Daily Sitka Sentinel

Sitka Celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day

By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
    At the Indigenous Peoples Day celebration Monday, a variety of speakers talked about the importance of celebrating and respecting indigenous history and culture, as well as the need for emotional honesty.
    The event packed the auditorium at UAS-Sitka Campus, leaving only standing room for late arrivals.
    The keynote speaker was Lakota Harden, a health educator at SEARHC, and a noted indigenous rights activist.
    Also at the podium were Doug Osborne, who helped coordinate the event, Chandler O’Connell of the Sitka Conservation Society, Louise Brady from the Sitka Tribe of Alaska and Mt. Edgecumbe teacher Dionne Brady-Howard.
    The meeting began with Osborne “recognizing that we are on Tlingit Aani (land).” Brady replied that “I’ve felt like an outsider on my own land, and it really means a lot to have this acknowledgment.”
    O’Connell described herself as “a settler on the unceded territory of the Tlingit people,” and said she appreciated the “opportunity to honor the first inhabitants of this land.” She said she hoped people take indigenous knowledge seriously, noting that “every other month some western study comes out confirming what indigenous science has been saying for millenia.”

Izzy Jackson, holding drum, and Louise Brady get ready to perform an entrance dance with other members of the Sheet’ka Kwaan Dancers Monday night at the University of Alaska Southeast Sitka Campus. The dance was one of several held as part of the Indigenous Peoples Day celebration in Sitka. A variety of speakers talked about the importance of celebrating and respecting indigenous history and culture. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

    To build an equitable community, she said, “let’s give up power.”
    Indigenous peoples around the world have fought for survival for centuries, and to illustrate this Brady-Howard led a song and dance in which the lyrics translated as: “We are still here.”
    In her presentation, Harden began by showing a TED Talk by Nikki Sanchez, titled “Decolonization is for Everyone.” The lecture is available on YouTube. Sanchez argued that the responsibility for ensuring equity and fair treatment of indigenous people is universal.
    Harden herself then spoke about the need for emotional security, noting that so often “we start building a shield… to protect ourselves, so that we’re not put down, so that we’re not ridiculed.” She noted that since western contact began, indigenous people have been forced, often through violence, to hide their cultures and to build emotional shields.
    Harden said that “we started believing misinformation about ourselves.” The modern mass media, she said, added to this trend by creating universal and damaging stereotypes.
    Harden led the audience in a series of dyads, one-on-one conversations in which people discussed what decolonization meant to them.
    Harden acknowledged the difficulty of the topic, and hoped “to keep the dialogue going year-round,” and added: “I know that all our ancestors are really cheering for us right now.