FEMA fires group for nonsensical Alaska Native translations

FILE - Tara Sweeney, a Republican seeking the sole U.S. House seat in Alaska, speaks during a forum for candidates, May 12, 2022, in Anchorage, Alaska. One brochure intended for Inupiaq speakers was written instead in Inuktitut, the Indigenous language spoken on the other side of the continent, in northeast Canada. Tara Sweeney, an Inupiaq who served as an assistant secretary of Indian Affairs in the U.S. Interior Department during the Trump administration, said there should be a congressional oversight hearing to uncover how widespread this practice is. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen, File)

A home that was knocked off its foundation floats down Snake River during a severe storm in Nome, Alaska, is caught under a bridge on, Sept. 17, 2022. After the remnants of a rare typhoon caused extensive damage along Alaska’s western coast last fall, the U.S. government stepped in to help residents, largely Alaska Natives, recovery financially. (AP Photo/Peggy Fagerstrom, File)

People take part in an Alaska Native dance Jan. 20, 2020, in Toksook Bay, Alaska, a mostly Yup’ik village on the edge of the Bering Sea. The Federal Emergency Management Agency provided financial aid applications in both Yup’ik and Inupiaq for Alaska Native speakers following a typhoon, but the translated materials were so bungled they did not make sense. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

Fredrick Brower, center, helps cut up a bowhead whale caught by Inupiat subsistence hunters on a field near Barrow, Alaska, Oc. 7, 2014. After tidal surges and high winds from the remnants of a rare typhoon caused extensive flood damage to homes along Alaska’s western coast in September, the U.S. government stepped in to help residents largely Alaska Natives repair property damage. Residents who opened Federal Emergency Management Agency brochures expecting to find instructions on how to file for aid in Alaska Native languages like Yup’ik or Inupiaq instead were reading nonsensical phrases. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull,File)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — After tidal surges and high winds from the remnants of a rare typhoon caused extensive damage to homes along Alaska’s western coast in September, the U.S. government stepped in to help residents — largely Alaska Natives — repair property damage.