We Will Defend Each Other

On the day Americans note their independence from Britain in the year 1776 when slavery officially still existed, I reflect on the words of Frederick Douglass: James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass’s Historic Speech.

On this day, when there are indigenous children in cages because of a deeply misguided and corrupt administration that lacks transparency, morals and ethical values. People are scrambling to find interpreters for these imprisoned indigenous children who were ripped from their parents’ arms and placed in detention. When there are desperate refugees seeking political asylum who are sitting for days and weeks in the blazing sun on the border, denied their human rights and criminalized. They are told that the US is “full” as this disgraceful and unlawful administration lacks the personnel to process these asylum cases. SHAME.

This is an Indigenous Issue! It is a violation of human rights and the rights of the child. It is certainly not the first time that Native American children have been forcibly taken from their parents. Now this disgraceful and revolting administration is taking DNA swabs from inside the cheeks of detained and separated babies and children in these US concentration camps for migrants.

I look forward to the day when the warmongering sexual predator in the White House who boasted about grabbing pussy, and who uses our tax monies to kill innocent babies and children in Yemen, Iraq and Syria and other nations, will be behind bars. This deplorable person offends me as a woman, as a teacher, as a scholar, as an activist and as a scientist who believes climate science and who understands that indigenous peoples from all across the world are on the frontlines of climate change. There are many climate refugees and those fleeing war zones and violence created by the US government.

Rising Sea Levels, Sokehs Island, Pohnpei, Micronesia

I witnessed First Peoples of Pacific Island Nations taking kayaks and canoes to their homes on stilts because of rising sea levels. The US conducted nuclear testing on Pacific Island Peoples in the Pacific after WWII for 14 years. Many of these people have lesions on their skin and are still having deformed babies. Elders describe these deformities as gelatinous and grape-like. Pacific Islanders are not permitted to bring lawsuits for these impacts against the US government but they are permitted to leave their homelands and migrate to the US.

We must face reality and extend our loving hands to our sisters and brothers who are seeking safe refuge. I live in the Tohono O’odham Haki: dag – the Tohono O’odham Sacred Homeland. The Tohono O’odham Nation is on both sides of this border. The Vice Chair of the Tohono O’odham Nation kindly asks all of us to protect every twig and rock in their sacred homeland. A Tohono O’odham sister at the Tucson REUNITE FAMILIES rally in the Tohono O’odham Haki: dag informed us that a Tohono O’odham child was run over by ICE agents. This was a hit and run.

My Mom arrived at Ellis Island on May 31, 1929 from Poland. Many of our relatives who remained in Europe were killed in concentration camps. The Nazis performed sexual experiments on my aunt and she was sterilized.

I am outraged and appalled. May this racist administration be punished for its crimes against humanity, its assault on Mother Earth and Native American people and their cultural and natural heritage.

We will defend each other.