Episode 1. The History, Trauma, and Tragedy of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn.
This five-part series brings attention to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn Crisis in the US. MMIW cases are also prevalent in Canada but this series highlights the situation in America. The systemic struggle is so complex that it would take years to cover all the stories. These MMIWR true crime episodes are different from the usual Dream Nation Love format. They are the first multi-episode story that DNL has published.
The idea for the MMIWR (R standing for relatives) series originated from a conversation I had six years ago with my sister-in-law. I first noticed airport signs in Washington asking people to keep an eye out for human trafficking victims. Our conversation quickly went from human trafficking to the MMIW crisis. I’ve never heard of either back East. It was astounding to learn that this was happening in the US (and Canada) and that the mainstream media was barely covering the issue.
The more I spoke to families and read articles, the bigger the MMIW story would become. The systemic struggles created an environment for many Indigenous Womxn, Boys, Girls, and Two-Spirits to be susceptible to murder and/or disappearances. Most are not aware that there are 5,712 cases of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls in the US.
The episodes are edited and produced by Melissa Spence who is an Audio Producer and a Voice-over artist. An Anishinaabe Ojibwe, Melissa is enrolled in Lake Manitoba First Nation of Canada. She is the Co-host of the Indigenous Vision Podcast alongside Souta Callinglast who is Blackfoot. Indigenous Vision is a collective of Native professionals empowering the future of Indigenous communities in Canada and the US. They do so through educational resources for environmental and cultural preservation. I am forever grateful to Melissa for her talent, friendship, and knowledge.
The introduction features the “Strong Woman” song performed by Nicole Matthews, Guadalupe Lopez, and Angelica Allery. Nicole is the Executive Director of The Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition and Angelica is the Membership and Outreach Coordinator. Guadalupe is the Executive Director of Violence Free Minnesota. The song is a part of Nicole’s Tedx talk ”How Indigenous Values Can Help Sexual Violence Victims Heal.” Thank you to the women for sharing the powerful performance with the podcast.
The voices that you are about to hear on the podcast are from Mary Katherine Nagle, an Attorney specializing in tribal sovereignty of Native Nations and Peoples. She is also one of the country's most-produced Native American Playwrights. Mary is also the Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. You will also hear Minnesota Senator Mary Kunesh who created the MMIWG Task Force, to assess and recommend solutions to the crisis in Minnesota. as well as a report on MMIW with mandates to the Minnesota legislature. Mary is a founding member of the Native American and People of Color & Indigenous (POCI) caucuses. You will also hear from Amber Crotty who is a Delegate of the Navajo Nation (one of the largest Indian reservations in the US) about the MMIWR crisis there.
The six years of research culminated in these episodes. The goal is to amplify Indigenous Voices and feature interviews with survivors, relatives, state patrol, tribal law enforcement, sexual assault coalition directors, senators, lawyers advocating for tribal sovereignty, environmentalists, and many more voices impacted by the MMIW crisis. After listening to the episodes, my dream is that you share the knowledge. In the hopes of creating awareness, advocating for change, protecting yourself or others, identifying persons being trafficked, and speaking up against injustice. Thank you for listening.
Transcript
Julia Laricheva 00:00
(Indigenous singing starts — Hey, hey, hey yo way, way, way, way Hey. Hey. — Indigenous singing ends). Welcome to Dream Nation Love. I'm your host Yulia and you're listening to Part One of our Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn and Relatives series. The Strong Woman song you're hearing in the background is performed by Nicole Matthews, Guadalupe Lopez, and Angelica Ellery as part of Nicole's TED Talk, called "How Indigenous Values Can Help Sexual Violence Victims Heal." Nicole is the Executive Director of Minnesota Indian Women's Health Sexual Assault Coalition, and Angelica is the Membership and Outreach Coordinator. Guadalupe is the Executive Director of Violence Free Minnesota and I want to thank all three of them for kindly sharing their performance with the podcast. This podcast has been so difficult to produce. I've been working on this for the last six years and it's finally coming together this past year. And it's been the heaviest, heaviest podcast that I've ever done. I would not be able to bring you these episodes without Melissa Spence, she is my Editor and Producer and she is an Anishinaabe Ojibway by the way, enrolled in Lake Manitoba First Nation of Canada. Melissa is also a voiceover artist and a Co-Host of Indigenous Vision Podcast. She's an amazing editor. Just an amazing all-around human being. And I'm so glad that we found each other to be able to put this project together. Indigenous Vision is also a collective of Native professionals empowering the future of Indigenous communities in Canada in the US. And they do so through educational resources for environmental and cultural preservation. They do a lot of work for Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women as well. So definitely check out Melissa Spence, find her at @Melissaaudio on Instagram, and I am forever grateful to Melissa for her help friendship and knowledge.
Julia Laricheva 02:09
I first heard about Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn from my sister-in-law. She told me about the crisis while we're sitting around a campfire in Nez Perce County, Idaho. Our conversation began when I mentioned some posters in Spokane Washington airport, urging people to keep an eye out for human trafficking. I've never encountered similar posters during my travels, these posters in Spokane were sometimes pasted on the inside of the bathroom door and trying to process the information, you know, on you're in a very intimate small space really made the message even more alarming. After I spoke to my sister-in-law about it, just hearing about it from her revealed a deeper layer. She told me about the Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn, Boys, Two-Spirits and Men that were going missing. And it was happening all in the US, especially on the West Coast and the Northwest, as well as Canada. Canada has dealt with it a little better in the last few years. They have a lot more experience with that if you want to learn about the Canadian crisis, please google the Highway of Tears. I will not be going into the Canada crisis on this podcast. Because it's simply too broad of an issue. There are just too many stories to tell. And I can barely cover the US story alone. Again, I just couldn't believe that women were going issing in the US and Canada and the story was not national news. And as the night went on, I kept on asking her more questions, just question after question. Eventually, MMIW started to feel like an iceberg. The peak being the women and under the surface, there were just so many factors and systems that contributed to the woman being missing. And the search for answers culminated in the special series that you're hearing right now. My goal with these episodes is to amplify Indigenous voices who are doing the MMIW work as well as creating more awareness around the Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn. Basically, my goal is to just be a witness to the stories and share them with the world. And my dream is that after you listen, you'll have a better understanding of everything that is happening. And this is a story about trauma, trauma, perpetuating itself through culture, both for the Indigenous and the Non-Indigenous communities. This was started by Colonialism, and it cycled through the boarding schools. And now the trauma lives in the man camps, the men working in the extraction industries. The trauma is also surfacing both on the reservation as well as urban cities. This trauma creates so much chaos and it takes away so many loved ones. And trauma begets trauma. And my hope is that with this collective knowledge, we can help prevent another person from going missing, maybe even give them the tools to escape. Perhaps give a family the tools to conduct a search that forces the authorities to pay attention, maybe even help provide tools for someone to deal with loss or give someone this strength to walk away from a domestic abuse situation. A little bit of background on Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn's International Day. It's May 5 of every year and is the day of awareness. The National Week of action for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls leads up to it starting April 29 and ends on May 5. So to mark the occasion, people often wear red to bring attention to the crisis on the girls. There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the US and like I said, it's nearly impossible for me to cover all the Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn stories of every tribe. Throughout this podcast, I've only highlighted a few I wish I could cover every one of them. I think it would take me many, many, lifetimes. The color red differs in meaning from tribe to tribe sometimes to there are just so many different differentiations basically and tribes and red is chosen because it's a color that transcends the physical world into one of the spirit. The color can be seen by the ancestors and to those who passed and the color calls on them to help guide the missing back. People also mark the day with a red handprint across the face to show solidarity with MMIW. Sometimes you see it as a black handprint to the mark represents the silence of the Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn And Relatives. The silence of the victims, the law enforcement and the people who remained silent while knowing who the perpetrators are. Professional runner Jordan Marie Daniel, who was on the podcast as well, was the first to bring attention to the handprint at the 2019 Boston Marathon. She dedicated her run to 26 26 Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn and during our interview, Jordan Marie reminded me that May 5 was selected since it was the birthday of Hannah Harris. Hannah was a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and in 2013 was reported missing and Lame Deer Montana. Lots of women go missing in Montana. By the way, there are women being stolen from Missoula. Hannah went out to celebrate independence day and never came home. She was a young mother she had a brand new baby and her disappearance raised alarms and her family. When the relatives approached the local police for help the officers did not take the case seriously. Hannah's body was found five days later, she had been raped and murdered at the age of 21, leaving behind a baby and a family that loved her. The special series is focused on a few of the stories, the stories are data. To bring the data into perspective, I want to talk a little bit about statistics. Currently, in the US Indigenous people make-up only 2% of the population let that sink in only 2% of the whole entire population. Yet Native women and girls are murdered at a rate that's 10 times higher than other ethnicities. More than half of the women and girls over 55% have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime, with four out of five experiencing violence. For such a small segment of the population. These numbers are staggering. As of 2016, the National Crime Information Center reported 5712 cases of missing Native women and girls, and they don't include the missing men, boys, and two spirits. There are a number of cases that have been reported. Many others remain uncounted due to inaccurate or non-existent record keeping as well as mislabeling of ethnicity due to clerical errors or other mistakes that are caused on purpose so the investigation won't even begin or continue. To contrast these really high numbers of 5712 cases, the US Department of Justice Missing Persons Database has only 116 cases that are registered. To make the matter even more complicated, many of the murders are committed by non-Native people on Native-owned land, making it hard for tribal courts to prosecute non-Natives. The investigations often get stopped in their tracks due to a lack of communication between tribal, state, local, and federal law enforcement. And oftentimes, cases are not pursued due to jurisdiction matters and racism that exists basically towards Indigenous Cultures. Between 2005 and 2009, the US Attorney declined to prosecute 67% of cases surrounding abuse involving Indigenous Americans. Now, with this podcast, I'm bringing forward only a few stories as I mentioned, stories from every side so you can really understand the issue a bit deeper. Please share these episodes with a friend. So more people can be aware of the crisis and hopefully prevent it. And hopefully together we can kind of help change the outcome of many women's lives, as well as boys, and men, and two-spirits.
Julia Laricheva 09:39
On this podcast, I got to speak with many Indigenous people. And the voice that you're about to hear next is from Mary Katherine Nagel. She's an Attorney specializing in tribal sovereignty of Native Nations and Peoples. Mary Katherine Nicole was born in Oklahoma and is enrolled in the Cherokee Nation. She is also one of the country's most-produced Native American Playwright, and she's also the Executive Director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program. Her plays just like her work, are focused on history and tribal law, and the history of the Indigenous People. I'm so glad I got to speak with Mary Katherine Nangle. I think this is a really powerful introduction to give you an idea of who the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn are and how we kind of got to this point. Thank you for joining. And my first question is, you know, what are some factors that contribute to the Missing And Murdered Indigenous Womxn Crisis?
Mary Katherine Nangle 10:34
There's several factors that contribute to the crisis. I mean, the first and foremost reality of the crisis is simply that the United States has a culture that promotes violence against Native women that began with the inception of the United States. Christopher Columbus is someone who most Americans are taught in grade school to celebrate we have a Federal holiday named after him. And he bragged about murdering Native women in his journals. He bragged about raping Native women, he bragged about kidnapping them. And so violence against women is something that, you know, has been practiced by our most celebrated quote unquote, founding fathers. And it was practiced by the US military. If you look at the history of, for instance, the Cherokee Trail of Tears, right, you had Indian agents and military soldiers recording in their journals that they were raping Cherokee women along the trail of tears. So there is a historic precedent for it. And we have yet to find that moment in the United States in our culture, where we stand back and we say, actually, that was wrong, and we shouldn't continue to do it today. And the other thing is, is that our culture really portrays Native women as just sex objects. You know, Pocahontas, instead of being portrayed as an incredible Native girl who survived a lot and ended up being a victim. She was murdered, she was also raped and kidnapped, all before the age of 21. And she was a child when she was raped. People wear Poka-hottie costumes at Halloween. So as long as our women who have been raped and murdered are treated as jokes or Halloween costumes, the violence against a woman will not be taken seriously because that dehumanization of us is what allows the culture to be insensitive to the human tragedy of when a native woman or girl is murdered. And that's why when someone like Gabby Petito is murdered, the whole country is very upset and wants to talk about how we're going to figure out who murdered her. And when 700 other Native women are murdered in the same state in Wyoming, the FBI does nothing. The American media doesn't care. And no one bats an eyelash because that's just another Pocahontas right? So we have to teach Americans to re-humanize Native Women, and to stop seeing them as sexual objects, but instead to see them as real people, which we are right. And the other issue is the legal framework, you have a legal framework in the United States where in 1978, the United States Supreme Court eliminated tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. And that's a huge crisis for many reasons. But one of which is that we know from the US Department of Justice, that the majority of violent crimes committed against Native women are committed by non-Indians. And then women suffer the highest rates of sexual assault, domestic violence, and homicide in the United States. So we know as a result of the Supreme Court's decision and all font, that Tribal Nations cannot prosecute the majority of violent crimes committed against their citizens. So it's no surprise that we have a Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women's crisis based on all of these issues that have yet to be addressed or solved in the United States,
Mary Katherine Nangle 10:34
I was reading something that the FBI passes up on a lot of the cases so their selective about — I don't know if you know a little bit more about it, like I don't know that much about it, but I just, I saw some stats on it.
Mary Katherine Nangle 13:31
All I know is that they have refused to investigate all of the cases that I work on, they refuse to talk to all the families that I represent, and they just won't even talk to the parents. They won't even so imagine being a mother of a little girl on living on a reservation, who's in your daughter's murder? Wouldn't you like to talk to law enforcement and say, here's who she said she was going to see that day, or here's who I think maybe murdered my daughter. Oftentimes our family members have key information related to the homicide of their loved one. That's why law enforcement one on one, you always talk to the family. Also, PS, sometimes the family should be considered, they should always be considered a suspect until they're ruled out. Unfortunately, sometimes film members kill people, right? Intimate partner violence. The FBI refuses to talk to native families, when their loved ones are murdered, they won't even investigate. They don't take it seriously. And they refuse to investigate. Our families suffer multiple tragedies. Of course, first and foremost is the loss of their loved one. But the other traumatic reality the experience is being told by law enforcement that no one cares. Like, no one cares that your loved one has been murdered. No one cares. And that's really really, really painful.
Julia Laricheva 15:02
How many cases do you have right now that have been turned away?
Mary Katherine Nangle 15:05
I have seven that I'm working on that I where I represent the family and where I have asked the FBI to step in and investigate. And they have either most of them, they won't even talk to me. I did call and get one of the officers that kind of caught him off guard, I got the front office to transfer me to his phone. And he just proceeded to, to just say some really mean things on the phone to me, and he was very rude. This is a case where actually the young it was a young native boy who was who died. And he died at the hands of BIA law enforcement. And we have multiple eyewitnesses who saw him he was let me just this is Raven. Glen is his name. He died on the Crow Reservation. A year ago in November. He was involved in high speed chase. Now, we don't know why. Law enforcement has refused to tell his mother blossom old bull. Why there was a high speed chase. We've heard that maybe drugs were involved. But do drugs really necessitate taking someone's life. And they the law enforcement were chasing him at high speed and because they were engaged in high speed chase, he drove head on into a train and upon impact, his car exploded and there was some fire but multiple eyewitnesses saw him lying by the side of the road crying for help for 30 minutes. And BIA law enforcement watched him die. And no one called an ambulance. Actually, I have uncovered records that an ambulance was called and then BIA cancelled it three minutes later, they refused to talk to the family. Tell the family what happened. And when I filed a case file or a claim with the Missing and Murdered Unit at the Department of Interior Undersecretary Deb Holland. That unit told me that that case have been transferred to the FBI, because the FBI handles all cases under color of law where someone dies in law enforcement hands. So like George Floyd's murder, right? These things get transferred to the FBI. Well, then I called the FBI. And they told me they would not be investigating this case. Because usually, you know, when natives die with the hands of law enforcement, it's usually not because law enforcement did anything wrong, but it's just because native people are dangerous. And he wouldn't even talk to the mother. He was very rude. He yelled at me. He said, I'm not going to investigate a case just because you tell me I have to. And I said, I'm not telling you. You have to. I'm asking you to just talk to the victim's mom. Imagine if your child died in the hands of law enforcement. Wouldn't you want someone from a law enforcement agency to just have a conversation with you and he and just hear you out? Just have a conversation and they won't even have that conversation? On the Blackfeet reservation, Lindsey Whiteman and Amy Whitegrass were both murdered. Everyone knows who murdered them. You know why? Because there were some eyewitnesses who saw the car fleeing the scene, but also the car being driven by the two murderers, left the Blackfeet reservation and was pulled over by police in Great Falls, Montana. And Amy's dead bodies shot through the head was in the backseat of their car. Now they had killed Lindsay they hit and run because when they shot Amy she tried to stop them. And they ran her over when they ran over Lindsay So but Amy's dead body was in the car. There's no question Who Killed Amy and Lindsay. The FBI has refused to investigate these ask them on numerous occasions, to speak with the family to speak with arlena old person who has lends his mother they've refused. And in fact, what they did do was a long time after she passed when they decided they were going to officially close the case without ever doing a formal investigation. They should have at Lindsay's brother's place of work and the FBI walked in. And while he was at work, handed him his sister's clothing and said "Here's your sister's clothes, the day she was wearing the day she died. We're closing this case." And that was their communication with the family. This is how the FBI treats our Native families. These are human rights violations. These are violations of the federal trust, duty and responsibility. The FBI is an agency the federal government owes to tribal nations and our citizens, and they get away with it. And they get away with it because our President Joe Biden lets them do it. And they get away with it because our Congress doesn't hold FBI accountable. And because Attorney General Merrick Garland doesn't hold them accountable. And it's very sad, and it needs to stop.
Mary Kunesh 19:18
And I was gonna say as a lawyer, what cases are you seeing of Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women? I know there are a lot of boys going missing and men as well. So I try to involve everybody by saying, you know, womxn with an x because it's also affecting the Two-Spirit community as well. I was gonna ask you what you've seen so far as a lawyer, you know, the families that you've been interacting with, you know, who are you seeing going missing? And also, who do you see committing the crimes? If you see that.
Mary Kunesh 19:47
You know, primarily, the vast majority of Missing And Murdered Indigenous People are Native women and girls, but our Two-Spirit relatives are murdered as well. And so our men and our voice. So it's really all people and their, you know, Indigenous people are murdered at higher rates than any other population in the United States. It is quite often Native women and girls who live on tribal lands. But our native women, our native relatives, are murdered in urban areas too. And as Abigail Echo Hawk has pointed out from the Urban Indian Health Institute, oftentimes, unfortunately, those murders are not even recorded as a murder of a Native person, because the urban law enforcement doesn't write down that the person was native who was murdered. And so that's been a huge problem to the lives of our boys are being taken as well. I gave the example earlier of braving Glenn's case, and who's murdering them. So quite often, it's actually law enforcement, native people are more likely to be murdered than law enforcement than any other population in the United States. For instance, in Brighton Glen's case, right? He was murdered in a high speed chase that really should never have been undertaken, because His only crime was drug use. There's a case that just took place on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in December, where a native gentleman who was handcuffed and was not threatening anyone, that he they had them handcuffed, and he fell down because they were trying to force them down some stairs. And when he fell down, they shot and killed him. So we have a lot of the people who get murdered by law enforcement, particularly VA law enforcement, but state law enforcement too. And sometimes, unfortunately, our tribal law enforcement, I have cases where, and this is not uncommon, a lot of cases are Native women are being murdered by their intimate partners. And in a lot of cases, there were multiple calls 911 calls for help in domestic violence situations before the homicide, and they were ignored. And in several cases, the reasons they were ignored is because the white man perpetrator is best friends with the county sheriff. And that kind of sheriff is not going to put his buddy behind bars. And that's usually what's taking place in border towns are just off the reservation. And it you know, it's just the case that if you're not on a reservation, if you're off tribal lands, then the tribal nation doesn't have jurisdiction. It really is the state or local county that has that jurisdiction, and they oftentimes choose to not exercise it again, because they're protecting a friend of theirs. You know, we also see cases where non Indians come on to tribal lands, and murdered native women and girls. That was certainly the case of Lindsay Whiteman and Amy white grass and then drive off the reservation like they did with Amy's dead body still in the car. That's where we need the FBI because they're the only ones with jurisdiction to criminally investigate. And then the US Attorney's Office is the only one with jurisdiction to prosecute. But what can the US Attorney's office do when the FBI refuses to investigate? So it's a real, real tragedy?
Julia Laricheva 22:36
So with this podcast, I'm trying to figure out what can be done to help reduce the number of MMIW cases like, can we put some laws through, can we create more awareness?
Mary Katherine Nangle 22:48
So couple of things have to happen. I mean, first and foremost, tribal jurisdiction has to be fully restored. So that tribal nations have full stop jurisdiction over anyone who comes on the tribal lands and committed crime. Not this, you know, haphazard, well, this crime, but not that crime. And Congress should be applauded for what they did in VAWA, 2013 and volatility 22. But if the United States government if President Biden, if anyone in Congress, is any member of Biden's cabinet cares about this crisis missing and murdered indigenous persons, they will advocate for a full elephant fix. The other thing that needs to happen is the FBI has a federal trustee responsibility to investigate these murders. And the US Attorney's Office has a federal trust, responsibility to prosecute them. Attorney General Merrick Garland needs to ensure that the FBI investigates these murders. If the FBI needs more staffing, training resources, then make it happen and Congress needs to make it happen. Whatever kinds of appropriations needs to happen needs to happen. But we can't sit around and say, well, let's have a committee and talk about it. While the FBI is just not investigating the crimes. In Lindsay Whiteman situation. We talked to the US Attorney's Office in Montana, you want to know why they're not prosecuting the murder of Lindsay Whiteman, even though everyone knows who murdered her, because the FBI didn't investigate it. And he said to us, he said, I'm very sorry that this family is going through this trauma because I would love nothing more than to prosecute the person who murdered her. But I've got no case file. The FBI didn't give me a file with evidence in it. They didn't really do a full investigation. And I as US attorney can't bring a case. If I'm not going to you have to prove to the jury right beyond reasonable doubt. How can you do that? If the FBI didn't investigate the homicide, even though you ask anyone right in that area in that community who murdered Lindsey Whiteman, they will tell you, in fact, you know, one of the two individuals who murdered her later went on to burglarize off the reservation, a non native family and then ended up being prosecuted by the state and taken to jail for that crime. But you know, that's the other thing too we don't talk about is that, you know, sometimes a lot of times these criminals aren't just murdering native women and girls. And so it just means that when those homicides are not investigated, prosecuted, it just means other people are going to be harmed, too. And victimized as well. Really, it is the entire communities public safety that's at risk here from the lack of investigation and prosecution.
Julia Laricheva 25:22
You know, I'm also wondering like, how does the relationship between the land and the law leave indigenous woman vulnerable to abuse?
Mary Katherine Nangle 25:32
Well, we've always understood our connection to the land, right? We are imbalanced with the land, we come from the land. The land is our mother. We originate in the land, we go back to the land, it's all a cycle, right? That's something we've always understood as native women, that also was understood by those forces that wanted to take our lands. And so that is why our women became targets of the colonizing forces that wanted to conquer Tribal Nations. So that's why the Spanish armies targeted Native women. That's why the US military targeted Native women, you look at what happened at the Sand Creek Massacre, right, those US soldiers came in, they raped native women, they murdered pregnant women, they pulled out Native women's genitalia and put them on sticks and paraded around with them. Women were targeted by these colonizing forces, because they understood that if you wipe out women, you wipe out a tribal nation, they have no future without a woman, right? Because you know how many future children are citizens. And if you don't, if you wipe out their women, you can conquer their lands, because they will simply cease to exist as a people and as a nation. And that is why our women have been historically targeted by militaries, right? By conquering forces, that has created a culture that supports violence against Native women. And that has spilled over and carried over into things like extractive industries. And we've seen really heartbreaks of violence against Native women in areas with high high rates of extractive industries, high footprints of that nature, I think that there is a direct connection between a disrespect for the land and a disrespect for our women. And that's why you see such high rates of violence against Native women. You, for instance, in the Bakken, right, where there are high levels of extractive industries.
Julia Laricheva 27:23
Right. I was going to ask you a little bit more about the Tribal, State and Federal laws and how they affect the MMIW cases. Like I know, we just touched upon the federal government not investigating the laws. But I was wondering if you can kind of set up like a brief overview for people who might not be aware of how the laws interact with each other.
Mary Katherine Nangle 27:44
Sure. So tribes historically, before white folks showed up here, exercise jurisdiction over their lands. And so if you came on to, let's say, Cherokee lands, right, and you rape the Cherokee woman, you will be prosecuted by Cherokee Nation now, prosecution may not have taken the form of what we think of in a western court system. But there would have been justice, justice would have been carried out, and there would have been ramifications, to hold someone accountable for that crime. Right. When the United States and the states came into existence, it had to be worked out who had jurisdiction over what crime and how. So for instance, in 1832, a case went all the way up to the Supreme Court booster versus Georgia, because Georgia wanted to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Indian American citizens on Cherokee lands. And the Supreme Court said "Nope, Georgia, you don't have any jurisdiction over Cherokee Nation lands, the only sovereign who has jurisdiction on Cherokee Nation lands is Cherokee Nation." And that was the law in 1832. Fast forward and because of laws that Congress has passed, and different decisions for the United States Supreme Court, we now have a situation so that if you're on tribal lands, who has jurisdiction over what crime could be the tribe, the state or the federal government, depending on various factual scenarios, including the identity of the victim, the identity of the perpetrator and the status of the land where the crime is committed? And what that means is that, you know, when it comes to safety for Native women and girls today, it is important to work with all three sovereigns, your tribal government, your State Government and the Federal Government to ensure that the right laws are in place, so that, you know, people who commit these crimes against our Native people are held accountable. And it's a crazy patchwork of jurisdictions and laws. And it doesn't make things difficult. But yeah, we really estate if people have to interact with all three sovereigns.
Julia Laricheva 27:44
So as you can tell the land jurisdiction issue is really complicated. But the story gets even more complex when you start looking at how MMIW cases are related to the land itself. In both urban and rural settings. The story is even at times linked to extraction industries, and for people who are not familiar with extraction industries. These are industries that go into states like Nevada go into states like Minnesota and they set up man camps. And the problem with these man camps is that they are usually in rural locations, which are often close to rural places like their reservations. I did a little bit more digging. And I found out that a Minnesota Senator Mary Kunesh created the MMIWG Task Force, as well as a report. And I reached out to speak with her to learn a little bit more about their findings. Now, the task force takes a deep look into the root causes systemic problems and potential solutions to the crisis. And it's available for everyone to read online as well. And you can Google it, and you can find it. I'll have a link to it in the podcast when it's published. And I wanted to speak with Senator Kunesh to see if I could learn a little bit more about the connection, and the terrain, and just about what's happening in Minnesota. So this was our conversation. And there'll be a little bit more from Senator Kunesh later on in the podcast as well. This is just one excerpt of our talk.
Mary Kunesh 31:02
I would say the the biggest thing that I have learned is the complexity of a government and jurisdiction on Indian land. Because of the complication, you know, our reservations are Indian communities. In that way they are they are sovereign nations. And they have the right to make decisions around their community, and to ensure that the citizens within their tribal communities are safe for so long. Tribes were not allowed to have their own police force or to monitor the comings and goings of what was going on on their Nations. They just didn't have the resources. They didn't have the money. They didn't have trained individuals, they didn't have the equipment or the tools that they needed. So oftentimes, it was sort of just free and easy on Indian land, because there was nobody who was going to look out for those that had been victims of crimes. That was I knew a little again, a little bit about that, and understanding the the very complexity of jurisdiction. So is it tribal police, is it county police? Is it state police? Is it our federal investigators who is supposed to be responsible for looking into these disappearances and the violence, and it gets very confusing. And because of lack of resources, all these hundreds of years, it's been continuing to go on, you asked about the connection to man camps and man camps, our communities of man that pop up most often where there are extraction of minerals from our lands. So oil and uranium mines, all of those sorts of things, draw a huge number of men to a very small area. Of course, not all of these men are bad men, but there are always some, when you have hundreds, if not 1000s of men, who have time on their hands who have money in their pocket, are far away from their family, maybe because of the location of where these extraction sites usually are. They're way out in the middle of nowhere. So there's nothing to do the violence against our women, and especially our native women, because oftentimes, that's where the reservations are located out in the middle of nowhere, that violence is rises in pretty serious numbers. And so as that violence increases, there has been a lack of of really paying attention to that. I would say that has a lot to do with the industry itself. Now here in Minnesota, we had Canadian Enbridge — Line Three coming through northern Minnesota, and originally that pipeline was to go through some of the most fragile ecosystems up there, as well as through wild rice lakes where many were our native tribes, you know, harvest that food to live on for the winter. And that's also an economic item that they are able to earn money on. So when we were going through the permitting process, Native women came in and testified and said, We don't want that line. We know what happens when when these lines come through. We know there's going to be issues around violence and sex trafficking, increase in drugs and all of those sorts of things. And they were kind of poo-pooed at that hearing. In fact, they were mocked and ridiculed to the point where some of them were in tears. And Enbridge said oh no, our men won't do that. We will train them not to do that and that sort of thing. But just this year, there were two sex sting operations. In northern Minnesota, in one of them, there were six men that were charged with sex trafficking, looking to purchase, you know, especially Native women. And another, there were six men that were arrested. Within both of those events, there were men that were employed by Enbridge who were arrested. And so it just proved I mean, the women said, This is what happens, this will happen. They were, you know, denied, you know, or, you know, made fun of, and then it happened. And so we know that this is definitely the case.
Julia Laricheva 35:38
Because right, whoever's creating the terrors outside of the community, so you have to make the outside community aware of it, because they might be related to the perpetrators, because right now we're talking about the women and the men are just completely like, not included in the conversation. But we're not shaming the men that are creating this, this is not something that just happens to women just, just because they're walking and some mysterious entity comes along. These are men usually repeat offenders. And we have to really just put a focus on the companies that they work for, put a focus on a law enforcement, this just slapping them on the hands on time, and really put the pressure on them as well.
Mary Kunesh 36:16
Yep. When we were having hearings at the Capitol on this has to go from, you know, different committee to different committee to different committee, and there was a hearing in public safety. And after hearing about all of this, somebody asked, you know, like, well, who is doing this? I mean, why is this happening? Who is doing this? And the answer is man Gearan simple, it's man. But there was a county attorney that said they had studied this a little bit with in Minnesota, and they found that the profile of a man who was purchasing sex or was caught in sex things, it was a white man, mid 30s had disposable income was also a husband and a father. And that is the profile of what they found. So it's not these nefarious, you know, kind of people that that you know, lurk in the corners or you know, hide in the streets or whatever it is white men with lots of money on in their hands and you know, are willing to pay for that sort of thing and, and are poor community members that are easy prey because of, you know, the socio economic situation that they're in homeless, their ill addiction, whatever the case may be self medicating because of their painful lifestyle. It's, it's a real societal issue.
Julia Laricheva 37:44
A few months later, I reached out to Amber Crotty, who's a Delegate of the Navajo Nation, the Navajo Nation is one of the largest Indian reservations in the US. Located in New Mexico. The state has the highest rate of MMIW cases was 660 people missing since 2014. Now, I don't have the number of people who are two spirits that are missing, but I did find out that out of the 660,287 of which were women, and 373 were male. I wanted to speak with Delegate Crotty because recently New Mexico established an MMIW Task Force similar to that in Minnesota. And I really wanted to learn more about the crisis in New Mexico and what their experience was, especially when it came to perpetrators. I think there's so much focus on the women in the MMIW story which is so important because because the story is about the women, but I also wanted to kind of like flip the coin and learn more about the men who are committing the crimes.
Amber Crotty 38:44
“Kiani Nish lead though Bella cannabish is chien. Does she need this a che though bellicon Additionally, che Amber Qeynos Crotty. Eunice your Tohatsu they're not shall.” So I come from Sheep Springs, here on the Navajo Nation. And I'm a Council Delegate and I Chair the Sexual Assault Prevention Subcommittee. In the work that we've done, advocating on the ground, really speaking to our families in 2016, we lost Ashlynne Mike. She was our 12 year old relative who had just returned home. And while she was playing with her brother was persuaded to go into a stranger's van. And unfortunately, he took her, and assaulted her, and killed her violently. What happened to Ashlynne just shook the Navajo Nation like to its core. So as parents, as leadership, as community members, we all gathered to help support the family. And not only looking for Ashlynne, and that raised issues in terms of the Act of Amber Alert on the Nation, and what happens when one of our children go missing, and how law enforcement respond and ultimately looks for the child. What we also had to do is help be part of of the search teams. And we did recover Ashlynne the next day. And so her family asked that we continue to use her story as an educational tool as an awareness tool. And as a way for us to fight for justice here on the Navajo Nation, so that the Amber Alert can be fully developed. And also in that same thread, supporting families who are going and healing through surviving through their violence, and how they need the support when one of their relatives go missing. And so we got together when I say we have the Missing And Murdered and their near relatives team, it's a collective of non-profits, myself as a Council Delegate with the support of the Navajo Nation Council. We've partnered with different universities, we work with our Indian Health Service injury prevention program, we have on the ground advocates who fundraise to be part of the search efforts. And we continue to like raise awareness and keep not only our law enforcement, accountable Tribal leadership, and our Federal partners they have, what's unique about working within Indian country or Native nations, is we do have jurisdiction issues. But we also are a Treaty Tribe. And so the Federal Government has obligation to keep us safe here on our land. And so that's a uniqueness. But it also is a challenge that we have to deal with different layers of jurisdiction. And so that's what has got us to this point, in terms of other Missing And Murdered and their Relatives Collective. And so we've been able to testify in front of the US Senate Indian Affairs Commission, we've testified at tribal consultations with the Department of Interior with the US Department of Justice, and we're preparing to speak in front of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. So as families speak out, and we create the safe space, as tribal leadership, my role and responsibility then is to carry their songs and carry their stories of sorrow, and up to the Federal level so that they can receive support here on the ground. So that is the work that we've been doing here on Navajo Nation, it's very survivor centered, family focused. But I do want to say, there's also the Navajo Nation government is a parallel but separate initiative. And they are just starting to organize and understand what the families are going through and providing that support. So we've stepped out to not only provide support to our families here on the Navajo Nation, but as a state taskforce member on the data subcommittee is providing what information we have learned, and what are some of the best practices. So recently, this last legislative session with New Mexico, one of Meskee Yatsayte, who's part of Missing And Murdered Diné Relatives, as an a volunteer with and Founder of Navajo Missing Persons Updates, made a recommendation of creating a Missing Persons Day. And this would be a day where families could come and receive updates and give updates and also just create a safe space where they can collectively heal together and take care of one another. So that is some of the work that we've seen that we've heard from the families and then it's been able to scale up to impact Federal policies and actions at the State level. And we continue to do that work at the Tribal Navajo Nation level.
Julia Laricheva 43:44
I was just going to ask you what data you're seeing in regards to missing people in the Navajo Nation or because I know the numbers are coming up for men as well and obviously to spirits, but just people who are going missing and also the people who are perpetrating the crime.
Amber Crotty 44:00
Great question. So, and this is a different story here on Navajo Nation. And we continue to support you know, the narrative on non-Native offenders. But what we see on Navajo because of our size, and our geographic location, and just the high number of interpersonal violence that are happening in our communities and with each other, we continue to see that the perpetrators of violence are either someone who has an intimate relationship, acquaintances, it's very rare to see maybe a stranger being part of this. And so in some of our prevention work, and we looked at is we really want it to not only boost up like self-defense type, so people feel safe or that they can defend themselves, but also looking at what are healthy relationships and how do we deal with trauma? And if it's taken us so long and so many generations to start talking about what has happened in our homes. within our communities, how can we be courageous enough to to heal from that pain, and to get the support that we need so that we're not in violent situations or codependent situations. And so there's other approaches. Now, this is, this is all interconnected with the work that we're doing for sexual assault prevention for domestic violence prevention, you know, what we're seeing when our children are removed from home, what we're seeing when our children are put into the system, and it really goes back to how can we acknowledge what has happened, but also create like healing spaces, because the only resource that we've had in the past, and it's also been, like conflated as a Navajo teaching, which I think it was just because it was like a survival teaching was just to forget about it and move on. And for so many generations, that's what families did, they forgot, or they tried to forget that they were forcibly removed from their land, and take into will the or, or the long walk, they tried to forget or didn't talk about the assault, sexual assaults that were happening, they didn't want to talk about how their children were taken to boarding school. And you know, the loss that that child felt and the loss of the apparent felt. And it's just always, okay, Move on, move on. Don't talk about it, just move on. And so we're, we're now in a situation where we know how trauma stays in our body, in our minds. And, and we can now see how that manifests into our communities. So we're not only reclaiming our relatives who are busy, we're also reclaiming our our communities, and not allowing outsiders to dictate what our communities should look like, or how we should heal and to to help one another. And that also includes our relatives who identify as LGBTQI. And I think in our stories, and having these conversations, where maybe there was silence in the past, I always say that silence was so deafening, because physically it manifested physically, individuals were hurt by that. And so that no longer works. And so now we're going to create safe spaces, where we can learn how to heal, or we can learn to connect with one another where we could learn to, to understand how how the system impacts our community, and why we were in such dire need for all of this healing. And so our land reflects that our animals reflect that how heavy winds have come in, and how the climate and the seasons have changed. We're now recognizing this. And once you know it, you can no longer unsee it. So now we have these change agents, fierce aunties in our communities that are willing to come together and activate for our families. And it's, it's beautiful to be part of this movement. It's painful. But I also know that I want my children and my grandchildren, and the next generations to, to live here in their homelands and feel safe.
Julia Laricheva 48:09
The words spoken by Delegate Crotty are so powerful and painful, as well as the word spoken by the other guests on the show. And as we come to the end of episode one, I asked you, the listener, to please share this episode with a friend to increase awareness about the MMIW crisis. In this episode, we dove into the factors around the MMIW crisis. And in the second episode, we will hear from survivors and learn a little bit more about data. Now, at the end of the day, data is stories. And these are the stories of survivors, the stories of relatives and the stories of the people involved in helping to find and bring the women home. We will also learn about how the Indigenous data gathering approach differs from that of the Western world. I think the way the police officers and Western society gathers data is different from that of Indigenous cultures. And I'm gonna have a few people who specializes in data gathering from an Indigenous perspective. Tell you a little bit about it. It's very, very interesting. And it’ll help people understand a little bit more about all the factors that are involved when it comes to logging in the cases and also trying to figure out what happened to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Have a wonderful day. Please spread the word and keep your loved ones close. (Strong Woman song plays -- Way, way, way, way, way. Our way way way way way way way way — Strong Woman song ends).