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Rosalie Fish
209 Plays6 years ago
Rosalie Fish is a member of the Muckleshoot and Cowlitz tribes and is a competitive runner and college student. Rosalie made national headlines when she painted a red hand over her face in order to represent Missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). She also painted the MMIW hashtag on her leg and ran races for specific Indigenous women. Her actions of bravery have helped spark greater awareness about this issue and the issue of violence within a larger North American historical context.
Rosalie and I talk about Native Art, philosophical questions, running, something and nothing and making a difference.
Rosalie is a hero and an inspiration.
https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/04/14/rosalie-fish-student-athlete-and-activist-selected-as-truman-scholar/
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Transcript
Introduction and Land Acknowledgment
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing, creator and host Ken Vellante, editor and producer Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And before we begin this episode, I would like to acknowledge that this episode is being recorded.
00:00:27
Speaker
unoccupied native lands in the state of Oregon in the city of Albany, Oregon, which historically belong to the Kalapuya tribe.
Guest Introduction: Rosalie Fish
00:00:52
Speaker
I'm very excited to introduce Rosalie Fish, who is a member of the Muckleshoot and Kowlitz tribes, and I'm very excited to have her as a guest on this podcast to talk about her advocacy, about her running, about herself, and about art and a bit of bigger questions around philosophy.
00:01:22
Speaker
I just wanted to really just welcome you, Rosalie, and thank you for taking the time to join this podcast. Yeah. Thank you. Um, I want to just like to start off to introduce myself in my language. Um, we asked a sketch had Rosalie fish seats, the buckle shoot option. So I just said, hello, my name is Rosalie fish and I live on the muckle shoot reservation.
00:01:49
Speaker
And so my native language is called the Hoshuzid language, and that's what I practice and make an effort to introduce myself in. Yeah, thank you for, thank you for doing that. Could you tell us a bit about, you know, where you come from, your tribe and maybe your earlier years, what, what your experiences were or what type of, you know, young child you were?
Growing Up and Cultural Foundations
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:02:16
Speaker
So I was born on the Muckleshoot reservation where I lived with, I had two families since my parents were divorced. So two separate nuclear families that I lived with. And I was also a big part of my Muckleshoot canoe family and my powwow culture. So I really did grow up with that community, with my reservation,
00:02:42
Speaker
really with my traditions and my culture it was very important to me growing up and still is I spent a lot of my childhood dancing at powwows performing with my canoe family and singing traditional songs and events and these types of practices have really just become part of who I am and when I go home it's honestly it's every day. Part of my everyday schedule is
00:03:09
Speaker
is getting out to those cultural events and being with my family and being with my community because it really is, while I have my own nuclear families, our community is very united and very present with the way that we interact with each other and with our culture. And you had mentioned some of the things that you do with the traditional dance and music was
00:03:38
Speaker
Was art in culture and expression a big part of your formative years? I know you mentioned that, but could you go into a little bit more about the things you experienced and how it created a way that you relate to your culture and your art? Yeah, absolutely. What I really love about my traditional cultures
00:04:04
Speaker
The things that come with that are the various forms of art that I'm able to express myself in and also express my identity and my heritage. So one that I've mentioned a few times and is very universal around Native American communities is powwow. And so we have different categories of dance within powwow culture. And there's one specific story about the jingle dress type of dance
00:04:35
Speaker
And it's about a young girl who is sick, and then she's given a jingle dress, and they say have her dance in this jingle dress and it will heal her. And that's kind of the, I guess the origin of some of these powwow dances and traditions is that it's meant to heal. A lot of our art forms are meant for spiritual healing. And so that's how
00:05:01
Speaker
I guess my culture and my dance and my art, different forms of art and expression have really become important to me as a Native American individual because they do represent methods of healing and methods of also ways to connect with our heritage and with the things and the people who have made it possible for us to be here today. Thank you for that. I want to go to
Advocacy for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW)
00:05:30
Speaker
the importance of running for you. And in particular, for some listeners, it would be no secret that you became quite well known in the press. And as far as your appearance of having a red painted hand over your mouth,
00:05:58
Speaker
and also on your leg, the initials MMIW. Can you tell us about what made you decide that? And I know that you adopted that act.
00:06:20
Speaker
from another that had done it, a runner who had run on a Boston Marathon, and I believe she's taken on a mentorship role. Can you take us through your decision to do that and what that path has been like for you? Yeah, definitely. I can start at the very beginning when I found out about the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic.
00:06:47
Speaker
It's a crisis that has been recently named, and it pretty much encompasses the institutional and social issues that create a very vulnerable environment for indigenous women. So Native American women are extremely vulnerable to all forms of violence and are experiencing violence at much higher rates than any other demographic within the U.S.
00:07:15
Speaker
So an example of this would be in some counties, Native American women are 10 times more likely to be murdered than the national average. Along with this high rate, that means that murder is a third leading cause of death in Native women. And so unsurprisingly, living on a Native American reservation, I saw a lot of this violence against women.
00:07:42
Speaker
And it wasn't until I became a little bit older that I realized that the violence that was happening on my reservation was actually present in native communities across the United States and even in Canada. And that's when I really felt like this was something that needed to change and more importantly, it was something that the world needed to see because I wasn't even, I wasn't seeing any type of acknowledgement. I was 16 years old at the time and I saw
00:08:12
Speaker
no articles about women going missing, or I didn't see any news coverage when a community member was murdered. And so that led me to become inspired by the Boston Marathon runner, Jordan Marie Daniel, who she took a stand and she decided to do something when she painted a red handprint over her mouth, along with the initials MMIW.
00:08:41
Speaker
down her leg during her Boston Marathon run. She raised a lot of awareness about this epidemic. She showed me through her example that I could do something. I was a runner and still am. She showed me that I didn't need to be well-known or even really an adult to make a difference. I just had to have a platform. Yeah.
00:09:10
Speaker
It's a striking it's a striking Visual and I think that's part of why it's so effective and to be quite plain with you I mean, it's it's effective for me because I did not know the scope of the issue or even that it had been a you know, just the extent of the issue in that you know how it was being talked about and or not being talked about and ignored and
00:09:35
Speaker
But within within your community, what was the reality of, you know, outside of outside of your visibility? How long has there been vying to get attention over this over this issue in the kind of general public sphere and public policy and legislators? I mean, how long how long has this been going on? And unfortunately,
00:10:02
Speaker
This type of violence has been occurring for generations for, I would even say, like decades. I even, during the Siege of Wounded Knee, kind of based in the late 1800s, I'm reading this book by Mary Crow Dog called Lakota Woman, and she's talking about her experience as an activist. And yeah, reading it, she even mentions female Native American activists
00:10:33
Speaker
going missing and nobody talking about it. And so this has been going on since colonial times. And just now it's starting to get some light brought onto it and to really have a name focused on it. Because at first it really was just, this is the way that our lives are and we have no control over it. And now that with the Urban Indian Health Institute, who's in Seattle, they actually got some research together. They went out on
00:11:01
Speaker
very little resources because nobody was really supporting them. And they found all of the information they needed to really put some numbers on this and get also a diverse number of cases from all across the US that showed not only is this happening at extreme rates, but it's happening all over the country. And so I think a lot of, it wasn't necessarily that native communities didn't know it was happening. It was more, we didn't realize that it was happening to all of us.
00:11:30
Speaker
and we didn't realize that it could or should be named, it should be known, and more importantly, that it should be addressed because we're just now, and I mean in 2019, finally getting a little bit of acknowledgement from these bigger populations and even legislation. Ian, one of the things
00:11:59
Speaker
at the beginning of the podcast with the land acknowledgement that I announced. We had a pause of about 10 seconds and I was correlating that to that ratio of 10 times that in some counties Native American women are 10 times more likely to be murdered than the national average. It's an absolutely shocking and astounding
00:12:28
Speaker
thing to hear, you know, as as as a human. And for me, I got to tell you, Rosalie, I mean, I'm extremely inspired by what you've done. And I would actually say that you're a hero of mine, in the sense that the the the what you're doing is is is great and important. And I affirm it. But for you,
Activism and Personal Challenges
00:12:56
Speaker
It places you in a difficult position as advocating as you are and doing so visibly. What has been the reception to your running, to your act, to your bringing awareness to this issue? What's that been like for you?
00:13:20
Speaker
Being an advocate for my people and for my community is very rewarding in a lot of ways. To do nothing is to give up, and each day, that's what keeps me going, is to know that I can never give up. That's one of the most painful things that I can do. No matter how emotionally scouring or emotionally tolling, some of the work I do and the cases that I read, it can be just very heavy.
00:13:50
Speaker
I think to not do anything is much more of a disappointment. It would take much more of a toll on my psyche and my emotional health if I were to ever stop. And I think a very big misconception about activists, and especially indigenous activists, is it feels like something that we chose to do, which is not always the case. I would say that I didn't necessarily aim to be an activist or to be in the public eye.
00:14:20
Speaker
but rather I was tired of seeing my communities live in a way that was in violence. And I was tired of seeing indigenous women, indigenous girls become targets. And I was tired of living in fear. And so I wouldn't necessarily say that I wanted to be an activist, but more, I could not accept the conditions that indigenous people were living with anymore. Yeah. And, and, and thank you. I know the,
00:14:50
Speaker
I know the importance, just from hearing your TED Talk and listeners, Rosalie has a TED Talk that she presented in Seattle that you can find on YouTube. I highly recommend that you listen to that. But in listening to those things, I felt and knew after listening to you how important running was for you both.
00:15:18
Speaker
physically and mentally and That kind of spurred my thinking I had mentioned to you my my brother's a runner and I'm very close to my brother He lives out out east, but I think I saw for him experientially and and What it did for him in his two teenage years? Just just just that outlet just that Place to put all the energies that we have inside of us as humans. I think we need to put them places in
00:15:48
Speaker
Um, for you, what, what is, what is running done? Just specifically you running in, in excelling and running. What has it done for you, for you as a person?
Running as a Means of Recovery and Advocacy
00:16:00
Speaker
So I kind of consider my running and how my relationship with it in three stages when I talk about it. So my first started running actually as a method of recovery because I was
00:16:14
Speaker
recovering from a suicide attempt. I was in my ninth grade year of high school and I was struggling with my mental health and with my environment socially and I was in a very bad place. And the one thing that would keep me healthy and keep me on track and stop me from relapsing was running because like you said, it gave me that outlet and it gave me a place to go when I didn't, when I felt like
00:16:45
Speaker
I had nowhere to go and I knew that I didn't want to be there wherever I was. As it can feel like you're stuck and running gave me somewhere to go. And so that was, um, that was how running initially became an outlet for me. And then I moved to a tribal school, Muckleshoot tribal school. Um, my sophomore year where I ran track and field there,
00:17:12
Speaker
And that was when I really began to notice the bias and prejudice that can appear in sports. So sometimes I would try to go to a track meet where my time had qualified, but because I had Muckleshoot tribal school on the uniform, they wouldn't accept me. And I faced a lot of just discrimination because of my school and where I came from and that being a tribal school. And so then,
00:17:40
Speaker
running took its second form where I used it as a sign to stand up for myself. Now I could show up to meets and with tribal school, Muckleshoot tribal school on my uniform, I could win and I could prove these biases wrong. And so that's how the second stage of my running took place was really just through battling discrimination that I faced in sports and to represent my community
00:18:08
Speaker
in a positive light where I had control. Then the last stage and the stage that I'm in now with my running is now I can use running to actually demand acknowledgement. That's what I did with the red handprint at my state track meet in Washington of 2019. I painted the red handprint over my mouth as a way to represent the historical violence that has happened through
00:18:37
Speaker
my ancestry and even with my great grandparents and my grandma and my mom, even, it's to represent them and the historical violence that they faced and the way that people have tried to silence this movement. And so that's what I used the red handprint on my face for, along with the letters MMIW, just as Jordan Marie Daniel did. And so that was how I was able to demand acknowledgement. I was able to
00:19:07
Speaker
represent not only my people, but an issue that affects us very greatly. That's the stage that my running has taken on now. When you started running, did you expect to excel at it like you have? No, I definitely never anticipated that I would be too good of a runner for sure. I didn't even actually think that
00:19:33
Speaker
Um, my freshman year of high school, I didn't think that I would even be going to college or running in college. Yeah. And what, um, in particularly what, what, uh, what, what distances and events, uh, do you run? So at my state track meet, um, I dedicated for indigenous women, um, to four events. So at my state track meet in high, um, my senior year of high school in 2019.
00:20:00
Speaker
Um, I ran the 400 meter race, the 800 meter race, the 1600 meter race, and the 3,200 meter race. Um, now here that I'm a freshman in college, um, I run anywhere from the 800 meter race to the half marathon. The, um, and it's, it's quite an array, quite of a rain of, of, of events. And, um, I'm glad to hear.
00:20:28
Speaker
You know about your success in doing that and I'm also glad for the place that it's it's Held in your life. I've again I myself I when I was younger I ran but I didn't continue doing it and through my brother I've known a lot of runners and I think there's something special about runners that I've always connected to like just there you know, they're a motley crew and they have this streak in them in all of them and I
00:20:56
Speaker
I've just always appreciated, I've always appreciated that. There's a question that I was wondering about when you placed the red hand print on your face, I mean, was there a sense in talking about art that did you feel like that was an artistic expression that you were doing away from the politics, but did you feel like that was,
Symbolism and Artistic Expression
00:21:25
Speaker
a part of your cultural expression in an artistic statement of sorts? Yeah, I would definitely say that really the handprint is very artistic in the things that it represents and how powerful it is. Everybody that I've spoken to says that the handprint really affected them, that it struck them and it really stopped them in their tracks even.
00:21:51
Speaker
And I think that's because even when I wear the handprint, it is very overbearing to me. The handprint, it really does represent a hand holding your mouth closed, like you can't speak. And I think a great example of that is indigenous people in general and activists during the American Indian movement were killed and supposedly gone missing, right? They were murdered.
00:22:21
Speaker
and hidden as a symbol to say that the bigger and dominant cultures and populations did not want native people to have power or did not want them to strive for better lives. It really is a way to represent all types of violence that have silenced native people from speaking and from having a seat at the table. I think when people see that handprint, I think it
00:22:51
Speaker
I think it relays it very accurately. And that's why it's so striking is because it is a very powerful and very heavy topic. And it's something that I even struggle with when I put on the paint. I do feel heavy. I feel that emotional weight that a lot of my ancestors and people who are still alive today who are above me who have faced this type of violence.
00:23:17
Speaker
Part of what you've done and you alluded to it to the four women that you ran for and I think that's in the background of the You know, what's what's what's on your body when you run in the background of who you're running for What is that experience done for you as far as running? creating visibility for those that you know are forgotten
00:23:43
Speaker
or at risk of being forgotten or ignored. How's that impacted you when you're running for them? I think that running for indigenous women is a very almost bittersweet feeling. It's a very painful thing to do. And so it really does depend on how I look at it, how much strength I have when I'm thinking about this, because there are days where it's easy to be
00:24:10
Speaker
and feel a little bit weak about this topic. It's easy to feel like and just really think and absorb the sadness that the relatives have when they're talking about their daughter or sister or mother who is no longer with them because of this neglect, this institutional and social neglect. And it's really something that, based on your perspective, it's
00:24:35
Speaker
It can be either way. It can be something that is empowering, that I get to demand acknowledgement, and it can be something that is very overbearing and emotionally tolling. Yeah. And do you still, so what's happening now? I mean, you still run with the handprint on and bringing visibility to MMM.
00:25:00
Speaker
I, uh, w have you found that, um, there's kind of this continued, uh, attention with you running with that now is just, does it feel like kind of just part of, of who you are compared to when, you know, you first started doing it? I would say that I've seen a lot of progress within the last year that I genuinely did not, um, anticipate I'm seeing.
00:25:28
Speaker
missing and murdered indigenous women cases being picked up by these large media and news companies. I'm seeing these big powerful infrastructures actually starting to take a stance. And I'm seeing it addressed even with our presidential candidates and with our president. And I'm very optimistic about the changes that are in place and the laws that are being discussed that will
00:25:56
Speaker
create efforts to protect Indigenous women and girls. And also with that, right, and protect all women, I think. It's great to hear that there's been progress on this. And I'm really glad that you're talking about it. And in the back of my mind, I always
00:26:23
Speaker
wonder about the news cycle and the attention that can be paid to this. But I think it's been quite inspiring, both your actions and also seeing even just following the hashtags related to the advocacy of MMIW and its connection to larger struggles I've seen in Canada over the pipeline
00:26:51
Speaker
Plans in just kind of these continued affront and attacks against native peoples Seeing these issues of being connected in that way has brought me greater awareness on you know what is happening and I just been excited to see that it's it's it's been a larger connecting to larger issues overall and it's inspiring and I
00:27:17
Speaker
I really hope and will do everything I can and hope listeners will to make sure we discuss this issue and see some changes. Like I said, it was just shocking to hear that this was going on. I know not being Native myself, but having studied a lot of Native American history, I know there's large components of this that have
00:27:42
Speaker
that are deep within the history of this country, but I'm still hopeful with all your action and many others that will continue to see progress and actually just quite resistance to what we've seen. Connected to that, Rosalie, there's the main question in the show that I pose to you of
Creating Visibility and Resilience
00:28:06
Speaker
Oh, why is there something rather than nothing? And I also mentioned it in a couple of different forms of like, you know, are you trying to create, you know, visibility from from erasure? Are you trying to give voice to where there's been silence? But I was just wondering your answer, however you want to take it to the question is why is there something rather than nothing? For me, when I think about
00:28:36
Speaker
That's something that really gives you passion to keep going, to go against the current or maybe even just to not stay stagnant, to not stay still, to keep moving. For me, something is the effort and the resilience that I've seen through my ancestors. It's the resilience that I see who my great-grandparents who were actually in boarding schools and who have
00:29:04
Speaker
despite that done their best to raise normal, happy, healthy families despite what was taught to them, which was violence and abuse. And through that, I'm seeing even in the American Indian movement and these types of, I guess, activists that were before my time who were fighting for my rights and even who's now affects the rights that I have today and how I'm able to maneuver
00:29:34
Speaker
in my environment and in the environment of the US. And if that's something I would say that is better than nothing. Absolutely. Rosalie, I was wondering, and I think it's super important to give you this time to help steer me, help steer folks who are interested both in learning about this issue, the history of it,
Resources and Support for MMIW
00:30:04
Speaker
and also advocating for it. If you could let folks know how they may connect to whether it's you, to the issue, where to find resources, where to learn more, what to read, who to listen to, those type of things. Can you guide us through from your perspective what would be helpful in following up? Yeah, absolutely. The Urban Indian Health Institute
00:30:32
Speaker
So they're just U-I-H-I. So they're in Seattle, but they have a website and they are so amazing with their data collection and with creating some numbers that actually give us evidence and support when we're trying to advocate for this issue. And so that's one organization that I always tell people to go check out to read their things because their reports also are very easy to read. They make them
00:30:59
Speaker
actually artistically very visual, but also very accurate and understandable at the same time. So that's one institution that I would totally recommend that anybody supports just because they are very good at what they do. Another, I think another organization that is very impactful is the Sovereign Bodies Institute. And that's just another one that is continuously fighting for indigenous rights and
00:31:29
Speaker
our rights as sovereign nations, as nations that are in compliance with the U.S., but also separate in a few ways. And then I think one thing that a lot of people can do, or honestly anybody can do as long as they have a social media account, is to, when they see missing or murdered Indigenous women posts, missing persons posters, to share them, even though
00:31:57
Speaker
It's really just a way to get our relatives' names out there and to make sure that they're seen and that they're visible. And I personally share all of the posters and information that I see on my social media, and there's also various social media accounts that their whole page is dedicated to finding those posters that have been neglected by their local media and news sources and sharing them on their pages so that they're seen.
00:32:28
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you for that. And what I've seen is that there seems to be more reporting on this, and I've even seen a couple books. One, I think, was entitled The Highway of Tears around this issue. And I think it's safe to say we're seeing more
00:32:56
Speaker
It would be safe to say published reports in writing about this issue? Yeah, absolutely. I'm seeing a lot more support. And just more and more evidence gathered, the more that we're showing there's a need to research this issue. We're getting more support to put the funds into doing so, into publishing works about it, and therefore creating a lot more awareness. I really think that the awareness level
00:33:27
Speaker
The MMIW epidemic has right now has been one of the highest that it's ever been. And thank you for your work on that. Again, Rosalie Fish, our guest on this episode. Again, Rosalie, you're absolutely inspiring. And I appreciate the acts of courage that you have taken
00:33:56
Speaker
in order to connect me with this issue and hopefully connect others to make progress in an issue that I know has impacted you directly and your people directly. And I honestly, I think it impacts all of us when something of this scope and this nature is happening. I think it's all of our issue and I don't think it's,
00:34:24
Speaker
a separate issue for humans who care about one another. And I think I just find what you've done inspiring. I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us about this. And also one other thing, Rosalie, I want you to win all your races. I want us to win. I want us all to win as humans in making this a safer place for you.
00:34:54
Speaker
for all of us and your people, I want to thank you deeply for spending the time with us. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's very reassuring to know that there are allies out there who, just like as you said, who take this issue as their own. And that to me is all the progress that I need to see. It's when I see somebody who wants this issue
00:35:23
Speaker
Acknowledged, addressed, and eventually fixed. I mean, that's great, honestly. Thank you. Rosalie Fish, thank you so much and hope to talk to you again soon. Yeah, definitely. Me too. Bye now. You are listening to something rather than nothing.