In her keynote address at the first-ever White House Tribal Youth Gathering in Washington, D.C. on July 9, First Lady Michelle Obama lauded the many contributions of Native American culture and heritage to the American fabric. But rather than recognizing and celebrating this influence, the Native American experience in the United States has been one of forced relocation, cultural degradation, and institutionalized discrimination, the effects of which, she said to the audience of nearly 1,000 Native American youth, are still visible “every single day in your nations.”
Among those moved by Obama’s speech was Julisa Lopez, an 18-year-old member of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band who was invited to attend the historic meeting.
This year’s Tribal Youth Gathering is the product of President Barack Obama’s 2014 Generation Indigenous (Gen-I) Initiative, an effort by his administration “to help improve the lives of Native youth and to cultivate the next generation of Native leaders,” according to a White House press release announcing the all-day gathering.
Because of Lopez’s longtime service to her tribe, she was encouraged by its tribal leadership to apply for selection to the White House event. Upon receiving her invitation, the University of California, Santa Cruz, sophomore decided that education and foster care would be her two issues of focus while at the nation’s capitol. However, Lopez explained that on the morning of July 9 she changed her mind, drawn instead to a panel discussion on health and wellness—topics that resonated with her degree choice and time spent with her tribe.
One of Lopez’s two majors is psychology, a course of study that has exposed her to the various types mental health illnesses and the stigma often associated with such conditions. Her goal in attending the Fireside Chat on Health and Wellness—a discussion facilitated by administration offiicals and Native American representatives—was to raise awareness of these issues. Lopez noted that officials and others created an atmosphere of congeniality, encouraging attendees to participate in the dialogue.
Lopez’s decision to join this panel was also based on her experiences at the Amah Mutsun’s Tribal Wellness Gatherings. Held on the first Saturday of every other month in Fresno, Lopez’s hometown, these tribal meetings serve several purposes, according to a recent telephone interview with tribal chairperson, Val (Valentin) Lopez. For example, tribal elders are often invited to speak, passing on tribal history and knowledge and providing tribal members with a greater sense tribal identity.
On other days, the tribe’s psychiatrist, Dr. Donna Schindler, discusses historical trauma and its effects.
In a presentation she made on July 11, at the Amah-Mustun Day of Prayer in San Juan Bautista, Dr. Schindler explained that the Amah-Mutsun—descendants from the mission Indians of Missions San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz—suffer from the physical, mental, and spiritual trauma experienced by their ancestors centuries ago. This historic trauma is also transgenerational, passing from one generation to the next.
Feelings of inferiority, alcohol and drug abuse, high rates of suicide, and domestic abuse are some of the symptomatic conditions associated with historic trauma, according to Lopez. He added that the bi-monthly Wellness Gatherings assist tribal members in recovering from their inherited pain and suffering.
Julisa Lopez, who routinely attends the meetings, said by telephone recently, that discussing historical trauma is “very intense and hard…” but “it’s definitely helpful.”
She described that experience to others at the Fireside Chat on Health and Wellness, the intimate setting giving participants an opportunity to learn from each other as well. For example, Lopez learned of a sobriety pow-pow from a youth whose reservation is plagued by alcoholism.
The Tribal Youth Gathering also presented Lopez with time to reflect on her identity as a Native American, something she struggled with until arriving at university.
Growing up, she sometimes felt alienated from her peers. She didn’t have a name for this dissonance, but thought at times it was rooted in her ethnicity.
When Lopez began working at UCSC’s American Indian Resource Center, its director, Dr. Rebecca Hernandez Rosser, often referred to herself as an urban Indian rather than a reservation Indian.
The terms provide an important context when understanding today’s Native American population. “Just like all ethnic groups in the U.S., American Indians have varied histories and life experiences,” Dr. Rosser wrote by email.
A reservation Indian refers to one whose perspective has been shaped by life on the reservation, an area of federally recognized territory reserved for native tribes following their forced relocation in the wake of America’s western expansion.
After World War Two, an urban migration began as the “U.S. government encouraged American Indians to leave reservations under the Indian Relocation Act,” Dr. Rosser explained. She added that one who resettled in a city or who lived outside the tribal territory became known as an urban Indian, a term popularized during the civil rights era.
Lopez, who calls herself an urban Indian, definitely felt a kinship with others at the Tribal Youth Gathering, but realized there existed differences of perspective between reservation and urban Indians—differences that sometimes result in “tension or misunderstanding between the two groups,” stated Dr. Rosser.
As a member of the Amah Mutsun Youth Council, Lopez wasn’t immune to these feelings, admitting that prior to traveling to D.C. her concerns only revolved around her tribe and state. “Before I left a lot of the thoughts in mind head were more about California based issues and when I got there it’s like, wow!…It’s the whole nation we’re talking about,” she said.
In forging relationships with other native youth, she wants her youth council to join the United National Indian Tribal Youth (UNITY), an organization whose mission “is to foster spiritual, mental, physical, and social development of American Indian and Alaska Native youth and to help build a strong, unified, and self- reliant Native America through greater youth involvement,” according to its website.
Lopez never met President Obama. Nor did she deliver the letter addressed to him from her tribe— attendees received advanced notitification that correspondence, gifts, etc. intended for the president and others of his administration would be declined, she explained. The letter introduced the tribe and included several bulleted “items of interest and importance to” the tribe, including the federal recognition long denied to it and the tribe’s oppostion to Fr. Junipero Serra’s canonization, according to tribal chairman, Val Lopez.
What Julisa Lopez did have an opportunity to do at the inaugural White House Tribal Youth Gathering was share her experience as a member of the Amah Mutusn Tribal Band, learn from the nation’s other indigenous youth, and listen to Michelle Obama speak on issues she says that the historical record often neglects and that politicians typically ignore. “What was so amazing,” Lopez said of first lady’s keynote speech, “was that she was recognizing so many things…that I feel are not recognized.”
At the conclusion of her adddress, Obama walked among participants, greeting and hugging several, including Lopez (click to see video). “She [Obama] asked how I was….It [the hug] was really quick…but it still meant a lot,” Lopez said in a text message.
For the Amah Mutsun tribal youth member, the unexpected exchange and embrace culminated a day full of excitement, new knowledge, and self-discovery.