"When you go home, please tell our story." | Indigenous Peoples' Day
During the summer of 2018, I worked on a Native American* reservation. It was an experience that completely flipped my life upside-down (or rightside-up). In short, it was eye-opening, gut-wrenching, amazing, and beautiful. In the midst of the immense economic devastation present in the places I went, the expressed need of the people was jarring. When I asked what I could do for them when I returned home, each person said the same thing: "When you go home, please tell our story. We feel so forgotten. Just please tell our story." Across the reservations I visited, I kept hearing the same request. Tell our story . So on this Indigenous Peoples' Day, that is what I will do. Here are a few facts to start. I encourage you to sit with each one. There was talk by Jeffery Amherst and William Trent in the 1700's about giving smallpox-infected blankets to the Natives in hopes of exterminating them There is plenty of documentation and policy that demonstrates and intent to wipe
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