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Today is election day and it is important to make sure every voice is heard at the ballot box.
That includes Native voices, who are often disenfranchised from the polls.
SDPB’s C.J. Keene checks in with one group looking to get out the Native vote.
The Communities Organizing for Unified Power (COUP) Council, a Rapid City Indigenous organization, held a town hall to discuss the importance of getting indigenous peoples to the ballot box.
After a successful campaign season signing people up, He Sapa Voters voter organization director Jean Roach says it’s a challenge to encourage people to participate for many reasons.
“People are like ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ but just telling them that their vote can be more of a bigger picture in the end. An invocation.”
(Courtesy He Sapa Voters / Facebook)
Roach says housing, policing, and representation are among the most important issues facing the local community this election season.
She adds these issues can be addressed, along with increased representation in the capitol, if people recognize the influence they hold.
“People don’t realize how powerful we really are. We need to unite, and by voting that’s one step toward making a difference in our own lives. People really don’t see it, but we encourage it because maybe we’re going to have a candidate up there and we can make a difference. So, we want to make some changes. Really big ones.”
(Courtesy History Colorado)
Last week, President Joe Biden apologized for U.S. government-run Native American Boarding schools.
Clark Adomaitis has more on the reaction in Colorado.
Over the course of 150 years, Indian boarding schools aimed to exterminate Indigenous culture by removing children from their families and suppressing their languages and cultural practices.
Children were also subject to other atrocities including emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
Indigenous leaders at Fort Lewis College are applauding President Biden’s apology.
Last year, History Colorado reported that between 30 and 50 children from the Fort Lewis boarding school are buried in the cemetery on the grounds where the former boarding school stood.
Heather Shotton is the Vice President of Diversity Affairs at Fort Lewis College. She’s a citizen of the Wichita and Affiliated tribes, and is Kiowa and Cheyenne.
“It has been a long time coming, and something that is needed to start the healing process and so that we can recognize that history.”
Shotton says she appreciates Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo)’s leadership in this issue.
Ernest House Jr. is a member of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe and a Fort Lewis College board member.
“Particularly having an indigenous person in the Department of Interior leading has probably had a great deal of influence, and has been critical to have that type of representation.”
“There’s not anybody from tribal communities that has not been either personally impacted by a relative, a family member, a connection by this historical trauma, this this dark chapter.”
House wants the U.S. government to take action after President Biden’s apology.
He wants funding for language programs.
“Five-hundred and seventy-four federally recognized tribes, yet less than 200 still speak our native language. The languages were stripped from these students once they went to Indian boarding schools. The culture and what made them unique was stripped away.”
The Department of Interior reports that almost 1,000 Indigenous children died at federal Indian boarding schools.
The state of Colorado is continuing to fund research into the state’s Indian boarding schools.
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