(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Jacqui Tricarico, Senior Correspondent for "One-on-One," here at the NJEA convention in Atlantic City.

And I am so pleased to be joined by Chief Adam Waterbear DePaul, director of education and tribal storykeeper of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania.

First describe for us what your role is with the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania.

- Well, you can actually break that down into three roles.

- Okay.

- I am one of our four chiefs, and my role as a chief is separate than my other roles.

The four chiefs of our nation, we're there to support the nation, make decisions, hear our membership, and lead the nation in a good way, in the way that our people want to.

My other two roles as tribal storykeeper, I consider myself kind of a repository of our cultural stories, our mythological stories, so people can use me as kind of a reference when they want to know more about our stories.

And as director of education, I work with colleges, universities, school districts all throughout our homelands and beyond on things like curriculum development, working Native American Indigenous studies into the curriculum, and also establishing reading sections in their libraries of authentic, good literature, arranging speakers and things like that.

- So through that educational component that you've been working on, what have been some of the roadblocks that you've faced in making sure that curriculum is in schools in Pennsylvania around your people and the stories and the Natives of the land?

As well as, I know that book banning has impacted you and your work as well.

Describe that.

- Over the past few decades, I feel like we've been making slow, but steady progress in the districts with administrators that have been open and wanting to teach accurate history, that understand that a lot of what they've been teaching is unacceptable and sometimes just downright insulting.

And it's been, like I said, slow, but nice to see that progress.

In my experience, we have recently hit the first time where, in a lot of places, we're moving backwards and very fast.

Now, this is totally dependent on districts.

I work with districts who are just incredible in reaching out to us and still going above and beyond and working in that initiative.

And next door, there can be a district where they are throwing out any book or curriculum that mentions Native Americans.

And that's very disheartening.

- Understandably so.

When we're talking about the education of the Lenape people, what are some of the most important things we should know and that we should be respectful of?

- The most important thing above all else is that people understand that we are still here.

And it's painful to have to say that.

But the general perception is that all of the Lenape in their homeland were either killed or forced out of their homeland.

And we absolutely have incredible nations of our diaspora who were forced out and have lived those terrible journeys in places like Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Canada, and they need every bit of recognition they can get.

But people also need to know that many of us never left, and we've been maintaining our community and our culture here since time immemorial and we're still here.

And we are more than happy to work with the public, and especially educators, on helping people realize that.

- When it comes to state recognition, New Jersey does recognize the Lenape.

Pennsylvania does not.

Describe what that recognition means and why it's so important.

- Yeah, all kudos to New Jersey.

We look to you.

Our people in Pennsylvania look to New Jersey folks as an example.

They've recognized two nations of our people.

Now, what state recognition means, by virtue of itself, is nothing.

There is, because we're not talking about federal recognition, where there are federal standards of what it means.

State recognition is entirely up to the agreement that the nation ends up making with the state.

- What are some of the things you're looking for?

- The main things we are looking for are things that help us continue our role and our culture as environmental stewards and as the Indigenous people of this area.

Our nation specifically, now and it's important to realize that when I answer this particular question, I'm just talking about the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania.

Different nations have different views.

- Not all Indigenous people?

- Right.

And not even all Lenape people.

- Right.

- Right?

We have different self-governing nations.

Our nation is not interested in casinos.

Our nation is not interested in a lot of those kind of monetary-based things that sometimes can be part of recognition.

The things that move us the most are, one, we want a voice or a seat at the table for any projects that would come in and harm our homelands, the Delaware River, the watershed.

- That are direct impacts on environmental issues?

- Exactly.

And nobody, not even the state-recognized folks in other states, can just point their fingers and say, "That can go through and this can't."

We don't expect that.

But right now, nobody even has to acknowledge us.

There's no Lenape voice in these discussions.

That's something we would like to see change.

We have incredible craftspeople who do traditional crafting and present their items to the public and sell those items to raise money for our nation.

Because, of course, we have no outside funding.

And you know, we have, for example, our youth come in and volunteer at our trading post, at our powwows, where they help sell some of these items our people make.

And all day, they have to sit next to a sign that we by law have to have hanging up that says, "These are not Native American crafts."

Because only recognized nations have the right to identify themselves as such in their art.

And like so many of these things, there's goodwill somewhere in those rules, right?

We don't want anyone just running out into the woods, tying a feather to a stick and say, "Look, I'm a Native American artist."

But the laws in place completely disregard those of us who have not earned the favor of the government enough to be recognized by them.

- Well, now I'll veer into the storytelling aspect of your role.

Oral stories are so important for all types of people, family heirlooms, traditions.

How are you preserving those right now, even aside from not being recognized as a nation within Pennsylvania?

How are you preserving those and making sure that those are still a foundation of what you all are doing?

- Well, this is, I mean, this is the perfect place for me to be.

Because it was an opportunity for me to marry my cultural life with my academic life.

So within my community, I am one of our many storytellers.

I'm happy to participate in ceremonies.

I'm also involved in our youth group.

So I get to spend a lot of time telling our stories to our people in a way that will make sure they pass on within our culture in the oral tradition, in the way our people always have and the way it's meant to be done, so our stories continue to live with our people.

And in my academic life, that's also my wheelhouse.

I teach world mythology, and of course, I have a specialty in Lenape mythos.

So I get to do a lot of academic work in that area, which, A, helps me educate the public about our culture, which is wonderful, and B, gives me an opportunity to dive even deeper and discover even more about our own stories that might be buried in old academic records.

- How do you keep up the stamina and the resilience to keep fighting for what you're fighting for here?

I know you said to our producers that not all Indigenous people are on the same playing field as you.

And I know through the years, a lot of people who are Indigenous have kinda hid.

There was a time where they made sure that they stayed separate because of so many reasons, personal and otherwise.

- Yeah.

- What keeps your fight going?

- Well, first of all, that's very much the case with us too.

We have the major Lenape groups who are still in our homeland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and in Delaware, our genealogy, our history goes back to people who had to hide their heritage, who were forced to assimilate in order to be able to stay here and not be forced to leave.

So that process of hiding under the most dire circumstances, that's ingrained in our people here.

And that can sometimes, in itself, be something very challenging to wrestle with.

Where does my personal stamina come from?

It comes both with seeing the revitalization and the reinvigoration of our people, youth and elders, from the steps we have been able to take, and the hope that, with every setback, with every unanswered phone call we get, with every refusal to discuss this kind of thing, there will be a time where, if we keep up this momentum of educating the public, of working with people, there will be a time where we will be able to push through that.

And our elders, who have lived that life, some of whom remember being in the Indian boarding schools and abused until the culture was taught out of them, and who lived through those hiding times, and to see them look at us at a place like this or speaking at a university and say, they are just often speechless.

But you can see the importance, the significance that hits them of, our people are becoming known again.

People are not forgetting us anymore.

That's such an incredible feeling, especially for our elders.

And then our youth coming up in the culture, coming up, seeing ourselves out there speaking- - This next generation.

- Working, knowing that we are part of New Jersey, Philadelphia.

It's not, "Oh, the Lenape are people who used to be here."

Or there's, you know, this place, there's this state or there's this region, and then there's the Lenape, which are like part of the academic study of that region.

Seeing our youth be able to come up in an environment where they don't feel much more out of place, at least in their social lives, than, you know, people of German or Swedish or any other ancestry.

That gives, that is invigorating, and that gets us through, well, I can say definitely personally, and I'm sure it's not just me, that gets me through a lot of the disappointment that can come with some of the struggles.

- Thank you so much for educating us more about the Lenape.

Thank you so much, we appreciate you joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Holy Name.

The New Jersey Education Association.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

The North Ward Center.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

And by PSEG Foundation.

CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

And by New Jersey Monthly.

- (Narration) Healing is never just about medicine and technology.

It has to go further than that.

It has to combine science with humanity.

It has to be our best medicine, combined with large doses of empathy, kindness, dignity and respect.

It has to be delivered by people who love what they do and who they do it for.

Holy Name.

Great medicine, soul purpose.