An Interview with Uniting Three Fires Against Violence (UTFAV): Part 1 of 2

Laura Killingbeck:

Uniting Three Fires Against Violence is a statewide tribal, domestic violence, and sexual assault coalition serving the tribes in Michigan. You offer professional training, technical assistance, events, public education, educational products, and reports and system advocacy. Can you tell me more about who you are as an organization and what you do on a daily basis?

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

When I was listening to you talk, I was thinking about who we are as an organization, and that we're a group of native women who walk in our traditional way. And that makes us really different from how historically-funded women do the work.

I worked in historically-funded programs for a really long time. I was an executive director in dual programs in Michigan and Alaska, and I've done a lot of technical assistance and training on a national and international level. I'm almost 80 years old, and I'm still doing this work. I'm doing this work now because it's the work of my heart and my spirit, and I do it as a Native woman.

And so for us, it's not work. It's our life. It's who we are. I decided to be at UTFAV right now, because it's a part of our life journey.

And I was thinking this morning–I'm Ogala Lakota–and there's an Ogala Lacota word: Makȟá. It means the earth, mother earth, and our connection to the earth. And so, when I was listening to you talk about your bike ride, and how you've been sleeping in the woods: that's being connected to our Earth mother. And it's so important to us. That's how we do this work, our inner connection, our “Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ,” and how we're related.

And it's so much more than, “Do we run a shelter?” Well, it's a good thing we do, because we only have one shelter in Michigan for Native women.But it's how we see each other as relatives, how we connect.

Are we being good relatives, and are we going to be a good elder, and are we going to be a good ancestor? It’s how we see each other in human wholeness.

That's how we do the work, and that's why we're here. It's not because it's a 9 to 5 job for us. It's because we know the trauma that our relatives have experienced. How do we walk beside, and how do we make life better for them, and hold them, and honor them? And our seven grandfather teachings. There's only two grandmother teachings, and that's kindness and generosity. How do we meet people in their pain? And as they're coming through the pain, to not be judgmental, as happens in so many other ways.

That's what UTFAV is about, and that's what we're all about, and that's how we do the work.It seems funny to say “do the work,” because it's not about doing the work, it’s how we live our lives.

Are we walking in our traditional ways? Are we honoring each other as relatives? And are we really doing it all the time: in easy times, and in hard times? That's what it means for me.

Vanessa Owaski-Patzwald:

I'm a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and I started at our Victim Services Program almost 20 years ago.

I've been at UTFAV for 8.5 years. Before that, I was at the ARC [Advocacy Resource Center, Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians] for ten years. It was the first job where I felt like I was doing good and helping. It didn't feel like going to work–it felt like going from one home to the next home. The reason I left was because my grant ended, it wasn’t by choice.

But that's how I got into this work, and I was very fortunate to move. I do feel like I come home here now. It did take me a hot minute to get my footing into coalition work–going from direct services to more of a systems-change position. It took me a hot minute to find my footing. But I’m there now. And that's why I'm here.

Samantha Brown:

I'm actually the newest member of UTFAV. I’ve been here…it'll be two years next month. I came from education. I was a public school teacher for several years. I worked for my tribe, also as a member of the Sault Ste. Marie tribal youth education and activities department.

I'm also a survivor of domestic and sexual violence, and I come from kind of a long line of survivors of domestic and sexual violence in my family.

I don't think I've ever really had a choice in terms of doing this work. I witnessed domestic violence–and I don't remember this, but my mom tells me this story—that she was experiencing violence and I was…three? I was young. I was very young. And she said that I just got in between her and my dad and I said, “You're not gonna throw my mom in the garbage!” Because apparently he told her that he was going to throw her out on the curb where he found her, or something. You know, something just horrific like that.

So I don't think I had a choice. I think it was just always who and what I was supposed to do. As I grew up, I always found myself led to caring and nurturing and protection of children, because of my experiences.

And when I gave birth to my own children–and that was a long journey in itself–but I tried to go back to the classroom. And I just feltlike I had changed. Like I had to find something similar, but different. I just felt like my journey was taking another path, and I wasn't really sure what it was yet, but I knew it wasn't there.

So I applied at a couple different places, and I found UTFAV.And immediately I was just like, “Oh, I think these are my people!I think this is where I'm supposed to be.” We had an interview, and the whole time I was just like, “I want to use all of my gifts and all of my talents to do this. This is what I want to do. I'm tired of the fighting, the individual one-on-one battles. Let's go straight to the top. Let's do this systemic work.”

That's kind of what led me here. It's been this incredible learning journey. I feel like my brain has grown. Like, you know how the Grinch grows–his heart grows outside of the box. I felt like my brain has grown.

There’s so many things now that you can't unlearn, you can't unsee. Prior to this, I just thought of abuse and violence as kind of a person-to-person issue. I never really was able to grasp how deeply rooted and historic and systemic that this was. And now that I'm here, I'm like, “Oh hell no. We're not going to stand for this. We have a lot of education and a lot of work to do. Let's do it.”

That's kind of who I am here. I get angry and I wear my heart on my sleeve and I tell everybody who asks, the history of it.

Stacey Ettawageshik:

Growing up, I always knew that I was one of those natural helpers. Kind of like the peacekeeper with my family, between my siblings and my parents, or things like that. And then through school, I always wanted to be helping my friends.

I always knew that, so I went into social work. Well, psychology and then social work. I was looking for an internship or volunteer work, and I went to the [domestic violence] shelter in my area of Petoskey. I did their training, and the crisis line, and I realized, “Wow, this has happened to me my entire life, not even realizing it or having words to put to it.”

I graduated with my bachelor's in psychology, and I was a counselor advocate at the shelter in Petoskey, and worked with the women there. That was a non-tribal program, but I definitely had tribal clients there. I was working part-time, actually, and still working at the Tribal Casino in my area too. And that was really hard to have those two things happen at the same time.

Then my tribal community, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, decided to start a domestic violence program. So I went through that. At first, the tribe was having social workers work with domestic violence survivors like child welfare workers would–and then realized “Okay, that's not the kind of services that survivors needed.”So we grew that program. I was there for about 11 years serving my tribal community. I was in direct service.

Similar to Vanessa, it's definitely a transition to go from working on an individual level to systems change. Having those skills is hard to grasp sometimes, because in individual work you're doing very tangible things. Not that systems work isn't tangible, but it definitely is a different level to work on.

So I'm just grateful to be in this position and be in this work. It’s definitely part of who we are as Uniting Three Fires. Being part of this is important.

Laura Killingbeck:

Thank you for sharing. I feel like everyone here is so rooted in what you're doing. It's really impressive, and I'm just feeling the scope of that right now.

It sounds like you all have experience working with survivors–through your lives and your jobs. And now you've transitioned into this systemic role. Can you tell me more about the systems work that you’re doing?

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

It’s being the voice at the table, to make sure that we're not lost. If you think about it, the state coalition probably has 80 staff, attorneys, and paid lobbyists. And you're looking at UTFAV: this is it.

We're the voices at the table when it comes down to “Is there equity and funding? Do our survivors, do our relatives have access to services?” It’s about making sure that we're visible.

So many people see our nations, our relatives, our people as... “Oh, are you still here?” If you Google Native Americans, you're going to see pictures of people in teepees. We do not live in teepees anymore.

And people don't realize that we're sovereign nations. Even though we have things like VAWA [Violence Against Women Act] and TLOA [Tribal Law and Order Act] now, the way that the laws are created, if a Native American woman or individual is harmed, violated, raped, murdered, on tribal or trust land, and that is a tribe that has not been able to implement VAWA or TLOA, it’s with impunity. That tribe has no jurisdiction over that non-Native that's caused that violence, that harm, that hurt.

And so, as a tribal coalition, we're sitting there fighting. Some of the things that we've been able to do–and I think it's better to talk about the things we've been able to do, the outcome of the work that we do every day–is there's a governor-appointed board within the state of Michigan. The Michigan domestic and sexual violence, prevention, and treatment board now has a tribal judge as part of their membership. That took tons of work and advocacy to make that happen.

Until within the last 10 years, tribes were not eligible to apply for things like STOP funding [Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program]. We wanted to have access to those funds, and we fought really hard to change the way funding is set up within the state of Michigan, so that our tribal nations have the ability and the right to apply for that funding.

Our state coalition, who has a multimillion dollar budget, gets access to all these dollars. And within the past three years, UTFAV became an equitable partner to them, so that we receive funding that's within the Senate budget.

So, we have dollars that allowed us to go to Oklahoma and research “What does trafficking look like?” And we became a partner with the state of Michigan, Division of Victim Services, on how to respond to trafficking within the state.

That's a lot of work, and a lot of responsibility for us, because we don't just do it for us. We go to survivors and victims across the state. We go to programs across the state, and have conversations. So we can come back and say not just what we think, what we're hearing in our state.

We build partnerships with people like civil legal attorneys, so that our survivors, our relatives have access to legal [services]. These are the things we're able to accomplish because all day, every day, we're doing outreach, we're doing training, we're doing education, so people know that we're still here, and these are the needs.

We work to reduce barriers and increase and enhance access. And I think that's the quickest way I know how to put it.

Vanessa Owaski-Patzwald:

Earlier you asked about the disproportionate rates of violence. Obviously, American Indians and Alaskan Natives have been abused with colonization since Christopher Columbus stepped onto this land. There has been the attempt of genocide and cultural genocide with the boarding school era, so there's always that level of racism and hate that's already embedded into society.

But also, in 1978, that's when it became law that tribes could not prosecute non-Natives on tribal land.

So, there was a case where a man had been arrested for a criminal offense on the Suquamish reservation. And he was like, “You can't do this. I'm not native. You shouldn't have jurisdiction over me.” And the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and they agreed with him.

Even though we're sovereign nations, even though within our boundaries we're supposed to be our own country unto itself, and that should be the supreme law of the land–it's not. Out of all the treaties that have been signed, that's just something that should not have happened.

Twenty years ago, I worked for my tribal court for two years. And back then, that was before VAWA and TLOA. So if there was a non-Native perpetrator that assaulted a Native victim, we could only give them a civil infraction. That means, basically, they got a parking ticket. And what we had to do was rely on the federal government to prosecute.

Now, I will say, there's a law called PL280, where for six states it’s not the feds, it goes to the state. There’s six states out of all the states, where the state takes over jurisdiction.

Laura:

Okay. And that would be a good thing?

Everyone else in the room:

No. No. Noooooooo, no, no! (laughter)

Vanessa Owaski-Patzwald:

Jurisdiction should go to the tribe. Michigan is not a PL280 state, so we refer to the federal government to prosecute.

But when we have federal attorneys that are in Marquette, three hours from Sault Ste. Marie, there's questions:“Well, did she almost die? Like, how bad was it?”

Because first of all, they want wins. At the end of the day, prosecution comes down to, “Can we win the case,” and also, “Do we want to take the time to do it?”

And there's been a lot of times where they’re like, “We’re not going to take the case.” More so than when they do take the case.

So, perpetrators see this, and in Native communities, they know what they can get away with.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

That’s why it’s called the hunting ground.

Vanessa Owaski-Patzwald:

That's why it's called the hunting ground. They know they can't be touched. Unless the feds pick it up–and it's so few and far in between for cases.

When VAWA [was enacted]…which was 2013, I do believe…that allowed the tribes to have a little prosecution in DV [domestic violence] cases. But it only gave a one-year sentencing for every crime they were charged and found guilty on.

Now, a few years later, TLOA–that gave three-year sentencing guidelines per charge.

But if you have a really vicious attack, those sentencing guidelines might not match. And again, you're at the mercy of the federal government to come and prosecute.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

And it's domestic violence. That was the only crime it included. Sexual assault wasn't included.

Stacey Ettawageshik:

And the reauthorization of 2022 added those.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

It added sexual assault. Sexual assault wasn't included until 2022.

Stacey Ettawageshik:

But the tribe has to have resources to be able to implement those. [VAWA and TLOA]

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

And so, when you look at that, less than 10% of the 575 federally recognized tribes across the United States have been able to implement VAWA. Less than that, for TLOA. So the majority of all tribes have not implemented it.

In Michigan, there are 12 federally recognized tribes, and Michigan has more tribes than any state east of the Mississippi. Four of the 12 have been able to implement it.

Laura Killingbeck:

So…what do you do? When domestic violence happens, the only thing you can do is to submit it to federal…and that’s it?

Vanessa Owaski-Patzwald:

And pray they pick it up.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

Pray they pick it up, which most times they don't.

And so what we do, as the coalition, is we work with the systems and local and state law enforcement to do education. To try to work towards change. And change is slow.

But that's where partnerships are important: to get better support and better community accountability for our relatives.

But, yeah, that's what happens. And that's why, when you hear people refer to “the hunting grounds,” that's why. That's what it is.

Vanessa Owaski-Patzwald:

Most of the population, especially those that don't live near Indian country, they don't know. They don't know the history. I don't know how adequately it's taught in high school. And they don't know about this particular law.

But if you are a tribal community, perpetrators…information gets out. They know who they can look towards to abuse, and get away with it.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

So when you look at the stats, it will tell you that Native American women and men are violated at rates higher than any other ethnic group on the face of the earth. And that's why. Because it's violence with impunity.

Stacey Ettawageshik:

And more often than not, maybe 75 to 85 percent of the perpetrators are non-Native.

Samantha Brown:

Oh, it's well over 90. It's like 96% of Native victims report that their perpetrator is non-Native.

There's this really ugly stereotype that Native men and women beat on each other. That's a stereotype that we hear. It's joked about. And it’s wildly untrue. If you look at the stats, it is well over 90% ofperpetrators against Native folks that are non-Native folks.

And it goes back to this history of colonization–of feeling entitled to people's bodies. And being seen as not fully human.

Laura Killingbeck:

That’s an enormous gap in the legal system. And the solution to that would be to prosecute these cases yourselves?

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

When you hear the phrase the “full oliphant fix,” it's going back to the case that Vanessa’'s talking to you about, to have jurisdiction restored to us.

It goes back to the 1400s, when the paper rolls were written, it says, “Wherever white Christian men go and they find land that is not occupied and controlled by white christian men, that they would have the right of discovery.”

So, when Christopher Columbus arrived here, he had the “right of discovery” over the land. And as Native beings–we were considered beings, not humans, just beings–we had the right of occupancy. Like a bird in the air or the fish in the water.

We didn’t have the right of…I don't like using that word ownership, because we're in a familiar relationship with the land, our Earth mother, our first mother. You can't own your mother.

And so…but they can own it. And we only have the right of occupancy where it is determined. by white Christian society that we can live or exist. Because we're not fully human.

You think about that. You can be herded into a reservation or a corral, and only animals and natives have blood quantum. For our value.

Samantha Brown:

And the doctrine of discovery has been reaffirmed by the U.S. government over and over again.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

Over and over again. It is the basis for Indian law.

Samantha Brown:

I used to love Justice Ginsburg. And then I started looking through her cases, and I was like, “Oh, wow, she was not super supportive of native sovereignty.”

So, even folks that we kind of uphold as super progressive…it's happened over and over again in the legislation, and just in the founding of this country, that that idea is just reaffirmed. We still see it happening every day.

Laura Killingbeck:

Wow, so your work is very crucial. That systemic work of teaching people this, and so much more history. And it sounds like you're going into lots of different places to teach people that–within tribes and also outside of tribes?

Vanessa Owaski-Patzwald:

So, UTFAV has created its own new service provider curriculum. Working in connection with the Michigan Coalition Against Domestic And Sexual Violence, when they host a new service provider training, Sam does a training there for us to get this information out there.

That's one of the trainings. But then we have more trainings for tribal advocates, specific to working in Indian country. So, so those happen. Which was great, to get that information out.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

We've been really successful in a lot of ways. We have a really long way to go, but until two years ago, our native tribal programs did not have access to victim compensation dollars. Those are dollars that if you've experienced a crime, you should be able to access funds for funerals, or lost wages, or those kinds of things. Our tribal programs and tribal victims did not have access to those funds until two years ago.

Our advocacy made that possible. We host a monthly meeting with tribal advocates, and now we have victims compensation staff there. We can talk about challenges and barriers, and now that our programs have our own designated advocate, we're able to access those dollars.

The work is really hard, and sometimes it takes a lot of years for us to get there, but we do see some changes. Are there huge disparities? Oh, my goodness, we can't even count them. But we know when we keep doing this hard work day in, day out, and we see people like you who are doing the work to raise awareness, it makes such a difference. And we celebrate that.

So we could be like mollygrubs, and say how unfair all this is, and how much we're still experiencing, but we choose to celebrate the celebrations as they come. Even though they're really small, and sometimes they're hard to see, but we do take the moments to celebrate, and we're celebrating you this morning.

Laura Killingbeck:

Thank you. That's such a complex position to be in and to hold. To have the depth of understanding that you have, as well as the personal experience of that legacy of violence. And to be able to hold that sense of forward motion, and hopefulness, and presence–it’s really an incredible thing that you're doing.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

But that's who we are as a people. That is our culture, and of all the things that were taken from us in colonization, we've held on to that.

Vanessa Owaski-Patzwald:

And not just victim compensation. She advocated for a very long time to have tribes have access to STOP funding when we were not allowed to have access to STOP funding.

Stacey Ettawageshik:

And VOCA [Victims of Crime Act]. Not all tribes have it in the state of Michigan–the Victims of Crime Act fund– but programs are able to do that, and expand the services they can provide to survivors. So, that was a big winner.

Sandra Pilgrim-Lewis:

We have a statewide leadership meeting, and for years, it was a 99% all white room. And that room is not that way anymore. All of our tribes can come to that room and sit at that table, and our voices are heard. Sometimes they wish we'd shut up. (laughs) But we're there now.

So, we're making progress. It's slow, and it's minute, but we're making progress. Because we keep on doing the work.