Erica Ayisi

Erica Ayisi is an Indigenous Affairs multimedia reporter for PBS Wisconsin's "Here & Now" and the North-Central Bureau of ICT (formerly Indian Country Today). Ayisi has worked an independent journalist ...

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Erica's Recent Stories

Indigenous

Wisconsin’s tribal nations state their priorities for 2025

Chairman Thomas Fowler of the St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin delivers the 2025 State of the Tribes Address to lawmakers, focusing on tribal lands, collaboration and legislative proposals.

Friday March 21, 2025

Indigenous

President Jon Greendeer on the value of higher education

Ho-Chunk Nation President Jon Greendeer discusses the power of higher education to break through generational adversity and address ongoing economic and social issues faced in Indigenous communities.

Wednesday March 12, 2025

Indigenous

Carla Vigue on Native students and ‘Relatives’ at UW-Madison

University of Wisconsin-Madison Tribal Relations Director Carla Vigue describes how a group called "Relatives" offers different types of support to Indigenous students on campus and to student groups.

Tuesday March 11, 2025

Snow covers a hillside lawn with shoveled sidewalks and leafless trees, surrounded by buildings with snow-covered roofs and roads with vehicles and pedestrians, with a wooded urban landscape and ice-covered lake extending to the horizon.

Indigenous

How UW-Madison’s aid for Native students addresses history

The Tribal Education Promise at UW-Madison, which provides financial aid to Indigenous students from Wisconsin's Native nations, is intended to help address a history of coercion through treaties.

Friday March 7, 2025

A still image shows Jay Rothman speaking into a microphone on a wooden podium with three people standing behind him and a wall reading School of Medicine and Public Health in the background.

Politics

UW, biohealth industry sound alarm on NIH research fund cuts

While a federal judge temporarily halts cuts to how National Institutes of Health funds are used, Universities of Wisconsin and biohealth industry leaders and researchers tout impacts of this funding.

Friday March 7, 2025

Jon Greendeer sits in a high-back chair with flags in the background.

Indigenous

Ho-Chunk Nation offers free tribal IDs amid ICE fears

Ho-Chunk Nation President Jon Greendeer describes the tribal government's promise to offer free tribal IDs for members and reimburse the cost to obtain a U.S. passport amid fear over ICE arrests.

Friday February 14, 2025