Thank you all for joining us again for those of you who are just joining us. You have come at an opportune time and we're so excited to have you all here. We have some more art shares that we're going to be presenting today from some amazing and incredible artists. We have Orelua Badaki who will be presenting Seed and Sound and after that we'll be having Yi-che present Tiwi Hong. Yeah, amazing. Thank you so much, Yi-yo. Oh my gosh. Hi everybody. Dabora here. We are and I'm in conversation with Yi-yo Onellas. Thank you so much. After we have our two art shares, then we're going to hit our final panel of the day which is Indigenous Digital with Canyon Sears Roots, Yi-che and in conversation with our own Nikki Martinez. So stay tuned for that short, hour-long session that will follow these two art shares and of course the micro-tergs that are at the end of each of the art shares. We're so excited but there's more after that. We've got more art shares throughout the day until two o'clock. So stay with us friends. Now let's get into some art shares. Hi everybody. This is amazing. Thank you so much for coming to our talk. This is going to be the Indigenous Digital Contemporary Native Storytelling. Hi, I'm Nikki Martinez. If you all were here early in the morning for the TAC conference, I was there but now I'm going to be moderating this talk. I just wanted to drop in the chat a resource so you could look up which Native lands that you're zooming in from and from intros. I'm going to introduce these amazing people that I'm going to be talking to with today but I'm going to model the introduction. So hi, my name is Nikki Martinez. My pronouns go by they-them. I am zooming in from a WACMA territory also known as San Jose and I am a local Bay Area artist. I do mainly writing and performing arts but I'm also known to do some devising theater with Fulls Fury and now I want to have Canyon introduce themselves and then I'll go to H.A. Mishmin Tuhis, Conrad Cott Canyon, Coyote Woman, Ceres Roots. I as Mutsun Eloni and Chumash and Yuromut Ancestry and I currently am phoning in from Tamien Eloni territory. Active communities here are Tamien Nation and the Moekma Band aka Santa Clara County and so I am honored to be here and I have so many things to say and I'm going to keep it simple and I'm honored their perspective in this circle. Thank you. Hi Shibu, I'm Ia Chit and I go by faith their pronouns. Currently I'm in Ramatish Eloni land and yeah I'm really excited to share space with y'all. Thank you so much and if everybody in the chat could put please drop down in the chat where you're zooming in from so y'all know which territories you're in. I think that's always fun and exciting to interact with during our chat but let's get into this conversation and since we're talking about the internet I first want to start off with what does decolonizing the internet mean to you and any of you could just jump in and answer. Pipe in. I might have more to say later because I never know what to say. When I think of decolonization I think of questioning how we got to where we are and to decolonize is to break apart what break down what we consider colonization and we would then have to know truth and history about what colonization is and that comes in the format of unsettling and decolonizing and then I try and also bring in the reimagining and re-indigenization so when I think of decolonizing the internet one what does it do why is it here how does it function and then what elements have been informed what was created and how was it informed. I'll use one example I point out to people that Wikipedia is racist and they go why it's sourced by the community and I'm like well think about settler colonial history settler colonial academia it validates written narratives where it validates history only in the written format because let's say archaeology my ancestors are called prehistoric prehistoric ancestral remains but when we hear the word we think of dinosaurs because of our education system so when I think when I point out that I believe that Wikipedia is racist is because it does not allow us to cite our oral narratives it does not allow us to cite the indigenous history that has been present and prevalent for thousands and thousands and thousands of years since time immemorial that being said I understand why it's hard for them not to do so i.e trolls will be trolls and people citing sources but why is it that I can't cite the ancestral wisdom of my ancestors as a citable source but then someone could misquote me poorly type my name misspell it but because they're in a journal they get to be cited as a citable source and have it verified and validated so to me decolonizing the internet is questioning is breaking down and and considering the parameters of which it was created and let's think about it I currently reside in silicon valley silly con valley and many of these organizations don't honor indigenous protocol they don't honor or acknowledge the history of the land that they are on and quite simply putting it if you do not know the history of the land that you are on but you claim you want to educate the public you claim you care about the environment going forward you care about development you care about the education of young beings you care about climate change and you don't know the history of the land that you're on you're coming to the table under informed and when you come into the table under informed are you really is the conclusions you're coming to actually going to be viable and reasonable so that's my small little tidbit there I might have more but I'll save some of the juicy stuff I'm really glad you said you mentioned wikipedia I am moiska which I hate saying colombia because it's literally named after columbus but that's where I'm from and if you look up moiska or muskubu in my native tongue wikipedia says it's a dead language and that's bs because no language is dead every language has a spirit and so I agree with everything you said thank you for me decolonizing the internet I recently dove into digital drag and being disabled I always felt like I wasn't enough to be like an actual performer and I think I never really saw representation of like other two-spirit folks especially in the bay area it can be very whitewashed and discouraging but with digital drag I felt like accepted and I was able to take up space and it's all new to me but it's very empowering and I think that's one way I'm decolonizing is taking up space digitally because I couldn't do that in real life I actually for the first time did my real life drag performance last night and I'm not gonna lie it was it was kind of discouraging it wasn't accessible it was very white I was the only performer who acknowledged the land I was on and it's it's sad that it's not a common place thing to do you would think but I guess it's not very common I don't know but yeah I think being indigenous being disabled being queer and just existing is almost radical and decolonizing in itself right I actually have a tattoo on me that says existing is resisting for that reminder um but yeah I think that's kind of my thoughts on that question thank you and you know Kenyan if you want to answer this question because EHA you sort of answered this question already of like what strategies you use to resist colonization on the internet like what are some of your tools or what makes you feel like you're really uh resisting and deconstructing this idea of colonization on the internet uh to segue the add on to the previous question as um a little closing I also want to point out that western settler colonialism has informed us about our decision-making and protocols going forward we're entitled to property we're entitled to capitalizing off of opportunity and so like the stereotypical we have the ogle ogle energy of um monopolizing the internet and we just say hey how do I change a tire hey how do I do this and it's great because I don't even want to say it because it might trigger my device to do the do the action hey ogle and so um if I say how do I change a tire that's great great information instant gratification I need it now give it to me but how would you feel well I can't even say how would you well our community here is a little more considerate of cultural competent approaches and cultural sensitive elements like hi indigenous person can you tell me you're coming of age ceremony for your young women instant gratification gimme gimme gimme that's really demanding and that's not part of our cultural protocols of just interfacing and interacting so that kind of entitlement I really want to indigenize the internet by putting a flow chart of you have to do some work to show up in community to get more access to further so instead of just saying immediately how do I do this it's like what do I do or how do I navigate this and then you get there you interface with a flow chart where it says if this then that then you interface and then you get a little if you I'll go later on I'll give you an analogy um personally uh what I do well uh I attempt to honor native land wherever I go so land acknowledgments I'm hyper tokenized for that reason as well because I live in the bay area and I trace my ancestry to the bay area of central coastal california in contemporarily known aloni territory given that that is a misnomer my ancestors did not know that word um I have fun with uh opportunities of educating this is hashtag roaming aloni and he is an accurately depicted native figurine in regalia because indigenous peoples we don't wear costumes and wherever he goes he takes selfies with people he's met wayna la duke he's met dallas gold tooth in the 1491's uh uh tom gold tooth of environment indigenous environmental network um amazing beings and also works with language because as mentioned languages aren't dead there are many that might be dormant but language and verbiage matters representation matters so one he is a little figurine from the powhatan mold but think about it we have these little army guys we can name a gunny we can name a sniper we can name a medic we can name infantry we can name their job titles in their little depictions but what type of representation do indigenous peoples have and they're usually pan indian and ask yourself do you think indigenous peoples were ever consulted about how their likeness was depicted on media probably not or not many or at least the story hasn't been acknowledged properly and so if you follow roaming aloni my business name is canyon consulting and he has his own little page and uh he's on instagram on facebook on twitter uh and he acknowledges native land wherever he goes attempting to learn about the native peoples sometimes working with language sometimes working with community but just roams around and it was really really fun and the goal is also to be international so to learn about indigenous peoples around the world uh that's one method um as a queer two-spirit community member i failed to mention my pronouns because i'm ambiguous i'm okay with she they coyote uh i voice opportunities of representation i am non-diagnosed through western uh medical industry in regards to how i identify as neurodivergent i know i have adhd i am dyslexic i struggle with some patterns of ocd and claustrophobia too um but with this many times we see these things as western science depicts these as potential diseases problems hindrances um lack of ability and to me i i recognize that these help me navigate the world differently and to me diverse perspectives are necessary the same way culture sharing is necessary and culture sharing helps us understand that there are not there isn't a singular truth there are many perspectives and many truths and and instead of saying my way is the only way this is the way to learn this is the way to work this is the way to do this task there's many ways to see things and so representation matters so wherever i go i attempt to acknowledge indigenous protocol by sharing and communicating the importance of recognizing the indigenous peoples of whose land we are on i also attempt to engage in more culturally sensitive and culturally competent approaches uh one example would be uh as an artist i was commissioned to create a ball relief um for a for our ancestors that were reinterred in an area where a project disrupted them my mother my grandmother believed that when an individual is on earth the spirit of that individual is wandering and that being said i was commissioned to create a ball relief as a honor mural and it was not in my homeland my territory so i created an art piece with the howling coyote and then i used my language the mootson language to offer a prayer and i wrote it into the ball relief and i said this needs to be two pieces they really wanted it to be one piece as a tribute i said this is the mootson language this is not the original language of this land this is an artistic piece to honor original languages of the bay area however if the native peoples of this land want to have a prayer or a plaque or an acknowledgement my piece needs to have the opportunity to be removed in case that ever wants to happen it is only the most culturally sensitive a way to acknowledge the indigenous peoples of the land to not misrepresent myself or the people of the land i could do so as an artist by sharing my perspective in my language however if the native peoples want to offer a prayer they have full right to remove it and add theirs in the future um highly doubtful but for that approach and that consideration is necessary and i attempt to bring that perspective i'm a consultant so i consult i love media so i love to interface with various forms of media from offering land acknowledgements for the alphabet rockers a youth music group of the east of east bay in chicheno aloni territory in huqin and so that i offer my voice in this format of vocals and song um so on the internet i just try and offer truth and history and perspective sharing as to the best of my ability so youtube videos instagram videos i try and encourage people to create gifts and language revitalization efforts so like gifts and um tiktoks and uh and like um celebrate uh perspective sharing so getting clips from indigenous movies and indigenous representation so like pointing or or let's go then or in the if in it funny stuff like that so having fun for sharing media and perspective and representation and uh yeah yeah che you could add on to your answer before other than like uh doing digital drag and the accessibility um if any other i'm just i'm just really happy uh to hear um just to be in community right now um i think i was just still processing last night but um i guess one way i i love film and like coyote said representation is everything and i think for a long time as a kid i felt so discouraged um that i couldn't be a director or make art or any or take up space like i said because i'm like who can i relate to in this art world um but i finally decided to take up space i feel like the pandemic kind of pushed me to confront my fears um which i'm grateful for it was scary but i'm glad um and i started doing short films and i started to sing songs of my peoples and i started to revitalize my culture and my language and translate the words to english so that i can educate folks whoever decides to see my videos they can learn my language and if they just say my name it's keeping the language alive and it's something that i've been teaching my nibblings actually and it's so sweet to hear them say my name and you know use say why yeah to to call their mother and just to really keep it going because it's so it's so sad i try to i'm actually teaching my parents um they're so they're still learning about decolonization i feel like the they had to conform out of survival and there's a lot of shame with their indigeneity and it's really unfortunate because it's such a beautiful and powerful thing and i feel like now i have the privilege to really take that back and reclaim it and they don't yeah they don't know muscaboon i'm the one teaching them and it's so backwards but that's just proof of how much colonizers have taken from us but despite that we are still here and that's that's what matters and we are not going anywhere and i think i'll leave it at that thank you so much i also wanted to ask just around that in regards of language and generational trauma um because i am first generation Salvadorian second generation mexican and there's always this conflict with the latin community claiming indigeneity because we've been such we've been separated for so long and this idea of like okay well if i want to go back into my roots like i understand that i'm mexican and Salvadorian but looking into the indigenous cultures like i feel like i should be there but at the same time i don't want to um colonize my own people you know what i mean and i feel like a lot of people express that especially in the latin community and i'm just wondering just because you're from Colombia how how do you unpack that and how enriching it was to sort of you know claim that indigeneity back yeah i think it was processing all that generational trauma that my parents didn't get to process that my older siblings didn't get to process um i think i kind of just i kind of did it for them and with them at least with one of my siblings um but yeah there it's complex because the two my first language is Spanish which is a colonizer language then i was forced to learn English which is another colonizer language and being trans i went through name changes and it was like a journey so like initially my first like name change was given by a friend and it was Quinn which is very Anglo very very Caucasian um and then i switched it to Mateo because my mom was like oh if you were born a boy i would have called you Mateo and i just felt right at the time but i'm like no this also feels very colonizer-y and then when i started to learn my language and starting to get access that um i think it was a Virgo full moon yeah Chia just came to me it was very much ancestors giving me holding me and telling me like it's okay to to go back to your roots because like i said now i have the privilege to do that my parents didn't um my grandparents didn't you know it was all survival and for a minute i was almost i was almost angry with them i'm like why didn't you you know hold true to your roots but it's like it's more complicated like i probably wouldn't have been here if you know they didn't adapt like they crossed the border and had to learn English had to figure it out along with two of my siblings so yeah it's a lot it's a lot of trauma that i'm still processing and i know for a fact my parents are still processing because another thing is like mental health isn't really talked about in my culture it's not you know i feel like it's very seen in white cultures um but it's not it's not a privilege that we had or have i should say um i'm starting to learn as an adult that like yeah i have CPTSD and i'm autistic and you know and i yeah i don't have the privilege to be diagnosed but i know like i do my research and i'm like okay this is very relatable this is my experience um but yeah i didn't get to learn all these things as a kid so now i'm just catching up along with being trans i'm just like and learning my language right and teaching it to my it's just a lot but i'm very grateful to be able to do that you know and i hope that my niblings you know once like they meet new friends or have kids of their own that they can pass that on and yeah i'm just excited to learn more about my peoples because it's very limited resources at the moment and i think another reason i make art is to kind of just reach out to anyone else who is muisca who's queer because i know there's someone there um and actually one person did reach out to me on facebook they saw my name and they're like oh my god are you muisca and i was like is this real um and i think that was another way of ancestors kind of affirming my um connect um but yeah that's so beautiful thank you so much for sharing that um i do want to uplift a question that was asked in the chat uh this is for ihe um this is a question from emily i was curious about your parents and whether they taught you your language thanks for sharing the multi-directioned education you're sharing um i understand that like you were teaching your parents but did in any of your research or if any of your um history of finding did your parents help you no actually it's really sad um they were very like they weren't very supportive and i think it's out of that survival mentality they're like no you need to you need to be as you know white or as american you know as possible to be able to be successful right and i think i had to process that in my head because at first i was angry that they weren't supportive they're like why don't you you know become more fluent with french or italian and i'm just like like they have a lot of decolonizing to do on their own and i'm trying to guide them because you know they brought me into this world and they've supported me supported me in the way that they thought was the best way uh to survive and so um yeah at first they weren't very about it um but as they saw how adamant i was and i'm sharing more things with them and it was actually really interesting because my mom was starting to kind of remember things from her childhood when i was like telling her certain stories or things that i learned um she was like actually yeah i do remember this or like i did do ritual with my my grandma or like certain things will pop up again and i feel like it was all repressed right because it was a sense of shame that she had but now that i'm bringing it up again i feel like maybe it's a safe space for her to also reconnect so i'm hoping that soon she'll be able to remember some things that maybe has been bottled down and will help me have better knowledge you know about my history and my ancestry yeah that's so beautiful um before we start of dive deeper in language um i do want to show your video good day and i'm wondering if you want to talk a little bit about it before we show it and then we'll come back and sort of talk deeper and about language um and this idea of revival yeah um so this was the first video i did of a song in my people's language um it's basically it's really beautiful and i think it's something that we as people need to really be aware and mindful of our carbon footprint and how we just navigate the world how we treat others how we treat mother earth how we treat the dirt beneath our feet how you know everything um and it's it's not a priority for people and it's not a daily concern for people and that scares me um so yeah this song is basically just checking in with nature um and with mother earth and i think it's really beautiful and grounding so i hope it brings the viewer's joy beautiful thank you so much and can we roll that video now with shivers from the internal trauma that the europeans created but their invasion didn't kill us and now my children will speak it proudly and fearless we are muska and it's a good day thank you so much uh that was such a beautiful video um and i just wanted to ask you about the community that you brought involved in your video because i know there's a lot of children where those are your siblings yeah those are my niblings and um my sister my older sister she isn't shown but she also sang with us um it was really sweet um and it's actually really cute because the kids um just start singing the song randomly and it just brings me so much joy because we'll be in the car and they'll just start singing it and i'm just like yay oh that's so cute um and this is a question for both of you kenyan and eha how does language revival disrupt ideas about community visibility and status i can point out that through my journey of reconnecting to language and language revitalization that i now realize why i think the way i do in reconnecting to my indigenous language um even though i still struggle and i'm relearning it it's i say relearning because my dna knows it my memory my my essence knows it and it disrupts the narrative because just like decolonization is breaking apart and getting an understanding of what colonization is and and what how we've been informed language informs us and many of us like california is the most linguistically dense territory this side of the northern hemisphere in excess of 250 language dialects in california that being said when people are taught about native americans they are so poorly informed that they have the nerve to argue with me and my family and my community and archaeologists and anthropologists and other historians that also are aligned um in learning and honoring truth and history and they have the nerve to say well you indians had wars too and you indians did this not it's like or you don't look native god i love that one were you there were you there with my ancestors to see what we look like or are you informed by a colonial narrative that claims the high cheekbones the almond eyes the lack of hair what territory you don't know anything you're poorly informed and you have the nerve to be so arrogant and entitled to speak of something that you have limited knowledge of so language matters because it is what is informs it it's what informs us and a little fun factoid you recognize this symbol from media live long and prosper did you know that mark ochron developed the vulcan and klingon language of which yes it is his own intellectual property rights however he got his phd in my ancestral language he learned from many indigenous languages and he leaned to many and yes it's a fictional alien language that thousands of peoples tend to be compassionate about but do they know about indigenous languages it's ironic that people love to romanticize native peoples like by using images like these of like when people want to make murals about native people and we use them we use images of pre-contact native because it's so romantic to think about how pristine and wonderful the earth was and how in commune with nature native peoples are but they were hunter gatherer and then all of a sudden we disappear in the colonial narrative and then here we pop back up occupation of alcatraz here we pop back up standing rock protest and here we pop back up where we're colonizers like to call us drunk natives on the reservations they like to come to conclusions about these instances yet they forget oh code talkers oh yeah we helped the war we have community members that have been present and prevalent in history and the timeline that we talk about if i had a timeline and i talk about this here we are we have homo sapien sapien 200 000 years 200 000 years and all the way over here so 200 000 years and then we have 100 000 years and 50 000 years where there's proof that there are people in the americas and then there's like the 10 000 year marker where oh all you natives came over across the bearing straight theory look at there's more studies that actually prove that that is being debunked so calm down quit leaning to it quit dismissing indigenous peoples about things you don't know about and then we talk about in 1492 we all know who sailed the ocean blue who did he run into what language did they speak who were their neighbors what were the name of the sacred waters the name of their sacred mountains it's been 530 plus years what do we know about them is it easily sightable and then we have 1600s and then we have the 1800s here in california gold rush five dollars ahead 50 cents a scalp legal genocide to eradicate natives and then we have 1978 10 years older than me many of you audience members if you were born before 1978 guess what you were born before the native american had the right to practice religion freely oh but weren't we taught that america was founded on freedom of religion and persecution or who so language informs us and as an indigenous person i love seeing media with indigenous languages i have to check my own colonial entitlement of wanting a translation i have no right to it no right at all i can't say here like it's the night if you translated it for me no no be in community and hear the languages in their authentic presentation you're not entitled to anything if our relatives want to translate or help you then be in community together but you're just not entitled to it be present be grounded share songs honor indigenous copyright if you learn a song recognize where it comes from and whenever you choose to share it if you are given the right to because you're not just because you hear a song doesn't mean you have the right to sing it but if you are given the right to share a song that someone shares with you be sure to recognize that protocol that copyright and acknowledge the lineage of it because that is how we are in community together just because it's not written and it's not copy written format and acknowledge the colonial protocols indigenous cultures have protocols always have so i want to acknowledge that layer of element in inside the language of vitalization and cultural revitalization and and continuity thank you thank you so much kenyan um if you have anything to add i feel like you said it all i couldn't have said it better thank you um i also wonder uh because like you said kenyan and it when you're relearning your language and it's sort of like in your dna and then when you say it it's like beautiful um i know this as well because of like trying to learn not the well from my little town in mexico called coalesco nascada and i'm like oh great i know the indigenous language there and i'm trying to learn some words and it's really funny how language perseveres because a lot of the words are still in our slang and it's it's funny to me and it's also like amazing to me how resilient it is because even though colonizers are like no you got to learn spanish and you're like okay we'll take spanish but make it our own um how does it feel in your body when you uh speak your own language like what was that um feeling when you found something that was truly yours i think for me the first time i started singing because i'm not a singer i mean i don't have a great voice but i felt called to sing the words and it just felt right it just came out like it was in there the whole time i just didn't know how to access it but once i got the key to that you know door it just came spilling out and it just felt like home and that's the name of the other video i showed chi weh is uh translation is our home and i think another beautiful thing at least with my language um and i feel like with most indigenous languages um the words like if you translate them it's like things that were important or are important to us and i've noticed that it's a lot of like nature animals home heart art soul and it's just like it just makes me happy because honestly i hate english i hate it so much and it's so confusing in my brain um but once i started learning muskaboo and i'm like this makes sense like yeah so it just like i said it just felt like home to me and it does every time i speak it i i also agree and also i i want i want to uh call call to attention something um that i'm working on to colonizing within myself um my mother also says she's not a singer and i think that's part of the colonial narrative that says what we capitalize off if someone is a good singer they could capitalize off with that talent to become a professional or perform and my mother and my grandmother believe that when song ceremony and dancing stops so does the earth and so i don't believe that there is this concept of who is a singer and who is not i believe all of us are meant to sing some of us may have different voices and different ways of presenting and maybe some of us are a little some of us are shy and deeper voice or some of us may not have all the lyrics but we we keep the rhythm or some of us are meant to hold the instruments and so there to me we all are and should be singers and dancers and and beings in community and so we may not be singers or sound sound as though we feel as though we are good but we are and so i want to i want to point that out because my mom my mom would say that too and she might not be able to keep rhythm however um she she taught me a prayer and um in my mom's mother um had some pieces of language and then of course in our efforts of reconnecting to written material of language there was a prayer that uh aligns with some of our pegging community members because it is in my language it's pide canama si compate on etel canoso soto canoso and it means earth my body water my blood air my breath and fire my spirit and how it feels within me i've always wanted to make prayers or or or offer land acknowledgement in my language and what i've learned about the moots and dialect and the moots and language which is uh south bay area dominantly yoroya holister watsonville area um a lot of the documented elements that are written i don't know if this was because um the the settlers and colonizers and community members who chose to prioritize writing it or the community members who helped the cultural and language survivants the last uh language speakers um were prioritizing words of uh utilization so a lot of um less uh abstract words and a lot of like serious focal point words like this is this the definition is that or this is like and we don't have a word for honor or we don't have a word for relatives we have words for like grandmother grandson um our person nearby nearby us a million words for these things but not like the the abstract and i've always wanted abstract words and um i'm still learning but what i what i what i i really loved finding the word for people of this land because in my prayers i've voiced that one will come together in community right now as amma pitataka us as people of this land and we are coming together honoring indigenous protocol by recognizing the original amma pitataka us and in our language amma means people and actually there's a tribe called amma mootson meaning the people the mootson people and i am amma mootson but i'm not a tribal member god i love modern day copywriting and company and organization it's so gross um but amma means people and then pide tak awas pide is land or earth tak location of awas all being from so earth location all from so people earth earth location all from or earth soil and so when i realize how these takahans and the language works it feels right and it it makes sense because english oh god it's a predatory language it takes from here and takes from there and it's it's a settler language that is entitled where it takes the convenient cherry picking parts is not integral to the relationship from the wisdom and knowledge that it comes from takes the convenient parts i after e except after c silent this and silent that and so when i think about it i'm like i realize why i gravitate to my language and i also celebrate others even though i am i was raised in a white supremacist xenophobic environment i said puppy puppy puppy um sorry i love puppies um in a xenophobic environment where even my own informed concept of asking or being challenged by struggling of the shaping of words of other nations and other peoples and how i in the past would give up and now i'm like i'm less insecure i don't allow my fragility to steer the conversation i try and speak with accountability and saying please correct me um i'm open to learning i apologize if i if i hinder or or put you your name i will try i will continue to try instead of me saying oh it's too hard i'm gonna get you have a nickname i'm entitled to a nickname because you're too hard so yeah um yeah pointing out that fragility thing is a real thing white supremacist culture so thank you yeah thank you and along those lines like i know we have a question from susanne that says i am directly related to large colonizers how can i begin the journey of decolonizing that horrific family history if any um and i know personally my fiancé is white as well and um the way that she sort of started decolonizing herself slash becoming an anti-racist person is looking at the history of like where she came from like even though she does have horrific colonizer history there is also she came from um ireland as well as uh chelsea and being able to understand and reconnect with her paganism that way is something that you know has helped her and it's sort of also like really nice to have um somebody in common with to be like oh yeah i'm like trying to figure out my indigeneity as well and like have that relation but i'm just wondering for you both is that a way to go is there another way to sort of like dig into that and reconstruct especially for those who are who identify as white or don't identify as like being a part of culture even though they do i'm fighting at the bit sorry um one i have a resource on my website canning consulting uh decolonizing an anti-racist uh something anti-racist something of the european diaspora dars d-a-r-c-e-d but i want to point out as an indigenous person in my homelands i recognize my privilege being raised on the land of my ancestors being raised in inner tribal and traditional environments where indigenous protocol has always been followed and acknowledged where people seek permission to be on our lands before any decision is made i recognize my privilege that being said in the 21st century so accounting for my privilege i want to point out that i've learned so much from allies and non-indigenous relatives who are in solidarity with indigenous peoples who are just starting their journey they're not the hyper-knowledgeable academics that have been studying for the past 40 years i love those people too i've learned so much from them um the greater portion of things that i've learned from is recognizing i don't under uh unless i when i travel i don't have the lived experience of being uprooted or of many i am of many nations but i mean not as grounded as i currently am in recognizing my ancestry and that struggle of of being um far away from ancestral ties and homelands and recognizing that when we honor our ancestors and our elders and our ancestors ancestors that all of us have indigenous lineages from the land of our ancestors meaning we all can honor our own indigeneity and sometimes those roots of colonization and those colonial incurrences have deeply impact our communities further back in time the recent these recent wounds for some indigenous nations here in california is 250 years and then 1492 530 years of course we have slavery 400 plus years ago and so but when we think about it we have irish and scottish and english colonizers we have greece we have all these nations of other peoples coming in colonizing and taking over and claiming that they are superior treating peoples as subordinate and and less than human to validate atrocious crimes and so in that there is a wound a wound where our umbellacle court has been ripped from the earth and from our earth based spiritual practices and that wound has scars and it's painful and we haven't been given a chance to learn or look at that and and that's historical and intergenerational trauma and so we all have these alignments it's how we walk in the world and so the way i put it is honor truth and history if you can learn about your own ancestry do so and i do understand some of us run into roadblocks and they are hard okay if you run into a roadblock about your own indigeneity then what about the place that you live place-based knowledge what about the native peoples of whose land you are benefiting off of if you are learning about indigenous protocol and you want to reconnect ground yourself i'm not a native who's going to say go back to your country of your origin otherwise i would be ripped to shreds because i'm a euro mud and shumash and dominantly i identify with my moots and aloni ancestry i'd be ripped to shreds i'm native passing um and so with that honoring truth and history about how we get how we've come to be here and so but i i really do want to say i've learned so much and i am honored to share space with allies and advocates of people who are in solidarity with indigenous peoples allies advocates accomplices and the biggest one co-conspirators so i want to invite that that we might be a byproduct of colonial nations and colonial narratives but the same way we are we are we are the byproduct of our ancestors but we we aren't them we can recognize our privileges and our opportunities and we can go forward in a good way accounting for those privileges and opportunities accounting for what came to be to how it is and go forward being a good ancestor in training thank you so much kenyan hiya ched do you have anything to add i guess i want to reiterate yeah acknowledging your privileges especially if you're a white person like be really mindful um because at least with my experience a lot of white folks don't they're very delusional on how many think like the microaggressions that they're doing like they really don't know like they're no clue um so really really maybe talk to other white folks maybe get don't like i'm not saying like you can't ask you know indigenous people question but like if you can ask someone else who isn't more marginalized than you and you know you're not asking a free labor um yeah i would say acknowledge your privilege uplift uplift indigenous people you know buy from us don't like that's another thing so many people steal from us our art our practices like buy you know art from an actual indigenous person not someone who like recreated something that they got inspired from it like it it just blows my mind how it's just like a constant stealing you know of our culture so yeah please uplift please do your research when you're you know buying art when you're buying a book when you're taking in mainstream media who are you supporting who are you supporting who are you giving platforms to like if you have the privilege to give a platform to someone who are you giving that privilege to is it another white person um maybe change that maybe broaden your collective of who you interact with because a lot of white people don't have many poc or indigenous friends like we're out here we're not scary we're not mean we are very kind actually so yeah like just yeah main thing acknowledge your privilege uplift us i think those are the two i want to focus on thank you so much we only have about 10 minutes for the session so i just wanted to open the floor to see what other advice you would like to give anybody of like how non-natives can support slash advocate you all and or those who are like rediscovering their ingenuity like how do you help them with that process be be slow and intentional because there's many times that we get really excited with new information i myself i love media and these things i get really inspired and i really want to show it off and show these new skills or new opportunities be responsible and integral with the knowledge that you learn the same way um so i'll use a protocol i despise the word shaman why it is one nation's word one community's word and thanks to western settler colonialism of academia it got cited in a book and then other communities went to other nations to learn from their medicine carriers their doctors their holistic practitioners their ceremonial leaders their suckers their blowers their there's words in every nation for these community members it's not shaman our own community now uses this term because of colonization now in that be accountable with the knowledge that you're learning and sit with it one of our protocols is who we are in community if let's say a big name elder community member teaches mentees and they teach the mentee a unique ceremony like i'm going to use my Lakota relatives a pipe ceremony pipe ceremonies are meant to be shared in ceremonial spaces so it is okay to share cross intertribally with some occurrences now if i said elder he tells a mentee that you can do this and go forward yet that mentee goes forward and said $50 pipe ceremony $50 and they and then they say i was taught by this big person and everyone goes oh my gosh that big person's real and we respect them that person gets a vouch no protocol is is go to that elder go to that big person say hi i'm curious are you a mentor of this individual and they go yeah and then did you know that this individual is doing this particular thing like charging for pipe ceremonies and they go oh wait no that type of accountability who you are and how you show up in community is important but also just the whole cherry picking i'm an indian too oh i love these elements these convenient juicy low hanging fruit of wonder and wonderfulness but i don't want to carry the weight and intensity about settler colonialism i don't want to carry the weight and intensity of these laws and these occurrences committed against indigenous peoples i don't know what equa is i don't know what nagapra is i don't know what these acronyms are but i like to be i i i recognize i might have a great grandparent that's native okay do you want a cookie what are you doing about it i don't i don't want to say this to people who are vulnerable and opening up to me but it does run through my head when i start seeing some of their actions when they start cherry picking i'm like what are you doing about it and so i want to point that out is be integral and hold yourself accountable and be patient in this learning process there's going to be painful hard-hitting facts that are frustrating that you might even run into occurrences where oh like i'm struggling my own self i don't do it because my community doesn't do it but whistling at night i still ask why but whistling at night in many nations calls different beings you don't know who you're calling you don't you're gonna get hit you're gonna get hurt you're calling in danger so i sit here in my own head why why why i want to do it i want to do it i want to do it and i'm still praying on it like can ancestors let me know because i'm asking all my relatives and each of them has a beautiful story as to why and it's it's common across other nations too so i'm still learning and i struggle with it and it's like okay but and then of course when you hear a no that's the biggest one don't go shopping for multiple natives to get your yes that's really gross when you hear and know when someone's like can you do this and then you get a no and then you maybe go to another one can you do this you're gonna know i want my yes i'm entitled to it so check yourself um and so being in solidarity support um support art um consult with indigenous peoples of the land empower give opportunity employ um ask that community what might be needed but don't you're not entitled to like you're not entitled to their time so as much as i say reach out to them don't be mad if you don't get a hold of them the next step that you can do is honor truth and history learn about the history of the land learn about the laws and occurrences of that state of that territory of that area and learn it's so very important because we start to realize the commonalities i started realizing how connected i am to Norse um pagan community members i'm just like whoa i never even thought so i be integral and question the narratives this background picture says um no more than 5 000 years ago did a lonely people show up in the bay that type of writing was by men of affluence in that workforce of academia and archaeology of the 80s and they wrote with such pompous disregard of saying what instead of saying with the information we have now we can come to this understanding how simple would it be to be accountable in that measure with this understanding or with the technology we have available to us or with all of the things that we've studied from we've come to learn that we believe that 5000 years ago a lonely community and culture came forth but no we wrote that no more so all of a sudden like and people are informed that nobody was here before then and people go well you guys came over the bearing straight and it dismisses the accountability of how we've been the original stewards of the land the original land managers the first ecologists the first astrologists the first water hydrologists native american hunter gatherer makes a sound like hand in mouth neanderthal survivalists yet we've been stewarding and maintaining the land since time in memorial with our sacred obligation and responsibility of being the first stewards accountable to all sacred living systems humans will always impact their environment however indigenous pedagogies have informed us how to do so accountably responsibly and integrally so question where you learn and keep learning thank you so much canian eha do you have anything to add before we wrap up yeah i think the main thing is be intentional be intentional um yeah take it slow there's no rush it's so much you need to learn right um and just be it's about being grounded being present um being mindful and it's a lot of internal work honestly um to really just take it all in um because it's a lot of trauma um along with a lot of beautiful things but they kind of come hand in hand um but yeah i'm i really hope that everyone watching learned something today thank you so much again both of you for coming in and doing this session with me um it was lovely to talk to both of you and get to know you a little bit more and um i just want to let everybody know thank you for coming and witnessing this and being able to learn and hopefully share what your learnings to other people um up next we have an art chair by tiff lin called unapologetically asian and a few other art chairs that are following after um hope you stick around and thank you so much for joining us


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