The Native people of the East Bay Area are mostly overlooked by its modern dwellers. When people speak of Oakland as a place...
The Great Central Valley of California used to be a floodplain. It was a marshy wetland before non-Indian settlement began...
Real estate lawyers advising clients who seek to conduct business with California Indian tribes...
Historically, the U.S. government and the California state government have not respected Native American tribal sovereignty...
Some people are surprised to find out that there are 110 federally recognized tribes in California, and over 100 separate reservations or Rancherias...
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The California Court of Appeal recently decided that a prehistoric tribal Shellmound is not a historical structure...
Know We Are Here: Voices of Native California Resistance, edited by Terria Smith, pages 133-142, 157-165. East Peoria, Illinois: Versa Press, Inc. (2023), contains two essays by Michelle Lee (LaPena).
Book Review, “Marie Mason Potts: The Lettered Life of a California Indian Activist," by Terri. A. Castaneda. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, News From Native California, vol. 35, no. 1, (Fall 2021).
“The West Berkeley Shellmound: A Legal Battle That Has Inspired a Generation” News from Native California, Vol 34, Issue 4, Summer 2021, co-authored with Viola LeBeau.
LaPosta Band of Diegeno Mission Indians v. Trump, Acknowledging and Addressing the Harm to Kumeyaay Tribes for Destruction of Their Homelands from the Border Wall Project, Environmental Law News Vol 30, No. 1, Spring 2021.
“Excavation: She Was Dug Up” Creative Non-Fiction, Massachusetts Review, Winter 2020
“In the Cougar’s Den”, “Good Luck Penney” and “Hunter-Gathering,” Poetry, Wards Literary Journal, Issue 005, Spring 2020.
“List of Things I Have Been Told Not to Write About While at the IAIA Residency” and “There’s Something Wrong” Yellow Medicine Review, Fall 2019, (Poetry).
“Ode to a Dancing Boy” News from Native California, Summer 2019, (Long Poem).
“People of the Sun” Red Ink International Journal, Spring 2019, (Poety).
“Buried in Shells” GIA Reader, Fall 2018, (Creative Non-Fiction).
“Life Along the River” Waxwing Issue 14, Spring 2018, (Short Story).
“The Diggins” The Rumpus, June 10, 2017, (Creative Non-Fiction).
“Water and Oil” News from Native California, Winter 2017 (Creative Non-Fiction).
“Standing Rock, the Bundys, Leonard Peltier and the Search for Justice,” Indian Country Today, November 17, 2016.
“Real Estate Transactions in California's "Indian Country": How to Conduct Business with California Indian Tribal Governments and Businesses,” Los Angeles Lawyer Magazine, January 2006 (Cover Story).
Book Review, “Negotiating Tribal Water Rights: Fulfilling Promises in the Arid West,” by Bonnie G. Colby, John E. Thorson, and Sarah Britton; foreword by David H. Getches. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, American Indian Cultural and Research Journal, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2005).
“A Healing Process,” reprinted in Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, University of Washington Press, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2002).
Book Review, “To Show Heart: Native American Self-Determination and Federal Indian Policy, 1960-75,” by George Pierre Castile, American Indian Cultural and Research Journal, Vol. No. (1999).
“Federal Land Management Practices and California Indians: A Proposal to Protect Native Plant Species,” Environs, UC Davis Environmental Law Review, June 1998.
“A Healing Process,” Prized Writing 1992-1993, An Anthology from the University of California, 1993.