Cultural Awareness Workshop One

Transcript

Transcript

Hi everybody. So I'd like to thank everyone for being here and I want to introduce our guest today. We have Alicia Deegan. She's the Superintendent at Knife River, Indian Villages Natural National Historic site. And Albert LeBeau, who's the cultural resource program manager at Effigy Mounds National Monument. With them are Sheena Bear Eagle, who is a supervisory park Ranger, Ranger detail at Mount Rushmore. And Malia Lane Kamahele, who is the manager at Pacific Island office in Honolulu and a circle member. So I will be sending out BIOS for everyone after the session, but with that brief introduction I will turn it back over to Alicia who's going to be leading us today. Thank you. Thank you, Susan, I was really excited to be with you today and really look forward to the the next few hours that we have with you. Albert LeBeau has put together really great information. So I'm going to hand it over to him, but just real quickly before I do, I just wanted to talk about circle. So circle is for the Council, for Indigenous relevance, communication, leadership and excellence and we are an employee resource group. We were one of the first that started in 2013. And. So we've been around for quite a few times and actually Albert and I are. Founding members of Circle and so this is something that we're really passionate about and over the years, Malia and Sheena have come aboard and have really great voices in this field and topic. And so we're so happy that they are able to join us in this conversation. And we just ask you that if this is an interactive session and if you have questions or if you have thoughts that you want to. Express, please do and also there is the option to stop the recording. So if there is something that is, we feel that we should not record so we can create a safe space. We will stop the recording and then when that conversation is done we will start the recording again. So Albert is over to you. OK. What about Alicia? Also also said you know what I what? I concur with her on is you know that our RG is open to everybody, you know. And and that if you are wishing to join the circle YRG you can send a request into the [e-mail] or I think. Yeah. Ups.gov. So it's open to everybody and you know, the more the merrier, honestly. We got room for our indigenous people as well as allies, so that's one of the cool things about about all of our RG. So. So I'm going to start sharing my screen guys. Hopefully this works. It worked a while ago, so hopefully it'll work again. OK. OK, I'll do it. So. The development of this course was based on. Questions and answers and. And the. The. You're trying to help frontline people get over there. Either their, their, their. Their biases are there are are there. Being afraid, honestly, you know, people don't want to stick their foot in their mouth. And especially when dealing with different cultures, different races, you really want to be that person, right? And but yet we're all interpreters at one point, and we have to learn to talk to everybody, you know, and treat everybody as as as. That you would like to be treated. We have those unconscious biases that will eventually, you know, which people get. Concerned so this is where this class comes from. We we developed it through. The Mother Training Center and we were. Looking at it, as you know, what did you want to know? Everything you want to know, but we're afraid to ask, you know, and this also if you guys are familiar with the webinar series that matter is doing right now. This is where that comes from as well. And so it's just a continuation of these conversations. Here's me, sorry. Nothing uniform, OK. So I'll treatment a little bit of my bile here. I am a member of the China River South Tribe. Umm. And have a 2020 plus years of experience that keep on reading this and that is 20 plus years now. I was at HBO. I worked as a staff archaeologist at M WAC, the Midwest Archaeological Center in Lincoln, NE. Currently I work at Effigy Mounds. If you are familiar with Effigy Mounds. I was here during that rigamarole. That happened. I came in right at the end of the investigations and. And helped the help the part reestablish their working relationships with tribal partners. Umm. And actually that bottom one is not right anymore. I forgot to change that. Sorry. So a quick outline so you can kind of know where we're going with this. We're going to briefly talk about laws we're going to talk about some, some of the treaties that are familiar or are associated with your part. Then we're going to start understanding some, you know, the biases of history, historic trauma, and the overall mistrust of indigenous people within with the government. And then we started getting to the introductions into the 101, you know. Kind of like you know, how do you act and how do you ask? And how do you know things like that? And eventually working with tribal people. You know, understanding that words have power. You know, understanding there's general separations. And there's actually multiple genders in some cultures as well. Age roles. How do you greet somebody? We talked a little about India talk a lot about Indian humor. At least I do. And a lot about. Our prayers and us and our in our spirituality. Umm. And kind of the news. And don't you know it's just. It's going to take about. If we get through this, it's going to take us about. It's going to take us a long time, so let's get started. First and foremost, the intent of this course, the course is intended to help Park staff to develop cultural awareness of tribal nations that are associated with the park. The class will discuss some of the shared cultural attributes that began when the reservations were established, and the students will develop an understanding of how to better interact with travel partners and to develop relationships that are vital in the protection of sacred resources. So there's 500 plus. Tribal nations, federally recognized tribal nations, plus another, probably another 500 plus non pigeon recognized and so. We have to remember that each one of these is is a sovereign, and each one of these have different types of cultures and different protocols. So what I did was looking at the reservation era, which is circa 1934 ish. And looking at those attributes that you know, they put us on to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, actually they put us all into the War Department 1st and then they put us under the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And. They started treating us as as one group of people instead of the 500 other 505 hundred other groups of people that we are. And So what this class does is we take a 60,000 foot view of Indian country and I paint broad. Brushstrokes when we're talking about Indian country and when I say Indian country, I mean the continental United States, North America and South America, the Western Hemisphere, that is indeed country. All parts of it. So that's. Yeah. So that's the intent of the class. There is a special note. Classes presented as a first step to establishing a relationship with your parks travel partners. This class is generalities. As they share were enforced as we were forced to assimilate into the dominant culture. And remember that each tribe is a sovereign, they have a different protocols. You know each tribe has their own distinct but is doing things within their culture. One tribe or one tribal person cannot speak for the entire tribes or their tribe. We get, you know, as as an indigenous employee, sometimes we get keyhole into, you know, what does the Indians think? Well, we don't know. I know what I think. And when I was younger. It was a really hard place to be put into. Having somebody asked me what Indian. You know? I don't know. I know what I think. And as I get older and as I go through my culture. And become, you know, become a grown up. You know things have changed. I'm. I'm. I can now speak on behalf of my family and my Toshiba **** or my extended family, and we'll get into that a little bit later. But I can speak on behalf of them, but. You know, that's it. I can't speak on behalf of anybody else. On my tribe, on the Lakota nation and on typical Chakuli. Any other or any other of my relatives? So with that being stated, we start talking about the laws and the very first thing that we I talk about is always the US Constitution. Tribal people, indigenous people are separated out in the constitution. And this is for federally recognized tribes, and I'll get into some of that. And in just a minute here. But federally recognized tribes, they're protected under the constitution United States article one, Article 8, Article 6, Article 8. And this is what? Come start defining the trust doctrine within the Constitution. We're the only group of people. That have our own US code. And our code is US code 25 and it's basically US code 25 Indians. That's what it says. It has every law that has to deal with federally recognized tribes. And of course, we have our own code of Federal regulations, which is 25 as well. Umm. If you think about this. You know, we were separated out in the Constitution and we were separated out in law, you know. As we go forward into this conversation a little bit, we're going to start talking about some of the historic trauma that that that has happened because of these laws. You know, we'll go forward from here. One of the you know, we had a lot of treaties and we'll get into that here shortly too. But we had a lot of treaties prior to 187018801887. So after 18, seven, 1887. We became. Wards of Nancy's government. We had no rights whatsoever for anything up until 1924, which she had the Indian Citizenship Citizenship Act. You know what that did was allowed. Indians or Native Americans, indigenous people to become citizens of the United States and this was after this was a big to do after World War One. We had a lot of indigenous people joining the military and will fight. For the next 6 government. During World War One, during trench warfare and. When they got back, they were still wearing United States citizens, even though when they were over there. Wearing the uniform fighting under flag, they were United States citizens. And when they died in battle, they were buried. As you know, you see citizens, but when they came back, they still weren't United States citizens. And so the, the the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 allowed for that, and this is, mind you, this is. Way after the 14th amendment. You know where natural born. If you're born within the United States, you're, you know, you're automatically a United States citizen. Umm. To put kind of put it in perspective here. 40 years old and my grandmother, you know, was born in 1922. And I don't mean my grandmother passed away in 2012. And when she was born, she was not United States citizen, even though she was born in the state of South Dakota and the county of. Pennington. Umm. She wasn't a United States citizen. My family still has the original birth. Her original Social Security number. Yeah, it's about this big and it's signed by the. It's actually literally signed by the President in ink. Giving her Social Security number and that she's a United States citizen now it's a certificate of citizenship. And she got that when she was about three or four years old. Umm. That's my grandma. I mean, that's the woman who raised it, raised the moon for me. I mean, I am a grandma's boy, and that was the woman that you know has seen a lot of change in her life and. It was her lifetime. We're not talking. My great, great grandma. We're not talking, you know, 1824, we're not talking to 1724 or 1624, we're talking 1924. You know, and so. This is a perspective and again we start talking about trauma and and other things coming up. You know this is getting a little bit more perspective. The IRA Indian Reorganization Act 1934, which really established reservations and established the quote UN quote. Quote UN quote, does he recognize? It was that was this particular act that reorganized tribes and. Congress and the BA. Decided who and what was going to be a reservation and what tribes are going to be on their reservation. Alicia's tribe, which is the three affiliated tribe in North Dakota, which include the Amanda Nations, replaced on one reservation. But there are three different. Nations. And that's because of the IRA. You know and. I think of the show really. The eastern chichoni and. Ah, they wrap the Northern Arapaho. There are two enemies they never got along, but they put them on the same reservation and Wind River, Wyoming. You know, and they had to figure out how to work, work it out, just like the three of the lady had to learn how to figure it out, you know? Unfortunately, I think and at least you correct me if I'm wrong, but the man and Rick Ron Hidatsa for relatively they're relatively allies, you know, at the time of. Everything that happened at time of contact. And so. You know, it made a little bit more sense than putting the Northern Arapaho and eastern or Eastern Shoshone together. But again, that was that was by I was choices made by the United States government and with limited to no input from tribal people or. The tribal nations. They have the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978. So again, go back to the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. What's? You know what's what's right #1. You know, Freedom of Information, freedom of press, freedom of religion. The United States, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights do not apply and still does not apply to some Native Americans. In this country, regardless of the of. Of the. Yeah, First Amendment, sorry. And to put this into perspective, I was born, and when I tell you how old I am. I was born in 1975. I remember as a kid. Up until about 1980. Where we would go to a ceremony with and be driving in a field with our headlights off. Trying to escape from the sheriff. Are the US Marshals? Are. Some racist farmer. Are racist rancher. Just so we could go to ceremony. Just a little practice. Our religion, just so we could go do what? Non indigenous people get to do. Whenever they want to. I remember that. I remember going through checkpoints, armed checkpoints. For these young men would put their lives on the line to stop the US government coming in to disturb in our destroy. The ceremony was taking place. This is in my lifetime. Indian Child Welfare Act, 1979. This one is under this one is, is is kind of a hot topic right now for me because it's under, it's under the gun. The Indian Child Welfare Act protected our children from being taken from us again. Umm. And so that they can stay with their families. Instead of being taken off and put in non indigenous families in Group homes. You know it's. When I was looking when I was looking at the new. Language for. Meaning child warfare. It reminded me of, you know, save the Indian or save the child, kill the kill, the savage, that whole mentality, it's still there. No. 1979, you know, in 1990 Native American Graves protection and Repatriation Act. Again, we're the only group. And in North America? That has. A federal law protecting our dead. You know why is that? No. It's. It's crazy when you think about it. You know, and they and they say we're all supposed to be equal, you know, now. And we have. We're citizens of the United States and we're this and that, you know, we're not. We're not. What if we were? Why would we need all these other Acts, 1924. Why we need all these other amendments since? 1776. And the one of the other things within the lease of Grand Canyon is they're enabling legislation and. I read most of it through the through the Ministry of History and. Quite frankly, I might have to turn this over to somebody at the park, but. I know the wall of the hallway and. Umm. Some of the Southern Paiutes were in the area at the time of of it being established, but. Umm. And ultimately, you know why it was established for the protection of the the resource and and ultimately terrorism. Umm. But there was something in there about the tribal people and how to do them again. I'm not 100% for sure on that one, but check it out. It's actually pretty interesting read. I learned a lot, actually, I didn't know about the Forest Service and all sort of stuff, so it was kind of cool. So the Philly tribes with in the. Within the Grand Canyon area of the Palapye, the Havasupai Southern Paiute, the hope is in Navajo and Apache. I kind of grouped everybody. Together. There's different bands and different. Plans and different pueblos and different everything. So but. To keep it kind of simple, I kind of put everybody together when you start looking at. You know, because different. They started working with with different tribes. They will start telling you you know what band, what clan, what, what makes, what Pueblo they come from. Was on general, these are the the. The tribes, historically they have been there that I could find. And it may not be the same ones that the park consults with so. FYI. The Treaties there were so many treaties there I was. I was actually surprised. So 1852, there was a friendship treaty with the Navajo. And the Paiutes. And then 68, there was another treaty with the there was a wasn't really a peace treaty at that time. It was more of the we got to move you around. We got to move you out of here. Treaty. Ohh 68. Umm. Yeah. I mean, these treaties were based on their foundation, the foundations of these were lies. And. None of these were were ever kept. Umm. And I'm sorry I misspelled Navajo, so all my Navajo relatives. I apologize, I was typing really fast and I couldn't. Couldn't make ends meet of that. So. In 1877, they stopped making the treaties. Another cool thing that happened. In 1877 was the Black Hills taking act, and that's what actually stopped the treaty making process because of the 5251 and 60 treaties up in the northern part of the country. Umm. So that was kind of that's kind of that's why 1877 is kind of a. A very significant year in Indian country, you know, is because that's when they pick the Black Hills from the zoo and they said we're gonna game or choose anybody because we can't keep them anyway so. Boo. OK. So historic trauma and I told you, I'm gonna talk about this a little bit. You know when we talk about historic trauma, you know? I think about. You know what my grandma had to go through. What my? You know, my great grandma. Grandpa had to go through all the way back, you know, to. To standing bear into. Umm. Little Thunder. No. Little Thunder was my is my. Like Yoshi. Part I'm it's a part of that feels right and. Understanding how how they had to survive through all that. Umm. Alicia works at a park where it's just it's it's a hard place for people to go because. Those were the last villages. That survived the smallpox epidemics. You know Sand Creek, same thing. You know, it's hard place for people to go. Big hole. Same thing. Our place. People go Mount Rushmore. Our place for Lakotas to go. Umm. And so we. And so we could we. So we feel this and I'm going to talk a little bit about time, but we'll get into that shortly, but ultimately. When you were talking about you within Indian country, there is limited time. We think of time. We're caught in the non indigenous world. That time is linear. In that there's a timeline. You know, this happened here at this time. And then and then something else happened here at this time. In Indian country. Time is. Time is relative. You know, Einstein was almost right with time is relative. But we see time in a different manner. Prime example is on June 25th. I don't work. It's a holiday for me and people like why do you take that day off? June 25th of all days. Why don't you take, you know, December 25th off or or whatever? Well, June 25th was the day that we killed Custer. And I don't say my ancestors killed Custer. I see that's the day we killed Custard. You know I lost ancestor. I lost eight ancestor on that on that Ridge. But. It wasn't him. But it was. That's when we did that and we still celebrate that. At home, we still have Victory Day power and it's called Victory Day. We still celebrate it and I think that day off and I would rather work my travel holidays or my I'd rather take my travel holidays off instead of taking the the non indigenous holidays off. I get more done actually. You know? And then I take. I take December 26th and December 28th off the 29th off. And people asking why you do that and said they killed my, they killed my my relatives. In Mankato, MN. With the Dakota 38 after the the uprising. I lost two of my relatives. They hung them there. The largest mass execution. In North America, in the history of America. And I think the 28th, 29th off because of that's when they killed my relatives again. At wounded knee. The battle of Wounded Knee, which there are. I forget how many medals of honor were awarded to those drunken 7th Calvary people. And. That is historic trauma. Those are my relatives. That's my blood spill. You know. And. What I found with when teaching this class people kind of like, well, that happened in the past. Get over it type of thing. OK. So we'll Trade Center 2001, get over it. We killed we killed Osama bin Laden. So you know, we have to worry about those 3000 to 5000 people that died. In our continuing to die. Because of after effects. COVID-19, I lost 23 of my relatives. 23 of my my relatives are dead. From COVID-19. Umm. You know, and so these are the types of things, you know that we talk about, you know, one of the things is. You know what? Have you guys heard. You know what are what are some of the historic traumas that that you guys have gone through are are. I know I'm trying to say Alicia, jump in here. I'm trying to say. Experienced. I know because we have a lot of different cultures that are on the call. So we would like to hear from you like are there days that you ask off of? Are there things that you have to do that are important that are ceremonial or seasonal parts of that that we could share and talk about them because sometimes we don't always get that opportunity to say This is why I always take this day and get give a really good explanation for people to ask questions and all that. So. If anybody is comfortable with doing that and maybe you ask one of the. Or. Like, does she? Not on the layout or even Melissa. If you guys have something we could start it out and then if others in the the class here are comfortable sharing, we'd really like to hear what you guys have to say. Yeah. So something that comes up for me pretty much every year is my family has a Sundance. Ceremony. And you know, the Sundance itself is 4 days and then the day before the tree Day makes it 5 days and you're fasting the entire time you're spending that time in the sun. You're active. So you're really putting your body to the test. So in addition to those five days, you need a couple days of recovery. You need a couple days of preparation beforehand and you know, if you are a employee at my tribe, which is Oglala Lakota Oglala Sioux, you actually get 10 days off for Sundance. I have trouble getting three days off working for the National Park Service and this has come up every single year. Is me trying to get at least enough time to go to the complete ceremony and not even able to get time to, you know, do the recovery aspect of it. Thank you for sure. I'll go next. So I'm Janet. I know some of you there at Grand Canyon are a lot of you are didn't as well. But the days I have to take off that are multiple days that are similar to sundances or healing ceremonies. If a family member needs a healing ceremony and we have to take off days and it usually is 4 days depending on how long it needs to be. You help out on that time and you have to take off your sick days. And the same thing goes, you know, and like good ceremonies, like the agnatha, a womanhood ceremony he take off and you help your, your cousin, your little sister, what not to do that. So those are days that. And they're not set days like a date. But when you know they're coming up, you have to plan in advance, especially being a government employee and a lot of people don't understand how why you're going to be gone so long or don't understand why you have to take off those days when they should be. I I don't know. I'm just honored as like. A ceremonial or religious kind of days to take off, but some of the I know those things always eat up my sick leave, and that's what I do when I use them. Thank you. I have something every month. That I take care of and it's it started when I moved here at the park and that's taking care of my relatives making that time to go out there and feed them so that it's in it's, I guess it's easier for me at this point being the Superintendent. I sort of set my own schedule, but I see that employees that I have indigenous nonindigenous if they have something, I make sure to make that time for them. Because I know it is important and how important it is for me, and so do we have anybody else that would like to share? It's OK if you do not. Are you are you looking for? Non Indian equivalence. Whatever. Oh yeah, Passover and Yom Kippur. And that's. If it happened at all, was like 3000 years old, we haven't gotten over it. Yeah, it's it's hard. It's you're born with it and then you're raised in it. And it's hard to let go. Of those, those feelings can definitely relate with you, Ted. We have a comment here. Umm. Brandy when? When her grandmother passed away in 2021, around the time of her birthday, so in 2022, that time held a different significance. Definitely. I'm just taking that time to reflect and. Be by yourself or be with family if you can. No. Yes. I would just have an observation that sometimes there are opportunities and times that we go to attend ceremony or deal with protocol. Which become in some cases it's a little bit different, but it's about. Finding the time and space within the park to be able to go and conduct this ceremony protocol and process out of the eyes of visitors and. That creates. A challenge to accommodate, I guess, would be the nice way to put it and. Because of that, it's also created conflict about. People not understanding that there are. Some protocols that. Take place away from most people and there are protocols that take place in the dark when nobody's around, and sorting out how and when you can. Take care of those. Obligations, if you will at a park during either open or closed time periods, has always been challenging and I don't know if this is something it creates trauma, it creates a lot of drama and a lot of conversation about how to accommodate and related with that is also in some cases. Plant and materials gathering that has to take place so it all kind of winds together to become. Dramatic. But on some level, in some places. Very good points. And then for the people that are on the phone listening, can you please state your name like this? Is Alicia Deegan speaking right now asking. So Maria had just got done speaking. Sorry, my bad. I had to remember, but thank you, Todd, for reminding us. Yeah. Do I have to do that and I'm the only guy? Yes. This is Alice, should you guys speaking. No. UM. Ohh continue. You know, we went through. A few years of of lies? Well, not even a few years, I mean. You go through lies and fallacies and then of course the whole big thing of fake news. You know, it's, you know, whatever, whatever. I don't care. There's conspiracy theories out there. That revolve around everything from, you know. Aliens to you know, Bigfoot. So I mean. You know, we asked tribal people about aliens and Bigfoot. They're going to tell you some stories because. It's something that we grew up with, you know. And then also you have the universal awesome them. You know. What makes us us and what makes them them and? For me, that's one of the harder things for me to to address because. I've always been with them. And never part of the US until I went home. Until I go home. Then I'm part of the US and then we make fun of them. Are we belittle though them, and that's one of the things that I've been working on with my grandchildren to break that cycle. Is, you know, I used to say, don't act like that. You're acting like a little. And when I stopped, when I when my grandma, my, my eldest grandpa. Well, my only granddaughter. I say don't do that. You're acting like a little white girl. That's not right. No, that's not right at all. And when I when I start thinking about it and started to process it, I'm like there's a lot of trauma there because I remember being told don't be acting like that. You're acting a little white boy. You know, and by my grandma who remember who hung the moon. And. And her being told that and her being in there and and them being, you know, it's just this. You know. This circle of of trauma. You know, and trying to break that and and working with my, my granddaughter and my grandsons, you know, on saying like, listen, hey, I'm sorry. I love you. I didn't mean that, you know. Behave, you know. No, don't be doing that. You know and then trying to provide the the proper correction instead of being meaning them or making them feel bad or making them feel worse. It's one of the things I'm working on. Six time. Umm. How come you're not going? OK. So we always got to start with Christopher Columbus, the guy who got lost and bumped into an island. He never even made it to the United States. I mean, he just hung around in Espanola. Umm. And granted that is a very conceited way of looking at it. And I, and I am, I will get to that too. But you know, one of the things that we always get asked about what do you want to be called, you know, you know, you want to call it Mary Indians, you want to call First Nations, American Indians, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians, Alaska natives are your tribal affiliation. You know the name are Lakota or. I don't know if that's a man then Rick and say I didn't say headlock though, but. I always tease Alicia. I mean, me and her been friends forever, so it's part of our all getting to that people. Part of our part of our the way that we. That we interact is through teasing, and it's a sign of affection, actually. So if you're getting teased by a native person, then they actually like you. So don't, you know, don't get upset if you do get upset. They're going to use you harder. Just FYI, you know, at least at least to look close do anyway. We'll make you cry. But ultimately, ask you know what do I only called? I want to be called Albert, you know. Umm. That's the name you know, that's the name my my parents gave me. I have, you know, I am Lakota, but I'm also French. I'm also German. No. I'm a little bit Irish. But ask ask the person you know you know what? You know what? You know what? What should? What's the appropriate? What's the appropriate? How could? What should I address you as most times you're going to say is you know their first name. No. Are are they tell you straight up. You know we want to be called the name are we want to be called Whoopi. Are we wanting to be called? Whatever, whatever affiliation that they have. Ask you know, that's that's the thing that a lot of a lot of people are afraid to do is ask. And one of the reasons why we created this class was to create those safe spaces for people to ask. If you ask my sister what she wants to be called, she will rip your head off. Because she is a very angry person. Yeah, I love my sister to death. She's a pipeline fighter, you know, she's she's been on the front lines fighting, fighting pipelines. I'm trying to kill that black snake and that's going to destroy our water. And. But she will, she will. She's scary. She's scaring me. Umm. And you'll and you'll run into people like that. No, don't take it to heart. No. But you're never going to find out if you don't ask and you know ultimately, else it's all going to come down to is. Creating a relationship and creating, you know having the, the having the ability to ask. This is one of the reasons why you know we have five people here, you know it's to ask those questions. You know, I'm not going to get mad, you know, at least she's not going to get mad. She don't like, get mad. No. Well, yeah, Malia, Melissa. And you know, we're not going to get mad. We're going to answer the questions, you know, because those are questions that you honestly have and. You know, we're here to help. Circle. Circle is here to help that, you know, we're here to, you know, provide, you know, some of those answers. And if we don't know the answers, I'll make them up. No. If we don't know the answers, we'll find out for you. And you know, and that's that's what we'll do, you know, because. You have to, you know, it's a question that you you're wondering, you know, if you didn't have that question, why would you you know? Yeah. So ultimately it comes down to ask the question and thinking about the myths. You know, and this is kind of part of the the the thing I can do is like the myth busting that what what type of myths have you heard about Native Americans? One of the famous myths I've always heard was drunken, drunken Indians. No. All Indians are drunk or all Indians play basketball. Are all you know. I can't play basketball. No, I can't play basketball. No. And I don't have the body to play basketball. I mean, Charles Barkley was have something on me, so. But you know, there's, you know, we're good hunters are good trackers are, you know, we're we we saved the earth and we're earth protectors and you know, I'm sorry I don't recycle. Some people do, I don't. Sorry, I'm human. You know, but these are some of the myths that we have to go through like, you know, why is holding you to the age where I can be the wise old Indian now. But you know, you have to be careful with that. You know you have to be careful with different things that are going on within within the world today and. Don't get don't get duped. Let's see. Albert, I know we have interpreters on this this training. So what kind of questions have you guys gotten about American Indians, Native Americans from visitors? Because sometimes those can be hard, especially if you are indigenous. Umm. And you get that question. Is anybody willing to share any of those questions that they've potentially struggled? Answering. This is Alicia asking the question. Hey, where's the group that Kelli sitting with? Come on, Kelli, I know you're a talker and call you out. We scare. Here. And there she is. Hi. I can't. Yeah. This actually happened not too long ago. About two weeks ago. I'm just coming from a row from the tower. I had a visitor who stopped me, and basically she's definitely sounded like she was a foreign visitor. But, you know, she just kind of like asked me like, I took a picture with you two years ago, and I wasn't here two years ago at the park. And I was just kind of like, oh, really, you know what, what picture like, I don't, you know, I'm just kind of, like, going along with it. And she is trying to find the picture. On her phone and it was actually a statue of a native man in the regalia, on a horse and saying that she took a picture with me. So I told her, you know. I don't know where the statue is and I just, you know, I felt very offended by it and I didn't really tell her that was offensive just because I was. You know, trying to take care of myself first by just walking away and then finally just feeling angry after. But you know, I should have told her something. But at that moment, you know, those types of comments that we receive when it happens right then and there, I think it's more like for me. Yeah. It's like survival mode and me taking care of myself first. And also handling that type of micro aggression. But another thing that happened not too long ago after that incident, which was like a day later two days later, was where we had a Hopi tribal member presenting at the amphitheater and told our intern that, you know, I thought native people are light skinned and saying that. We look black and that was just, like, very offensive. And, you know, I was just very angry just because that week was very, you know, handling all those comments that week and then. It was just a lot to deal with, so just an example of types of comments that we receive on a daily basis from our visitors and what we have to deal with. Does. I'm sorry you have to go through and you continue to have to go through that and I think that's something I know all all of us as the presenters here have experienced in it is difficult. So when we talk about creating allyship with our coworkers and being able to see that, or if you've heard a visitor saying something and you realize this is maybe the 7th time that this your coworker is being asked this question. You know, asking them if they if they would like for you to answer or or asking a different question to the visitor to totally kind of distract from that because it can be very frustrating. You know we I have here at Knife River we get a lot of questions and just ignorant questions about do do native still exist? Do they still live in Earth watches or TV's just. All of those real things where you're just like, yes, we're still here, or I want to see the village. I want to see the people and they do not think you're not Indian unless you're in buckskin or that you live that way. So it's really insulting and. And so that part of why we wanted to create this is to create that awareness, to have this training is to create the awareness. And try to create to have a space where we can come together to help support indigenous employees and your frontline employees because you guys do get asked questions that are really hard. They're really hard to answer. So does anybody else have any other? Experience with visitors. Or or. Coworkers. Everything always gets to me. Wants to speak. Is there a way to unmute her? She's on the phone and she doesn't know how to unmute. OK, which which phone number is the last four? And I can unmute her. Find out. It's 0082. Hello. I'm trying. OK. Can you hear me now? Thank you. OK. Man, this is hard. I tried to do the unmute button and usually that will work, but I couldn't remember if it was *6*789 whatever. But anyway, this is Tina Yazzie. All of you thank you for getting on the line and everyone listening to our conversations and all, but I wanted to allude a little bit to the protocol that someone had mentioned about taking leave and all that. We have a lot of ceremonies. I am Diné Navajo and we have a lot of ceremonies that happen and not only is it ceremonies, but we also take time off for death. You know, like death. The family we also take leave for our dreams. Our dreams tell us different. Happening. And that also any of our ceremonies can take anywhere from? A moment's time. Into 10 days. And then after 10 days, some of these ceremonies, we have to be in a holy mode with family. I don't know what what to call it, but in this sacred. Mode where you cannot touch blood. You cannot cut hair, but to stay home and take care of things you can't cut certain things. And these type of things that we. Umm. Deal with and we. Have to be home with family. So. These are some of the misunderstanding that people do not understand. Sometimes in the moment's time. When you dream about your teeth. Maybe upward bottom step have fallen. If it falls out or something. We have to do a ceremony that same day. We cannot eat anything until a ceremony is done. These are very sacred. Ceremonies that we have there are so much to share. Even if a coyote crosses your path. We gotta do ceremony. We are. This is how we are connected to this earth. This is who we are as the next people. Another thing I wanted to bring up was. Something when we tell our stories as the net people or indigenous people everywhere, we are limited to only tell up to a certain amount. Of our traditions, our culture and our ceremonies. These some of these things we cannot share with you. But I have helped, had a lot of people. Ask over and over and over. So how do we? How is sacred, then sacred? If there was a crack, but if there was a pottery that is out in the desert that somebody picks up and says this is going to be protected, we are going to take this into the Preservation Office for protection. And you picked that pottery and you take it into the preservation office. You then, then it's catalog. Once it's catalog, is it any longer sacred? I believe it's sacred. But you have taken it away from a place where it should have never been taken in the first place. So these are the things that we struggle with. These are the things that. We tell the stories. There's so much to share, but at the same time we have limitations. We need to be respected as well. Thank you. Thank you Tina for sharing. Really appreciate that. And talking about collections, that is something. That I don't think we always think about. Here in our collection at Knife River, I asked that any woman that is on their outdoor time or has their period that they do not go into that area. And then I explained that it is not because you there's anything wrong with you, it's just that you are so holy at this time. That going in there could we don't want to disturb something that is in there that has been disturbed from its life cycle and. I know it's it can be really uncomfortable to talk about, but the more we talk about it in the sense that women's. Monthly cycles are not something that is dirty or. To be frowned upon. That is actually very sacred, because we can create life. It is. It's helpful in understanding it from that perspective, from the indigenous perspective. So thank you so much for sharing Tina. I know there was a question or a comment in the chat which see if I can scroll up. From grace. Oh no. Leaves. It's been I have been asked what? Why do you all natives look the same? Yeah. That has been one. Does any? Has anybody else had those those experience over? I guess we're talking about frontline with visitors. There's just some questions that are really hard to answer. Like Kelli had said and you, you get taken aback. Umm. And also brings up the the the idea of you know of of you know, your coworker, you know, you know, if you're working with indigenous indigenous coworkers and you happen to hear somebody say that, you know, I mean, that might be a good time for you to kind of swoop in and say well and give them a break. Because it is, you know. It takes a lot to not blow up at somebody, especially when you, especially when they hit you kind of like on a blind side. Umm. So those are the types of things that you know as as coworkers, that we can do to help. Our other Co workers, you know, just so we can have a safe place for, for us to work, you know. Yeah, I agree, Albert. I had an experience in with in Alaska attending a consultation meeting with one of the villages and. It was more powerful for my non-native coworker who was White who came with me on that trip and we were with our Native American liaison from the Alaska Reason region, Crystal Lionetti and. There are some things that the. The wildlife or the National Wildlife Refuge manager. Said. And he's non-native. He's white from, I think, South Dakota. He just got that position. He was new and said something or I guess he was just off putting. But he said something that. We reacted to as needed people, but didn't say anything, told held her tongue. But I was really appreciative of my my white coworker and good friend to speak up on behalf because she was offended and felt the same way as we did, but coming from a white person to this other guy. He listened to her more. And did not take it offensively and. Yeah. So I'm just saying that is very helpful when you understand your coworker or if you're a friend, please be an advocate, because sometimes we will react badly. Because of the same situations that we go through and it's, I don't if you look like the person who said it, sometimes it's more powerful to come from somebody like that. Remember my sister. I'm going to move on to symbols and meanings, and this is the one that I love to use because we we all we all we're all familiar with this this is. No, this is there. Go ahead. So I took this from from a Facebook page. So. Don't get mad at me if I don't say this right. Ultimately, the Arrowhead represents cultural resources and cultures that the different cultures that are within the National Park Service. The Sequoia represents the plants and in the natural resources that we are responsible for. Denali represents the OR the mountain, even though we know it's Denali, but represents the geologic resources. Now that you know, Grand Canyon is one of them, you know. The Great Lakes, you know, represent the product resources and of course, the bison represents the animal diversity within our parks. And this is what you know as National Park Service employees, we kind of. We kind of talk about here, we mean we're talking about our. Umm. About our. Our mission statement and and and just the iconology that we have is the Arrowhead, right? But when you ask an indigenous person. What they see? Indian Arrowhead is a quote that represent all indigenous people. The sacred Redwood cedar is a sacred object for many northwest coast and California natives. The Dali is a sacred place for our our relatives in Alaska and it's a sacred mountain. Many with only water is life. And without water, we we're we're 3/4 of water. Without water we we don't we don't survive. And The White Buffalo calf white Buffalo is a secret object for many plane stripes, and they have that on our on our stuff is like. You know, it's hard. I mean, I don't. I rarely wear my uniform because. Of that patch. Umm. Wow, yeah. And this is the reason why I I really wear that uniform. I try to, but it's hard some days. UM is egocentrism. You know, egocentrism is in ethnocentrism. I will be the first one to admit that I'm egocentric and I'm very ethnocentric. I'm a quarter. That's where we are. You know and. And you know, they're not bad things. It's it's being able to understand that, yes, I do have a bias. In trying to work through that bias, so you know. And understand understanding my limitations, understanding where I need to work on and and understanding how I need to do things. In the things I need to work on ethnocentrism. You know, again, I'm going to quote that. Plain and simple. And Indian country, you know. They don't like us for reasons. And we don't like everybody else for other reasons. So no, it's it's again, it's that it's that, that timeline, that trauma and and things like that, that joke around about it is a joking situation. You know if one of my crew relatives was having an issue I would go and support them. Regardless of if they happen to be Crow, Crow and the quota has never got along very well, and especially if my my my river girlfriends need help, I'll definitely go up there. Sorry, I had to tease. But you know, I mean, there are these ancient things. I mean down there, you deal with a major one that has actually erupted within the past 30 years, you know with. Some serious issues down there, and I'm not even going to mention them because that's I don't want to go there. But you know it's. It's it's still there, those animosities, those. Inter travel disagreements neutral relationships are still there, but we can also work past them as well. I have racial bias. I know. I do understand that, you know, people have racial bias. UM and then privilege. And it's not just white privilege. Everybody saying, oh, white privileges and white privilege and da da da da da. Well, no. I can go home and I have privilege. I go home to to my reservation. I have a privilege. You know, if a non member, whether it be a native or our non-native and they're not a member of my tribe, I can I can go take your job from them. Because I'm a member. Umm. So there's different types of privileges in that understanding that it's just not. One group's privilege when we work in the Park Service. Unfortunately, it kind of is one group, but we all, we all have that privilege. And within our own social group. So just understanding that. You maybe you may be upset at somebody for, you know, you know, showing their privilege. But think about it when you go home, you get that same type of privilege. You know, those are the types of things that that I have to think about when I'm when I'm trying to understand. The feelings that I feel when somebody asked me a question like do you used to live in teepees, you know? Well, only in the summer time, because winter time gets really cold. And then my coworkers come up and say he's joking with you and then you take him off the location. So. So working with tribal tribal people and this this is an interesting one and we'll get back to you guys here real quick. But you know, words have power. Words have power. You know, and these are some of the. I've been called every single one of these except for the S word. At one point in my life. Umm. And I've heard my sisters being called and my female relatives being called the escort. Umm. And you know you want to see me get mad. How am I my female relatives? The effort and no, not going to happen. But I've been called all this stuff before. Umm. And. They have power. And understand that they have power. No. Now the Washington changed their the name of their team. Man, we had to deal with that for 30 years, 4050 years. You know. I'm gonna start on the chief. Issues. You know. Circle has a white paper on that you're interested in that I know. We'll get it to you. I've been calling the engine. I've been called a buck. I've been called scalp. Even though I don't have any hair. You know, I mean. And they're all meant to hurt. Yeah, and dehumanize. You know. Of talking to my my relatives, who who served in Iraq and in in Afghanistan. And the. The diminutive work the diminutive names. They are calling the locals. And shoot them out every time I heard it, I was like, that's what the government did to us. And you're doing it to them. What makes you any better? You know, and then they stop. You know, I get it, but still, it's just. And these are the types of things that we have to deal with, you know, and you know, you can be calling you. You're being called Indian. And I use Indian and Native American and indigenous interchangeably. And the reason I do that is because there's legal terminology for each of those words except for indigenous. You know, there's American Indian is a legal term and Native American is a legal term within the United States and so I use them interchangeably. Other indigenous people will not. I use Indian country as a broad statement. But even though we're Indian is a misnomer. You know, I'm not. You know, I'm not from India, you know. Kind of wish I was there. Really good spice. All of our traditional foods are not very good. Need some spice. But you know it's. Again, it was Christopher Columbus who bumped into, you know, he got lost and got been bumped into a into an island and said, oh, it must be in India. No, no, no, no. But we've been allocated that name ever since. Umm. And so just kind of think about, you know, have you heard, you know, whether we're, you know, what other words, you know, have you have you encountered or have you seen or have you heard, you know that, you know, use or have been used to you can you humanize? On people. And have you used them jokingly or have you heard them? When someone's being telling a joke was it? During a time when it was just wasn't being thought of, it was just, you know, it was. It was. Not unbiased, but unconscious. You know, listening all that, that person or whatever. You know. The other aspect of this is that including the words have powers that. Looking at that phrases and this is where we get into a lot of discussion, so I'm going to open this up here pretty quick here, but you know. If you actually look at these, I've used some. I've used all of these honestly in my conversations until I actually started learning and reviewing a lot of this stuff. Circle the wagon. We got to circle the wagons. Why would I say that? Or why would anybody say that? Honestly, it's like we got to defend ourselves from. You know, why are you circling the wagons? I mean, why did they circle the wagons to defend themselves from raiding Indians? Apparently. Let's have a power. Why do we have to have a power? Why can't we have a A? Polka are a square dance, are you know, a hootenanny. You know, anytime I hear somebody say, let's have a power, I'm like, oh, why can't we have? Why can't we have something else? You know I love a good pow. Wow. You know, frybread Indian tacos. You know, dancing great time but. Why? You know off the reservation. Umm. So the reason Custer got killed? Because he's chasing Indians who are off the reservation, you know, and you know. The. If you're off the reservation, your rogue, your, your hostile, your, you're not the norm, and that's what. A lot of you know, that's what the reservation means. So. What have you guys heard? That. Or have you used these and now you're kind of thinking about it like, oh, maybe I shouldn't use those? And at least you can ask these questions a lot better than I can so. Do your thing, Alicia. Alicia, I know Jesse in the comments said that he's going to change all his meetings to nannies now. So I think you're starting something, Albert. Hello, nanny. I love it. Thanks. That made my day. Yes, I language, we talk about how language is important and your this is the one thing especially when you start getting into super visionary, you're getting into the roles that it is how the person perceives what you're saying. You may not mean it that way, but it's how that person is perceiving it. So when you are communicating with somebody, always make sure to say or ask a question. I'm like, so how did you? So what did you hear me say? Or so that you can make sure that that communication that you're trying to? Give is received in the way that you're hoping it is, and it really creates some good dialogue and then bringing in phrases. Are no longer using phrases that when you are brought to you, when it's brought to your attention that we shouldn't be saying this anymore because it is isolating and it's offensive to a coworker to an employee who may already feel isolated. And then there's this language, and they, you know, when I first started with the Park Service, I was not brave enough to speak up and say stuff. And there are people that are starting out and it it, it is triggering and it's hard and you go home and you're like, well, I don't want to say this because then what is, what kind of backlash am I going to get? So which is another reason why we have circle and we're hoping that we can really create this safe space for dialogue to happen and why we're here with you guys because we want that understanding to be on an equal plane. So if there is something that even in your culture that we could help us understand, we should no longer say this because somebody had told me like when we use the word flip chart that just flip is a derogatory term. The Filipinos that was new to me, I had never heard that. So now I make sure not to say that it's like let's use this chart or this this paper over here. So there's things that you know we. Sharing and communicating in that's in this safe space can really only make it a the the workspace a better for everybody. And I know it's the first one, so. Oh, go ahead, Sheena. OK, this is just a little fun aside on the term circle the wagons. So I was told this actually pretty recently by an elder. So whenever people would come into Lakota territory, they would kind of the way that they would acknowledge them is they would go out and they would circle them and they would shoot into the air. To alert them that they were out there and then they would put a blanket down and like, talk to them and ask why they were there. So like when you think about it like circle the wagon and you're thinking of like native peoples circling around a wagon, you know, it doesn't really make sense that they just be circling around it, shooting in the air. I mean, they'd attack you if they wanted to attack you. So whenever I hear the term circle the wagon, I just think, oh, so you know, you're just going to really overreact to the situation. That's what you're saying you're going to do. Small little addition there. And the local laws are always at no. But it's a really good people to know. Apple. Yeah, this, this is Alicia. It's a really good example of. That understanding what somebody is saying and how they are receiving what you are saying. So we really would like for people to. Join in. Julia, do you have, like, phrases in Hawaii that just trigger you or that are cringe worthy? Well, let's see. I mean, there's all these stereotypes in the visuals of. Palm trees, hula girl. My ties. Little umbrella drinks. We need to talk about terminology. We're called brown people. I've been called an Oreo. I've been called a coconut. You know, just there are things people say. And they don't really think about how that impacts the person receiving it. I think it's also important, I mean so much of what we see going on with the flip comment from your coworker or the situation that gets blown out of proportion, a lot of a lot of what I see going on sometimes is just people failing to be. Decent, responsible, respectful human beings. And they're not. You mean think about all the things you learned when you were little from your grandparents, or you went to kindergarten? It was about being decent person and so much of. The circumstances I've encountered I I'll share a story. I'm very early in my career. I ended up as the CEO counselor for. This network of parks here in the Pacific and I ended up with a case that involved an individual who had come and filed an EEOC complaint and in investigating that complaint, it went from 1 complaint to 18 concurrent. Complaints and it actually went on to federal court and whatever, but so much of what had triggered that initial complaint had been a long history of. Umm. Discrimination and bias and poor language skills and poor listening skills and poor communication skills. And you know the offhand comment to employee X or in and it just had snowballed and festered for about probably 20 years. And so by the time I walked into it, you know, the only way we could. Sort it all out and clear it out. One of the reasons it went from 1 to 18 cases. At some point you just draw the line and say, OK, anybody who's got anything, they need to be bringing forward, bring it now or forever hold your peace, which is how this thing exploded but. That one case and the work that I did on that case over a year, I was on a plane in the morning and home late at night and back on the plane and meeting people and all kinds of, you know, meet me at the tennis courts at 2:00 o'clock or meet me behind the library at whatever. And like what? OK. But so much of what happened in that process could have been. I think alleviated overtime by people being a lot more respectful and decent to each other. And if there were circumstances that were creating, I don't understand or why did you say that or that's really offensive it would. In some cases, I think not ended up as badly as it did. And for me, that forever changed my working relationship. With people in a number of parks because whenever they saw me showing up, it was like, well, is she here to do her job or is she here doing CEO? And so I think the other piece of this is that. As employees. You also need to deal with some of these things in the same way you would want somebody to deal with them for you. So if you see something going on, say something, step in, be that person that can say this isn't right, please don't. Can we have another conversation about what's going on here? Because it just it festers. Some of this stuff just festers so badly and it just. Envelopes everything. It's like this amoeba that just takes over our relationships with each other in the workspace. It seeps out into our family world. It seeps out into our external dealings with partners and and so much of this is just people are. They're not thinking before they open their mouths a lot. I mean, just sorry. I'm being really blunt here, but that's a lot of what happens in my humble opinion. Thank you. Like to open it to the the folks on the zoom or if you're in a room sharing. Umm. Would really like to hear from you. We we mentioned this Ted we mentioned before, white privilege versus other kinds of privilege and part of white privilege that I have been privileged with is I have almost never been called any kind of a derogatory term. I have been called a Howley once. I was introduced as a *** *** lawyer once, but that was in jest. Yeah. And I know the guy. He he didn't mean it disrespectfully. He meant it to to pull the chain of the person we were talking to. Who deserved it. But that's part of white privileges that. These there aren't large numbers of commonly used derogatory terms for white people. Perhaps there should be, but you know, I know a few, but they're not said to white people, they're said among. Black people or among. Particularly Asian Americans. It's a. You know, words have power and. You get some important. The difference is important. Actually and also with the the tone that somebody says something. Yes. So I struggle on this because I have a lot of non-native friends that are different backgrounds like for instance my boyfriend's Indian from India. So of course you know there's a lot of teasing going on about that or he's the real Indian. And I'm like, well, that's not our fault because some excuse my language, but some dumb **** *** came to America and thought we were right and that just kind of stuck. Or I guess it's it's just like how you're if you build that relationship that you can joke. With your other person, that's non-native that you know it's not derogatory toward you. I think that's the exception there because it will be. We tease each other on certain things that are not appropriate on any other calls, or I'm sure on a professional level, but I think it just depends on your company how close you are in that relationship to make those kind of jokes. Like I he's dot I'm feather kind of. Differences when we when we tease each other, but it really depends on who you're with and if you have that relationship and you know it's done in a joking way like Albert mentioned before us as natives love to joke and tease each other and that's my teasing way with my significant other. So I think there's like some of those misconceptions sometimes that where those might be OK depending on that, but doesn't mean someone else can do that because you saw that interaction. Happened between him and I. So just being aware of those certain relationships versus like just watching it and thinking it's OK. Context. Thank you. Good point. I know we have 30 minutes left and you still have 10 slides to go through, so we will we will make. President, I wanna have some time for some questions and answers, so I wanna try to get through this pretty quick, so please bear with me. Hang on. It's going to be alright. We got gender roles, you know, in different cultures within different. Well, different cultures throughout the world, you know, you have male roles, women roles, transgenders, third gender, 4th gender, even some. There's a tribe in Africa, I forget which one it is, but there's 13 genders. And so this idea of. Of a dual gender is. Is A is a kind of a foreign concept to a lot of indigenous people because we know people who. You know our transgender or you know, you know, the whole LGBTQ plus. You can tell when I get really uncomfortable talking about something when because I don't know a whole lot about it. Prime example, when the LGBTQ plus. LGBTQ plus community. Community became. More widespread and in more. Accepted. Ish. More visible. Yeah, thank you. Ohh. You know it for for, for indigenous people was like, yeah, you know, I mean. Yeah, I mean, it's fine. You know, I mean. Whatever, whatever you know. But that was. After we got through our colonialism, because then we had to go through the Christianity aspect of it. And you know the dual genders and, you know, I was, you know, I was. I was homophobic. I'll be the first to admit it and you know it wasn't until one of my friends came out as homosexual that I was like, Oh well, you're still Jeremy. So I mean, doesn't mean, you know, you're what you do. You know, it doesn't have any bearing on me whatsoever. You know, as long as you're happy. He was whatever you wanna be. I don't care, you know? And so it wasn't until then. That I it clicked that I got over my whole. Yeah, my, my my bias is so again you tell when I get really uncomfortable, talk to you about something. But this is, you know, and then. Culture, you know? With the women all in, everything. You know, they own the house, they own the clothes. They own the pooping, they own everything. They don't own anything. But then when we were colonized, you know, the male became the, you know, became patriarchy. And we were never patriarchy or were matrilineal or matrifocal. You know, throughout time and now, thank goodness, we're seeing our women. Take their rightful place. Where they should have been all this time. No, I have strong, strong women in my family. Starting with my grandmother, you know I speak for my tiospaye, but do you think I I speak without asking my mother or my grandmother? Are you my sisters now? No. Because if I do, I say something wrong. I will hear it. And I probably won't get fed. And I might even get kicked out of my own house. So I mean, there are these, these, these, these things that happen. So transgender portion of their gender it's, you know, it's a it's very fluid. And it's just an acceptance. We have agent, family roles, elders or our wisdom keepers. And you know, we look COVID. Then we're decimated Indian country, you know, with our elders. It was tough and it's still tough. You know, we're still. We're still losing our elders because of this. Then we started losing children. You know, children. So the elders are wisdom. Keepers are the ones who keep us. Grounded and our children are the ones that give us hope. You know, adults, we're just kind of here making sure that we're taking care of our elders and their children. And with the nuclear family, you know, when we talk about nuclear family, we talk about mother, you know, we talk about, well, talk about Father, mother. Brother or sister? You know, whatever our Mother Mother or father, father, whatever. Whatever the family, the nuclear family is. Traditionally well in Indian country, it's not really that way. Yeah, there is a nuclear family, but when you start talking about the extended family. A small family gathering for for uh for my my family. Is. 7500 people, that's like a small family gathering. And my grandma turned 80. It was a large family gathering and we had a couple thousand that we that we fed and and brought through and they were all related. They're all. They're all related. They're all my relatives. Umm. And I could go by each one of them and know who they were and how is related to them. And that's just the way. We are. Umm. You know, examples of of this idea. Ideology is, you know, sports fans. I'm going to say something. You guys are not going to like, but I'm a Vikings fan. And you know, when the purple and gold win and they beat Green Bay, who's happens to be the colors I used to on here, he didn't notice. You know. I feel great, you know? And when when Green Bay beats us, I'm like ohhhhhh. You know, that's kind of like a that's kind of like an extended family. You're part of a bigger group who has a shared interest. And that's basically what a nuclear or a family, a tribe, and even the world. That's how they. That's how they exist. So. Extended family also doesn't include not. It doesn't include just blood. You also have adoptions when each each culture has basically has an adoption, you know, a ceremony. From what I've read thus far and have experienced and at some point, you know, you may be a, you may be a part of another family or another tribe. I got adopted. By my Navajo relatives and I didn't even know. I got like told me. Alright, well now where am I supposed to? There? Where am I supposed to go to? Umm. You know, and it was, but now I have those relatives, you know, and my mom has cruel relatives. And my dad has Cheyenne relatives. But they're all my relatives as well, you know. And so the family really starts to grow. And the adoption could either be physical or spiritual. Most cases it's spiritual, like my my Navajo relatives. Mark the name. Relatives are they're they're it's more the spiritual relatives aspect of it. But my best friend, who my second mom. Was when she died. My was my best friend's biological mom and we adopted them physically into my house. And my mom adopted him and so. As we were growing up, we had two mothers, his mom and my mom, and so it's an old tradition that that people forgot about until we brought back and we just followed that way. I called her mom. He called my mom mom, so. No, it's just it's just the way it was, you know? And if we did anything wrong? You know, we got our butts kicked by both of our moms. No matter which one we were, we were going to catch it, so we try not to. And the last part of this whole thing here with we're talking about family adoptions, it's also a measure of respect. You know, if I, you know if I adopt somebody from a different tribe or even a non indigenous person, I adopt them as telling everybody is telling. My friend is telling my community that I'm bringing this person in because this person has my respect. And this person is going to help us do what we need to do. As well. And a lot of people forget about that. So it is a measure of respect. And the last thing was the last thing I will say about family is. In Lakota, we say, which is all of our relatives, we're all related. As an archaeologist and anthropologist, I can attest to that. If you believe in that way. We all come from the Rift Valley in Africa. We're all African, you know. I have one female relative. That is is is the eve. Different times, but still the same relative. If you believe that way. Some people don't, and I respect that. You know, I personally I learned about it like, OK, that's that's one way of looking at it. Do I believe it? Not necessarily. I believe it came from one cave. And I'll prove it, no. I'm archaeologist. Greetings. When you're talking, you're introducing yourself or are being introduced, you know. Kinda guy, remember gender roles, you know, and age roles as well. So like if you're meeting. You know, if you're meeting me and you happen to be another male, shaking my hand in a firm handshake and you know is OK, but if you're a female meeting me, give me a firm handshake. I'm going to be like. She might be able to beat me up. I don't know if I wanted. Are you know there there's certain aspects of of of? Protocol. Again ask. You know, we were always taught to look somebody high and give them a firm handshake well. If I did that to one of my grandmas, I would get smacked with a cane. Honestly, I mean, they don't mess around. And when I say one of my grandmas, I have multiple grandmas, really. Umm. Or if I say that when my aunties are one of my, you know, female cook, they they whack I I get I get checked and so understanding. What? The gender areas and what and and how to address them. Sometimes, like with my cousins, I'll I'll shake her hand, you know, jokingly. You know, like a firm handshake, jokingly. But if we're in public or if we're in a big group of people that we didn't know, then I wouldn't. I'd be barely touching her hand. It's kind of like holding a dead fish. You don't really want to touch it, but you have to. It's kind of touching dead fish and then with elderly, with the Native American women, at least for my people, you know, you it's you barely touch. It's a it's like finger touching. It's. You know you don't want to go anywhere past that, and especially if you're a single female and a single male who there's there's issues there as well. So I'd be careful. On personal contact. So it's just a matter of asking what is the right protocol. And don't assume that looking at them in the eye and and giving them a firm handshake is the way to go, because I contact, at least in the northern plains, if you look at somebody and you're staring at them, that is a sign of aggression. And. For me. I'm always moving my eyes around. Because I don't want to. You know, I don't want to fight anybody. I'm. I'm. I'm a pretty nice guy. Get to know me. Umm. And but it is a sign of aggression. And so. You don't want to maintain that eye contact. Ultimately a little secret. I I can share with you guys. If you look at somebody's. Prep beneath your nose. They can't tell you're looking at their eyes, or if they're looking at your mouth so. Problem is with that is I start looking at people's mouths when they talk and it's kind of hilarious. So just be aware of that. Just telling, you know that. The importance of title you know when you're meeting. The chairperson, the president, the head, the head of the hereditary chief. Are a dignitary. Call them by their title. You know my cousin is the chairman. Actually, my brothers, the vice chairman right now. But my cousin is the chairman for my tribe and I call him Mr. Chairman. You know, even when he wasn't, even when he got voted out. And got voted back in. I still called them Mr. Chairman when he was voted out because he was still the chairman. He was a former chairman. Umm. Even though it's Harold, you know I've known Harold all my life. I know. Bob, Bob, my entire life. And he's the vice chairman. I call him Mr Vice chairman. He gets mad at me when I do it. I do it just to make him mad, but because I'm teasing him because he knows I'm teasing him. But you know, I do call him that, you know. Kind of teasing, but kind of being serious about it. So you know, if you're meeting a dignitary from a sovereign nation, you gotta remember these are sovereign people. You know, how would you introduce yourself or how would you greet the King of Burundi? Are. And any other foreign dignitary, they'll come to your part. You know that is the level at which we operate, are we should be operating, we don't. But that's the level we should be operating at. Because these are sovereigns. Spirituality. This is a really quick one. There is no difference in, in, in majority of indigenous cultures of spirituality and everyday life. You know. With some of the Christians, you can go to church. On the 7th day and be for either if you be forgiven for what you may or may not have done during that week for us. This is a continuation we don't have to go through a certain building to. To. Be forgiven. But in some cases we have to go through a certain spot to do a certain ceremony. You know, and so that's where some of the IT gets confusing. But ultimately when you look at it, you know, our church is every day everywhere. You know, we do have a connection with the surroundings and we do have. You know. Certain places where we need to be at certain periods of certain days in certain periods, periods of time. So we have to do. And through our spirituality, we have a connection to our past, present and future all at once. It's a hard concept to understand, but. It's true. I mean we have connection to our past, present and future all at once at one time. And I really can't explain it further than that and you have to experience it. And when you do experience, you're like, whoa, so. You might be looking experience it. Indian humor. You've heard it all through this. This this broadcast. You know the teasing, the laughing, the smiling. Slightly sarcastic. That can be mean spirited. It could be for cultural correction. I was teasing one of my cousins. She had a a new she had her septum pierced. Granted item, I set them pierced when I was younger too, so I can't really say anything, but I did. And she really mad at me when I started teasing her more about it, but. You know, it was, you know, she was portraying herself as this Lakota woman, but she was literally defacing herself. In in, in, in a manner that wasn't. Necessarily approved by look what the standards. And so I called her out on it and she got mad at me. But I did it in a teasing way. And then I had to backtrack and and and basically say, oh, sorry I didn't mean. Yeah, I had to backtrack. But there are cultural corrections within their accusing, you know, and. A lot of them are funny and most of them are inside jokes. If you if you got on here earlier and you saw the chat, I said scolded. You know, and people like what's called. Well, it's. Reservation for let's go. That's cool then. It took me. It took Me 2 years to figure that out. It was actually the night guy who told me that too, so. And let's do this so. Umm. And we have a lot of inside jokes, I mean. I can talk to anybody who. Who grew up? Within the government system and you know, we talk about, you know. By the cheese and. You see a brick of gold. Everybody's eyes will light up and you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a £5 block of American cheese, and it's the best cheese in the world. It was really good on Indian tacos. So yeah, yeah. Yeah. Alicia is getting after me about 10 minutes. Almost done last and last but not least, and last and least is the news. And don't I mean, really. You will if you get anything from this. Is ask. When in doubt, ask. And if you're not 100% for sure if somebody's doing the smudging or somebody's doing a prayer, all of the leader in some cases. And be able to allow for silence. Indigenous people have to translate a lot of things, you know, as Malia said. You know, some people just have diarrhea of the mouth. But indigenous people and minorities, we have to think through filters and think through things. And in some cases even translate. From. Our language, the traditional language to English. And we have to allow for that science. So we have an author who pauses for 10 minutes, and sometimes they do. You have to allow for that silence because what they what they say. They thought about it and it's important. It's very important. The don'ts don't be aggressive. Don't. You know, don't try to force your, you know, you know, force yourself upon them. Don't try to force your agenda on them. You know, just kind of have to go with the flow, do not make continual eye contact again. That's the surefire way of trying to, you know, get into a fight. And you know, listen and do not interrupt. That is one of the hardest things or some. Of us to do, not me. But I've worked with. Other non indigenous people who just. They can't help themselves and they have to pull them back, you know, especially we're dealing with, with, with travel partners, so. That. Is it I think. Questions but. Here's our next webinar that's the case. I'll leave those up. But we do have questions. If you have any questions, I went to that really quick because I'm running out of time. And let us know and if you. Don't if you don't want. If you don't feel they wanna ask a question in the large group again, feel free to, you know, e-mail our our team use teams to. To contact anyone of us and we'll be able to assist. Especially Sheena. She likes seeing emails like that. Well, we do still have some time as does anybody have any comments or questions, maybe something that the presentation and makes you think of, you know announced the time open this up? The next webinar, as it says up on the slide September 6th. And. Two 1300 hours is central time, correct? You have that office. Your time. Let me check because it's it's 1600 or 4:30 central time. I think I think they're two hours behind us. So you guys 2 hours behind us. Yeah. And then special and get super confused on military time, Albert for mine. Sorry I I've been uh, when I was working on incident, I got stuck on this 24 hour clock and. Ohm. So. Everybody, everybody's gonna have to deal with this. Sorry. The way I think anymore. Yes. So then our next one, we're going to be talking about recruitment and retention and and I know that it can create a lot of frustration and there's also a lot of opportunity. And then our last one is about a aggression, but then also wanting to leave you guys with tasks and items that you could start immediately and to do. So Jesse has a question. How old do you have to be to become an elder and how do we know if we are meeting with an elder? Good questions. It looked like Alicia, no. You look like Albert, listening to elder all this time. He thinks he's Joe elder. I couldn't help it, man. No. Yeah, seriously. Yeah. Seriously, Ted. I mean, it's a fair question. How do you tell? And it's really based on the community too. There are people that I consider elders, but they don't want, they don't consider themselves elders. Yeah. I've actually had this question before at the are the national Native Youth Congress I used to lead and I got called an elder there. Which was really interesting. Yeah. So I'm like still in my 30s and I don't feel like an elder, but apparently because of. The experience and what I've been through and where I've gone and I have this, the experience and the the feedback for like when people ask me, I can tell them what I've been through and what I know and give them that knowledge. And so I feel it varies very much on who's been where and what. And actually she said it bases on your community but. There it was really interesting to hear that where I was surprised, like people thought of me as an elder or the students did, and I was like, Oh my gosh. And then they jinxed me and I saw a white hair after that, Congress had son. So. But that's an interesting question. It really is. And that's what I feel like I was told by actual elders that were there. They're like you are. You have done things that we've never done. You had this experience, and you have this knowledge that you can give. So that yes, they consider you an elder. So that's what that's my feedback on it, but I guess that's what it is. You know, I just want to add that not everyone who is old is an elder. It's a difference between an elder and an older. And you know, mostly like an elder would be someone who has knowledge and who, you know, shares knowledge. So they're knowledge keeper, whereas an older would be someone who either hordes knowledge or just does not do anything to think about the next generation. It's alternately, you really need to ask, you know, ask your local travel partners on you know what's their definition, you know. On. Yeah. What's what's the definition of elder? I'm home. I tease my head again. I tease my brother. He just turned 60. Yeah. Home at 60. You get your quote, UN quote. Elder check. And it's actually, we're the only people that we're the only reservation in South Dakota that actually taxes our own people. And so our elders check comes from the cigarette tax that we collect and so. The irony is, is that the most of the elders are still smoking, so they're not really. Yeah, it's not. It's it's kind of washing out. But but check with your check with your local, your channel partners and they'll be able to assist you on that. But those are really good questions. I mean, if you were to ask my kids, they were like, OK, I'm six months older than my cousin. So I'm their elder and I get to boss them around. So you'll see that with youth indigenous in indigenous communities. And then also kind of like, so if you're in Utah and you're around the Mormon community or the? The LDS community, they called the the young individuals that are going out on. What is that? Uh. The mission? Yes. Thank you. You called them elders. And that was something I was like. What do you mean? These kids are elders. So that was something that I had to learn. As we're talking about language. But you know, there it is. I think that knowledge holder. And then also if you're in a meeting or you're with a group of people and you're wanting to know is usually kind of the oldest person. If that you're asking for a prayer and you always go to that, that. The oldest person that is there just to be safe and then they will tell you. No, I'm not the one and they could point you to who you would ask for the prayer or what would be appropriate. Great question. Do we have any more questions? Our observations, I know we're right at the top of the second hour. Umm. And so we are going to be meeting with you guys again on September 6th. So if there's questions that you have, you can get to your supervisor if you want to reach out to us directly and we can make sure that we can answer those or however. We want to do that also circle at mps.gov is a way to get to become a part of our community and people send me emails. Right now I'm the only person, so I tend to kind of spam people with lots of emails when I have time to get in there and just shoot them out. So I'm sorry I always apologize because I'll be like 10 emails within 5 minutes sometimes, but trying to get that information out there. One other thing to do. Supervisors. If you have questions or you have concerns or anything like that, feel free to get a hold of any one of us as well we can. We can assist you as well if you if you want to continue the conversation. Ideally we hope that we can continue the conversation, you know at at Grand Canyon so that you know we can create you know. A more inclusive inclusive space for everybody, you know, I mean, we work. We work together with some cases. We live together and we want to be able to have a, you know, have a place where everybody feels safe and that we can all you know, support each other as as we do in the NPS so. And I'm sorry that we have to do these virtually and I'm hoping in the next FY, especially when I get back from maternity leave that we get the opportunity to come out there and meet you guys in person because sometimes it's just being there makes a huge difference too. So looking forward to that opportunity when that comes. I've never been to the Grand Canyon, so yeah. Well, this is Susan. We'd love to have you come visit us at the Grand Canyon and we want to thank you very much for for doing this for us. This is really wonderful. I will be following up with an e-mail to everyone. I want to confirm the time with you for the for the third one. I'll make sure that that's correct and we're going to ask each of our supervisors to lead a discussion with their teams, Albert and Alicia, so that they will, they'll have a chance to process some of what you've shared and we can all get back to you if we have questions. So thank you very much and I hope everyone has has has found this worthwhile. Thank you. This this is great. We look forward to those questions. And then also the information that you guys share with us will also inform us and how in the next two sessions to so please. You know, be honest with what you have or questions we This is why we're here. And then I the one in October I have is at 2:30. So Albert put that wrong on the slide. Great. Yeah, that's what we had too. So we'll, we'll keep it at those both at 2:30 and everyone has a calendar invitation for that. Great. Thank you. I will change it. Hey, I'm going to stop the recording and.

Description

With Alisha Deegan and Albert LeBeau August 10 2022, Grand Canyon National Park.

Credit

Grand Canyon National Park

Date Created

08/10/2022

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