Transcript

Jaison Oliver 

Welcome back to The upEND Podcast. Before we introduce our guest, I want to introduce our guest host today. Sydnie Mares is stepping in for Josie today. She is upEND’s Communications Manager and our podcast producer. Welcome to the mic in the front of the show, Sydnie.

Sydnie Mares 

I know, thank you. I’m usually behind the scenes, so I’m really excited to be here today. We’ve been researching and prepping for this episode for a long time because we just felt it was really important to get an Indigenous perspective on our season. We’ve been talking about solidarity all season, and we’re really excited that we connected with the Warrior Women team to make this happen. So some background about why we wanted to do this episode is because family separations have been used as a colonization and genocidal tactic since before the founding of America and these practices continue today. Native children are currently removed from their homes at two to three times the rate of white children and are often taken away from their relatives and their communities, even when those placements are available. So in this episode, we’ll talk about some really difficult topics. We’ll talk about the legacy of boarding schools, but we’ll also, I think, get to some really hopeful topics, which are what Indigenous organizers are doing to preserve their culture and support their communities.

Jaison Oliver 

So we have a guest today, and Marcella Gilbert is a member of the Oceti-Shakowin Seven Council Fires known as the Great Sioux Nation. Currently living on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in North Central South Dakota, Marcella is involved with the Standing Strong Grandmother’s Group, whose main focus is to create local action in regards to child rescue efforts. Marcella is a lifelong member and student of the American Indian Movement and We Will Remember Survival Group, a water protector, wife, and grandmother. Marcella also holds a master’s degree in nutrition. Thank you for being with us today, Marcella.

Marcella Gilbert

Thank you. That was a great introduction.

Jaison Oliver 

So can you tell us about your story and your family history, how you came into this work?

Marcella Gilbert

Sure, I’ll try to keep it short. But as in the introduction, I was raised in the American Indian movement because my family played a very heavy role in the movement. My mother is Madonna Thunderhawk and she’s been at almost every major action, like from Alcatraz Island to Standing Rock. And her brother, my uncle, is Russell Means. So I was pretty much, you know, I’m part of the family. And so that was my upbringing, which is, you know, learning about who I am as an Indian person living in the United States. And so I grew up with that. And then as a teenager, I was a student at We Will Remember Survival Group, a survival school that my mother started in Rapid City, South Dakota. And I was 13 when that happened. And when you’re a teenager and you’re learning about who you are, it’s very empowering. And knowing, you know, as a teenager, a young Indian person, learning that my relationship with this U.S. government is different than anybody else’s in this country. That gives you power. 

It gave me that, I’m special. I’m someone. And as a young person, to have that information and to learn about that and learn about not just the ancient history, but the recent history of the relationship that our people have had, or forced into with this United States government, you know, that stuff you never forget. But it’s also very empowering as a young person to learn all that, because then you know where your place is, and you know who you are. And so it’s stuff that you can’t unlearn and it’s a realization that this is who I am and this is who my people are and this is my end. And therefore I have responsibility. And so that carried all the way through into my adulthood. And so everything that I did, I did from a place of confidence and power. Like I was here first. No one else can say that. I can say that. I was here first, standing on this ground right here. And so that gives me a right to be the best person I can be. You know, so I took that with me throughout my, you know, through college and anything else that I was involved in or have been involved in. You know, I come from that place where, you know, that’s what I was taught as a young person. And being a part of the survival group was an experience that I will never give up. I mean, I’m so glad that happened because it’s never happened again. You know, there’s never been a survival group like that, an educational environment like that. 

It was one of the first alternative education environments in the state of South Dakota because of the racism, and the intolerance, and the profiling. Of course, back then, profiling wasn’t a word, but now we know what it was. It was profiling. And so Indian kids were being criminalized and profiled and kicked out, and pushed out of school and all of that. And then to find a space where it’s just for us and it’s all us, all Indian kids. Cause in South Dakota, it’s still cowboys and Indians. So… to find that place where it was safe for us and to learn about who we are and where we come from and what our future could possibly be. I would never give that up. I wish we could do that again because the educational system continues to fail in Indian country. 

So, I’ve taken that throughout my life. I got a master’s degree in nutrition because I’ve always been interested in health and nutrition. So, and when I had the opportunity to go, I was asked, “What do you want to learn? What do you want to focus on?” And I said, “Well, I want to learn what my people, the Indian people, what our foods were and what’s their nutritional value.” I mean, I know what they are, but what’s their nutritional value? And the professors that I were talking to, they’re saying, “Well, you would be the expert on that because we don’t, you know, they weren’t set up at this university. They weren’t set up in any way to teach me that, to give me more of that. So I had to do my study in it. You know, I studied the local Hutterite communities that are in South Dakota. But nutrition has always been my thing, so it was really interesting to me. I’ve done a lot of research myself on the nutritional value of our foods and then relating it to our current diets and our current health and all that.

Jaison Oliver 

I love that, one, you talk about the importance of this cultural heritage and that being such an important part of your background and upbringing, but then also thinking about food and the ways that that connects you with both people and the land, right? Like you don’t, you can’t talk about and focus on food without either of those being an integral part of that conversation. So I love that food loops all of that together.

Marcella Gilbert

Absolutely. And then learning about the history. I mean, you know, it’s so amazing. It’s just a whole another part of our history that isn’t talked about, isn’t known. No one talks about how Indigenous people of this land had forced diets. And you look at, you know, forced diet changes and you look at the state of health in Indian country and we’re not doing well.

And it’s because of that, you know, that we’re not allowed to hunt like we used to. can, like right now it’s hunting season. It’s gonna be over in a few weeks. But what do we do when it’s not hunting season? I mean, you know, it’s like, you know, the process of, yeah, the process of colonization and…

Jaison Oliver 

We still need to eat, right? Mm-hmm.

Marcella Gilbert

All that, it’s definitely taken a toll on our health. that’s one of the major ways, is our food. We don’t have access to our original foods.

Sydnie Mares 

I also wanted to ask about how this history of colonization and like the legacy of boarding schools, I mean, you talk about it disconnecting from your food and at upEND, we’re focused on abolishing the family policing system or what we call, you know, more commonly is known as the child welfare system. I was wondering if you could talk about how that colonization, and the forced assimilation, separated your people from their culture, but also their families and what is the impact that we’re still seeing today?

Marcella Gilbert

So this, as you mentioned earlier, this has been going on since the invasion of our lands. you know, people, we have to sometimes give people perspective. Like, okay, we’re talking about trafficking here. If you know the story of Pocahontas, then that’s what we’re talking about. They came over here and screwed around with her people. Stole her. But of course, in history, they say that she wanted to go and all that stuff. They stole her and took her to Europe. That’s trafficking. You know, she died over there without family… And they make it sound like, she wanted to be white. She wanted to be this, you know, and… we know… So anyway, that story has continued throughout, you know, the practice of invasion and genocide and.. theft and murder and everything else that goes along with it. But the taking of children not only for… Not only for purposes of destroying a people, but for the sick thinking of sick men who take children and use them for their personal devious desires. And that kind of thing was unheard of in our communities.

Children were considered sacred. And so when you do that, you destroy a whole family when you take their children. And because we weren’t considered human and we were criminalized for being alive and owning land, having land, not owning it, but being on a piece of land that they wanted, we were criminalized for being there. So we were never looked at as part of the human family. And so when you dehumanize people in that way, then it’s okay, you know, it justifies the mistreatment. And so even before boarding schools happened, there was so much death and destruction and so much, you know, genocide happening.

And then by the time the Europeans got to our lands in the middle of the United States. They were going through all their own hardships too. They were fighting each other and stealing slaves. They were doing all kinds of stuff. But by the time they got to our country, they came thinking they were going to just keep moving and destroying and taking and all that. But when they got to our part of the country, they couldn’t beat us. Their military couldn’t beat us because our tactics were different. And so we were kicking butt. And that’s why we have treaties. Not because we wanted them. Because they wanted them, And they’re all considered peace treaties because they couldn’t beat us. Our military was better than theirs, and we were wiping them out. And so…

That’s why we have the treaties. And in those treaties, even though there was a language barrier, you know, that our people didn’t speak, we couldn’t speak each other’s languages. But our ancestors made sure that in some way, our people were going to be taken care of, in some way. And so we got some of the treaty obligations. Access to some of our lands and hunting grounds and things like that. But a part of that was schools for our people. And if they weren’t going to be able to wipe us out militarily, they had to figure out a different way to do it. And they found that taking children was one of the best ways to do it because it destroys the family immediately.

And when you do history about what happened to our people when our children were taken, it didn’t just devastate the mother, the men had nothing to fight for. It was so heartbreaking for them that their stories of them going into battle with the intent to die because they didn’t have their children. And of course, the mothers were… It was just such a devastating situation. But the invaders picked up on that. They’re like, so this is how you do it. You take their kids and you got to take away their beliefs, because no matter what they did to us, we still had our belief systems. We still knew who we were. We had our connections to the land. We had our language, all that. Even though they took away our food, we still had our language and our spirituality. 

But they wanted that too. And so that’s through the boarding school system by taking our children. And it wasn’t so much about destroying families as it was to destroy the Native heart, and mind, and language. And so that’s what they did. It was military governmental policy to have all the children taken. And they were taken. They didn’t come and say, here, sign up. They said, no, we’re coming and we’re taking your kids. And so that trauma of having your children torn from your arms has lasted. It’s an undying trauma. And so that’s one of the effects that we, know, so, you know, we don’t trust white people.

So the boarding school system has definitely created a Indian person that has no place, because they’re not white enough to be respected among the white people. But in Indian country, they don’t know their language anymore, they don’t know those ceremonies anymore, they don’t know how to… Because they were raised in an environment where there’s no mother or father, no one to care for them. No one to care, like to love them and to teach them and to, you know, tell them it’s going to be okay. There was none of that. So you take a young person, raise them like that, and then send them back to their people. They don’t know where they belong. And the people are like, okay, what? Who are you now? Okay, we recognize you, you know, you’re my relative, come and stay with me. But this person doesn’t know the, you know, they’ve forgotten the language. They don’t know their role in our societies anymore. And those things were taught at a very young age. 

I mean, our girls, when they went through their womanhood ceremonies, they were taught to be mothers and to take care of a family and to take care of a home. And the same way with the young boys. When they went through their manhood ceremonies, they were taught how to provide for their family. And there’s a lot involved with that, a lot, because it’s connected spiritually. It’s connected to the land; it’s connected to your relatives, you know. And so going to boarding school… I think my generation was the last generation that had the churches control the boarding schools. And so…when I went, in the playground there’s a fence that went, you know, right down the middle of the playground. And the boys were on one side and the girls were on the other. And me and my brothers would stand at the fence and visit and they would come and they would hit our hands if we touched the fence. So we weren’t allowed to even communicate with our siblings. 

And among our people, the brother-sister relationship is the most important. Aside from the mother, it’s the brother and sister because that’s the relationship where you learn how to treat each other, where you learn how to get along and you, you know, the sister always, always takes care of the brother. he, whatever he needs that a woman needs to provide, like, you know, if he needed new moccasins or, you know, he needed new clothes or whatever.

And that carries on today. We still have families, you could tell. It used to be a competition and it wasn’t a competition where you, it wasn’t like an outward competition. It was more of like, you know that that man over there, when he’s dressed up really well, you know that his sisters are taking care of him. When he’s looking really good, it’s not because of him, it’s because of his sisters. And so that relationship was cut off in boarding school. We weren’t allowed to be around each other. And when I was in boarding school, we weren’t even allowed to talk to each other. that breaks. So you imagine being in boarding school for however many years and it’s heartbreak every time there’s a situation where it could be hopeful, you know, I’m to get to see my brother today, but then I can’t talk to him. So it’s a constant heartbreak situation, you know, and so it’s not only affected families. It’s affected our hearts, and our spirituality, and our self-esteem. You know, who am I? Who am I? You know, if I grew up in boarding school, who am I? Am I a product of the Church? But the Church doesn’t love me like my family did. You know, they beat me. They did things to me that my family would never have done. So who am I? What was the result of spending time in these boarding schools? 

And so what we experience, and this is trauma that continues to be passed on, we don’t know how to parent. We have to relearn how to parent. We have to relearn how to love ourselves so that we can love our children and those around us. We don’t know how to be in relationships. We have to learn how to be in relationships. And so, you know, it’s affected every aspect of being a loving, caring human being because the boarding schools were opposite that. We weren’t considered human, so we weren’t allowed to be loved or cared for. And so, the boarding schools don’t exist anymore other than to, not like they did back in the 60s. Like I said, I think my generation was the last generation that experienced those horrific, violent schools. And there’s still boarding schools now, but they’re not like that. There’s schools where kids go to live to go to school, and they’re taken care of. They’re not anywhere near that. So.

So we have communities that struggle with all kinds of, well, poverty, for one thing, because our reservations are not allowed to thrive. We have to be subjects. We’re considered subjects of the government. So, they decide. So there’s a lot of poverty, at least on our reservation, upwards of

of 70, 80 % unemployment, know, there’s 60 % people who are dependent on the handouts, you know, so, and then we’re isolated, you know, we’re in a part of South Dakota that doesn’t really, there’s not much there. It’s cattle country. So if you’re not a rancher, you know, the poverty is there.Then you add to that all these abuses that you learned at boarding school tend to be perpetuated among your own people. So it’s definitely, I believe that if the intention was to destroy us, it worked because we struggle with every single health issue. I mean, like I said, unemployment. We don’t know how to get along. You know, we have to relearn how to be a human being that’s able to have healthy relationships.

And many of us are, you know, I’m not saying that 100 % of us are screwed up because a lot of us are helping ourselves and figuring this out and moving in directions that improve our family situation. It’s not everybody, but it’s enough that has a detrimental effect on our future.

Jaison Oliver 

So I’m wondering, Marcella, if you can, now that we’ve gotten some of that context on boarding schools and the ways that they’re still influencing Indigenous and Native families, like how are indigenous communities organizing to keep families together? What does that work look like?

Marcella Gilbert

So most of that is happening through different organizations that have formed in Indian country. We’re reclaiming a lot of our societies. The womanhood and manhood ceremonies, those have come back in the last 20 years really strong. And that has really helped our young people, the ones who go through it. Because that’s where they’re finding their identity. They’re finding out that they are special. This is a special time of your life, and these are the skills that you should have. So that’s really helpful. And the women who are organizing those have also organized societies of women that their focus is to teach young families. And it’s usually the women, young women, you know, give them skills. Let’s relearn how, you know, how do you dry meat? What are the, what are our wild foods that we can harvest and when and where and what do do with them and how do they taste and how do you cook them and you know, all that. So the societies are coming back slowly and offering these kinds of opportunities for young people to be prepared.

And then there’s, you we have a large population of people who are involved in academics and, you know, they come back and they help with, you know, almost every reservation has a tribal college. So our tribal colleges, you know, take time to really focus on the treaties and focus on the history and focus on the effects of genocide and colonization and give our people an understanding of why it’s the way it is. We don’t choose to live in poverty. We don’t choose to not get along with each other. This is why. And it’s interesting because when I did my research and I continued to do research on nutrition, but it was interesting to me to learn that when our people were in concentration camps and we weren’t allowed to have access to our own food, they took away all our weapons so we couldn’t go hunting. They, you know, we were in concentration camps so we couldn’t go harvest foods. And, and, you know, the real, they gave us, they gave us strange foods like flour and sugar and pig, pig fat and, you know, stuff that we had no

We had no, I mean, pigs aren’t even from here. And so it was strange and we didn’t know what to do with it. But that was the time that we learned how to make fried bread. Because our people were not bread eaters. Wheat is not even from this country. And so we, you know, and we were mobile, our people, the Great Sioux Nation, we were not an agrarian tribe.

We traveled, we followed the buffalo. So we were always on the move. And so we, you know, we didn’t do a lot of planting. And so, you know, learning that, that’s when we first learned how to use a frying pan was in those concentration camps. You know, that’s the first time that’s where fry bread came from. Because we didn’t know what, you know, someone taught at someone. taught us how to use flour and sugar and oil and all that. So that was a result of that. And when I talk to elderly people, and this was, geez, 20 years ago, the elders then, they were like, well, some of them were, they revered fry bread because it kept our people alive.

Because our people, many, many, many people died from starvation because our people had a spiritual belief with our food and we believed that you didn’t eat certain foods. You didn’t eat animals that were stink. And of course, we didn’t eat foods that we had no idea what it was. So some of our people, they were just like, okay, this is it, I’m out, I’ll just starve to death. And so they did. And then others, of course, the little ones and the elderly, you know, they had no choice. It wasn’t a choice for them. They just ended up starving because there wasn’t enough food. So, you know, that kind of history, learning of how this whole colonization affected every aspect of our lives. And so that’s a lot of reclamation we need to, that we’re working on now. And all that’s coming back. Mean. Our herbalists are back. You know, there’s a large number of women who are taking on bringing back the value of plants and how to use them to heal.

So it’s exciting that way because we’re getting to that point.

Jaison Oliver 

Yeah, I like that. One thing that you had mentioned, you had brought up conflict, like conflict within the community, especially as people are learning to be back in relationship and in community with one another after going through so much over generations, right? Like being stripped of your culture and the ways of being together. I’m interested in… community accountability, one thing that we talk about at upEnd is just our obsession as a culture with punishment and punishment as opposed to accountability. So I’m curious about the grandmother’s group that you’re involved in and then ways that you all are really centering community accountability and support as opposed to separation and punishment as ways to deal with conflict.

Marcella Gilbert

Yeah, so I think the way that we’re looking at this is taking—because we know our history and we live through it, many of our grandmothers in our group are elderly. They’re in their late 70s and 80s. And our group is called Washageya Naji, and that’s the Lakota for standing strong. And it refers to the strength of the heart that can move you to be, you know, to stand strong for whatever. So one of the ways, well, there’s a couple ways, but we focus, we try not to focus on all the crap. You know, like, let’s not focus on why you’re doing such a bad job, or it looks like that. Let’s focus on who we are and what we can do to help this situation. And so the parts that we focus on are our spirituality and getting that back, you know, getting people back into looking at that because there’s so much that it offers, especially when you’re in ceremony and it’s just such a, you know, renewing, you feel renewed when you come out of ceremony because everything makes sense, no matter how screwed up the world is, on a spiritual level it makes sense, you know, that what’s happening here is temporary.

We need to not be so, get so crazy about it. So that helps. Getting people to that place where they find hope. And then our, you know, our traditional kinship ties. Like everybody, everybody in Indian country knows how important grandmothers are. And so… we focus on, you know, remind them of their spirituality no matter what it is. Because of the colonization of our people on our reservation, greater than 60 % are Christian. And so we encourage them, go pray. Whatever it is you do, go do that. And, you know, do it whenever you need to.

But we also focus on our kinship ties. You know, because the grandmother, what the grandmother means among our people is still the number, you know, people respect your grandma no matter what. They listen to your grandma no matter what, you know, that kind of thing. And so we encourage, not only learning about your, you know, who’s the important person in your life. And then bringing them in, you know, and helping them to… Anyway, just working together, you know, bringing as many people as we can to help this person who within their family. Because we don’t want to do things for them because then that’s not helpful. But if we help them to help themselves, then…they can stand strong on a path. They know where they’re going and they know that they have help getting there. 

And just, you know, encouraging people, don’t be afraid to acknowledge that you don’t know how to be a mom or you don’t know how to be a dad. Let’s talk about it. There’s places, you know, let’s talk about it. Because some people are like, well, I don’t know how and I’m not good at it, so I’m not going to do it. Well, you should have thought of that before you had kids. But the kids are here now, so let’s figure out what’s the best way to do this. 

And because the grandmothers are really strong because of the effects of the boarding school, we’re losing a generation. And that generation is still having kids but they’re not taking care of them. That’s why there’s so many grandparents who are raising children now. And I think it’s all over, not just in Indian country. so, you know, we’re looking at finding those societies and finding those groups and programs that support us in creating opportunities for young people and focusing on young people, so that if they already have kids, let’s help this young family out. 

Because there are families, I’ve seen many in our community on the reservation, young families, and they want to be a family. But because of poverty, there’s no housing, there’s no jobs, no childcare. So right away, they’re thrust into hardship. We try to provide support and advocate for them to any of the programs that are going on, any of the societies that work with young people. The societies are becoming very important because they’re the ones for the girls. There’s a lot because the women are really getting organized around it. And the ones for the men, we have to support because they’re struggling a little bit to get it together. But but they’re coming back. And that’s the important thing is, you know, we’re encouraging them to go to those ceremonies. Don’t be afraid to go because that belongs to you. But it’s work, you know, because it’s not an easy thing. 

We got families who just are, you know, the addiction situation can be really, really bad. And, you know, every parent wants to be a parent, but if they can’t get over the addiction, it becomes a hard realization that, okay, these kids are not going to have their parents, so what do they do? 

And so building and working with our tribal council, and my mother has been involved in this for, geez 20-some years now, maybe 30 years now, in bringing the attention to what’s happening in Indian country with Indian children, and specifically in the state of South Dakota, because it is trafficking. You look at it and it’s kidnapping traffic, because you hear the stories, we hear the stories of how parents and grandparents, the children are being taken. What’s happening with those who are struggling with addiction, they end up in jail. And if a girl is pregnant and she’s in jail and has her baby in jail, that baby literally disappears. We can’t find those kids. We don’t know what happened to them. So immediately the young mother is, because she has an addiction problem or whatever it is, she’s not considered human anymore. So we’re back to that again, you know. And my question is, when have we ever been considered human? You know, and so we’ve been struggling with that since the invasion because that mentality has not changed.

Sydnie Mares 

It’s like so it’s such a different mindset from the like, white supremacists, the parents-two-kid nuclear family to think about family as being much broader than that being even your grandmother, that’s not your grandmother, right? Or your, your aunt, that’s not your aunt. 

I guess my question was, how do you imagine, if you could reorganize the world so that no kids are taken from child welfare and adopted out, or trafficked as you say it’s kind of more accurate to say that, right? Like, how would you rearrange the world in your community to imagine what it would be like for kids to be supported by the whole community? Like what would that look like for you? What would they need?

Yeah, my question to you, Marcella, was just how do you imagine a world without family policing, without child welfare? You know, what would that look like in your community? Like what support would you need to make that happen?

Marcella Gilbert

So one of the things that the Grandmother’s Group did is we worked with a nonprofit out of Connecticut back in 2018. And as a result of our collaboration, they built a children’s village. And that was specifically to offer foster care for Indian kids from that reservation.

And right now the tribe has purchased that village and it’s closed, but they’re going to reopen soon. But I’ve learned many things because I was the director of that village for a year. And one of the things that I know absolutely what our communities and all communities in Indian country needs is support services related to counseling.

I think that every school, high school, college in Indian country, there should be a counselor or two or three available because the trauma that our people experience is almost in our, it’s like it’s in our DNA. It’s perpetuated over the generations because it’s so, you know, it’s just really hard. I think having counselors for everybody, everybody and their dog, having an adequate law enforcement agency, an adequate court system, because our children’s court is lacking.

Our civil court is lacking, so families aren’t being supported. It’s more about punishment than it is about helping and improving situations for young families. And I think those things need to happen in Indian country so that we can heal enough to see beyond our trauma and help each other move forward. And the grandmothers provide that.

No matter where you go, there’s a group of grandmothers doing what they need to do or what they want to do. We also need resources to help grandmothers who are raising grandchildren. Because in our community, on our reservation, we have just within our grandmother’s group, there’s about 12 of us who are involved. And out of those 12, eight of us are taking care of 32 kids.

That’s a lot. I mean, we have a grandmother who had 12 grandchildren in her home because she didn’t want them in the foster care system. Because the foster care system does not validate grandparents. They ignore the Indian Child Welfare Act. They violate it regularly. They don’t even consider it to be an official law. 

So the state of South Dakota perpetuates the violence and the kidnapping and the child trafficking of Indian country because the state of South Dakota gets money from the federal government for every child that is in foster care, no matter if it’s white or Indian, the state will get money. And if those kids have any kind of mental health issues, they get more money.

And so what happens in South Dakota is they get a child, they take a child from a family, they get them in their system, boom, right away they get some money from the feds. But if that child has mental health issues, they’ll get more. So what they do is they label all our Indian kids as special needs. And they validate that by saying, these kids always run away.

And they do, it’s common for Indian kids, they run away every chance they get. And so that’s considered a mental health issue, that’s considered a special needs child. So then the government gives them more money. So the state of South Dakota gets, that’s how they fund their state. Not just through that, but that’s one of the ways that South Dakota funds their state is by child trafficking, Native kids. 

It’s an issue that isn’t easily, I mean, it takes a lot of work to be a group of grandmothers who are trying to take on the state of South Dakota because we don’t have funding, we don’t have the resources that the state has and they have the backing of the US government. So it’s huge. It’s a big issue. so, you know, we could use some really good lawyers who are committed to taking on the issue of child trafficking. 

We need some really good counselors to help us keep up the fight and to counsel the young people who are experiencing trauma because the state will come in and they literally like, when I say kidnap, it’s real. They usually come to the reservations or any Indian population in whatever city and they find out what school this kid is going to, and they take them from school, and the child and parents never see each other until they’re in court, if the parent is notified of the court date in time. And all of this is documented. The Lakota People’s Law Project did a huge spotlight on this whole issue in South Dakota back in 2013, and I think it lasted through 17 or something, but all this is documented how this is happening in South Dakota.

And so those are the resources we need in Indian country to save our kids. need the healing part. We need adequate law enforcement and the court system. And of course, not living in poverty would be nice to actually have a home to live in so you can take care of your kids and a job so you can take care of your home, that kind of thing.

Jaison Oliver 

I want to ask and take a moment, when you say law enforcement, what are you thinking about there? Like, what do you envision? Because I’m thinking about the movie Warrior Women and talking about the relationship with law enforcement definitely came up in that as well, right? So when you say law enforcement, what are you imagining?

Marcella Gilbert

Well, I’m thinking more actual officers on the ground that receive training related to, what would you call it? Because you know, most law enforcement in this country, they get like military training. So we need more officers on the ground, but we also need training related to trauma that families experience related to domestic violence or addiction or whatever it may be and focus on the kids. Like, you don’t just take them away from the family because something’s happening, you know? And the grandmother’s group is like, “Don’t take the child, take the whole family.” The whole family needs to go into treatment. The whole family needs counseling. The whole family needs a safe place to be until they can figure, you know, get some healing and figure out how they’re going to be a family. Because right now it’s just take the kids and they take it because they take the child because they think they’re providing safety for the child. And I’m sure they are. But when you tear a child from their family, that’s just more trauma. So when I say law enforcement, I mean, having more police officers on the ground, but also more training that’s directed and focused on what’s happening in that community.

Jaison Oliver 

And are you seeing them be helpful now? Like I’m wondering about what your experiences are with police officers. Because when some people, when they say law enforcement, they might mean alternative responders, right, that are coming in and trying to help people work through crises that they’re experiencing because they find that the traditional police officers might escalate issues as opposed to like helping to solve them. So I’m curious about how you’re seeing police support the well-being and safety of Indian and Native communities. Yeah, how that’s looking from your vantage point?

Marcella Gilbert

That’s one of the things that the Grandmother’s Group is trying to get the tribe to rejuvenate is to reinstate the Child Welfare Task Force. And that’s what they would do when a child was in crisis, the police officer would call the task force and they would step in. and provide some support to the child and the family. That’s one of the things that we’re working on. But the thing too in Indian Country, especially in our reservation, because we’re pretty isolated out there.

The police officers, we’re all related to each other. They know each other. My uncle was the police chief. You know, my cousin’s husband was a police, you know, it’s like that. So it’s a small enough community that the police officers know everybody and we’re all related. 

There’s expectations that are put on the police officers as well. If you know that your cousin’s kids are in trouble, then the grandmothers step in and they’re like, well, these are your relatives. You know, let’s think about this and let’s do what’s right here. You know, that kind of thing. But it’s a tough situation because, you know, we have all the problems that exist with poverty.

So those are the areas that I think we need support. Of course, there’s many more. We need housing, we need jobs, we need better schools, need all that. But in order to keep our families together, we need some serious counseling services and facilities where people can go. And that’s our big push is like, okay, you bought this children’s village, then let’s implement a family restoration. When a child is in crisis, that means the family is in crisis. So take all of them and put them in this house over here and they get all the resources they need to heal.

So that’s what we’re pushing for. It’s a long, I’ve been involved in this for four years now and it’s a very slow process because there’s not enough resources. 

JAISON 

In this conversation, questions about policing come up. At upEND, we believe that abolishing the policing and all carceral systems (rather than reforming them) is the only way to make our families and communities safe. We also believe in telling full and authentic stories and making space for guests to share their thoughts and ideas about how to address the problems in their communities.

After all, the purpose of this podcast is to learn together in community.

To learn more about evaluating reforms vs abolitionist steps to end the family policing system, visit upendmovement.org/framework 

Sydnie Mares 

I wanted to ask also about the film Warrior Women. If y’all have not seen it, we’ll put a link to where you can watch it in the episode notes. But Jason and I were able to watch the film and I feel like I learned so much. And it’s kind of one of those things where you learn about something, you realize how much you don’t know, and then you want to learn more. So I was wondering what stories are you seeking to preserve and share through the film and your oral history efforts with the Warrior Women Project?

Marcella Gilbert

I think with the film, the first thing I think about is how important women are in our cultures.

You know, the film highlights a part of our history that is unknown. Because, the media, and it says it in the film, my mom talks about it in the film, because the media is focused on men. The women were left out of the history and out of the stories of our fight to be who we are and most importantly, when Elizabeth approached, she was like, “Hey, let’s do a film,” and my mom was like, “No, no, we’re not doing the Madonna Thunderhawk show. I’m not doing it.” 

And Beth was like, well, you know, she’s telling her this, this, and this, because she had all those interviews of women over 20 years. And she continues to do that. I mean, part of the oral history project is to continue to get those stories.

And, but my mom said, “Okay, I will do this. But it’s not going to be a film where, you know, it’s got 15 minutes of fame and then it sits on a shelf somewhere. She said, I want this to be in the educational system. This is history. And it needs to be in universities and schools across this country because this is our history on this land with this government. This is the history of this country.”

And that’s what she wanted, that it become part of the academia, where it’s part of the history of this country, because it is.

Sydnie Mares 

I hope people are watching it as we did. I I think that I’ve been recommending it to everybody that I know.

Marcella Gilbert

Awesome. We’re trying to get it into as many schools as we can.

Jaison Oliver 

Yeah, one of the moments from the film that struck us, especially as we’re thinking about solidarity this season, is how Black Power movements were deeply connected to Indigenous resistance. What have Indigenous movements learned from other movements? And then what can perhaps the abolition movement learn from Indigenous resistance?

Marcella Gilbert

Wow, that’s a really good question. It’s so important that we support each other. I mean, I remember when I was in Survival Group, my mom was like, okay, this is what’s happening and this is what you’re going to learn. And we had to all research one person from the Black Panthers. And I remember I had to…who was it? Huey?

Anyway, I did my research on part of that, and this is just listening to my mom talking, the things that they accomplished. You know, because of the work that they did, they were feeding children in their communities and that was unheard of before then. And because of what they did, now children everywhere have meals. It’s like all the work and all the intelligence, that’s the thing that I really connected with was when she would talk about the Black Panthers and the Black Power movement, how smart they were in moving forward and standing unafraid and you know making that example of being powerful in your skin. And I think that was really encouraging for her and it was for me when she was telling us you know teaching us, this is what you need to know this is what’s happening. It’s not just about us, it’s everywhere we have to learn and we have to learn to support and to learn from. Because our stories are the same. We have the same colonizer and the same violence.

And I think that, because we’re in the same boat, it just makes sense that we continue to support each other as we move forward and continue to share that sense of pride and to stand unafraid. I mean, that’s what’s gotten us this far, is to not back down and to have that courage to stand and not be afraid because truth always prevails.

Sydnie Mares 

That was so helpful. I feel like that’s such a good place to like wrap up our conversation because that’s one of the things we wanted to talk about this season and why we wanted to talk with you is because we’re exploring how our freedoms and our liberation are connected with each other. And thank you for bringing that perspective.

Jaison Oliver 

So with that, yeah, and so with that in mind, where can people connect with you and your work? How can people stay connected with you and the work that you’re a part of?

Marcella Gilbert

So the best place would be the Warrior Women Project because right now, working with the Grandmother’s Group, you know, that group was started by my mother and several other women in our community. So the Warrior Women Project supports the grandmothers as best that we can. And so, you know, because we’re connected so closely, Beth knows everything that we’re doing every day and what’s going on in our community. Absolutely. She’s really working hard.

Jaison Oliver 

And please, please give our thanks to Beth for helping make this happen also.

Sydnie Mares 

Yeah.

Jaison Oliver 

All right, well, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate you sharing your insights. We hope that you’ve enjoyed your time with us on the podcast, and we’re excited for the conversations that will continue among our listeners who will get to hear this.

Marcella Gilbert

Awesome, yes, thank you for having me and I hope that your listeners will contact their local school or college and say, hey, you need to bring Warrior Women and you need to bring the team. Thank you.

Jaison Oliver 

Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Sydnie Mares

Let’s do it. Y’all go click the link in the description. Thanks. Bye.