The Ancestors Know You: Real Life Reconnection Stories

Hey friends, Matika here. I'm a photographer, a writer, a mom, and a relative, and I'm really happy to be here with all of you today. Hey folks, Dr. Dr. Dazie here, Pivyshif, good day. I am a professor at UCLA. I run the Data Warriors Lab. I'm a researcher, a relative, and a mama, and it is so great to be back on another episode of All My Relations. Last year, right around this time, we did a survey asking all of you what content you wanted to hear. And there was a resounding request for content focused on reconnecting to ones, indigeneity, to community, and to reclaiming the connections that colonization has tried to keep broken for so many generations, in some cases. Totally. Learning what you guys wanted to hear really got us thinking because Matika and I were both res girls, right? We are both born and raised in our communities. We maintain our community connections and our kinship, you know, bonds and responsibilities. There's a lot of words. There's a lot of responsibilities there too, you know, and it all good. But so reconnecting for us, right, has not been a part of our indigenous experience. But of course, we recognize that so many folks were not raised in community, and some do not even know where to start, right? And so we wanted to bring you the stories of two amazing indigenous people, one of whom you guys know very well, and one of whom we know you will also totally love. And they take us on their journeys of learning about who they are, learning to whom they belong, and how to go about making meaningful connections as indigenous relatives in a society that has sought to destroy our kinship systems, and in a society that has sought to assimilate us into, you know, essentially into white people. Sorry. All my relations. Right. So we are really lucky to have two relatives actually on the pod today, who are going to share their stories of reconnection. The first is Daniel French, hailing from the San Gabriel Valley, East of East LA. Daniel is the youngest of three siblings. He strums the Harana Segunda, sings, MCs, keys, and in the summer of 2011, he drove across the continent, documenting his family's stories. He's very proud of his Chicano Mexican, Fronteriso, Mohawk, German, Italian, French, English, and beyond backgrounds. He, all of them, all, everything. Daniel's passionate about oral histories, music, freestyle, and he works as a full-time musician and storyteller, and he most recently finished his BA in sociology from Azusa Pacific University. He lives by the motto "Risk Everything to Live Your Dreams" and know that mysterious forces will come to your aid. So Daniel French also sings and is a critical integral member of Las Caffeetheras. I want to drop that as well. And I actually met Daniel in Altearoa, New Zealand. He was with his group, his crew, who had just performed at Womad in Altearoa. And so it was super cool to run a, come across another North American native in Altearoa. And he was talking to my nephew, who was like 11 at the time or 10. And I was like, who is this person just talking to my nephew in the corner over there? And my nephew had had this native language revitalization t-shirt. And so Daniel spotted that t-shirt from way across the way and started talking about revitalizing native languages. And so I just think it's super cool that two North American natives ended up connecting in Altearoa. And now, you know, we've been friends for a couple years. And I just follow Las Caffeetheras. We've talked about your reconnecting story and just how powerful it is. And so I just am so stoked that Daniel is here to be able to share with all of us his story of reconnecting to his Mohawk community of Gunawage. So Daniel, say you. Hey. Welcome. Well, um, yeah, um, say go, say what we go. We've got Tarduni, Jiga, Egas, Daniel French, Juniots, Aguñanga, Haka, Nguoxanota, Gahnawage, Indiwagen, Udanu, Los Angeles, Guiderdo. Um, Hi, uh, my name is Daniel French. I'm happy to be here with y'all today. Um, I come from, uh, while I was born and raised in LA and, uh, I come from, uh, my family comes from Gunawage and so do I. And so, um, I think that, uh, it's, it's a real opportunity. It's a real gift and, um, and, an opportunity, I think to share this story because, um, like you said, a Matika so many of the listeners here are, are trying to, um, reconnect with the people that they come from and, um, to, to bridge that gap from being, uh, just a descendant of to being a member of a community and being in relationship with. Um, and so, you know, the show is called all my relations, right? And so what, what good is it if it's not alive? Um, and so, um, and in relationship. So yeah, I mean, uh, one desi shout outs to you because you, you pulled in the, uh, bio from the website, which is like super old and I, I love that. It's my reminder to, that wasn't me. Shout out well. Shout out to will. No, totally shout out to will. Um, and only be, I only say that because it's my reminder that I was supposed to have updated my bio like seven years ago. So that's great. Um, and, you know, I just also want to preface that, you know, I opened, uh, in Ganya Gahaka and Mohawk and, um, that's me trying to practice putting the language, uh, in practice because I'm learning it. And it's also not me trying to act like I'm like super res boy and I like speak the language and I'm all legit and I, you know, just dangling a little thing there. So I just wanted to say that. Um, so, so check this out like 11 years ago, I went on a date. And on this date, uh, this woman, you know, you're getting to know each other. So, you know, where you from, you know, I mean, siblings do you have? And so one of the things that came up was that she said was, um, how her parents had met. And I thought, well, like, it was a cool story. I don't remember the story, but it was a really cool story. And, and then she said, well, what about you? How did your parents meet? And I was like, um, looking around like, is that a thing that people know? Like, am I supposed to know that? It was like this weird, you know, like, you're like, whatever. I guess I was in my mid 20s and I thought I knew something and I realized I didn't know something. So, um, so then I went home and I asked my mom, I said, who I've grown up with most of my life. I said, Mom, you know, how did you and my dad meet? So she tells me the story and, you know, about how, uh, you know, essentially how like a light skin, Mohawk met a, uh, darker skin, uh, Chicana and LA. And the rest is, is my history, right? And so, um, it made me ask other questions though. Like, if I don't know where my, um, where my, how my parents met, then where were their parents? How did they meet? What, what is the stories that I don't know? So, it was like a funny entering into a bunch of questions. So then it's like, well, um, so, Mom, where was your dad born? Well, he's born on the border. I mean, I think he's born in Texas. So then it's like, okay, well, who knows? Well, ask your uncle, so and so and so and so. So I asked them. And then they said, oh, well, I think it was born in Mexico. Uh, but, um, you might want to ask your, your Thia Sonia, your aunt Sonia, right? So then, so in my mind, I put it like, okay, she lives on the border at the family house. One day, I will just need to drive over and like get this story. So like, a week later, I go visit my grandma, my dad's mom and in Arizona, and I'm sitting down and I'm like, now I'm like interviewing people. Now I got my voice memos out. And I'm like, okay, grandma, let's start at the beginning. When were you born? You know, where? And and she starts telling me about, you know, um, her, her husband, my grandpa and where he was from in Guadalajara and um, how they would go visit certain family members. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the Hacum. Why? I felt like I was on the day to get like, why is this the first time that I'm hearing this story? Like why? You know, because I didn't grow up knowing that I was Mohawk. Nobody told me that I was Ganyangahaka and my parents separated when I was in fourth grade. And so I didn't learn a lot. I really knew nothing about my dad's story. I knew nothing. And so, um, so I'm sitting there with her. She's telling me about this place and, you know, certain relatives and all sorts of, but he died. And so then I just opened up all these questions, right? Like, um, and I said, well, Hacum, you never told me. And she said, well, you never asked. That's real. I was floored. Like I was mad that she said that, but I was like, you're right. Oh, yeah. Ah, you know, that's, that's powerful to think about Daniel. It's like, you know, knowing who we are has a lot to do with asking the right questions, right? And actually being ready to ask the question too. I mean, even in coming to know ourselves and we begin that process of Questioning like what's important to me who am I that's like what coming of age is right? Yes Yeah, that's really powerful. Yeah, so so fast forward. So I'm like, okay I got my oh and then my great grandma picks up the phone and Like this like my grandma gets up and says oh, excuse me and then she picks up the phone and says hi mom and I'm like Mom like I didn't know my great grandma was alive. So then it was the same answer like grab Why didn't you tell me about your mom being alive? Oh, well, I mean you never asked I mean so I'm like okay I've got I've been going at this whole thing wrong now. It's time to ask the questions and So I said it in my mind then so this is the pre-story right so the date The sit-downs with my mom and grandma and now it's like okay I have a map in my head I'm gonna go to the border in Texas Mexico. She why what Mexico? I'm gonna go to Pennsylvania to meet my great grandma And I'm gonna go to the rest. I'm gonna go to go to Nauwage and I'm gonna I'm gonna drive there somehow and so Fast forward some months some planning I hit up all the relatives to ask all the relatives to let me crash on their couch and I Drive across the continent and I end up At a border checkpoint. They're checking my car inside and out and coming into Canada and you know I tell them going to go to Nauwage and I'm ohaka. That's even made even they made them they searched me another hour Yeah, exactly. I know exactly what checkpoint you're talking about You probably had the same dude so So I get to the rest and I have this Met somebody at a film festival like three years before who worked in Montreal at a native film fest So I said hey one day I'm gonna call you and ask you to introduce me to your moha comies because I don't know them and So I called in that favor She connected me with the newspaper on the res the eastern door and that was my first like you know Like so part of reconnecting with your community is also like well, what does that entry look like like what is the first like a rival? Moment right like so some of y'all like born and raised on the res like that's home home for you right for me It's it's coming back. It's home going and so I'm like I don't know what to expect that I know is that I should expect that people are not gonna throw me a party. That's all I should expect so So I go to the newspaper and I actually missed the appointment because of the border checkpoint I had to go the next day and I get to the the eastern door newspaper and I sit down with Brittany Leborn and she introduces She interviews me and she's asking me a bunch of questions. I'm asking her a bunch of questions an article comes out like a spy it four days later and I'm at my friend's house and I'm waiting for this article to come out because I'm hoping I said in the interview like you know I'm driving all this way. I want to know who like I want to find my family if there's like any of those relatives that are still here That maybe I don't know that my family doesn't know we got disconnected I just want to learn like I just I'm asking the community to like help me learn about who we are and then I put my email address so it's July 2011 it's 10 years ago and In the summertime in Montréal you'll see a bunch of these little puffy puffs almost like dandelions But I think they're from popular trees and they like they like float around and it looks almost like snow just because there's so many of them all over the floor and I don't know why I did this I Don't do this kind of thing, but I'm sitting on the stoop and this little puffy Seat thing comes by and I grab it and I said I Talked to it and I said I'm I'm looking for my family. Please help me find them and I blow it off into the wind and I'm like why did I just do that but it felt right about right and I swear to you 12 minutes later. I'm in the kitchen pouring myself a glass of water and I didn't have I back in those days They didn't have like dope international plans where you could still have service and I had email on my phone And I went because I had Wi-Fi and I get an email from this guy named Sean French Now as far as I know I don't know no Sean French is in my family, right? So I'm like oh this is like another prince from Nigeria asking for a million dollars, right? So like those spam emails and so I open the email and it says hey cuz saw the article in the paper welcome back Come through I work at tobacco shop x-y and z at this the night shift come through And so I mean I cry I just cried because I drove all the way from LA I don't know 10,000 miles to Montreal to Galnoghagay To get something like that anything close that I was hungry for anything any shred that would help me better and put meaning To the label of we are Mohawk And here I am now now I have a link I have a cousin who read my story and is like yeah come through let's talk So you know I go knocking on every damn tobacco shop. There's like a million on our res It's like tobacco shop. It's like tobacco hamburger tobacco Tacos tobacco shop and they're like I'm like, are you show friends? They're like no are you the guy from the paper? Oh no, he's The guy from the paper Back when there were actual paper we don't have papers anymore, right? right digital So I get that like three shops in a row. It's like the same story. Oh hey, hey, and they're even like calm guys from the Hey, it's the guy from the paper, you know A Mexican Mohawk or something. Yeah And so I go I walk in and my cousin's in there and he says like super casual like he's so laid back just hey Cuzz and I'm like what do you mean hey cuzz like I want to give you a giant hug, you know And he's not really on that that giving giant hugs tip, you know And that was the beginning of my like landing in Gahnawagin and my cousin and like five other people rock sound white being Tommy Martin from the Cultural Center of we're the Deca Martin language teacher like those are some people including my cousin Sean who Welcome to me and saw this hungry little fool who drove all the way over here like all right Dude like I come over and eat or I'll tell you some stuff, you know But I wouldn't that that I would have had a completely different experience if nobody would have responded to my call I might have just gone to left and it might have just been a story in a book But now I have a relationship with human beings in that community And that that I feed into and they feed into me and and it it continues to give me all kinds of medicine and Knowledge and that I try to integrate into my life and into my day to day I live in LA on that in a moha community. So it's like how do you So then another question we can talk about is like well then as you build a relationship with home Then how do you nurture it? How do you make meaning if you're away from home? Right, and I think that applies to everybody who even if you grew up there It's like how do you still carry home with you and what does that look like? But I've been talking a lot. So I don't know. What do you all think? What's what do you want to hear? I think that's a really good story. Yeah, yeah, I think I cried a little bit We also have on the podcast today our guest Dr. Adrian Keane welcome Hi Y'all know me We're not a stranger. We will be reading your bio Thank you It is a little weird to be on like this side of things like I had all these questions I was gonna like jump in and like do my hosting but I was like no I am here in a guest capacity to day So tell us Dr. Keane tell us a little about your Reconnecting journey. Yeah, I mean so I think in order for me to tell the story of my reconnection I do have to kind of tell a little bit of the story of the disconnection and So for me I am Cherokee. I am a citizen of the Cherokee nation and my grandma grew up in rural Oklahoma within the boundaries of the Cherokee nation and she Went to Indian boarding school at Shalako Indian School And so that is kind of step one of the the disconnection there What's her experience in boarding school and then the other biggest piece of it that has kind of what drove my Family West is that my Families allotment land in Oklahoma that was given to us during the Dawes Act on was flooded out by the Army Corps of Engineers to the dammed a river in order to make a lake. And my family's land is now at the bottom of that lake. And so my great grandma was given $840 for both her allotment and her parents allotment. That was the only compensation that they received. And then they moved to town. So town was still like rural Oklahoma, Wagner, Oklahoma, small little house in Wagner. And my great grandma, who had previously, I mean like she was the matriarch of our family for sure. She was running the household, the farm, like doing the thing because my great grandpa was not really around. He made whiskey. That was his thing. But my great grandma was holding it down. And then she had to move to town and became a cook at a restaurant for the rest of her life, basically, well, working life. And so my grandma was away at boarding school and then came home and there was like, is coming home to not the land in the country, not that kind of thing. So she had $100 that she had saved up and she bought a bus ticket. And she took the bus all the way to Los Angeles, California. And I need to get out of Oklahoma. I need to start a life. And so her uncle was already in Los Angeles. And so he picked her up at the bus station, helped her find a place to stay. She found a room in a boarding, like a woman who had rooms for young ladies to board. So God job at Sears, as the male girls, like the Sears office building. So she-- my grandma-- I mean, she's from Oklahoma. She's like this gorgeous, like Cherokee woman. She would do her hair all fancy. She was just beautiful, like, very exotic for Los Angeles and had this big Oklahoma accent. And she would walk around and give out all the mail to everyone. Like, she pushed the little cart. So she was like the person who gave the mail to the executives. And so one day, she was walking down the stairs outside of-- I think it was the Sears building. And this young Armenian man was standing on the street. And he saw her walking down the stairs. And he turned to his friend and he said, I'm a married that woman. And they started dating. And three and a half weeks later, they-- Three weeks. You lost Vegas. Yes. Yes. They dated for three and a half weeks now. You know. They alloped to Las Vegas. They got married. And we're married for 65 years. And had three kids. So my grandma then moved in with his family, his Armenian parents. And Armenian culture is not super welcoming to outsiders. So outsiders in Armenian are called Odar. Odar is like non-Armenian. So my grandpa was the first one in the family to marry an Odar and bring her into the household. And so my grandma had to be the best little Armenian she could be. So she learned to understand Armenian. So she could hear when people were talking to Ish about her. She learned how to cook all the food. She learned all of the cultural protocols of how you behave in Armenian household. She was very much trying to do what she needed to do to be accepted into her new family. Meanwhile, still maintaining her ties with Oklahoma. So she's one of eight. And so lots of sibling sisters, all sisters and a brother. So maintaining those ties, her mom would come out to visit all these things. So my mom was born into that household. So my mom was raised very Armenian. Went to Armenian church, went surrounded by Armenian community and grew up in Los Angeles because of that. So when enter me-- hello, I'm here. And so when I was growing up, a lot of the cultural influences that I had were Armenian. And I always knew growing up that I was Indian because my grandma didn't hide it. It wasn't like a thing that she was ashamed of. It just was not a thing that we really engaged with on any meaningful level because everyone in Los Angeles was also Armenian, all of our family. And then the church, you family, was in Oklahoma. So we would do family trips back to Oklahoma. And it was like the funnest. Because as a Californian, I grew up in San Diego, because my mom moved to San Diego after she got married to my dad, who is non-native, is an amazing white guy. And so we take these trips back to Oklahoma. I'm this little Californian who has never seen a lake before. So that was novel. Like, oh my god, our fireflies. And being all wild and running around with chickens and fireworks and all the country stuff, it was just so amazing. But I didn't really make the connection until I was a little bit older that when we would go to Oklahoma, that was my native family. We were doing native things. It didn't feel like it because it was just my family. We're just hanging out in Oklahoma. So I never-- like, I always knew that I was Cherokee. I always knew that was a part of me, but it wasn't a central part of my identity. I never denied it. I never hit it. It just wasn't central to who I was partially because I didn't have access to it. It wasn't something that my mom knew anything about. Or even my grandma wouldn't really talk about. It wasn't something that was just a part of my regular life. And so all through my life, I would every time I had a chance in school to do a project or something. And it was always like, I choose the Cherokee stuff. I would write my third grade report on the trail of tears. And I was trying to find the spaces where I could to engage. I look back on some of those projects and I'm really embarrassed because they're very not culturally correct or whatever. But I also did not have access to stuff, so I don't feel that bad. So for me, my journey of reconnection started in earnest when I was later high school. And a lot of the impetus around it truly was going to college horizons, which is where Dazie and I met. Because it made me realize I was like, oh, damn, this is something that I can engage with. No one is telling me that I cannot. I can do this. And it's not that far away for me to reclaim and reconnect. It's right there. My grandma's still alive. She's right here. I hang out with her all the time kind of thing. So since then, it's been a very careful and slow and long process, which I'm sure Daniel can also attest to. And it's been a lot-- it's hard because my grandma doesn't fully identify with that part of herself. So I can't really ask her a lot of cultural questions because she doesn't really have the answers. My great grandma was the last turkey speaker in our family. She was the one who really, like I said, held it down for everything. And so it's hard because there's a lot of roadblocks. Like every time I'm like, I want to find out more information, it's like pulling teeth to get it. And then it's amazing because there will be these moments of revelation, where I was on a trip back to Oklahoma. And one of my aunties were sitting having dinner. And she was like, yeah, well, you're anti-norm. She wrote letters to Wilma Manciller when Wilma was in the hospital. And they became pen pals. And I was like, what? And I was like, well, what did they talk about? And so she was talking about how they talked about being turkey women and how that was really important and family and all these things. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. And then I was trying to figure out our clan, because that even-- that even that wasn't knowledge that we were talking about. And so I was talking to my other auntie. And she was like, let me call the other sister. So she gets the other sister on the phone. And then gets the other sister on the phone. And there's this whole conversation. And she was like, well, your grandpa, he was a nighthawk. And I was like, wait, what? And so nighthawks were the folks when we were removed to Indian territory, along with that process came the suppression of traditional spiritual practices and a lot of adoption of Christianity. And there was a group of folks who were called nighthawks that were responsible for maintaining the traditional knowledge. Having ceremonies, they would have them out in the woods. Like, at night, it was like a very secretive thing to keep those traditions alive, to revive those traditions from the East and keep them for the community. So I come from this powerful legacy of people who were so deeply committed to our cultural practices that they were willing to risk punishment and death to keep those alive. And that is my legacy. And all it took was me asking some questions. Daniel was talking about. So for me, I don't have-- like in a story of like the immediate kind of like hey, 'cause moment, like there really, it's been just years and years of slow, tiny moments, and I am so grateful to all of the people, 'cause there have been so many people who gave me the benefit of the doubt, who didn't dismiss me as this like wanna be like white Cherokee from California, who was like, "I'm Cherokee!" Like people were like, "Well, who's your family?" Like where are you from? Like tell me a little bit, and like I had a classmate at Harvard who took me to stop dances for the first time in my adult life, and like that was transformative and powerful, and I'm so grateful for that experience. And there's always just been these moments that I feel like were like ancestral intervention, like telling me that I was on the right path, because there's so many times where I'm like, "What the hell am I doing?" Like why am I doing this? Like people hate me. Like my family thinks I'm weird. Like my family like doesn't understand what I'm doing. Like people in Indian country don't understand what I'm doing. Like people think I'm a fake native. Like what am I doing? And then there'll be like these moments where I'm like, "Oh wait, no, this is what I'm supposed to be doing." And so like on that trip for stop dances, he had, this was also like 2011. I had a razor flip phone, so was not like high tech. So I'm like rural backroads, Oklahoma. I had no idea where I was going. Like he had given me vague directions where it was like turn left like after a mile. And like the grounds are back there. And I was like, "Cool, my GPS doesn't work." 'Cause I'm like way in the backwoods. My phone doesn't have service. And I, and like it was like one of those horror story roads where the trees were like over the road. And it's like hitch black. And I was like, "Oh my God, I'm gonna die." Like I am gonna be murdered. There's like some scary thing that's gonna happen to me. What am I gonna do? So I pull off the road and I'm debating driving like back to like town so I can get the phone. And right then I got one bar of service and my phone being and it was him giving me like more directions. And I was like, "Oh God, okay great." And so I like go a little farther down. And again, I'm like, "I am, this is not helping." Like there's nothing. And so I'm looking and there's literally a fork in the road where I could go two ways. And I didn't know which way to go. And so I just sat there and was like, "Well, gonna go this way, turn that way." And there were the grounds. Like I could see the lights and everything through the trees. And I pulled up and I parked and then I get out and I'm like, "I don't know anyone here." Like I don't know who, like where he is. My phone doesn't work. Like I don't know what I'm gonna do. And so I'm standing there like I'm watching. There's all these people around. There's like the songs are happening. The fire is going. And I hear just like across the fire his laugh. Just like all loud like him, like throwing his head back laughing, you know, like big Indian laugh. And I was like, "Oh, there he is." And I was like, "Cross the fire." And it went around the circle. And it was just all of these sort of like, like I can't even tell you how magical it was both to get that text message and then to like come through the trees and just like see the grounds there. And when I was there, like again, with this just immense gratitude of, so I'm talking to him and he was like, "Okay, I want to introduce you to people I want you to like meet folks." So he literally took a camp chair, like one of those folding chairs, walks over to these two elders that he knew, opens the camp chair, puts it in between them. And it's like, "This is Adrian. She grew up away. I'm a sit here." And it's always up there. And they just like were speaking Cherokee. Like he was like, "She's interested in the language." Like and they just were speaking. And I got to sit there and like just listen to the language in a way that I never had before. Like it just was so amazing. And then he was like, "Let's go over there." And then like Wilma Manquiller's brother was there. And he like introduced me to him. And he was like, "She grew up away." And he was like, "Oh, it's so important you're here." And like we talked about him growing up in San Francisco and all this stuff. And like he affirmed like it's important that you're here. Like we're glad that you're here. Welcome, like welcome to the grounds. And then so that had happened before I heard the Nighthawk story from my aunties. And it turns out that those grounds that we were at were the ones that were founded by my ancestors. Like the ones who had been Nighthawks, like started that grounds. So I mean there's been all of these kinds of things where and it all goes back to, and I don't want to like make all of my other cousins feel bad with this story. But when I was born, my great grandma at that point had 20 some odd great grandchildren. And when I was born she made me a baby quilt. Like hand quilted this little baby quilt for me. Send it to my mom and wrapped Indian corn in it. And just send it to my mom as a present. And my mom told me that story like just casually, like many years later. And I was, I've thought about that a lot. And like corn is so important in Cherokee. Like say Lou corn is like everything to us. And so that my great grandma, I feel like she made a choice in that and was like, you know what? I am like getting on in years. And I feel like I want to give this gift to this great grandchild and she's going to be the one to carry this on. And so I feel an immense sense of responsibility in that. But also a lot of power that like my granny is with me on this and that she saw something like even in me as a tiny baby that this was going to be my path. And the other parts of my reconnecting journey that, I mean, I have done it in such weird ways in terms of like leveraging the power of academia to get me back to my home lands. Like the trips to Oklahoma were all like part of my, well, my job is a native recruiter. Like I planned my trips to be able to like go be with my family and like do that kind of stuff and like have that space. But then when I was doing my dissertation research, I picked a student for my dissertation who was from Eastern Cherokee both because she was amazing. But also because I knew then Harvard would fund my trips back to the like my true home lands for the first time. And so that experience was also just, oh my God, so like emotional and transformative. And also full of those like ancestral intervention moments. But like I went to Godua Mount, which is like the site of our emergence. It's like our mother town, Godua. We call ourselves Aninkiduwagi, which is people of Godua like this place. And Oklahoma is home lands for us now, but it's like not our home lands. And so going to Godua and like walking up on that mound and realizing that my ancestors and my community had been in that place for 12,000 years at least, like since like our emergence and that like I could put my hands and feet on the land that they had been on, like and feel like I as a Cherokee person have like the ability to be there and connect in that way. And like that's what makes me a Cherokee person. And to like be driving through the hills there and like realizing how different our home lands look than Oklahoma, like the power of those hills and like the stories started to make sense. Where I'm like, oh, all of these stories that involve like like giants coming down from the hills, like it doesn't make sense in Oklahoma. Like it's not like where the hills they're hiding it. But like you're out there and you look out. And it's just like as far as you can see these like these blue tinge trees like and of course, yeah, the giants could hide in those hills like of course they could. And so being in that place where like our stories make sense and the rivers are so like abundant there and we're like definitely water people of those rivers. And my students dad, our stepdad is a language speaker and he like took me all around and showed me like in the rivers you could see the fish weirs like where our people would like build up these stones to like catch the fish in the flow of the river and they're ancient and you can see them like just on the side of the road when you pull over. And so again with that generosity of people like seeing me and recognizing me and he took me on tours of the immersion school and like my Cherokee is so like I speak like you know a toddler if that. And but all the teachers are just talking to me and and it was so quick he would just be like oh she's from Western like Western Cherokee and they'd be like oh cool like welcome like here's what we're doing here's all these things and like just that immediate acceptance was like so incredible to me to like not be questioned to not have to fight to not have to defend myself in a lot of ways. So yeah like this is a lifelong thing. This is not like there's no end point to this and I think the idea of like even there being some distinction between like reconnecting natives and not re-carnival. connecting natives is kind of a misnomer because I feel like we're all in journeys of reconnection because colonization has screwed us all up but some of us I have longer to go than others but I think what I've finally like come to terms with because I used to feel so much shame like so much shame like all of the time like I internalized it like completely like this is my fault that I grew up this way that I don't know more that I like look the way that I do that I like have a California accent but I you know all of these things like it just so much shame and it took me until I was like a full grown-up to realize that like that is not that's not it's not my fault um and like the the the fact that I am so deeply committed and engaged and trying to do it in a good way like these are all things that make my ancestors super proud like this is not they are not unhappy with me um and I didn't make those choices to flood out our family's land to send my grandma to boarding school to put my grandma on that bus and have her meet my grandpa in LA like to have my mom fall in love with who she did to grow up in San Diego like those were not decisions that I had any any control over but I do have control now and like I have the power now to change that narrative for my descendants or like at least for my niece or for the next um generation and to like make that disruption in a good way like to do it in a way that feels generative that feels positive that feels important um and to let go a lot of that shame and to also pass that along to others who are in my position and kind of be like you don't have to feel that way either like this is something that we can do together uh this is a journey that we can can go on together and I've also just become increasingly proud of being a Cherokee person because I think in Indian country as we all know Cherokees are the butt of the joke of everything all the time and it is well deserved a lot of the time like damn our community does some some stuff um so that is well deserved you can make fun of Cherokees that's fine but like so there was also there was also that piece of it where I was like damn like okay like Cherokees like we got some stuff to unpack but now like the more I learn the more I'm like you know what it is pretty effing awesome to be a good do a person like our ancestors were so freaking smart like new so much about our world and our relationships to land and like I am so proud to be from that lineage and like to know that cultural history and our language is just like incredible and the knowledge contained in it like all of these things so that has been an important part of the journey too is like recognizing that I'm not just native like I'm Cherokee like like G-Challenge G-Anne G-Squah like I I'm Cherokee I'm Bergkland I am like from these people and that is really amazing [Music] you've mentioned that it's been a long time in YouTube Daniel you know like how to how where does a person start and how do you do this in a way that you know that it's like as we say in Indian country in a good way I just I don't know any other way to say that because I think that that's the best way to say it or like with integrity right like with like for the right reasons and so I like like to build on that like to Daniel what what was it that made you get in that car right that what was that kind of catalyst to do this and you know leave it leave it to that leave it to you yeah I think for me it felt like it felt like there was a ticking clock that that my great grandma 94 years old who I never met was gonna die soon and that if I didn't get my ass over there to Pennsylvania to meet great grandma I might not ever have that chance again and I didn't want to live with I didn't try now you can't control what happens but I knew that I I did not want to carry with I liked it and I didn't try to go out there and then I knew that the older people get the older I get well shit maybe I'm gonna have kids soon maybe it'll be harder for me to just go up and take three months later so there was a sense of like I've been given this idea right now the energy is flowing in that way I think I just intuitively felt like now is the right time um and like there were a million affirmations on that journey like I didn't know how I was gonna pay for gas how am I gonna pay for gas to drive 10,000 miles across the country I don't know but I said I'm gonna do it and someone's gonna someone's gonna get me the money I even said the next day I swear to you a friend of a friend said hey this friend's doing like car commercial thing you they just interview you and they give you money about your car so I did it and it turned into like a Ford Fiesta car commercial I swear to you an interview turned into a Ford Fiesta car commercial and the exact dollar amount that I got from those royalties covered my gas for the whole three months on the road and so like it's been a leap of faith and I've lived my life my mom told me to live that my life that way and that's how I live my life at least in my better days and um there was a sense that like I had to go now and when I did it just it just felt like it was all affirmations like just like Adrian said like you're there you're at the fork in the road do you go left the right you gotta make a choice and you go and then now wow you're you're at this place where you're sitting like you're you're relative connects you with their relatives and their folks and now you're in now you're there that's not question marks after like I mean in our I mean I don't know our res is a little interesting because I had dudes like I'm in Gauhanoag and like I had young men in particular not acknowledge me not like I'd be like hey afternoon or whatever like not even blink you know like you can tell if someone's like looking at you you like blink or something like your body responds like there's a physical like a train a racer of like some fool you don't recognize and so it was deep I was like but I I didn't come all this way to get like I'm not that weak fool like that's that's light work like I'm here I'm gonna get what I came for one way or another and I'm just gonna find the allies that are here to help me on that path and and I'll share a short story I was at a conference a few years later at an encore a national conference on race and ethnicity and my band Las Cafeteras were there we're gonna perform we're all excited because we're gonna like connect with all these important conversations that are happening and hopefully universities will hire us to come give workshops and performances it's night time we've done our thing and I go to the like the restaurant bar at the hotel and I don't know why I just like with the puffy thing I don't know why but I see this guy who I saw in a workshop and he just and Spanish I would say McIovie like he just had a good vibe and I just felt like something told me go talk to him and you know it's weird like just like Adrian like you're there the spot but I don't know anybody like it's about to be really awkward I went and I sat myself down I mean I didn't sit down but I said hello and I said something tells me I should talk to you so I we sit down and I speak to this man and and you know he he he tells me uh you know where you from I said oh from LA blah blah Chicano Mohawk blah blah he just starts laughing he says Mohawk from where and I say gohnawaga and he says oh he's talking to his buddy's like oh yeah I mean God they're almost laughing too like everyone's in on some joke that I don't know and um uh so he says yeah well like I I know all your I know your people so I've worked in your community all kinds of times I got someone you know someone so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so I said I don't know any of those people but but it turns out that he's done all this work he's a winemann win two from norcal native and um so you know he's like he's done a lot of work in our community around mental health with with men and so he says okay I'm gonna connect you so just like Adrian got sat down with the speakers because she said what she was interested in um I sat down with him and he he corrected me I said I'm trying to I use the words reconnect with my community and he says he says tell me what you're really after and then I paused and I said well I guess I want to know Like who we are, you know, and I want to build a relationship, I guess. And he said, tell me what you really want. And he kept asking me, what do you really want? And I started to cry. And what he helped me realize was what I really wanted to know was what does it mean to be a Mohawk man? What does it mean to be a Mohawk man? And I went and he said, we'll talk tomorrow. We'll get coffee and we'll sit down and we'll talk. He connected me with a faith keeper on our res, which led me down a whole pilgrimage. It's a longer story. But it led me on a pilgrimage throughout all of our sacred sites and communities. It gave me a doorway to come to Longhouse because the people I knew weren't had not yet opened some of those doors for me. But yet now I had this other opportunity through this this relationship to Kevin Deere. Shout out to him. And so I think that my internal gratitude lies in those people who saw some awkward dude who didn't know what he was doing. And just, it sounded like baby in English, probably. It sounded like toddler talk and helped me even understand what are you after? Because the clear I was now every preceding trip, every year I go back once or twice a year, except for during COVID and shout out to COVID. Shout out to a apocalypse. So like every year now, because I'm clear what I'm here to do, people are more swift to respond. Oh, that's why you're here. Then let me help you down that path. Before I was like, I'm here to like connect and like learn like it was a little vague. And so I think people were also had to fill me out a lot more. And one thing that I was told was I was surprised at this guy. Tommy, he said, Hey, Daniel. I saw like years later at this event in six nations, this like Haudenosaunee peacekeeper event and a peacemaker event, not peacekeeper different. So he said, Hey, and I said, man, I trip out to you even remember me. Like I don't talk to this guy like that. And he says, no, I remember, you know, the first time you came to the cultural center and he said, you know, more importantly, you came back. Like you, he said, you kept coming back. And I respect that. And so I think that I just learned so much about community in the return trips. So there's the excitement, you know, like a first kiss or a first date or a first time you do anything. It's like this, wow, and it's amazing. But it's the repetition of settling into the community. And then you learn how to relate better. And then you ask yourself, well, now what am I here for? I did my first visit to the res. Like now what, you know, and so I think that it's been a continually dipping into that well and asking myself. And I think maybe that's another conversation or a question is like, what do I offer back? And how can I become an ally to this community? And as I sort of become what I am and sort of rebecome a member or receive myself as a member because so much of it was people saying, I mean, it's up to you. Like is it yours or is it not? I mean, you tell me like, I'm not going to tell you that it's yours. Like you're either going to come to Longhouse or you're going to come to this thing that we're doing or you're not. I mean, it's up to you. I didn't have nobody say you can't come back. I just have people say, I mean, there's a seat here on the bench. Do you want to take this rattle and play with us or not? Hmm. Like, oh, I got one invitation. You know, like, you get one and then it's like, hey, now it's yours or you don't use it. That's on you. So those are some things that came up for me in this conversation that, that, you know, just hearing you tear up Adrian, it's so personal. There's so much bullshit. There's so much poison family drama. We have to work through that might not, we don't even know about the drama, but when we are persistent, people are willing to maybe put some of that stuff aside or we learn how to heal that stuff. There are parents and grandparents didn't learn how to work through. And that's, that's why I think they want us to come home because we got to heal together because I have to heal. So my relatives can heal so we can, and then, and then now we're together. Our power is stronger and our minds are better. Now we can move some of the bigger things, the pipelines, the, the, all the bigger things that we have to come together around. And I think that's why I want to put the call out. If you all don't ask me another thing and if my time is cut, I want to, I want to at least say this that if you're thinking about how can I reconnect your, your community needs you, your nation needs you. And, and you need them. They hold medicines and you hold medicines. You got some gift that they might not be accessing right now and, and they got gifts that you're not accessing. We need each other. And that's why home will always help us find a way back. It's always offering that medicine. And that's why the doors open for Adrian and for me. And it's not Matt. It's not just Aberdeen. Aberdeen. It happens. It's, but like the path will, I'm trying not to cut, but the path will welcome you and, and, and hold you up as you walk it. And I firmly believe that. And all the rest, all the lies about you can't go back. That knowledge is lost. That, that tie was broken. It's BS and it's lies. And we, it just, we all have to work at. We're all at different places. We're all at different levels of connection to relatives who know things and don't know things. But like that's the colonial lie that we don't exist. Like that's part of that myth that we're not here anymore. You can't go back and home is calling us back. It wants us to learn those songs and those stories or the recipes or whatever is calling to you. You know, everyone's got their thing. But, and make it meaningful because we're still here. And whether, you know, I'm not 100% blood quantum. That's a whole other episode on this podcast, right? But, but, but if you ask the people that I talk to, they say, you're, you're going to be a Gahaka, you know what I mean? And it's a whole, that's a whole other conversation about the identity politics of that. But how do we do it in a good way? That's up to me to walk that out in a good way with my community, with my relatives and to deepen that process. It's there for us. Wow. Mmm. That's not like I'm passionate about this at all. I'm telling you, I was like, we got to have Daniel talk about this. He's talked to me about it in parts and every time he talks to me about it, I'm just like moved to like tears because it's like, this is what our young people, not just young people, this is what everybody, all indigenous peoples, whether you were raised in community or not, whether you have those connections or not, whether you're grounded in your homelands or not, like, you know, we have to, we have to believe that these ways and these lands and these waters, right, that that it's for all of us. And I mean, you know, it's different for me, right? Because I was born and raised in community, you know, deep, deep, you know. But then hearing from other people and like, walking that path with age, rain and college and seeing her growth and being a witness to that in clumsy ways and beautiful ways in what, you know, it was like, this is real and we're all a part of it. Like we're all a part of this journey, you know. And so I just think it's so beautiful to hear the two of you, you know, share this, these reconnection stories. I am, I love what you said though about Daniel. I just want to acknowledge that, you know, like that the path will be laid. That's what the medicine man said to me when I asked permission to do the project to visit all the tribes, you know, throughout Turtle Island. I had no, I had, I had no idea where I was going to go after I got my funding. Like I was like, oh my god, I don't even know where to start. There's so many tribes. You know, like I'll start in Northern California. Anyway, we had this ceremony and the road man said to me, like, if you have the courage to go down this path, the ancestors will go with you and the path will be laid, you know. And it took all my courage. Like I had to, I had to muster all my strength. To like get in my fucking car, pack all my stuff and drive to a place where I knew nobody, you know, like I, and like that story you talk about about like the, the why in the road. Like I was reminded Adrian of when I went to the ceremony in your territory in Oklahoma and like the scary trees and dark going to a stopdance and having no idea of where I was going and like just like just keep driving, you know, like I'll find it. I had a similar experience and have a soupa, like trying to find a helicopter. Like, and in Northern California when I first went to my first tribe, like I remember before I walked into this tribal building to introduce myself to explain what I was doing, I sat in my car and wept, you know, like a baby for like two hours. I didn't just cry a little bit. I like wept the ugly cry until I could like, you know, like pull my boots up and like put some more makeup on and like walk inside and be like, hi, I'm a teacher, you know, and I'm here to do this project. I'd like to, you know, meet some folks. It was so scary. It was so, it's a really scary thing. And then I had to do it over and over and over again and it got much easier as the time went on. But that thing that you said, Daniel, like about asking how I can be of service in this, in this space is a really powerful part to this conversation that I want to have because I'm often, I get emails regularly, regularly, frequently, I get frequent eagg-mails. from people who say, "I know that I'm a descendant of XYZ tribe, and I would like to go back, you know, and I don't know how, and what should I do?" And they're earnest, real emails, and I get so many of them that I don't even, you know, like I've sort of like had to really think about the best way to respond. And sometimes I don't, because I get too many emails, but, you know, I always try to encourage people, you know, by saying like, "I believe that our work in community is to be of service." I believe what my grandparents told me, when they told me like, "You can go out into the world, but you make sure you come home." I believe what your mom told me when she gales small, "Desi's mom told me this incredible story of how Cheyenne's," you know, she talked about how like the whole economy. It's a very long interview. And then she said, "But the important thing is that, you know, we will always bring Cheyenne's home." Like if a Cheyenne passes away, somewhere off of community, we don't have a lot of money, but we will bring them home so they can have a Cheyenne funeral. You know, and I think about how my grandma, she said, "You know, you can go out there and you do whatever you need to do. Go to school, get a good education, but you come home. You know, you come home, you help your people." And like the important part of that message from my grandmother is like, "Not the coming home, but help your people like be of service." And so I think that there's responsibility also for those that are at home to make space and to set the table for those that make their way home. You know, like we have a responsibility to encourage our people to continue making their way home and to allow them, you know, like to like to welcome them in, you know, to like open the door, to open the chair, to like send the email that says, "Hey, because, you know, like I think that there's responsibility in that." And I think that we in like the politics of belonging and in the colonial project of blood quantum, we've become afraid of scarcity, you know. And because of IHS and because of the way federal funding works, you know, we are terrified of our piece of the pie getting smaller, you know. And the truth is like the pie gets bigger when there's more of us. Like we need our nations to grow. We need critical math. We can't attain it without more people. That's just the truth. We need our populations to grow. So come home. And they are growing, right? Like we're making babies. We're trying to grow nation myself. Let me do the work. You know, we're making the babies. It's just like what's happening with these babies? They're out there. There's, there's Mohawk babies. They're shying babies, you know, there's swimming and Cherokee babies out there who don't feel like they can come home, right? Who don't feel like they have that pathway home. But it reminds me of what I was taught in New Zealand. So my time in Aotearoa transformed the way that I think about connecting and about belonging. And it's a long, long story. And I'm not going to go there. But I want to give a shout out to Uncle Puka. Uncle Puka is a coma to a tribal elder from the Waikato Tainui tribe that I had the honor of working for and being embraced by and adopted by. And when we're talking about blood quantum and belonging, one of the things he told me that I'll never forget is he said, "Desi, the ancestors know who you are." And that's all that matters. Doesn't matter what color your hair is, what color your skin is, what color your eyes are, what languages you speak or don't speak, where you live or don't live, who your mom or your dad is or who they're not, who, you know, all that matters is the ancestors know who you are. And when he told me that, it was in a much bigger context, but he told me that I just started sobbing. Like at work in the middle of this big thing, conference, you know. And it just hit me so deep and now everything that I do, I go back to that. The ancestors know who you are. And guess what? That's big help. Enough. It really is. At the end of the day. It really is. There is the times that we do this and it doesn't work out. I just want to acknowledge that, you know, like there's been plenty of times that I've gone to community. And I'm not going to name the communities that I went to where I didn't make friends because you know this. Because I'm not sad. I'm not somehow about it. You know, I'm over it. But there's been times where it didn't work out the way I wanted it to work. You know, like, and that's just the truth. And, you know, so let's talk about that for a minute, you know, because, right. I mean, I did want that was definitely something that I wanted to bring up. It's like, I told the highlight reel. Like I told the good parts. Like, I told the beautiful story. Like behind all that is, hella times I screwed up and like screwed up in big ways. Like hella times that people were super mean to me. Like hella times where like I was, like, took up way too much space in spaces where I should not have. Like, all of these like really hard lessons that I think about all the time. And like Indian country has a right to be skeptical of outsiders. Like, oh my god. Like, especially ones who look like me, like, oh my god. But like the stuff that has happened to our communities, like because of outsiders coming in, like trying to get knowledge, trying to get like value, like whatever. So folks have a right to be skeptical. And I think that is also like in one hand, encouraging people who have the ability to like welcome people back to like do so. But also to folks who are reconnecting, like just acknowledging that we do not have like a right to space. Like we do not have a, that's not like the word that I want to use. We do not have entitlement, right? Entitlement. Yes. Like we are not entitled to it. We are not entitled to be welcome back. We are not entitled to space in our community. And it goes back to this conversation of how you enter the process. Like I am not the entering with the mindset of service, of like connection, of wanting to figure out like who we are, like as people, like not like who I am as me and individual. I think like all of these things change the way that you engage versus the folks who are like, I like want to know more about being Cherokee so I can figure out what I get. Like what do I get for being Indian? Like what do I get for like having my CDIB? Like tell me about the like benefits. Which like that's messy. Yeah. So that's a different orientation. But I do think that it can't be a process of like expecting anyone owes you anything in your community. And it has to be a process of humility and of being willing to like acknowledge those mistakes that you make and move past them and not let them haunt you and your dreams for the rest of your life, which like admittedly some of them do and like I won't get into that. But like, I mean, I'm like, I can't believe I did that. Oh my God. And I was like 12 years ago. But like those kind of things like coming in with your full and complete humble self and just being like, I don't know anything. And then and these are things when I think back on my own journey where I cringe about like I would like learn a little and then like take a mile like in some situation. Like especially when I was like younger and didn't really know better. Like I'd be like, yeah, I know everything now. Like look at me. I'm like Cherokee Queen. I know everything. Like I can introduce myself in my language now. I'm fluent. Like, you know, like just these things like where I'm like, oh, like I should be co-chair of Stanford American Indian organization. Like what the hell was I thinking? Like I should not be co-chair of Stanford American Indian organization. I should not be co-chair of the Cherokee student group. Like no, that's not for me. Like that's not my role. Like I like like those kinds of things where I'm like, whoa, like you need to put on the brakes like baby Adrienne. Like you need to you need to step back a little bit. And I was so mad when people like wouldn't accept that I was native and like would say mean things about me. And I look back on it and I'm like, well, I was doing dumb stuff. Like, like, yeah, be mean to me. Like let me know what I should be doing. And I learned and I don't do those things anymore. Or even like reading the early days of my blog too, like where I'm like very like adamant about things. And now I read it and I'm like, oh god, that's not the take, Dr. Keane. Like that is woof. But it's all about like this journey. Like it truly is a journey. And I'm embarrassed by those things. Like I think I think about them, but I also would not be where I am now had I not had those experiences to learn from. I just want to say that I was thinking about something really quickly. I'm going to say it before I forget. I know you're in a rep to you. I'm sorry. But there's a really important role of seeking out mentorship and elders. And like that, like an anti-detailist whether or not we're acting right is important. An elder to run our thoughts by is important. I do it all the time. I'm constantly sending my writing to elders to ask them and I think it's okay. And I'm constantly embarrassed by what they feed back. Like what I don't know. And I think of like when I don't speak in the long house, I don't have a place there. That's not my role. Even though I'm from the people, it's just like it's not something I would do. There's speakers for that. And so I was thinking about how do we find anties? Because also, I think about my family position and the trauma in my family and my dad and his troubles and alcoholism and how I didn't have the opportunity to have access to a fatherly figure when I was younger and how I had to do as a result. I found a lot of uncles and a lot of fathers and a lot of grandpa's and sawp us that took care of me and taught me what it means to be loved by a man in a way that isn't abusive. And it was something I had to actively seek out on my healing journey. And so I think that there's parallels with that with this reconnection journey is part of doing it in a good way is finding elders and mentors that can help you. And it's not like you can go up to people and be like, "Hey, can you be my auntie? Can you be my elder?" "Can you be my elder?" "Can I adopt you?" But you, Helacan, too. Also, I just want to acknowledge that my niece from Tuscarora came up to me and gave me tobacco and said, "Will you be my auntie?" Straight up, will you be my auntie? "Wow." And I said, "Well, what does that mean?" "Oh yeah, give me the tobacco. I'll be your auntie." And then it meant that I had to fly out to a halogo and spend months, spent a long time there doing anti-things. Helacan was like a way to help, to build the lodge and be at the ceremonies and bring the food and make her shawl for in the morning that she didn't make it. The anti-things, the anti-things, and aunties run the world. "Anties, do those things." So I just want to acknowledge that that is actually how relationships are made, even though it sounds ridiculous to be like, "Will you be my auntie?" That's actually what we do. You know? And so we're always making "Can," right? I think that's really important, is we're constantly in these processes of making "Can." And one of the things you guys both said, and I had to write it down, because we often hear about, and maybe this is just because I'm shy in from Montana, but I used to name it as being mean. "Worth mean." I mean, you know what I was saying? "Main shans are mean." I was talking to my mom, you know what I was saying? She was like, "Dezzy, you know, our favorite word is "no." "No." And it's a survival mechanism, right? Like, "She went through some sh--." Everybody did. All of our tribes did, right? But the fighting shian are called the fighting shian for a reason. We were one of the last tribes to be colonized and to be forced out of our lands and all of that. But one of the things that you guys both said that I just hit me deep was this concept of generosity and this notion that, you know, folks were generous to the two of you, and they didn't have to be, right? There's not--like, if we think about the cumulative impacts of colonization and all the sh-- all the trauma, it's a beautiful thing and it literally moves me to tears that we can still be generous. I mean, shians, we might be mean as hell, but we will feed you and close you and take you into our homes. We might tease you and that might be real mean. But like, as the Tika knows, we will--we will set you off with a giveaway. She will send you a man or two while you're at it. We will just give you all the things. That generosity is there. It's there amongst all of our people. And so I'm just really keen to hear a little bit more about this, you know, the folks that were generous with all of you, how do you pay that forward, right? Like, like, we're all in relation, you know. We don't owe anybody anything necessarily. Maybe we do. I don't know. That's a question. But how do we pay that forward? Or do you feel the need to? What's next? What's next? I started the last annual. I'm like, you know, I'm here with all these giants. I don't want to talk too much. It's like a good Indian man. He's like, I'm just going to wait until-- I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tell you anytime. Hey, that's all I made at this party. You know what I mean? I live this many days with a couple important lessons. I'll tell you this. A short story. There used to be a cafe on our res. I forget the name of it right now. But it was like a cafe and I could go get smoothies there. So I was like, I could be my little Kelly Health, not a dude on the res and get a smoothie for like five bucks. And I went and this dude had a metal shirt on. I think it was-- I remember the band in a little bit. It was a metal shirt. I said, oh, I love them. I haven't heard them in a while. He said, oh, you like that band too? I said, dope. So, you know, skinny dude, black metal band t-shirt. He's making my smoothie. So I'm talking to him and this is like my second time back or my third time back. My cousin lives just up the road. And so we're talking. He says, so hey, like, I don't-- who are you, you know? So I tell him. And now, at this point, I had the experience with Ricardo Torres, one of my now mentors, from the conference who told me like, this is what you're here for. So now I'm just like telling everybody, yeah, I'm trying to see what it means to be a Mohawk man. And like-- So he-- Ricardo. Yeah, it's like my like, cally card now. So he gives me my smoothie and he says-- and I said, yeah, I said, I'm really trying to learn what this means as well. Like, I'm a musician. So we're talking about music. I want to learn about our music. And he said, oh. Well, I can-- he's kind of like the wheels are spinning in his head. Well, I can-- oh, not in a second. And he puts a text message and he says, well, I just talked to my friends. And they're getting together at Lawn House later to practice songs. So you should just come. And I looked at him like, fool, do you know what you just told me? Like, you have no idea. This is the dream of dreams. And he welcomed me. And now I'm here kicking it with a bunch of whatever. Let's say I'm 30. I'm kicking it with a bunch of 17 to 21 year olds or something. And there are-- speaking language, there jamming out, playing our songs. And they like-- at some point they're like, hey, what's up? What, you know, like, chance brought you. OK, cool. Shout us the chance. And now those folks have become my friend friends. And I couldn't remember everyone's names because they're like five, six syllables in mohawk. And I'm like, I can't just call you like dada. And they're like, nah, bro, you say the whole name. But what I want to get to is that some of those folks have befriended me, have shared a lot of knowledge with me, songs with me, have become my friends. And one thing that I had, like, already my career, had me on tour with Las Calfanteras. We're playing a festival in Montreal, right? So just like Adrian, like, I'm kind of hustling my work life to like get time on the res, right? Like, I get to like get paid to be in Montreal. So I can just go over for free to the res. And I've been thinking about this question, well, what can I offer? I'm not also trying to play into some kind of like weird, savior vibe or something that sometimes can happen. And so I thought, well, I do music. These homies do music. I want to rep our stuff, but I don't have the songs like that yet. Let me ask these homies to come sing an open up our show at this festival. So like, I think the first time it fell through, but the second time we played a festival, they came and they opened up the show. And the crowd was looking at them like, this isn't the-- we thought we were waiting for the Mexican thing, but it's like the mohawk thing. [LAUGHTER] And then-- and it was a black music festival. It was a festival in New-Eda, Freak, and they came out and opened with a women's dance song. And this back was back to our creation story. And they opened. I got to introduce them. I cried. They had a good time. And-- [LAUGHTER] --and over-emotional, like, sensitive type, whatever. So-- But it was just me just thinking about, I already have a thing. I have a platform. I have a space that's mine. How can I plug people from my community into it if they want? How can I invite people in to access it and then maybe open up maybe their perspective around? These songs, if you wanted to do-- and then they're like, yeah, there are these-- they're singing like troops, like groups that will go, and they get bread, and it helps them cover their expenses to do all the other important stuff that they do in their community. And so for me, it was like a gift that kept giving to me. Like, the more I think through those little opportunities, it's like gives me an opportunity. Like I need to be able to give something back. I need that. Like it's not, the loop is not okay until I got if we offer a thing back. And so I think to me it starts with that stuff. Like what do you do already? What's your job? What's your passion? How do you do offer some of that to someone in your community? It's not like a whole community why I think like oh the whole nation, I'm gonna do a program maybe, but it just starts with just those little things. And I think from there it's for it's led me to have conversations now with people on the res about we need a music studio here. Like how do we get funding for a proper studio? How do we start it? Like and trying to and now all of a sudden people like, okay, well yeah, I think that's actually doable. Daniel, take your knowledge of what a music studio takes and make it happen. So that's a pending project I have. But I only share that just because it's like, it's not that complicated. It's just like take a thing that you do and share it. And probably you'll find the right person who'll be like, yeah, that's kind of cool. Thank you. You know, like and it's not an end thing. It's not a one time. It's just like a relationship. You just keep like you go over someone's house. You bring some some the share like it's. I like that way that you describe that Daniel. It's not complete, right? That circle's not complete until I've offered something to, you know, and it's not just about taking. I offer and and we all become, you know, more. Like that's that's the beautiful thing about it. There's no there's the scarcity of mentality. Like we were talking about, right? Like when we shift that thinking to where more is just going to keep becoming more, there's power in that. So yeah, what about you, Adrienne, like about the generosity? Like what what what what's next for you in that? And that circle. I mean, I think I mean, everything I do, I try to do in service of community and like that definitely has been challenging in academic spaces that don't really foster that. They want me to publish academic articles that don't actually do the things that I want them to do. But so I mean, like like Daniel said, my skill set is helping kids get into college. Like that is what I do. That is what I'm good at. And I like that's what I've dedicated my life to is helping native students get into college. But in a way that is going to help them to be successful and help them see inside the like colonial machine and make it out as whole humans. The other thing I was thinking about, like I can talk more about like the projects and things I'm doing. But I also was thinking about that the way that I see completing that circle of generosity is also passing along the knowledge to other reconnecting Cherokeys. So when I have access to like cultural knowledge, I'm allowed to share obviously like things that like are not restricted sort of knowledges or whatever. But like color horizons with the organization that I work most closely with. We do part of every program is that we do these intense introductions where everyone sits in a circle. There's 100 students and every student goes around and introduces themselves. And I've loved seeing the evolution through the years of like it used to just be the Navajo students who would introduce themselves in their language with their clans. And now it takes like three hours for us to do interviews because all of the students have learned how to introduce themselves and their family and their clans and like whatever it is in their language. And that's like such a powerful thing. But I notice all the time that it's often the Cherokee students who don't know how. And so my thing like I gather them up and I'm like come over here like I have things to teach you. And like just teach them that really basic intro of like hello my name is like I'm Cherokee. And like one of those students came back a couple of years later to grab her eyes and he stood up and like did his full intro in Cherokee and I like started to cry. I was like that's amazing. Or like we do a traditional night at at culture eyes and where people can share from their cultures. And it's like also beautiful. Does he and I had a dance which is not the same. We had a dance at culture eyes and so I was not. I don't know how to remember that. That was so long ago. I remember it because it was scarring. Like our faculty were like dancing and it was like it was awkward. And I was anyway. And I have like major social anxiety. So a dance is like the worst thing imaginable for an awkward teenager. Anyway. I love the good dance. She does it with like I'm sure I was dancing. That's why she doesn't remember. Clearly. But we do now we do traditional night which I like a lot more. But the Cherokee students often can't participate because they don't actually have a lot of cultural knowledge. And this isn't like there are always Cherokee students who do, but there are ones who don't. So like I like pull them aside and I'm like, OK, we're going to do like charades in Cherokee and you're going to like act out these animals and say the word and everyone's going to guess. And like just like little things or I had like one from Eastern and one from Western. And I was like you guys go up and talk about like each of your communities and how they're different and why. Like because of removal. And so those little things of like planting that seed in younger folks like to begin that journey sharing like what I can with them. And then my biggest like forever journey is now going to be my niece Nell who is 10 months old in like two days. And she's amazing. And her dad is Choctaw and then her mom is my sister. So she is Cherokee. So she is Cherokee and Choctaw. And it's going to be my life mission to make sure that Nell grows up very differently than I did. And so like I'm buying her all the books like I'm over there like reading all these native stories to her like I bought this book called We Are Grateful that has a lot of Cherokee words in it. And so like just like getting her introduced to that. I'm like the weird aunt who like you know I give her one Z's that say corn beans and squash the patriarchy. Like I'm at her my sister's baby shower everyone's given her like these beautiful like you know like diaper bags and all this stuff. And I'm like here's a set of blocks with the Cherokee syllabary on them. You're welcome. So like thinking about her like gives me a lot of hope and that it doesn't like end with me. And that's part of the giving like paying forward the generosity is making sure that it doesn't end with me. And that now it my like I call her my Ustidu. I was just like little bean like she's going to grow up very different I hope I know. And if somehow I make it out of this pandemic and can find a partner and like get married and have a baby or whatever or just like adopt a baby Cherokee or whatever like my kids will have a very different experience as well. And like that makes me really excited to like think about that life that I can create for these little ones to disrupt that cycle that I experienced and make it very different for them. So to me there's like those tangible things of like giving back in those like very tangible sort of straightforward skills based like that kind of stuff. But then this giving forward to other younger Cherokee people to creating a new cycle where my descendants and my niece and her descendants are going to have a very different experience with who they are as Cherokee people. Like that to me is the ultimate giving forward of that generosity that others have showed me is making sure that it doesn't end with me because that's what the colonizer wants. You know like I'm a colonizer's worst nightmare like take it all the way like do all these things like send me like like as far away as possible like give me like super whiteness like do all those things and still like teach other game. Daniel do you want to respond to that about thinking about what's next and paying it forward. Yeah totally I mean yeah one it's just like y'all are so dope like Dezi Matika Adrian like y'all do such cool work and I'm just inspired being in this in this conversation with you also so thank you. I'm reminded that there's so much more there's always so much more to do and like survival itself is is difficult enough like trying to move from survival to thriving myself but and there's this there is a relationship to like we thrive together and then there's like the personal like we're just trying to make it through a pandemic and like can I just survive can I just live live. Can I just live. You know what's that. And so I but I agent like same like I think as much as there's the folks who like from God and really just from my tribe and like all the the whole Confederacy the whole holding the Shoney Confederacy and other homies like like Dezi like like Ricardo like people just pushed me on my journey and supported me. I want to give give back to them as well as to my family, right? Just like you said, Adrian, to my little cousins who are like, "Hey, where are we from again? Or what's the word for blah blah blah?" Or like just making myself, even my dad, my dad, he hadn't been back to the rest since he was a teenager. And then I told him, "Yeah, I'm gonna go for three weeks." And he's like, "Oh, well, actually I have points. I can go with you." And I was like, I pulled the phone away like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go together." Yeah, that'll be really, yeah, yeah. But it ended up being an opportunity for us to go back together with our other cousin, Jan Ellen. And it was medicine because now I'm a resource for my dad. Like, I'm able to share things with him that he didn't learn. And so that's a weird, you know, mental thing. Like, how do you share? I'm sharing with people older than me about who we are. That's really funny to me. And humbling, and I think that's the loop back that we become the resource also for folks coming in, folks who are reconnecting who are from our communities to help them on their path in the same way. And then hopefully that we can do our part in the same way, Matika, you were talking about the opportunity there if folks in the community can make space or make, you know, set the table, I think I heard you say, for folks like me to come back and try to, you know, build a relationship. So I think that we can also help people like me can help those folks trying to reconnect, kind of get set up and grease those wheels a little bit so they can also come, kind of ensure that they come back in a better way too. Like that's, like they're not just showing up. Like, hey, what's up? Where's the bennies? Like, where's my, let me get some free insurance. Where's the cash from money? Where's that pre-cap? Right. So I think it's real tangible and it's just taking that time to give that same knowledge that I'm getting, inviting my cousins to the classes that I take. Like, I don't know. Just trying to share that stuff, you know, I think is tangible. And for me, you know, my goal, my vision is to build a dope music studio in Ghanawage. Like, there's so much talent there. Like, like, there's this, oh. Good singer is there. Man, my friends are how we zogo is like a, he's like farrell. Like, he's the future farrell. Like, he just, you know, like, he just needs a little bit more, like, gear, basically, to like do what he wants to do. So there's people like him that I think of that inspire me to like, save up and put aside for a little fun. And also, you're reminding me, I need to come back and see those conversations with folks in our community to say, hey, like, can we follow up on this? Like, we had a talk, but like, life's been crazy. We've all been surviving, but can we kind of reconvene? And I think this is why we need to come together as indigenous people, as natives, to remind each other about what is our purpose. Because we live in a world in a society that tries to extract that and pull it out of us and take away that resource for their purposes. But we remind each other that, hey, we're here to build each other up. And also go back and, hey, like, whether some of us, like, Desi, I think, do a million things every day for our community. So she probably needs like to be told more like, hey, go take a, go take a bath. Or go take a vacation. Yeah. That's why I'm here. I think vacation here to podcast care and to layla poglan. And I think, you know, some folks like me need that push also to like, hey, like, follow up on that idea. What are that seed that you started or that you planted? Or go plant those seeds? And I think that the, that's our opportunity. So I bring that back. And then also like, I'm in LA. So I really try to just recognize that I'm on Tongva land and try to build and lift up the same things I want to happen in Montreal for Ganyaka, Haka people for Mohawks, those opportunities to be represented. I really try to remind myself every day, what can you do to offer some shine or some light for the native people here? Because if LA can get its act together and represent and acknowledge and hand over resources to the, the Tongva people and the tribes from here, that's a light that shines around the world to the rest of the United States. And the same way, Montreal, if I can, so it's like my little contribution actually can have a bigger ripple effect. If I just do the damn thing, if I just do something, I have to trust that it will have the bigger impact, that it's no small thing to do something, that it will grow and it will influence. And there's people around us looking at each other like, oh, okay, like, I should probably water my seeds too. Cause Daniel's over here watering his seeds. Or Daniel's not watering those seeds. I don't want to be like that. Let me go water my seeds. Like, for better, for worse, how do we encourage each other? So I want to thank y'all for bringing me into this space to kind of water those seeds together. And, and yeah, that's it. - Yeah, well thank you, thank you all so much for being here today and for sharing and talking story with us. It's good medicine, you know? I also want to acknowledge before we close that there's people in our own communities that don't feel like they have access to their culture. You know, like we can live on the res and, and not have access to our songs or our ceremonies, you know, not go to the long house or not be able to paddle on the canoe or not be able to sow our seeds in the way that we would like, you know, in that the culture keepers in our communities have to be reminded, you know, we have to be reminded, you know, like that we have to extend, extend our hand and, you know, hopefully we're creating spaces of inclusivity in our own cultures and in our own communities. You know, like that one doesn't have to be physically removed to feel disconnected from culture. And that the public school system, the K through 12 education system, forces our children to choose between cultural education and Western education. And, you know, like that, that we are no longer, we are not in a place yet in a lot of communities, certainly here in Tulayla. And that's the only place I can really speak for, where we have the opportunity to have those things integrated, you know, and that's like the great hope. That's the great goal for me is to get to a place where our children don't have to choose, you know, where my baby doesn't have to choose, wouldn't it be wonderful if like, where you're from, where, or like, if gone to like, on a waga, like my kids could go to an immersion school, you know, like, wouldn't that be amazing? And so I think like there's areas for work for all of us, you know, like no matter where we're from and if you, you know, like, come home. I just want to say that much, you know, to our young people that are listening, you know, like, you're welcome here. We want you, we need you, you know, like, we want to strengthen and build our nation. And like you said, that can only be done together. And so I'm grateful for this conversation, for this space. And for you sharing your stories, you know, it's a vulnerable space. This is like a lay it all out there kind of conversation. And I appreciate you for, you know, like, for sharing these stories. And I hope that it helps the next generation or the people that are listening or our elders that are listening to, you know, (laughs) you know, like, it's good to have these spaces and have these conversations. So I'll just say, y'all, Tee-Wood Seed, I'm glad to be here. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Thank you so much for tuning in and sticking with us and being a part of this on my Relations Journey. - Yes, I just, I just want to reiterate that, you know, it's not your fault if you were not born in community. If you don't have the connections to your people, to your kin, to the lands and the waters and all of the more than human, you know, relatives that you should have, right? As an indigenous person, it's not your fault. We have 500 years of colonization to blame for this, but I do want to also remind you that it is your decision, right? Whether or not you want to take the first step on your own reconnecting journey. And as we've heard from Daniel and as we've heard from Adrienne, right? It is an individual decision to really make that first step. But obviously, the journey itself is also bigger than oneself and involves so many, you know, generations of connections that need to be made again. And I just am so thankful that Daniel and Adrienne shared their stories. And I know that what they had to say is going to resonate with many of you, right? And similarly, even if you were, even if you're not on a reconnecting journey, listening to them, I hope also reminded you of your own responsibilities and how to be a good relative. And I just want to leave everyone with what Uncle Pucca in Altearoa, New Zealand, his words continue to be with me all the time. And that is that you should never forget that the ancestors know who you are. Yeah, that's so beautiful. So thank you to Daniel French and Adrienne Keane for joining us today and sharing your real and raw and powerful stories and vulnerable stories. It's really brave of you. And I'm really proud to know you and to call you a friend. And thank you so much for joining us. And thanks to the AMR team that worked on this episode, thanks to Dominic Joseph, Teo Sean, Slanzi Hightower, CUNY Rodriguez, and to all of our relatives, especially Sierra Sanna for doing our amazing episode artwork. Follow us on our Instagram. That's really where we're most up today. and where we make most of our announcements. We're on the gram at AMR podcast. And of course, if you want to sign up for our newsletter, one day we might send you an email. (laughing) But not me, don't email me. My email is a black hole. I told you, 300 churrons trying to kill me. (laughing) All right, she'll take care. Peace. (upbeat music) All my relations.