Settler Colonialism and imperialism by the occupying and settler societies often referred to as the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Latin and South America countries located therein. American Indian Airwaves operates as an all-volunteer collective with no corporate sponsorship and no underwriters.

Publisher

American Indian Airwaves

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 Dec 2016

Latest episode

12 Aug 2025

Latest episodes

162 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   12 Aug 2025

   Mexico’s Constitutional Reforms Expanded State & Cartel Violence Against Indigenous Peoples

   Today on American Indian Airwaves (AIA), our guest provides an extensive update on Mexico’s recent Constitutional reforms between June and July 2025, the February 2025 threat of the Trump Administration listing certain Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and possibly US military intervention, and how the new Constitutional reforms actually expand state and cartel powers which has already produced a spike or escalation in violent deaths of Indigenous peoples. Our guest will also discuss Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, administration approval of the Palenque-San Cristóbal Highway (~95 miles) and its implications for Indigenous peoples and their traditional homelands, expanded U.S. militarization of ICE in Michigan targeting, rounding up, and deporting immigrants in an era of U.S. authoritarian fascism, and more. Guest: Richard Stahler-Sholk, a retired Professor of Political Science at Eastern Michigan University, and community activist involved with the School of Chiapas which is an organization of grassroots activists and communities working to support the autonomous, indigenous Zapatista communities of Chiapas, Mexico. Schools for Chiapas was created in the mid-1990’s by individuals searching for ways to make the world a better place and working to create a world where all worlds fit. Archived programs can be heard on Soundcloud at: https://soundcloud.com/burntswamp American Indian Airwaves streams on over ten podcasting platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Audible, Backtracks.fm, Gaana, Google Podcast, Fyyd, iHeart Media, Mixcloud, Player.fm, Podbay.fm, Podcast Republic, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tunein, YouTube, and more.

2. 

   11 Aug 2025

   The Vatican’s Transition, the Doctrine of Domination, & Possession of Indigenous Sacred Items/Cultural Patrimony

   On May 8th, 2025, at the Vatican, the Conclave elected Robert Francis Cardinal Prevost as the 267th Bishop of Rome. Known as Pope Leo XIV, he succeeds Pope Francis, and inherits a long, violent and unresolved legacy of the Vatican’s role in committing intergenerational settler colonial violence and genocides against Indigenous peoples, clans, communities, and nations throughout the world. The Vatican’s complicity can be traced back to the 15th century issuance of three papal bulls, the first two decreed by Pope Nicholas V in 1452 and Romanus Pontifex (1455); and third by Pope Alexander VI's Inter caetera in 1493. Known as the Doctrine of Dominion or Discovery, the Papal bulls authorized colonial powers such as Spain, Portugal, and other European monarchies and countries to seize lands and subjugate people in Africa and the western hemisphere so long as Indigenous peoples were not Christians. In the United States, the Doctrine of Dominion/discovery, indeed, is the foundation of America’s property law and federal Indian law that violently ensures Native Americans dispossession of their traditional and treaty homelands – a situation established by the Vatican in the 15th century. Over the centuries, the Vatican and its missionaries have been responsible for the theft of thousands and thousands of Indigenous peoples sacred or ceremonial items and other forms of cultural patrimony, which have either been on display at the Vatican Museum, or remain hostage at the Vatican and possibly other religious institutions. To date, the Vatican has not repatriated Indigenous ceremonial items back to Indigenous peoples and nations in violating the UNDRIP and denying Indigenous peoples fundamental rights. So, what does Pope Leo XIV mean for Indigenous peoples throughout the world? Pope Leo inherits Pope Francis’s legacy which includes: in 2022, the Vatican issuing an apology for the “catastrophic” legacy of residential schools in Canada; in 2023, the Vatican repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery” without calling for settler colonial countries to do the same, and in 2023, Pope Francis, despite the formal protest of 50 California Indian nations, was responsible for the canonization of the Spanish missionary Junipero Serra who masterminded the 18th-century Alta Spanish mission system that functioned as violent theological network attempting to vanquish Indigenous peoples along the coast of California and parts of the western hemisphere. Guest: Valentin Lopez, Amah Mutsun Nation, is Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Nation, one of three historic California Indigenous Nations that are recognized as Ohlone. Valentin is Mutsun, Awaswas, Chumash and Yokuts (http://amahmutsun.org/governance/tribal-council). Archived programs can be heard on Soundcloud at: https://soundcloud.com/burntswamp American Indian Airwaves streams on over ten podcasting platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Audible, Backtracks.fm, Gaana, Google Podcast, Fyyd, iHeart Media, Mixcloud, Player.fm, Podbay.fm, Podcast Republic, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tunein, YouTube, and more.

3. 

   11 Aug 2025

   NAGPRA, Protecting Sacred Sites from Ocean Mining in Green Capitalism’s Expanded Violence

   Today on American Indian Airwaves (AIA), listeners will hear our special guest discuss the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), its history and January 2024 modifications along with its implications for Native Americans. In addition, our guest will provide an in-depth analysis about the increased aqua or ocean mining by non-renewable extractive industry companies for rare minerals - as part of the Green Economy – potentially jeopardizing, threatening, and/or destroying Native American sacred sites currently under the ocean. Our guest addresses what this situation means for Native American sacred sites off the coastal shorelines of Indigenous people’s traditional territories? Are there protections in place for these sacred sites? What happens when private companies encounter these sacred sites, and Native American ancestors, sacred items, and forms of cultural patrimony? What roles does NAGPRA play in these situations or does it? The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990 with the intended purposes to protect and return of Native American ancestors, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. By enacting NAGPRA, Congress recognized that Native American ancestors "must at all times be treated with dignity and respect." Congress also acknowledged that Native American ancestors and other cultural items removed from Federal or tribal lands belong to the lineal descendants, Native American nations, and Native Hawaiian organizations. Guest: • Shannon O’Loughlin is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and serves the Association on American Indian Affairs as its Chief Executive and Attorney. Shannon has been practicing law for more than 24 years and is a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University. Shannon serves as Vice Chair of the Board at Native Ways Federation, which educates about informed giving to Native-led nonprofits. • She is a former Chief of Staff to the National Indian Gaming Commission, where she assisted in the development and implementation of national gaming policy, and oversaw the agency’s public affairs, technology, compliance and finance divisions. Shannon was appointed by Secretary of the Department of the Interior, Sally Jewell to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act Review Committee in 2013; and was appointed by President Barack Obama as the first Native American to the Cultural Property Advisory Committee within the State Department in 2015. Archived programs can be heard on Soundcloud at: https://soundcloud.com/burntswamp American Indian Airwaves streams on over ten podcasting platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Audible, Backtracks.fm, Gaana, Google Podcast, Fyyd, iHeart Media, Mixcloud, Player.fm, Podbay.fm, Podcast Republic, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tunein, YouTube, and more.

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

41,159

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.2 / 5

11 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 62 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

60

Social presence

0

YouTube

76

Engagement

84