contributed photo
Ya’at’eeh! (That means “hello!” in Diné Bizaad, or the Navajo language.)
Before coming to New Haven 16 years ago, I grew up both on and off my Navajo and Hopi tribes’ traditional homelands in New Mexico and Arizona. Although my life has taken me to Washington, to California, and now to the Elm City, my ancestors’ lands will always be Back Home. Like many other indigenous people, I grew up carrying with me two worlds.
I also grew up not a “math person.” So, it surprises me to find myself now working daily on data and research, and proselytizing about their values. I can’t remember how it began, but I know that I love the way data can reveal truths to us, if we know what to ask. I grew up with questions about everything and I love experimenting, ordering things, and getting answers to things we can’t just Google.
I know, however, that data can be used as a weapon, as much as a tool for good.
For a long time, it was used as a weapon against people who look like me. I’ve seen so many negative statistics about indigenous people; it’s pretty depressing. So often, only negative data is shared as “evidence” of some perception of a “backwards” culture that is something to be pitied and saved, not to be envied.
This view looks at our deficits, rather than our strengths. It’s heartbreaking, hard to hear these things all the time and know they’re true. Trauma, alcoholism, poverty, diabetes. Even when the negative is true, there’s no recognition that it is a trauma response and an intergenerational trauma response that is part of a larger systemic oppression. People have been more kind about our higher diabetes rates; they recognize industrial food changes and forgive someone for physical illness, but they’re not so kind about mental illness.
It makes me wonder about all the other positive things that aren’t being exposed. Rarely is the positive added; when there is good news to share (as I will here), it is not widely known. It tends to be Indigenous people sharing the positive, not others sharing it about us.
I’ve talked with people who have actually said, “I didn’t know there was such a thing as a full-blooded Indian,” or I’ll read comments online, “The Native Americans died out.” Really? Did we? Even people realizing we’re around is one thing. And it’s another to know what’s actually going on with us.
Knowing history is so important. I’m proud of people now when I hear them saying they’ve looked up what lands they live on; I’ve heard some say land acknowledgements. We can go further; let’s not just talk about the ones who were around before – there are still some around now. But it feels like it’s moving in the right direction.
Today, I want to share one of the shocking negatives, and one of the inspiring positives.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
We are facing an epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Indigenous women are being murdered at more than ten times the national average – so much so that it is the third leading cause of death for girls and women 10 to 24 years old. It is pervasive, not abstract; I’ve known people whose family members have been taken or have been murdered.
Even back in high school, I had always heard these things. There was the Highway of Tears, and other specific regional places in Canada and the U.S. where people started to notice that Indigenous women were disappearing. This is not just a rural “over there” issue, either, as the majority of those who are missing or murdered were from cities and urban areas.
There have been a lot of people advocating for more recognition in the past few years, and I see the issue raised more often on social media. I think much of the awareness-raising comes from women, especially Navajo – we’re matrilineal, matriarchal, and the head of our family is a woman. So it makes sense that the messages would be coming from us. But unfortunately, we’re not always able to protect ourselves.
There are many reasons why these women are going missing. There is deep trauma that keeps unfolding within and beyond Tribal nations; we are more likely to be living in poverty; there is a legacy of trauma from the boarding schools. But while many might assume the problem is all within Tribes, it is true that two-thirds (67%) of the perpetrators are non-Native individuals who do not live on Indigenous lands.
May 5 is a National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls. This year it was the biggest it’s been, with a White House Proclamation recognizing the thousands of unsolved cases. When he was a Senator and Vice President, Joe Biden did a lot to address violence against women – he was an advocate for the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which included provisions that allowed Tribes – which are sovereign nations – to investigate individuals who are not Indigenous. In many ways, it feels like he’s done the most for Indigenous Nations so far – though that’s not a hard position to reach. He appointed Congresswoman Deb Haaland to serve as the first Indigenous Interior Secretary, and is inviting more and more of us to participate in many different ways.
Tribal Nations and COVID-19 Vaccinations
Recently, there’s another side of data about us that’s been giving me hope and inspiration: the rate of COVID-19 vaccinations among Indigenous nations is very high.
The Governor of Connecticut was happy to report that the state was the first to reach a 50% level of population with at least one dose. Today, it is at around 61%, with 50% being fully vaccinated; the U.S. is at 49% for one dose, and 39% fully vaccinated.
Indigenous nations, even those like the Navajo Nation which is incredibly rural, are at an average of 81%. It is a real feat; some individuals are not able to get to a grocery store easily or regularly, but they have been able to get to vaccination sites.
We are achieving this because we have been focused on caring about our elders and our larger Indigenous community. People followed the guidelines and maintained social distancing because we knew we had to take care of them. Any time an elder dies, it’s like a piece of our culture, a piece of our language dies. We did it for them, and that made me feel really proud.
The Tribal leadership used strategies that really worked. They got very involved, worked together in inter-Tribal collaboration and with Indian Health Services – it wasn’t competitive. There was a lot of outreach, public health campaigns in English and Tribal languages, a lot of volunteers. Instead of multiple vaccination systems like we have in New Haven – ten different, disorganized avenues to get the vaccine – Tribal nations had one. It was clear, streamlined.
I am also inspired by how we took care of one another, with tribes supporting our sister nations. Pretty much any time a tribe received their vaccines, they opened up for any other tribal member to get a vaccine. I am Navajo, but I live in Connecticut, so I’m not near my Rez. But I could have gotten my vaccine at Mohegan, because of this reciprocity.
My top core value during CLP and now, is trust. When I think of trust as a leadership value, I think of how it manifests in action. I can trust that someone is going to follow through with something. I can trust that this is someone who is going to tell the truth. When I think about the people I trust the most, it’s about reliability, showing up. All of us in the pandemic, we had to trust each other. There are a lot of people who really let each other down. So it’s especially inspiring to see the success of us coming together to protect each other and our elders.
To reach Kia directly: khonhongva@gmail.com