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Pauly Denetclaw
ICT
Being a political reporter, I like to weave in stories of inspiration and solutions. The doom and gloom of global, tribal, and national politics is at times too much to bear.
I’ve spent many nights crying over the unaddressed issues that affect my nation, other Indigenous nations and this country. I’ve spilt happy and sad tears over elections. (In 2019, I remember sobbing after I saw images of Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids embracing each other after they were inaugurated.) My heart has betrayed my composure during interviews, a knot forming in my throat and tears pooling in my eyes as people have shared stories of their grandparents or parents who were denied their right to vote in the 50s and 60s, despite being the original people of this land. How defeated and powerless it must have made them feel. I can’t even imagine.
So, I went to report on the South Carolina primary elections with hope. I was looking for stories of innovative ways to increase civic engagement, Native American voter rights and intentional inclusion in the election process.
Sadly, I didn’t find that. I found an all too familiar tale of a nation who didn’t feel included, whose issues were not part of the conversation but whose formidable leaders wanted better for their nation.
As a citizen of the largest land-based tribal nation in the country, crossing three states and nine counties, 400,000 citizens strong, I know the power of the Native vote and I know what political parties, state agencies and campaigns are capable of when it comes to civic engagement.
And it’s more than three emails in one calendar year on a listserv… It’s more than an off-reservation polling location. It’s certainly more than never hearing a national political candidate in their state saying anything about issues that face Native nations.
A point made in an NPR story kept coming to mind as I worked on this story. Why would anyone vote for someone who never asked for it?
U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, who is running for a senate seat in Arizona, started his campaign on sovereign Native lands. He told me last year, “That’s where they go in the last two weeks of the election… After they’ve ignored Indian Country the whole time. Not talk to any of the leaders. Not talk to any of their traditional tribal leaders or their elders, showed any respect to the culture, and then they show up and hope to have extra votes.”
“Instead of ending the campaign, we’re going to start the campaign on sovereign land,” Gallego said.
In 2016, when Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was a presidential candidate, he came to the Navajo Nation, after he was affectionately dubbed “Cheii Bernie.” Cheii means grandpa in Navajo.
Former President Donald Trump met with former Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer twice while he was in office. In 2020, Lizer was even invited to give a speech at the Republican National Convention after he endorsed Trump. That same year, former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez was invited to give a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.
President Joe Biden met former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez on at least three occasions. First Lady Jill Biden visited the Navajo Nation during a multiday trip.
Arizona Native Vote and New Mexico Native Vote are two of many organizations involved in civic engagement. The New Mexico Secretary of State has a Native American Voting Taskforce and the New Mexico Indian Affairs Department. Arizona has an Office of Tribal Relations where one goal is to increase Native American participation in local and state affairs. Both are their own separate entities under the governor’s office.
These are just a handful of examples that get to the point I’m trying to make, which is, more can be done in South Carolina to engage with Native voters and the burden should not be placed solely on the Catawba Nation, the only federally recognized tribe in the state.
The Catawba Nation, like all the other Native nations in what is now the United States, didn’t create the systems they are forced to exist in today. Indigenous nations didn’t make laws to keep themselves from their right to cast a ballot. They didn’t choose a voting location to be off their tribal lands. They didn’t gerrymander voting districts to break up the influence of their voting block. They didn’t pass laws to require physical addresses for state IDs and then create voter registration laws that require a state ID. They didn’t tell political parties, officials, candidates or incumbents they didn’t want to be included in a voting and election system they didn’t choose. And even if they did, that doesn’t mean you stop engaging with a whole nation, especially one whose lands creates the North Carolina and South Carolina state border, because we are a diverse people with varying views.
We are not a monolith.
Indigenous nations didn’t choose any of this but are now forced to bear the burden of undoing their impact.
So, my question to city, county, state, federal and all political entities involved in the election process is, what are you going to do to fix the problems your institutions created over hundreds of years and how are Indigenous leaders involved in the entire process?
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