Retrocasting Indigenous Design by Nicole Belton, John Duck, Mira Nair, Makayla Peabody

Nicole : Retrocasting indigenous design is an informative student run podcast calling for change and sustainable system design at the University of San Francisco. Welcome to the first episode. Today we will be discussing how to reform values that marginalize Native Americans in the United States. Our goal is to change the cultural mindsets and views in order to implement legal policies. We are made up of students passionate about social activism and human rights. We are here to change narrative and implement structural change.

>>>: Thank you, Nicole. Yeah, so based on what Nicole said about what our goal is, which is to change the cultural mindsets and views of Native Americans in terms of the land back movement, some ways that we'll be discussing how to change these mindsets are to talk about how Native American spiritual practices on nature can be used to promote sustainability in our lives. We'll be discussing ways to change the educational system to ensure that children are being educated on accurate Native American history.

Then, we take these ideas and talk about how Native Americans are viewed in popular culture like mascots and in the media. to end our discussion today, we'll talk about legal policies that must be implemented to ensure that our ideas to change mindsets will take place. We are bettering the world one word at a time to be more conscious of the land you're standing on.

I urge our listeners to find out or research which Native American tribe the land you are on today used to belong to a way to begin reformative action with Native Americans starts with a land acknowledgement. This is a formal statement that recognizes and respects indigenous peoples as traditional stewards of this land and the enduring relationship that exists between indigenous peoples and their traditional territories. The land that I stand on today in Santa Barbara, California, was previously home to the Chumash.

Nicole : I want to respectfully acknowledge the Chumash people who have nurtured and protected this land throughout the generations. We apologize on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native American, Chumash people for the many instances of violence, maltreatment and neglect inflicted on them by US citizens. We acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the

- 1 - United States government regarding Native American tribes. We offer an apology to all Native American people on behalf of the United States. This Thanksgiving, I urge all of you to make a land acknowledgement statement as you share things with your friends and family. Makayla is now going to start us off with a brief history of Native Americans and reservations.

Makayla : Hi, I'm Makalya Peabody, and I'll be starting off this episode with how reservations came to be. It started in 1492. When Christopher Columbus discovered new land when he discovered this land. He kidnapped Native Americans from their tribes and sent them to Europe to work as slaves. This cost for people in Europe to claim land in America by genocide of the Native American peoples. From this moment on the indigenous peoples who lived there suffered from starvation, massacres and poverty for most of their lives due to the inhumane treatment by these colonizing forces for so called development.

After some time, I'd pass the Treaty of hope well in 1785 place native Shirky under protection of the US and setting boundaries for their land. European settlers intruded this land and Cherokees revolted against the white settlements. In 1791. The treaty was signed, and the Cherokees agreed to give up all land outside of their borders. After the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson wanted to move Eastern Indian tribes past the Mississippi River. Indians rejected this idea and then Georgia held lotteries to allocate seize Indian land in the creeks fought for independence in Alabama against the militia of Andrew Jackson, which had friendly Indians. The Indians were defeated and had to give up 20 acres of land.

Then in 1828, Georgia sees the remaining of the Cherokee land. May 28, 1830, Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, which allowed the government to divide land west of the Mississippi to get Indian tribes in exchange for the land they'd lost. It was controversial, but Jackson argued that it was the best option settlers had since they made Indian lands incompatible with sustaining their way of life. Over the next few years, the Choctaw Chickasaw and creeks were forced to move westward on foot, often unchanged and with little or no food and supplies. Even some Indians in the north were forced to relocate. As white settlers continued westward, and needed more land Indian Territory shrank, but there was no more land for the government to move them to in 1851, and Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Act, which created the Indian reservation system and provided funds to move Indian tribes on to farming reservations and hopefully keep them under control. In 1887,

- 2 - the Dawes Act was signed by President Grover Cleveland that allowed the government to divide reservations into small plots of land for individual Indians.

This decrease the land owned by Indians by more than half and opened even more land to white settlers and railroads. In 1934, the Dawes Act ended and was replaced with the Indian recognition act with the goal of restoring Indian culture and returning surplus land to tribes. This also allowed tribes to self-govern and write their own constitutions and provided financial aid for reservation infrastructure. Our reservations came to be, I'm now going to talk about how it shaped the topic of this discussion, which is a land back movement.

What exactly is the land back movement? Well, first, land back means nourishing our relationship to all things on the land. But it would also mean getting back in touch with our languages and our traditional familiar and governing systems and creating a better relationship with healing and medicine. The land back movement itself is advocating for the US government to return indigenous land back to its rightful owners, especially those of sacred and historical significance.

The goal is to return over 3 million acres of land back to these indigenous people. When you look at it, as indigenous peoples and nations, we come from the land, that the land is our home, our mother, our caregiver. It's what makes us indigenous. This was written by Richard Gamblin and advocator of the land back movement. Here's what we can do to support the land back movement. We can research whose land you're on, if you live in the Americas, you probably live on someone else's land.

So first, you need to figure out this relationship, I would recommend starting with those whose land app then you can follow indigenous social media accounts that tackle these topics. This will help desensitize you to some ideas and realities, I would suggest indigenous meme pages in detail.

Now that we have an understanding of what the landmark movement is, I want to talk about what I touched base on earlier about how the land back movement is focusing on nourishing all things land, which is what Native Americans practiced. When why settlers took the land from the Native Americans. They also took trees, wildlife and plants for profit in Europe. When this happened, they overlooked the rich history of sustainability and care that the Native Americans practiced. Native Americans are considered to be the first environmentalists because they recognized and understood that all parts of an ecosystem are connected, that humans, animals,

- 3 - plants, and even rocks were dependent upon each other for survival and the wellbeing of the ecological niche.

They loved it. They knew that everything that humans do will affect the environment in some way, they understood that their lives made an impact. Because of this knowledge. They treated nature with a level of respect and admiration that is often dismissed and modern cultures. When they hunted for deer, they gave thanks to the deer for contributing to their lives and providing food for their family. When Native Americans built homes, they clear the land and use those resources for everything they needed in their home. Their house was built from wood bedding was made from plants and wildlife skin. utensils were built from rock and bones. Everything that was used could be biodegradable. If they had to move the land could restore itself because they didn't use anything that wasn't natural. They believed if something was provided in nature, it must be used and not wasted or abused.

Now that I've explained what Native Americans have practiced with nature, it's something that can be done in today's society as well. Here are some ideas that we can take from Native American practices that can be used for today to be sustainable. First, I'm going to talk about self-restraint. Self-restraint is something that Native Americans have always practiced because it means the existence of communal living, in addition to living in a natural world that may bring unexpected changes.

By doing this Native Americans are preparing for natural disasters by only using what they need and not over consuming, because they don't want to run out of resources in case something were to happen. They believe that by preventing overconsumption of natural resources, the native peoples could leave something for the next generation. Here's how we can use self-restraint today to be sustainable. We can use less household energy, oftentimes when we leave the house and leave the lights on because we know we'll be home in 10 minutes. But that's energy that's getting used up if even if it doesn't need to be not keeping things like our toasters plugged in every day when we only need it for five minutes in the morning. I'm plugging our phone chargers when they're not being used. I'm plugging our lamps because we don't have them on all day. Lower thermostat in the winter and use a fire to heat up the house. If a fire isn't possible, then bundle up blankets if there aren't enough blankets to keep you warm. Instead of buying brand new blankets, find blankets at thrift stores and reuse old materials. Open Windows during the summertime instead of using AC.

- 4 - You can drive a car less for everyday uses. Like for commuting to work. That's a trip there and back, going to the grocery store etc. find other ways to commute to places and only use your car for the longer drives and rescue yourself from using your car for frequent everyday uses. You can use public transportation, you can ride a bike, you can walk, you can save water instead of wasting water, switch showerheads to water saving showerheads, or turning the shower off when washing your hair or shaving so that water isn't running when it doesn't need to be in solid dual flush toilet a full flush for solid waste and a half flush for liquid waste. By doing this, it allows for less water to be flushed when it doesn't need to be turning off the sink when you're brushing your teeth because the water doesn't need to be flowing the whole time.

Another practice that we get from Native American practices as planting crops together, Native Americans incorporated spirituality with growing crops because of what they called the three sisters. The three sisters were spirits of young women that collectively were referred to as our life. Prayers an offering of gratitude were expressed to the three sisters in order to show appreciation and thankfulness for the crops. We see the Native Americans practicing this spirituality and growing crops. When the Waupun all thought taught the pilgrims many organic farming strategies. They use nature to support nature, the Wampanoag tribe use wood ashes and fire remains in order to support the growth of crops.

These natural farming techniques did not harm the land, but instead it enriched it. This is how we can use practices in today's farming. Due to our population going we need enough food to support that growth. However, right now our farming techniques aren't sustainable to support the future growth of our population. While being sustainable, we can eliminate harmful fertilizers that aren't made by nature and replace them with natural fertilizers because that's what Native Americans would do. For example, animal waste, banana peels, eggshells, and worm castings can all be used as a form of natural fertilization for our plants. We know that there will be pests that will occur in our gardens.

And right now we're using harmful pesticides to kill off those pests to ensure that we'll have enough crops to feed people. But that's not a sustainable way. Instead, we can use what ash because pests don't like the smell of smoke, so they'll stay away from those plants that are covered in ash. We can also plant crops together because not every pests attack the same type of plant. For example, aphids will attack Moses or sugarcane while spider mites will talk vegetable leaves. by

- 5 - planting different types of crops together, it's a natural way of keeping pests away. Obviously, we won't use nature as a spiritual thing like the Native Americans did. But we can take these ideas that Native Americans have to help us use nature for what it is, rather than destroy it by using harmful resources to make our lives easier. If we use these natural resources like the Native Americans did, our land can restore itself rather than destroyed for forever.

And that's what sustainability is about. It's about avoiding the depletion of natural resources to maintain an ecological balance. Now that I propose some solutions that we can incorporate into our life to be sustainable based on Native American practices, I'm going to let me talk about a solution to education reformations that can be used to help society overcome the marginalization of Native Americans.

>>> As Makayla told us about the history of Native American space, it's a harsh reality that many students don't fully learn in school. And many Native Americans still faced these hardships to this day. We'll learn more about this in our next interview. Car So Carolyn, if you could just tell me about your teaching experience, why you wanted to go there. And the some of the experiences that we had,

Carolyn : The school I taught at was a private school that was K through 12. And it was in a checkerboard area, which is what they call land that is partially reservation partially private and partially belonging to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. So there were several schools near me that work in different facilities or different agencies, depending on their location. But I taught at this school because when I graduated from college, I had previously skipped a grade and I kind of felt like I had a free year to kind of do something that I wanted to do before I started my career. So I interviewed at the school in my senior year of college, and then I liked the people that worked there. They were diverse in their age and their experience and I wanted to try it because it seems like a good way to begin teaching in a in an underserved area.

>>> So is there anything that would have helped you beforehand before like going to this place, whether it's like cultural or just any kind of like training that would have aided you

Carolyn : We did have a tutorial by someone who had been there over the years, but it would have helped to learn some of the language of the people. And I would have liked to have toured the reservation area, there were some opportunities to do that.

- 6 - But we had to do it on a day when school wasn't in session, where you could kind of go out and visit the families and visit the places that were served by our facility. So that would have been nice to do before I started.

So I had some sense of like what I was going to be dealing with, but unfortunately, that topic, oh, what were some of the challenges that your student faced that you saw teaching? What I think a lot of people don't realize is that some of these reservations are essentially, third world countries, there were students who had no running water, who had no electricity, they were served by the school because the public school buses wouldn't travel out to where they lived. So they were really very remote and very isolated.

Also, some of the students had fetal alcohol syndrome because of their mother's abuse of alcohol during the pregnancy. And the other problem, at least for the high school students was, there was really no opportunity for higher education within their environment, like they would have had to leave their reservation leave their families to go further in their schooling.

>>> Oh, yeah, that's really interesting that you mentioned it, because part of my research has been with Native American experiences, when they do choose to pursue higher education, it can be really jarring stepping out of their own culture. Were there any programs for them to help them overcome these challenges at the schools, or?

Carolyn: Well, I taught there in the mid-90s. And at that time, there was really nothing. I mean, they didn't have any remedial programs for kids who were behind, they didn't have any gifted programs for kids who are ahead. It was. I mean, some of this is New Mexico just has very poor funding for their schools across the board. But I don't think even if there was funding that these were the kinds of kids who are going to get it because I believe a lot of the Native Americans are kind of given the short end of the stick in terms of, you know, opportunities to advance

>>> what challenges did you face as an educator, like from a teacher's perspective?

Carolyn : Well, some of it was, like I just mentioned, there was little funding, like to have extra programs or extracurriculars. That families, which is not essentially their fault, but like there just wasn't a lot of support, to like, engage with the community or get involvement from the parents or guardians of the students.

- 7 - And I would say the biggest challenge was just this mistrust of the entire system, because the teachers were all white. And, you know, historically, the cultures, the dominant culture, the dominant white culture wasn't known for its, you know, sensitivity to Native American issues. a lot of the parents and guardians of the students would have been raised in the Bureau of Indian Affairs schools, which look pretty punitive, and kind of against the culture that they grew up with.

So you're kind of at cross purposes, when you have all of that mistrust going your way.

>>> Do you think Native American history is covered enough in the current curriculum or the curriculum that you might have taught?

Carolyn: I don't think so. I think if students are getting any education about Native Americans, they're, it's like this distant past experience. And it's a shameful part of American history. So a lot of teachers don't even want to open up that can of worms, I think that it gets glossed over. And what's true to me really sad is that nobody even focuses on what is happening currently, or you know, modern day Native Americans. It's like they're relics from some ancient times, and they don't exist anymore, is how it feels from an educator’s perspective.

>>> So what do you think needs to change in regard to how we teach Native American history both in public school and in schools where there's a large Native American population?

Carolyn : I think the past wrongs done to their culture have to be acknowledged and not treated as something to get past. Get over like, I think it needs to be addressed. I think it would help if there was some redress of wrongs that were done. And it wasn't just treated like, you know, Manifest Destiny as this glorious adventure instead of the genocide that it really became. And I also think that you have to focus on the current situation, because like I said, these people live in very squalid conditions and some hearts, and nobody really seems to pay any attention to their situation, their lack of advancement, their poor funding, and so on, they need to have some attention paid to them currently, because it's the only way to get beyond the walls that were done.

>>> So this isn't in my questions. But did any of your students end up pursuing higher education? And like, do you know, what might have like happened to them or not so much,

- 8 - Carolyn : I was only there that one year, most of the teachers there were only there for a year or two. So there wasn't a lot of carryover. I can't say that I know of anybody who pursued higher education, the one story that jumps out to me was there was a very bright girl in our group of ninth graders, and everybody kind of who taught her thought that she was going places. And she ended up getting pregnant. And that was the end of that future.

So that to me is indicative of what is going on in that part of the world that even the best kids do not necessarily have a shot at getting further because their environment just doesn't allow it. That is the story.

>>> No, it's a reality, unfortunately. But thank you very much for providing your experiences for our podcast.

Carolyn: Well, I'm happy to share what I know. So thank you for paying attention to this underserved community.

>>> So now I want to get into some of the points that we discussed and describe them in a little bit more detail. So there are several different types of schools that Native Americans can attend. First are the private schools, which are kind of the schools that Carolyn taught at. Then we have tribal grant schools, which are overseen by local governing boards. We have County Schools, which fall under the state's jurisdiction. And then the Bureau of Indian education schools, which are federally funded and often federally operated.

We also have integrated public schools, these usually have white teaching staff, and there's a disconnect between the cultures and lack of understanding. As for the Bureau of Indian education, schools, they have a lot of transgressions and complaints. In my research, I found that a lot of them don't even send students home with report cards, which is just insane to think about. These schools all have a range of how well they serve the Native American community.

For example, the Red Cloud Indian School, which is on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, they're known for having a lot of opportunities for Native American youth. So some of the reasons Red Cloud Indian School is so successful is that alumni come back and teach a lot of the classes. It also incorporates Native American culture and teaches the Lakota language, as well as the spirituality. And so as a result, 95% of this year's graduating Red Cloud seniors are headed off to

- 9 - college in the fall, compared to roughly 70% of recent high school graduates nationally.

And that's a really great number. Because just 14% of Native American adults have a bachelor’s degree or higher. And 41% of pine ranch youth ages 16 through 24 are neither employed nor in school, compared to the 25% of Native Americans in the same age range nationally, and 10% of their white counterparts. So looking at the statistics, we can see that Red Cloud Indian School is definitely doing something right. And their practices need to be applied to all Native American schools, whether they are public or private, or what have you.

They're doing something that works for these kids. And that same energy needs to be brought nationally. One way I believe we can really get Native American sports these higher education's and kind of towards these opportunities is by creating programs for them, not just in the high schools themselves, but also college programs as well has a lot of times when Native American students and others Going off the reservation, they kind of have this experience with culture shock, where they're not in their community anymore.

They don't have the resources that their community wants provided. And they need more attention and help in these college kind of circumstances. Because you have these people who, you know, if they are successful, then they don't end up coming back to the reservation. And if they're not successful, then they're part of that statistic. And there needs to be some kind of balance where Native Americans can help their own community, but our community, our society can also help them. We can also have more Native American teachers, both on the reservation schools in areas where there's a lot of Native American students, and also in public schools as well, where there maybe isn't a large Native American community.

As Carolyn said, in her interview, a lot of the teachers at these schools were white, and there's a lot of mistrust between the white community and Native American community. And we need to come up with a way where that can be kind of healed way of doing this is by having more rigorous cultural training so that there's truly an understanding between all different kinds of ethnic groups in America, but especially between white people and Native Americans. Because as we covered in the interview, Native American history and culture is not covered accurately in high school curriculums, or just curriculums in general, that carries over into our kind of mental perception of how we perceive Native Americans, we see them as this thing from the past, that happened a long time ago.

- 10 - But that's not true. They're, they're still here, they're still experiencing the consequences of what happened hundreds of years ago, those are their lived experiences to this day. And that really isn't covered at all, in any curriculum. Whether that be kindergarteners being taught, oh, that there's this really happy, peaceful transfer of land at Thanksgiving, or in high school where we learn about Manifest Destiny and the genocide is just not covered to its full extent. That's where the mindset changes really need to begin for.

There's any kind of cultural training for teachers because you know, when you're young, what you're taught when you're young, this, it's what sticks with you. So that's really where this needs to begin. It doesn't have to stop there, though, by just teaching history, we can also teach that we're all connected to nature, which is very Native American perspective. And from a sustainability standpoint, teaching young children how we're connected to the nature and to the earth, is really the best way to change our mindset for the future. So that we can preserve the places we're living on. And that's very aligned to how Native Americans live how, what they believe in, that's another aspect of things that we can teach.

So to conclude this topic, there's a lot of different ways that Native Americans can be provided with more opportunities, a lot of systems that can be changed to get them towards these opportunities. And these include the college and school programs that they need to, you know, kind of get on their feet, more Native American teachers, cultural training for nonnative teachers, painting the history curriculum, so that it's accurately taught what actually happened in this country, and also teaching that we're connected to nature and earth and kind of not tossing that ideology by the roadside really embracing it in our schools. Because at the end of the day, education is one of the most powerful ways to change generations mindset and can affect a lot of things afterwards. Including sustainability including racial justice, environmental justice, as well as pop culture, which Nicole will be discussing.

Nicole: Hi, my name is Nicole Belton, and today I'm going to be talking about the effects of popular culture and how we can make reparations with Native Americans. Our current cultural appropriation towards indigenous people as well as our immediate culture, are extremely reflective of the current power dynamic that indigenous design is trying to change.

You know, there's a serious struggle for meaning and connection in popular cultures and minorities should not continue to be marginalized and portrayed as stereotypes Most importantly, censoring and evaluating children's media like Disney

- 11 - which portrays Native Americans from a very outdated point of view. Examples include Pocahontas, brother, Bear, Peter Pan. All of these have incredibly racist animated characters, which need to be addressed as well as Disney needs to come out with a long overdue apology. The biggest problem is that children and adults still continue to watch these films even as they grow up. Keeping mascots, statues or anything that is publicly preserving white supremacy towards Native Americans obstructs our perceptive equality.

Over the summer during the Black Lives Matter movement, the Washington Redskins temporarily changed their name to Washington football team. It's important to use this transition point as a healing process and a fresh start for sport enthusiasts. naming their new team name something like the monuments instead of just Washington football team would be more empowering to both sides. Changing your sports team names should be a chance to be creative and restorative everything in our lives. Our language, physical infrastructure, social values, and everyday habitual practices reflect our values and how we treat each other. So how can we make reparations with Native Americans beyond ending cultural appropriation holidays are something that define us as a society unnecessarily reformed to our system to help shift the power dynamic would be to celebrate indigenous people to instead of Columbus State and nationally, it is so problematic to celebrate a genocide and in the attempts to still address our history, yet make it more appropriate, we should go forward addressing it as indigenous peoples day despite it happening over 500 years ago, indigenous people are still experiencing negative impacts today.

And this national holiday communicates as a sign of disrespect. It is imperative to shift power dynamics in order to end marginalization and create sustainability to help us further support traditional indigenous ways of life and culture. We have an interview with the founder of decolonizing wealth, Edgar Villanueva is a Native American spiritual healer, philanthropist, and writer at the front of social activism for indigenous rights.

Edgar: I am Lumbee, which is the name of my tribe in southeastern North Carolina. That's where I was born and raised. And I have been working in the nonprofit sector, my entire career, I have been really inspired by the work in this space of philanthropy, because there's so much opportunity to move resources, money, specifically, to communities that have been under resource because of historical and systemic racism.

- 12 - We have a major wealth gap in the States. And when you look at a dispiriting disparities by race, it's quite profound within the area of philanthropy, When we look at where giving goes and how what investment and communities look like, we know there's also a major disparity that's also connected to historical and systemic racism. So my work has been really about helping people understand those connections, and to advocate and really be an ambassador, really, for my community and other communities of land of color within the space of philanthropy.

>>> So a topic that we're really trying to kind of redesign for our podcast is kind of the cultural values that are marginalizing Native Americans in the United States. And I would just like your opinion on if you think there's any particular values that we do have to change as a society?

Edgar: Absolutely, I think that there are many reasons one, that indigenous people and our values are quite invisible in the US. This is rapidly changing things to the work of a lot of good people. We are a population that has been extremely marginalized. And our histories are, in real time being rewritten and erased, actually, some fantastic research from a partner, organization of mine called illuma. Negative shows that in 27 states, Native Americans are not even mentioned in K 12. History curriculum. And so there's an act of erasure happening of indigenous peoples, and absolutely of our cultures.

Our worldview, in many ways, is completely upside down from a lot of the dominant ways of thinking and being in the United States. When you think about our dominant mindsets around the economy, around the ideas of American individualism, around the you know, ideas of competition and complete disregard for people on the planet when it comes to hoarding wealth and accumulating wealth in this country. Those ideas are very counterintuitive to the indigenous worldview, where we think of wealth as being owned by the community at large versus by individuals, we also think of ourselves as stewards of the resources that in community, and we are much more, you know, thoughtful about economies that are more reciprocal, and ensuring that everyone has what they need, and more than enough, and so those are values that are not really honored and cherished in a capitalistic system.

But I am really excited and inspired by the work that I've been doing, and many others because I think that we've reached a place in our history in this young country, that we're realizing that some of the ideas that we've had in place, or the way we've been doing things are not working for us. And if we know anything from this recent pandemic, it's quite clear that our systems are fragile, and that the economy is of

- 13 - separation is just not serving us well. And white supremacy and those ideologies are completely baked into those systems.

And so the indigenous worldview, our our perspectives, or our cultural values, are actually something that have not only preserved our communities for thousands of years, but can be embraced and accepted by the larger population, and will help to lead us all to a better way of coexisting on this planet.

>>> I really agree with you, our group is really trying to find ways that we can use indigenous practice to address a lot of the sustainability issues. I'm wondering if there's any Native American spiritual practices that kind of have influenced you into creating some of the aspects of your company?

Edgar : Yeah, I think for me, the biggest spiritual practice that I have engaged in is really around the idea of healing. In native communities were hyper aware of trauma, because of what's happened in our communities. And even very recently, when you think about Indian boarding schools in the United States, which impacted my grandparents generation, so we're not talking about just, you know, colonization from 500 years ago, we're talking about my grandparents generation, where kids were forced, forcibly removed from their homes and put into boarding schools and punished for speaking the language.

And, you know, under this idea of kill the Indian, save the man. And so, these types of horrific acts of violence are very recent in our communities. And so we are hyper aware of trauma, and we're hyper aware of healing. And healing for us is deeply spiritual and is something that we are collectively engaged in as a way of moving forward. And so for me, I think that's the practice in my own personal life that I've embraced the most.

The book that I wrote, that came out of 2018, decolonizing, wealth is very much bringing those ideas of healing to, to, you know, to the surface for everyone to understand. Because we all need healing, whether you're indigenous black, whatever personal color, white, whatever the background might be, we've all experienced some level of trauma because of the history of colonization, and because of the prominence of white supremacy, and we all need to heal from that, including white people.

And so that's, that's the value that I hold a lot. And when I think about decolonizing, which is a word I use a lot in my work, it's for me, it's kind of

- 14 - synonymous with healing, I think of decolonizing as actually naming and coming to terms with what has happened historically, and what's happened recently, that has caused harm, naming that and then engaging in some practice to, to repair and to heal that. And that has, that commitment has really liberated me and help me to like move forward in my personal life, and to bring a different perspective on how I do business and how we actually can do philanthropy that's rooted in relationship versus a transactional way of engaging with each other.

>>> Thank you. Just a follow up question. How do you think that Americans can make reparations with Native Americans?

Edgar: I think there's a lot of ways to the About reparations at a personal level, I think it begins with acknowledging the indigenous community and you know, and your own neighborhood, and understanding whose land you're on. There's lots of resources to actually learn locally about the native community.

A lot of folks think natives are concentrated in the southwest or on reservation communities. But in fact, about 70 to 75% of us live in cities. So it's very likely in your community, there are native folks, there are probably native organizations.

So a good way to begin, is to really understand what the history and context is in your local community. I think in terms of reparations, or wanting to repair or support native communities, you definitely could begin by contributing into a number of native organizations, again, perhaps locally, if you're a person who has wealth, I often encourage folks to understand the origins of that wealth and trace that back and understand, you know, the communities that may have been harmed in that process over generations, and then intentionally designed your philanthropy around repairing and supporting those communities. You know, so a quick example because I know that that sounds like really, like a, it's kind of hard to put your, your mind around what that may look like.

But, you know, one donor philanthropist that I've worked with recently, you know, has Walton, her family, and she traced back to like, I don't know, like four generations ago, or maybe longer. And realize that her family began to build wealth because someone was given a land grant in North Carolina. And, you know, land they haven't taken from natives and given to her ancestors. And she also knew that her ancestor’s own slaves. And so part of her work of reparations is like acknowledging that and grieving that.

- 15 - And then she's really set out to do what she can to repair that she's been involved in several projects that are helping black folks in the south, like black farmers, buy land and get land back in their families. She's been deeply involved in supporting native led organizations. And so it's, it starts with an awareness because you can write a check to, you know, a local native organization or whatever, which is meaningful. And I think folks should definitely think about your giving even younger folks who are quite charitable, you know, giving to support local organizations, but it's also the personal work of understanding the history.

And that work is going to just really serve you well and open up a lot of opportunities for you to think about how you can be a part of reparations. And reparations is not just about supporting, you know, people who have been harmed, but it's about all of us coming together and righting the wrongs so that we can move forward together as a collective healing process to you What does the future look like? My dream is to see in the United States, there be a commission established for truth and reconciliation. I think that this is something we desperately need in this country. Because as I mentioned earlier, we are actively erasing history. And so we need to document the stories and the grievances of indigenous folks and other people of color. And we need to create an opportunity for us to come together and collectively grieve those as a nation.

And other places like South Africa, Germany, Canada, there have been national processes that have allowed folks to come together as a community, to share the stories feel the pain, and then to have official apologies from the government. Indiana states, we've never had an official apology to black people for slavery. We've never had an official apology to indigenous communities to native nations for every single broken treaty.

And so I think that this type of process is necessary to really document history and to enlighten all of us and to create a space for healing. If we refuse to do that, then I think what happens is people are holding pain and communities are holding trauma and it continues to fester underneath the surface of the fabric really of our society. And then white people are also kind of stuck holding that not knowing what to do and so we just need to like put it out, like rip the band aid off, and like put it out there and, and really document these stories and allow a healing process to begin. I know that won't repair everything, it's not perfect and Canada and other places where they've had these processes, but there is a an absolute, absolutely like a

- 16 - different sense of awareness that shows up and how policies are made in these countries, it shows up and how philanthropy gives.

You know, when I traveled in Canada last year and met with a lot, a lot of foundations and nonprofits, they're, they're hyper aware and knowledgeable of First Nations people there and, and are really clear around what the opportunities are to invest in those communities versus the United States where sometimes it begins with like, oh, there are Native Americans here, we didn't even know, how many are there? Do you guys pay taxes, you know, so we just have a lot of ignorance in the United States around, you know, indigenous people and myths that we have to overcome. I think that a process of Truth and Reconciliation would really help.

And then I would love to see reparations be paid to native and black people in this country. But I think they go hand in hand, we can't just cut the check and give people money. We absolutely should do that. And we have to do that in order to close the racial wealth gap. But we also need to have a full awareness and acceptance and ownership of the wrongs that have happened over the past 500 years,

>>> You have been such a huge inspiration for a project. And I honestly, I can't even believe that I was able to interview you.

Edgar :So I'm super happy to I think I love talking to folks who are in college and like, you know, you the fact that you all even know about this kind of work is inspiring to me, because I feel like when I was in college, I don't know what I was doing.

But I was I wasn't quite as aware of some of the things going on in the world. So we really appreciate what you're doing. And we've had a lot of, you know, young folks, young activists, young donors to be involved in our work. So we're glad that you found us and that the work is inspiring, you know the project. Thank you.

>>> Thank you so much. Understanding historical context and changing cultural mindsets are the keys to creating a lasting structural value change in America, we want people to be in the right headspace, in order to be more open to changing the laws and policies in place.

John : Let's start this segment out with a little bit deeper understanding of Native American policies because this unlocks a lot of understanding into their economic hardships. To start, we have to define what a recognized tribe is only tribe to maintain a legal relationship to the United States government through binding

- 17 - treaties, acts of Congress and executive orders are officially recognized by the federal government.

Once recognized, a tribe has a legal relationship with the United States. There are currently more than 550 recognized tribes in the United States, including some 200 village groups in Alaska.

However, there are still hundreds of tribes undergoing a lengthy and tedious process of applying for federal recognition. In the United States, there are only two kinds of reserved lands that are well known military and Indian. An Indian reservation is a land base that a tribe reserved for itself when it relinquished its other land areas the United States through treaties. Most recently, congressional acts, executive orders and administration acts have created reservations. today. Some reservations include non-Indian residents and landowners.

Speaking previously about the military, Native Americans, despite tribal sovereignty have the same obligations for military service as other United States citizens. All Native Americans are subject to federal income taxes. As sovereign entities, tribal governments have the power to levy taxes on reservation lands, some tribes do and don't. As a result, Native Americans and non-native Americans may or may not pay sales taxes on goods and services purchased in the reservation, depending on the tribe. However, when a member of a Native American tribe conducts business off the reservation, that person like everyone else pays both state and local taxes. state income taxes are not paid on reservations or trust lands.

There are two major types of Native American land. One is trust land, and the other is Fie land. Trust land the federal government holds legal title, but the beneficial interest remains with the individual or the tribe. trust lands held on behalf of individuals are known as allotments few land is purchased by tribes in which the tribe acquires legal title under specific statutory authority. Native Americans natural resource ownership is fundamentally similar to Native Americans land ownership. Natural Resources on Native American land can be held in a trust for a tribe or individual or owned by them as a part of a restricted fee land. different laws govern mineral development on Trust land depending on whether an individual or tribal hold the beneficial interest, majority of the time they don't.

Regardless, a tribe or individual cannot develop the natural resources without the federal government's approval. Indian reservations contain almost 30% of the nation's coal reserves west of the Mississippi 50% of potential uranium reserves, and

- 18 - 20% of known oil and gas reserves. These resources are worth nearly $1.5 trillion or $1.5 million per tribal member. Yet 86% of Indian lands with energy or mineral potential remain undeveloped because the federal control or the reservations to keep the Indians from fully capitalizing on their natural resources if they desire. Meanwhile, most Native Americans live in poverty with per capita income of $16,645 compared to the average 27,334. For the United States population as a whole. Unemployment rates are as high as 78% on some reservations.

As long as tribes and individual Native Americans are denied right to control their land and resources, they will remain an island of poverty in a sea of prosperity. If tribes’ individuals had the rights and institutions as those living outside of reservations, they can unlock the tremendous wealth of their lands. Shockingly, 39% of Native Americans live in poverty compared with 9% of white Americans and Native Americans unemployment almost four times higher than the United States average crow reservation in south central Montana, contains coal and other assets valued at nearly $27 billion, or approximately $3.3 million per person makes that makes the tribe one of the largest coal owners in the world.

They own the mineral rights that land. Despite such energy wealth, the tribe’s annual rate of return on coal assets is a mere 0.01%. With unemployment rates as high as 78%, the United States continues to run pipelines do Native American land and cite the resources right out from under the people that live in the land, because they do not own the mineral rights. Hear me out when I say this, Native Americans deserve the full land rights, the land that they live on. Cue the audio clip of chase iron eyes, a Native American lawyer talking about land rights and land uses for you know,

Chase Iron : For a lot of us for a lot of indigenous nations, indigenous peoples, we view ourselves as the original ancient civilizations of these hemispheres. And we've come into contact with colonial forces that are, you know, hell bent, they're still trying to absorb us. They their policies are still calculated to bring about our extinction. We are living a slow genocide right now, in Indian Country.

It's never been more clear to me since moving to the Pine Ridge Reservation in what is now South Dakota, which is near our Black Hills. We've entered treaties with the colonial governments that are occupying our territory in occupying our minds and our mental space as well. One of our sister tribal nations, the--or The Crow Nation, one of their people with subsistence hunting, went into a national forest where the United States is claiming superior sovereign title in hunted in Elk took an elk to feed

- 19 - his family. And that case, whether or not we have the treaty protected right to subsistence hunt on federal lands anywhere.

We entered these treaties with what we thought were, at the time honorable men, there was only men at these treaty gatherings at the treaty councils. And that is one particular case that is going to be extremely relevant in the light of the government shutdown that is impacting 800,000 almost a million Americans. I mean, Donald Trump is humiliating the working class in this country right now. We are more than familiar with the tactics of sign or starve. This is exactly what they did to us when we wouldn't give up the Black Hills.

All they did after they killed off all the buffalo was stop supplying the rations. Stop supplying the commodity stop supplying the paycheck to 42,000 Coast Guard members. So the pain the steam that they're feeling. We feel that we've been feeling that for a long time. People are waking up and Standing Rock, the struggle of Standing Rock of the no Depo pipeline, the International spiritual monument, the galvanizing the catalyst that was able to happen there, because young people put their hearts their minds and their bodies in a prayer in emotion that woke up the world that expanded in heightened the consciousness.

The globe in a very real way, what's happening here in DC in the belly of the beast is a direct result of that positive energy, finding its way to evolve. That's what we're witnessing. That's what we're seeing.

We just got back from visiting one of the first Native American Congresswoman Deb Holland. There's another name Sharice David's, the halls of Congress have completely changed. We don't have time, like the globe is warming. There's human caused climate change. There’re existential crises, shortages of water, we've reached literal peak capitalism. We don't have a true cost economy, we lie to ourselves, we tell ourselves that the GDP is a good marker of success, national success, personal success.

And we don't take into account the fact that when we poison a river, those who poisoned that river should not only be criminalized but they should be punished, their Corporation should cease to exist as a person and their charter should be pulled. We don't have a jurisprudence that provides for that.

>>> Last year, public service company of New Mexico as a state regulators to approve power purchase agreements for 100 megawatts worth of solar projects that

- 20 - a Chicago company plans to build on the jakara Apache national reservation in northern New Mexico. This is one of the largest renewable energy projects on Native American land in the United States. It also highlights the movement; the Native Americans want to push for green energy. These projects can supply jobs, and if Americans utilize the land that they love so much. However, some wind rights are needed in order to be able to build renewable energy.

So there's this and not all tribes will have that agreement in their trust or feel and many reservations are trapped, and without allowing the Native Americans to have all rights to land, then they continue to live in unfavorable conditions with high unemployment, they are able to build solar projects. When projects and water projects, many reservations would see a decrease in unemployment, a decrease in electricity cost, and a lead the pathway from fossil fuels where the industry exploits their tribes and their land. By educating people in school with Native American history, normalizing their social structure, and making people aware of how Native Americans are still currently treated. The hope is to change these land laws and socialist ideologies that people currently have did not focus on the good for Native Americans. They are very well with the earth, for the federal government to keep those mineral rights and suck those resources out of the ground without the consent of the people who live on that land, shows and sets the standard of disrespect towards these people, as it has for generations.

John : So throughout this podcast, we've covered several areas that needed to be addressed in Native American communities and American society as a whole. The thing is, they're all interwoven, and one doesn't change without the other. Essentially, we're trying to change the mindset of this country in order to give Native Americans the future they deserve.

>>> As Bruce masse said in his 24 principles, we need to have optimism about this. There's a lot to be done, but this requires a more significant design opportunity. And in this podcast, we've covered the wolf that need to be released into the system for Native Americans as a community to thrive, as well as the rest of our society. (music playing)

Thank you for tuning in to the first episode of retro casting indigenous design.

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