 It is my honor to introduce our speaker for today, who is Ms. Cecil Hansen. She is a descendant within the family of Chiselle. She is served as an advocate and elected chair for the DeWamish Tribes since 1975, where she originally got involved because her brother was arrested for fishing on the DeWamish River, correct? I got lots of stories about that. Awesome. So I will say anything else about that, because she has lots of stories about it. Over the past 40 years, she has led the struggle and the DeWamish to correcting justices facing them, including the loss of their traditional lands. Y'all know the DeWamish lands, where we're at right now. The DeWamish land, all of Seattle, DeWamish land. Most of King County is DeWamish land. The loss of their fishing rights on the DeWamish River. And maybe most significantly challenging the federal government's refusal to recognize them as a legitimate historic tribe. So we're very honored to have Ms. Hansen here with us today to learn from her wisdom and her 40 years of struggle for justice. So let's give her a warm, high-lying welcome. Thank you for the warm reception I'm getting today. I'm here to speak on the behalf of the DeWamish tribe. And if you never remember anything, remember that DeWamish means the people of the inside. That's what DeWamish means. So if you don't remember, whatever thing I share within the next hour or so, DeWamish means the people of the inside. But I'll tell you more of why they're inside. As I get started, I just, I'm so delighted to be able to share what I've known in the last 40 years or 41 years regarding DeWamish. One of the things that I have been told and I tell my tribal council, we have sovereignty. And I'm gonna share about sovereignty with you. They say that every tribal nation possesses the right to a land-based possessions and control unquestionable and honored by other nations to exist without fear but with freedom. Self-governance, the ability and authority to make decisions regarding all matters concerning the tribe, without the approval or agreement of others. And I'm meeting the federal government. Well, I'll get into that, okay? You know there's people back in DC, okay? This includes the ways and methods of decision-making, social and political and other areas of life. An economic base in resources. The control and use and development of resources, business and industries in the tribal chooses, wherever the tribe chooses to reside. This includes resources that support the tribal way of life, includes the practice of spiritual ways, period. A distinct language and historical and cultural identity and the tribes define and describes in its history, including the impact of historical experience and racism, tribal culture, worldview and traditions. Now, when I started out many years ago, I said to my, well, no, I'm gonna go back. Okay, this is about losing. I better go back to 1974, yeah, 74. I was just a stay-at-home mom raising three daughters. My husband had served in the service and we bought a home which was Riverton Heights. It is now Tukwila, so we bought a home there. So I'm just a stay-at-home. My husband said, you don't have to work. He went to work for the Port of Seattle and I just had to run the home, we bought a home. The kids went to school and I just stayed at home and I loved to cook and garden and all that good stuff. And my brother, my dear brother who was fishing, that was his livelihood to fish. And he was fishing in the Duwamish River. Anybody know where the Duwamish River is? Okay, good. Okay, that was his livelihood to support his family. He was married to a lady in Auburn. And so he used to, my cousins and my brother fished in the Duwamish River. Well, when they were fishing there in the 70s, the Department of Fisheries guys would stop him and said, you can't fish. And told my brother, you can't fish here. And my brother said, I'm Duwamish. So they would sign him, give him a ticket. And he would, before he could see that guy come in, he was smart enough to throw his fish up in the bank. You know, hide him so he could come back and get him. Because to sell him, so he'd have some money for his family. So he did that for a long time. And this one particular day, he showed it up in my house and he was just upset. And I just, we talked and he calmed down. And this particular day he said to me, you know, you've got to get involved. I said to do what? Because he just got a ticket. And he said, well, just go to a few meetings. Now this is 1974. And having not been involved in tribal business or anything. So I started going to, we started meeting with the Department of Fisheries. Meeting with other leaders. And then the former chair of the Duwamish tribe, his name was Willard Bill. Well come to find out, he was not only Duwamish, but he was Muckleshoot. Ooh, that's where he's from. And I'll bring up about the Muckleshoot later. Well anyway, so we start going to a lot of meetings and this is 1974. Well the next thing, the following year, meeting with the former chair who said he was going to resign. He wanted to go on to university and teach because he was a teacher. I said, well, okay. So he handed me the chairmanship and the interim basis. And the following year they had a meeting and I was elected chair. Well, what does that mean? So I said, oh my gosh, I'm a chairman of a tribe but I don't know what I must do. But I didn't tell nobody that. I didn't tell anybody, I didn't know what I was doing. But what I happened to find out was amazing if you, and this is what I learned. So my brother said, he's always telling me what to do. He said, you have to go join small tribes at Western Washington. That is an organization where there was 30, 40 tribes that joined and there were small tribes up north that joined this organization to help them to do politically and resources to help them because they were small tribes. So I joined Stowe, that's what they called it. And I thought to myself, you walk in there with the presence that you know what you're doing. See, nobody knows what you're doing. They can't, they're not gonna say, well, she doesn't know what she's doing. So I started going to these meetings and but I thought the best way I'm gonna learn anything and this is good advice, just be quiet and listen. Because I was with other tribes who had been involved many years and I thought, well, listening to them, I'll try to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing for my tribe, which is a Duwamish. I learned a lot because these tribes that were involved at Stowe came from Oregon. At one time I was amazed who joined this organization. But anyway, they were marvelous leaders and delegates that came to join Stowe. And what I learned as I said, I listened. And then they created this organization for some non-reservations and in the meanwhile, getting back to the fishing thing, I said, oh my gosh, I'm gonna, and then we start dealing about the lack of fishing. What happened was is that we lost our right to fish. Does anybody know what the judge boat case was? Few, few know. Well, what happened was when we lost our right to fish, we went to court. Now there was other tribes that I was working with and I'll name them here, if I can find a list here. The list of these tribes that I start working with was the Samish tribe, Snokami, Snohomish, Stilicum. Let me see, did I say the college tribe down south? The Chinook, there was about seven, eight tribes that I start working with. And we were all fighting for resources and fishing rights. And meanwhile, what happened was because we were fighting for fishing rights, we lost the right to fish. So what we decided to do, well, we'll just go tell the government who we are. And meanwhile, they created this, they created this itinerary or this rules how to prove who you are. I say today, after 40 some years, no person on the face of earth has to go prove who they are. I don't care where you come from, I don't care where you come from. And I spoke, I just did a speech this last week. I don't care where you come from. Chinese, black, Indian people. I mean, we have a ballpark of different people who now reside here. And why is it the Native Americans of the United States have to prove who they are? Oh well, that's we did. Because we wanted our fishing rights in the Duwamish River. So we started, well, we got the rules from the Department of Interior or the BIA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and they sent these criteria so that we had to prove who we are. This is what we had to do. We started out in 1976, 77. We hired, we had people, our elders came out. They shared their stories about history a long time ago. We got historians that knew something about the city of Seattle. And they, but this is what we had to do. This is really mind-boggling what they told us we had to do. So I'll name a few of these things. The tribe has a distinct community since historical times. Tribal leaders have held continuous political authority over these members and since historical times. The tribe must have existing criteria for tribal membership. Tribal members must descend from the historical Indian tribe. Many tribal members must not already claim memberships and other federal recognized tribes. Well, I always said we always was recognized and to lose our fishing rights, which we did, meant we weren't recognized anymore and we couldn't fish in the Mamish River. It is the most endearing, not endearing, disgusting process to prove who you are because we worked from the 70s up to the 80s, probably 10, 15 years, writing these petitions to prove who we are. And it was my, and I just remembered myself. I said, oh, we'll just, we'll just go get this petition prepared. We'll present it to the federal government and we will get recognized in three years. Guess what happened? Well, I'm going to tell you what happened. Because, okay, we started out as 76 or 77 or petition. We got a negative determination, which I don't know what that means. I have yet to find out what, why they sent this memo saying, well, you have a negative determination. Okay, 76, 77. In 2001, we get, I get a phone call at the administration of the Clinton administration at my office at 6 o'clock in the evening, 9 o'clock back in D.C. saying, we have decided to recognize you. Well, we got all excited. But that doesn't mean we got fission rights. But we got, we got, you know, that we were going to be recognized. So we're all, I said, on Monday, I don't know where that memo is. We got this sick, it looked like it, somebody dumped it in a puddle and sent it to us. They, they put a delay or they took it away from us that Monday. So everything's on hold. So that was night 2001. And that year, they took away the recognition that they gave us at that time. So today, from 2001, we're on appeal of that decision. But I'd like to tell you that as I move around in different areas that I'm saying, who has the right to unrec, to not recognize the people of Chiefs Yelp, who, and I'll tell you about that, who was a friendly man in the 80s and welcomed all the settlers to come into the, to the historical city. What we did was when Governor Stevens showed up, they promised as many things. So our chief and our sub-chiefs, they signed a treaty and this treaty, which guaranteed fishing rights. I'm back to the fishing rights, hunting and fishing rights. Can you find an elk and a deer in around here? Anybody seen one lately? Anybody go hunting for elk or a deer? Well, we were supposed to retain our hunting and fishing rights. Gone. But anyway, we signed a treaty and this treaty said, well, we promise you lots of money, even a pot of gold. I don't know what that means because I've never seen this pot of gold that the federal government was going to hand us. So our chiefs and our sub-chiefs, they agreed to this treaty, Pornelia Treaty of 1855 and we signed up 54,000 acres, which is Seattle. This takes in this territory here, way up to north by the Linwood and down south here. I think the border is like Des Moines or somewhere. And then the other side of Lake Washington, you don't want to infringe on the Snopami people because they're on the other side. So we gave up 54,000 acres, guaranteeing fishing and promising education and medical housing, a reservation. You all see a reservation for the Duwamish tribe? No. But I must say, I have to bring it up now to the present because what we were able to do when we were waiting for this appeal on our recognition, a man and his wife approached me and he said to me, he said, Cecilia, he said, I would like to get you some land. I said, what? Because we had tried to find our own headquarters. We didn't have, see, our elders long time ago, they held their meetings and get-togethers in private homes. We're talking in the early 19... like the eight after the trees, 1855 when our people, our leaders, and then after that 1900s where they were meeting in houses, so they never had a little place where they could call their own. So I decided when I got with the chair, I said, we need our own place. So we had an office in Renton. We had an office in Burien. But every time, and then we were going to have our own headquarters at Fort Dent. You know where Fort Dent? That's a beautiful park. Do everybody know where that is? Fort Dent? What? Thank you, they know. Fort Dent, that's where they play all kinds of sports. It's by the river there. You know where South Center is? You know where South Center is? Well, I'll just go around the corner and there it is, over there. Well, we had an architect that was going to build us a headquarters. And when we got, we were going through this process, one of my tribal members and the lady that worked for me, and we were going through this process. It was weeks and we were going to meetings. The next thing I know, we were meeting with the lawyers. We had a lawyer. And the lawyer said to us, well, even if you were to have these headquarters there, you'll never own it. I said, the deal is over. If we build a complex, which is our headquarters, we want the place to be ours. Well, what happened, what the deal was, is that that park belonged to the city and they would not give the land to us. But that's okay. Now, getting back to old George, who's my friend, who said, I'm going to help you get some land. Well, I was kind of disappointed, but I didn't want to display his offer. I said, okay. He not only found us a little piece of land, two-thirds of the acre, he put the first $10,000 down. Now that's a friend. So we just geared up and we start raising money, two-thirds of the acre to the Duwamish River. That was great. Now, I say to this, and you can take this wisdom if you want, if you want to believe me, there is no coincidence of the two places we try to find our headquarters. We end up by the river, by historical villages right across the street. So we raised the money, paid for the land. I think the two-thirds of the acre was over $250,000. Remember, we gave up 54,000 acres. We didn't get a little res, but we got now, I like to say, two-thirds of the acre. And that's great. Well, I have a friend who is an architect, and he's a tribal member. He's not a tribal member, but he's a member of the Blackfeet, and he was a local person who lived here. He designed our longhouse, and we raised the money for that. It took us about five or six years, because we don't get no money from the federal government. And we were able to raise over $3 million to build our longhouse. So we now have our own longhouse and our culture center next to the Duwamish River. And then we have people who advocate to clean up the Duwamish River because it's polluted. And I want to let you know who is able to fish in that river today is the Muckleshoots. Now, the Muckleshoots have a beautiful reservation, lots of casinos and bingo halls and da-da-da-da-da. But they never signed a treaty. Never signed a treaty. So I have a little... It's my hidden agenda to be a little irritated that they're able to fish in the Duwamish River, and we're not. Excuse me. I hit my microphone. But that's the deal. So... And one thing about political stuff, I was told... And I don't even have to... I don't even have to even reach out to what's going on because people are called. Well, we got this message. The reason that we're not able to get recognition is that there's tribes that don't want us to have recognition. And you know why? I'll tell you. They think we want to build a casino. And I said, yeah, we do. I'm going to tell you where. And I'm joking because I'm always joking. I said, we want a casino in the middle of Elia Bay. A beautiful ship. And the ferries better move over. I mean, you know... But I think that's wonderful because I remember when the Piyallups had their... They had a casino was kind of... Before they even had a big giant casinos all over the place. They had one that was kind of set back but it was a big ship that they brought from somewhere in their casino. It was a beautiful place. But the thing that really irritates me is that to oppose us because we want a casino. Never in my involvement in 40 years did my council vote. Well, the reason we want recognition is we want a casino. But my daughter who works in the office said, you know, Mom, if we ever got acknowledged, we have the right because we got sovereignty and we can have a casino. But I always applaud these beautiful tribes all over the place who have casinos. If they're doing good for their people, I find nothing wrong with that. But if they're not cleaning up the drugs and the suicide and everything else that come back, then I do not applaud them in any shape or form. And you can get upset with me, but that's how I feel because you can do good with your money if you're making a lot of money. And they have a lot of casinos. I mean, look at the Pallops. Now, I'm going to get back to the tribes who oppose us. Muckleshoot, Pallop. They don't have anything. The Pallop tribe, they don't have anything, right? But they oppose us. What's the other tribe? Oh, we share the same chief. Sokmish. I'm part Sokmish. And the leader said, we can't support the Duwamish. But I don't know if he's Snoquami or... I mean, I don't know if he's Sokmish or what. But he opposes us. And it's the reason that we might get a casino. The other tribe is... There's three tribes, four tribes. Oh, Snoquami. Not the Snoquami. They're supporters. Well, I forgot that one. But there's these tribes who oppose us because we want a casino. That's ridiculous. Because we do so much better when these tribes do have casinos. And I... Like I said, I applaud them. But if they're not doing good for their families or their resources to help other tribes, then forget it. But I don't forget it. I don't forget that. But anyway... The tribes that were fighting for recognition at that time was the Sami, Snoquami, the Stilikum. Anybody know where the Stilikum is? They're still surviving. The Snoquami's, which is up north. Well, they said, oh, they just went to the Tolila. Oh, that's the other tribe. Tolila, Malkushu, Piallup, and Snoquami. And I don't want you to tell anybody, but I was born in Tolila. Well, I didn't... You don't choose your parents. Do you choose your parents? No, no, no. But they had an Indian hospital there. And that's where the moms went to have their babies. And my sister and I were born in Tolila. People who never signed a treaty opposed the Duwami's tribe on fishing and acknowledgement. I don't get it. I mean, I came back from D.C. one time and they said, well, somebody back and we were at this big meeting and they said, go back and ask the tribes why they opposed you. And so we all went, there was a bunch of us tribes, we went to Tolila and met in their community center and they said, well, they said it was because of fishing. Well, I don't understand that. It didn't make sense what they said, but you know, when people testify or they try to, you know, lie or fudge the truth, they'll say anything. But it was the fishing. But then on the other hand, I think that the tribes in the Puget Sound should be advocating and restoring because I hear so many stories that we're losing our fishing and our whales and all that stuff. Not that we eat whale, do we? None of us eat whales. But anyway, that's really sad that these four tribes have to oppose the Duwamish and it's because of money. Well, I speak out. I think it's greed, but don't they have enough money? And I was just talking to this lady about mako shoot. Well, that's the reason I'm not really in love with the mako shoot leadership because my brother married a gal from Auburn and you know what? She was mako shoot. But I love my sister-in-law. But anyway, and then my three nephews and my niece, they're mako shoot. But they're very outspoken of supporting their poor old aunt to correct the justice. But that was the reason I... I don't hate these people but I don't understand their theory because it is to casino and money, which is unfortunate. Anyway. Anyway, the other tribe would be Jamestown Sklallam. You know where that is? That's way over there. Well, you have to go north, but you have to go that way. And they call it's tribe. Well, it's really amazing that the political warfare that we go through in trying to correct injustice has been dealt not only to our tribe, but other tribes. Now, what happened here and this when I was running around with all these tribes going back to DC and testifying and going to different native organizations where we advocate for each other and then the next thing the breath knows, some of these tribes get recognized. The Sammys tribe Snoqualmie. Oh, one time I was at a tribal meeting. I'll tell you this story. And he said, I have to talk to you, Cecile. And this is the chairman of the Sammys tribe. Because we're asking for support of all these tribes to support us on our acknowledging process. He said, the reason I can't support you, Cecile, is our machines they don't have a casino, but they got machines. So we can't speak up because they'll take the machines away from me. I suppose the machines were down in Muckleshoot or whatever. And I thought, well, that's it. I mean, he's got casino machines, but he said, I can't speak up for you. So he turned his back on me. The Snoqualmie's they're doing quite well. Anybody want to their casino? Okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. No, I've been up there because the leaders up there, we went up there. We had a birthday party for one of my we had lunch up there in their beautiful casino there. But yeah, I've been there. And the casino people are my friends, but they're busy. They're busy trying to they got casino and they're trying to run that beautiful city. It's really wonderful. Have you ever a chance not to camp, but go up there and have lunch. I mean, I'm telling you, it's really, really nice. Even, even though she went there, she I think is she the only one that did you go up there too? Yeah, it's very nice. Yeah. Yeah. Jamestown Scalem. Now the chairman of that tribe, he's been there. He said I support the the Wally's, but they don't advocate for us. I think the point I'm trying to say that politically these people have a lot, a lot of ammunition that they could speak up on behalf of the tribe through who's suffering the injustice of being not recognized. Anyway the college, the college tribe and on my father's side, he's part college and those people got recognized and I guess they're building a casino too. I haven't been down there, but I used to see those people when they came to our store meeting. Well, that's okay. But I think the point I'm trying to make here is that they got recognized and they went like this and they turned their back on people who are still struggling and I'm telling you who is still struggling is the Snohomish, the Stilicum, the Womish, Chinook and there's another thing I would suggest to you that says a lot. Has anybody seen the Promised Land? Okay, I think you better get the film and show it because it's about the Womish and Chinook struggle on recognition. The Chinook tribe got recognized before we did was invited to the White House had lunch with all those dignitaries and they were delighted. The chairman and his wife were walking downtown after the luncheon and somebody called them on the phone and said we're taking away your recognition so they took their recognition so they're struggling just like we are to get their acknowledgement back. Chinook and this film The Promised Land I'm not sure about the title but it's about these two tribes trying to seek acknowledgement and so anyway and I just heard this week that this film has been shown all over the place but now I hear that they're working on this film going back to the Smithsonian which is in D.C. so to get the money to try back there I don't know if I want to go back to D.C. but you know where I went this is really marvelous they've shown The Promised Land in Hollywood and I said okay we're going so they took the film to Hollywood a bunch of us flew down to Hollywood because I'd never been there and we stayed there and they showed the film it was flew in on a Sunday they showed the film that night and we flew home but I can say I've been to Hollywood and it was quite because what had happened was it was being shown by a Native American festival and they won a little award for being shown down in Hollywood so I thought hooray hooray now it's marvelous that they're working on it that the Smithsonian wants to see this film and that's why I'm suggesting it if you want to see the struggle of people acknowledgement of The Promised Land and I don't know where you're going to get the film but maybe you can call my office and somebody knows where you can get the film to some of your classes and it's about the struggle of these two tribes anyway I was going to show that at the end of my speech but I got caught away because you know I don't like me in it but there's a lot of marvelous people that they're interviewing on the acknowledgement and recognition and I think that you might have a little bit of understanding of these people who are speaking from the Chinook with people the people that talk about it and people from our tribe too anyway let me see what else do I want to share with you one thing that we're doing today because we have to is with acknowledged we don't get no federal money from the DC authorities and we are now in the midst of especially when it's 2018 we're trying to raise money to maintain our longhouse and this hasn't even been to our longhouse wonderful well you ought to come on Saturday we're having an open house it'll be our 9th or 10th anniversary of being open so show up and my daughter said mom you should bake some cookies I said okay I might bake some cookies but all it is is an open house and one other thing one of the things I think at noon or 2 o'clock they're going to show the promised land it's about 2 hours so it is just just drop by and say that you came and seen the longhouse and it is an open house and there's not going to be anything a heavy schedule just that come in and the promised land and serve a little coffee tea and whatever and come join us and you don't have to stay just drop by sign your name and view some money no I'm just teasing but we are well because we have to maintain our longhouse everything costs money and another terrible thing that happened before Christmas evidently because we were so busy I'm busy my only job is to advocate on this acknowledgement and recognition process now you know that when something goes wrong something goes wrong well our electricity and our heating went off our refrigerator quit we didn't have no light I mean anything was going to happen quit and then one of our tribal members there was no heating no lights and but she wanted to have her wedding there they said they were joking around later they said if I showed up I was going to kick everybody out I did call back there I said there is no heating there is no lights and you're having a wedding in the longhouse and so they kind of hurried along because they knew that if I came down there I was going to kick everybody out the reason being well no you can't do that because there was no trouble but I felt bad but she wanted to have her wedding there and so she had her wedding and it was dark and they were trying to pick up their stuff and get out well you know a month ago it was dark at four o'clock so they were still there I'm telling you the intelligent of these people but I'm hoping that she's happy now that she's married and that she was married in the longhouse and I'm just encouraging you that we have lights now and we have heat and come on over yeah anyway so anyway we're actually always raising money and I'm amazed if I'm there because I want to work part time but coming there and try to take care of business for the tribe and I'm amazed if I come out in the lobby there's people that come from all of the United States and all over the world I can't believe it and I said well how do you find it they said they catch a cab or they come from the airport or they're coming back and they're going but they had to come here and I'm always so happy that they come and find us so there's no excuse to come to our longhouse on Saturday to say hello because I can't believe it so they hear about us and God is wonderful people who travel all over the world and then come over us by the Duwamish River to our culture center to visit us and not because they're curious and I find that the European people are more curious about the history of the United States and they are and we should be a little better than them but we're not but I think it's amazing that they care about the history of the Native people and they do and anyway but like I said we're always trying to raise money and well one of our people left and so we're raising money because we need more staff people we have a lot of wonderful volunteers that come and help us and I was just told we have a lot of volunteers that are coming on Saturday but actually the volunteers that are going to come on Saturday on our open house they really are not going to be doing too much because we're not cooking unless they want to serve a tray of cookies or something and make sure there's nothing coffee and tea and juice I think we should have some punch too but I'm just encouraging the guys to drop by if you've never been along you've got to come and join us for the day let me see now and as I always say to everybody that that even though people don't think we exist and somebody needs to find us out because you guys are going to college because I read this the other day that the federal government does not honor any treaty in the United States so the point of earlier treaty of 18-5 is not honored alright some get the benefits some of you are recognized but I'm telling you if we were the first signers of the point of earlier in 18-55 when we lost everything and everybody got resources after us there's something wrong but they said the point of earlier treaty and I called the Department of Justice to see how come nobody is realizing that we do have a a treaty and why isn't our tribe being fully recognized by the federal government by giving up so much and it's not fair but not fair is not fair I guess but I'm telling you as I always tell it we're still here because our people are not sitting on the reservation but they're all over the place and I think we're pretty close to 600 people well and I encourage that one day my brother was fishing and my cousin and a lot of people on the trouble of fishing on Duwamish River my brother joined because he could fish there and we got the descendancy because my grandma is buried over there and my grandma so we're part Suquamish too that they can fish in the waters and and that's good because we well I encourage in fact I encourage if you could sign up with another tribe and join them for fishing rights then go because they like to say they said everybody left Duwamish tribe no the point I'm trying to tell you is the Duwamish is still here we're still here but I'm writing my book I'm running my book for 40 years I would like to complete my book for the Duwamish tribe and then just give us back our knowledge and I can retire to finish my book I was trying to it's about this big the stuff that I wrote but you have to put it in a book form so anyway and then I can sell the book get a little bit of the pot and give the rest of the tribe anyway I've tried to kind of ball part about our whole tribe but Duwamish means the people inside and we're still here and that's it hello and thank you for being here sharing with us all of these beautiful experiences that you have but also the ones that they are not good I would like to know you mentioned something about education what part of the deal of the trial they respect about education for your people and I would like to see more for your children about education education is very important well I just told a story to our lovely lady over here education is very important my mother who was living on Queen Anne came to me and she said I'm going back to school mom was 50 years old so she went to Seattle U and she was studying medicine because she liked nursing but my folks left and went to the Bay Area to Hayward, California that's south of Oakland mother got two degrees two degrees so I say to you education is really important and I told my mother one time when she was up there I said I want to become a lawyer and she looked at me with that pain look well then what are you doing in other words I was truly involved and committed and loving the injustice that has been dealt to the Duwamish tribe and that's where my commitment was and I love lawyers they help you yes I was wondering you said that in order for DC government to recognize tribes that members can't be from more than one tribe but you also mentioned that some of your members are members of other tribes too like your chief from the Noquami tribe is also technically Duwamish too but they recognize him as a tribe but not you so how exactly do you get around that even though they're not supposed to um I'm not quite sure how I can answer that I mean I claim to be Chinook on my dad's side I'm part collards Suquamish, Noquami, Snohomish but my commitment is the Duwamish tribe so I'm not sure I'm answering tell me again I'm wondering if DC says that one of the ways that tribes get recognition is that they can't be members of other tribes but certain tribal members are members of other tribes like you just said that you're a member of multiple tribes how does that play out well I've got the descendancy I'm not the member of these other tribes but I am what I am I've got the descending from both my mom and my dad which is the collards and the Chinook on father's side and then my mother's side is Noquami, Suquamish I was telling my daughter she says my gosh it's a whole bunch of DC from these different tribes and but it's all saying you cannot be with another recognized tribe because I don't know why don't you get on the phone and call back to DC I will do that, thank you well I understand we have this wonderful website and there's also DTS at questoffice.net or drop it by and give it in my hand I don't care I always have to turn it over to somebody else it's amazing I'll tell you what happened before Christmas that's a good question this letter they're always handing my mail I opened it up and it was a check for $5,000 and they didn't want to tell them who they were I love it I don't know who that person is but they do we have a lot of donations before Christmas I'm glad that we have Christmas once a year people get generous and not only help me but help everybody that needs help yeah oh you know what we had to hire somebody to come in somebody who was very ignorant because he fooled around with two panels and didn't know what he was doing it cost us a lot of money and then we brought this other person in and they fixed everything so but it cost us a lot of money but then on the other hand we were so blessed with people donating money so we didn't go in the hole and then there's another thing that I want you to know about and you can good thing you asked that question I should have wore that t-shirt or you can get one on Saturday it's called pay rent to Duwamish and what it is it was created by not us it was created by these volunteers to help the Duwamish tribe to maintain our base and so the last figure that I heard at our last meeting for two months they've raised $17,000 it's probably more but it's called pay rent and you're paying rent to Duwamish tribe because you're on our land all of you well I don't know where you live but but if you give up 54,000 acres you're probably on the fringe isn't that something I love these volunteers who created that they were even being questionable why are you doing this and then they said well Duwamish gave up 54,000 acres we should pay rent and I love these volunteers I think they're wonderful for creating that because I never would have thought of that so does that help you great anybody else I just want to say thank you again for coming and sharing and allowing us to be on your land although I know it hasn't been voluntary I'm interested the Duwamish are kind of in this aren't there similar situations with a lot of other tribes around the country whose land is under big cities and there's an endemic problem around the country with recognition of urban tribes I assume because if there's recognition of that then that would show the incredible amount of the incredible amount that's owed to those tribes but is it true that like I thought I heard but I don't know if it's true that there's no tribes around the country who have lands that cities have been built on that have got recognition and I assume it's because it would be a very expensive recognition if it went through or whatever is that true or is that true are there any cities that have recognized the all across the country because there was nobody here before they started arriving on the east coast and the thing that really is troubling is that they forget that they were Native Americans here first and they push them out and shove them and everything else and take over their land that they had the land first and so I hope that answers your question we're not the only Native group that suffers that that injustice of being pushed and being on our land and I don't care where you go I guess what I mean is that that injustice is especially shared it's kind of the same situation with other tribes who have cities on their land because I've heard like got recognition like you were talking about with are ones that are kind of outside of the cities right but it's tribes that have land that their cities on top of is it true that they always have trouble with getting the official recognition status? I'm sure they do in fact I just heard last week I've got to get on and or ask somebody to help they said that they just last week got recognition now I don't understand I mean I hate even calling our law firm to ask them about words the process of our appeal because I get the same answer and that makes me frustrated and sad so I don't want to be sad so I don't call the lawyer because I don't want to hear the same jazz that okay it's still sitting back there in DC but it's always my hope that the outcry people who live here in Seattle say it's about time that the Duwamish gets their recognition because you know one thing I say today I'm saying I don't see the other tribes trying to help the homeless people and I say if our tribe was recognized that would be the one of the things that we could help the homeless people because it's disgusting to see these poor people up in the woods and their little camps and stuff and even though the new mayor came in and said she was going to deal with it I know she's only been on about six weeks but come on it's time to deal with the homeless people these days I mean they're there and so I just say of acknowledgement with the Duwamish tribe because we're homeless I mean we own two-thirds of the acre but you know it's not that's our res well it's our land but anyway that's the point yes honey I'm going to honey I'm going to tell you a little story I have been back in D.C. knocking on our legislators here in this and they totally ignore us and you know why they ignore us and this is true why are they ignoring the Duwamish tribe when they're being paid by tribes who've got the money to be quiet you see what I'm saying this is what's happening because I've been in Murray's office Jewel James I mean it was her name Jewel James Sally Jewel was with the Department of the Interior lived over in West Seattle she could have called the president of the United States and said it's about time the Duwamish settled the appeal and she totally ignored us she's now retired now because we have a new president and our new president doesn't like which I think it takes in Indian people so it's really sad but these legislators and McDermott he was with the yeah he introduced about three bills to recognize their tribe but he started it but he didn't do any lobbying back in D.C. you can put a bill in there but if you don't do anything it's just going to sit there and it dies and he made the commitment but the two ladies that represent our territory totally ignore us and I've been back in D.C. in their offices meeting with their people nothing yes ma'am well Murray and I can't remember the other ladies she's got huh yeah that one did you hear that well see I don't know why they get re-elected because they don't take care of really serious problems or move on or retire well I don't have any respect I don't have any respect for these two ladies because I have knocked on their doors wrote them letters other people have wrote letters to these two it's a big zero yeah well sign a petition and send it back to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and ask why is the appeal sitting on somebody's desk that's all the Bureau of Indian Affairs I don't think if you send it to the president he's got enough troubles on his desk yeah would she say no I agree yeah yes dear why don't you pose that question to us to the office you want to print out what's going on well we should create one I think we do have one somewhere regarding this whole well here's one listen this was says the government official has lied to the Duwamish people for more than a century it's time for the deceit to end you should have a copy of this this is good I was interviewed and it's pretty well to the point of everything I think yeah I thought I said oh this is a good article well thank you I think you know everything what does Duwamish mean that's it you get an A