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96. Advancing Indigenous Causes on the Alaskan Mountains and Shores with Kendra Kloster
945 Plays1 month ago
Kendra Closter is the director for government relations at the Alaska Federation of Natives and the former co-director for Law and Policy at the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center, an organization dedicated to strengthening local, state, and tribal government responses to the needs of Native women and children in their communities and their homes.
In this episode, we talk about Native communities and some of the beauties and challenges they face, efforts to strengthen the relationship between Natives and others, the power of law, policy, partnerships, and some of the unique difficulties and beauties for Native Alaskans, and some of those triumphs. Some of which might be able to be emulated everywhere where Indigenous cultures are trying to protect their ways of life, be healthy and be safe.
Alaska Federation of Natives:
https://nativefederation.org/
Alaska Native Women's Resource Center:
https://www.aknwrc.org
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Transcript
Underreported Indigenous Issues: A Media Perspective
00:00:00
Speaker
I definitely hope that we can get to a point where i don't where I don't have to do this work anymore and that we can all learn to just be respectful and treat each other all with respect and love, because this is it's really tough um for anybody you know to go through these things. and But I think what's happening is you know we've seen we've seen in the media, we've seen in the data where indigenous people have gone missing in that regard. um there Those cases,
00:00:29
Speaker
are not being you know blown up to the national level. You're not hearing about it. We've known you know for many years that this has been an issue, and it just hasn't been talked about. It hasn't been talked about in the media, and it really wasn't until we had some data and numbers to show like, hey, indigenous people actually are going missing and being murdered at a higher rate.
00:00:51
Speaker
And so we so had to really start collecting that data. And if you saw from the Urban Indian Health Institute, they put out a report, um which I think really helped jumpstart.
Introduction to Kendra Closter and Her Role
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Speaker
And folks out of Canada were doing some reports as well. And it's really helped put this issue on the map of saying like, this is needs to be addressed and needs to be addressed now.
00:01:13
Speaker
That's Kendra Closter, the co-director of Law and Policy at the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center. This is the Silver Linings Handbook podcast. I'm Jason Blair.
00:01:40
Speaker
Kento Kloster is the co-director of Law and Policy at the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center, an organization dedicated to strengthening local, state, and tribal government responses to the needs of Native women and children in their communities and their homes.
00:01:59
Speaker
Those challenges range from addressing domestic violence and sexual abuse, trafficking, and also helping with the healing from trauma and related injustices. Kendra, who's a member of the Tinkit tribe, also has Irish and German ancestry.
00:02:17
Speaker
The Tinkit are one of 231 federally recognized tribes in Alaska. The Tinkit
Tlingit Tribe and Alaskan Native Cultural Context
00:02:24
Speaker
people, whose name means people of the tides, are indigenous people who have a vast history that some believe began more than 11,000 years ago.
00:02:34
Speaker
They're an estimated 14,000 in Alaska and 2,100 in Canada. Their culture and society developed in the temperate rainforest parts of the Yukon, British Columbia, Southeast Alaska coast in the Alexander Archipelago, the part of Alaska that runs south along the coast toward British Columbia.
00:02:58
Speaker
Kendra
Legislative Advocacy and Cultural Training Initiatives
00:02:59
Speaker
grew up in Juneau and Rangel, a small fishing town made of shores and deltas with beautiful views of bays and mountains along the Alaskan coast. It's a place where totem poles on the property of a replica of a traditional longhouse Once occupied by Tinkit royalty can be seen in the views of American flags and it's a place where American native Russian and British cultures have all left their mark.
00:03:30
Speaker
At the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center, Kendra works with partner organizations to develop relationships with community, government, and tribal organizations and push for policies and laws that help support natives in Alaska. Among those
Kendra's Career in Alaskan Government
00:03:46
Speaker
initiatives include legislation that helped create permanent positions within the Alaska Department of Public Safety that focused on missing and murdered indigenous women.
00:03:58
Speaker
Alaska now has its own Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women's Unit within the Department of Public Safety. In addition, Kendra was a part of the team that worked on Senate Bill 151, a bipartisan law that passed with 31 sponsors in the Alaskan legislature and made the third requirement of all police officers working in Alaska to be cultural training related to Indigenous people.
00:04:29
Speaker
Kendra is also a member of the state Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Council and a working group in Alaska on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Kendra says that her ambition is to make positive changes and her hopes include everyone being accepted for who they are,
00:04:49
Speaker
that experiences rooted in family and tradition are valued, and that everyone in Native communities in Alaska has a sense of safety. Prior to working
Challenges in Native Alaskan Communities
00:05:01
Speaker
for the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center, Kendra worked in the office of United States Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, and then moved from D.C. back to Juneau to work at the Alaska State Legislature, where she was employed for a decade.
00:05:20
Speaker
She served as the executive director of Native Peoples Action, a nonpartisan organization focused on strengthening Alaska Native people and their ways of life, which included everything from the right to hunt, fish, harvest, gather, and trap to ceremonies and stewardship of their land.
00:05:40
Speaker
She's a graduate of Fort Lewis College in Colorado where she obtained a bachelor's degree in business administration and the University of Alaska Anchorage where she obtained a master's degree in public administration and policy analysis. Today we're going to talk about native communities and some of the beauties and challenges they face.
00:06:01
Speaker
efforts to strengthen the relationship between Natives and others, the power of law, policy, and partnerships, and some of the unique difficulties and beauties for Native Alaskans, and some of those triumphs, some of which might be able to be emulated everywhere where Indigenous cultures are trying to protect their ways of life, be healthy and be safe.
00:06:40
Speaker
So
Cultural Resilience and Personal Influences
00:06:41
Speaker
Kendra, I just wanted to thank you for ah joining me today. I'm so glad I was able to make this um sort of surprising, you know, connection to you because I had really ah originally been looking at some of the work that had been done in Alaska around indigenous people and some of the data you guys had collected um around justice and by happenstance, ah we were introduced and I was able to see, you know not just the justice aspect, but some of the public policy things that you're doing that are really exciting that I know, um at least I think based on my i survey of the landscape, some of which are sort of ahead of what we're seeing in other states. So I was really excited to be able to have this conversation with you.
00:07:29
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad we had a chance to connect and I look forward to you know talking more and sharing about you know the work that we've been doing here in Alaska. I think it's been exciting. We've got a ways to go, but we've made some really good um headway you know in our policies and education and awareness.
00:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, but you know, one of the things I wanted to sort of start with, though, is just a a little bit about um you, who kind of your experiences and your background. um You know, one of the things that when I was sort of looking at your, you know, resume in my head, I thought there are a lot of things that you could have done. You could have gone to Washington and, you know,
00:08:09
Speaker
worked your way up but in you um government there or you could have gone into politics, you could have done a wide variety of things. What but ultimately brought you back or to Alaska and the kind of work that you're doing now?
00:08:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot. Well, I know a lot of me growing up um in Alaska and with the family support and background and my really deep connection with my grandmother, to be honest.
00:08:41
Speaker
really put into a lot of things that have led me to where I am. You know, I left Alaska for a little while to go to school and I worked for um Ted Stevens in Washington, D.C. and, you know, got a really good experience, but I wanted to bring that home to Alaska to see where I could contribute. And where I really kind of fell into place, you know, is policy really called to me But also, how can I use ah my policy experience and my love of policy to help Alaska Native people? And so that's kind of how I i fell
Impact of Boarding Schools on Indigenous Cultures
00:09:16
Speaker
into like where I'm at now at the Women's Resource Center.
00:09:20
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you know And some of my previous other nonprofits as well is just how can I benefit the community? How can I provide um benefits and support to our Alaska Native people who are just so amazing and beautiful in such rich cultures all throughout Alaska? But there's definitely some Really tough things um indigenous people you know in Alaska and across you know the world have had to face when it comes to you know colonization and boarding schools and you know the high rates of domestic violence, sexual assault, and missing and murdered indigenous people. And so I think that's really what called to me is how can I just make a difference in this way
00:10:04
Speaker
And I've been really blessed in meeting some beautiful people and sisters along the way where we just grew in partnership. And by having that support, by having the support of my family and the the roots that I grew up with um within the Tlingit culture and our ways of life have just really brought me home to Alaska. And this is where you know I want to be. And this is the area that I just chose to work in. and um So I guess that's kind of how I got here, but I also, like I say, I'm kind of a self-proclaimed policy nerd. um And so we all use our strengths, right? There's so many strengths of people, whether you're an artist, um you know, really into data and education and advocacy, there's a place for all of us and how we can um come together and and help move a lot of these issues forward.
00:10:55
Speaker
What's interesting you say that because I think a lot of people always thinking your example of artists, a lot of people don't realize that they can lend their their varied skills um to a cause. But what one of the things that you said, you mentioned family roots, you mentioned your grandmother.
00:11:13
Speaker
um it It sounds like all of those things are very um important to you. Did you grow up with your grandmother in Alaska? Did you grow up in... yeah what was What was growing up like?
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, I was born and raised in southeast Alaska. I was born in Wrangell, a little small fishing town in southeast and grew up in Juneau, really going between the two. Our highway system in southeast is a ferry system, the marine highway system. So that's really how we got around between our communities there. And my grandmother used to come. When I moved to Juneau, she used to actually take the ferry, come and pick me up and bring me home to Wrangell.
00:11:54
Speaker
And so i spent a lot of time doing back and forth and she got me involved and dance groups. I'm in beating and just lots of different things that i've been really appreciative of. And so i yet she actually just passed away about a year ago so she's been in my life i'm really instilling a lot of values and you know when me and so.
00:12:19
Speaker
That's where i get kind of my energy and my fuel from you know from her from our people and you know from my kids they've also you know i've got three three kids who. I look at the work that i do to say how can i.
00:12:34
Speaker
you know put my heart and soul into this work to ensure that whatever we pass to our future generations is going to be better. Because I certainly hope some of the issues that we're working on now um are not passed down. And so that's you know something I really want to see. I want them to feel safe and you know be able to live in a culture where I don't have to worry about them going missing or being murdered or having domestic violence. And so how do we building those layers of respect and public safety and addressing some of the you know intergenerational trauma that's been happening within communities. But I feel very fortunate to to grow up in Alaska because there's just there's just so many, as I mentioned earlier, so many beautiful cultures, so many beautiful people. I fish a lot. I love fishing.
00:13:19
Speaker
um I love being out berry
Public Safety in Alaska: Community and Law Enforcement Relations
00:13:21
Speaker
picking. um we just That's our way of life is um harvesting. you know I just filled my freezer full of sockeye salmon and um blueberries, and that's what we do all summer is just being out on the land and you know prepping for our winter, but it's justs it's a great place to grow up.
00:13:39
Speaker
yeah the um yeah the Yeah, one of the things I was thinking about when you were talking, you had mentioned things like boarding schools, and I think a lot of people probably don't understand that for natives, boarding schools weren't just being sent off to school as a separation of the families, languages were lost, there was an attempt to sort of like assimilate, and and I was just thinking as you were talking about all those things that Barry picking, beating, um you know, fishing, that those are all sort of like core pieces of sort of, you know, you mentioned your way of life. And it, you know, sometimes when I think of those things, I i think of like what a miracle it is, like if you look from the point of colonization to now, what a miracle it is that those ways of life have been passed ah passed down and are in your hands right now when
00:14:35
Speaker
You know, I think it it must have taken an enormous amount of resilience for the generations that came before you and an enormous amount of strength for them to be able to um keep those going, pass them on to you. Do you you feel a sense of responsibility to carry that forward, it sounds like? ah Yes, I would say maybe responsibility, but also that might not quite be the word to where it's It's who I am, it yeah it's who we are as people and so it it's sharing our culture, it's sharing our way of life and it's just I couldn't think of another way that I would bring up my family.
00:15:21
Speaker
And something really beautiful, I think, in the way that, you know, we do raise our kids. And we were out, a couple years ago, we were out fishing for hooligan. They're like the small kind of smelt. And I looked over at my daughter as she was taking them out and putting them in the bucket. She was going, thank you. Goodness jeesh. Thank you to every single little fish.
00:15:42
Speaker
And that's not something I told her to do. It's ingrained in us to just really be thankful for what we're getting and for the and for the life of the fish and animals that are coming into us. This is just part of like who we are. so it's you know it's just this It's just this, I don't know, I don't quite have the word for it, I think. But again, it's our culture, it's our way of life, it's who we are. so it's it's but You couldn't imagine living any other way. it's Yeah.
00:16:11
Speaker
that's That's really beautiful, that moment with your daughter thinking every little fish for the gift that it's giving to your family. and you know i I know when you when you first came to Alaska, that way work related to sort of the way of life for the for the different native communities is something that you you focused on. and I think you sort of just probably summed up the the um the importance of it, but I was going to ask you what you think. You had mentioned those challenges and hoping that future generations have few fewer of them. what do you What do you view the challenges of the past that still reverberate in the challenges of today as?
00:16:56
Speaker
We see the effects of colonization that has happened. And i you know I mentioned boarding schools where really, as you mentioned, that people were getting taken out of their, kids were taken out of their homes. um They were forced to be in the schools where they had to really assimilate, getting their hair cut, not being able to speak their language and live their way of life. So a lot of that, you know for those um generations, um individuals just grew up in such um you know, ways that were foreign to them and and trying through this assimilation of um just indigenous people of taking that away and really um intentionally, you know, people really intentionally trying to systematically remove our way of life in our languages. And so as people come back and there's a lot of, you know, trauma that has been passed down through generations, because if you think about it, like now I
00:17:53
Speaker
I don't know how to speak Tlingit. I am trying to learn and there's many people that are you know bringing our languages back to life. they weren't They weren't lost but they were definitely, it's taken a little bit of while and a work to get that, you know to bring them back to you know back to where it was and it may maybe we'll never be back to where it was as we're losing a lot of our elders who do know those languages.
00:18:18
Speaker
You know but we're definitely putting a lot of emphasis on learning our native languages and being able to do that but it's, you know, those are things that are really tough, um you know, people that came back that maybe didn't have the experience of growing up hunting and fishing so some people as adults are learning that.
00:18:34
Speaker
And so there's just, there's a number of things I think that we really need to address when it comes to that, you know, to the trauma and to the things that have happened, because there are generations, I have listened to their stories about when they, you know, went away to boarding schools and what it's like coming back and then being a parent, you know, to kids and having to tell them what that was like. Like, yeah. And even imagining, could you imagine your,
00:18:58
Speaker
your kids at that age. it It reminds me of like two things. A couple months ago I was talking to somebody who is from the Blackfeet Confederacy and she was saying that her kids are relearning their language. She never learned their language. But her father
00:19:18
Speaker
Or was it her grandfather may have been her grandfather knew the language got sent off to boarding school and the nose or father and and in even though the kids were learning the language and he was so proud of them he was afraid to to even speak it because of the way he was treated and in boarding school and it kind of reminds me of my grandparents, I'm black. um They grew up in South Carolina and they they weren't you know weren't allowed to essentially vote um even when things like poll taxes didn't work or you know yeah you know they would put out ah jars of jelly beans and you'd have to guess the number if you're black to be able to vote. um
Advocacy for Police Cultural Training
00:20:01
Speaker
But even when that didn't work, terror was used
00:20:05
Speaker
And I remember my grandmother saying, you know, she passed away a little more than a decade ago, that she was even reluctant to vote to the day she died. And I think people don't think about how these scars that happened 50, 60, 70 years before a person is born still reverberate. and I just kept on thinking of that as you were talking.
00:20:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's very true. And, you know, we kind of had similar, you know, circumstances um here where, you know, when you first get voting passed, it's like, okay, well, five white people need to sign off that you're civilized and that you can vote.
00:20:43
Speaker
I mean, some of the rules that they would they would put in and it you know took a while to then you know get our, um for indigenous people to have their voting rights. So um you know we have all these instances of these different communities that have really been you know suppressed. And so it takes a little while to get over that. And yeah, so it's, yeah, it's tough. and Yeah, it's not one of those things where you can snap your fingers and say, today it's all fair. Go, go, go go forth without the scars that have been passed on. Right. And then, you know, like you said, the intergenerational trauma that exists that's still
00:21:20
Speaker
um affects communities today. and And sort of thinking in that same vein of what affects communities today, are the what are the challenges that Alaskan natives you think are facing their top challenges? are And are they similar to the challenges that other indigenous people in the United States or in North America are facing?
00:21:42
Speaker
you know i I've heard a lot about you know the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people that it really has been ah worldwide. you know I've seen reports coming out of Canada and other places, you know definitely in lower 48 states as well, so I definitely think that you know circumstances like that are happening.
00:22:03
Speaker
um And I've definitely talked with you know different um organizations and tribes and you know what the efforts that they're doing to bring advocacy and awareness. So that you know that's kind of one topic you talk a lot about. you know We mentioned voting. I've done a lot of work around voting. And we have similar um issues of having um access to voting um that's been a problem across Alaska and the lower 48 and other places as well.
00:22:31
Speaker
um So just really sharing um those circumstances, but there are some unique challenges I think that Alaska has too with you know how large we are as a state. um you know We're very diverse and you know getting to different places. I mentioned that we took the ferry to get around in Southeast Alaska when you can think about you know being up north A lot of times, you know, the waterways, the rivers, you know, being able to use the boats to get back and forth from communities or snow machines or dog sleds or whatever way that they need to get across during the winter and summer months. um So a lot of our villages are not um accessible unless you're by boat or by plane and then weather difficulties. So that makes a lot of um complications when it comes to things like public safety, for example,
00:23:23
Speaker
um you know or getting you know thinking about getting food into those communities, how expensive it is as well. So there's different kind of economical challenges as well when you're looking at, okay, I got to pay for these really high energy costs in addition to this gallon of milk cost me $10 or more. yeah um So there's a lots of different things. And so really understanding too that we need to rely on our traditional ways of life and hunting and fishing.
00:23:50
Speaker
And we do have a lot of impacts that come down from federal and state laws and regulations, try to regulate how we can fish and hunt. And so that also becomes, you know, can be problematic at times, you know, when we have different ceremonies that we do, which might not be during the regular hunting time. So we have to go make sure we ask permission and go through the the right rules and laws and filling out forms to ensure that we can do that.
00:24:18
Speaker
And then during COVID, for example, we um I know there were communities that weren't getting you know the food in and seeing lots of pictures of empty shelves, so they had applied, some communities applied for like a special hunt permit, um got it from the federal government, and then got were able to go out and hunt you know kind of what's considered the off-season for hunting, and then got sued by the state.
00:24:42
Speaker
So it's like even when we go through some of the right ways to be able to do things, um you know, we run into complications that way. So um there are some different hurdles when it comes to um multiple different avenues of even living our ways of life.
00:25:00
Speaker
Well,
Alaska's Tribal Systems and State Policy Interactions
00:25:01
Speaker
I was thinking of one thing, you know, i i I had just learned this this year in this definitely a lower 48 thing for sure. I wonder how it plays out in Alaska. But I was talking to one of my friends who's indigenous and she was going out, um you know, harvesting rice and then fishing for her family for, you know, with her dad and her son for like, you know, it's going to be a half year of the fish that they were going to um to get. And she was telling me a lot about the right and authority to manage you know fishing and wildlife on tribal land, particularly on the reservations where she was or the land that used to be a part of the reservations. But I know the reservation system is slightly different in Alaska. how to What connotes tribal land for these kinds of things for you all in Alaska?
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah, we definitely have um a different setup than the lower 48, and so we might do have to do another podcast on that one. Because instead of setting up reservations, ah we do have one down in Metlakatla, but we only have one small reservation in Alaska. The rest, um we went through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, where they set up um Native corporations.
00:26:22
Speaker
So we have our native corporations um for different regions of the state. And then we have 229 federally recognized tribes and we have village corporations. So we have kind of multi layers. So 229, that's almost half of the tribes in the United States. Is that right? Yeah, we have more than like half of the, yeah. So we have a lot of, and we have lots of, um so the, I'm a tribal citizen of the Tlingit and Haida.
00:26:52
Speaker
central council down in um southeast Alaska where that's a regional tribe. And so we have um you know larger tribes, are very small tribes. So yeah, there's um a lot of different cultures, a lot of different tribes and people all across the state. And I think sometimes You know when you look at maps oftentimes of like the lower 48 they have Alaska down in like the corner of this little tiny thing. but they Actually like much bigger. and You put Alaska over the over the U.S. I mean we're two and a half the times the size of Texas and so we pretty much fill up like.
00:27:26
Speaker
We superimpose Alaska over the rest of the US. We take up a big, you know, big chunk of it. So just thinking about the different ways that um we live in the different regions, everywhere from, I grew up in a rainforest. So a lot of rain, wear lots of extra tough boots. But if you're up north, you know, it's year out in the tundra, which is a totally different atmosphere. So it's um a lot ah a lot of different lot of different things, but not in one state.
00:27:55
Speaker
Well, and i I think for a lot of us, um yeah I think a lot of us in the United States take for granted, and I'm sure this exists in Anchorage and other spots like that. Like I call, if I were to call 911 right now, there would probably five to seven minutes the cops would be here and soon after the EMTs would be right behind them. um And if it took them 15 minutes, everyone would be outraged.
00:28:22
Speaker
ah But I think about a place as vast and as rural as Alaska, whether you're native or not native, but particularly for the native communities, like help is not necessarily right around the corner from the state or from local governments. Does that change ah what people in their communities have to do to sort of take care of themselves as communities?
00:28:49
Speaker
Yeah, most definitely. um We don't have a 911 system really in Alaska. we If you're out in rural Alaska, you're not going to call you get you don't call 911. We don't have that system that's really set up like you would think about. We have it in our urban centers. um So we're I've been pushing for a number of years to update our 911 system to get one that works because a lot of times if someone dials 911, they get routed to a whole other community, which is miles and miles away. Wow and so yeah there's and so we have um you know we have our state troopers um we have a village public safety officer program and then you know some communities might have tribal police but really the you know vast majority of our villages um do not have any um kind of public safety and if something does happen in that community then you know you might be calling the troopers where they could be hours to days in order to get out there oh wow they so
00:29:45
Speaker
it It's weather dependent. I know of communities where I've talked with tribal leaders where the tribal leader really had to be the person to step in. I, unfortunately, have heard of numerous stories. um One of our tribal leaders you know shared the story even on the record in the legislature when we were pushing for Senate Bill 151 about um there was a murder of a young girl.
00:30:11
Speaker
And there's no there was no one there. you know They had to call troopers to come in. And it was on the community to be protecting um the scene. So when people come in, you know they could you know process the scene, but it took them you know multiple hours um to get there. I think he said like 16 hours or more um you know to be able to get there. So it was on the community to be there.
00:30:36
Speaker
and watching over that. But in addition, think about all of the stress on this really small community of knowing that one of their um community members was murdered, someone in their community had committed that crime, and just the amount of angst and anger and sadness. And hope wasn't going to be here soon, and we're mourning, and we're upset, and all those things are happening at the same time. same time. So I imagine like the relationship between the public safety agencies and um particularly for the more remote
00:31:17
Speaker
um remote communities, I imagine it has to be, or it needs to be strong for it to be effective. There need to be good relationships. And I i know you've done some work around, um you and you know many of your partners have done some work around that. Could you talk a little bit about that?
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's actually a perfect day. I just i was participating in some of the um cultural training review that's happening at the Department of Public Safety. But I'll i'll back up a little bit um first. In 2018, myself and another individual, Charlene Upbuck, we got together and we met and we started talking about the work that we were doing, specifically around public safety, um lack of data and missing or indigenous women. um And so we had a conversation and we and we just realized a lot of our work was culminating together. And so we decided, well, we need to do this. We need to start working together. So we started creating what's called the MMIWG2S Alaska Working Group, and so which now consists of five Alaska Native nonprofit organizations. And we get together every single week.
00:32:29
Speaker
And we work together on anything from policy to data to advocacy, education. You know, we have um families that have had, you know, gone through their family members have been missing or been murdered that contact us.
00:32:46
Speaker
um We work with law enforcement, and we just really try to figure out how we can make change here in Alaska. And so some of our recent efforts um that we did this that we've done in the last couple years of making a really big stride and changing is we advocated to get missing and murdered Indigenous persons um positions at the Department of Public Safety. So now we have four MMIP investigators So we work directly with the commissioner and with the legislature to get um funding um for those four positions. And we also
Education and Advocacy for Indigenous Rights
00:33:21
Speaker
have now an MMIP statewide attorney general assistant attorney general to help in that area.
00:33:32
Speaker
And MMIP, Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, and MMIWG2S, what did that stand for? I imagine missing, murdered, Indigenous women, girls, and something. Two-spirit. Two-spirit. So, missing, murdered Indigenous women and girls in two-spirit. What does the two-spirit part mean?
00:33:52
Speaker
So we really encompassed, um so I'm going to go back and say there's kind of multiple different acronyms right that we that we've used throughout this time. you know It really started as MMIW, missing more indigenous women, missing more indigenous women and girls. And really, I think the focus became on that because we had such high rates um of women and girls that were going missing, you know, then it kind of switched to MMIP to ensure that we're including some of the men, you know, that have been missing and some that have been murdered as well. But also with MMIWG2S, you know, with Two Spirit, as we're really encompassing, you know, all of our all of our people. The community, the relatives. The community relatives. We've used MMIR, Missing More Indigenous Relatives. So all of these different, you know, acronyms are really, um
00:34:43
Speaker
I don't want to say one the same, but pretty, you know, kind of one in the same almost as, um, same spirit. Yeah. As you know, how we're encompassing that. And when we, you know, I think it really started with emphasizing, you know, the women and girls, because that's,
00:35:00
Speaker
A lot of the people that we've seen that and in general through our data is that it's been the women and girls that have been getting higher rates of you know domestic violence, sexual assault that have been murdered, but we also understand that they're you know with MMIP that um you know men are part of this as well.
00:35:20
Speaker
um yeah i ah Do you ever like long for the day of where we don't have to put the word indigenous in there and that we just sort of like, we as a country or people around the world just care equally about all people who are missing, all people who are murdered?
00:35:42
Speaker
yeah you know I definitely hope that we can get to a point where i don't where I don't have to do this work anymore and that we can all learn to just be respectful and treat each other all with respect and love, because this is it's really tough um for anybody you know to go through these things. and But I think what's happening is you know we've seen we've seen in the media, we've seen in the data where indigenous people have gone missing in that regard. um there Those cases,
00:36:13
Speaker
are not being you know blown up to the national level. You're not hearing about it. We've known you know for many years that this has been an issue, and it just hasn't been talked about. It hasn't been talked about in the media, and it really wasn't until we had some data and numbers to show like, hey, indigenous people actually are going missing and being murdered at a higher rate.
00:36:36
Speaker
and so We had to really start collecting that data. If you saw from the Urban Indian Health Institute, they put out a report, which I think really helped jumpstart. Folks out of Canada were doing some reports as well. and It's really helped put this issue on the map of saying, like this is needs to be addressed and needs to be addressed now.
00:36:57
Speaker
yeah yeah and It's interesting to your point about like bringing data to the table and it not being a new problem, maybe for different reasons, but I imagine it's really truly been a problem that's been going on since cuinial colonization, maybe for different reasons now, but um it's interesting that you had to And I think that goes back to the public policy thing, too, that and it's a very American thing of show me your data right now um to prove that the the sky is blue. i a One of the things that you had mentioned just a second ago, you had said that you know you you you were able to get those positions for people who are going to focus on missing and murdered Indigenous people.
00:37:42
Speaker
and And you also mentioned an attorney general, I assume a prosecutor in that role who's going to be focused on that or is it? I wanted to ask why you think that's important to have those dedicated resources to this kind of long running problem and how that might help.
00:38:02
Speaker
Yeah, so we had just, again, i when it comes to policy and I, you know, I spent a lot of years in policy, they do ask for the data and the numbers they want to see, you know, it's an issue. And so we did have to go back, you know, collect data and try to present you know information to them. But I'll share this. so We were talking with um the commissioner, and he said this to us and on the record, you know i you know, I didn't know that this was such a huge issue until they hired their first MMIP investigator. They hired one person. She was overwhelmed, and within a few months, um she left the position. So we said, okay, we need to hire two people. They hired two, and he's like, oh my gosh, this isn't enough. We need to hire four. And he's going to say that we could probably have as many as six.
00:38:47
Speaker
So of that i mean to help paint the picture of understanding that there are a number of cold cases that just have not been worked on, there's a number of cases that are coming in um that need attention, need to to get worked on. So we have such high rates that we do need to have these really specific investigators to be addressing the cold cases, to bring closure to families, and also to be addressing the new cases um that are unfortunately coming up at this point. But we've really we've had to demonstrate that need. And when the commissioner saw it through these positions and hearing from families and hearing from communities, um he was got fully on board and was like, yep, we need to make this happen. And so that's how we also ended up. We had an MMIP statewide council for a little while that's kind of moved into a working group now.
00:39:41
Speaker
um But there needed to be some really specific actions on how we address public safety and how we're addressing these cases throughout um Alaska. and so it And we've heard from families too, where they need to have you know much more open communications. And so one of the pieces of the bill that we passed this year also included mandatory cultural training um for law enforcement. And so that's a meeting I was in today, is they're getting ready to launch a new cultural training for all law enforcement as well. By the way, I thought that was the coolest thing because when I was reading the bill, I'm like, okay, I've seen
00:40:18
Speaker
you know, a hundred of hundred ah hundred of these bills where the state prescribes what you need to do to be a police officer. And you know, it said basic police officer training, that makes sense. And then it was like minimum ah education requirements or forget what the other piece of it was. And then the third thing was this training that all police officers had to take this cultural training about indigenous, missing and murdered indigenous people done by a coordinator who was who's experiencing that and I was like, wow, I don't think I've ever seen a state where you look at the requirements for police officers and you have three or however many, even if you have 20,
00:41:03
Speaker
um and In those three requirements, one of them relates to missing and murdered indigenous people and indigenous cultural awareness. Was that was that was that ah did you but that a hard thing to to get in there?
00:41:18
Speaker
um It's something that we've worked on for the last few years. um Really the the bill that got passed this year is part of a number of different ideas and really ideas that came from our communities and came from families when we we're identifying some of the difficulties and communication with um law enforcement was a big one. And that's really how we got to some of the cultural trainings. And it was also um myself and a few other my partners and kind of sisters in this work. We were at the serving on a municipal ah commission and we saw some of their cultural trainings and kind of made us um get more
00:42:00
Speaker
um a larger voice in this work as well because we saw some of the trainings that we were doing that they were doing and they really were inappropriate and I think that's one harm. So after like those videos, and after hearing from our communities, we really, really pushed for the cultural trainings And I think it's going to be really beneficial to enhance um communications um between law enforcement and communities and having a real understanding of what Alaska is like because we get a lot of people from the lower 48 that have never been here. And then you're going out to rural Alaska. I mean, that's really tough. We have, you know, lots of different um cultures, um lots of different tribes, often different different ways of life.
00:42:42
Speaker
And so by giving that base, really this basic training to understand who we are as Alaskans, as Alaska Native people, I think that's really going to enhance relationships. And by building those relationships, you're going to have um much better communication so people are going to hopefully then be able to talk with law enforcement more openly or you know if they're out in the community and so you know something happens that people will want to talk to them you know because that's we really want to see those relationships build and they need to understand what it's like and let's not go into our communities and kind of you know push their beliefs on other folks or not know how to communicate so attending the
00:43:27
Speaker
just kind of the overview of what we're working working on building this training up, I think it's going to be really beneficial for for everybody, for the communities and for the troopers for success. Because we know, I think, anywhere, probably around the world, that for any community where, you know, the police come in and sort of like, don't respect, let's say, your traditions or your perspective Or you know the really hostile relationships or fear is somehow in there that people don't pick up the phone to call they don't cooperate and all it does is sort of like harm the community in a different way it becomes a kind of.
00:44:06
Speaker
no one situation, but I was thinking about what you were saying about the training and I was thinking about all the different cultures that you mentioned. And I imagine like a part of it is it isn't so much picking up knowledge about the different cultures, but knowing how to ask the right questions from you know people when you get there to find to educate yourself about the culture before you start stomping around with your boots. your rules and all those other things because i you know I'm just thinking about myself this weekend I'm actually going to a powwow in Minnesota and I have a hundred questions before I get there because they're probably things that I couldn't even possibly
00:44:51
Speaker
I think think of or even think to ask. And I wonder for for for your law enforcement officers, it's really about sort of like slowing down and asking the right questions when they're in communities. Is that a part of it, that critical thinking and that critical pause to to make sure you're being respectful of the culture and supportive and things like that?
00:45:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah and you know it's giving a little bit of history um about you know maybe some things on why we are the way we are, I guess. It's giving a little bit of history about the colonization. It's giving a little history about maybe where some trauma's coming in.
00:45:31
Speaker
But it's also talking about like our way of life um you know around hunting and fishing to understand what it's even like in Alaska. um And not just like native people are hunting and fishing. I mean, all Alaskans are. So you know when you go into a community, why are we so busy in doing these things? like Understand it's fishing season or it's hunting season. so i think you know Or if you're going into a community,
00:45:53
Speaker
Also, knowing those protocols that are, you know, important to do because like, you know, if you're going into a village of maybe just a couple hundred people and like a new person shows up, they're like, oh my God, who are you? What are you doing here? Like what's that proper protocol is, you know, calling the, you know, the tribal leader ahead of time, you know, knowing those things that you may not know, understandably, if you're from lower 48 coming up and into Alaska for the first time, you know, so those things I think are important to know too. So you really get off on the right foot.
00:46:23
Speaker
But one other thing I do want to say when it comes to cultural training is while it might be focused on Indigenous, so we also understand and recognize, you know, we have a very diverse communities throughout Alaska. um We have some of the most diverse high schools in the nation with over 100 languages spoken here out where I live in East Anchorage. And so when we talk about, you know, Indigenous, we've also talked about, well, we have, you know, a number of different um cultures and diversity. So also mentioning and recognizing that, you know, that there are many communities and that that, you know, it's it's a lot to take in, but we have just understanding that and knowing when you come into Alaska, it's, you know, a very diverse place.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yeah, because i you know I think about places like where you grew up, it certainly has a long running native influence. Obviously, there's an American influence, but there's also British cultural influence, Russian cultural influence. Alaska is a much more diverse place than I think we tend to think, both in terms of its history, institutions.
00:47:29
Speaker
and other things like that. I was thinking about the cultural training and I was wondering, you know, and I was thinking about that point about having good relationships. I imagine it's sort of like a two-way street too because for your tribal leaders, they probably need to understand the way that law enforcement operates or how to interact with them. Is it kind of a two way street in terms of what you guys are trying to accomplish? Not necessarily just purely through the legislation, but I mean more broadly to develop those relationships, those bonds, those positive relationships.
00:48:06
Speaker
For sure. I've always said, you know, two-way street. So when I'm talking with, um whether it be commissioners or tribal leaders, um you know, it's how can we help you, but also like it's reciprocal. And so sometimes that, you know, I'll have people at Department of Public Safety reach out to me with questions and I reach out to them with questions. And I think just fostering those relationships and understanding what we need is important.
00:48:32
Speaker
And, you know, understanding what our communities need as well because that's one thing i I've talked a lot about in different circles is each community needs different things. Maybe they want a village public safety officer, but maybe they don't. Maybe they want a tribal police officer or maybe they want, you know, maybe their priority is a community health aid because they don't have one. So,
00:48:54
Speaker
Where can we meet the communities on where they are as well so it's not a one size fits all and i think that that's where the really building communications through. um You know tribe state federal all the different agencies is really important so we're not pushing things on communities that they don't want.
00:49:15
Speaker
And, you know, and I think for communities also, you know, saying what they want, but also how can the how can the state help them in certain ways. So definitely a two way street. And I think that always said communication is key and that's what we really want to build. And so just really opening up. um you know different ways of viewing things different ways of working together so we have lots of layers of. Governments you know we have our our tribal sovereign governments cuz they're all you know we are two hundred and twenty nine tribes we have. You know our municipal governments and we have our state government there's all these different layers and they really need to learn. um To work together.
00:49:57
Speaker
Right. But one of the things that I was kind of interested in, and
Cultural Understanding and Public Safety
00:50:01
Speaker
I watched some of the hearings around the Senate bill and you know watched video of the commissioner speaking and other people speaking. And one of the things that surprised me, um and i I imagine, and this is just my guess, so correct me if I'm wrong, Alaska probably has a higher percentage of of ah of native residents than the lower 48. But one of the things that really surprised me was how on board um so many of the state officials like the yeah like like the commissioner, like the legislators who were talking,
00:50:44
Speaker
And I imagine it hasn't always been like that. Those relationships have not been like that. How how have you guys been able to develop those relationships in that focus? I know you gave the example of just education helped with the commissioner and going hands-on through the experience of trying to do something about these cases. But that's one thing I imagine for um a lot of indigenous communities in the lower 48 that that they would be helpful to to understand how you develop the relationships piece of it.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely took us a while to get to this point. So there was a lot of education, behind the scenes work, and also understanding this was not our first year of introducing this bill. um We've introduced it um multiple other times when we couldn't even get a hearing. so right um and so i And as I've stressed communication and relationships, um and it's really taken people that want to sit down and talk with us. So I've been really,
00:51:47
Speaker
We've been putting out a lot of education awareness and advocacy. So that's one piece of it, right? So multiple of our organizations, like I said, we have the working group, we have other partners that we work with. And so really, we've done big education pushes. um We have had you know one-on-one meetings with legislators.
00:52:05
Speaker
I'm talking about it and really having to do a lot of educating ahead of time, um you know, before like bills come out before we even introduce them. So we've done a lot of like one on one meetings. And it's been honestly, it's been really helpful because of the fact that I worked in the legislature. And so I have a lot of those relationships. And so there were times maybe when um I've called some offices and maybe they, you know,
00:52:30
Speaker
um When we didn't have as supportive people that didn't really want to address it or didn't want to talk about it and but we just continue calling and we just continue pushing out information and ask and providing those information and questions we host lunch and learns we. We go to you know all different places um i sat on.
00:52:49
Speaker
ah Lots of different boards and commissions and we talk about this um you know community council so it's it's lots of different spaces where we bring this up and so just building relationships and talking with people has been huge.
00:53:04
Speaker
Yeah, and I think if you don't have experience in the, you know, in legislative environments, I think it's really easy to sort of think that, you know, the first no that you get means no, and the person is not interested, but I have a friend in DC who likes to say, when you're lobbying, no means just come back tomorrow.
00:53:22
Speaker
i just but yeah Yeah, you can't give up and you have to, and sometimes, and we definitely face some really but really uneducated comments, um some really kind of just not great experiences either. And it's still having to push through that and understand, okay, they really don't know about our cultures. They don't, maybe they don't know at all about rural Alaska, so we just need to Educate them some more and keep talking and keep showing up and that's what we do. We kept showing up and I was really thankful. um I got introduced to, she's now the commissioner, um Commissioner Kim Koval. We had built a relationship with her and then we were able to build a relationship with Commissioner Cockrell who's there, who's now you know been really supportive.
00:54:12
Speaker
um of the different changes and so it's taken you know and we've talked to people before them who maybe were not as supportive or interested or maybe other things to do so it's just continuing to talk to people continuing to build those relationships to help.
00:54:28
Speaker
move things forward, but also we're not just doing it on the state level. So that's just like one piece of our work, right? We have to think about how are we addressing it and taking care of communities. So so at the Alaska Native Women's Resource Center, we built a toolkit that we can provide to communities to understand, okay, and the toolkit is prepping, you know, really prepping your communities for times when someone might be going missing. What is it that you need to do? What are the steps that you need to take to ensure that you're you know writing down exactly what that person was wearing? Making sure that you report that person missing because some people believe you need to wait 24 hours. And we have a big campaign saying, no, do not wait 24 hours. Report people right away.
00:55:14
Speaker
if they've gone missing. So there's lots of other pieces that we do to work with communities, to work with tribes, and then talking with them like I mentioned earlier, what do you need in your community? Is it public safety? Is it health aids? Who is it that we that we can help support for you?
00:55:31
Speaker
And so it's a lot of it's just a lot of a lot of that work. And it takes while our organization does this work, there's lots of organizations that do this you know as well. And so it's being able to communicate and talk to each other about that too.
00:55:46
Speaker
Yeah, and that was one of the, you know, one of the things that you mentioned in there was the, you know, collecting the information and knowing when to report people and all those myths that around that around that and that tool kind of sounds like a great idea. But one of the things I was super impressed by, um if you try to find data on, you know, specific indigenous, andm missing people who are indigenous across the United States, you get a wide variety of, you know,
00:56:16
Speaker
All sorts of different data depending on what state you're in or whether the Bureau of Indian Affairs is involved or whether the FBI is involved or wherever it was. But one of the things you had mentioned, Charlene, before that you know the data that they've collected is a lot better than even some of the data that the FBI collects on the cases that it's it's involved in, or excuse me, it's a Justice Department NamUs database, and it's just neat to see people to, you know, someone on a local level, on a state level to build something like that, that could hopefully be a model for other, if not other, well, I guess, states that are investing into addressing the problems or tribal police departments that are trying to address. I wonder whether that toolkit, I guess what I'm saying is,
00:57:03
Speaker
Whether it has um export potential to to to our side of canada over here. yeah well you know I think we all learn from each other for sure. um yeah you know and When I like look at policies and what could we do in Alaska to help improve things, I definitely look across other states and countries to say, what are they doing? and so I hope some of the things maybe we do in Alaska might be beneficial for another place. and You always have to, as I say, i kind of Alaskanize things and so you have to make it work for your state. but
00:57:35
Speaker
In twenty eighteen when we started putting you know this working group together one of the things we want to do at a rally was read um names of those that have gone missing or being murdered as just remembrance and uplifting them and remembering them you know cuz they're people they're not just data points.
00:57:52
Speaker
And there was no list. and We were like, wait, what? Where's all this data? And so literally, Charlene started collecting all of these names and communities and families were coming forward and giving like giving these names because we really recognize that that information is not being collected really. And we need to hone our own database and it's much in the data for Indigenous justice that, ah you know, Charlene and others, um her board started and she's really been um pushing forward in this is having this database that is comprehensive and taking into account all of the information that we have from families. And um now there's her first report came out, you know, at 229 names. And I
00:58:38
Speaker
and she's i know she's me working on another report where she's collected over a thousand you know so as time goes on and it's really she's home that database it's not something that we should that she shares out because it's you know it's hers but she'll definitely you know work with folks but i think people are really willing to share that information because she built these relationships with people and she's also really understanding how other law enforcement are collecting data and how it's put in their system because the systems also don't talk to each other. So they're going to have different data like the FBI or somewhere else because of all these different data systems. So if they collect their data and let's say that, you know, if they put in one of the things was they were putting in how they're missing,
00:59:25
Speaker
um Whether it's environmental or suspicious, they were all just missing. So you didn't know if it was environmental until you had to really dig into the data. So she really pushed to say, well, can you make it like, is it environmental or is it suspicious or what is it? So it's really having to break that down and having those conversations. So I really appreciate her conversations of getting into those data points.
00:59:49
Speaker
And then also to the point too of making sure that Alaskan natives are being um represented and not just, sometimes you might look at an individual and not ask if they're native or not, you know, and just mark them down as white. So some people are just marked down with no, you know, that being recognized that they're Alaskan native, because, you know, a few, and my friends call me the white raven.
01:00:13
Speaker
but I am Tlingit Raven-Kixaudy, so I'm Tlingit Raven-Frog. and so um From my background, that's you know that's who I am. and You look at me and you're not going to look at me and go, oh, you're native, of course. I'm really bent up as the White Raven. and so If they're just someone's going to look at me, they might not mark me down as Tlingit, even though on all my records, I obviously am.
01:00:39
Speaker
But you have to ask those questions. And you and that's the other part of training like law enforcement. And that's i brand that I brought that up in the cultural training meeting just today, saying, look, you can't just look at someone and because your data points have been wrong. And we know this to be true. You need to talk with community members. you know I'm Glingit. I'm German. I'm Irish. So there you go. like Mark me down for all of that, but you can't.
01:01:06
Speaker
right know but sometimes they'll just mark, oh, you might be multiracial. Well, that doesn't account for anything then. you We're missing in the data if you don't mark it down correctly. and And as we know, the data points become important because when we want to make policy changes, they ask for the data. And if we don't have it, they're like, oh, maybe it's not an issue. Maybe it is, but come back to us when you have the data.
01:01:31
Speaker
You know so we know that those things are important sort of getting on the ground in the beginning and make sure I was gonna ask you a quick question about the cultural training is that something it'll obviously apply to all new police officers are you guys gonna go backwards and have the other the you know previously certified police officers go through something as well.
01:01:53
Speaker
Yup, they get it in the beginning and it's going to be part of training that's going to happen every year. So it won't be even like a one and done type of thing. It's going to be um ongoing training. So it'll be in the first when you're bringing folks on board and then it will be in additional trainings kind of throughout throughout the time. so and And that builds in accountability, which is nice when you know you're coming back again kid and you're gonna have to report on how it went. yeah um One of the things that um I was kind of thinking about as you were talking about some of these challenges like around public safety and other things like that, are there underlying challenges that you see that need to be addressed or will be in the next phase of things that need to be addressed?
01:02:42
Speaker
Yeah, most definitely. I think that's really what, you know, we kind of put our her wish list of things together. And so the bill that passed this year for state policy for our state policy is um things that we knew we could get passed. But that doesn't mean that we are done by any means. There's a lot of work to be done. And some of this in the realms of Public safety funds, for example, ensuring that we have public safety in all the communities that need it. So um we continue to push for that. We're pushing for, you know, the other things like um tribal police and enhancing our tribal courts. And I think that's also really important to understand that, you know, our
01:03:25
Speaker
Our communities and our our tribes are sovereign, have their own tribal court systems and making sure that those are supported because there are so many great things about tribal courts um that it's a much more restorative justice system. So, for example, if you know a law may be broken, you might, you sit down with your with your elders and with the people in the community and you can talk to people and having like healing wellness and talking circles and you think of more restorative kind of justicings. So we're not just gonna, you know, lock it up. How do we bring you back in? How do we bring you back in, right? Exactly. And so I think that's, those are things that are really important that all interplay with each other, right? So all of these different things are really important to come back to.
01:04:12
Speaker
you know There are definitely some specific you know public safety things that we're looking at, MMIP things, um but also when talking about a lot of the work that I do at the resource center is um also related to domestic violence and sexual assault. So we have some funding that's been decreasing over the years um to support our shelters and prevention efforts. So we're looking at more ways that we can put in prevention efforts.
01:04:37
Speaker
um and bringing those specific ideas from communities to our state leaders um and saying, okay, we need these projects. yeah I was curious about the things like prevention efforts, because I imagine like if you're facing domestic abuse, even in a highly populated, but you could be in an apartment building with 100 neighbors that you all get along with. it's It's often very secret and people may not know,
01:05:04
Speaker
um but I imagine in a rural community, a rural tribal community where you're very isolated and there may not be a women's shelter in the town over or something else like that, like what what does prevention look like?
01:05:22
Speaker
Yeah, um definitely a good question. um And so some of the things that we're, you know, we've been looking at is like safe housing options. And so some of those things of changing around how do you fund and ensure that there are safe housing options and sometimes there's different law and policies that kind of don't work for rural Alaska, but I think really working with the communities to ensure there is safe housing. It may not be a specific shelter, but maybe there's a house in the community that you know. Maybe it's being able to get someone out of town. So how do you do that? Whether it's the victim or survivor of domestic violence, or maybe you need to remove, honestly, in my opinion, I think you should be removing the person that's causing the harm out of the community. The abuser, right? Yeah.
01:06:08
Speaker
How do you do that but also understanding that there's we talked about this before there's underlying trauma that's happening with our communities so even for the you know the abusers what's happening or happened to them that's creating this issue so how can you address that and.
01:06:26
Speaker
One of the ways we've really talked about is culture being our best protective factor we're actually getting ready to do our prevention and wellness summit. um For the resource center just um this next week and we're really focusing on how you know culture is that best protective
Hopes and Future for Native Communities
01:06:41
Speaker
factor is knowing your.
01:06:43
Speaker
you know, you're hunting, fishing, gathering, um making yourselves, making all these different things, but being involved in the community, being brought into the community in that way, because remember, as we talked about, we talked about colonization, we talked about things that maybe that person didn't learn to hunt or fish, and there's certain things that I really think if you can address trauma that's been happening and bring people into the communities in a different type of way,
01:07:12
Speaker
that that's gonna hopefully heal some of the trauma and maybe some of the things that they're portraying on other people. So I think- So like the idea if people don't feel as alone and isolated and they feel a sense of belonging, that would decrease the likelihood, right, of shattering, right, right, right.
01:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, there were some there were some different projects around um culture as a protective factor and especially when I was doing some work on suicide prevention is geared toward our youth and putting in a lot of culture aspects um for our youth in particular. And we were funding this project because we had high rates of suicide in some of our villages and it started going well but then the funding went away.
01:07:55
Speaker
You know, because a lot of the funding that's starting to come down is kicks in after someone's been victimized. And so we're trying to turn that around to say you need to put in some like prevention efforts ahead of time because that's the hardest part to get funding for. So it's a lot of those conversations too. And what does prevention look like, right? Because it can look like a lot of different ways.
01:08:16
Speaker
And I talked about the restorative justice center, the restorative justice kind of approach to it, because if we can catch you know youth maybe that are going down a bad path, we can kind of fix that before it goes down. And find good paths that can help the community and find, yeah, that makes sense. I have a path. You need to send some of them to go work in the legislature and get that experience early. So we have the next Kendra.
01:08:44
Speaker
but america Which actually brings me into a point like um you know I am I'm an absolute optimist but I don't think. I mean, I'm naive, but I don't think I'm not this naive to think that this is a problem that will be solved in your lifetime or my lifetime. So I was gonna ask you what you kind of hope for the future, hope for your children, hope for our lifetimes when it comes to indigenous people, whether they're in Alaska or other places.
01:09:21
Speaker
Gosh, well, I really hope that they solve this in my lifetime. And everyone learns to be kind and respectful and not hurt other people. But you're probably right. It might take a little longer, unfortunately, um to build in that. But um I think a lot of the things that i you know I think on and I brought up before is everyone has a place in this work or whatever work that you're doing. You're a musician, you're an artist, you're a policy nerd like me, you know, you're a data person. um There's a space for everyone to go in and make a difference. um Art speaks to people in much different ways in such powerful ways. so So does music. And there's also the need for those policy changes, but we all have to do that together. But without that really cohesive action, i
01:10:13
Speaker
you know and getting fed state and everyone to work together to start making you know, these types of changes I I fear that you know these types of issues will will will not be resolved. But i ben I'm also very optimistic in thinking, like looking at what we've been able to change in the last few years. And people, I feel like, ah you know starting to open in their eyes to the issue around missing or indigenous people, but it opens up this whole conversation around public safety. And then it opens up this whole conversation around communication and cultural awareness
01:10:47
Speaker
So, you know, really my hope for the future is that this continued education and advocacy, it won't be so hard because we have, you know, people that are in the know and they understand what's happening and hopefully looking at, you know, more ways that we can do prevention and thinking like, oh, you know, culture, that could be a really big part of it. And understanding like, yeah, that sounds great other than, you know, some of the ideas we're met with now, like, oh, come on, fishing isn't going to fix anything. But. It's really understanding the connections between all of the different things that are happening in our lives. Yeah, because it's like the example that you gave about your daughter with ah the fish. Like, that's a part of what ties her to her family. It's part of what ties her to her community. And it's a part of what, you know, allows all these other things like you mentioned, the tribal courts and the restorative justice, it allows all of them to work.
01:11:45
Speaker
And that sense of belonging also leaves people feeling less alone, less isolated, less likely to lash out. Like I think there's like a piece to kind of what you're saying that just so resonates with me about the importance of having a sense of um community in a community that not just like on the, I did this to you today, but the broader perspective can really help heal heal wounds um that exist within the community. But I also think like another piece of it is, for those who are of us who are not Native, is being able to see you all as a part of our community where we respect your traditions and respect your religion and respect your culture, but actually see you as us on um as a part of our broader community. And I don't know how we solve for that. Like, how do we solve for that?
01:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, and I think, you know, of course I talk a lot about indigenous community because that's like, you know, my work and what we do, but understand there's a lot of people out in rural Alaska that, you know, may not be indigenous, but they still really live, ah you know, the traditional way of hunting and fishing. and And it's, you know, it's that living in harmony piece and, you know, respecting each other and showing each other dignity. And even if you have different beliefs, that doesn't mean you need to push your beliefs on someone else, but it's learning that that deep respect.
01:13:16
Speaker
And I think another piece of this too is not every community or person is going to be the same. right I talked about this on how, you know, one community might have different needs. And so really thinking about you don't need to push on like, oh, you need to have, I'm going to say use public safety. You need to have a trooper because that's what you need. And when the community is like, maybe not, maybe we just actually want you to support our tribal court and we want to do it our way in the restorative way. of this way. So it's also respecting the cultures and the people and the communities on what they need and want, because if you push something on them that they don't want or they don't that's not gonna work, it's not a one size fits all thing. so And I think that can create some animosity too and pushing systems that don't work. So it's really respecting sovereignty as well. And that's what people really need to understand too, you know tribes are sovereign, but this not just for tribes, but it's for communities as well.
01:14:11
Speaker
Um, you know, even lower 48, I mean, the things that work here in Alaska, you know, probably what may not work there. So any of these ideas, you really take, look at it and then what does it fit for your community? But, you know, again, it comes down to that basic level of respect and communication that we all I think can have, you know, for each other. There's, like I said, there's over a hundred languages spoken here in Alaska. And I think that is so beautiful. Um, and I think that makes.
01:14:41
Speaker
you know makes everything so much richer and you know just being able to to experience those different cultures are is really great um and I appreciate that about you know living here in Alaska. Yeah i I imagine those things like respect and love will go far and if we can communicate on top of that well.
01:15:02
Speaker
We're probably in a much better world and a much better place, not just for um indigenous people, but for all of us. I wanted to thank you and give you a chance if you had any closing thoughts or a message you want to send. I felt like this conversation, you know it's certainly you know, kind of highlight some of the the challenges and some of the opportunities for Indigenous people. But I also, to the point that you were saying, it probably is instructive for anyone trying to build and maintain and get the value out of um out of communities. But I just wanted to see if there's anything you wanted to share before we were wrap
01:15:48
Speaker
I think we just solved the problem right there, right? If everybody can just be love and respectful of each other, I think we got it solved, right? ah but i um But I really, you know, I appreciate this time. I'm i'm glad that we had a chance to connect and it's very interesting the way that, you know, we get to meet each other through this, you know, vast different places that we live. But you know finding those commonalities and learning about each other and what's going on in our communities um I think is really cool and being able to share about it. So I just i appreciate um being able to be on today and meeting you. And thanks for you know highlighting highlighting this issue in Alaska. And hopefully people um kind of resonate and shake their heads. and
01:16:35
Speaker
um see what they can do to help too, right? i am you know i I feel the same way. I'm better for every one of these conversations that I have because I've always felt like the the more I know, the more that people are open with me about their culture and their needs and their communities, it just allows me to love them better. And I appreciate the opportunity to have this kind of conversation.
01:17:03
Speaker
so Yeah, thank you. And like I say, it's always a two-way street. So, you know, people that want to reach out and want to learn more, always happy to have those conversations. So it's it's great. So, goodness, thank you. I really appreciate it. Yeah, and thank you, too.
01:17:19
Speaker
If you would like to join us for more discussions with me and other listeners, we can be found on most social media platforms, including a listener-run Facebook group called the Silver Linings Fireside Chat. For deeper conversations with our guests and live conversations with other listeners, you can also join us on our Patreon at www.patreon dot.com forward slash the Silver Linings Handbook.
01:17:47
Speaker
This is Jason Blair and this is the Silver Linings Handbook Podcast. We'll see you all again next week.