Where Beauty Gathers, NPM Confronts the Pain of the Missing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

By Kyler Edsitty

Rita Louise Lush sells her beaded unicorn dance bag to Kate Bean on behalf of the Minnesota Museum of American Art.

SANTA FE, N.M. - August 17, 2026 - Color spilled across the Santa Fe Plaza: beadwork catching the sun, silver and turquoise shining against white tents, woven patterns carrying old teachings into new forms. At the 104th Santa Fe Indian Market, one of the largest art markets in the United States, more than 100,000 visitors came to share the beauty, invention, and endurance of Native art.

Yet beneath the celebration ran another truth: across Indian Country, families continue to live with empty chairs, unanswered calls, and loved ones who have not come home. Native Public Media (NPM) brought that truth into the Market, not to diminish its beauty, but to insist that Native People should be seen not only when their art is admired, but also when their lives are in danger.

NPM staff walked from booth to booth and spoke face-to-face with artists about the new federal Missing and Endangered Persons (MEP) Alert. They explained why Tribal Nations should complete the process to become authorized alerting authorities for their jurisdictions through FEMA's Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). NPM staff also shared recent New Mexico cases involving missing and endangered people, turning statistics into what they have always represented: relatives, artists, parents, children, and community members. One case was only two weeks old.

The beauty and connection of the Indian Market

Created in 1922 to support and preserve Native art, the Market has grown into one of the world's most prominent Native art gatherings. It remains more than a place to buy art. Artists meet collectors, museums and galleries; friendships become mentorships; and cultural knowledge passes from one conversation to the next.

Rita Louise Lush, an artist from the Ihanktonwan Nakota (Yankton Sioux) Tribe, returned for her third year with beadwork inspired by Plains-style powwow regalia, glamour, abstract art and bold color - a style she calls "powwow glam."

"It is one of the oldest and most prestigious markets that a Native artist can be associated with," Lush said. "I keep coming back because of the friends and connections that I have made and continue to make. I also love to return home to New Mexico, which is where I am from."

For Lush, the Market creates possibilities that extend well beyond a sale. A person who pauses at a booth may become a collector, a curator, a mentor, or a lifelong friend.

"You never know who is going to come by your booth," Lush said. "It is a place to have your creative work seen by people from museums, art galleries, or fashion magazines. It is the place to be if you are a Native artist."

That visibility is part of the Market's beauty. The MEP Alert campaign asks a harder question: What happens when an Indigenous person becomes visible only after going missing - or never becomes visible to the wider public at all?

The crisis behind the conversation

New Mexico's current official public materials continue to document both the scale of the crisis and the gaps that obscure it. The New Mexico Department of Justice reports that Indigenous people accounted for 16% of the state's missing-person cases from 2014 through 2019, many of them unresolved. Albuquerque and Gallup have also ranked among U.S. cities with the highest numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. State officials continue to identify underreporting, incomplete data, and jurisdictional barriers as urgent problems.

The latest national FBI-based figures provide additional context: 10,248 missing Indigenous-person reports were filed in 2024, including 5,614 involving women. Because records may misclassify Native identity, omit Tribal affiliation, or remain scattered across jurisdictions, researchers caution that no reliable, complete count exists for Native women who go missing or are murdered each year. The absence of a precise number is not evidence of a small crisis; it is evidence of a system that still fails to count every person accurately.

New Mexico's Turquoise Alert and the federal MEP Alert

New Mexico now has its own Turquoise Alert for missing Indigenous people. It is an important state tool, but it is not the same as the federal MEP Alert code.

The federal MEP code took effect on September 8, 2025. The code does not make every alert nationwide by default; the originating authority selects the affected area. Its national value lies in giving authorized governments across the country a single recognizable code and a common technical pathway, which matters especially when a disappearance crosses Tribal, county, or state lines.

For Tribal Nations, becoming an IPAWS alerting authority is an exercise of practical sovereignty. Certification enables a Tribe to define its warning jurisdiction, establish trained personnel, and send time-sensitive public warnings when lives are at risk.

NPM urged artists to carry that message home: ask Tribal leadership, law enforcement, and emergency management whether the Nation has completed the alerting-authority process and is prepared to use the MEP code.

Art affirms life; alerting systems help protect it

Danel Spaulding, radio coordinator at KIYE Radio, traveled from Kamiah, Idaho, to attend the Market and connect with artists, Native-led organizations, and community members from many Tribal Nations.

"Being surrounded by so many Indigenous creatives and storytellers was inspiring and a great reminder of how important these spaces are for building community, sharing work and supporting one another," Spaulding said.

The Market showed Indian Country in full color: beautiful, contemporary, rooted, and alive. The missing-person crisis exposes the ugliness of indifference, fragmented jurisdiction, and delayed public attention. Holding both truths together creates a responsibility. Admiration must become action; visibility must extend beyond the gallery and the market; and every Tribal Nation should have the authority and readiness to call the public's attention to a relative in danger.

At Santa Fe, NPM carried that call one booth at a time.

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About Native Public Media

Native Public Media is a Native-led nonprofit organization that strengthens Tribal sovereignty through media, telecommunications, and technology. NPM supports Tribal broadcasters, advances policies that expand Native ownership and access, and helps Tribal communities build resilient communications systems that protect, inform, and connect their people.

Background sources

• New Mexico Department of Justice: Seeking Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples

• New Mexico Department of Public Safety: Turquoise Alert criteria

• Federal Communications Commission: Missing and Endangered Persons EAS code

• FEMA: Integrated Public Alert and Warning System

• National Indigenous Women's Resource Center: MMIWR awareness and 2024 FBI-based figures

• NPM President/CEO Testimony to the Federal Communications Commission