ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Students and families gathered at Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School Saturday for the Indigenous Education Student Fashion & Vendor Show.

Many families ran vendor tables selling Indigenous clothing, jewelry, and other items as kids from elementary up to high school got a chance to take the stage and showcase their heritage.

“It really means a lot to me,” West Anchorage High School student and president of West’s Indigenous Culture Club Miley Kakaruk said. “My parents work really hard and my mom creates really beautiful works, so for me to be able to represent it at the best of my abilities, it means a lot to me.”

Performances included Indigenous music ensembles as well as a fashion walk for students to show off their regalia.

“It’s an overwhelming feeling,” ASD Gui Kima coordinator Cindy Reeves, who helped many students make their own regalia, said. “You can literally feel your ancestors walking with you as you see students walking the stage.”

“It’s just great to share in our culture and we’re really happy to be here,” vendor Francisca Andrews said. “All of Alaska is here, there’s a little bit of everything.”

“It’s just something that makes us stronger because we’re together,” Kakaruk said. “Seeing not only our cultures being represented, but seeing everybody else representing their culture very confidently, it can do a lot for a kid’s self-esteem.”

Alice Rosecrow Maar’aq, who helped the event grow from its initial state of just a few tables at Romig Middle School into the show it has become, greatly values that connection.

“We’re a people of connection,” Rosecrow Maar’aq said. “We’re doing it for a community, for people to have friendship and family connections.”

“It’s such a breath of fresh air,” Kakaruk said. “You see a lot of familiar faces, lots of smiling. I already know my cheeks are going to hurt from smiling at the end of this.”

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As a Green Party candidate who has qualified to run for U.S. senator in Alaska’s August 2026 primary, I am not reluctant to say that I am a communist.

I say this not out of nostalgia or ideological purity, and certainly not to excuse the failures or crimes committed in communism’s name, but because I believe that — given Alaska’s specific conditions — collective ownership and democratic control of resources offer a more workable future than the one we currently have.

Alaska is a paradox. It is vast, resource-rich and sparsely populated, yet it struggles with inequality, housing shortages, food insecurity and some of the highest rates of suicide, addiction and domestic violence in the country.

The state generates enormous wealth — from oil, gas, fisheries, timber and military investment — yet many Alaskans find it difficult to meet basic needs while much of that wealth flows out of state to distant shareholders.

This is not primarily a failure of geography or culture. It is largely a question of ownership and control.

Under the current economic system, Alaska often functions like an internal resource colony. Natural wealth is extracted for private gain, communities are subjected to boom-and-bust cycles driven by global markets and long-term social costs are borne locally. Profits leave; consequences remain.

Communism, at its core, begins with a modest proposition: that the people who live on the land should have a collective stake in and democratic control over the wealth produced from it.

Alaska already practices a limited version of this idea. The Alaska Permanent Fund dividend is one of the most unusual policies in the United States. Oil revenues are pooled and distributed equally to residents as recognition of shared ownership.

The PFD has reduced poverty, particularly in rural and Indigenous communities, and has produced measurable benefits in health and education. When it is reduced, those effects are felt quickly.

A more expansive version of this approach would move beyond an annual check. Revenue from Alaska’s natural wealth could be used to guarantee access to housing, health care, education, transportation and energy infrastructure — treating these not primarily as commodities, but as basic social goods.

Housing illustrates the challenge. In much of Alaska, the private market struggles to deliver affordable, durable homes. Construction costs are high, speculation distorts prices and overcrowding is common. A publicly planned approach could prioritize long-term need and climate-appropriate design over short-term return.

Food security presents a similar problem. Alaska imports most of what it eats, leaving residents vulnerable to high prices and supply disruptions. Collective investment in regional agriculture, fisheries processing and local distribution would reduce dependence on fragile supply chains.

Critics argue that collective systems suppress initiative. Yet insecurity suppresses initiative as well. When people are not consumed by the cost of housing, health care or education, they are better positioned to work, innovate and contribute.

Finally, environmental stewardship matters. Alaska is warming faster than almost anywhere else on Earth. A system driven by short-term profit struggles to plan on generational timescales. Democratic control allows communities to weigh ecological costs against social needs more deliberately.

At bottom, this is about dignity and self-determination. Alaska does not lack wealth. The question is whether that wealth is organized primarily for private accumulation or for broad public benefit.

Richard Grayson is a writer, retired college professor and lawyer who finished tenth in the 2024 primary for U.S. representative, garnering 0.13% of the vote.

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Federal officials have denied Alaska’s request to cover all initial expenses associated with a costly and complicated disaster response effort following a catastrophic Western Alaska storm last fall.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy is appealing the decision, revising his request to ask that the Federal Emergency Management Agency instead pay 90% of the cost.

In early October, the remnants of Typhoon Halong inundated numerous Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta communities and destroyed swaths of the Yup’ik villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. The storm left one person dead and two missing when their home was swept away by floodwaters.

After the storm, Dunleavy asked FEMA to cover 100% of costs incurred during an initial 90-day period after the storm. In a Jan. 16 letter to the agency appealing the denial, Dunleavy said it was one of Alaska’s most “rapid, complex, and aviation-intensive emergency operations in its history.”

An Oct. 22 federal disaster declaration for the region from President Donald Trump approved $25 million to cover the cost of recovery efforts in Western Alaska.

FEMA denied Dunleavy’s request to fully fund the initial response in a Dec. 20 letter, saying only that “it has been determined that the increased level of funding you have requested” to help cover disaster response expenses “is not warranted.”

FEMA officials didn’t immediately provide further details when asked about the denial on Friday.

In his appeal letter, Dunleavy said state wasn’t asking for extra accommodations beyond the 90-day window and still expected to be primarily responsible for “the broader recovery mission” of rebuilding and mitigating future risk.

“This limited, focused adjustment will allow Alaska and its partners to maintain essential public services, manage an extraordinarily complex and winter-constrained housing and lifeline mission, and continue investing State, local, and tribal resources into mitigation and stabilization,” Duleavy wrote. “It represents not an expansion of government, but a targeted use of Federal authority to back a State that has acted decisively.”

An unsuccessful appeal, Dunleavy warned in the letter, would threaten state or local services.

When asked how the state would pay for the expenses if the appeal failed, Dunleavy spokesperson Jeff Turner said that “the administration will await the federal government’s decision.”

State officials didn’t know when to expect that decision, Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management spokesperson Jeremy Zidek said.

Alaska U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and U.S. Rep. Nick Begich had also urged the Trump administration to authorize the 100% cost share in an Oct. 17 letter.

Spokespeople for all three members of the delegation said Friday that they believed Alaska should receive a higher cost share and supported the state’s appeal. All said they were engaging with the Trump administration about the issue.

Typically, the federal government pays for 75% of costs during that initial 90-day response window, Zidek said.

The state successfully petitioned FEMA for a deviation from that ratio last in 2018, Zidek said, when it agreed to cover 90% of 90-day recovery costs following the November 2018 Southcentral Alaska earthquake.

For the most recent disaster, response work in the first weeks “was very costly” and included flying crews out to complete work such as village airport runway repairs or road and bridge assessments, he said.

Dunleavy in his letter said this disaster response work has been more expensive than many other emergency recovery efforts due to “Alaska’s uniquely limited tax base and the extraordinary cost of operating in remote, roadless western Alaska.”

Officials said they expect repair and mitigation work to take years.

In the first weeks after the storm, the state incurred $20 million in expenses for work like debris removal and the largest mass airlift evacuation in Alaska history, Dunleavy said.

As of Thursday, 475 evacuees remained in non-congregate shelters at Anchorage hotels, while 216 had been moved to longer-term apartment-style housing, according to a Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management daily report. Most evacuees are from the hardest-hit villages of Kwigillingok and Kipnuk, where Dunleavy said 90% of its structures were severely damaged or destroyed.

Officials expect the first three months of shelter and evacuee support expenses to total $12.5 million, according to the state’s appeal letter.

It’s too early, however, to estimate what the total response costs will amount to for that 90-day period because many agencies and organizations have yet to tally their costs and submit them to officials for reimbursement, Zidek said.

Estimated costs also don’t include “emergency expenditures” racked up by local and tribal governments, regional tribal nonprofits, Alaska Native corporations and other non-state groups, Dunleavy said.

“Many of these are small, fiscally limited entities that have already borne significant non-reimbursable disaster costs,” Dunleavy wrote. “Without a 90/10 cost share for the first 90 days, these disaster response partners will be forced to cut essential local services and limit additional disaster recovery actions.”