COMMENTARY: A message from the president of USET

As we begin another round of advocacy…and with a new 118th Congress to educate once again, I want to first acknowledge and celebrate a few of the successes and positive momentum achieved in 2022.

As promised by the Biden Administration, we continued to see more of our talented and skilled relatives from across Indian Country placed in key positions across the Administration. With special recognition and acknowledgment, we were especially proud to see longtime USET leader, and former USET Executive Officer, Chief Lynn Malerba, appointed as the first Native American Treasurer of the United States. To state the obvious, Treasurer Malerba, along with all our other relatives working inside the federal system, collectively bring an invaluable and incalculable perspective and benefit to promoting, advancing, and improving our relationship with the United States.

After years of advocacy…and as a reflection of what can be accomplished when Indian Country chooses to work in partnership, we were finally able to secure Advance Appropriations for Indian Health Services as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. While this was important for fairness and equity, more importantly, it is tremendously important for the health and wellness of our people. However, it must be understood that we are far from being done.  Not only will we have to protect and defend this accomplishment, we must equally be committed to full and mandatory funding, not only for the IHS system, but for all Indian Country funding; only then will we achieve the goal of erasing the multitude of disparities that prevent us from achieving greater health and wellness in the broadest of measures. To support this endeavor, especially for those that would choose to stand in our way, it must be understood that this is not an unrealistic, naïve or unreasonable goal, this is not charity, this is not social welfare, but rather fulfillment of a special and unique debt owed to us that exists in perpetuity. This is why the establishment of an Indian Desk within the Office of Management and Budget last year, in addition to their recent pivot and commitment to engage with Indian Country, becomes another critical piece necessary to move us towards the full and mandatory funding goal.

Related, I want to recognize and applaud the efforts and success to secure significant dollars for Indian Country as part of the various relief packages passed in recent years, including last year. However, while many are framing these as “historic” funds, and while we again don’t take this for granted and recognize the alternative would have been exclusion from these funding packages, we must remember that they are historic because they underscore the severe continued historical underfunding and Broken Promises with which Indian Country has long had to contend…Broken Promises that are core to many of our continued challenges today. So while this funding represents progress, our advocacy will continue until full and mandatory funding is achieved across the board.

Finally, we were appreciative that the Biden Administration reinstituted an in-person Tribal Nations Summit after conducting its first virtually due to the pandemic, and after four years of the prior Administration not holding any summit at all. While there are opportunities to improve and strengthen the event to more appropriately reflect the diplomatic nature of the convening, the summit should serve as a reminder of this Administration’s commitment to prioritize Indian Country. As President Biden stated in his remarks, “Everyone is entitled to be treated with respect and dignity…This is especially true for Tribal Nations to whom the United States owes a solemn trust and treaty obligations that we haven’t always lived up to…Respect means we’ll defend Tribal sovereignty and self-government and self-determination.” These are strong words, but words have no meaning if there is not action to coincide. You have our commitment that USET will continue work to ensure that this Administration, and every Administration, lives up to these words and expressed sentiments.

None of this would have been possible without the dedication and involvement of all of you…and as leadership evolves and changes over time, I want to thank all of you, but also the leaders and advocates who may have walked on to the spirit world, or who moved on to other endeavors before these successes were achieved.

While there is much we can celebrate in reflection, we must not rest on our laurels, but recommit ourselves to bringing even greater energy to the days ahead. The present is our moment. We must now take back control and become the architects of our future as our ancestors always intended. There is no other acceptable option, and it is a responsibility that we must each own.

The last few years have caused us all to think differently about the world, our priorities, our general outlook and perspective, and the responsibility that we each possess to make a positive and meaningful difference. There is a tremendous opportunity before us now to adjust, refine, and strengthen our overall advocacy approach…an opportunity to assertively push for the changes we ultimately seek without apology or reservation…an opportunity to correct failures to provide a better future for the many generations to come. But it must start with willful intention on our part to change much of the too often accepted status quo…it must start with a recognition of the need to discard colonized mindsets and antiquated paternalistic processes, including evolving away from a Federal Indian Law understanding of our rights to a Tribal Nation Law understanding… it must start with a willingness to retire the use of language that was created with ill intentions and assimilation & termination goals and objectives…it must start with a willingness to not limit our advocacy within a space that extends the courtesy of comfort to those who repeatedly fail us…and it must start with a willingness to not succumb to that which is designed to intentionally divide us and cause us to fight amongst ourselves, but rather, to focus on addressing and solving the greater systemic failures with a goal of uplifting us all.

In addition to some of the things I already mentioned, there is much remaining for us still to accomplish:

• Achieving the full recognition of Tribal Nations’ sovereign rights without restriction;
• Pushing back against challenges to the constitutionality of federal Indian law; including anticipation of the important Brackeen SCOTUS decision and fixing the challenges created by the recent Castro-Huerta decision;
• Institutionalizing secured wins for the long-term;
• Continued adjustment to a post-COVID world;
• Rebuilding our homelands and infrastructure challenges; including working to secure a Carcieri fix after 14 years of continued advocacy;
• Promotion and support for a Marshall Plan-like investment in Tribal Nations; and
• Growing and strengthening our economies without interference.

We can achieve all of this…and so much more…if we all understand the greater strength and power that is derived from partnership, solidarity, unity, trust, and respect. Collectively, they must always be our north star not only internally within USET and across our membership, but also our relations with whom we share space to protect our inherent sovereign rights and authorities.

A worldwide pandemic, devastating climate change events, broad societal division…there has been much turmoil over the past few years, that is still with us today and will require healing in the days and months ahead. There are long standing crisis that we must continue to contend with, like the ongoing opioid epidemic. There are continued threats that seek to erode and dismantle our inherent sovereign existence.

Nonetheless, I see the bright future ahead of us, but I also understand the work that we must each put in individually and collectively to achieve that bright future. Just as the morning star rises, change is now rising above the horizon in all its glory and each of us possesses the opportunity and potential to be a changemaker.

At each moment along the way, we must always remember who we are…Native…Indigenous…people who have persevered despite the greatest of odds. We are the rightful owners and stewards of our homelands…the place where we come from…the place that we will return…the place that has sustained us for generations despite the most aggressive efforts to erase us.

It continues to be my honor to serve as the President of this amazing organization, to be part of the family that is Indian Country. I thank you again for all your efforts and I look forward to a productive and successful year.