Community work and involvement

 

The Stories We Wear: Recognizing and Honoring Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives

The Stories We Wear was a creative community project organized by the Fort Lewis College Center of Southwest Studies, FLC student organization The Rising Matriarchs, and FLC students and alumni in Durango, Colorado in 2022-2023. In honor of our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives, community members came together to reflect upon MMIR, racialized, gendered, and sexualized violences, and impacts upon our Indigenous communities. Each participant decorated a piece of cloth, all of which came together to create an atikluk, a ribbon skirt, and a blanket - traditional garments significant to various Indigenous tribal communities. TSWW opened on the FLC campus in 2023 alongside the Durango Sexual Assault Services Organization’s Sing Our Rivers Red exhibition. TSWW has since traveled across the southwest area and continues to raise awareness for the MMIR issue and bring survivors and relatives together in healing.

Project Leaders
Elise Boulanger - Osage Nation
Sahalee Martin - Hopi & Chicanx
Lauryn Baldwin - Iñupiaq, Japanese
Laurel Grimes - Chikasha (Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma), Vietnamese

FLC Student and Alumni Contributors
Jess Anaruk - Yupik, Orutsararmiut Native Council
Savannah Armstrong - Iñupiaq
Jordyn Begay - Diné
Alyssa Begaye - Diné
Kailey Becenti - Diné, Colorado River Indian Tribes
Kirbie Bennett - Diné
Keala Bratsch - Turtle Mountain Band Chippewa
Imari Bright - Iñupiaq
Paige Brown - Diné
Qootsvenma Denipah Cook - Hopi, Ohkay Owingeh, Diné
Danni Crombie - Gwich’in
Ellyse Fredericks - Hopi, Diné
Ana Henry - Cherokee
Amber Herrod - Diné, Cheyenne Arapaho, Creek, Cherokee
Veronica Johnson - Sun’aq Tribe of Kodiak Alaska
Sloane Kelley - Choctaw
Amber Labahe - Diné
Kelsey Lansing - Diné
JoVonna Miller - Diné
Desirae Rambler - San Carlos Apache
M. Alex Tsabetsaye - Diné & A:Shiwi
Jazmyn Vent - Iñupiaq, Koyukon
Tehani Wa’ahila - Diné
Sage Walstrom - Diné
Rexine Williams - Diné

With help from FLC Faculty & Staff
Cheryl Nixon, Dr. Heather Shotton, Dr. Cory Pillen, Liz Quinn MacMillan, Amy Cao, Gretchen Gray, Rachel McGaw, Simon Chief, Shasta Hampton, Rexine Williams, Lisa Cate, Andreas Tischauser, Melissa Sclafani

 

Native American Studies undergraduate mmir workshop

As part of my Master’s studies, I designed a two day course introducing students to MMIR. Using sources by Indigenous ecologists, botanists, legal practitioners, artists, and grassroots activist, students learn about the inception of MMIR as a movement, its causes and contributing dynamics, the complexities of jurisdiction and sovereignty, and community impacts of violence in urban and rural Indigenous communities. Additionally, students began to consider the parallels between MMIR and trends of ecocide by settler colonial states. At the end of the workshop, students were encouraged to reflect and respond creatively to what they learned and then use their creative works to engage in class discussion. Creative responses by students who consented to share are shown below.