Shayai said she live-streamed Mondayâs Senate confirmation vote from her flower shop on the reservation. Her mother, Cecilia, was there too, crying like so many people were across Indian Country that day. What flows from those happy tears can be easily summed up in a single word: visibility. âMy mom said, âI just keep thinking about all those Indian leaders who trekked from their homes to try to get the government to listen to them - centuries of chiefs and tribal leadersâŚââ Shayaiâs voice trailed off into tears of her own. In 1881, during construction of the War Department building, the Eisenhower, Haalandâs great-grandfather from Laguna Pueblo was put on a train to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania - part of the military-led cultural genocide of Indigenous Peoples. As many as 10-thousand Native boys and girls from 140 different nations attended the government boarding school. Their braids were shorn; their languages beaten out of them. My great-grandfather, James Santiago Luther, also Laguna, was one of them. His school records document how they taught him the ways of the White man. But this chapter in the Indigenous struggle tells only a part of the story. For too long, our greater narrative has been buried, ignored, or altogether dismissed. Haalandâs historic helming will no doubt change that - it already has. For Indian Country, this week has only intensified a radical imagining of an Indigenous future. For some, that involves a beautiful dream about getting the land back. For others - a push to eradicate by-blood limitations on Indigeneity. For me, I long more broadly for a near future where it doesnât take two New York Times reporters to do the work of one informed and qualified Indigenous journalist. âWeâve been patient for centuries,â said Shayai about waiting for change. âWe can be a little bit more patient and work.â Indigenouslyâs coverage of this historic week and what it means is summed up in a six-minute read we published. Enjoy, and if something strikes you from this newsletter, donât be shy. Send me your thoughts. I love receiving your emails. Dawaaâe, thank you so much for being here, Jenni
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