This is the Second Episode in our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn Series. This podcast is focused on data and what Indigenous activists are doing to help humanize MMIW data.

At the end of the day, data is a collection of stories. Stories about individuals, events, and places. Providing a window into the lives of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. When it comes to data gathering, a difference exists between the Indigenous and the Western approach. The approaches can have a vast effect on bringing relatives home. On the episode, we’ll hear from people working to decolonize data. As well as how activists are using Tik Tok to create awareness about the crisis and avoid being censored.

Stories determine what percentage of cases are solved by authorities. Or in most cases, not solved. Missing person searches and murder investigations often depend on how well they are tracked and logged by various authority groups. Since 2016 there have been 5,712 reported Missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases. Out of those, only a tiny number — 116 have been opened by the U.S. Department of Justice for investigation. Even when reports are filed, racism still plays a factor in the cases pursued by the authorities. 

On the show you will hear from Navajo Nation Council Delegate Amber Crotty. Delegate Crotty spoke about decolonizing data and how the MMIW crisis is affecting the largest reservation in the US. Annita Lucchesi who is the Founder and Director of Research and Outreach at Sovereign Bodies Institute shared how she put together the first MMIW database in the US. Meghan Leinhauser spoke about Instagram, Tik Tok, and Censorship. Meghan is an ally who recently published an honors thesis at the University of Dayton. It’s titled “TikTok and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People Movement.” Liz Marin who is the Program Director of Seeding Sovereignty spoke about how Instagram censored her posts on May 5, 2021 which is the National Day of Awareness of MMIW. Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok joined the discussion from Alaska to talk about her work decolonizing data as the Executive Director and Founder of Data for Indigenous Justice. An Alaskan Native and Womxn led non-profit which is home to a database for missing and murdered Indigenous womxn, girls and relatives data.

Many thanks to everyone for amplifying awareness around the MMIW crisis and indigenous data gathering. The stories are powerful and I am so grateful to Melissa Spence who was the Producer and Editor on the series. It would not exist without her care and meticulous attention to detail. Thank you to Patrick for setting up the interview with Amber Crotty.

Please listen, please share, and please care.

TRANSCRIPT

Yulia Laricheva  00:00

[Strong Woman Song Plays - “Hey, hey, hey yo]. Welcome to the second episode of our Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women series. This podcast is focused on data and what indigenous activists are doing to help humanize that data. At the end of the day, data is a collection of stories, stories about individuals, events and places, providing a window into the lives of the missing and murdered indigenous people. Now, when it comes to data gathering, a difference exists between the indigenous and the Western approach. These approaches can have a vast effect on bringing relatives home. And on this episode, we'll hear from people working to decolonize the data, as well as activists who are using Tik Tok to create awareness about the crisis and prevent people from being censored. You'll hear a little bit more about the censorship. Later on in the podcast, especially how Instagram censored many MMIW activists in 2021 on May 5, which is the National Day of awareness. So these stories, they determine the percentage of cases that are solved by the authorities, or in most cases not solved, and missing person searches and murder investigations often depend on how well they're tracked and logged by various authority groups. Since 2016, there have been 5712 reported missing and murdered indigenous people cases. Out of those only a tiny number 116 have been opened by the US Department of Justice for investigation. Even when reports are filed, racism still plays a factor in the cases pursued by the authorities. In the early colonial era of the United States, genocide has always been synonymous with gender violence and predatory behavior. In the current Western society that we live in now. Native women are still being dehumanized and their accounts of assault often go unreported. Systemic struggles are amplified by jurisdiction issues between the tribal, state and federal authorities. And I'll go into the story a little bit more in Episode Four. It's massively complicated as well. And it definitely needs time to be fully unpacked and to have a whole episode committed to just that topic. It is one of the many reasons why the MMIP crisis is happening and why it hasn't made national news. Now the voice that you're about to hear belongs to Navajo Nation Council delegate Amber Crotty. She was the first person that I interviewed for this episode, and delicate grody spoke about decolonizing data and how the MMIW crisis is affecting the largest reservation in the US. And I want to also thank Patrick for setting up this interview without Patrick this would not have happened. So shout out to Patrick, thank you for making this happen.

Amber Crotty  02:57

“Kiana Nina Slidell Villa Coronavirus, Chien does she need this is Jade though Bellegarde additionally, che Amber can as Bacardi Unisphere Tohatsu. They're not shot.” So I come from Sheep Springs, here on the Navajo Nation. And I'm a council delegate, and I chair the sexual assault prevention subcommittee in the work that we've done, advocating on the ground, and really speaking to our families in 2016, we lost Ashlynn Mike. She was our 12 year old relative who had just returned home. And while she was playing with her brother was persuaded to go into a stranger's van. And unfortunately, he took her and assaulted her and killed her violently. And what happened to Ashton just shook the Navajo Nation like to its core. So as parents as leadership as community members, we all gathered to help support the family. And not only looking for Ashlyn, and that raised issues in terms of the act of amber alert on Navajo Nation and what happens when one of our children go missing and how law enforcement respond and ultimately looks for the child. What we also had to do is help be part of the search teams. And we did recover Ashlyn the next day. And so her family asked that we continue to use her story as an educational tool as an awareness tool. And as a way for us to fight for justice here on the Navajo Nation so that the Amber Alert can be fully developed, and also in that same thread of supporting families who are going and healing through surviving through their violence and how they need the support when one of their relatives go missing. And so, we got together when I say we As the missing and murdered the near relatives team, it's a collective of nonprofits. myself as a council delegate with the support of the Navajo Nation Council. We've partnered with different universities. We work with our Indian Health Service injury prevention program, we have on the ground, advocates who fundraise to be part of the search effort. And we continue to like raise awareness and keep not only our law enforcement, accountable tribal leadership, and our federal partners they have. What's unique about working within Indian country or Native nations, is we do have jurisdiction issues. But we also are a treaty tribe. And so the federal government has an obligation to keep us safe here on our land. And so that's a uniqueness but it also is a challenge, as then we have to deal with different layers of jurisdiction. And so that's what has got us to this point, in terms of other missing and murdered genetic relatives collective. And so we've been able to testify in front of the US Senate Indian Affairs Commission, we've testified at tribal consultations with the Department of Interior with the US Department of Justice, and we're preparing to speak in front of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. So as families speak out, and we create the safe space, as tribal leadership, my role and responsibility then is to carry their songs and carry their stories of sorrow, and up to the federal level, so that they can receive support here on the ground. So that is the work that we've been doing here on Navajo Nation. It's very survivor centered, family focused. But I do want to see, there's also the Navajo Nation government is a parallel but separate initiative. And they have are just starting to organize and understand what the families are going through and providing that support. So we've stepped out to not only provide support to our families here on the Navajo Nation, but as a state task force member on the data subcommittee is providing what information we have learned, and what are some of the best practices. So recently, this last legislative session with New Mexico, one of miski cavity, who's part of missing and murdered and relatives as an A volunteer and founder of Navajo, missing persons updates, made a recommendation of creating a missing persons day. And this would be a day where families could come and receive updates, and give updates and also just create a safe space where they can collectively heal together and take care of one another. So that is some of the work that we've seen that we've heard from the families and then it's been able to scale up to impact federal policies and actions. And at the state level, and we continue to do that work at the tribal Navajo Nation level.

Yulia Laricheva  08:19

What data are you seeing in the Navajo nation come up that you'd love to share with the audience?

Amber Crotty  08:26

So data, data, data data, prior to being a delegate, I'm a policy analyst by trade. That's what that was. That was what I did. But there is a process and there's teachings within our own teachings on Navajo. So I can only speak to Navajo on terms of this data. We have a process on how to collect, gather and analyze information that we receive. And it's not data points, because data points also, we're now we're in this black and white world in we're erased from mainstream approaches on how they collect data, because they don't honor our relations with one another. They don't ask critical questions in terms of how we identify or what what communities we belong to. And other areas that mainstream data may collect is always somehow connected to funding. And when you connect how you collect information for funding, that means it's the funders wanting to ask a question or and then who are these funders and how are they informed how to work with tribal communities. And that takes a lot of work because that's, that's decolonizing that's taking apart systems of power system of structure. And so what we ended up having to do and like I mentioned, when our FBI said, Well, there's no data we just had to turn to to our people and are people's stories and how what they were telling us and their experiences is how we're linking together. And we've been through all of these stories, to understand their experience when it comes to how their prior relationship with law enforcement before having to make this report afterwards, and throughout an end has that has there been closure for them. So in the Navajo frame of mind, there's a process to this. And some can say it's a, it's in our prayers, it's in our stories. But when we silo, this approach, especially during data, you don't get the whole story. And so, at first, what we wanted to do, and when we read the SBI report, is we wanted to like hold that up and say, Look, we found we found them, we found them. And we scrubbed, and we found them, but what we also knew was, there was still families not represented in that report, because they never were part of any existing structure. So our approach is now and we call it a Data Institute. Now thinking, I think I'm going to talk to our elders and, and rename that because what we want is an entity, a collection of individuals to hold those stories as a vessel, and to use those stories. Like, that's the truth, like this is like an all of these other movements, that we are going to believe what this family is telling us. And we're going to believe their experience. And we are going to make policy changes and pivot and be responsible in a trauma informed way. So that we can bring a sense of connection and closure to these families. So NamUs still does not have all of our missing relatives on that database. We met with them last week, with the data with the state taskforce on the data committee. And I had told him, We need a follow up meeting, because you don't have all of our relatives on here, what they now have said in their attempt to again, I don't know who did this was, but their attempt to make sure that their data is correct, is they are not putting individuals in their database until they get confirmation from law enforcement. Now, let me pause there because that is important because we just talked about how inconsistent law enforcement is. And they have their own database. They have the NCIC that only law enforcement can put information in, and they have been able since 2018, to put tribal affiliation. But now knowing they've paused in including individuals, and this is important, because we say every minute matters, can now know that they're pausing to wait for law enforcement, but not knowing, you know, or being accountable or, or doing the follow up, we're back. It's almost like a dysfunction, like we're back in the same place, waiting for law enforcement to put these individuals into the database. Because if there's a hit somewhere, if they're in the system, then someone at least knows they're missing. And so now we're working with former law enforcement, like native search, where they have the technology and working with the private sector to help us. I don't know how much more we could rely on our federal partners. It's either they're not hearing us, or not believing us. And they need to be accountable for that. And anybody who deals with data knows they can put an asterisk, they could put some type of symbol, they could create another, you know, like, we're these individuals are pending, you know, law enforcement review. But it's just disappointing to know that we're back at the same place. And yet, they keep coming to the table saying, we'll partner with you provide these recommendations. And we're, we're back to where we started. And that's why, at this point, we can only rely on our families who continue to show up, who continue to motivate us and continue to drive this conversation. So the way we get federal attention and continue with the data is is the family showing up. And there's no denying when you have a grieving mother, they're trying to find justice for her son, and it continues to show up and says I'm going to keep showing up. And when she shows up, other families show up, and then other families show up. And that's what we have to keep doing but it's exhausting. We need a system that will hear what the families are requesting, and then a system that pivots to provide that rather than the other way around where they Want to continue to, to make us fit? What works for them. And we've demonstrated what they're doing does not work for us.

Yulia Laricheva  15:08

The Navajo Nation was hit by COVID, it was in the news. I wonder if that actually increased the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women rates because of domestic abuse and, and just the stress, have you seen the data go up or stay the same?

Amber Crotty  15:26

So we still had missing relatives during COVID. And in the data from the state and national hotlines are wasn't increased during COVID. What we also saw were then a limitation on because our first responders were responding to the COVID. And so there was a delay in terms of response to some of these situations. So the families who were dealing with missing relatives, at one point, we had a family looking for missing relatives and our local town. So we have what are our small towns surrounding the Navajo Nation, we call them border towns, there was a town, Gallup, New Mexico who's on the list with a high percentage of missing individuals, we had a relative missing in Gallup, and at that time, during COVID, they closed down the city to outsider. So if you were coming in from Navajo Nation, you were not allowed to enter the city. And during that time, the family was struggling to meet the curfew hours, not able to move across these imaginary boundaries of Navajo Nation in the city of Gallup to look for their relative. So it certainly increased a lot of stress and anxiety, we then had to pivot instead of in person searching, like rely on technology. And so we had to do a quick turnaround in terms of getting access to drones, and getting individuals who were trained to use drones, and also then being able to support the family as they tried to navigate the systems. And unfortunately, that was a case where the relative was found, but no longer with us. So it definitely has increased in terms of what it has done is we now can see because our system, our our network is better in supporting families. So we definitely see an uptick, because more cases are being reported. And we're keeping law enforcement accountable. 

Yulia Laricheva  17:34

Right, this is a big issue of it, right, just keeping law enforcement accountable. That's what I hear from a lot of the other interviews as well. And, and I'm speaking to the FBI in a few weeks, and I spoke to state police in Washington. So I'm trying to like speak and get like as many sides of the story to because it's just so complicated. And there's so many issues that are systemic that are involved.

Amber Crotty  17:56

So I hope you could look into what the FBI is to point out where the Attorney General's office is, of the federal response is called, like this tribal community response plan. And so if I could just say that that's where we have seen where the federal agencies and law enforcement agencies are trying to collaborate and create a system where they can communicate with one another, which, you know, we all had assumed that was already enmeshed in their system, because we do have different type of select, for example, if there's a if someone is driving under the influence, those law enforcement entities with tribal beliefs, county state, they have existing agreements. And they say there's no boundary when it comes to an individual driving under the influence, meaning, if they're driving under the influence, and they drive on to Navajo Nation territory, there's agreements where those outside law enforcement can come on to Navajo Nation and continue the pursuit to stop this individual. We want that similar process when it comes to how our been seen relatives cases are being investigated. We do not want you know, these imaginary boundaries of jurisdiction to you know, create. It's just another barrier for the families in terms of where they need to file the case. And then who will be investigating the case. So these tribal community response plans right now for Navajo Nation. It's still at, you know, the the law enforcement working and coordinating with one another, and the opposite end, you know, missing and murdered and relatives we focus on the families and the survivors. And so the challenge here is at some point, this federal tribal community response plan needs to have the community involved. They need to open up and be willing to hear directly from the families and be accountable and Sometimes they're very defensive. We understand lack of funding lack of officers. But then the response is, okay, how can we collectively work together to create a system that breaks apart these silo effects and really just provide that healing for the family? So if there's barriers when it comes to law enforcement, or communication, how can we give a warm handoff to these families for maybe like mental health, or other services as they try to navigate the criminal justice system. And we don't, when I say we missed an emergency relatives, do not think that is like just a law enforcement issue. And do not expect law enforcement to be able to provide those wraparound cares. But what we needed all this time was law enforcement just to show up and be and be open to engage. And so the last six years, that's what we've really worked at is with like trust building, having hard conversations, and just keep coming back to the table. And that's what we want to continue to do. Because the families are hurt the families do not trust the system. And so we're we're having to, to continue to have these conversations on what's expected. What where are we at now? But most importantly, what do we need to do to create the system that will help the families and and our federal partners play a part in that and it's very different. So Navajo Nation also has three different FBI agents, offices that work on Navajo Nation and getting data can be a challenge, but also understanding at what point do FBI get involved. And this has been a challenge, because we talked about amber alert, and that is for children. But what happens when there's a missing relative who's over the age of 18. And so being stream laws have said, individual over the 18 has the right to be missing, basically, they have a right not to notify their family, they have a right not to notify anyone on their whereabouts, but that conflicts and that is counter to our kinship structure that is different from the way that Navajo see one another and our duty and obligation to another. So there is not a Navajo teaching that says, when you're 18, you're there's some type of separation from your family. What our teaching say is at every stage of your life, you have a duty and an obligation. And in one of those obligations, and that's why families had stopped reporting their missing loved ones, because they historically were getting that feedback. Well, they're over 18, unless you can provide some type of evidence that a crime has been committed, then you have to wait 48 hours, and then you could file a missing persons report. But good luck to you. And that had been conveyed in 2019, when we went out to the families and heard from them. And they told their stories, they told us what their experiences were. And so what we're also pushing back as these mainstream ideas of who should be considered missing, at what point what type of evidence is needed, that there's criminal activity. And also why that's important is because then there's not funds available for these families who are in crisis looking for a loved one, unless there's a criminal element to it. That does a disservice to the family members. Because then they have to investigate on their own, they have to fundraise to continue to search. They're trying to learn how to properly you know, what is considered evidence of what type of information do they need to provide, and a lot of information is stored on our phones. And that is one way that some of the families become aware that their loved one, their relative is not communicating through social media, which may have been normal in the past are not answering their phones or communicating. And so we've had to work with our police department, our law enforcement to understand, okay, how do we work with the cell phone providers to get that critical information that's needed in the critical time. And so when we talked about amberleigh, I know I'm talking about a lot but this is this is important, especially if you're going to be talking to FBI, and other state police, you know, our providers here or Navajo Nation, we're not even set up to issue out these alerts. We had to basically petition the FCC to have Apple the iPhone, have, you know, provide these alerts for for iPhone Apple users. And it wasn't until very recently, maybe within the last last update, then that community members here on Navajo Nation, were able to get that update, and then wouldn't be able to have access to alerts. And so there are systemic challenges when it comes to how we address our missing persons, the type of public safety that we have here on Native nations. And again, it all goes back to the our trusty the federal government, as they have all of these agencies, how are they being proactive, and assisting the nation to build up our 911 system? Building up our emergency communication through like, FirstNet? How are they assisting and building up our law enforcement? Because they've kept this stagnant in terms of funding for the last decade? And so how, how can the nation respond to these challenges? When our federal partners are first not acknowledging that it was happening, or providing the support and resources that we need?

Yulia Laricheva  25:58

I was just going to ask you what data you're seeing in regards to missing people in the Navajo Nation or because I know the numbers are coming up for men as well and obviously to spirits, but just people who are going missing and also the people who are perpetrating the crime?

Amber Crotty  26:16

Great question. So, and this is a different story here on Navajo Nation. And we continue to support, you know, the narrative on non native offenders. But what we see on Navajo, because of our size, and our geographic location, and just the high number of interpersonal violence that are happening in our communities and with each other, we continue to see that the perpetrators of violence are either someone who has an intimate relationship, acquaintances, and it's very rare to see maybe a stranger being part of this. And so in some of our prevention work, and we looked at is we really want it to not only boost up like self defense type, so people feel safe or that they can defend themselves, but also looking at what are healthy relationships? And how do we deal with trauma? And if it's taken us so long, and so many generations to start talking about what has happened in our homes and in our communities? How can we be courageous enough to to heal from that pain, and to get the support that we need so that we're not in violent situations or codependent situations. And so there's other approaches. Now, this is, this is all interconnected with the work that we're doing for sexual assault, prevention for domestic violence prevention, you know, what we're seeing when our children are removed from home? What we're seeing when our children are put into the system, and it really goes back to how can we acknowledge what has happened, but also create like healing spaces, because the only resource that we've had in the past, and it's also been, like conflated as a Navajo teaching, I think it was just because it was like a survival teaching was just to forget about it and move on. And for so many generations, that's what families did. They forgot, or they tried to forget that they were forcibly removed from their land, and take into will the or, or the long walk, they tried to forget or get it talk about the assault, sexual assaults that were happening, they didn't want to talk about how their children were taken to boarding school. And you know, the loss that that child felt and the loss of the parent felt. And it's just always, okay, Move on, move on. Don't talk about it, just move on. And so we're, we're now in a situation where we know how trauma stays in our body, in our minds. And, and we can now see how that's manifest into our communities. We're not only reclaiming our relatives who are missing, we're also reclaiming our our communities, and not allowing outsiders to dictate what our communities should look like, or how we should heal and to to help one another. And that also includes our relatives who identify as LGBTQI. And I think in our stories and having these conversations, where maybe there was silence in the past, I always say that silence was so deafening, because physically it manifested, physically, individuals were hurt by that. So that no longer works. And so now we're going to create safe spaces where we can we can learn how to heal, where we can learn to connect with one another, where we could learn to, to understand how, how this system impacts our community, and why we were in such dire need for for all of this healing. And so our land reflects that our animals reflect that how or heavy winds have come in, and how the climate and the seasons have changed. We're now recognizing this. And once you know it, you can no longer unsee it. And so now we have these change agents, fierce and he's in our communities that are willing to come together and activate for our families. And it's, it's beautiful, to be part of this movement. It's painful. But I also know that I want my children and my grandchildren and the next generations to, to live here in their homelands and feel safe.

Yulia Laricheva  30:45

With everyone I spoke with, the same topic of inconsistency came up when dealing with law enforcement be in rural or urban areas. Terrain plays a large part in MMI W cases, a cartographer, but the name of Anita Lucchesi has been compiling indigenous data into an MMI W database. She is the founder of submarine bodies Institute, researching gender and sexual violence against indigenous people. herself, a survivor of domestic and sexual violence and trafficking. And Anita and the Institute work with families to reopen mishandled investigations. I spoke to her about the database and also a nudist, personal experience of being trafficked by someone close to her.

Annita Lucchesi  31:31

So sovereign bodies Institute is a nonprofit research center focused on gender and sexual violence against indigenous peoples. We launched as kind of the new home for the database in January of 2019, the database started as something that I did kind of as a grassroots community member for years, it wasn't funded, it wasn't tied to anything. But as time went on, and it grew, we felt like it really needed a home. And it needed to belong, not just to me, but to indigenous peoples, and especially the families. I think one of the powers of the database is that it has so many teachings and so many stories wrapped up in it, that anybody who works with the data in a deep way, you learn so much about this issue and about our communities through that process. And it's inspired all sorts of community based projects in different parts of Indian country, to address different facets of this issue. So that's really the the root of why we created SBI. But I think it also goes back to this idea of data sovereignty and indigenous data sovereignty, us creating our own research for ourselves, but also survivor sovereignty, and family sovereignty, that's something that's really important to us that I think kind of sets SBI apart is that most of the people who work at SBI, or with SBI, are a family member of someone who's missing or murdered, or a survivor themselves, or in many cases, both. So it's personal to all of us. And I think that's what makes our work so powerful, and how we're able to build relationships with families and communities. There's a lot of statistics out there on violence against native women, I think all of us have heard the one and three will be raped in her lifetime statistic. And none of us know where that came from, who came up with it, what data they use, who they talk to, it came from the federal government. It's, you know, I don't want to knock that statistic too much. But I have an auntie who says, Well, I want to talk to the other two, because we know that the rate is so much higher than that. And in many cases, and interviews we've done with, you know, multiple women of a family, for example, the report mentioned this, they felt like, well, it's everybody. It's everybody I know, every native woman I know has experienced some kind of violence. So I looked at statistics like that, and thought like, what would it mean for us to create our own statistics, our own data that truly represented our experiences and our voices and our stories. And that's, that's kind of how SPI came to be and what what our work is really about.

Yulia Laricheva  34:21

And data is so important, right? Because who controls the data controls the storytelling and controls the narrative? I'm just wondering, if you've seen anything really surprising in the database that you weren't expecting to find in there.

Annita Lucchesi  34:33

The database surprises me in all sorts of ways and is always growing not just in number of cases, but also in the kinds of data points we track because we track whatever the community tells us is important. So we're always adding new things. But I think one of the things that surprised me is that there are quite a few cases of elder violence elders who have been stolen And in the California report we released last week, I think we said 10% of the victims in California were aged 60. And over, I think this issue is often framed as kind of a young women's issue. And it is absolutely. But there's also an issue with violence against our elders that really doesn't get talked about at all. And the other kind of some of the surprising things. The thing that takes me most aback is when I see a story similar to mine, there's been a few cases like that, that have stuck out over the years where I really identified with that person for what they went through, especially in cases where, you know, I was I was trafficked by a native man that I love very much, that was my partner, and was very troubled. And he had all sorts of trauma and mental health problems stemming from his own family's experience of violence. So when I see cases that are similar to that, that's really what strikes me the most, is because I see myself in those women.

Yulia Laricheva  35:59

Definitely. And I want to talk to you about your experience as well. And what I find very interesting with your project is that your data is focused on community based mapping, and use a different approach because the indigenous approach is all about relationships, which is really different from the Western forms of research or just like Western understanding of data. And I was wondering if you can talk to that a little bit?

Annita Lucchesi  36:24

Well, I learned a lot of it from our board member, Dr. DESI RODRIGUEZ, Lone bear, she's Northern Cheyenne, and just finished her dissertation and graduated with her PhD, she actually has two PhDs, she's insane. Her specialty is indigenous data sovereignty. So I've learned a lot from her about what it means to work with indigenous data and how to do it in a good way, through my conversations with her. And I think what's important to know is that indigenous people have always been data gatherers have always been knowledge keepers. That's not something new to us. So what we're doing now is not anything new. And I've my work as an academic is kind of reclaiming mapping in a similar way. Indigenous people have always been mapmakers. There's never been a time where we didn't make art that told stories about the land and our relationships to it. And that's fundamentally what a map is. So I think, you know, a lot of people maybe look at our work and see us as like reclaiming colonial technology of data or mapping to help our people. And the reality is we're continuing things that our ancestors always did, and modifying them to work for the realities that our people live in now. So when we look at data collection on MMI, W, for us, it's been really guided by that knowledge, as well as the ancestral principles of just caring for our people as we do this work and doing it based on community relationships. A big portion of our data comes from families, volunteering information, or from social media, and kind of the tight networks that any country has to raise awareness on this issue. So I would definitely say our relationships make, make the word possible and define how we do this.

Yulia Laricheva  38:22

I also wanted to ask you if the database is like, a digital like tech database that anybody can log into? Or if it's more of like an Excel document, like how, how is this database structured?

Annita Lucchesi  38:37

Right now it's an Excel document. And that's how it started, we were really lucky. We got selected as a pro bono client for hybrid or Harvard, Harvard cyber Law Clinic, they helped us negotiate a pretty what I think is a really great contract for with a software company to develop something custom for us. And actually, what it is, is the same software that a lot of police departments around the country use, like, you know, when you get pulled over, and they have the car in the VM or the laptop in the car. It's the same software that's on that laptop. So it's already built to integrate with existing law enforcement data. It just has been customized to meet our needs as a community. So they've offered to kind of use the existing structure but redefine, like what fields are captured, or there's capacity for us to like kick out monthly reports. So if a tribe wanted to report once a month, or even once a week or every day, on citizens of their tribe who are missing or murdered, they could get that automatically from our system. So I'm excited about the path ahead. But right now, it's just a spreadsheet.

Yulia Laricheva  39:47

There are like three databases that are used right now, which I was like, I wonder if the different agencies have a chance to go in and cross cross pollinate, right? Because right now it feels siloed

Annita Lucchesi  39:58

Yeah, it's definitely siloed. And that was something that we found in the report that SBI released with the Yurok tribal court last week on mm IW. In Northern California, we had compared the federal missing persons database with the National Missing and Exploited Children database, and then the state level missing persons database. And all of them had at least one that the other didn't have. And frequently, they would have cases where a woman was listed as native in one database and as white in another, even when they do have the same case, their information isn't the same. And I'm not entirely sure how that happens. But it is an issue. So I think that speaks to one of the benefits of the work that SBI does, in maintaining our database is that we are able to kind of weed through those bureaucratic errors or bureaucratic cracks that our loved ones are pushed through to better document our loved ones,

Yulia Laricheva  40:58

Right? Because it's almost like “Well, do you have somebody appointed to just manage the missing woman's database and cross reference those things?” But that will like melt your brain. And that won't let different departments communicate with each other because somebody say, like Spokane found something. But that wasn't in, you know, like the Idaho registry or something. And then those two departments can find a way to like fuse the records together. But if each record is in its own silo, then there's like a whole area of information where information is missing,

Annita Lucchesi  41:33

Right. And what's really upsetting is that the tribes don't have an opportunity to correct the information or even access it. So there's, for example, you mentioned Spokane, we've gotten data from the Washington State Patrol, there are 1000s of indigenous girls who have gone missing in Washington in the last couple years. And most of them or a big chunk of them are from tribes that aren't even in Washington, they're from Montana tribes. And those tribes are not notified. Even like that data had a girl that went missing 80 times in three years. And her tribe was never notified that they have this young person that is clearly at risk of violence, or unsafe or unhappy where they are.

Yulia Laricheva  42:18

Wow. Wow. You know, I, I've been through the Spokane airport. And there are a lot of human trafficking signs everywhere going if you are being trafficked, or if you see somebody being trafficked, say something and I travel a lot. And there aren't too many airports, we see that at the levels of trafficking that are happening in the Northwest are large in the US to begin with. But in my head, as I think about all of this, I'm just like, how do we create something where the information flows? Is it like a third database that connects everyone just Pacific for Native women, and then somebody enters that information to something else, but like, you need a hub, because otherwise everything is going to fall out. There's so many women working in tech, I you know, connect with the Harvard Women in Tech Club, and they can create some kind of like a plugin that goes into the other databases, that would be awesome.

Annita Lucchesi  43:14

I think part of the challenge is that like, it's not just data is not just training or new resources. It's also systemic bias in the system, whether it's law enforcement, or we see it also in the foster care system. Like that girl that went missing 80 times in three years, she had like five or six different case files based on different misspellings of her name, because she was being bounced from foster home to foster home and none of them bothered to spell her name, right. So it's just like, it's not only an issue of data systems that don't work. It's human error from racial bias. You know, I was trafficked in Spokane, I know exactly why they have all those signs in the airport. And it's because it's known for being a hub for that, like I was solicited by police officers, I was harassed by police officers. When I left my trafficker, his department of corrections officer called me and begged me to go back to him because he knew I was his source of financial stability. So it's not just that the system isn't designed to gather the information and get it to where it needs to go. It's also that like, no matter how, like how great of a data collection system, we design, no matter how many trainings we do, it doesn't matter if the people there don't actually implement the trainings and those systems in their day to day job. And right now, they're just not doing that because of bias.

Yulia Laricheva  44:37

So wanted to ask you, if you're comfortable talking about your experience when you were trafficked? I want to know if that's okay to bring up you know, or if it's triggering or you know, just just want to be sensitive.

Annita Lucchesi  44:48

Yeah, I'm pretty public. Like I don't share his name or like details, but I have shared about my experience before, so that's fine. I was in my mid 20s. I think there's a lot of stereotypes out there on trafficking. And my story is proof that a lot of them are wrong. I think when people hear trafficking they think of like people being kidnapped from a Walmart parking lot and opiate drips and trailers and things like that. And none of that happened to me. And I think there's stereotypes about who this happens to that it's predominantly people who already are, you know, using drugs, or homeless or come from bad homes. And while all of those things are intersecting issues with trafficking, that wasn't my experience, my experience, I grew up in a loving family, we didn't have substance abuse in the home, we didn't have violence in the home, I did not grow up in poverty, I had a pretty idyllic childhood, all things considered. And what happened to me was, I moved out of state to pursue my master's degree. And I finished all of my coursework, and I ended up moving to a city a little ways away from where my university was, I ended up in a relationship with this person who's a native man. He also was a survivor of horrible violence and trauma that he had gone through with his family, and including childhood sexual exploitation or survival sex work. And I've never really recovered from that. And I didn't know that until it was too late. There wasn't like, there wasn't a time where I was like, kidnapped, or there was never a time when I was on drugs, like it wasn't anything like that. It was just, you know, I really deeply loved him. And we were struggling to survive and struggling to get through. And this is what needed to happen in order for us to get through. And that's my experience. I wasn't in that life for a long time. I was with him for a little over a year. And then I, my family helped me leave him when I was ready. And I moved to start my life over a few states away. So I never, I think it's important to say that I never reported him. I never pursued any charges against him. And to this day, like I don't, I don't have a relationship with him. But I don't wish harm on him. I've seen how much he struggles in life and how much he hurts from the violence that colonialism has done to his family, and the violence that sexual violence has had on his family, that I don't blame him, I just know that I'm not safe around him. That's the way that I looked at it. And I know people have asked me over the years, well, how come you didn't report or like there's even been people who said that they didn't believe that I was a survivor, because I didn't report. And unfortunately, most survivors don't feel safe in reporting. And that was definitely true. For me, I didn't feel like I didn't feel like the system would hold him accountable. Because they had shown me in other ways that they wouldn't. And in the years that I've spent away from him, he's been arrested for all sorts of things, including armed robbery, strangulation, multiple assault charges, attempted murder, and he's been acquitted of all of those. So, you know, it's not, it's not a system that's trustworthy, especially if you've already been violated by being solicited by law enforcement, or, you know, how to department of corrections officer asked you to go back to your abuser. So I just never trusted the system to protect me. And I also never wanted to put another native man behind bars, I didn't feel like that would do anything. If anything, it would piss his family off and make him even more traumatized and angry and volatile. I didn't want him to be punished, I wanted him to have an opportunity to heal. Unfortunately, I think a lot of survivors, especially native survivors, because we know how much intergenerational traumas in our communities, a lot of us are in that position. And there just isn't a path or an opportunity to say, like, like, if there was an option for me to have reported him and say, like, I want him to get help, I want him to be in rehab, I want him to have cultural forms of healing available to him. That wasn't an option. It was press criminal charges, or say nothing. So I said nothing. And that's that's kind of my experience and my journey.

Yulia Laricheva  49:21

And that is just so heartbreaking to because this was such a case where you're close with someone so you know, there are a lot of emotions involved. There's there's love there's caring there all those things and and you just brought up such an amazing point that there is no button there's no you know, there's 911 for help, right, but there's not like a 111 if you want to get help for somebody.

Annita Lucchesi  49:49

Yeah, well, and during this time, like there was times where I was getting beaten in broad daylight and no one sat or did anything or he also has like like stress induced seizures from his trauma. And there was a time where he had a seizure by the side of the road and like I'm kneeling with his head in my lap in the sidewalk, trying to flog cars down for help. And no one stopped no one called 911. Like he was left to die on the sidewalk. And I was supposed to just sit there and watch. And so when you have experiences like that you're taught that you're expendable and invisible. So it definitely does not, there's not a culture of support for victims to come forward.

Yulia Laricheva  50:29

Right. And that's, you know, as we try to change the culture, it's like, how do we establish these things? How do we establish these foundations? How do we find the nonprofits who are doing the work? Who can help with this? You also brought up that you were you had your own experiences with the police department, when it comes to coming forward as a victim as a survivor? And you mentioned that they suggested going back to him? No, would you mind expanding on your experience in that situation?

Annita Lucchesi  51:03

Sure. So when it came time for me to leave, I think it's important to also say that like this kind of relationship, this kind of abuse, it messes with your head so bad, and makes it really hard to leave. And people end up staying much longer than they want to, or than they need to that and that was true for me when I left, it wasn't because I valued myself for my life, or because I thought I deserved better. I left because I didn't want him to go to prison for killing me. And I, I valued his freedom more than I valued our relationship or my life. And the night that I left like he, it was really bad. I had had to call the paramedics for help. He was having kind of a psychotic episode because of his PTSD. And was like laying in the road hoping cars would run over him trying to fight the neighbor's dog fighting his family fighting me, I had to bury all the knives in the yard. He was just out of control. And I knew that I wasn't physically strong enough to hold him back from hurting himself or others, including me. So I called the paramedics for help for him, because he was also having seizures. And the paramedics came, and they strapped him on the gurney. And he snapped out of his episode while they were carrying him in the gurney into the ambulance. And he looked at me like he just hated me, and was saying he was gonna kill me and this and that. And I knew that he's such a master manipulator of the system, because he's been in it for so long that he like, because the paramedics told me Well, they're gonna keep him there for at least 24 to 48 hours, like in the psych ward. And I knew that that wouldn't happen. So as soon as they took him away, I started packing, what I could up into a taxi, and I left to go to an airport motel to hide out because I couldn't think of a place where like, that would be anonymous enough where he couldn't find me. And I was thankful to like at that point, I had no money at all. But I called my parents and they move really quickly to like, you know, pay for the room and pay for the taxi and make sure that I was able to get away. And that's probably a good thing. I did that because a few hours later, he broke out of the psych ward and ran through the city and his socks with no shoes on and a hospital gown looking for me and came home looking for me like that. And I And he, you know, begged me to come back and whatever. And I stayed in the airport motel for a couple days, trying to figure out what I was going to do. And eventually my parents bought a plane ticket and helped me get home. And I'm really lucky that they had those resources to do that, because most survivors don't have those things. But at that point, while it was in the motel room, I got a call from my abusers department of corrections officer because he was still even though he was out. He was under Department of Corrections, supervision. His DLC officer called me and said like, Hey, I like he told me that you left, I know that you are a big source of the stability in his life and his ability to like have housing and, and food and that kind of stuff. And I really want to ask you to come back and see if there's a way that you guys can work this out, because he's going to end up back in the system if you don't come back. And I just said I'm not able to come back at this time. I have a family emergency I need to leave. And I just left it at that. But there was so many times leading up to that where they there was major red flags that they just didn't care about, like they would come into. They would do house visits randomly, one to two times a week and there was times where and this was different officers so it wasn't just one person there one day and it was a woman officer who came that day, there was a person sized hole in the wall. And she looked at him and looked at the wall and asked me what happened. And he intervened and said, Oh, well, you know, things got a hand we like there was a tickle fight, like people were just being silly, and it got out of hand on the DLC officer was like, Okay, that makes sense, no problem. And so there was like, glaring evidence that things were not right. And no one intervened. No one ever talked to me, separately from him, except when, when I left, and that was asked me to come back.

Yulia Laricheva  55:36

It's so interesting that you bring up the fact that, you know, like, no one ever talked to me, they talked to him. And, you know, I No wonder how much you know, the, the patriarch Kikko, Western society plays into that. And maybe that's one of the reasons that there's so many women that are missing, because the system is set up for people to, to not function in it. And, and women's voices are ignored. And this was one of the reasons I wanted to do the podcast that people could listen to our conversation. So they can hear the words from you, from other women, and it can be in their ears, and it can be in their spirit and in their mind. And they can have a little bit of like, an understanding about it. Because I think when you read the news on a piece of paper, or you know, on your iPad, or on your phone, you're seeing these headlines that are like missing women missing Indigenous women, but there's no connection that's being made that these are people and these people have stories, and these people have lives, the humanity is taken away from them, right? Because once you become a statistic there, there's just no humanity left. And in the data, I wanted to try to help add a voice, literally, literally a voice through the podcast to all the missing women. Hopefully, you can cause, you know, some, some updates. But as you say, this is such a huge, huge, complicated topic, you know about this a lot more than I do. But it just seems so complicated, because you have the federal government that's involved here, the local state law, but then when it comes to tribal nations, you also have just res law. So you have local local law on the reservation, which are not obligated to prosecute, I think non natives on the land if I stand corrected, am I correct in that?

Annita Lucchesi  57:39

Yeah, they don't have the capacity or the jurisdiction to prosecute non-native offenders.

Yulia Laricheva  57:44

Which is wild, because it means that somebody can come on to the reservation, and they can cause harm, and they won't be held, held accountable. All of it is just so complicated. And they wonder, when you see as a solution for, I guess, for for solving these cases, but also for preventing them. It's like if the federal law is like, okay, my hands are clean, I like this is on your property, I don't have to deal with it. But if if the local rules laws, and there aren't enough cops, and they can't handle it, and they don't have the resources to do a full investigation, the women go through the cracks. So So what is is there a solution? You know, how, how can this be prevented?

Annita Lucchesi  58:34

I think we have to build on the strengths of our own people, whether that's tribal police or grassroots community members. I think what's really powerful that we've seen in the MMA W movement is that it's grassroots folks who are doing the work, whether it's actively looking for missing persons, or gathering tips and murder investigations, or raising awareness or fundraising to support the families. It's our grassroots community members who are doing all of that. So we already have people with the skills and the knowledge and the integrity to do the work. They just need to be empowered to do it to the best of their ability, whether that means getting additional training or certification, or additional funding, or even just I think the biggest thing is more institutional authority are people have the drive and the will to address this issue come hell or high water. So it's not a matter of like community capacity. I think it's just a matter of power, and making sure that our people whether it's grassroots folks or tribal law enforcement or tribal courts have the power to fully protect their people.

Yulia Laricheva  59:45

Right. And also, these women having the confidence to speak up and the protection, right because if you go back to the local police departments or even the local Trouble police if it's a corrupt department, they don't stand a chance. So who's policing the police?

Annita Lucchesi  1:00:06

Yeah, I think if law enforcement agencies were to have some kind of community review board where there was safe ways for victims, or people who have been neglected or abused by law enforcement to come forward with that, I think that can be really powerful. I think states like California that are appeal to 80 states have a really unique opportunity to do that, and to do some really creative pilot projects, because the tribe has concurrent jurisdiction over the reservation. So what that means is, both the tribe and county sheriff have jurisdiction over the reservation and have to work together in partnership. And of course, most of the time, they don't, because those relationships are broken, and marked by all sorts of institutional failures. But the opportunity is there, the platform is there. It's just a matter of building better relationships and better systems of accountability, so that tribes can take on more responsibility and addressing the issue.

Yulia Laricheva  1:01:05

That's really interesting, too. It's like what systems does one set up in order to do that, and you know, who, who is accountable? That's like the woman have to take it into their hands and hold people accountable. Because if nobody cares about us, then then we have to do it ourselves.

Annita Lucchesi  1:01:22

Well, and that's what we've been doing, not just SBI. But I think the movement as a whole, like, one of the things I tell people is that the movement, the first official MMI W in March happened in February of 1991. I was born in May 1981. So there's never a time in my life, where people haven't been advocating for me, in my view. And this movement is so much older than me. And there's so many women who've been doing it so much longer than me that I've learned from. So I think we've really demonstrated like we can put in this work, whether it's as researchers, as law enforcement, as advocates, as social workers, whatever it is, like we've already demonstrated, we can do it. We just need to be trusted and empowered to do it. 

Yulia Laricheva  1:02:05

And the base, it stretches across the United States, Canada. And I want to say you're also expanding into Latin America as well. Am I correct on that one?

Annita Lucchesi  1:02:15

Yeah, the database started out as US and Canada. And then when we launched SBI. In 2018, we launched a sister database for Latin America.

Yulia Laricheva  1:02:26

That's amazing. So what does database I know the just in July, super recent, the sovereign bodies work together with the Yurok tribal Corps, and you've released a progress report on a project. And I was wondering if that progress report is connected to the database as well Oh, that's, that's a separate project.

Annita Lucchesi  1:02:52

They're kind of two connected but different projects. So the work that we're doing with the Yurok tribal court is largely in due to the leadership of Judge Abbey, Eben auntie, she is the first native woman in California to pass the State Bar. She is the Chief Justice of the York tribal court, and just an all around matriarch and badass, Abby had this idea for a project on missing and murdered native women and children throughout Northern California. And the report that came out in July was kind of the the manifestation of the first year and a half of that project. So the intent was to gather as comprehensive as possible data on MMIW, not just cases that occurred in California, but also any cases that occurred against a California Indian woman, regardless of where they lived. So that was the kind of data set that the court wanted to work with. So we built that based on our existing data in the database, but also through additional research and additional work with the community and with families. So the report is kind of a reflection of all of that data collection, as well as a year and a half of providing direct services to families and survivors in the region, doing some deep dives on cases with them. And then we also piloted a needs assessment with families, court staff, survivors, law enforcement, anybody who might have a hand or a stake in this issue, to try to get a sense of where they think the gaps are. Because I think part of the problem not just in California, but everywhere is that there's so many people involved in this whether it's law enforcement, or people in the foster care system, or people at rehab facilities, there's so many people that have their hands kind of tangentially in it, and they don't talk to each other and they'll have drastically different experiences of the issue and what they think will fix it. So part of this was this report and this project was trying to just figure out okay, what does what what is everybody seeing and thinking and how can we like match it up together to create pilot projects that might not actually work for our women.

Yulia Laricheva  1:05:01

And what did you see in this report that just came out? Did anything pop out at you that you were surprised to see as well,

Annita Lucchesi  1:05:08

I think what was striking for us was just how frequent issues of police violence or negligence were coming up. And that's not unique to this area. We've seen it in other places like Montana too. But it was much more common or, or the people we talked to are much more ready to share that than they maybe are in other areas. As we started working with families and survivors, almost all of them had stories of if not something, they experienced, something a family member experienced. And there was kind of this widespread pattern of sexual abuse at the hands of county sheriff's. And that was something that while I had heard stories kind of here and there, I didn't know that it was really, that widespread. And so that was really shocking and or disturbing for me, especially as somebody who is a survivor, and has also had negative experiences with law enforcement out of the area, it was really jarring for me to see it such a pervasive pattern here even across different generations or across different tribal communities.

Yulia Laricheva  1:06:17

Right? Because, because it's in the report, and it's it's there for everyone to see.

Annita Lucchesi  1:06:22

Yeah, well, I think it goes like, when this issue comes up, a lot of times people will say, we'll kind of treat it like, oh, well, it's one bad apple. Not all cops are like that. And it's true. Not all cops are like that. But unfortunately, this system is designed to allow cops to be like that, and to teach them to be like that. And that's what we're seeing from one generation to the next is generations of young law enforcement learning from older generations, that that kind of stuffs okay, and that there aren't any consequences for it. And then everyone's just going to look the other way. And the example that we gave in the report was an officer who used to work for Humboldt County Sheriff's named Kevin Christie, who was stationed to patrol the Hoopa Valley reservation. And he and his partner would arrest women and girls for things like skipping school or being drunk in public and would take them out to a rural area off the freeway, and sexually abused them. And unfortunately, those cases were never brought to trial, I think in large part because the victims of that violence, never felt safe reporting, because you're reporting to your own rapist, but he was tried for molestation and rape of minors, white girls, and those trials. I mean, even though even those poor white girls were treated horribly, they were expected to testify three times in three separate trials. The first trial was a miss trial, the second he was convicted, and then somehow that was overturned. And by the third trial, those poor girls were so traumatized, they couldn't stand the emotional weight of having to testify again. And so he was acquitted on the third time, because the victims were so traumatized by the process, that is a justice system that is in cahoots with this officer, that is the justice system that does not care about the trauma of children who have been sexually abused, because they care more about the reputation of a law enforcement officer. And that man is not a law enforcement officer anymore. But he is still a member of this community. He's a business owner. He's involved in different local community organizations, and never had any consequences, even though his trial for rape was on the front page in the newspaper. So I no venting. But I think it's an example of just how often even when law enforcement are like, even when there are attempts to hold them accountable, how difficult it is to actually put it into practice.

Yulia Laricheva  1:08:54

And repeat offenders don't stop, they just change their ways, you know. So it's like, just because he's not a cop anymore, doesn't mean he's not figuring out different ways to reach women and terrorize woman. And I'm also wondering if the native girls in the story of our gotta testify if they got to share their voice?

Annita Lucchesi  1:09:14

I don't think so. He was never, as far as I know, was never held, held accountable for the violence that he perpetrated while on the job. And I think in large part because the women were afraid, too afraid to report but also there was, there was a woman who did want to report and she went missing to this day, decades later, she still hasn't been found. So that told all the other victims, hey, look, what will happen to you if you even try to talk?

Yulia Laricheva  1:09:44

Right? We need the system to work with us to have accountability. And I'm wondering, you know, you're you have a car cartography background as well. So as you're putting together this database, are you seeing large spots where women go missing you? Is it correlated to other nearby locations, or if you're seeing any patterns,

Annita Lucchesi  1:10:06

I think there maybe are some patterns or places where it happens more often than others. But what I really try to impress upon people is that there's not a place where this isn't happening. And oftentimes, like, you know, my experience as a survivor is that most people in a city will have no idea that native people who live on the streets have a completely different experience of the city. Or even what we found in the California report that we released in July, we asked the sheriff, do you think there are places that are unsafe for Native women and children? And his response was, No, I think this county is pretty safe. We have good public safety here. Then when we asked women from that county, if there were places where they felt unsafe, they said they couldn't name a place where they did feel safe. So it was the exact opposite of the sheriffs experience. So I think it goes to show that even in places where we feel like, well, that doesn't impact my community, or I, we don't have that problem here. Until you actually talk to native women, you may think that way. But the reality is, there's no place that's really safe for Native women, there's no place where this issue isn't happening.

Yulia Laricheva  1:11:19

Right. I've been doing a little bit of research. And I've been reading different interviews. And they also say that the missing woman are related to, you know, to oil camps, and two different mining camps and two different things.

Annita Lucchesi  1:11:34

I think it's definitely true that extractive industries lead to more violence against native women. I think there are some extreme cases where like, the correlation is very clear, where like, you know, pipeline workers raped and left the scene of woman to die. Yes, that does happen. But I think the bigger issue is that these extractive industries create, like, just like an oil spill, right? When there's an oil spill, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to clean up, and the more it spreads and grows, the harder it is to clean up. The same is true for the social impact of these industries, that becomes kind of like a social version of an oil spill, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to clean up, and the more impact it has on the environment. One example of that is the person who trafficked me is actually from a community that has had the oil industry impact their territories, decades ago, when my when my abuser was a child, or even before he was born. And his mom lived her life experiencing violence because of what extractive industries did to their community. And then that all of that violence trickled down to him. And he was taught that trafficking was normal, or that sexual violence was normal because of that, and he moved to states away, and 30 years later, and did the same thing to me. So I think the issue is that when we have these industries come into our communities, and they bring in an influx of trafficking, rape, drugs, gang violence, it creates this intergenerational ripple effect that gets bigger and bigger and bigger over time, and becomes almost impossible to clean up if you let it fester.

Yulia Laricheva  1:13:17

And there's something to be said, for intergenerational trauma, it doesn't go away, it gets passed down. And unless you break the cycle, it just keeps going.

Annita Lucchesi  1:13:27

You know, and unfortunately, so many of our people don't have the resources to break the cycle.

Yulia Laricheva  1:13:32

And that's, the more I think about it, too, is that the people who are committing these crimes and this violence, they're trapped in their own cycles. So it's just people who are suffering, just creating more suffering onto people. There's no psychological health, there's, there's no support. So it just keeps on going.

Annita Lucchesi  1:13:53

Yeah, I think the other thing that extractive industries do is they create this kind of culture of lawlessness, not just around missing and murdered women, but abusive women, drug use physical altercations. Like there's just so much. And we've seen this historically, even where I live in Northern California, there's been all sorts of resources extraction here. And to this day, and for decades and decades, we've been kind of the hub of the marijuana industry. And the illegal marijuana industry has brought all sorts of violence to the community, whether it's taking too much water from the streams or using harmful herbicides and pesticides. It's really wreaks havoc on the land and the environment, but it's also wreaked havoc on women. There's all sorts of stories of women who go to work as trimmers and are sexually harassed when they're working as trimmers and then at the end of the season, get sold into trafficking instead of getting paid. And so there's this kind of general culture of anything goes the sheriff doesn't care. They're never going to come out. Hear, they're not going to deal with this. Or, you know, I saw 50 other people get away with it. So I know I'm going to get away with it too. All of that kind of collides when you live in a culture that teaches you to take, and that's what resources extraction does, it teaches you that anything is for the taking, and anything goes.

Yulia Laricheva  1:15:18

Which goes back to colonialism and data. All right, like once you own the data, once you create your own systems, then you can start to build up power again.

Annita Lucchesi  1:15:30

Yeah, well, and I think they've been defining the narrative for so long, especially when it comes to violence against our women, like, actually, my academic work is separate from the database separate from all of this, but my academic work is on cartography and how it's been a tool of colonialism, especially with regards to kind of like this armchair exploration of our pupils. And we see that with data on violence against women, too. So one of the things like I talk about statistics, like the one in three and Muskogee Creek scholar, Sarah deer, who's on our board has also written about that one in three statistic and kind of how it doesn't represent the realities in our community. I write about it as a form of data terrorism. And what I mean by that is data that functions as a way of terrorizing a population into submission. data like that is used as a way to terrify our women or girls into behaving in ways the settler state wants. So for example, they'll say, one in three native women are raped in their lifetime. So make sure to not dress revealing or don't drink alcohol, or don't go to parties or go to college or any of those things. And it becomes ways to police native women's bodies and behaviors and scare them into submission. And it scares our tribal nations into submission to by saying, Well, you know, your one in three women in your community are going to be raped, and we have this money to address it, but only if you follow our rules and give us all of your information. And that becomes another way of kind of terrifying our nations into submitting to, or at least live like having to acquiesce to live under colonial occupation. So data like that isn't helpful, it's actually actively harmful. And that's where SPI comes in is by asking, What if we created something different? What if we created data and information that instead of being harmful to our women into our tribes was actually helpful and empowering and mobilized us towards some kind of healing or justice or safety?

Yulia Laricheva  1:17:32

You know, I'm wondering if you've seen success stories come out of the missing woman's database, and maybe seeing success stories is not the right term for it. But if you've seen resolutions come out of it, then if you see in the database, you know, close cases, or help people figure out what happened to their loved ones.

Annita Lucchesi  1:17:52

I've seen cases close, I've seen missing persons located. I like for examples. SBI has a survivor's Leadership Council, Alyssa Yellowbird Chase is a member of that council and her work is just incredible. She locates missing native people. I've seen her do that. And I've seen her work tirelessly at it. And you know, I think that's a success in some ways. Unfortunately, I don't know any family that feels like they've gotten justice, even when a case has led to conviction. I think there's a sense of okay, that part's over with. But there justice is such a complicated thing, with so many pieces to it, that I think holding the perpetrator accountable is just one piece of it. But working to make sure that that doesn't happen to other women and girls is another piece of it, that largely hasn't happened, at least from the justice system. I think the biggest successes are just seeing how this movement has grown, seeing women like Alyssa go out and do this work and be the boots on the ground, and to see their families and survivors really find their voices and their leadership. I think that you know, if SPI has had any successes, that is the that's the biggest one is seeing the families and survivors we work with find their voices.

Yulia Laricheva  1:19:09

And is there a way to spot trafficking victims in public? I think it's such a hard thing to do. Like, I'm just thinking personally, like, Would I notice somebody being trafficked? I don't know what to look for personally, and I'm sure a lot of people don't know what to look forward to. But if you have any advice,

Annita Lucchesi  1:19:28

I think there's a lot of stereotypes out there about like tattoos or you know, kind of like outlandish things to look for. Like I have a tattoo, like it's not immediately visible. And even if you saw it, you wouldn't think like oh, that's a trafficking victim. So I think it's not necessarily things like that. But I think if you see a person not even necessarily a woman or girl because our boys are traffic to if you see a person who is with another person and doesn't seem to have much power over what's happening, for example, like if you see, let's just say a child or a young woman or young man with another older man, my trafficker was like nine years older than me, if you see somebody like that, and that person is visibly stressed, or haggard, or tired, they don't have access, like, they don't have a wallet, or money or ID, and the other person has all of that, or the other person is always speaking for that person, or telling them where to go. And you can tell by the body language, that person is really like the smaller younger person is really following that the lead in the direction of that older person, I think that can be a sign, not necessarily of trafficking, sometimes just like domestic abuse. So there's things like that to look for. I would say also, of course, like if you're, if you're a friend or family member of someone, and you see them really pulling away and becoming distant or having their partner have kind of dominate their life, and their decision making, and you see that person, maybe with suspicious bruises or injuries or things like that, that's also assigned, but I think a lot of traffickers know, to create injuries that aren't visible. For example, my trafficker would, like, do cigarette burns on my legs where people wouldn't see or would like, one time, he dragged me from a vehicle and like I was walking on the street, and he dragged me by my cheek and like, you would have no idea that my mouth is pulling up with what. So there's some stuff that like, you just like, wouldn't necessarily see. But I think the important thing is to look at the power dynamics in any relationship. And if there's a person that visibly doesn't have a lot of power in that relationship, that's a big red flag.

Yulia Laricheva  1:21:48

And I'm also wondering, if there are resources where people want to help and they want to become involved with, say, your organization, or just trying to get resources for someone that they love or themselves, you know, I'd love to create a compilation at the end of this podcast, and also have it as a resources on the page to where they can look, and they can try to find some help.

Annita Lucchesi  1:22:13

Yeah, we actually have an organizing toolkit free for download on our website. It's like 200 pages is giant, but it's narratives from families and survivors, how to guides, worksheets, discussion, activity, guides, quizzes, basically, it's kind of a one stop shop to figure out how your community or how you want to get involved in the MMI W issue, because there's so many different ways to get involved. So we have chapters on data policy, boots on the ground work, support services, community healing, there's all different ways to get involved and all of its in there. So I would definitely recommend checking that out. If there are survivors or families of missing and murdered women, girls or Two Spirit people that are in need of services. SBI does offer some support services. So reach out to us and we can have a conversation with you and see how we can help. The other resource that I think is just phenomenal is the strong hearts native helpline that's a free national helpline for anybody who's experienced domestic violence or sexual assault, and it's an indigenous helpline. So if you call, you're going to get culturally sensitive support. I think that's just absolutely amazing. We haven't had that until they launched a few years ago. So if you're in need of help, or just someone to talk to you about it, SBI is here, strong Hearts is here. If you need help figuring out how to look for your missing loved one lisez organization Sonesh scouts is a great place to start. There are people there's lots of people on Facebook who are involved in this issue and active voices and I think reaching out to some of them would be great. Roxanne White is on our survivors Leadership Council and she's based in Seattle, and she does amazing work with families as an advocate. So there are resources out there, you just got to reach out for help. And if you don't know where to start, and it's really overwhelming. Come to us at SPI and we'll help you figure it out.

Yulia Laricheva  1:24:14

That's amazing. It's it's incredible. You're changing lives and you're changing generations.

Annita Lucchesi  1:24:19

We're trying It's an effort.

Yulia Laricheva  1:24:25

While a need is energy is going into the MMIW database, other activists are creating awareness through social platforms, especially on tick tock for reasons we're about to get into with our next interview. Megan Lynn Houser is an ally at the University of Dayton who recently published an honors thesis on Tik Tok and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Girls and Two Spirit people movement. On the show she spoke about how MMIW activists find the amplification on Tik Tok over Instagram. We also delve into the intricacies of social media, free speech and censorship. When we think of Instagram, we don't normally think of shadow bans censorship and limitations on free speech. Yeah, in 2021 on May 5, which is the National Day of awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives, Instagram deleted stories and posts about the crisis and blamed the air on a bug. Now, mind you, this happened both in Canada and then the US. So it must have been some bug censorship and shadow bans are just a few reasons why activists have been turning to tick tock to get their voices out. And this is ironic, since tick tock is a platform owned by bytedance, which are headquartered in Beijing, China, a place run by a communist regime known for censorship. And the more MMIWR data and stories get heard, the more the cases get attention, and the less censorship will exist, it's impossible to silence us all. And I'm really glad we're able to have this discussion about censorship and MMIW on social media.

Meghan Leinhauser  1:26:04

Yeah, I think I saw a quote when that happened. And it was kind of highlighting the irony of your posting about people who have gone missing, and then all of a sudden your posts about that go missing. So it was some pretty sad irony there. And I think a lot of times people don't associate Well, you could kind of argue it either way. I think a lot of people don't associate American media with like, heavy censorship. And I think it's like a lot of free speech, people often associated with that. But then it's just a different kind of censorship. And because it's there is a bit of conversation surrounding like, tick tock, and how does the Chinese company and how there's, they associate a lot of censorship with China, because they do a lot of censorship in general. So people more so think of it when it comes up and tick tock, but you're absolutely right. It's just a different form of censorship. And because it is a US owned company, and people might just not realize it. So they'll maybe be able to write it off and think of it as a fluke. And we'll accept the blanket statement that Instagram put out saying that it was just a bug. But I mean, for the people within the community, or the people that are advocating for this, you you kind of know it's more than that. It's not just something that would randomly happen on such an important day. So yeah, I think that oftentimes, people might not recognize that the censorship is happening. But for those who are using social media as a method of activism, I think they do face a lot more of the censorship than the average person would realize. Because if you're being like shadow banned on Tik Tok, your posts aren't reaching the audience that they could but then you see another video just going absolutely viral, but a totally different topic. There's a lot of frustration that surrounds it. So I think it's something that I found in my research with tick tock advocacy is that there's a lot of loopholes to lots of like, buzzwords that are used in advocacy. So for example, I would see a lot of times were murdered, the ease would be replaced with three. So you could tell that it said, missing and murdered, but then in order to not have the videos taken down, they would do that. So it's a bit of a loophole. So I definitely saw that come up a lot, which I thought to be a super, super powerful tool to kind of like fly under the radar of censorship, because it's allowing videos to be put out there. And it even if you don't interact with activism videos in your day to day, if that pops up on your free page, and you see the word killed with an AI, having an exclamation point, instead of the AI are murdered with the threes, you're going to kind of take a second look at it and be like, Well, what's this video about? So I think it's also an interesting method to have like, it catches your eye normal. So even if you're not someone that typically engages with activism posts, if anything, you'll give it a second look.

Yulia Laricheva  1:28:53

Yeah, I'm definitely shadow banned on Instagram. And I noticed that in the beginning, when I first started out, and it wasn't so like political and, you know, like, I was getting a lot more traffic, but I also don't do anything aesthetic on it. So I know, I'm not like getting into the algorithm. And I'm like, Okay, well, if I went into the algorithm, if I use more reels, I would get more views. But it just doesn't make sense by a post on tick tock, which I rarely even post on tick tock because I just, I don't have time to make content. I can only record your post, but it's like, it's like a full time job. And with a family. I'm like…

Meghan Leinhauser  1:29:26

Yeah, I found it to be so interesting. Because essentially, for my research, I forced to curation, I use the four new page algorithm to I only interacted with the advocacy videos to have it formulate the algorithm to essentially only show me those things. So when I was trying to find videos, like essentially, since I was like curating it myself, I would search up and then IW M and W, G to S and MIP. Like, no more stolen sisters. I was looking at all these videos with the hashtags and there's millions I think, at the time I'm on I did my research was like either to to fats, there's many millions of videos posted with the hashtags. But then I would have the videos pop up on my for you page, and a ton of them didn't have any hashtags. So it just makes you think like how many of these videos are not being pushed to people's pages, because like the algorithms not favoring them, or there's a larger reason. But if there's millions that are being posted, with the hashtags, how many more millions are there that are out there that aren't being posted with the hashtags that, unfortunately, some people will just never see, because they're not being pushed. So it's definitely, it's almost like a game that you have to play to try to get the videos posted and have people actually see them, it's very accessible in the way that tick tock is free. And you can just press record and post, like you said, it takes time, if you want to do like a retake, that also takes time. But then some people that do gain more traction on their videos, they, they have a ring light, or they they record it on a camera, and then they upload it to their phone. And we'll add the text on top of it or edit it. And it is free, and you can just press posts, but then there's also you see those videos that are a bit higher quality getting more traction. And a lot of the time you don't you don't have the time you don't have the means to post or to take all the time to have it go into a post. So there's definitely a wide range of quality. They're all very quality videos because they have a deep message to them. But there's different amounts of lever you could say that go into making videos.

Yulia Laricheva  1:31:41

How people can use Tik Tok, as a means of social advocacy. And like, what did you learn from the thesis that people can really do through Tiktok that they can do through other online social networks?

Meghan Leinhauser  1:31:56

Yeah, I would definitely go to say that almost every social movement nowadays has social media presence. So you can log on Instagram, like you said, and see things about the earthquake, or you can go onto Facebook and see it. And I think Tik Tok in itself, it's very engaging. So you can be regular person and just press post. And then I found it to be a much more like I would say, like casual. It's not, although it's curated in the sense that the videos pop up due to a curated feed. I don't think of it as I guess you could say pretty or aesthetic, as like you said earlier, like Instagram definitely favors the aesthetics, and how things look. And on Tik Tok, they found that you could just be someone talking about something that they cared about, and then pressing post. And then something that I found to be super intriguing about this is that it's so engaging in the sense that there's the duet function and the stitch function. So if someone's already speaking about something, but someone comes across the video that has a larger platform, or maybe gets more engagement on their videos, instead of making another video to talk about it, and kind of clouding up the space, they can use that stitch function or that duet function. And essentially, they don't even have to be saying anything in that video. But then stitching it shows it side by side. And we'll gain traction to the video of the person that's already speaking about their relative who went missing. And instead of speaking over people, you can kind of just allow them to speak but use your platform as a tool to amplify their voice. So that was something that I found to be very unique for Tik Tok. In terms of other social media platforms. It could just be someone who has many 1000s of followers and in their stitch, they're not even saying anything. They're just, it's just their face, or they're just it's just a black screen saying please watch this video that will give exposure to the people that are speaking about this. So that's something that I really enjoyed about Tik Tok activism. I know that social media activism can sometimes get a bad rap, people will talk about it, they'll call it clicktivism or slacktivism, where they think you're just posting something and going about your day. But I think if you're going to use it as a method of social advocacy, you have to take it beyond just the social media, sharing things. And amplifying people's voices is so important. But it's also what you do offline to accompany that, which I think in talking with the Creator that I was able to speak to, she does a lot of work offline. So she posts about cases like MMIW and MMIP cases, but in addition to that she is helping families find their missing family members or giving them the resources is to get private investigators. And although that's not something everyone's going to do, I'm not going to be going and finding private investigators for people. But I was doing research alongside of this. So I think Tik Tok is a great place to learn a lot, and to have a lot of awareness raised. And because there's that viral, I'm gonna say this, the, the virality, or the ability to go viral, I think, is also very unique. Because on Instagram or Facebook, you can just lose a post in the feed, and sometimes it's chronological. But for Tik Tok, there's that boost where if you see a video, then it starts to go viral, then people are stitching it, or people are doing it, and then it kind of just keeps popping up when things go viral. And then because it's getting that engagement, it'll start pushing the other videos from that creators account. So that was something that I found to be also very unique about tick tock. And then in terms of MMW, specifically on tick tock, I really enjoyed learning a lot more about indigenous culture through watching the videos, because in addition to people posting about their loved ones going missing, or someone in their area, or just posting about people who had gone missing, they would also oftentimes just have bits of their culture included throughout. So whether it be traditional music that was playing in the background, or if people had a practice that they were doing, or if they were wearing something, I thought it was a really beautiful way to also intern learn about indigenous culture. while also learning about this, this topic,

Yulia Laricheva  1:36:38

I was gonna ask you what you also learn doing the content analysis of the MMIW  Tik Toks. I know you ran them through a program and there was like an algorithm. And if you can talk a little bit about how how you did that? That'd be great.

Meghan Leinhauser  1:36:53

Yes, so I guess I coded the videos to a bunch of themes and analyze them, the audio and then the text on the screen, and just the video itself. So what I found was that, in the codes that I was using, the majority of the videos were posted to raise awareness. So that makes sense, their advocacy videos, so a lot of it was sharing resources as well. So if someone had posted a video, but then also saying in the caption, so look, in my link, in my bio, I have a collection of things you can sign or where you can donate to places or where you can link to a Facebook page that has more information about this. So I found that people, it will be more than just the one video, a lot of times you would have extra resources to lead you to so that was something that I found when doing that content analysis. And then it was also just interesting to see, like I was saying earlier, like how engaging it could be. As someone who had kind of like forced that curation, I was seeing a lot of different videos that I wasn't expecting, like I said, I was just starting to see videos about indigenous culture, if it would be a dance that they were doing. But then the text on the screen would be about the statistic of missing and murdered indigenous women that are out there. So you're seeing this video, and it's this beautiful dancing video, and you're like appreciating this culture. But then there's that element of the text on the screen is actually raising awareness. So it was very twofold, because I was able to learn a lot more about it. But then also, they were able to raise awareness. So again, there's the people that will post about specific cases and their accounts will be dedicated to updating people about specific cases or sharing information. But then there's also the people if someone is a traditional indigenous dancer, if that's their talent, and they are recognizing that they can get a platform from doing that. Then they think, Okay, well, can I advocate for this using my talent, that was something that I was seeing as well. Also, I know a lot of social movements. As they grow, you kind of have like, growing pains that come along with it. If there's trends within a movement, I don't want to say a trend because it is people's lives and you're posting about it. But something I'd seen was a trend, I guess I could say was going around of people to post their height to post their weight to post their eye color to post identifiers about themselves, essentially to say in the case that I go missing. This is identifiers. At first when I saw it because I was learning about movement. I was like, first it's just very sad that people have to do that. But then, as this trend was growing, it was a lot of like younger women posting some minors. It was people of all ages, but then other people that advocate for this were essentially saying this is more dangerous than it is helpful. You should not be posting your height, your weight, your identifying features, because that's it's more dangerous and it is helpful, like, share this information with your loved ones, your close ones, anyone that could help, because unfortunately, someone on Tik Tok snap into be able to call the police for you kind of deal. So they were actually encouraging people to take down those videos focus more on the people that are missing how amplifying that focusing on those things, because it was also felt like it was perpetrating the idea that indigenous women are inherently victims, which is not true. But saying like, Am I next? Or will I go missing? It almost was perpetuating that. And that is not something that people were wanting to do, because Indigenous women are not inherently victims, they should not be victimized. So it was interesting seeing the rise of that trend and seeing a lot of those videos pop up. But then also seeing people stitching them, do it, do adding them using that tool to say don't do this, I would highly encourage you to share this with your loved ones, your own safety, please do not do this. And maybe if you are going to be using this platform that you have post about the people that are missing, and we can work to hopefully find them.

Yulia Laricheva  1:41:15

You know, I was gonna ask you, if you want to talk about anything else that maybe my questions have uncovered, as well. Like if you if you want to bring attention to anything,

Meghan Leinhauser  1:41:26

Yes, I had some notes of the things I wanted to cover. So something I didn't want to talk about was like the true crime of it'll people talking about the cases of people going missing, and speculating and treating them as if they weren't actually real people. In doing my research, I was consuming other media alongside tic tac, I was reading things, I was watching videos, I was listening to podcasts. So it's something I had found when I was doing all of this was that, especially in the true crime space, people like to speculate a lot. And they like to say, was it this? Could this person have been doing this and is that where they got in this situation. And I was really put off by it. Because I was like, these are real people, knowing what their intention was to, like, you don't know that. And if you do not know that all you have is the facts. So putting all the extra extra stuff out there is not going to help the case, it's not going to lead you anywhere. And I just thought it was a bit wrong how people were speaking about that. So but the unfortunate thing is not unfortunate. But people love true crime. And it's a huge, huge community of people. So there's people on Tik Tok that will post about True Crime pieces. And those gained a lot of traction. Because then they kind of lead you on, they'll say, oh, come back for part two. And that gets the more engagement with their videos. So I would see people posting about people who have gone missing or were murdered. But then they have this true Crimea, odd like music going into that like the eerie sound to kind of like set the tone, they would talk about it as if it were a story to be told, instead of someone's life they were talking about. And I found it to be very off putting and then a lot of indigenous creators, were actually speaking out about the fact that they did not like the tone that people would often be talked about, like they loved that people were getting traction and talking about these cases, because shedding light on the use of people who have gone missing or been murdered, obviously helps if you're able to get more leads or for people are seeing that that's always hurts oftentimes helpful. But then if you're going to be speaking about them as if there's some fictional character, then that dehumanizes them and it is your you're happy that they're talking about it. But then if you're going to be talking about it that way, then you would almost rather that they don't. The Tick Tock creator that I was able to speak to during my research. She was voicing frustration in the community that she has on Tik Tok. She, she said, for the most part, she has a great community. But if people start to speculate in her comments, and she posts about, she just presents the facts. And then she always would say that she would post the videos and speak about the people who had gone missing as if she was just speaking to the family. So she was envisioning it as if it would only be the family members watching it. So having that level of respect and actually speaking about them as the real people that they are and the terrible things that have happened to them, instead of saying, Oh, I wonder what that person was doing to get them here. I thought that was refreshing to hear and to see that people were speaking about these cases and not treating it like there was some fictional people ought to be spoken about. So yeah, lots of speculating is something that I came across in my research and it clouds up the space it doesn't help the cases it just kind of creates more jumble jumbles up everything and it kind of takes strays you away from the actual facts and it doesn't help find the people. It just clouds up everything. So that was something that I came across and wanted to speak on. So yeah, it's there's a double edged sword when you do gain traction on Tik Tok, I found because it's such a casual app. People just feel like they can say anything in the comments. I don't know. I know that people can speak behind a screen it on all forms of social media. But I've noticed even just when I'm on my personal account, people will feel comfortable saying anything. They'll comment hateful things as if there's no digital footprint like it's it's absolutely crazy. So that was something that I saw a lot. So when videos would go more viral about indigenous people who had gone missing, there would just be terrifying things in the comment that people would say, and you just wonder why people feel like they are able to say these things. Engagement is good in the videos when they go viral. But then it opens the door to see a lot of pretty vicious things be spoken about as well.

Yulia Laricheva  1:46:21

The story of Instagram deleting MMIIW posts and other stories on May 5 2021 continued to haunt me. I didn't reach out to Instagram since they probably would not discuss censorship. Their explanation, after all, was that it was simply a bug. I did speak to someone who had their MMIIW posts deleted on that particular day. Initially, I interviewed Liz Marin for our next episode, episode three focused on the connection between the extraction industry, banking and MMIP. And I hope you tune into that one as well. Liz is the program director of ceding sovereignty, and it's a collective, and they disrupt colonized spaces through land, body food sovereignty work, they have a focus on community building and cultural preservation. And Liz and I spoke about the effects of the extraction industry on her native land of Alaska. And she brought up the story of her experience of being censored on national MIP Awareness Day, and I really wanted to include it so you can hear it.

Liz Marin  1:47:21

So I already told you about my cousin Tracy and my cousin Linda, and their experiences with their intimate partners. I was like, Well, I have a platform, I'm gonna use it for my family's advantage. And I had posted photographs of my cousin's along with their stories, and I wasn't getting any likes past three. And I was like, What the heck's going on? This is really unusual, especially for it being a trending hashtag day. So I went and signed into my computer and checked Instagram, and my last three posts were gone. And I was like, Oh, that's weird. I wonder if my phone isn't connecting, right? Or, you know, I literally thought it was a user error. Then I tried to post it again. And my Instagram app closed, like the glitchy thing. And I'm like, Okay, this must be just like, there's too many of us on the internet's we're making the app go down. I'll wait a little bit. So I set an alarm on my phone. And I went back to do it again. And my app just so I hopped on my computer, started checking the hashtags. And my computer would not let me search the hashtag MMI w. And that's when I came to realize that I'm not the only one having this issue. So I moved over to Twitter, hopped on Twitter when I had it, and started seeing posts from other folks that their Instagram feeds for not allowing them to even open their app, the same issue I was having. I was in all in a very bad way. Because like, why would Instagram do that to us? And they were like, Oh, well, it goes against community guidelines. That's what I got, like three days later in my notifications, you know, how when you report somebody for posting bolder things? Well, I got one of those saying that I had a ban and I couldn't post for 72 hours because I had been posting violent things while I was explaining the violence that had happened to my cousin about the blood that was found in their apartment, about the traces of blood and a struggle in the back of their vehicle. I was literally telling all the evidence that had been found that it may have been her intimate partner who had murdered her. So yeah, it was it was violence but like you Anchorage Police Department needs to be held accountable. This was something that had they not waited a week and a half to investigate, they may have been able to find actual evidence of her murder. We don't know what happened to her. And we may never know what happened to her because she's just another drunk native to them. And apparently, to Instagram, we are also marjoram natives, I don't know, I could not believe the Instagram kept us from this day of activism, you know. So it's not even just the media ignoring us. It's not people turning a blind eye, because it doesn't bother me has nothing to do with my life. These tools we're using for our activism are literally being turned against us. So then I just started talking with my friends and organizing and telling them we got to fight back, this censorship is only going to keep us down, it's going to gonna get worse. Like, I knew what was going on with censorship was bad, as far as you know, the media and whatnot. But I didn't think it was going to go to like social media being a weaponized against us. So I just couldn't, couldn't keep quiet about it. I went and told my boss and my boss was like, will repost it. So I sent them screenshots of what I was going to post because you know, it does that saved in draft version. So I went ahead and opened up the draft and sent it to my boss who took screenshots and reposted it for us. And found out that like, it wasn't just me and my little circle because of who I am. But it was like, all across the nation, and pretty angry. So we talked to the verge about it. We talked to the Center for popular democracy and found out that it was a huge censorship. And then they came out, of course, with their weird apology, which literally meant nothing. And but that makes me worry, like, what's going to happen in a couple of weeks? Should we move it from May 5, because they build it into their algorithm that our stuff gets deleted? You know, it, it led me to a lot of questions in what's happening, because even now, when you try and search that hashtag, not a lot shows up. So it's like, what are we going to do? Like, how do we work around this? Which is what after a lot of talking and very late nights with my co workers, my friends and family, it's like, we're just going to keep up the in person events and start building locally. And do it so loud that they don't have a choice but to listen to us.

Yulia Laricheva  1:52:49

Liz is from Alaska, and you'll hear more of our conversation in episode three. The next person you'll hear from currently resides in Anchorage, Dr. Charlene, to pick up book is an indigenous researcher. hakapik is the executive director and founder of data for indigenous justice. It's an Alaska Native and woman led nonprofit, which is home to a database for missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and relatives data. Charlene has served in many spaces as an advocate for Indigenous women, indigenous sovereignty, climate, justice, and indigenous rights to health and well being. Charlene is a lifelong learner and both her cultural traditions and decolonizing academia. She earned her BA in American ethnic studies with a minor in Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, and has an MA in Alaska Native studies and Rural Development with an emphasis on circumpolar health and is currently pursuing her PhD in Indigenous Studies.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  1:53:49

So you asked about how data for indigenous justice came about. And I'm so glad you asked, because it's one of my favorite things to share, unfortunately, that we had to come about this way. But I love that data for indigenous justice came about as a grassroots and community led effort. And it came out of a place of love for our families and our people. And so back in I think 2018 at the Alaska Federation of Natives, which is the largest tribal gathering in the state of Alaska each year, we had so many families and people who kept saying, hey, this happened to my loved one, this happened to my loved one. And we knew that it was an issue. But again, there wasn't that recognition awareness as much as there is today. And so of our families came together and said, Let's read the names of our loved ones at this rally. And let's call attention to this issue. And so, community organizers came together and they wanted to put the list together, only to find that there was no list and there was no data and there wasn't a way to pull it. And so Oh, with that, they said, well, let's just do it right now, you know, and they started writing down their loved ones names. And that began the database that became the heart work of what we do today, as our community coming together and saying, No, this is our truth, this what has happened to us. And we started writing it down. And after that, I have a background in research. And they gave me that list. And they said, here, you know, you're a researcher, you take care of it, I was like, okay, you know, it was pretty informal. At the time, I was actually working as a researcher. And I just kept it and kept it safe and stewarded it and as I saw, you know, cases, I would kind of add to it on the side. And in 2020, as again, like there's been more rising up of indigenous peoples across the nation in the state of Alaska, I saw a real need and an urgent timing for us to be able to put out the information and to equip our people with the information, they need to self determine change on this. And so we founded that a friend of the Janus justice just in 2020. So we're only three years old now. But we, you know, lead with the intentionality that our families came and shared their names for a reason. And that was to create change. And so that's kind of the short story of how we got started. But it really came from the community and our families who carried this work for so long. Gonna ask

Yulia Laricheva  1:56:29

a follow up question, how are you using the database right now? And what have you learned from that database?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  1:56:36

Oh, my gosh, that's a big question. So stewarding that is a really big responsibility. And initially, it was to have it and it still is today, is to have a centralized place of information. Because again, there hasn't been one because of lack of accountability to the state and agencies and law enforcement, etc. And so it does continue to be the most accurate database, which I can tell a little bit tell you a little bit about. And so and then I'll answer the question, how it's used our database that data for indigenous justice is more accurate than any of the information that law even law enforcement has. Because in our database, for example, we have cases that are often misclassified. So we have cases where it wasn't considered a suspicious homicide, or a suspicious situation, or there were cases that are maybe misclassified as suicide that the family believes was homicide, et cetera, et cetera. And those are cases where again, we walk in live in our truth of our stories, and that data is represented in our database, because again, that's the aspect of decolonizing data that we operate off of the truthful place from our lived experiences. And so those cases, for example, are all in our database. Whereas at the state, they're classified as something different and not part of the missing and murdered indigenous peoples data that the state has. And then how we're able to use that data. First and foremost, we put out a report in 2021. So in less than a year after we incorporated, you know, we wanted to really make sure that we were sharing out the things that we were learning as we home these cases, when you're so intimately involved with the complexities of each case, you begin to see it becomes very transparent all of the data gaps, and all the ways that we go missing in data. And so I started to see those patterns. And we and we wrote it down. And we myself in the board, we put out the first of all my WG two s report for Alaska in 2021. That was a baseline basically. And so what I tried to do was to high point, the ways that we worked through different areas from anything from basic demographic, data and misclassification of cases to jurisdiction as a high point just to, again, kind of just offer something out that we could work off of as a baseline. And so that report has still been really pivotal for information that we have here in Alaska. It's been cited in legislation. It's been cited in the governor's proclamation to recognize May 5 as MMI WG Awareness Day. It's been used in local initiatives as well as municipalities. And so again, like so many times in our truth as indigenous people, it wasn't being recognized, families weren't being believed. And so, with that report, we're able to say no, this is really happening. And this is a problem in our community, not just the native country, right. This is a problem of all people and be able to document it and that's something like that. I I have to tell people like this isn't us just like writing down cases that are happening happening it is. But in addition to is the documentation of this of our lives and our truth and our stories that wasn't happening before.

Yulia Laricheva  2:00:14

Because I talked to Anitta Lucchesi and she told me about her database. And it sounds like your database is also incorporating a lot of the family stories and a lot of the background like, basically giving a persona to each person that's missing. So they're not just like a name.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:00:31

Humanizing the data is such an important part and props to Annita. So I had heard of Anytus work with sovereign bodies Institute, while she was a student, she still is, and she's finishing a PhD soon to be Dr. Anita, I remember I had reached out because again, I had this database that I was stewarding and caring for. And so I reached out to a Anita and just asked like, lots of questions about what it was like to steward the data, what software is being used, you know, anything from just the functionality to being able to take care of herself and be well in this work. And so I really uplift her, because when their database, that was the first one in the nation. And secondly, like she really was so open and giving with, like, sharing how I could move that forward for us in Alaska. But you know, their work really led the way for us to be able to do what we're doing here in Alaska.

Yulia Laricheva  2:01:30

Yes, it's very important work. And you know, I was going to ask you about it, you know, there are some differences that exist between indigenous data gathering and the Western approach. And I was wondering if he can talk a little bit about the two. And you know, how they're different basically.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:01:47

Yeah, so I shared a little bit one, like a very concrete example of how we steward the data and track it and harvest it based on the foundation of believing our stories. And oftentimes, we see in victimization, right, there's so much victim blaming, there's so much dismissal, and things like that, that even to operate off of the truth of our lives makes a huge difference of how that work is carried out. And so first and foremost, we operate off of the truth in from our lived experiences. And then that means that we have information that's very different than the state. The other thing about indigenous data keeping, I think, is that in Western colonial ways, right, is that actually, this this data, and this information from the get go even census data, right? I often tell people, that's a huge thing that everyone is familiar with, it happens all, you know, it recurs. And just even going back the census, information was never meant to service, it was meant to exterminate us as indigenous peoples. And the lingering of that in the presence of that today, you know, Urban Indian Health Institute talks about it is data genocide. And that is a continuation of data genocide that we still have to navigate today. And why I'm saying that is, western systems of data weren't meant to surface they weren't meant to benefit us. And our data that we keep, and that we store has always meant to be for the benefit of the people. The only reason we gather data and information, you know, as indigenous peoples and researchers continues and has always been to benefit us as a collective. And that is such that there's a vast worldview of one trying to extinguish us as in our existence, to us working to be a thriving healthy people. And so the modality of, of what we operate off of is very different. And, like, viscerally like, as someone who lives in this world, you cannot disconnect the heart from the mind. As an indigenous researcher, I can't just only compartmentalised my mind on something, you know, I do this with my full heart, which, you know, when we were checking in at the beginning, that's why the things that I'll share on this podcast are the same things I'm going to share with the US Attorney General's Office, you know, because through and through, we have to be a whole person and we have to use our heart and our mind the same rod. So it isn't, it isn't effective. Also, like if I only were to try to operate with just my mind, it wouldn't get us anywhere, it wouldn't be a service to our people, you know, we have to lead with our heart and be able to do this. And it also like it isn't sustainable if I tried to do this without heart like, you know, that's not going to serve anyone. So I think like the the ways that we keep data and the ways that we steward data and do research and ask the questions that we ask, come from that place of connecting the heart and the mind and moving forward from there.

Yulia Laricheva  2:04:58

My next question His, what are some ways that data can be decolonized?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:05:05

Oh, yeah, it's being decolonized all the time, right. And I think, again, like one of the things that I try when I do workshops, or if I have the opportunity is try to make visible the ways that we have always been researchers, as indigenous peoples, we have always been data collectors, we have always done this, right. And so sometimes it just takes a little bit for people to understand that we have always done this, and then realize that it's not very different than how we operate even on a daily basis, right, we're always taking in information from around us sorting it, in order to inform the next thing. You know, that's, that's really what it is, we're always analyzing and taking in information. And so first is like making sure that it's relatable, like people are equating and seeing themselves within the data. And again, oftentimes in a colonial system, we see information that we can't relate to, and we're not represented in it for very intentional reasons and purposes. And so when we decolonize data, we make sure that our families, communities, tribal members, indigenous peoples, can look at this information see themselves in that and that's really powerful. How can we do it is we do it in lots of different ways. We, you know, we have a lot of folks in our communities who are starting to use these tools. Sometimes they say, like, we don't have to use, right, the quote about the colonizers tools Will Never Dismantle you know, the colonizers house, but we don't have to use those tools that said, right, like, we can use western systems, Western degrees, methods, research, etc. We don't have to use it in the way that it was intended, we can do colonize it and use it as a weapon right to fight back, and to come back for everything that we've that we was taken from us. And so that's something to like, I think that decolonizing data, and doing indigenous research and having indigenous methodologies and scholarship is incredibly useful. And it doesn't mean that we're complacent and working in a Western colonial system, it means that we're using everything around us, right to serve our people. And there's nothing wrong with that. And there's lots of ways that we decolonize data that we decolonize research, to ultimately, again, serve our people.

Yulia Laricheva  2:07:30

I was going to ask you, what data have you seen in regards to MMIW cases in Alaska, you have this database, and you also talk to so many families? What's happening right now in Alaska?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:07:45

Stewarding the data and being within (right - not sure of this word)? Well, one of the things is, like we say, one of the things we try to do is humanize the data. Because many state agencies, and folks in this in this work, who are non Indigenous don't see the humanity of our family members who have gone missing or murdered. And to work in this work and to steward this database as I do, I do see the full humanity of each and every person. And so the way that that impacts me, and the ways that I carry those stories, I feel very viscerally deeply in my heart. And it's not easy to to see the 700 Plus lines of names that I am fully aware, are deeply loved and miss people in our community, every person in our database, I recognize as a person that was full of hopes and dreams that had a place of belonging in our community that contributed to the wellness, the vitality of us as Alaska native and indigenous people. And every single person then is such a huge loss that we mourn so deeply. And the ways that we know, we've lost these people are unfathomably violent, and it's, it's awful, you know, and so what I see through the data, you know, yes, I have all in my little excels, you know, cells in spreadsheets, but I see loved ones I see people who are more and I see people who their lives, you know, they they live such beautiful lives. And that's another part of this work is we often have to share about the ways that we lost our loved ones as the center In order to be heard, and it hasn't left a lot of room for families to be able to share how their loved ones lived, and how important that is, as part of this story of being able to also say this is part of the data, this is part of our lived experience. This is our story and our truth. And my loved one lived in this beautiful way. And this is their story life, not just like the story of their death, right? That's another shift that I think needs to be made. Slowly but surely, in the stories we tell, and as we do this work on a pathway to justice.

Yulia Laricheva  2:10:41

So it sounds like the database has 700 lines, it does that mean, there are more than 700 names in there? Is it like 1400? Or?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:10:51

Yeah, so all it's hard. It's hard to a kid again, every every question you asked, it answered a long story.

Yulia Laricheva  2:11:01

It's okay, it's a podcast long stories are welcome here.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:11:05

So we, again, I mentioned how the database came about. And then I was slowly adding to it. And in 2021, when we put out our report, the first Alaska specific report is called we are calling to you even that title, you should ask me about the title. That's a different story. But that report is called we're calling to you, and it's on our website. And in that report, when I first did, I was, you know, writing the report with my board, and the co authors and who all know are all indigenous woman, that report was written by all indigenous women. And I was doing the final poll to put into that report, I did the final poll, and it came up as 229 missing and murdered indigenous women and girls here in Alaska. And to share that even today, it kind of still gives me chills, because in Alaska, we have 229 federally recognized tribes here in the state. And that number is so familiar to folks. And that really spoke to me, it's not quote, coincidence, right? I think it was very telling that the number that we had in our database at that time, represents how many tribes we have here in Alaska, and that it really shows that we are all impacted, that no tribe is missed that we all are impacted by this issue. And so that was the first report. And then as I said, we continue to steward the data. And I can give whole presentation on the methodologies of doing that it's a little messy, again, because there isn't adequate systems in place to do this well, but we've been adding on to it by means of I can just briefly say, by either when families come to me and share their stories, we also do Freedom of Information Act requests, FOIA requests. And then social media as well, is a very powerful tool, actually. And so we have quite mixed methodology of continuing to add to that database. And right now, we, you know, I don't have it in front of me, but at my last class, we had well over 700. And so between 2021, and it's 2023. Now, we went from 229 to over 700. And what does that mean, you know, does that mean that we've had that many cases in that much time? Does that mean, you know, what does that actually mean? And what that means is that we've been again, documenting that this is happening. And that also means that, yes, we continue to have disproportionate amounts of homicide and missing folks continually. And we are also doing a better job of actually tracking our own people. And that's really what I think those numbers tell us is that there's a huge difference when again, indigenous peoples are asking the questions and doing the documenting versus the state or law enforcement. You know, that looks very different. And so some of those cases, I often get a lot of questions about Oh, so you know, from 2021 to 2023, you had eczema cases. No, it isn't that clean because again, the the nuances of the data fields are not that clean. And some people also often ask, okay, like, your database is from one of the issues is digitization of data, and many agencies don't have The cases digitized from 2000. Since before 2009, for example, some of them 2013. And so even for FOIA requests, I'm only able to pull from, you know, so far back. And we have people on families in our communities who have come to me with names. So for example, I think of two cases, an elder came to me many years ago and told me the story of some cases from the 60s that happened in their community. And I have those two names in there from the 60s, right, that you probably can't find or do a poll on or there was no media coverage. And so I have those names in there. And that's good. But I don't have data consistently from the 60s. Right. And so there's lots of complexity and nuances to each of the data fields and what that that means. And I tried to delay what that means when I showed the information. And so you can see, the report that we've put out thus far, has quite a bit of information. And we've gotten a lot even in that short amount of time about what we can say we haven't don't have,

Yulia Laricheva  2:16:06

And I was gonna follow up and ask you about the name. How did the name come about?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:16:10

Oh, the title of the report? Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So the, you know, we were writing and there was a lot to put in there that we we couldn't put in there. And there were lots of ways to shape it. Would it be policy focus? Would it be, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And, of course, we wanted the first report to serve our families and our communities, first and foremost. And we're like, what, you know, what should we call this, and I try really hard to make sure that this work is healing center, that it doesn't center violence. And I kind of mentioned that a little bit ago, about focusing on the ways that our loved ones lived versus the ways that they died. And that also means in writing, and the ways that we talk about this issue, we have to be cognizant of our wording. And so the title of the report was really important. And when I was sitting with our leadership and our board at data for indigenous justice, you know, we sit and we share story about where we're from, and stories we heard growing up and our cultural stories. And I remember just really hearing all the stories that we were sharing, and it came to me as we are calling to you. And the reason that we put that title in is we are calling to folks to take action, no matter who you are, whether you're part of the indigenous community or not, but we are calling to you to do something because I truly believe that everyone can be a part of the solution. And as an Inuit person, I'm a new back. So Inuit are in the circumpolar north. And we have a practice of throat singing, where women to women would often be paired together as young children, and then they grew up together. And one of the practices would be throat singing, where you would call and respond back to one another desert singing. And as we have so many women from identifying people in our communities that have been lost, it really felt like, much like the practice of throat singing that was stolen and taken away our voices, right? We are literally missing as Indigenous women, too, we're missing that other woman that we're supposed to be paired with in life that we're supposed to be able to call to, that we're supposed to be able to respond to. And so, us being able to put out that call, we want that response back. We want our women back, we want our sisters back. We want our cultural practices that were stolen, restored, and we're doing that work today. But it was fitting in many ways of we are calling to you asking for that response, both in the ways that we know of our traditional practices and stories, and on the broader work of seeking justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Two Spirit, folks,

Yulia Laricheva  2:19:21

And you brought up social media, too. And I was gonna ask you how social media helps you with tracking down cases as well.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:19:28

Social media is a really, again, we're being censored because it's powerful, plain and simple. Anytime that we are not being heard or that our voices are diminished or silenced. It is because we are recognized as powerful. And so I think like oftentimes, well, I just won't I won't go down that bonito. But media is such a powerful tool because it connects us. And it's a way that we are seen and heard. And so in data A it is also a very powerful tool. Because let's say, I have a, you know, someone has a family member, let's I'll just give an example. There's an auntie, and her daughter goes missing, let's say, and what is she going to do? First? She's often going to put it on Facebook or social media have you seen so and so? You know, and maybe it's a simple post, like sometimes you see people tagging their family member, you know, hey, Charlene, call me, your phone isn't ringing. You know, we see that a lot in our small communities especially, or people will say, in a small community, they'll post on Facebook, have someone stopped by my, you know, they'll say, have someone so stop by my house, because it's such a good way to communicate, especially in our small communities. And so simply, oftentimes, it's the first tool that people pick up in use when someone has gone missing. Likewise, it's a, it's a tool that is frequently used, where people say the most about their lives, where they're at, what they're doing, who they're hanging out with. And so there's a vast amount of information out there that we could use for this. And we do use and so at data friended, as Justice there happens to be missing pages, there's quite a few actually, even just here in Alaska, where people will post and reshare their loved ones, even if there hasn't been a police report. And that's the important part about saying that is that oftentimes, again, people will use it first. And they'll do it in lieu of, or before they do have a missing persons report before they file anything. So in that way, it is also most up to date. And it's coming directly from the family. Like it's accurate, right, it's the family identifying themselves versus again tried to check the correct boxes in a in a law enforcement form. Social media plays a huge part in data. So what we often do is, in these pages, we can see ones that are most recent, we can see ones for families haven't chosen for lots of reasons, often mistrust of law enforcement as well, to file a police report. And so again, we're gathering and seeing more cases there that are even available to be pulled in any data system. And I'll just also just share personally, my cousin was Samantha Koneko, of barista here in Alaska that many Alaskan Snow was abducted, kidnapped and murdered from a stand up barista stand, a coffee shop here in Anchorage. And the community really came together on trying to find her. And a big part of that was on social media is sharing out the flyers, right and getting that information out. And after all of that, there's a group now it's called seeking Alaska is missing. It was a page that was started then, because we saw how useful social media was as a tool to find and share information about our loved ones. That page was started. And now I think there's over 20,000 members in that page. So you're you have a reach of 20,000 people to get eyes and ears on information, which is again, really powerful. So not everyone is going to sit there and read, you know, the police department's webpage notices. They're on Facebook. So, again, it's a hugely powerful tool.

Yulia Laricheva  2:23:34

I'm so sorry for your loss. You know, as I do these podcasts, too, oh, my voice is starting to like crack because I hear all these stories. And as usual, you know, like, I'm not expecting to hear these stories, but everybody has these stories. And I just want to say I'm I'm really sorry for your loss. And also I'm wondering if they ever tracked down whoever did it. Did they find the Merson?

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:23:56

Yeah, so that's a highly prolific case, which again, through social media has a lot of credit to that, but we she was kidnapped or abducted and murdered. And yes, her killer was found. And he was sentenced. And he he ended up committing suicide while imprisoned, but he was sentenced and put in jail and ended up actually that who is a serial killer? Yeah, that's a it's a pretty prolific case. So a lot of folks are, are familiar with, but Samantha was my little cousin and she has a lot of love in our family. And she has a lot of siblings who care so much about her and her parents went above and beyond their any parents should be called to do for a child. And so again, in her story really brought together community here, and I do actually think the police department here did an outstanding job on that and investigation.

Yulia Laricheva  2:25:01

My final question to you is, what are some ways we can create change, to help stop the crisis in America, because it's such a complex issue, there's really not like one thing we can do. So it's so difficult, but I was like, we can do something a is create awareness, because people don't know this is happening unless you're like indigenous, or you follow news or you care, you care, basically. 

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok  2:25:25

So awareness raising is still really important. Yes, we've come a long way in raising awareness. We've done lots of rallies, marches, data keeping, et cetera. And sometimes people think that doing a rally doesn't do anything? Well, it does. It does, because it raises awareness and activates people into their power. And so yes, to all the rallies, the marches, you know, I fully support communities still doing what they need to do to raise awareness, because then that translates into an empowered body of people who are going to take that next step into creating solutions, which is the second part of my answer is that I do believe that everyone needs to be a part of the solution. Does everyone need to have the same answer? No, because that isn't going to work. This is a systemic issue, and a require systemic solutions. And that means people like you on a podcast, using what you have available as a platform for this issue. That is the right answer for you. Because that's the work that you do. It's the skills that you have, and you're going to amplify the voices of the people doing work. And I need people with other skills I need I need a bunch of lawyers, actually, I need to have a law degree yesterday, but we need the policy makers we need, we need everybody to be doing their part. And so it isn't one answer, it's the answer is that people need to be doing their part with what they have and where they're at. And everyone has power in their own way. And they need to be using it in the space that they're in. And our spaces are different. Maybe that's someone who does work at the state, maybe that is someone in law enforcement, maybe it is, you know, my neighbor showing up at a talk and educating and learning and that they can use it in their spaces, right to be able to speak to the issue and be a good ally. And so the I always invite people in to be a part of the solution. And people often wonder what they can do. But I asked them, what can you do? What are your skills? What do you have some people have access to funds, you know, get us that hook up with funds, you know, to to get to support the indigenous peoples who are leading this effort, right? So it can look like lots of different things. It could look like people who work in policy, helping draft all these resolutions and the bills that we're we're trying to put forward, you know, so can look like lots of different things. But there isn't one answer, except for that we need everyone to be on board. And you know, policy without humanizing that keeps coming up in our conversation. policy without humanizing is never going to stop violence, and it never has. And so as we continue to share our story, yes, it's hard to hear yes, it's hard to know about the things that are happening in our community. But that is where it's going to affect change is by being able to honor stories and truth. And, you know, it's kind of full circle of this conversation. Because we cannot move forward and have impactful policy that's going to change anything without the humanization of of the data. You know, we've had folks say, policy has never stopped violence in my life. And why is that? Right? So yes, it isn't to diminish the importance of policy, we absolutely need it. But we need it in conjunction and hand in hand, in tandem with humanization of data and humanization of these real lived experiences. So yeah, I think there's a lot of solutions. The other thing is I was just on my that other call prior to this, you know, I really asked people to be creative with their solutions. We think like we we have to use these formulated things or work within the systems that exist. And we know that these systems aren't working. It's evident in 1000 ways. So why are we insist on continuing to use them be creative here, you know, like, let's think outside of the box, what if you're telling me like you can't do this or that that data system is not going to change? Well, then I'm going to ask the next question. What do we need to do, then, you know, to change it. And someone recently told me, you know, as we're working in the intersection of human trafficking data, we have very, you know, there's lots of overlap there. The you're asking questions that are going to take an act of Congress to change I was like, well, then that's what we need. It doesn't discourage me. If the answer is an act of Congress, said, Come on Congress. So, you know, I think being creative and asking the right questions that get at the solution that isn't to dodge, you know, that sort of thing is I see a lot of folks like, they want to ask questions that are easy to answer. And I'm not looking for easy answers, you know, that is unlikely going to get us anywhere. So I think like being creative is really important. And being able to think outside of the box and creating solutions to.

Yulia Laricheva  2:30:41

Thank you for tuning into the show. It's a very difficult effort to find all this knowledge and put it together because so much is out there. And also, so much of the knowledge is not out there as well. And I really wish that I could have included more interviews and more people, but there's only so much time that I have on the show. Throughout the show. I've been actively trying to figure out how I can help beyond Amplifying Voices, you know, beyond amplifying the podcast like what more can we all do collectively, and I'm always looking for new ways to innovate and to amplify the MMIW cause. So if you have any ideas, please reach out on Instagram or on Tik Tok. Send me a DM and I love to brainstorm ways we can create campaigns or just help amplify more voices basically. I think Dr. Aqpik Apok said it best, right? We all do our best, whatever we can. And I really, really take that to heart. And I hope more people get involved, right? Maybe we can create some national or local TV ads. Maybe we can rent some billboards, lots of ideas, and I'd love to hear them from you. And if there are any companies that are you know, they want to come forward and sponsor these initiatives for the people who are doing them. I will gladly connect you to them. And I would love for everything to be you know, indigenous led also hoping maybe we can get some policies and acted as well. You know, how can we shed a light on the missing and murdered indigenous people crisis? And how can we have these cases that are still pending? Or haven't even been opened? How can we get them to be opened? How can we get the FBI to look into them? Our next Episode Episode Three should be out in the few months. These episodes take a lot of research and a lot of interviews. So please be patient. And please, share, share, share these episodes with someone who can find them helpful. Have a good day.