 You're not a human on a spiritual journey, you're a spirit on a human journey, and it's about our spirit-to-spirit connection. So whatever we can come together for this generation, we need to. Starting there with the young people, exchanging cultures, ideas, exchanging friendship, it's critical. It's really, really important. When you say, I love you, I say, because of you, it means my heart embraces your heart. My soul embraces your soul, and I give you my full trust. But do we really do that? Do we really embrace one another? Do we really love one another? I was scrolling Facebook, and a story popped up on the Lakota Sioux in the Pine Ridge Reservation. And then a few days later, I was in a meeting, and somebody mentioned Sister Cities, and just I had the flash of insight wherever that comes from, where it just dawned on me that, huh, Indigenous nations are sovereign, and the Sister Cities organization is there to form relationships internationally, so why not explore the possibility of having a Sister City with an Indigenous nation, a tribe? And so I approached Carmen Ramirez, who is our cultural broker. My partnership with the Sister Cities started when the mayor wanted to find out who was here before us, before the formation of the city, and we talked about some other tribes, and it just happened that Northern Arapaho were coming in, and we discussed the idea of maybe a possible Sister Cities partnership. So that's how it started. My name is Stephen Fasthors. I am a Northern Arapaho business council member. The whole area of the front range used to be my tribe's homelands, and so we were invited a small delegation down to visit with this organization, and the mayor of Longmont shows up to the meeting, Brian Bagley, you know, and so had a very awkward first time meeting, the mayor of Longmont. And Stephen Fasthors is talking, and I just kind of raised my hand and jumped out of protocol, so to speak, and just said, hey, my name is Brian Bagley. I'm the mayor of Longmont, which is just 20 minutes away, and I'm here to explore the idea of a Sister Cities relationship. And in order to start, I see you're here, I've heard all these people welcome you, but the one question I haven't heard asked that I'd like to know is, what do you want? What do you and your tribes and your people want from us? And he kind of stopped. He says, God, I don't know. I've never been asked that. We've never been asked that. I could sense the urgency, or like he really wanted to talk, you know, and that he really had something to say. So we exchanged information, shot Stephen Fasthors an email. He responded, and that was the beginning of what has become a multi-year, four-year relationship now. So before we even got to that point, Brian had to kind of go through an orientation with me to understand that, as I tell you, trust is a very big deal for us. And I really kind of gave him a short course on history, a quick 101 with him to help him know what he's asking for. In that process, I had to learn about him. I wanted to know, who are you? Where do you come from? So there was an exchange, you know, so he actually had to be personal with me, you know, not just as a mayor. You know, he had to be, well, who is Brian Bagley? Again, I really needed to know why. What's in it for you? You know, what are you after? You know, the history of our people has been very, very terrible, you know, as far as the atrocities that have been committed to us. So you know, that plays a big part when you're the leader for the tribe and someone is coming at you, you know, and wants to know you and wants to be a part of who we are and wants to know more of who we are. It's a pretty big process for us before we actually let people do so, you know, just a trust factor. As I was going through a very difficult time in my life, it made me more humble, right? And if you actually look at the history of the tribes, you had a bunch of rich white guys in positions of power, want more power, more land, more money for their families and themselves and their friends, and they decided to take it from the native people. And so when I went up there, it was truly, what do you want? How can we help? And I learned, I listened, I asked questions and shut up, which those who know me wouldn't believe it. He did wear his heart on his sleeve and he got to know some very beautiful people that really opened his eyes. And to see that and watch him take the time to do so, cemented that he was sincere. Because the people that I introduced him to were family and they vetted him. They took him through a process and that's all I need is my family to tell me. The family was like, we approve of this guy. Probably one of the craziest non-naders we know. It's like, this guy really is truly something else. One thing led to another, and before you know it, we're preparing to come face to face and meet with Longmont. Brian said, we have this proposal that we would like to try and do a sister city with the northern Arapahoe who we'd been meeting with. And it goes so much along with the mission of sister cities. He presented in such a way that was clarifying that we started because we had conflict with Japan and World War II. And to end that conflict or to try to rebuild some of those relationships, we said, let's start a sister city exchange programs with different cities. And that spread out. Our second one was due to some violence within our Latino community, within our Mexican community here in Longmont. And what better way to try and rebuild some of those damaged relationships and difficult relationships than through youth, through understanding, through trying to form these friendships. Sister cities, when it was formed by Dwight Eisenhower, it was to form relationships between nations so that we'd have a better understanding. His thought was, if we knew each other better, there would be no more war. The Native Americans, this is their land, right? They call it the Indian nation. So when Mayor Bagley wanted to go up there and talk to them about this idea, I wanted to be part of it. This recognition that we've been at war with people within our own country, that they are sovereign nations, just like a country outside. And that that might be something that other communities could think about. We think of Native Americans as noble creatures, but that's a myth that we keep ongoing. And that they're actual living people that have issues that are the result of the policies of the American government. And so I had a lot of conflicting feelings for myself to be like, how am I involved in that? Am I, is there any, you know, what are my responsibilities as a human being and citizen of this area and citizen of this country to do anything about it? And the great thing is I actually can with the sister cities program in this way. We could take a small step and open relationships with people who used to live here who want to come back and visit and be able to have access to their homelands and have kids get to know each other on a personal level. And that that's exciting to me. You know, at the time I was pretty naive, you know, I like most politicians, most city staff members, you know, there's certain way you do things as a city employee as a government official, right? And so I thought and rightly so, I guess in retrospect, I think what we needed to do is officially go up there. Before we went up, Carmen Ramirez, her husband, I don't know if you folks know Ray, Ray's awesome. And Ray has been very active in the Native American community. He's very, very knowledgeable about the, not only the cultural, but also the legal workings of the tribal systems. You know, I figured out my role really quick. And my role was going to be is to teach the mayor, teach the people from the city how to relate to, to Native people, how to talk to them, but more importantly how to listen. You know, unfortunately, people in this society a long time ago forgot how to listen. But they never forgot how to ask questions. And so my role was to break them of that habit, quit asking questions, and sit down and listen. And so I asked Ray, via Carmen, hey, would you be my guide? You know, I don't know the protocol, I don't know the culture. Would you be willing to sit there with me to make sure that I don't screw up? And when I do, tell me how to fix it. So I spent weeks and actually months meeting with different people from the city, with the mayor continually, starting now teaching them the protocols, teaching them that when they go to the reservation, you can't just meet with the tribal government. What you have to do is meet with the elders. That's the important thing. Meet with the elders. And I said, in there, you really have to learn to listen. Don't interrupt them. If they're talking about something entirely different than what you're there to listen to, listen, because eventually what they're telling you is going to be a lesson, is going to be a story that's coming around eventually to your specific question. Again, if you know me, I don't do things small. And so city management, meaning our city manager, his direct reports, anybody and everybody I could think of along with city council, most city council members, we just all went to the reservation. And we had a three-day kind of a conference where the goal was to understand the tribe, where they came from, how they felt, how they worked, just their history. They're just trying to get inside their heads, right? I remember the very first day when we met Sister Cities. It was at a luncheon here at the Wind River Casino. And Brian Bagley gifted the tribe to 100% pure buffaloes. And that was very impressive because a lot of people don't think about our people. Brian, being the mayor of Longmont, had that good thought about the Arapahoe people. Once they were educated about those lands being our Arapahoe homelands, yeah. And that was the beginning of the relationship. The city with this donated fund, we bought them two national championship breeding buffalo. This first night that we went up there, they organized this dinner, right? And I told Stephen before we started, I said, look, I'm going to apply two rules that I think that are going to be right. Rule number one is I'm never going to ask you for anything, ever. I'm not going to ask you for money, land, nothing but your friendship. Nothing, you have my word. And the other thing is I will never break my word to you. Meaning I will not promise something and then fail to deliver. By the way, I told you I'd get you some buffalo. Here's two buffalo, right? And so that was presented to the tribal elders. By showing up there and saying, here's some buffalo, we want to be your friends. You know, immediately that room just was, you kidding me? Really? That's kind of cool. You know, we've never had anybody show up and give us something without wanting or taking something. And so that meeting was pretty special. We had dinner, they taught us a little bit about their language, about their culture. And then at the end, we really got traction. It was just me and Stephen Fast horse. And in the back of the room, you see these three really old Northern Arapaho elders. And I'm going to tell you to me that two of the three people sitting there, it was their pipekeeper, which is the apex of the tribal leadership. And his name was Nelson White Eagle. He's still alive. Great man, gentle, sweet, wise, cares for his people. And then his two brothers, Herb Welsh, who was there, who speaks for his brothers. And then Nelson White Eagle's other brother, Crawford White Eagle, who was one of what they call the four old men. And essentially, you can think of it as the pipekeeper who holds the pipe, the sacred pipe. That's why it's called the pipekeeper. And then the four old men are four selected men who are ceremonial leaders, both for ceremony, religious purposes. They represent the tribal leadership. My husband, he was one of our ceremonial leaders. He had a lot of knowledge and he had a lot of wisdom. And he had a lot of love for people. In our Rappahoe way of life, we always consult our elders first. We get there, we talk to them about how they feel about things and their knowledge and how to go forward and what their thoughts are. It's always, that's our protocols. We consult with the elders first. And so that night, that's what he did. Everybody left. And there was my husband, Crawford, and his brother, Nelson White, and his other brother, Herb Welch. And he sat and visited with them. I remember, Brian Bagley, he came up and he met with my brothers and I. And he had talked to us. And he had spoken with business counselors and different tribal representatives and so on. But what Brian wanted, he wanted to speak to the people that sit at that core, at that center. And so he spoke with my brother Nelson and brother Crawford, I. And we had a good long discussion about the sister cities, different areas in Colorado that were involved in Sand Creek, the repatriations in Colorado. Just a lot of concern. So here I had two of the five and the leader of the tribe. And I went up and introduced myself and Herb said, my name's Herb Welch. I speak for my brothers. And my understanding is that you want to have the tribe's friendship. And I said, yeah, I'd like that very much. He's like, you got to follow protocol. And I'm like, what? He's like, you got to follow protocol and you need to do it in the right way. And I'm like, Ray, I brought Ray. Every tribe has different protocols on meeting with the elders. I wasn't real familiar with the northern Rappahos. So we asked, what are the protocols? You know, what do you expect? And they filled us in real quick and said, OK, sat down with the mayor at that point, said, OK, we're going to meet with the elders. This is what you need to do. You're going to be tested. I said, there's always tests involved. So you have no idea when they're coming or what they're all about. And you may not even realize you're being tested, but you're going to be tested. And so we met with the elders, met with the Pipe Carrier, the main elder at that time was Crawford White Eagle, who passed away recently, unfortunately. We kind of went from there, and they did test him. About 30 minutes into the conversation, he got a real test. The elders were sitting there, and after a while, they started talking among each other in a Rappahoe. So none of us could understand what they were saying. But they would talk for a while. And then they'd laugh. And then they would talk for a while. Then they would laugh. And the mayor is kind of getting real antsy. He's going, what are they doing? And I just leaned over and I told him, I said, I have a feeling your first lesson is coming. And they quit talking. Then they faced him. And they said, we decided we're going to give you an Indian name. And the mayor just his chest puffed up and he said, all right. And they told him what it was. It was in the Rappahoe language. And he was thrilled. And I leaned to him. I said, look out. There's something coming. And then he got curious. And he said, what does that mean? And he said, that name means white man's eagle. And the mayor said, wow, that's a fine name. And they were just really proud. Then something clicked. And he said, what is a white man's eagle? And the elder said, a chicken. And they just laughed and laughed. And they were all stirring at the mayor at that point. Because they wanted to know how he was going to take that. And the mayor just cracked up. Just could not stop laughing. And I just leaned on and said, you just passed the first test. Because if you had been offended, everything would have been over right then and there. They wanted to see if you had a sense of humor. And you did. But it made me feel good that Brian really wanted to make sure that he got everything right. He was genuine. I guess he really wanted to make sure that what he was doing was not only sanctioned by our ceremonial people, but our tribal government and all the people that were represented. And he came up more than once. I mean, he came here to visit us many times. And it became personal for him. And even to this day, he still has close ties to myself, my brother's family, and many of us. When you're building a relationship and there's things that were done wrong to our people, number one, it's acknowledgment. Acknowledge that fact that there was some things that weren't right. And then healing that and going forward. How can we bring people together? How can we help people heal? And that's the first part of it. Acknowledgement in building those relationships. So it's not just for the here and now. Like I said, it's for all the future generations of Arapaho people. If I had my way, I would want these things to stay at the forefront of every discussion, reparations, acknowledgment, just to right those wrongs. Because those were wrongs. And the government stands as well as a time of war. To the victor goes the spoils. To the victor goes the writing of history. But we're changing that. We're changing it little by little. Because we can't overlook things forever. So eventually, you get to the root of what things really were like and how things really were. Everyone that's involved with the sister cities, you're willing to hear our side. And you're willing to acknowledge that. And you're willing to say, OK, let's say what we can do about it. Let's see how we can bring that healing. Nothing is ever taught in the school systems about tribes. Nothing. How is somebody supposed to understand the history of this country if you're not taught the true history? If you're not taught about the tribes? People don't know indigenous people. They don't have the faintest idea what they're like, what their histories are all about, what their humor is, what their pain is. They don't know any of that. So we have a lot of work. And hopefully, starting with the city of Longmont, we can start doing that. Starting with this relationship, we can go to the school district here and say, OK, we need to take a look at your curriculum and change it and start with the children. We kept the discussion open. And we admitted our ignorance at every step along the way that we had no idea what we're doing here, except that we know how to be a sister city with other places. We know how to do youth exchanges. And they had also said, what's important to them is to give their youth opportunities. We were like, we can do that. We know how to do youth because we've been doing youth exchanges for over 30 years. When we're first starting to develop the relationship with the youth, we definitely do some youth trainings, especially for our youth here. And they also did some trainings with their youth as well, just to prepare them for some of the things that we're going to be different, right? Or to prepare them about what this actually means. We also did a training with parents and youth about the real history and how they got moved away from these places or pushed away. And a lot of our youth were really down. And they felt like, why did we do that? They felt even guilty of it. And I remember Carmen and Ray Ramirez had a conversation with them and said, the fact that you're here and you're part of this program, that means that you're taking the steps towards having a good relationship and building reparation. And I think about that in the same way of myself. There was a lot of things that I didn't know, that I didn't learn in the history books, that to some extent I never tried myself to learn more about. But this has really opened my eyes to kind of dig a little deeper and to educate myself so that I can also help educate the community. I think that one of the things that I really think about is how to be inclusive and how to be supportive, how to make sure that when the youth are coming here and the elders and any community member from the Wind River Reservation or any other reservation is coming to Colorado. How do I make sure that I'm honoring their historical trauma that they've endured and how to keep moving forward and still, and still making them feel welcome? I've met with along my youth and they're hungry for this knowledge. I mean, they're really hungry for it. They wanna know. And they know they can't learn it in school and they can't learn it from their parents. So who are they gonna learn it from, you know? The youth from the tribe gives us hope. I love that our youth are, they're fiery. And they like, what Ray said was exactly right. They want more of this. They are not gonna kind of just sit back and watch things happen. They're gonna go get it. If they want change, they're gonna make it. If we can help our youth understand specifically with the Northern Arapaho, these are the people who lived here before you. You might be living on a place that they walked across. Their ancestors walked across 150 and beyond years ago. And do you wanna know about them? Are you curious about them? I'm sure, I think a lot of people are curious. They know about our culture, right? They've been inundated with our culture for generations. But for us to be open to everything that comes our way and just be like, okay, that sounds good. Or I didn't know that and I am ignorant of this and I wanna learn more. And I have no agenda other than you want your youth to have some experiences here in your homeland and we can help you do that. And we want our kids to have experiences that would broaden their horizons, which is one of our goals of Longmont Sister Cities. And so it's mutually beneficial relationship. That's the unique perspective about this whole relationship. That's because you're gonna be able to tell these kids that. Well, we're taking you from your home in Wyoming, but we're actually bringing you home to your original home. And I think that's gonna be, yeah, I think it's gonna be very heartfelt to where they're gonna say, oh, wow. And if we can get the parents behind that to really teach them more of that, then they're gonna be ready for it. They're gonna say, wow, I get to go home. I get to be in Colorado and I get to be in Longmont and that's where we were. So that's what's so unique about it. When we were planning for the first student exchange to come down, it was really important for us to get it right. And we had nowhere to, no role models, nothing to figure out how to do this. And right before the exchange, it was our final meeting. We were sitting in City Hall with Carmen Ramirez and my planning committee and we were blessed with a visit from Crawford and Jackie White. He said, you just have to love them, just love them. And it's such a simple thing to say, but how powerful to say, all you have to do is love them. When you do things from your heart, you're able to really take care of people and really think about how can I make them feel comfortable? It's just being genuine, it becomes organic. Eventually it led to a first student exchange in 2019 where we brought down six kids from Wyoming to interact with seven kids from here in Longmont. They spent four days together building community and they had meals together, they danced together, they really had a wonderful, warm experience. Trust has really has to be earned and one of the things that I've really pushed for is we're not gonna make any promises that we can't keep and that we are going to reach out and ask questions and build that trusting relationship. And an example is really when the first group of kids came down from the reservation, they were nervous, they were fearful, they weren't sure what was going to happen and they hung back. They let their chaperone come in first to the park that we were in. But we've learned over 30 years how to make people feel a little comfortable. So we had all these posters and the kids held up these posters and welcomed them and they said, welcome home and we're happy to see you in those kinds of messages. And it broke the ice. And that's what I hope we can continue to do is to build those trusting relationships. When we were forced onto reservations, we were told to stay there. And it wasn't a choice. Our choice was Colorado. But they said, this was not your choice. You either stay here in this area or we will kill you. And that mindset has carried from generation to generation to generation. You know, we faced a lot of discrimination. It makes our children scared to sometimes reach out because they're afraid that they're gonna get the slapped away. I think that it's really hard for them to trust people. I know that when I was young, that's how I felt racism, just because we live on, there's two border towns right next to where we live on the Wind River. And we faced a lot of that as children, but we don't wanna be a part of that. So we don't act like that to people when they come here. Of course it would be reluctant to offer just like, oh yeah, let's send our kids over and let's send them back to Colorado and they're gonna be there for a little bit. How would they feel comfortable if that's part of the fears that they have and the experiences that they had, right? And so that really to me, made me understand like, okay, this is really, really special. And we need to treat it very differently than any other program that we've done before. We have not done home hosting as much with the Northern Rappahoe because, especially with their kids, because they don't trust us with their kids quite yet. And that's completely understandable. Just with understanding housing and the history there for our first exchange, they stayed with Ray and Carmen because that was a trusted society members at Northern Rappahoe said, yes, your kids, if they wanna come here, are gonna be safe. And we usually do exchanges where you stay in the home of a student and just understanding, nope, that isn't gonna work this time around. Maybe we'll get this, another hope for the future and this initial one, that's gonna be something that we have to respect and knowing the scope of what we can do, how to keep kids feeling safe and feeling like they were okay. That was something else that really came up. When the first round of students came from Wind River, we got to take them to the mural that's over on Main Street with the generations braiding each other's hair. And we had this beautiful moment that they sat there and they're like, we wanna recreate the picture. So we had Longmont Youth and the Northern Rappahoe Youth braiding each other's hairs and they took a picture and they were so excited to see that and I thought that was so beautiful that they connected to art that was in our community. When you see yourself represented in the community, it reminds you that you can be part of it, that you are welcomed here, that you are valued here. And after they were here just even for a few days, the way they interacted with the kids from our youth center and they seemed to blossom so much just in those first few days and they then led us and taught us dancing and things like that. I thought, oh, this could really go somewhere. The few kids that did get the goal really enjoyed it. They had an excellent time. From that, we intended to have another exchange the following year and actually send students from Longmont up to the reservation, but COVID got in the way. So we're gonna do a separate exchange and at least initially that'll be four to five days in duration here and four to five days in Wyoming. And during that time, the kids, the ambassadors as we call them, will learn about each other's cultures. They'll cook together. They'll do some crafts or whatever the tribe comes up with for our kids to do there and the same thing happens here. It's a little bit of education, a little bit of fun and a whole lot of culture all rolled into one. Our way of life is so important to us. We're not a RAPHO people without knowing who we are as a RAPHO people and our ceremonies and our way of life is so important. And when Longmont youth come here, they're gonna be able to learn about us as a RAPHO people, you know, the homelands that they live on. And sometimes when you're, the more knowledge and education that you learn about one another, the more mutual respect you're gonna have for one another. So we sent our students to the Wind River last week and they spent a week learning about the RAPHO culture. They went to Sundance. They got to go to a powwow. They toured the res. They got to go to Thermopolis to a hot springs. They made new relationships. And this week we have our Rappaho friends here. They've been here for about five days and have really embraced their new friends. And we are so excited to have an exchange given all of the challenges with the pandemic. So today they are working with Walt Poyer who is a Lakota artist who is based here in Denver. This is like my third or fourth time with the kids. So it's been phenomenal. And it just gets better and better as we move along. We have a focus through a nonprofit I run called the Stronghold Society. And our Stronghold Society is based on inspiring native youth through skateboarding music and the arts. We come here and focus on the painting aspects of it and getting to be creative through that. So we get these blank skateboards and stuff that are donated to us. And we get the paints and all that and we come together and we say, well, you guys want to paint? And so they each have their own little setups and they're kind of painting their own visions or their own ideas too. So it kind of gives them a hands-on piece that they can take, put on their wall or they can even get trucks and wheels and skate them. So it's just kind of a fun avenue for them through that skateboarding music and the arts which is a very creative expresses avenue for this generation. Make sure you get red and all the colors on both sides so we even it out, okay? This is a painting we created, started with the youth last night just to get them the idea to just don't be afraid to touch the brush and start throwing some paint down So we tried to keep it up last night and we're starting to outline it today but this is a black hole, one of the Arapaho Chiefs. So that's who we selected for them to represent who they are. And this is going to sit in the youth center over here in Longmont and then each year they're going to pick a different chief or a different leader from the Arapaho tribes to paint with the kids. So we'll have these series of Arapaho leaders on canvas. The movement is happening and all this stuff because you are the seven generation we're literally living in a time of transformation. It may seem harsh, it may seem fearful and it may seem uncertain but what's happening is things are getting in sync and they're getting in sync for what's to come is harmony and balance again. The little parts of just being a part of it with the kids, they're going to be the ones that carry this relationship in the future too. So I want to see how that develops over the years and how that grows and we're in trying times right now and I just wanted to see hope with them. I want to see that they see a good future ahead and we need to do everything we can to support that. Hopefully it'll give the tribes hope that things can change, that a handshake does mean something, that the signing of a document does mean something. Some people say the sky's the limit. Well, I don't think there is a limit on this. I think there's so much potential and opportunity to be a beacon for the rest of the country. We have at least a template, a way, not the only way, but a way that has proven to be successful which took time, trust building, relationship building before we both said, okay, we're going to do this. I think that it's really beneficial with the sister cities to learn that value of looking out for one another, taking care of one another, learning new things about one another because that's what it's going to take in this world for this world to survive. It's about friendship. It's about taking the opportunity to go over to those kids that you kicked off the playground, kicked off the school cafeteria lunch table and saying, why don't you come sit with us? There's plenty of food, come sit with us. And then doing what it takes to understand them, to love them, to appreciate them and to form friendship and family ship with them. As it comes along and more of our people are involved, that outside the box thinking, that mindset and that pride that we have for Colorado, I think our people will want to push that envelope and say, let's help Colorado be all that it can be. And vice versa. I'm hearing the young people that came to visit us now talking about their children being in the exchange program, talking about elders coming or maybe they're the elders that come and talk to our elders, those kinds of exchanges that just shows we continue to build our relationship. I say it's an excellent start. It made me proud to live in Longmont. Made me proud of the city, of the mayor, the city council, all the staff in the city. I had pride, you know, because it was important, but we have a lot of work to do.