00:01:42.600oh ruth i am so happy to be having this time with you i'm so just excited i've been excited
00:01:57.120to talk with you on the podcast and beyond. So this moment together is already warming my heart
00:02:04.460and I'm so looking forward to all the places we're about to go. I absolutely share the same
00:02:12.160sentiment. It feels precious. It's like precious seeds we're planting to get there.
00:02:18.280I love that. Well, Ruth, to begin, I wonder if you would like to introduce yourself to our listeners.
00:02:27.120My English name is Ruth Miller, and my Denaena Athabasca name is Shivayak Eason,
00:02:53.700gifted to me by Danita Slosson of Tyonic Village, my first language teacher. And I'll also share
00:02:59.540that my Jewish name is Chutz Shlomo de Yisrael. I was born and raised here in my Dena'ina homelands
00:03:05.260of Dehaye Kak, otherwise known as Anchorage, Alaska, but my family is from the Lake Clark area,
00:03:10.740traveling down to Bristol Bay before coming into Anchorage. And I'm presently the climate justice
00:03:17.100director for a grassroots matriarchal indigenous non-profit here in Alaska called Native Movement
00:03:24.780and I'm so happy to be speaking here today. Thank you so much for grounding us with that
00:03:31.440introduction and yeah I want to start by asking about how you define a just transition and this
00:03:42.240term has gained so much momentum, but often I think many default to a very limited understanding
00:03:48.600of it that focuses on its implications in context, you know, to jobs, the economy and
00:03:55.000policy. But I read some of your reflections that powerfully remind us that a just transition
00:04:01.540can also be understood not just as a linear objective, but as a cyclical movement inspired
00:04:09.240by reciprocity, kinship, and care. So as a climate justice organizer working towards
00:04:15.940just transition, can you share what the totality of this idea means for you?
00:04:23.780Well, let me take us back a little bit. My elders and my culture remind me that we always have to
00:04:29.940begin with stories. And for me to be telling the story, our listeners have to remember that I don't
00:04:35.960come to this work as an environmentalist. I don't identify as an environmentalist. Everything that
00:04:41.320it means to be an Indigenous woman intrinsically is connected to the protection of our lands,
00:04:47.400our waters, our air, and the protection of one another. Our call to justice, our call to
00:04:52.280reciprocity, to community care and fundamental compassion. And so being an Indigenous climate
00:04:58.920justice activist or organizer, you know, are all ways of saying the same thing, that I am investing
00:05:07.620every spark of my being into a world founded on reciprocity that my ancestors would recognize
00:05:17.080and that my descendants would be grateful for. And so when we think of just transition,
00:05:22.240We're not thinking of an economic shift, although that is one aspect of moving from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.
00:05:32.420But the Just Transition framework, when it first came to Alaska, resonated here because it is everything that is so intrinsic to Indigenous well-being and the success and the thriving of Indigenous societies.
00:05:44.240When Just Transition came to Alaska, we realized that we needed a different name for it, that we needed something that we could see ourselves in.
00:05:52.500And so we began calling just transition, which in the language of the language means we remember, remembering forward. That is what just transition is to us. It is an act of remembering forward, an ethos, an ideology of bringing our sacred teachings, our traditional life ways and practices, and our fundamental value of reciprocity and interdependency and interconnectedness.
00:06:21.340that bring our economy into a spiral that both takes inspiration from the past and thinks about
00:06:28.940tending to the future. So that's an economy that incorporates aspects of just government
00:06:34.240management. It also incorporates food security, justice for workers and immigrants, justice for
00:06:40.780families, and the care economy incorporates aspects of education, and of course, you know,
00:06:47.960renewable resources. But it also introduces a reminder that all of this economy, all of this
00:06:56.180economic transition must be founded on a worldview of reciprocity, a worldview of responsibility
00:07:02.320for one another, and fundamental community. Wow, what a beautiful response. Thank you for
00:07:11.660taking us there. Now, as mentioned, you recently moved into the role of climate justice director
00:07:18.660with Native Movement. And I'd love to hear your reflections on this, because certainly land
00:07:25.300defense and environmental protection is something that Indigenous people have been doing long before
00:07:31.300there was this idea of a climate change movement. But I'd say in the past decade, things have
00:07:39.400definitely shifted in terms of the strategies and difficulties that arise in context to what
00:07:46.080many might understand as oncoming climate chaos. So what does climate justice work
00:07:53.260look like right now? And what do you think are some of the most important areas that we need
00:08:00.520to course correct? Well, instead of speaking of my most recent job position, I think I'd like to
00:08:07.120speak to my very first, which was when I was 15 years old. I flew out to Bristol Bay, the area
00:08:13.700that my grandmother was raised, and I began working for a summer with the United Tribes of Bristol
00:08:18.400Bay, particularly gathering testimony and doing community education, civic education around the
00:08:25.060proposed pebble mine, which would have devastated our entire watershed, the last great salmon
00:08:30.520fishery in the world. And not only a supporter of 14,000 plus jobs annually, but additionally,
00:08:39.080you know, our salmon are our blood, our salmon are our lifelines, they're our predominant food
00:08:44.960source, and they're also the backbone of our culture in the Bay. And so I flew out and stayed
00:08:51.940with a wonderful, precious family of mine, who's, you know, very close to me to this day,
00:08:56.360and was getting nervous for my first day of work first real job when I realized that I had to call
00:09:05.340in and tell my boss I couldn't go to work and the reason was because the night before I was0.97
00:09:12.940supposed to begin my job the king sam the chika had hit the nets and it was time to pick fish
00:09:18.040and I called my boss a very dear mentor of mine Alana Hurley and told her hey the fish came in
00:09:26.360And without a second of hesitation, she said, yep, go work.
00:09:31.520And, you know, in retrospect, that was my first day of climate advocacy.
00:09:37.460It wasn't, you know, sitting in an office writing testimony templates for our people.
00:09:42.340It was being with my people on the land, cutting and processing fish, returning the hospitality that I was gifted with, you know, my labor and my work,
00:09:53.780using our hands together to learn and prepare this fish to feed our families for the months
00:10:09.480And so when I think about what climate justice work looks like today, I'm always reminded
00:10:16.300of those first days on, you know, the shoreline, picking fish and centering myself in the why of
00:10:24.780this work. You know, today I sit in my laptop in my home during the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm on lots
00:10:32.660and lots of Zoom meetings. I do lots and lots of writing, a lot of coordinating, a lot of different
00:10:36.800conversations. But the core of that work is the heart that will never leave those shores at the
00:10:43.200bay and that will never leave my approach to climate justice. And so now when we're thinking
00:10:48.920about what areas of, you know, climate policy, climate organizing that we need to course correct,
00:10:57.080I still fundamentally feel that it is that ideology, that sentiment that underlies all
00:11:03.440of our work and our approach to one another. You know, whether it's working with environmental
00:11:08.100big green groups here in Alaska and challenging them to decolonize and come to just transition
00:11:13.000principles center frontline voices you know that's a huge aspect of our work so is you know
00:11:19.040advocating within national and international platforms be it with the green new deal network
00:11:24.680and the thrive agenda or in preparations for cop 26 in in glasgow of this year the ideology
00:11:33.240that guides our work has to be a reminder of why we are fighting it has to be spiritual it has to
00:11:41.660be soulful. It has to be warming. It has to be comforting. The why of our work and the principles
00:11:50.160that underlie climate justice advocacy will lead to justice-informed policies. They will lead
00:11:57.540to negotiations that center frontline voices and grassroots communities. If we are able to
00:12:06.180reintroduce an ethos of care and a determination to see our values being centered at the heart of
00:12:13.460every, you know, policy writing and decision-making space and to hear our Indigenous voices in those
00:12:19.840rooms. That is the biggest change that I think we could see implemented. That's the biggest,
00:12:26.200you know, shift that we could advocate for because that value system would then trickle down
00:12:33.720into those policies and into those decisions, ensuring that we can see ourselves in all forms
00:12:39.960of climate justice advocacy. Wow, I'm hanging on every word. And I really appreciate the form that
00:12:51.600you're speaking about this work within and, you know, a theme that has been very present for me
00:12:58.680and one that I'm always reminded of in context to so much of the grassroots organizing going on in
00:13:05.160Alaska is that of abundance and you recently shared some reflections on abundance as a mindset
00:13:12.060and I'm hoping we could revisit this topic as it feels like it's so often overlooked in mainstream
00:13:19.420movements because there is this emphasis on scarcity and saviorism and I wonder if you
00:13:27.440could speak to how abundance shows up in your work, or perhaps what it could mean for our
00:13:35.180objectives, organizing community and personal well being, if we took a more abundance centric
00:13:42.880approach to this work. I think that deficit thinking was one of the most toxic and predatory
00:13:50.860forms of colonization that was brought to indigenous peoples. Deficit thinking teaches0.96
00:13:56.420us to be scared. It teaches us to fear one another, to fear the future. It shuts down our
00:14:05.020ability to think creatively. And it sends us into forms of all or nothing thinking, me or you
00:14:11.560thinking, that is fundamentally opposed to the types of community investment that our people
00:14:19.580thrived within for 20,000 plus years. Abundance thinking, however, is a fundamental part of who
00:14:29.520we are as indigenous peoples and who we must be as a global community. In my culture, one of the
00:14:36.080most principled, insisted upon practices is sharing our harvest. I don't know that I can think of
00:14:45.940more shameful act than hoarding food and hoarding harvest for yourself. In our community is the
00:14:56.300first catch, the first hunt, the first bucket of berries always, always, always goes to our
00:15:03.800elders. And from then on, everything is shared across community. We share our harvest, we share
00:15:09.000our hunt so that no one goes without, but also because it deepens our relationships with one
00:15:15.360another. Being in a mindset where we always have more to share, regardless of how much you have
00:15:21.560materially, you will always have more to share, whether it's time or energy or a shoulder to lean
00:15:27.260on, or whether it's a full freezer that you can, you know, share out with others who don't have
00:15:32.840that abundance. Being in relationships of reciprocity mean that, you know, you can rely
00:15:40.040on me because I can rely on you. And the currency of this gift economy is gratitude and relationship
00:15:47.660instead of money. And that in and of itself is exercising ideological resistance to this
00:15:56.480colonial scarcity thinking that teaches us that we are poor, that teaches us that we are oppressed,
00:16:02.100that teaches us that we are less than. Recentering ourselves away from capitalism and a market
00:16:09.100economy means that we have the ability to redefine our successes and our cultural wealth and our
00:16:17.880linguistical wealth and our ancestral knowledge that so many others don't have and therefore
00:16:22.960resist ethos of a market economy that base wealth in private accumulation. It reminds me so much of
00:16:33.880the writings and works of Robin Wall Kimmerer, of course, a huge light in my life. She wrote
00:16:42.900particularly on abundance in her work titled The Serviceberry. And she spoke on the ethic
00:16:51.140of reciprocity at the heart of the gift economy. And this in and of itself is what it means to be
00:16:58.480indigenous and is one of the most critical aspects of, um, not just climate organizing,
00:17:06.280but, but being with one another, being in community and building healthy communities
00:17:11.160based on wellness and community investment. And so when we translate this to thinking about,
00:17:18.560you know, an abundance centric approach and climate organizing, um, one of my favorite
00:17:24.700reminders that I'll yell from the rooftops is that we have our solutions. The climate crisis
00:17:30.940was not inevitable. It is not irreparable. And every choice that was made by power hoarders
00:17:39.580that got us to this moment of climate chaos was that it was a choice. And we as a collective,
00:17:45.960we as a people have the ability to make different choices, to learn from those mistakes and to learn
00:17:53.440from our ancestral imperatives that successfully lived in tandem and in harmony with our lands
00:18:02.280and waters and heirs, our plant and animal relatives with one another, with diverse nations
00:18:06.620for millennia. The legacy of colonization, of course, is a process and not an event,
00:18:13.640But it was a relatively small, dark mark on, and is a, it continues to be a dark mark on a much, much longer history of abundance, of thriving, of reciprocity, of all these, you know, concepts that we've evoked just in our short conversation so far.
00:18:34.060And so reminding our people, you know, we have the solutions that are hidden in our languages. We have the solutions that are hidden in our subsistence practices. We know in our spirits, we know in our hearts what it means to live in right relationship with the world. And now it is our role to take those teachings, to take those successes and translate them to the scale and the demand at which we need change now.
00:18:57.660I am just following your words really closely and I appreciate all of the heart and love and thoughtfulness that you have put into understanding so much intensity and beauty and all that jazz.
00:19:17.760But I wanted to bring up that, you know, last month, as we all know, in March of 2021, Deb Haaland was confirmed as the first Native American Interior Secretary, a position which oversees federal lands, natural resources, protecting cultural heritage, and many programs related to the United States' trust responsibility to Indigenous peoples.
00:19:43.020And I know that this is a topic that we could talk about for the whole hour, because it holds so much within it. You know, history, the purpose of these departments, the recognition of Deb Haaland, criticisms, etc.
00:19:58.040But I'd just like to share something you wrote on Instagram in reflections of this moment.
00:20:04.740Quote, leading a department that has caused our people unspeakable trauma and pain, we now have the opportunity for sacred transformation, deep healing, and profound justice to our peoples and all our lands.
00:20:22.180so as an interest entrance into discussing the importance and limitations of policy work
00:20:31.800I wonder if for listeners you could share what this appointment signifies for folks who are doing
00:20:38.600the kind of work that you are and what it could mean for the next four years
00:20:43.780well for listeners who you know might not understand the full implications of what this
00:20:50.600means for not just Indian country, but for this nation as a whole, I would remind them that the
00:20:56.320Department of Interior is a powerful branch of the U.S. government that is devoted to not only
00:21:02.600all lands management, but within it holds the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Now, the Department
00:21:08.780of the Interior, many don't know this, was formerly the Department of War. And it was the
00:21:15.180same department that managed the mass genocide and attempted extinction of Indigenous peoples
00:21:21.080across Turtle Island, what is now called America. And this Department of War was consistently0.60
00:21:28.580determined not only to extinguish all Indigenous Aboriginal title to land, but to exterminate0.76
00:21:36.840Indian people. They did this first through warfare as the Department of War. And later,0.91
00:21:42.200when the department changed, it was sought through education, unfortunately. And so this
00:21:50.000department, through the Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
00:21:55.940was most well known to many of us through their abusive and just tragically devastating0.69
00:22:04.260education system, which took our children from their home communities and attempted to
00:22:11.520assimilate them. The very common phrase that I hate to hear leaving my own mouth is the ethos
00:22:20.340of that time, which was kill the Indian, save the man. These were the boarding schools where0.98
00:22:24.780our children were taken to have their hair cut, to be whipped, beaten, often violated and raped0.81
00:22:31.500so that they would forget what it meant to be indigenous. Not that there was0.99
00:22:35.920much potential, even if they were to, you know, whiten and lighten themselves for advancement in0.56
00:22:45.420white supremacist society. So now that we have a Native American interior secretary, the first0.96
00:22:52.600in 171 years at this department and 53 secretaries, the question that we're actually
00:22:59.340getting at is how can we do radical work within a fundamentally white supremacist structure?
00:23:06.900Is that possible? And truth be told, it's a question that I ask myself all the time in my
00:23:11.720pathways for advocacy. But not only is Deb Haaland's appointment, you know, anti-Deb's
00:23:18.740appointment symbolic and powerful because of this dark history of trauma, but it is also
00:23:25.760a serious impetus for change. You know, I recommend readers check out some writing down
00:23:31.840by Nick Estes, an Indigenous scholar on this change in the administration. But
00:23:37.400Deb Haaland has a difficult road ahead of her and will have to negotiate, you know,
00:23:44.040rather centrist and pro-corporation interests even within the Democratic Party and Biden's0.62
00:23:50.460administration. So Auntie Deb needs us to push her. She will not be able to achieve the forms1.00
00:23:59.820of radical change and ideological shift that has been ingrained in this department for 171 plus
00:24:08.220years without our loud and proud advocacy insisting on these radical shifts that we need to see.
00:24:15.440You know, I have to imagine that even within these structures that, you know, are unequivocally founded on extreme racism and white supremacy and radical individualism and all these aspects of this oppressive regime, the U.S. empire that many of us can wear our voices out analyzing.
00:24:40.620Even within a structure such as that, a Native woman leading lands management in this country brings with it not only all of her ancestral teachings and her cultural learnings, but it brings with it so much potential and so much opportunity because Auntie Deb will not be the last.
00:25:04.180She will be the first of many, many, many. But everything that gets done under her watch will come from the people. And so I'd really encourage folks not to sit back and relax because we won one, but to work in collaboration with our shared interests and with our shared vision.
00:25:32.640Because it will continue to take pushing, it will continue to take radical imagination and insistence and ambitious, audacious demands from the people who are intent on preserving our lands and our peoples for generations to come.
00:26:02.640So are rivers, valleys, hills and land
00:27:00.440And I feel that rising happening within us, within the folks around us. I feel that desire from people to want to be involved, want to be engaged, wanting to be within this radical imagination movement towards something that many of us can't even begin to imagine what it could look like.
00:27:29.700But pushing ourselves to imagine, I think, is so important and sticking with it.
00:27:35.580And, you know, there is this other thought that comes up for me and, you know, just something
00:27:41.540we're really going to have to grapple with in the next couple of years is the creation
00:27:47.700of more and more sacrifice zones should aggressive development of green energy be pushed through.
00:27:53.780Now, in the so-called United States, we know what these sacrifice zones look like in context
00:27:59.600to uranium mining and oil and gas, etc. But going forward, I believe we'll need to expand our
00:28:07.780understanding of these zones in relationship to green energy. And I'm curious how you contend
00:28:14.100with this. And if you think you'll see this in Alaska, and how we should begin to wrap our minds
00:28:20.880around this. So first, I think I'd like to take us back to a bit of a reflection on Alaska.
00:28:29.600particular, and paint a better picture of where we are today. Resource extraction began only really
00:28:39.640about 50 years ago, a number of decades ago, when the land began to be seen by settler society as
00:28:49.880a resource that can be extracted from. That is fundamentally oppositional to any indigenous
00:28:56.420perspective that cannot understand land or earth, our relative, our mother as a resource that can
00:29:05.260be taken and seized, even owned, much less destroyed and left in despair and devastation.
00:29:13.060You know, this reminds us of the gift economy that we had pre-contact and still manifest today
00:29:22.520That is one of reciprocity. Resource extraction in our lands is what brought the U.S. empire to annex Alaska, basically, without the consent of the indigenous peoples here to falsely purchase it from Russia, who certainly never owned it in the first place,
00:29:44.300And to begin to seek exercising legal jurisdiction, informal jurisdiction over land claims here.
00:29:56.880So what this means is that our communities that have always lived closest with the land,
00:30:03.120that have always been the experts on climate in these precious places that are woven into
00:30:10.560our genealogies, are also now the first to suffer at the hand of climate chaos.
00:30:15.540So not only are we seeing increased resource extraction contributing to rising global
00:30:22.200temperatures, which leaves our communities vulnerable to melting sea ice, to coastal
00:30:27.920erosion, to melting permafrost, but also locally, resource extraction in state has led to extraordinarily
00:30:36.460high rates of toxins being leached into our atmosphere and our waters, into our food systems,
00:30:42.960whether it be turning the marrow of our caribou black, or whether it be higher rates of respiratory
00:30:50.620illness and cancers and decreased fertility in our rural communities. And additionally, of course,
00:30:58.680proximity to development, unfortunately and tragically, as our relatives in so-called
00:31:05.280Canada know all too well, also correlates with an increased rate of violence against our Indigenous
00:31:14.020women and girls and two spirit relatives. So we, our bodies as indigenous people have become
00:31:21.240the battlegrounds of climate chaos. So when I think about sacrifice zones, I'm not just thinking
00:31:27.620about, you know, sites and mines and oil fields, our bodies are the sacrifice zones of development.
00:31:35.260And if green renewables, if this new green economy continues to perpetuate the same ethos that resource extraction has, then we will not find any solutions and we will see our suffering perpetuated.
00:31:58.380When it comes to the push for green energy, we seriously have to consider if we are just trying to replicate the systems of overconsumption and consumerism that have gotten us into this mess in the first place, or if we are willing to create new patterns and behaviors that are committed to abolishing human rights violations from resource supply chains,
00:32:23.480And that are committed to abolishing high waste overconsumption as a societal practice. My next reading on this, because of course I have much more learning to do, is a piece that I just found by War on Want titled The Material Transition, which examines the potential devastation by the rush on transition materials, materials and minerals needed for transitioning energy economy.
00:32:49.200And in my little reading that I have done, they really emphasize the potential for circular economies being introduced, which would be a departure from the way even green energy is being approached now.
00:33:05.880And by circular economies, they mean economies and systems where in all aspects of biological and technical nutrients, inputs, flow and cycles, that we're an economy where we repurpose, we repair, reuse, refurbish, recycle, but we also compost and integrate smart design to ensure that these systems of green energy will be different than the extractive practices and the exploitative practices.
00:33:35.880that got us here in the first place. And if they're not determined to break those cycles
00:33:40.040of exploitation, then we will not see any relief as a climate or as a society.
00:33:46.740And so I think specifically of renewables that are rooted in Indigenous ideologies,
00:33:52.640but that are also supporting our frontline Indigenous communities. I think of Walia
00:33:57.040Johns, who is the founder of Native Renewables, an Indigenous-owned solar company that's brought
00:34:03.740solar energy to 15,000 homes on the Navajo reservation. I think of the work of Edwin
00:34:09.640Byfelt here in Alaska, the creator of Alaska Native Renewable Industries that's bringing
00:34:14.720Kotzebue, one of our rural hubs, to at least 50% renewables, plus dozens and dozens of local
00:34:22.120hires. We have to integrate a value system. We have to integrate holistic, whole system thinking
00:34:30.400into any type of new energy economy that we're creating.
00:34:35.900Otherwise, we'll just be substituting materials
00:34:38.280and creating more destruction and devastation
00:35:00.400Thank you for speaking to this really complicated arrangement with such grace and transparency and clarity.
00:35:10.940I appreciate just the care that you are taking when thinking about this and a lot of respect.
00:35:19.400But going back to radical imagination and, you know, I'd like to ask you about this fruitful space of bridging radical imagination and policy as a meaningful step into creating futures that are non-extractive.
00:35:36.660And as someone who has worked at the intersections of climate justice, regenerative economies, and international advocacy, while having a background in critical development studies, how can you encourage folks to think about policy in a way that challenges the sort of understanding that frames it as a very stagnant form of compromise?
00:36:00.020You know, I struggle with this all the dang time. It is absolutely a legitimate challenge to these very slow systems of change. But I actually would encourage folks to sit in that discomfort, to continue weighing impatience and patience, to continue weighing compromise and our North Star demands and to stay in that unease.
00:36:29.020unease because that is where we get to the core of what we need. That is where we get to
00:36:34.800the most ambitious solutions if we stay in that discomfort. Personally, for me working between
00:36:42.220radical imagination and policy, I am frustrated all the time. I am sometimes doubtful and I'm
00:36:52.280sometimes hopeful. And that movement, that conversation, that interplay between, you know,
00:37:00.120whether it be a North Star, whether it be a visionary dream, or whether it be an Overton
00:37:05.660window, what is politically realistic, has to continue that dialogue. We must always be
00:37:14.760be determined to push for not just what we think we can get, but what we know that we need.
00:37:24.600That might happen incrementally. Our elders teach us patience, but the fundamental lesson is that
00:37:33.240we must take the next best wise step toward that vision. And so I don't think that working
00:37:40.180incrementally has to be stagnant. I don't think that the types of policy change that we might see
00:37:50.460month by month or year by year comes without years of expertise and years of knowledge and
00:37:58.400advocacy and such. Little wins are still wins, but ensuring that they continue to build and that
00:38:05.720momentum is not lost is so crucially important. You know, it makes me think, you know, living
00:38:12.880here in Alaska, there's, there's any, anyone who spends time out on the land would know the
00:38:18.400difference between, you know, a stagnant body of water, stagnant lagoon versus a body of water
00:38:24.840that has some movement, that has some spirit, that's making progress, that's changing and
00:38:30.660shifting or a frozen lake versus a lake that's slowly thawing, that's slowly changing. The
00:38:37.400qualities of these relatives are so distinct. The qualities teach us that change is happening even
00:38:45.800if we don't necessarily see it on the surface. And I think that that has to be the type of
00:38:50.900radical imagination that we engage when we think about policy advocacy. And I personally am no
00:38:58.600expert in policy specifics or legislative lobbying. But in my experience, that consistency,
00:39:07.960that determined drive to continue being visionary and to continue to engage imagination is what
00:39:15.020will continuously open more doors for conversation and progress.
00:39:19.860That was such a good. And also, I would just add, it's who we are. It's what we have to do.
00:39:27.540And I would never sacrifice my vision for the sake of what I think could pass through Congress. The heck? No way. It's also who we are as advocates, as people who care.
00:39:39.780mm-hmm yeah no I think we all need to hear this at times it's like I I just yeah that was really
00:39:49.920uplifting and I loved the metaphor or the vision of the lagoon and the moving water and I do feel
00:39:56.920like there's movement even as you know sometimes slow or frustrating as it feels what else are we
00:40:04.220going to do? It is who we are. And I so feel that. And I'm wondering particularly, are there any
00:40:11.320policies that you're interested in at the moment or what kind of policies are you interested in?
00:40:17.240Well, the policies that I am interested in are policies from the people. They're fundamentally
00:40:22.300justice oriented. They elevate frontline community leadership and they are actively anti-racist.
00:40:29.380And so when I think of policies that fit my description, one in particular that I've been
00:40:33.860organizing for a number of months now with our Just Transition Collective and the Green New Deal
00:40:37.980Network is the Thrive Agenda. The Thrive Agenda was brought to the House at the end of last year
00:40:47.400as a resolution and will soon be reintroduced as an act and is fundamentally derived from networks
00:40:55.100and networks of communities, people on the ground that have developed an eight pillar approach to
00:41:01.960economic recovery and COVID-19 relief. So it's thinking not only about what job creation and
00:41:10.860recreation can mean for a U.S. economy, but it's fundamentally thinking about what kind of
00:41:17.520economies we want those jobs to be investing in and what kind of benefits and securities must
00:41:23.440those jobs have to be jobs of quality. And so it incorporates pillars that are dedicated to
00:41:31.040tribal and Indigenous sovereignty and leadership of frontline Black, Brown, and Indigenous
00:41:37.120communities, as well as justice for workers facing challenges of economic transition as
00:41:44.220they transition away from dying economies like oil and gas and towards renewables.
00:41:49.860It's also thinking a lot about the care economy and how we implement reproductive justice
00:41:56.540in, in, uh, in a recovery. And so it's, it's acts like the thrive agenda, the thrive act
00:42:03.140that really, you know, whether they get passed or not, these pieces inspire me to think creatively
00:42:12.320about what policy can achieve for us and what it means to have an act written in this way,
00:42:18.780written by these communities in tandem and in coalition and in allyship with one another.
00:42:24.400So I'd really encourage folks to go check that out if they'd like to, thriveagenda.org. It's something that we in Alaska see ourselves in because so much of the progress being made and articulated in this act comes from us.
00:42:38.140It's what we have already been doing for centuries, if not millennia, but it's also resonant of our devoted communities that are working on justice in the carceral system and justice for immigrants and indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
00:42:56.100This is a piece of policy that, again, we can see ourselves in and that will give us frameworks and tools beyond just the singular act to continue to build on and to continue to push Congress on as we work to make progress.
00:43:56.080It might break your fall, but when the fall stands, the heart still, it falls.
00:44:11.140Fumble through the days, can't sleep, I just fly, starvingly in the world.
00:44:22.840Yeah, I want to talk about your roots a bit. And, you know, you had mentioned with roots in Bristol Bay, you've long been involved in work around protecting this bay from the proposed pebble mine.
00:44:37.500And just as a reminder for listeners, Bristol Bay is home to the world's largest sockeye salmon run, but alongside it is the Pebble Deposit, which contains an estimated $500 billion worth of copper and gold.
00:44:53.220ultimately in november of 2020 the army corps of engineers rejected an essential permit for the
00:45:00.720project and i know you began working with the united tribes of bristol bay at 15 i love that
00:45:06.860story from earlier you know encouraging fishermen to testify against this mine and this example just
00:45:13.260evokes a lot of different thoughts around how we come together you know understanding success and
00:45:20.120the long-term commitment of protecting place. And I think Pebble Mine is maybe an example that the
00:45:26.120work isn't ever truly done. In fact, you know, I've heard you speak about how the chronology
00:45:32.720is not linear. You know, it's never finished. And I believe you've shared similar reflections on the
00:45:37.980Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well. So I'd love if you could speak about the importance of
00:45:43.740balancing the joy of success while also understanding that we must ask ourselves
00:45:49.200to hold our attention to place beyond a deadline. Absolutely. You know, especially
00:45:56.220considering the end of last year, November 25th, I'll always remember, you know, the day that this
00:46:02.540decision came out about Pebble, it felt like our energy and celebration was just hanging on the air.
00:46:11.140It was in every breath. It was in every movement. It came with such a huge wave of relief, but also absolute disbelief. Everyone was like, wait, really? Did that, huh?
00:46:23.040And, you know, I think I thought about that, that kind of suspended disbelief, where this campaign that has been, you know, passed down from leader to leader for over 20 years now, you know, finally reaching a point of celebration was almost, I don't want to say it was taken from us.
00:46:45.960but it was an important learning opportunity for us. When you live in tandem with the land,
00:46:53.100you know that your health, your community's health, your family's health is one and the
00:46:57.980same as the health of our lands and waters. And so to think about, you know, after 20 plus years
00:47:03.280of threat and fear that our xika or salmon would be taken from us, that our cultures,
00:47:09.900our way of life would be destroyed because of their loss. To have this moment of peace felt
00:47:18.040almost short-lived. Pebble will appeal the decision by the Army Corps of Engineers.
00:47:26.420And so there's not a nail in the coffin yet, but I had to take this into my personal learning
00:47:34.300because it was too easy to just run to the next zoom meeting. Um, I think that, you know, the0.81
00:47:40.700most important lesson that we can take for moments like this, um, especially when we consider that
00:47:47.400pebble mine, you know, the Trump administration changed the tune it had been singing for four
00:47:53.880years because Donald Trump Jr. came to Alaska and fell in love with this place and, um, is,
00:48:01.400is a sports fisherman that has traveled to Bristol Bay and decided that he stood in opposition to the
00:48:07.720Mayan. So the lesson that I think is about is, wow, all of this advocacy work is about bodily
00:48:15.780lived experience. It is about being in the moment. It is that moment of breathtaking awe
00:48:20.960that somehow Donald Trump Jr. must have had at being here on the land. It was the land saving
00:48:30.560itself through someone that we never thought we would find an ally in. And that same bodily
00:48:37.040experiences was that moment of shock and relief and disbelief that we felt when this decision
00:48:45.240finally came down. And so if we remember that, you know, the joy of success is allowed to live
00:48:53.560in our bodies just as much as I know we all take on the pain of hard work and the labor and the
00:48:59.700burdens and the devastation that comes with losses, you know, bringing all of those aspects
00:49:06.720into our lived experience, into our bodies, remind us that this work is one in the same
00:49:13.040and that we deserve these successes just as much as we take on the weight of the burdens as we're
00:49:22.300in the process of advocacy. I am not good at celebrating. I'm not good at resting.
00:49:32.760And that is a tragedy. That is something that I personally will continue to grow in as an advocate
00:49:40.160and activist, but really just as a human being. How do we take these successes and these wins
00:49:46.940and these moments of rest into our whole selves?
00:49:50.200How do we downregulate our stress response?
00:50:09.200I love that you said that it's a tragedy
00:50:12.940to not be able to rest and feel relief and just feel like we have to expect ourselves to
00:50:24.580fight 24-7. And I appreciate you bringing that up in context to Pebble Mind because I think it's
00:50:31.700such a good way of viewing this relationship to the work. And yeah, so definitely going to be
00:50:44.520sitting with that long after this interview has come to a close. But just thinking about
00:50:51.840Alaska and this narrative that it is solely dependent on oil and gas and it's oil rich
00:51:00.360and resource rich. But of course, there was so much richness prior to capitalism that had nothing
00:51:08.840to do with these resources. And I know also I've heard folks say, oh, Alaska is the resource
00:51:15.620colony for the lower 48. So I'm just thinking about Pebble and other projects. And if you
00:51:25.100could share what climate justice organizing looks like in Alaska, especially regarding these massive
00:51:31.400resource extraction projects, or are there any issues you'd like listeners to pay special
00:51:36.640attention to at this moment in time? Well, I guess taking the first part of your question,
00:51:43.480thinking about this false narrative of oil rich, it began before oil was even
00:51:53.780being extracted in Alaska with this myth that Alaska is the last frontier. This was a
00:52:03.080settler narrative that painted Alaska as this mysterious, wild wilderness that was foreign
00:52:11.020to people, that is white people, that was yet to be conquered. And it was the last such place,
00:52:17.780the last frontier where this type of, you know, adventure could be found. And so obviously,
00:52:24.900I hope our listeners put two and two together to realize that this is an extremely racist
00:52:30.800approach to a place that has always had a reciprocal and harmonious relationship with
00:52:37.680humanity, with our indigenous peoples who have been here for more than 30,000 years,
00:52:43.920um because we are one in nature we as humans are not excluded from nature and that the ethos of
00:52:52.720the last frontier well who was it the last two it was it was the last place that you know white
00:52:58.460settler society had yet to invade um and again you know frontier is the language it's vocabulary
00:53:05.880used to talk about battlegrounds and warfare so that eventually transitioned to um
00:53:13.480talk about oil rich as yet another compliment to the ways that Alaska and its lands and resources
00:53:24.300can serve this growing U.S. empire. It was rich because it offered a commodity that could be
00:53:34.980accumulated. It is crucial to challenge this narrative by remembering that our peoples here,
00:53:41.820our indigenous peoples of alaska and of other lands had thriving and holistic economies economy
00:53:48.140meaning management of home that were pre-commodification that were pre-material wealth
00:53:55.880that saw wealth as cultural wealth and linguistic wealth and a happy thriving community that was well
00:54:03.440that had deep interconnections that could support one another that could share the harvest
00:54:08.560And that could care for elders and invest in youth. That was what a healthy economy meant. You know, we were and continue to be extremely culturally wealthy people.
00:54:21.660And so with that reframing, I rarely ever call our people vulnerable or in need because we have so many riches that are such a far cry from oil and gas, that are such a far cry from this extractive system of exploitation and commodification that it was only very recently brought to these lands.
00:54:45.120And so if we engage with kuchu ethne, with remembering forward, with just transition, we remember that we already have our solutions at our fingertips. We already have our teachings and our learnings to live in a holistically well society and have wealth if we reframe what wealth means to us.
00:55:04.920mm-hmm gosh yes yes I really I feel that so much this reframing this internalized reframing
00:55:18.320and narrative shift is just really at the foundation of our work and I think sometimes
00:55:26.840it gets buried under these other forms of work that feel more important but without
00:55:32.320what you just spoke to, we can't really get to where we want to go. So gosh, yeah, really
00:55:40.040appreciate that. And you've previously noted the importance of building a politics of love. And
00:55:48.540I'd really like to explore this further and where such a politic might be able to breathe.
00:55:56.120You know, we are in a time where the spirit needs lifting because many are living in conditions
00:56:01.860desolate of care and love existing in varying stages of despair so how have you come to this
00:56:12.340place of truly understanding the importance of radical softness and a politic of love as we tend
00:56:21.620vessels to move us out of this storm I really spent a lot of time the past few years reflecting
00:56:30.880on this, my politics of softness, my politics of love. At the end of a very, very draining
00:56:37.980and difficult four years of college, these were the words that I decided I most wanted to share
00:56:44.340when having the opportunity to speak to our graduating class. The politics of love remind me
00:56:53.140that whatever we do, whatever intervention we make, it has to be soulful. It has to be life
00:57:00.380sustaining. It has to contribute to our wellness. And this is difficult in a society that insists on
00:57:08.700productivity and monetary wealth and strict time management. I struggle feeling caught between
00:57:17.900these two worlds every day. But the politics of love remind us that anything that's good
00:57:25.620will come from the heart. It will be tested and true by the way that we experience pleasure in it,
00:57:33.580by the way that we engage softness within it. Anything that we invest our spirit in has to be
00:57:40.840just that. We have to see a part of ourselves in it. So I think of incredible scholar mentors
00:57:47.260like Adrienne Marie Brown writing on pleasure activism and emergent strategy. I think of
00:57:52.080Bell Hooks writing all about love. It's about instilling caring, compassion, strength in all
00:57:59.820that we do so that it can contribute to systems of wellness, so that it can begin to construct
00:58:06.700little by little. Instead of systems based on oppression and exploitation and division,
00:58:11.980we can create systems that are based on caring and compassion. And this is as much a lesson as
00:58:21.880it is a practice. It's an exploration of how to be soft in a sharp world. It's about how to resist
00:58:29.140what is rigid and unforgiving and instead create places for ourself to be revolutionarily soft,
00:58:36.760to be cozy, to be kind, to be patient and to live the types of practices that we want to see
00:58:45.300our systems and our creations founded upon. I have chills and I literally feel
00:58:55.760love growing within me as you're speaking. I'm so grateful that you can speak to so many
00:59:03.880intersections of this deep work. It's really, it's very heart opening. And I could imagine
00:59:13.240the folks listening to are feeling that pulse within us and also the desire to be soft in a
00:59:21.980sharp world, to feel that love, to come from that place, to feel others coming from that place as
00:59:29.720we interact. There's just so much healing within that. So I want to be clear too, you know, we've
00:59:37.000Annie and I have discussed this before. It's really hard. It is really difficult. Um, you know,
00:59:44.280I certainly feel the responsibility to, you know, give my labor in infinite time to perform emotional
00:59:53.500labor, to give all that I can, not just to this cause, but to just about everyone, everyone else
01:00:01.600in my life. And setting those personal boundaries is a lifelong lesson. I received a really beautiful
01:00:09.920teaching from a Wampanoag elder upon whose lands I was visiting while I was in college. And he
01:00:18.560reminded us that, you know, you have to tend to your own fire, you have to kindle your own flame
01:00:25.700before you can keep others warm. And that was like a smack upside my head. Because I had spent so many
01:00:34.400years working so hard to tend to the not only the needs of others, but the needs of the movement.
01:00:41.400And I still do that. I suffer greatly emotionally with depression and anxiety, also physically
01:00:50.360manifesting chronic pain and burdensome conditions through this, you know, limitless stress
01:00:59.280that I thought I could live in. And so when we challenge ourselves to be soft, it's not,
01:01:04.860you know, this airy fairy kind of, you know, take baths and do face masks. It is a sign of strength
01:01:13.760to be soft. It is a sign of care and devotion to our bodies, our first territories, our first
01:01:22.560vessels, so that we can manifest more, so that we can give more, so that we can use our personal
01:01:28.400power in tender and meaningful ways. Some sister friends recently reminded me that
01:01:38.160we have the sovereignty to create and contribute on our own terms. And I think that first act of
01:01:46.860sovereignty has to be a dedication to wellness. You know, if we hope to create systems based on
01:01:54.400wellness then dang we better get better at practicing it ourselves oh yeah yeah I'm
01:02:03.340definitely gonna keep going back to this part of the conversation and just keep practicing
01:02:09.020keep practicing um thank you for that second part and as we begin to come to a close I
01:02:17.200just think about the importance of transgenerational knowledge and I think it's
01:02:23.580also equally important that we pass down strategies for fortitude and well-being.
01:02:29.480And I love how you just talked about taking care and tending to burnout and nourishing our bodies.
01:02:36.780And I'm wondering if there's anything else you want to share with the next generation