(upbeat music) - Hey y'all, I'm Kiara Butler, and welcome to Generation Rising where we discuss hard-hitting topics that our diverse communities face every day.

And today's topic is land acknowledgements.

I'd like to welcome Loren Spears, Executive Director of the Tomaquag Museum and Silvermoon LaRose, assistant director at that museum as well.

How are you all?

- Hello, thank you for having us.

- Yes, I'm so happy to have you all here especially discussing this topic of land acknowledgements.

Where do you all wanna begin?

- Anywhere we'd like I guess.

Land acknowledgements we feel are important as a beginning conversation for people acknowledging the land in which they occupy today as the homelands in Rhode Island of the Narraganset nation, the only federally recognized tribal nation here.

And so as a museum, we help people learn how to create land acknowledgements and give them feedback sometimes on their land acknowledgement and give them understanding of why you should do one and why it's only the beginning step in, if you will, reconciliation and healing over the historical and intergenerational trauma that's taken place due to conquest and colonization.

- I do think a land acknowledgement is intended to be a countermeasure to the erasure of indigenous people.

We are still here.

When we speak truth, it helps to begin the healing and begin making positive changes towards that reconciliation.

- And so you all work at the museum.

How is that work?

Is it challenging?

What's your day-to-day like?

- So it's challenging but rewarding I think because our mission is all about educating.

And so it gives us the opportunity to educate the general public about our history, the intersection of that history with conquest and colonization and our contributions as indigenous people to the creation of this state and this country.

And so I think it's very empowering in that way.

I think people come to the museum and they leave going, oh my goodness, I did not know that.

Probably one of the most provocative things that comes to mind is when people talk about the Revolutionary War.

In most cases, they don't mention indigenous people yet, indigenous people served in the Revolutionary War.

What is often deemed the black or the colored regimen of the first Rhode Island regimen in the Revolutionary War here in Rhode Island included many indigenous people and as well as other regiments.

The other thing that people often don't know is that the Declaration of Independence, which is this document that is the founding of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those phrases that come with that that most people know.

They don't know that it dehumanizes and vilifies indigenous people by calling us merciless Indian Savages whose known rules of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

So when we have conversations about that with students if that's what they're learning about, or with adults and families that come to the museum, they're always so surprised by this is...

There is no Rhode Island history without indigenous people's history and there's no US history without indigenous people's history.

But as Silvermoon mentioned, there's this been this over action of erasure and so we're often let left out of the conversations.

We're left out of the data, we're left out of the conversations, we're erased from the power structures.

In every way possible, we've been erased and we work really hard as a museum, but also as indigenous people, we're both Narraganset citizens of the Narraganset nation, we work toward bringing to light those indigenous voices to share their perspectives.

- What we're doing is more than just employment.

Everything that we do in our day to day, we really work to create change in our state and the changes when for the better are going to impact our children, living people, the lives of those in our communities that have to live and exist here.

And so it's more than work, it's a mission.

It makes it much more meaningful and hopefully we're doing it well.

- You definitely are, you've used this word I think at least twice now, conquest and colonization and I just wanna make sure our viewers are on the same page.

Define those for me.

- So that's a long story, but I'll try to make it short.

I look at conquest as six tenets that I often tell people.

It's about greed, greed for land, resources, money.

The flip side of that is always need, the people that follow people with power usually have need, but the ones with the power have the greed.

Then there's power, military power, weaponry power, systems structures of power, greed power entitlement, entitlement's another kind of power.

It's that notion that you have in your head that you have this right to do something.

People often wonder why we have such frustration with the celebration of Columbus Day.

Well, Columbus follows these structures of power.

He had the power of the king and queen of Spain.

They had the greed for more riches.

He felt entitled to go to a place, shove a flag in the ground and claim it for the king and queen of Spain with no care or concern about the people that were hurt because of it.

There's censure or silencing of the people through not having voice in any of the power structures whether that's political power, economic power, you're not part of any of those systems of power.

I know there's more and my brain is going blank at the moment, but there's usually six that I go through.

And those actions of conquest, whether that's censoring you from the media or silencing you by erasing you from education...

I mean, when I was in fifth grade, my history book told me I didn't exist, and yet I'm there in the classroom.

How does that make you feel as a Narraganset person to be told that you don't exist?

There's all of that's part of the power and the structure of conquest is to eradicate you whether that's through military and violence means, or if that's to erase you through erasure of having any access to any of the power structures that are there and to erase you literally in writing, whether that's legal writing or educational writing to erase you from visibility.

And so it's really important, when we think about conquest, that's that first action and colonization is the work they do all along the way to keep erasing you from those systems and keep hiding you from that and keep asserting power through a lot of times we call it legal genocide today, erasing you through legal powers and structures and that's really important, anything else?

- Colonization is that land dispossession to come in and remove a people to displace them from their land and cut off access.

And we as indigenous people today are still dealing with the repercussions of that.

Our reservation is about 1800 acres in the town of Charlestown and our traditional lands are most of what is now the state of Rhode Island and as indigenous people, who you are is your connection to that land.

All of the resources of that land, the ceremony held on that land.

If you don't have access to it, it slowly starts to erode your culture, your traditions, your ceremony.

And so ongoing colonization is an ongoing struggle for indigenous people.

It didn't end when they first came.

It's still happening now.

- And Columbus Day has now, in some cases, and depending on who you ask, has been renamed as Indigenous People's Day.

Is that something you asked for?

Is that enough, like for the erasure?

And I know it's not, but I just want to hear you.

- No, it's the beginnings.

It's kind of like land acknowledgements are a beginning.

It's creating conversation and making people think about the impact of conquest and colonization on a living, breathing group of people nationwide.

And it's creating opportunity to have those conversations.

I don't think it's nearly enough.

And I also think that people think that we have something negative against Italian-American people and I'd like to state that that's not the case.

We think there's wonderful contributions that Italian-Americans have given to the United States and in the world as Italian people.

We just think that this particular person that was selected to represent all those gifts that they've brought was the wrong person because that person actually represents conquest and colonization and the violence that takes place in conquest.

- I think these changes are meant to disrupt the everyday land acknowledgements changes to indigenous people's day.

It starts the conversation, but it's just the beginning of that work because all of it is just empty action if you don't have a plan for ongoing support of indigenous communities to start creating change, to support sovereignty of indigenous nations to return land.

All of those things that we are asking for through conversations, through protest, we are trying to really build more equity within our community and justice.

If something is taken, we don't just acknowledge that it's gone.

What are we doing to make right and I think all of these actions are meant to begin those conversations to disrupt systems as they have been up until this time.

- I know during COVID, like the height of COVID in 2020 when we moved to virtual settings, people were doing land acknowledgements on Zoom.

What can you tell us about the tribes and the nations in Rhode Island because I heard a lot of land acknowledgements depending on where you are.

- So that's a really important question.

There is only one federally recognized tribal nation in Rhode Island, and that's the Narraganset Indian tribal nation.

And even though there are in our history intersections of indigenous people on what are the imaginary boundaries that make Rhode Island, they were also tributaries to the Narraganset nation in the pre-contact time period.

And I think that people really need to do their research.

A lot of people are getting a lot of opinions about what is indigenous land and who originally was on those lands and I think it's really important that people do due diligence on that.

And more than anything that they reach out to the one federally recognized tribal nation in the state, which does not happen consistently.

As a museum, we send people to our tribal nation all the time because that's who they should be talking to first and it's really important that that happens.

I think that in this day and age where people have sort of gotten to understand what DEI or what I prefer JEDAI, justice, equity, diversity, access and inclusion, when they start talking this talk, they wanna be helpful.

And so they just jump in and sometimes they don't understand the repercussions of that jumping in because when you're giving acknowledgement to someone in another person's homeland, then you're actually jeopardizing the sovereignty of that nation and that's something that people have to be aware of and be conscious of.

And I think because they don't know, they think they're doing something good when in the end they could be doing something that's harmful.

And so that's something that we encourage.

- She said it all.

- And I was just gonna ask, are there some ways or things that we could be doing to incorporate like land acknowledgements into our everyday lives for non-native people?

- Certainly, we did do a guide for land acknowledgements.

It's on our belongings blog right on the Tomaquag Museum website and that helps people.

Any blog is never gonna have every possible thing that you could do, but some of the things that we try to get people to understand is first do the research and make sure you know truly whose land you're on.

And not just generalize and do the whole state unless you phrase it here we are and then we also wanna acknowledge the rest of the people within this area.

Be careful of language and choice of words.

Make sure you have content that incorporates the history, the conquest and the colonization, but also the resiliency and the adaptation and perseverance of that community because even in those most difficult times, our communities had agency.

They were fighting back and working toward because we wouldn't be here if that wasn't the truth, right?

And so we want them to do that.

But we also want you to include what is your action?

What is it you are actually going to do beyond acknowledging that you're on an indigenous homeland whatever state, place, where you are.

I know we're in Rhode Island so I'm gonna say Narraganset homelands.

What are you gonna do?

How are you going to make it better for the youth in our community.

In Rhode Island today, we are disproportionately the most impoverished community in the whole...

I was gonna say the United States, that's true too for all indigenous people, but we'll go with right here.

Indigenous people in Rhode Island are five times below the white majority and three times below every other ethnicity based on the last data I had.

And it didn't significantly change in the new census.

And so when you look at that, why is that?

It goes back to all those tenets of conquest and colonization, erasure and silencing of indigenous people because it gives you rights to take the land if we don't exist.

So if you erase us, then you can take those resources and that land.

And so what are you going to do?

How can you be an ally?

How can you be more than an ally and actually be an agitator maybe?

And how can you really include actions that make change?

Some of the partners that we have through Tomaquag's Indigenous Empowerment program really are making some changes, doing things like we'll go with the University of Rhode Island which I serve as one of the tribe chairs on their Native American advisory committee.

They now have, because they acknowledge that they are on Narraganset land and that it was stolen during that time and they have decided that they're gonna give full scholarships to Narraganset students to go to the university.

We're about two years in now, I would think it is.

And Brown University, another example, they, through our indigenous empowerment program at Tomaquag Museum agreed to scholarships for native youth to go to their summer at Brown.

One of those students that got that opportunity about three years ago is now a sophomore at Brown.

So there's these opportunities that are created.

There's so many different things, but it can be scholarships, it can be job opportunities, it can be opening the door and seeing who's at the table.

Who's on your board, who's on your staff.

When someone comes in and they're male and have long hair in two braids or three, don't automatically think they don't have any brains because they have long hair.

That's a cultural norm for our men to have long hair, but sometimes they're blocked just because of the way that they look.

So open those doors, create those opportunities.

Educate yourselves on the history here.

If you are a teacher or you are someone who runs a company, where's the professional development on cultural competency around indigenous culture and history.

There's so many other things.

Maybe you have a couple.

- Land acknowledgement is really intended to be a call to action and it should be ever evolving.

As you do more, as you create more change, it should speak to that.

It shouldn't just be a blanket phrase acknowledging whose land you're on, what are you doing to make right, and how is that changing as you go forward in that mission?

So it should constantly be updated and speak to how you are supporting and uplifting indigenous people.

And if we're doing that in our everyday lives, then it becomes more than words.

It becomes this is my mission for today to create change.

This is what I can be doing and this is what I am engaging in.

And really, if you are not in community with indigenous people, then you've already started off on the wrong foot.

You should be speaking to indigenous people in your community and asking how you can support what you can be doing.

What are the issues that are important to you and how can we utilize the resources and knowledge that we have to support the work that you're doing and the goals that you have as a community.

So really building community, building relationships should be the first step.

We do teach organizations and groups how to put together a land acknowledgement.

We do host workshops for that and we always start with beginning to learn who the indigenous people are in the place that you are at.

What are the issues and concerns?

How do you get into community with them?

How do you build relationship?

Who should you be reaching out to?

Then from that work, we look at what your organization does, what it has to offer to indigenous communities and we try to build action steps for how you can take your services, your supports, your knowledge and use that to support indigenous communities and build a plan for making that actually happen.

And it's not until you've done all of that work do you actually write your statement to support that.

So really it should be a long term.

So it's the last thing you do.

And then it doesn't just become empty words.

- So land acknowledgements are performative.

How are you going to acknowledge that this land is stolen without fixing any of the problems that come with stealing the land?

Let me do an example.

Basically let's say you stole a TV from a guy named Dave and every time you use a TV, you go thank you Dave for buying, cultivating, or utilizing this TV so that I could steal it and use it for my own selfish purposes.

By acknowledging you stealing this TV, you fix still none of the problems that come with the fact that you've stolen it while still having the object.

Now think of this on the grand scheme of land and the cultural significance to indigenous communities that this land had.

Every time you acknowledge that it's stolen, you're just performatively acknowledging that you've taken it without fixing any of the problems that come with stealing the land.

- What about protests?

Do you think that protests bring about change?

- I think they absolutely bring about attention to the issues that do need change.

It's our voice.

I think we have a right to use our voice, to use our bodies to stand up and let people know this is what's important to us, this is where we see a need for change.

I think it's the first step to bringing attention, but again, it's the work behind the scenes that gets the job done.

- It's the education, it's the ongoing commitment, the meetings, that's the hard work.

The stuff that you see on the protests, we've all protested whether that's environmental justice, Black Lives Matter, Indigenous Lives Matter, whether that's the Dakota Access Pipeline, whether that was against the Burville Power Plant and trying to take our water or it was anything, like anything that's important to us, we can protest against, but it is just the beginning.

It's to bring awareness to the conversation so that the real work can happen, that you can get to the power brokers and have conversations so that you can have change happen.

Change the name, we were talking about that like for years and years.

The time before, it actually passed about a year and a half ago, but it didn't pass and every single time we did a social justice talk, that was in there because it takes the education to make the wave of change.

You need enough people to understand why it should change in order for change to actually happen.

It's around tables like this that we make change.

Tomaquag Museum, specifically myself, we were talking with someone about civics health and education and I said to them, this is probably eight or nine years ago now, well how come we are always being stopped from using our tribal ID to vote?

And they were like, well I don't know, but I said who do I need to talk to?

Well it ended up, we got to talk to the Secretary of State.

We ended up testifying at the commission hearings and they just didn't know it was lack of education as to why they were not using it.

It's a federally sanctioned ID as a federally recognized tribal nation and what was happening is individual people at individual voting places just didn't know.

Now it's on the list, but it took a conversation around a table that opened a door to the right person that brought us to testifying that created change.

And that's the kind of work that not just us at Tomaquag Museum, but tribal nations, other organizations, other BIPOC organizations are doing to make change because what's the quote, if there's injustice anywhere, there's injustice everywhere.

And so every one of us that are working for that equity in this country is creating that change and it's opening the doors and creating the conversations for all of us to live the goal that the country was written on.

If we go back to that pursuit of happiness, if we're all there, then we all have that.

And I think there's this notion that if we all have it, then we don't have it like for some people, but reality is I think everybody has it when everybody has it, and we're all equal and we all have opportunity, we make the best country that we could possibly have to live in.

- I know for me as a black woman, leading anti-racism work is exhausting.

And so for you, with your identity tied into your work, how are you taking care of yourself?

- That's a tough one.

I think one of the things that's happening is as people in general are becoming aware of this work, they are putting all the ownness on the people from those cultures that have been historically oppressed to do all the work and to do the greatest lift of that work where if we're asked to be on one board, we're asked to be on 15 and 20 boards.

So it is exhausting.

Silvermoon is helping me to say no because I'm not very good at that.

And that's something that I have had to do to sometimes say no to ensure that I have time to do the work that I need to do, but also time to heal.

And one of my favorite healing things is to go to get my toenails done and relax in a chair and get my feet massaged.

That sounds silly, but that is a little bit of that taking care of yourself.

And I think there's a lot of emotional upheaval in the work that we do when we're educating people all the time about the history and the impacts of that history of conquest and colonization and the weight of that today, that is very difficult.

But I think that we're really lucky.

We work in a place, there's 14 staff at Tomaquag Museum.

Not all indigenous but the majority is indigenous and that opportunity to talk about these things together and unpack the sort of the pain and the difficulty of that together, that's helpful.

That helps us heal, I think, and I think it helps us in our community when we can support native artists and culture bearers to come and share their voice with the world through our programming.

And of course now that we are all really good at virtual, you get the whole world.

And there's this opportunity to know yourself better by knowing your history better and understanding where those pains come from and I think that's really powerful.

I think having that opportunity to be with our own community doing this work helps us balance the hard work and struggle of it and the discomfort with the healing and the growth and ensuring our next generations don't have to go through the things that we went through that we're making it better for them.

I'm now a grandmother.

My grandson is four.

This one over here is a grandmother as well.

When we think about our grandchildren, that's what keeps us going.

It keeps us going cause we know they're gonna grow up, they're gonna be grandparents and they're gonna have grandchildren and great-grandchildren and we're doing everything for them.

- Well I wanna thank you both so much for joining us and for doing this work, especially with your identity tied into it.

We are at time.

Can you tell our viewers very quickly... You gave us some concrete steps of things that we can do as co-conspirators, but how can we stay in touch?

- You can check us out on tomaquagmuseum.org, T-O-M-A-Q-U-A-G-M-U-S-E-U-M, or give us a call, (401) 491-9063.

Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook.

- You can also come see us in person.

We're open Wednesdays and Saturdays to the general public.

We will come into your schools, your organizations.

We have visiting museum educators that do that work.

So there's lots of ways that you can intersect with us and we'd love to hear from everyone.

- Well, I wanna thank you both so much and to our viewers at home, you can watch past episodes anytime on watch.ripbs.org and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates.

I would like to thank today's guest, Loren Spears and Silvermoon LaRose for their time and incredible work and we have started a tradition where we ask you to leave your mark.

So if you can grab some chalk and head on over to the board, you can write anything that comes to mind.

(calming music)