The Public’s Radio — ‘They're doing something right’: Narragansett Town Council to consider free beach access for Narragansett tribal members
Bella and Randy Noka at the Charlestown Breachway in Charlestown, R.I. ALEX NUNES - THE PUBLIC'S RADIO
May 15, 2022
By Alex Nunes — The Narragansett Town Council will take up a proposal Monday night to waive all walk-on and parking fees at the town’s beach to members of the Narragansett Indian Tribe. The ocean is a sacred spiritual place for members of the tribe, but the Narragansett do not currently have any of their own land along Rhode Island’s shore.
Randy and Bella Noka are two tribal members who will be at Monday’s Narragansett Town Council meeting. They spoke with South County Bureau Reporter Alex Nunes at the Charlestown Breachway about the significance the shore holds for them.
RANDY NOKA: Certainly there's a different realm coming here, and breathing this air, and listening to the surf. It's a refreshing awakening. Everything about it–it brings a different feel. It opens your eyes and minds and heart more.
BELLA NOKA: Having access to the ocean has always healed us. It's a place where you go for that. It's medicine. It's our native, traditional medicine.
ALEX NUNES: Right now the tribe doesn't own any, or hold any shoreline adjacent lands. So if you do want to come to the shore, you have to go to areas where you can get access. So you have to pay to get access, like at a town beach or a state beach. Given the significance that this holds to you and has held for your people for so long, what do you think of that?
BELLA NOKA: I don't care for paying to get and gain access to Grandfather Ocean. This is where we were placed. This is who we are. This is our way. It's natural to go to a place that does our healing. I don't know of many people who pay to get into their church, or their mosque, or their temples. I don't know anyone who pays to get into a place that they worship. This is our way. This is the indigenous and aboriginal way of our people. Who is to violate that way? And I believe that those people who have and continue to are being exposed for this behavior.
ALEX NUNES: There's been a lot of activism in the last few years around shoreline access, broadly, and you've gotten involved with that. What's that experience been like to see more people become interested and involved in this cause?
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