WASHINGTON – For Oliver “OJ” Semans, President-elect Joe Biden’s expected choice of New Mexico Democratic Congresswoman Deb Haaland as the first Native American secretary of the Interior Department isn’t just about the policies she’ll pursue for Indian Country or the tribal relationships she’ll be overseeing.
It’s also about the simple act of acknowledgement.
“Deb being in the Interior would be removing that invisible cloak that they have put on us all these centuries and making more and more people aware we are here and who we are,” said Semans, a political activist and an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.
For more than 171 years, the federal agency responsible for managing the U.S. relationship with hundreds of recognized tribes has never had a Native American at its helm.
Many Native Americans have viewed that lack of representation as not just a lack of respect. It has been viewed as proof that the country that drove their ancestors off their land, forced them into assimilation boarding schools, repeatedly broke treaties, and ignored the high unemployment and other injustices of reservation life had no abiding interest in resolving the wrongs of the past.
That changes with Haaland.
“A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior,” she tweeted Thursday evening. “Growing up in my mother’s Pueblo household made me fierce. I’ll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land. I am honored and ready to serve.”
An enrolled citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna Native American tribe, the 59-year-old Haaland serves on the House Natural Resources Committee. She is one of only two Native American women in Congress along with Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kan.
If confirmed by the Senate, she will oversee a sprawling agency that not only includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Indian Health Service but also manages and administers 55 million acres of estates held in trust by the United States for Native American tribes. In addition, Interior is home to the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service,
Pressing issues such as land rights, health care, and sacred site protections may not be resolved to every tribes’ satisfaction in a Biden administration, advocates acknowledge. But there’s a sense of hope that with Haaland, they have a key ally in the cabinet and that true give-and-take on hot-button issues might finally take place.
More:2020 Democrats are stepping up their courtship of Native American voters. Here’s why.
“What you’re hearing across Indian Country is a huge sigh of relief,” said Judith Le Blanc, director of the Native Organizers Alliance and an enrolled member of the Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma.
“We just made history,” she said. “For the first time, we will have a person sitting in the leadership of the Department of the Interior who understands the responsibility of our ancestors. She understands the sacred, the inherent and the legal right that Indians have to be caretakers of Mother Earth.”
‘Indian Country has been left behind’
During her two years in Congress, Haaland has been an advocate for voting rights protections and more resources for communities of color, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on communities of color, particularly Native Americans.
She has called for a rapid deployment of resources and supplies to Indian Country to help stop the spread of the novel coronavirus where a lack of running water and adequate sanitation in some areas has exacerbated the spread of the virus.
“Every single community in this country deserves access to the tools to fight this coronavirus,’’ Haaland told USA TODAY in an interview earlier this year. “Communities of color are at a higher risk of being ignored and not getting what they need … We just have ignored or neglected certain communities of color along the way and it’s come to this.”
She also said the Indian Health Service has consistently been underfunded.
“Indian country has been left behind for decades,’’ she said. “That is a failure of the federal government to live up to its trust responsibility.”
Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation who co-chairs the Native Caucus in the House with Haaland, called her a “good friend.”
“She is also a fierce and reliable advocate for Native Americans,” he said in a statement. “We not only share a special bond through our tribal heritage and extensive knowledge of tribal history in the United States, but we have a shared understanding that tribal issues are non-partisan issues.”
Looking to move on from Trump
Biden’s pick of Haaland comes after an election where Native Americans helped the Democratic nominee flip key states such as Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin. Native American activists, such as Semans, say the vast majority of Indian Country leans left but that President Donald Trump’s policies and rhetoric helped motivate turnout against him.
Since he took office in 2017, Trump has reversed Obama administration decisions by approving the Keystone pipeline and Dakota Access Pipeline over objections from nearby tribes citing environmental concerns and treaty rights surrounding sacred sites.
More:Judge orders Dakota Access pipeline shut down pending review
Trump also has offended Native Americans with his praise for Andrew Jackson, who led the slaughter of tribes as an American general and forcibly removed them from their lands as president. And his “Pocahontas” nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, who apologized this year after claiming Cherokee ancestry, has been widely reviled by Indigenous people.
Haaland, who endorsed Warren in the Democratic presidential primary, told USA TODAY last year that tribal leaders she speaks to are “devastated” by the president’s behavior.
“They hate the rhetoric,” the congresswoman said.
Honoring the treaties
Le Blanc is hoping Haaland is able to convince the Biden administration to honor the treaties between the U.S. and sovereign tribal nations by making sure tribes agree to changes, such as those related to energy development or infrastructure, that affect their land under a doctrine known as “prior informed consent.”
More:Biden meets with Arizona tribal leaders to discuss his proposed Native policy proposals
“We’ve suffered since first contact from a callous disregard for our rights as sovereign nations,” she said, citing favorable recent rulings from several courts including the U.S. Supreme Court. “Our treaties are the law of the land.”
Semans, co-executive director of Four Directions, agrees that upholding the treaties is the foundation to any improved relations between Washington and more than 500 federally recognized tribes.
But having Haaland in the cabinet is an inspirational pick that by itself will help the nation’s 5 million-plus Native Americans feel like they are finally being heard, he said.
“One of the things that creates problems for Indian Country is the fact that we’re not even considered most of the time when it comes to political decisions, political appointments or actions taken,” Semans said. “Her being there is going to be just as important as the decisions that she makes as secretary of interior.”
Contributing: Deborah Barfield Berry, Nicholas Wu
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/18/deb-haaland-as-bidens-interior-secretary-praised-by-native-americans/3945357001/
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