Meskwaki educator Leah Slick Driscoll urges language revival, food sovereignty at Iowa City forum

Leah Slick Driscoll, a Meskwaki Nation educator who teaches at the Meskwaki Settlement School, told an Iowa City Foreign Relations Council audience at the Iowa City Public Library that preserving Meskwaki language and food systems is central to the tribe’s cultural survival.

Driscoll opened with a historical overview that tied early U.S. policies—praying towns, the Indian Removal Act and forced relocations—to later waves of cultural and health harm for Native communities. She said federal control of tribal finances and property aggravated that harm: "She brought a successful law lawsuit against The United States," Driscoll said of Eloise Cobell’s litigation over missing Indian trust funds, a case Driscoll cited while describing how records were later lost in a warehouse fire and how…