 I have known Lo Wallace for some time. She is respected although whenever I see Lo, I do whatever she asks of me. And one of my favorite things about Lo is that she really embraces her spirituality where she lives. And so we all think that both live in Lo Seattle and so occasionally you're like, we will stop and KFC will be a free section of prayer. And I love that about you, that you are authentic worthy of Lo. So we're very pleased to have her here today. I'm going to pass the mic. Let's give a warm welcome to Lo Wallace. My name is Eshpala Kisalaja, which means known through many ages. And my Lakota name is Wamli Maniwia, walking eagle woman. I was born in South, uh, Southeastern Montana. Actually Southwest, sorry. And by Billings, Montana. Can you guys know the Montana state? Oh my God, when you drive through Montana, it's the big sky country. It takes you forever to cross that state. It's terrible. You have to have about six drivers to help you make it through Montana. And I'm on the land where General George Armstrong Custer was killed. Oh, don't laugh. So, um, I was born in July, 20th, 1950. And I have, there's 10 of us. And I was the youngest of all of them. And, um, because I had three sisters and six brothers and me. So my grandmother said, I am going to take this little girl in a razor. Well, I was raised in an environment where it was a log cabin, no running water. We had to cut wood, gather chips, and live in this log cabin with my grandmother. And, um, I want to acknowledge the people that are here on this land right here. They are the most beautiful. Uh, Cecil Hansen. She is a chair, chairwoman of the Obama station. She has tried every effort to be recognized as a native person in the United States. They are not recognized in all kind of way. And, um, when the white man, when I say white man, black man, purple, pink, polka dot, I'm not a princess person. So don't get me wrong. But when the white man first came and they were on al-Qa'i beach. And Chief South, in his ever-present wisdom, looked down and saw that they weren't going to make it through another winter. So he went over there with his cane and walked down there and he got down there and he said, Okay, white people. I'm sure he didn't say it like that. He said, okay, white people. Come on, you guys have to have a sense of humor. Pressure humor. Laughter, please. So I said, hey, you guys, uh, you're kept out here and you're building things here. And, um, you guys need to move up. Because the next, this coming winter, you are not going to survive. And so they moved up and they had Yesler terrorists, meaning a Yesler. And they've had logs going down Yesler. And they did great damage to the Duwamish people. They took their land. They robbed them. They raped them. They killed them. After all, Chief South, whose name is Seattle, went down there and welcomed them up to survive. In their survival, they demolished all those people. There were logs at Duwamish Nation and they were demolished. So in his sadness, Chief South wrote. He didn't write it, but he just said it. And somebody translated for him. And he said, I will walk amongst you. Don't ever forgive me. Oh yeah, he's got a statue over there by Seattle Center. Deal. So he walks amongst us and he called this place the city of homelessness. We are in Seattle in this area, the city of homelessness. We have so many homeless people. Yesterday I drove on I-Fi northbound and I was getting off the airport. And I looked over to my right and there was a little girl playing in a homeless camp. I just started crying because I could not imagine one of my grandchildren playing in a homeless camp. She had a little card and she was pushing it. She had a little teddy bear and she was pushing that card. I was a passenger and I started crying. My heart went out to them. We are, remember, the city of what? We are the city of homelessness. Chief Self and his people walk amongst us. 500 and some odd years ago, before I start this, I would like to say a word of prayer in my language for you. I had a lot of fear. I had a lot of fear. I had a lot of fear. Like this I say I honor your life. When you see Native Americans hold their hands up like this in all nations. Black, white, purple, pink, polka dot. They are honoring your life. That's all you have is your precious life. So. What's your hands? You watch a movie with J. Uagad Fak. Elashesh Palasas, at this stage, Ahoma Kahome Takiasin, thank you. Ahomins, thank you. Ahome Takiasin says we are all related. We are all related on a sacred Mother Earth. There's not one who's purple, black, pink, polka dot, square, checkered, whatever we're all to say. We have neglected that. Our Mother is the most sacred. Our Son, who brings us sunshine, is also the most sacred. Our Grandmother Moon, who sings to us that night, I'm gonna tell you a secret. Tonight, when you look at the Moon, look at it really close, and you can see her eyes and her mouth is open, and she's singing, you can hear her singing. You have to look at it and be in a good place, and look at the Moon. We are equal to our environment. We are not separate. We don't chew gum and throw it on the floor or the ground. We don't spit on our sacred Mother Earth. How would you like it if somebody spit on your face? It would be very nice, huh? So, I want you to always remember, we are equal to our environment. We are not separate. I was raised in this long cabin with my grandmother, and every day she'd get her dipper, and she'd put it all over the floor, and then she'd sweep it out. Anytime you came to my grandmother's house, if you walked in, you could smell the dirt. You know how good the dirt smells? I've eaten dirt, because I wanted to. So, you could smell the dirt and how nice it smelled, and I looked over to your left, and my grandmother's had a big brass bed. It was brass, and it was beautiful. Her blankets were all new, and she slept on a Gustav Mattress, and she had a little step that went up there, and when I moved in with her, and I was able to understand what was going on, she said, whatever you do, go pee in my bed. She said, if you need to go to the outhouse, tell me, and I will take you over there. And with a lantern, we'd walk over to a three-seater. We had the only three-seater around. There was a big seat here, and a big hole here, and a little tiny one. And I was sitting on a little tiny one for a while, because I couldn't fit. I had to move over to the other side. And we'd go to a church, and we'd go over there, and me and my grandmother, we didn't even speak English, not one word. We rode in a wagon, or we walked wherever we went. There were cars there, okay? And we had horses, and I rode on horses. So I went to that place with my grandmother, and we didn't know what we were saying. We just went, and this guy had a black outfit and a white collar, and then my camera went out. Oh, he had a bunch of chains hanging, like a bunch of gosses. We'd go over, and we'd go like that, and like give me, and he'd go, come in, and my grandmother would go, five, and then she'd point at me, and I'd go, four. So we got nine of these books, and we'd take it over to the outhouse. And we'd wipe our asses with Genesis, Leviticus, Mark, Luke, you name it. I wiped my ass with that book. I even smoked it. We tore the pages out, and we grew our own tobacco, and I would smoke that book, and she'd say, you have to pray for it. You have to pray if you're gonna smoke. Now it's about four years old, and I pray for my mom, all my nine brothers and sisters, and pray. And I'd say, can I roll another one? Are you doing your prayer? I said no. So I'd roll up another one, maybe with Genesis and smoke it. Well, I didn't know that I was smoking this Bible. I've been abandoned. Have you ever had abandonment issues? I haven't now. Would you like to come on and sit up here with me? Come up here and sit with me. You, you're so beautiful. Don't fall, you're very beautiful. So, my grandmother said, these white people, they came from another country. They killed their God in another country. His name was Jesus. So they killed him over there because he was so perfect. They don't want anybody perfect like him. So they killed their God in another country, and they came here to this lab, and they've been pushing us around ever since. I am not a Christian woman. I'm sorry. My, my Jesus didn't die for me. My ancestors did. They died on this land. This land belonged to Native Americans and South Americans. We were one land all the way to Alaska, all the way to United States, all the way to South America. We are one land. We are called Turtle Island. We just had bad immigration laws, Native Americans. When I was third, when I was in third grade, they asked me, if you got to go to New York, what would you do? I was so excited, I wanted to see something. They said, yes, Lola. I want to go to New York because I want to go and spit on a statue of Liberty's face. Because she's always saying, welcome, welcome. Ah, bitch. I need her. One day I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna spit on her face so I can tell my grandchildren, Grandma actually spit on Statue of Liberty's face. I will, I promise, before I go. But 500 and some odd years ago, these white people brought with them diseases, alcoholism. They brought all kinds of wonderful gifts for the Native American people, whiskey. They never even had it in their system. In our physiological system, as a Native American person, South America, Alaska, we never had it in our system. But the white man, they turned water into wine. Ooh, imagine. They turned watering into wine and they've always had it in their system and drank it. And then they brought the whiskey and the poor Native Americans, you can drink them under the table. They can't even hold their alcohol. You see them on the streets in Seattle and they're passed out on the streets? It's genocide. Don't be laughing at that poor Native American on the street. He is dying from the greatest gift that the white man ever brought to this land. Alcoholism, drug addiction. That's what it is. That's another form of genocide. These are my views. These are not the views of Highline Community College. These are my personal views. I was raised on the Crow Indian Reservation. I didn't even learn how to speak English and they came and told my grandmother, if you don't send your granddaughter to school, guess what? We're gonna come and arrest you. So, I wore moccasins if I saw, bless you. There are few words. And so, I wore moccasins. I never wore like hard shoes. And I wore my moccasins to school and they said to my grandmother, a translator came and told my grandmother, you cannot send her to school with those moccasins on. No, you cannot. You have to wear these. And she has to have some hard shoes. You know how many hard shoes I lost at my first grade? I took them out, but I ran around in my socks. My grandmother was getting tired of buying me shoes. And she said, whatever you do, you can't trust these white people. You cannot trust these white people. If they ask you to do something, do it. So, the teacher came around and she was showing a pencil to everybody. They went, no, no. Everybody said, you know, I was thinking, if I don't do this, grandma's gonna get thrown in jail. I better get that pencil and I better use that thing and sharpen it for her stupid teacher. And she came to me and I went, I'm gonna dump that. Yeah, and she jerked me out of my chair and she dragged me down the hall and she threw me in a chair and I went bump and hit my head against the wall. That was terrible. And then they called my mother and my biological mother, they called her and she was working at the bank. She came and she said, hello? And she told me in English, did you steal 30 of these pencils? I said, no. And she went and said, she didn't steal any pencils. And the teacher said, she went, yeah. And I said, mom, I only went yes because I thought she wanted me to sharpen her pencil and everybody else said no. That was my introduction to school. And then I just learned how to speak English in the first word that I learned when I fell off the mirror ground was shit. And man, that teacher, I fell right in front of her too. And she picked me up and she took me to the bathroom and she used this brown paper thing and put some soap in there. I filled my mouth, had me sit there on top of the radiator. It had a little board on there but the heat went through and it was still warm. And so when I heard her shoes walking down the hall, I jumped off and I looked down the hall and I ran out the back door. I ran six miles to my log cabin. And you know, I'll tell you the truth. One time, just right before I got to the log cabin, I made myself cry really loud. And I went in there and my grandmother said, what's going on? I said that teacher, she put soap in my mouth. I said, one word of English and she washed my mouth out. My grandmother put her shawl on, hide her moccasins. She had long braids and both of us walked back to school. And just then they were having recess and she said, which one is it? And it was Mrs. Moyer. She was the tallest one and she stood there and I said, that's her. And we walked over there and my grandmother said, the worst thing that anybody could say to another Native American is you have no spirit. That means you are part of the walking dead. We didn't know walking dead was gonna be famous, but. So she was standing there and my grandmother went right up to her and said, dear black hidden woman punched her in that teacher went down the street. She was knocked out, cool. And we started walking, we were holding hands and we're walking and singing as we're going. And all of a sudden I heard, brrr, brrr, brrr. And the police came, I told you to take care of her. Okay, so the police picked us up and took us back to school, me and my grandma and she told me in the car, okay now we're going to this white man's prison for sure. I don't know what fort they're gonna send us to. And so we sat there until my mom came and she said, what happened? And we told her and she said, I don't understand, you wanna teach her how to speak English? And when she speaks English, you're gonna wash your mouth out with soap. My first word in my English language and you know what it is, I'm not gonna say it again. So that was my formal introduction to being educated. I did first grade, I always wanted to sit up front. Oh no, I always wanted to sit way in the back as there was bitmots back there. I wanted to sit back there but they put me up front and by the time I was in my first grade in my third year, I was sitting back there because I was one of the tallest ones. And there I was and I was so happy. I got to do first grade three times and I was in a Catholic school and the nuns were so awful, awful waffles. So I was there at the back and when I got to third grade, they said, you have to put your hand over your heart and say I pledge allegiance to this flag. I said, why would I pledge allegiance to this flag? I got a triple for that one. And then the next class was a spiritual class and they said, God came to this land and God married pregnant and had Jesus. Does anybody have any questions? I knew and they said, what is it? I said, you mean Jesus is a bastard? God and Mary are not married so that makes Jesus a bastard? And they said, bless for me and they threw me out of class. So I did third grade twice. By the time I graduated from high school, I was 21 and that's why I turned 22 years old. And my grandmother said, if you're in education, you're there to learn. You are there to learn. You are not stupid, because I was telling her, grandma, I'm really tall and I'm in a first grade. I think I'm really stupid. And she said, no, you're not stupid. You're there to learn. Stay there as long as you want to. I could have stayed in first grade forever. We drew a lot, we did a lot of drawings. And when I graduated, I turned in May 15th, 1971, I graduated May 21st, 1971 from Riverside Indian School, Anadarko, Oklahoma. 73005 was our zip code. So when I graduated in that July, I turned 21. I want you to know that the disease of alcoholism got the best of me. When I got away from the reservation, I became like you, exciting, tracks, alcohol, sex. Alcohol, sex, oh my God. It was beautiful. A whole new world opened for me. But when I was 13 years old, I told my grandmother, I told my grandmother, today I am getting married. She said, what do you mean you're getting married? I said, I'm getting married to this woman. My friend, we're gonna get married. And I lived at my mom's for a month and we lived at her mom's for a month. And she was one of those things, those what are baton purlers? She was a baton purler in school. And she had bomb black hair and she was part Afro-American and part Indian. She was so beautiful and I was what they call a two-spirit. Nobody ever put me down for being a two-spirit. I was the one that rode the horses and went hunting and got an elk and a deer and laid it in front of the elders' homes. And they always wondered, I wonder who that young man was that brought that deer to my house, my aunt said. Why didn't it have to be a man? I was the woman who went out and got that deer and I did it for all the elders. I didn't do them all in one month or whatever but when I got one, I take one over there as we already had a whole bunch. Last night for supper, I had deer meat, boiled deer meat. It tasted so good. Oh my God, and my friend whose capital said, do you have fry bread that goes with your soup though? And I said no and she brought me two fry bread. I got to eat my soup with two fry bread last night. It tasted so good. But you know when I told my family that I wanted to live with this woman, they weren't even shocked. Because I was the one that was chopping wood, riding horses, doing all of that. And nobody even said anything to me. A long time ago, the Native Americans lived in this area like this and just right outside of that little area that two spirits lived. The two spirits were very spiritual people. They were a medicine. They would raise children that nobody, if they went off to war, went to battle and they didn't come back, the two spirits would raise their children. It takes a village to raise a child, they said, but that was always popular in our culture. So that's the way it was. If we were guys and he went out, we both went out and he had a beautiful wife and I was way older and we'd go to war and he died. I would take his wife and his children as my own and raise them and I would be the luckiest person ever. I'd have about four, five, six wives. So my great grandmother was called the Woman Warrior Chief. She went into battle and one men of battles were men for the pro-tribal. She had four wives and the fourth wife that died was from Lachoi Aidao and she brought his wife back to Lachoi and went back. Now, when she's over there, she got married and only had one son and his name is Chedish Dachi, which is Wulpo. Wulpo had four sons, Bird and Ground, Stort, Other Medicine and Pretty Paint. I am a pretty paint. He was the oldest and I come from the family of the pretty paints. Nobody ever fights me on a reservation because I have like a thousand first, second cousins. Nobody, nobody ever fought me. I always wanted to fight, not to kick somebody's ass, but they didn't want me. But anyway, I grew up that way and my family accepted me. Not everybody is that way. People are prejudice. Oh my God, they are so prejudice against homosexuals, transgender. They are prejudice against everybody and then it's left. And then she put a really unhappy face on her and she like, oh, I'm just so good. Donny and I go way back. But anyway, I was married at the age of 13. By the time we were 19, my wife died in a car accident. She went to work and she died. And as a 19-year-old who was very much in love with this beautiful woman, nobody came to my aid. No, if I was a man and I lost my wife, everybody in their cats' dogs would come over. But I was a woman with a woman. Who the hell cares about that kind of stuff? And I cried and cried and cried and that was the beginning of my alcoholism. Now today, I want to say, every time I go back to the Crow Reservation, my significant other of 39 years, her and I would go wake flowers on her grave. She is the most beautiful woman that I know. She was my first love. We had no pasts. She had no pasts. I had no pasts. But now I'm with this woman for 39 years. We have raised children that did not belong to us. We both never had any biological children. We raised children. We raised Sheena and she died in a car accident. She had four children. We raised our little Dylan and he was murdered in Bociano on June 5th. 2017. Two homeless people. He was just a young man, 23 years old. Two homeless people, 46, 47. Beat him up with bats and killed him. It was with the greatest of sadness. We raised him since he was a little tiny baby. We took him out of the hospital. He was half black and half Indian. He was so cute. We never ever told him what tribe he was because I am not a believer of, oh, I'm from Saskatchewan and I'm Korean. I'm from Chidney, Arizona and Navajo. I'm from, those are the labels that the white man gave us. I do not live by labels. We are called the people. If you went to all these tribes, they would call themselves the people. So I don't tell my children, number one, I don't tell them not to go to church. You pick your own church. Two, I do not tell them what tribe they are. I just tell them. My grandson said, what tribe am I in? I said, you're hey-ya-ya. So what does that mean? You know, the white man, they go, hey-ya-ya-ya, hey-ya-ya. I said, you're hey-ya-ya. So he went to Big Red Star, he came back and I could tell he was bad because he was throwing his bag back and forth and he came up and he said, somebody call me a bad name. I said, what did they call you? He said, they called me a nigger. I said, well, you're Afro-American. Afro-Americans call themselves nigger. But they sure don't like it when you call a nigger. But they're Afro-Americans. They were brought here as slaves. And they're our brothers. You are a Buffalo soldier. And I told them, you are hey-ya-ya. Even as he's 23 years old, he said, mom, we're hey-ya-yas, huh? And I said, yep, we are. I don't like it when they say I'm Talaela or Hordelaine or I'm a Lakota. We are the ultimate natives. I'm a Lakota. You're all a Lakota because we come from this land. If you come from this land and you were born here, you are Native American. Have the greatest of respect for the land that you're on. Don't spit on their mother earth. Respect each other. Today, I'm going down for the indigenous day. I was singing American Indian movement song. I'm a part of the American Indian movement. I did the long the swap. I was arrested in Fairchild, New Mexico. I was arrested at the Salt Lake Temple because I shackled myself to the Mormon Temple. There are gates. On the first one, I was arrested and a famous person came and bailed us out. And I'm going to have to do a test with you. He was riding a motorbike. He had a flag on his motorbike. This was like in the 60s and 70s. I bet you know who it is. I'm pointing at you. And he was riding his motorbike and he was so famous that he was a rich person and he came and bailed us all out. I was so happy he bailed us out. It sticks in there. You don't want to go to jail. So because I'm involved in the American Indian movement, I'm the courageous leader of the two spirits here in the Pacific Northwest Coast. I've gotten in front of the mayors and talked about being two-spirit. I was chased out of the Crow Indian Reservation. They shot at me three times and they're gonna kill me because I was gay. And then when I got here to Seattle, a lot of these women came to me and said, when did you come out of the closet? I was like, what closet? What closet? I'm talking about. I never came out of the dead closet. Maybe you did, but I didn't. So here I am. I've been here 45 years in Seattle. I just came back from my reservation and I only stay with my family. I'm afraid somebody's gonna do something to me over there because a lot of people are closed-minded. They're prejudiced. The women cook all day and the men are sitting in the shade and when it's time to cook, the men go through first because they are warriors. They get to go through first. Forget that the women were out there cooking and their faces are all hot. And I told my grandmother, how come those guys are sitting in the shade? Why don't they out? Well, I went back to find and saw the quota and the men were doing the cooking and they let the old ladies and the children and the women go through the line first. That's why I'm sitting up here. People don't like me. Either they like me or they love me. And me, I don't care. Because I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do anyway. So, I'm gonna sing a song for you and it's an American Indian movement song. And here we go. She said, I think I'm gonna go ahead and send it to the psychiatric unit because those things don't really happen. You tell somebody a story. Watch who you tell your story to because they will rob you. They will destroy your stories. They will say you're crazy. They talked about these little people called who collapsed. They are little people and they actually look like little people. Yes, my story.