Make no mistake: In America, if you are not a Native American, then you are a migrant, an immigrant, a visitor, a descendant of a slave forced here, or the problem itself — a colonizer.
Bibiana Ancheta reflected on "the journey" as part of crucial Indigenous perspective and cultural and personal practice.
“In man's law, sovereignty is an illusion of independence under dependence. Under nature's law, it's a Creator-gifted right, handed down through our ancestors. Passing down our knowledge, cultures, traditions, and language is vital to our survival, helps root us in our ways so we always know who we are. Without this, we become just another human being with no identity; you risk being spiritually lost. Identity comes from our culture, our culture comes from our language, and our language comes from our environment. So, to protect our environment is to protect us. That includes the water, the animals, our relatives, the Earth, and all of her resources. The teachings are that with the first salmon, we return back to the sea so that it can be shared with the salmon people how he was treated, so the salmon people know to come. We still are grateful, we still are caretakers, and we still deserve that life-sustaining resource of the meat, the seafood. We're taught if we lose our gratitude and we fail to give thanks, those resources may fail to return. It's on us to step up and protect all of the resources that sustain our life, most especially water, in dire need of our assistance, our prayers, our attention.”
— from Project 562 by Matika Wilbur
Photo by Matika Wilbur from her book Project 562, Changing the Way We See Native America.
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." – Albert Einstein