Thread by @karlajstrand

I'm here, are you??

https://twitter.com/haymarketbooks/status/1313583558687105026

Will be live tweeting. Be sure to buy the book haymarketbooks.org/books/1555-how…

Suzanne Methot and the panelists begin with acknowledging the land they are on. She introduces the speakers whose narratives are included in the new @voiceofwitness @haymarketbooks book HOW WE GO HOME: VOICES FROM #INDIGENOUS NORTH AMERICA.

Methot also introduces Sara Sinclair, oral historian and editor of this volume. What an amazing panel. So happy to be witnessing and listening. Sara will talk about the book and other contributors.

Sinclair: There's an educational curriculum available as well: voiceofwitness.org/how-we-go-home/

Methot: Goes over some terminology first.

Colonization: both formal and informal methods that maintain the subjugation or exploitation of Indigenous Peoples, lands, resources.

Decolonization: intelligent, calculated and active resistance to the forces of colonialization that perpetuate the subjugation of Indigenous Peoples, land, etc.

Indigenization: Process of decolonizing Indigenous life and restoring true self-determination based on pre-colonial Indigenous life.

Sovereignty: Exercise of political authority by a particular people or nation.

Sinclair: This has been a long process. Sinclair was a masters student in oral history in NYC. Was very interested in Indigenous students who left home, went to school, went home to work and live. Met Rick Chavolla and Ashley Hemmer.

Sinclair: Sought to shed a light on real Indigenous lives, and having Indigenous people narrating their own lives and places and experiences. Knew the stories would be compiled into a book and happy to have it published through @voiceofwitness.

Sinclair: Focus for the book expanded from education to more general - how to live in a nation within a nation, with a legacy of settlement, violence, war, loss of land? How does colonialism affect Native lives today?

Sinclair: Book includes 12 stories out of 24 or so. Covering topics such as #MMIWG #MMIW, violence, land, education, relationships, health, trauma, caretaking, and more.

Sinclair: Hopes Native kids will found the book and see themselves and their worlds represented. Hoping non-Native people will learn as well, about Native lives but also about how to be better allies.

Hemmers: Is Mojave and explains that when a Mojave takes someone as family, their recommendation is gold. So was doing right by Rick to show Sara around the lands, because Rick had vouched for Sara. Helps for understanding if you really see and experience the land.

Hemmers: Assimilation and termination policies affected her grandmother and many others in Mojave area. Sent to residential school and internment camps as well as dealt with relocation. It affects the entire family and generations after.

Hemmers: Understanding geography is instrumental to her life and belief systems as a Mojave. The land and waters are part of who she is. Must be near them and protect them. Hemmers showed Sinclair the land so she could get a better idea of this need.

Sinclair met Gladys Radek in 2018. Radek is active in the #MMIW movement along the Highway of Tears in Canada. Her niece, Tamara Chipman, went missing at 22yo. Only after that did she realize how many other Native women were missing or had been murdered.

Radek: Wanted to do something to help the women and the families left behind. Government policies were/are causing genocide. It's all about the land. "Because they want to rape the land, too."

Radek: Families wanted a national public inquiry. Took 12 years to get a public inquiry to investigate #MMIW. It was all done by volunteers. Dec 2007 created Walk4Justice to bring awareness to #MMIW because nothing was being done to help.

Hemmers: Participated because the project was genuine and centered voices of Indigenous people. Is a private person but knew how important it was to share her narrative. Mom told her not to be nervous in telling her story bc it's true.

Hemmers: Important for people and teachers especially to understand there are multiple perspectives and when they teach from those perspectives, they honor her, Gladys, and all Native people.

Radek: Participated to help educate people about what is really going on in Canada and the US. "Even one woman is too many." Women continue to go missing today at alarming rates. "Our families are tired of being silenced."

Radek hopes education will help people understand. The more allies we have, the better the chance the violence against Aboriginal women and girls will end.

Sinclair: Title of the book came from a conversation had with Ashley Hemmers. When she was asked by educators at university about why she was leaving Northeast to go home to Mojave, Ashley said it's not about why we go home, it's about how we go home.

Sinclair: Home is a physical place but a larger, deeper meaning as well. Her process of going home started with her father. He really worked to (re)claim identity and community.

Sinclair: The more she learned about intentional dispossession and oppression of Native communities and people, it gave her license to start her own path of learning. It's a journey, there's not an end to it. How people pursue it is very different.

Sinclair: Home is community and a sense of belonging for her, which is emboldened by an understanding of history.

Radek: "Terrace is my home." She went away but always goes back there. Wasn't born there but it has the most roots for her due to family. She was a wanderer and didn't know where home was for a long time.

Radek: She went home to Terrace because of her family: kids, grandkids, siblings. Had to think about where home was after having health issues. Tough decision for her but "no regrets". At 2yo, her granddaughter was the youngest walker that participated on her Walks4Justice.

Radek: So important to educate the kids and grandkids and to make sure they know they are treasured and important. Put up a totem pole in their community to commemorate their loved ones, which has been welcomed.

Radek: The totem pole project was a vision from one of the walks. Creator had a hand in it, for sure, because it's exactly placed where she had envisioned it. The community and families appreciate it.

Methot: It's never just one story, there's so much community as well as chosen, extended families and structures. It's so important. Important to share and recreate.

Hemmers: This is why you go back home: to rebuild and recreate. Left Ivy League school to go home. At Yale, she "Had to figure out how to be good in a world that didn't want me." Was a way for her to get inside the system that wasn't meant for her.

Hemmers: Shocked to see how other people lived in the Northeast. Had to adjust to the weather for sure. Distinction between how go home and why go home: her grandmother taught her she belongs to her people and her people belong to her and they are in the Mojave.

Hemmers: One of only five tribes in US that can practice their ceremonies and beliefs. Have a responsibility to and for their community. She goes home every day because her people matter. It's her duty as a Mojave to protect what she needs to.

Hemmers: She and her tribe have the energy needed to do the work. Some find it harder to reenter their communities. They may not have the entrance places that she does. Only 1400 Mojave in the world. It's imperative to protect them.

Methot: Home is ancestral territory also and she lives with the knowledge that she will never be able to live there. Their land was taken, they refused treaty twice. Not many connections to her tribal community.

Methot: Removal from territory has/had huge impact. Lived in many places in the country. She can't go back to her other homeland because of the right wing homophobic government, because of the oil and fracking.

Methot: "Home is inside of me" and "in the stories that I've recreated and re-membered and re-embodied". Being on the land helps her to get in touch with her people and ceremony. Creating a healing narrative by connecting with the land. This can help with healing from trauma.

Methot: Stories and the land are home, even though the latter is not her ancestral land. Feels more whole and less fragmented now learning about her past, being on the land, listening to and telling stories.

Methot: When teachers use the curriculum created for the project, it can be a process of reclamation for Indigenous students. Created it within a decolonial framework. Also good for dismantling stereotypes, etc. for non-Indigenous students.

Methot: It's a lot of information but the curriculum can help. Consider trauma-informed teaching. Learn the terminology, strengthen relationships with Indigenous students, etc. It is all there for teachers!

Sources for Indigenous land info in Canada native-land.ca. Also check your local university because they usually have land acknowledgements.

Sinclair: Action outcomes are included in the book, if you are interested in allying with the people, stories in the book. Lots of ways to be allies to Indigenous peoples.

Hemmers: For settlers - Amplification of Native voices is great. Understand and acknowledge where you are. Be active in the present. Understand nations build borders, not people. Can be part of the action to protect peoples and land. Build bridges.

Radek: Combatting #MMIW is difficult because of the root causes, including policing, poverty, etc. One thing you can do is help search or provide supplies or meals. Be of service to the families and pray.

Some resources:
voiceofwitness.org/how-we-go-home/
suzannemethot.ca
saraesinclair.com
haymarketbooks.org
doi.gov/tribes
native-land.ca
For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook - Edited by Waziyatawin Angela WilsonMichael Yellow Bird

Thanks to @voiceofwitness @haymarketbooks, Sara Sinclair, Gladys Radek, Ashley Hemmers, and Suzanne Methot for this fantastic panel, for the book, for your strength, and for sharing your stories.

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