June 13, 2023 • 61 mins
A special joint episode with @houseofpod. James and Kaveh talk to Molly Hallweaver Victor A Lopez-Carmen, MPH (@vlocarmen) about healthcare in the Indigenous community and how healthcare is administered to Indigenous people.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
And welcome to a very special joint episode of two
shows that you hopefully love, one the House of Pod.
I'm Cave. I'm the host of that show and it
could happen here with my good friend James Stout. James, Hi, Hi, Kvey.
I'm very excited about this. This is a rare privilege. Yeah,
I'm very excited too. We'll get straight to it. Just
(00:28):
a quick reminder if you're not following one of these
shows and you're following the other, yeah, all of both.
Why not and leave a nice review if you like
the shows either way. But we're really excited, so let's
get straight to the episode. How's that sound yep?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Must get.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And welcome back.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I know. Every week I say this is a special episode,
and I'm usually lying ninety nine percent of the time
is not special. But this week is very special. It's
special because I've never done this before. I'm very excited.
It's a topic I really have wanted to cover for
a while. But I'm going to be covering the topic
with a good friend of mine who has an excellent show,
(01:22):
and we're doing a joint show release thing and I've
never done it. It's like a marvel team up, and
I'm very excited for it. James stout. James, I'm gonna
introduce your first journalist podcaster host of It could Happen Here, which,
if you're listening to this on it could happen here,
you already knew that. James. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hi, thank you. Yeah, And I don't watch many Sweeper
hero movies, so I'm now concerned as to which Marvel
hero villain I would be.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, I was thinking more of the comics. But if
I have, if I have the pin you to a character,
it's Moonnight. I think that's clear.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, it's gone straight past me, buddy, but I'm sure
I hope that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Take my word for it. It's cool. James. Can you
tell us a little bit about what we're covering today.
Let's let's talk to our people about what then we'll
introduce our guests. But let's tell people of what we're
trying to cover today.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, of course. So we're talking about like healthcare and
an indigenous context and how we can both learn from
and stand in solidarity within Indigenous communities when it comes
to healthcare.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I guess excellent. And to help us with that, we
have two guests. We have a medical student at a
little school called Harvard I think it's a liberal arts
school out in the east somewhere, named Victor Lopez Carmen.
He was the prior elective co chair of the United
Nations Global Indigenous Youth Caucus. He is a member of
the Crow Creek Sooux tribe and also from the Yockey tribe.
(02:43):
Is that correct, Victor?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, excellent, welcome to the shows.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Thank you so much. I'm honestly props to pronouncing all
that right.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Oh yeah, no, your stuff. I'm going to get right.
Our next guest, whose name is Molly, I'm gonna probably
destroy her name because that those are the names I
have a hard time with. Doctor Molly Hollweaver. Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
E r? Doctor at UC Davis, one of my favorite
hospitals in the world. Is that also correct?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
That is correct? I work at you see Davis.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So I guess maybe we should start, like if we
want to start out by explaining maybe how healthcare like,
what things that when we look at healthcare and indigenous context,
what things we're looking at the differentiate it from healthcare
in other context?
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
What will be the areas that both of you guys
think that folks who aren't familiar with this because sadly,
I think a lot of the United States they either
don't think they know Indigenous people or maybe they really
don't like and we can explain that lots of Indigenous people,
most Indigenous people live off res too. I think that
would be very valuable. But what sort of topics will
(03:54):
be be looking at when we're looking at healthcare from
an indigenous perspective.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I think like when you look at indigenous peoples in
the US, you think of our traditional health system as well,
like that was what we always had, that was what
we've had for thousands of years, and the efforts to
maintain the traditional health, traditional healing practices. And then you
look at the Western health system, the different systems we
(04:20):
have access to today, including the Indian Health Service, which
is unique to US, tribal clinics, tribal operated clinics, and
hospitals everyday hospitals that anyone else uses, because, like you said,
the majority of Native Americans today in the US live
in cities or urban contexts.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Mollie, let me ask you, because people may be wondering,
how did you become involved with delivery of healthcare to
the Native American population.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah. Thanks, I am, it's great to be here. Thanks
for having us.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
I'm excited to chat with you all.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
I kind of had a unique opportunity.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
I've always been interested in Indian health service as a
healthcare delivery system and Indigenous peoples. And when I started fellowship,
I did a Global Health Fellowship and I started in
twenty twenty, so it was, you know, not a great
year to be a Global Health Fellow for many reasons,
and so I had very you know, obviously, we were
(05:25):
on lockdown and work was hard and stressful as an YEARDOC,
and so we were trying to be creative and you know,
how we can do this global health fellowship.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And so I got in touch.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
With a awesome physician, Don Maggio, who is the edy
director at White River, which is Apacha Nation in Arizona.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
It's like three hours east of Phoenix.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
So he went to high He was a Highland Alum,
a Highland DM alum which is in Oakland and now
works full time at White River. Anyways, got connected with
him and everything that was going on during the pandemic
because as I'm sure you guys are all aware and
probably a lot of our listeners that the Navajo and
Apache tribes we had much higher rates of COVID and
(06:13):
of severe COVID, and so I went as first for
kind of public health outreach. So I went and did
some contact tracing and helped do They did a really
cool program of outreach in the community to go and.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Check on the locals and we would go and.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Check pull socks so we'd see how high their oxygen
saturation was and see how people were doing to try
to catch disease early.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
So that's how I kind of got.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Into doing it, and then I loved it there and
wanted to keep working, and so I continued to moonlight,
which means I worked kind of as a locums. I
don't know if I need to explain that for medical
Dragon Cave, but I worked, you know, every one to
two months, I would fly to Arizona and work on
the res for a week.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Very cool. So Victor getting back a little bit to
where Native Americans are getting their healthcare? What is what
is your interest? Once you're done and when you graduate
from where are you? You are? Are you right now?
Speaker 6 (07:14):
I'm a fourth year, so my last year, Oh.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
My god, for you buddy, how are you liking it?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I'm liking it less. No, I'm not like like I
like medicine. I still maintain medical school. Like I'm ready
to be done with school.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
You got senioritis? Is that what you mean?
Speaker 6 (07:35):
Pretty much? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
You're a rising fourth here or have you already matched? Uh?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
No, I'm a I'm a rising fourth here. I'm applying
your residency now, so.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So so talk to us about where what you would
like to where you like to go and what kind
of medicine you'd like to practice.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Honestly, anywhere that will take me.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Doctor. But yeah, I really I want to go into pediatrics.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I always wanted to help and take care of Native
kids and back in the community for sure. I want
to go back and be a community member again. I've
been gone for so long. I feel like I've been
only only able to go back for like you know,
breaks and things like that, and it's it's it hasn't
been enough for me as an Indigenous person.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
So I'm ready to go back.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Be a doctor, be part of the community, be there
for ceremonies, be there to be patients.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
That's my ideal.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I think one thing that's really interesting, especially and like
we have this chance to talk to you, which we
which we often don't have. Is you mentioned like balancing
western medical technology with indigenous medical technologies, right, And I'm
really interested in hearing how you would approach that for
folks who aren't familiar or for folks who don't have
(08:57):
the knowledge of indigenous medical technologies that you might odd
be you maybe have people who you go to for that.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, I think it's important to just already
start the conversation that so much indigenous medical technology has
already been appropriated by western medicine as western medicine, aspirin,
for instance, many traditional healing practices that were and are
(09:24):
still find themselves seeping into the field of psychiatry or
around parenting mental health the way that, for instance, that
Indigenous peoples. I think there's a growing understanding in the
medical field about planetary health and the impacts of climate
change on health, and a lot of that has already
(09:46):
been said and fought for by Indigenous peoples for a
very long time, and so there's already a lot of
stuff there that we're working with. And I think it's
important to give Indigenous peoples their flowers. But yeah, that
I think when it comes to integrating on the clinical level,
it's going to differ from community to community. You might know,
(10:07):
but in the possible Yaki tribe, the health division employs
a team of traditional healers that come up I think
monthly from Sonora, Mexico, from the villages and Yaccu. Patients
can elect to see the traditional healers with or without
a Western trained physician, and there's a whole room where
(10:30):
they have all these herbs and plants that Yaki people
have been using for thousands of years, and I think
that's very beautiful. One reason we've been able to do
that is because our tribe elected to run their own
health division rather than having the Indian Health Service run
it for them. We had the capability to do that
(10:52):
at the time. Not all tribes do have the capability,
yet we had it, and I think it's been beneficial
for us because it's given us more freedom to bridge
Western a traditional medicine in a way that works for us.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
The Yacky system is a really great one, like and
like people. Probably that people won't be familiar with it.
I guessing most people listening won't be familiar with it,
but it's allowed the tribes to all kinds of cool things,
like in I've been involved in a diabetes prevention cycling
program there for ten years, something like a long long time.
(11:26):
But there are things that can be done because of
that block grant or running their own system as opposed
to having IOHS run the system. Could you like, because Marley,
I think you're more familiar with like an IHS clinic model, right,
would one of you want to explain the difference between
the two of those for people who aren't familiar.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
IHS versus the tribe.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
The Pascuayaki tribe run their own system. I think they
get a block grant, correct me if I'm wrong, Victor,
they get a block grant for MYHSS, and then they
spend that as they see fit.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
Yeah, I can speak to the IOHS side, but for
me this in Victory. You can correct me if I'm wrong,
But for me it was easy to It's kind of
similar to the VA for just for medical doctors to
understand in that it's a set of money that the
government sets aside for a certain population and the veterans for.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
The VA and IHS for.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Natives, and but there's obviously disparity between even those two,
Like per captive spending is way higher in the VA
than it is on IHS, but it's a yeah, Western system,
and all of the staff on the hospital, like the
reservation hospital or the Indian Hospital, are all employees of IHS,
(12:39):
so they're actually kind of like federal employees. And we
can kind of get into the weeds of it later,
but there's you know, a lot of turnover because it's
a sometimes it's hard places to live and so and
they're young. They kind of recruit young doctors, and there's
a lot of turnover for the for the primary care doctors.
And then in the er where I work, there very
(13:00):
few forward certified YAR doctors, so it's staffed by non
em certified docs.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
That sounds right to me. The only other thing I
would add is that the Indian Health Service it's predicated
on what's called the federal trust responsibility that's built over
decades of Supreme Court precedent smaller court precedents over the
years that I think a lot of them were based
(13:28):
in treaties made with Indigenous peoples. And basically this means
that the government, because of the harm, the oppression, the
colonization that has been dealt upon Indigenous peoples across the
United States. There's a trust responsibility for the federal government
to sort of to do something about the lingering impacts.
(13:50):
They have a responsibility to provide health services to indigenous
peoples in the US. That was also in many of
the treaties that were made with indigenous nations. And I
think it does go over people's heads sometimes that this
is not a favor, this is not a gift. It's
a responsibility based on centuries of oppression, and that that
(14:15):
responsibility is not fully being met right now because the
Indian Health Service is severely underfunded. The way that the
funds are appropriated is unique to government health care programs.
The way the veterans, for instance, Veterans Affairs is appropriated
is much more effective than the way Indian Health.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Service is appropriated at the federal level.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It might be worth explaining here just briefly, that not
all tribes are federally recognized, right, and not all Indigenous
people are part of federally recognized tribes, And how would
that impact their access to healthcare?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, well, you know, federal recognition isn't perfect. It's a
really arduous process, and not all tribes are federally recognized.
For those tribes who aren't, they don't have access to
those services like the Indian Health Service or the Bureau
of Indian Education, for instance, and many other federal grants
(15:12):
that Indigenous peoples and Indigenous nations can apply for or
just automatically get. For instance, during COVID nineteen there were
specific funding allocated for tribal nations. Those tribal nations who
are not federally recognized, they wouldn't have bad access to them.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Let me shift here is a little bit here and
get to a question that is I think going to
be very difficult to answer, and it's one of those
impossible questions because there's so many parts to it, I'm sure,
and it varies so much. But I like to talk
a little bit about the major health issues that you
guys feel are facing Native Americans right now and whether
or not if they are at all different from the
(16:01):
rest of the US population, And then we could talk
about what barriers there are to care in that regards.
But we'll start with you, Molly. Can you tell us
from your experience working there, what are the major health
issues that you feel may or may not be the
same as the general population.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, I think at the end of the day is
it's very similar.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
You're seeing the same disease processes that you're seeing in
the general population, but you're seeing everything's a little bit
more severe. I would say, like there's more there's higher
rates of the chronic disorders like diabetes and hypertension, and
it's kind of more severe long term effects of the
(16:46):
diabetes and hypertension, and at younger ages.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
I think that was kind of what was most striking
to me.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
You're seeing the long term, the bad effects, the long
term bad effects.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
At younger ages. You're seeing all.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Use disorder is a problem everywhere in the United States,
but on tribes alcoholics disorder is much higher.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
And again, like I I was, it was shocked.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
It was honestly shocking to see thirty year olds who
had n stage liver disease from alcohol use disorder. And
I saw on some of the sickest people I've seen
have been from my from my time there. So everything
just is you know, a little bit harder. And the
reasons for that, as we can talk about, are like
(17:29):
totally multifactorial, but in line with poverty, funding is a
huge like funding and poverty go hand in hand education,
and just the fact that yeah, they've been oppressed for centuries.
But yeah, I think it's at the end of the day,
it was the same. I was seeing the same things
(17:50):
that I would.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
See at UC Davis, but I was seeing.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
It on a more extreme basis.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
I would say, Victor, Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I think it's important to note to sort of say
that these problems exist all across the US, because there
can be stereotypes associated with health concerns like that are
attributed to the way that we live, or our culture,
or just inherent to who we are. Like there's this
(18:20):
prevailing I think notion that I don't know what came first,
but I think in the medical field, I still hear
about it. Like in class sometimes they'll say, like Native
Americans have the highest rates of diabetes or heart disease,
but they won't say why, and it makes people think that, oh,
like are they just not catching on?
Speaker 6 (18:42):
Like are they just living badly?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And when you don't say why, it kind of I
think it it creates a lot of ignorance and a
lot of room for interpretation. So I think it's really
important to talk about those background reasons for instance, with diabetes,
I think a lot on a lot of reservations, there's
no access to one, traditional foods which have been you know,
(19:07):
through policy, eradicated through government policies over the decades and centuries,
and no access to healthy foods.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
These are food deserts.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
And at the same time, like doctor Hallweaver mentioned, there's poverty.
So if you're trying to get healthy food, you don't
have Number one, it's not in the reservation. You might
not even be able to afford it. If you can
get off the reservation. Not a lot of people have,
you know, not everyone has a car or the ability
to mobilize, you know, hour and a half to the
(19:39):
health food store. And so you know, a lot of
these That's just one example of like some of the
systemic reasons why somebody could get diabetes quite early. And
there's also a lot of lingering trauma and mental health
impacts that I think play into the high rates of alcoholism.
A lot of you know, in policy, there was there
(20:02):
were some early efforts to try to I think, to
try to limit alcohol on reservations that we still see today.
On some reservations, alcohol is entirely illegal on the reservation.
But you'll see you'll still see businesses right on the
border of the reservation just camp themselves there right on
(20:25):
the border, knowing that these that the population is vulnerable,
maybe not knowing.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
That it's because of the historical trauma and things.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
But but there's there's something there, you know, so there's
still an aspect of being targeted there by something that
that you know, the community is highly vulnerable to still
to this day.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
It's a really interesting point that you bring up, because
I remember being in medical school and you know, you
sit in these lecture halls and some they would bring up,
like Native Americans being a high risk for all these
It would be like one of these little footnotes that
would be in a lot of our lectures and that
sort of thing. They never explained why, I mean medical
school particularly then, was I wouldn't want to touch anything
(21:06):
that they might see as an even mildly political issue,
even though not discussing it made it one. Really, do
you must be annoyed by this? Does this happen to
you like you are you like sitting in your lecture
class and then like the teacher will mention something about
Native Americans. Then all like the white students in your
class just turned their heads and like look at you
(21:26):
to see your response.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, yeah, you're like what listen, I just like find
a wall and I stare at it, just just anticipating it,
just looking in deep thought until it passes.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Right, smart student, Molly, you're going to add something.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
I was going to add to that victor that. Yeah,
just to highlight the food desert. Example, during COVID, right,
the White River Reservation had one grocery store and during
the lockdown it was only open, you know, from nine
am to three pm on Monday, Wednesday Friday, Like it
(22:10):
had really limited hours, and that was there one grocery
store for the entire reservation, and so it was just
even you know, during the pandemic, everything got a little
bit worse. But yeah, they're very limited access to healthy
foods for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
One thing that I was like recently educated about during
a discussion about diabetes prevention was epigenetics. And like, my
I'm a doctor of modern European history, so if I
go off the rails at any point, I'm going to
lie on one of you three to gently guide me back.
But I found that fascinating the concept of like intergenerational
(22:48):
trauma and epigenetics and how that can impact healthcare today.
Is that something either of you could explain to listeners who,
like me, a relatively ignorant on it.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And that's the I can take this one actually, because
actually it's interesting because I did an episode recently about
the intergenerational trauma of the Persian diaspora after the revolution
and how this most recent set of protests sort of
reignited this trauma. And excuse me, one of the guests
(23:22):
mentioned that there was a study in mice in which
they looked at sort of epigenetics of stress response, and
they had pregnant mice and they like, they would give
them the scent of rose blossom or something, and then
they would shock them, and then the mouse would grow
to be really fearful of those shocks that were associated
(23:42):
with the rose blossom. And then what they noticed was
that like, the children of the mice would also respond
poorly to like that same rose blossom scent, even though
they didn't have the exposure to it. And I looked
into it, I mean, because the truth of it is, yeah,
I don't think you can inherit specific phobias that just
(24:02):
doesn't happen, But I kind of pushed back on that
point a little bit, and I got a lot of
messages from molecular pathologists who are like, so, you can't
stress during pregnancy. It can be it can affect the DNA.
It can affect the DNA, and that can be passed
down changes in the DNA disruption of the DNA. You
can't inherit specific phobias or or fears or stresses per se,
(24:27):
but it can clearly cause genetic damage when you have
that much stress. And then on top of that, of
course we're talking about the psychological impact it has on
someone and then how they raise their children and how
their children grow up. So it is I agree, it's
a very interesting subject, but I don't want to get
any more molecular pathologists emails. Molly.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
What I was going to say, I'm glad you took
this epigenetics quession from me.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
You know one thing about your your going back to
what you were saying, victor about the situations that have
sort of predicated this. Correct me if I'm wrong. But
my understanding is most of the land that these Indian
reservations were on in the United States, like there's STrenD
twenty six. If I read that correctly. Is not on
great land. It's like land that's close to like mines
(25:17):
or places where there's some sort of radiation or there's
some sort of issues not great like for growing food
itself directly, there is that correct? Is that part of
this correct?
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:29):
I think a lot of it was. The intention was
to put indigenous peoples on land that wasn't as fertile,
and that's kind of goes back into what I was
talking about traditional foods and how it's difficult. But I think,
you know, I don't know if this science was all
there at the time, and I think now a lot
(25:51):
of indigenous land, a lot of reservations actually they found
out that they're yeah, they're on like on top of
big mines and like things that the Western world funds
really valuable. And so there's a there's a shift almost
to almost you see it in like policies and lawsuits
today to start trying to grab more minerals from the
(26:15):
land that that that they had actually put us on,
which they didn't think was valuable. And now they're like, wait,
there's like copper under there.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, that's a good example of that, right exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Well, you know, the podcaster and the rapper propaganda prop
I'm James. You probably have met him, you know. He
he speaks about how initially they put the African Americans
in the waterfront. They said, here, you're gonna live in
these places by the by the the ocean where you
can't really grow things that well. And then after a
(26:51):
while they realized, oh no, that's really valuable property. And
then they started trying to find ways to get them
out of there. Seems to be our our national m O.
Can we get back to the IHS a little bit?
So you guys have mentioned Indian Health Services. It's come
up a couple of times. And James, I'd also want
to hear your because you've worked there as well. I'd
like to hear, like, what are some things that the
(27:12):
IHS is doing well? What are some things that need
work and how I just.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Want to say the IHS, I think they they they're
doing what they can't a lot of it.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
They're doing what they well with what they have.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I would say, like a lot of the issues are
underfunding and we don't exactly know how well, Like we
don't really know the potential quite yet because they just
don't have enough funding, so I think, like I would
just like to insert that caveat into the conversation first.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I you know, I only have
experience on one reservation and there, you know, everyone.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Is different, for sure. I think someone might know more
than me.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
But the Alaska Health System Indian Health System is still
far AHS, but it's like kind of its own thing,
and they are the kind of the gold standard or
they're they're kind of the they are doing the best
with what they have. And I don't know, maybe you
guys know, James or Victor that if they have more
funding is probably a big part of it. If they
just have more funding, But they are kind of touted
(28:19):
as the leader in IHS right now.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I know, but less about this in either view, I'm sure.
But I know I worked on an ih grant years
ago with someone who'd worked with Alaska Native people and
they were talking about this Promodores de Salul model, which
I don't know if you guys are familiar with that.
It came from Oakland actually, but like it's a p
(28:42):
mental model for health education that they had implemented there,
and we were trying to get money to implement that
in the Yaki Reservation didn't work shockingly.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
But.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
That model that they used of like using people from
the community to educate people from the community rather than like,
I guess you could call it like white men and
white coats, worked very well for them, and I think
it's it's a very desirable model to replicate. It's not
that expensive either, and we were doing it with diabetes prevention, right. So, Like,
(29:15):
chiefly my thing is riding bikes has been my whole life,
and so it is, yeah, just a big old bike
riding hippie, but like, riding bike is very good for you,
as it turns out, which is which is so the
thing that we've been doing with a lot of my
friends on the Yaki Reservation is getting folks helping them
(29:37):
out with a bike and helmet and lights and all
the things that you need, teasing them to fix the
bike right, and then having them go ahead and ride
the bike, and then like it, having them bring friends
and family members to come back and ride the bike
and have a goal event as part of that. And
that's worked very well for us too. So that model
that they implemented has been super successful within this very
(29:59):
small context of them getting Yaki folks to ride bikes.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, just going off of that, I mean, that sounds awesome.
And I think one of the limitations of the IHS
is that it's this huge bureaucracy, so it's hard to
do stuff like that, Like for instance, at the Yaki tribe.
I'm sure you know, we're not the easiest tribe to
work with, but but.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
We're probably easier than the IHS.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, because.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
And I think that that's a huge limitation, Like even
if you want to do a study on the IHS
has to be approved by like all of these government
officials and bureaucrats, and and I think that that makes
it really difficult. And especially because you know, and there's
so many branches of the government that the Indian Health
(30:48):
Service there's just one small, you know, piece of it,
and it's not necessarily one that's like heavily prioritized by
the government.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
But there are improvements that are mad.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
I think in this last appropriations bill, the Indian Health
Service got like funded a lot more than it had previously,
so hopefully we'll see some improvements. I think they're doing
really well when it comes to digital health, the integration
of electronic medical systems. I think that made a significant
impact when that was introduced. And then you know, I
(31:25):
think the Indian Health Service, like the model does well
in giving a lot of freedom to tribes to choose
do we want to continue with the Indian Health Service
or do we want to take our health system over
and run it ourselves but still use them same money
that would have been used anyways. I think that's what
a lot of the clinics in Alaska did in terms
(31:48):
of having like it's called six thirty eight clinic or
six thirty eight clinics or tribal health systems. It's really
cool what they did in Alaska because those are some
of the most remote, remote villages you know, in the
US and uh and I think that is something that
we should be paying more attention to, especially you know
when we're talking about you know, we talked about Alaska
(32:11):
that they're remote, but a lot of tribes in other
parts of the US are maybe not as remote, but
they're in very similar situations and that they're kind of disconnected,
like on food deserts.
Speaker 6 (32:23):
And I think the same model can be used, but not.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Every tribe is at the place where they're capable yet
of taking over like the operations, the staff. There's a
lot of work that needs to be done, and every
tribe is kind of in a different place.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I'm interesting. I'm interested. I think you were mostly tongue
in cheek. But when you when you mentioned the yacky
tribe is not that easy to work with, what what
do you mean? Like, is it is? Is there a
lot of different opinions? Is that? Why is there? Is
it hard to why is it hard to manage? Or
why would that be difficult?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
We're just very militant, and I think I think we
just you know, we're just do our own thing and.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Uh, very independent and.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah, yeah, we're just kind of like I think, I
think we just have a very rebellious nature in us,
like sort of uh yeah, just really had strong and
like we don't work the same on the same timeline.
I think sometimes it's like, for instance, like like.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
I'll tell you a story.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
There was this uh, this shrimp farmer dude, our traditional
one of our traditional spiritual leaders political leaders. He passed
away in early two thousands. His name was on Selmo Valencia,
and uh they were bringing down there trying to introduce
shrimp farming in the traditional villages in so Noda Mexico.
So they brought this guy all the way down. He's
(33:51):
this businessman and uh, you know, he's running on time,
and uh they bombed down to the traditional authorities in
one of the publos and then all of a sudden,
right in the middle of the meeting, the snake. You
see this snake on the floor go by, and then
Alsoma Valencia. He's like stop, wait for a second, and
(34:15):
he grabs a snake and then he looks at it
and he says, we have to stop the meeting.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
I have to go back to Tucson.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
And this business guy is like, what the hell you know,
I just came from like Manhattan, and I flew all
the way. I'm in this village like and they stopped
the meeting, and this guy's like confused. I think he
got really angry and that never happened to him in
a business meeting before.
Speaker 6 (34:39):
But there was a traditional.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Aspect that I think we just put that above everything else,
Like during even today, during time to ceremony, like, no
one's answering emails, no travel government official is going to
get back to you within that those like three four
weeks because they're doing spiritual practices and honoring that.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, yeah, I get from my perspective, everyone is lovely
and like it's nice to have a community where everyone
cares about each other and like wants everyone else to
be healthy, and like that's great. There are times when,
like recently we did a live show to raise money
to buy more bikes and someone from iHeart was trying
to get a W nine out of us, and I
was like, no, it's it's like Eastern weeks. It's not
(35:22):
it's not going to happen, like it's just id but
it's fine. You explain it. And like I always attribute,
like I'm not fully culturally fluent, right, Like I'm a
guy from England, Like it was different where I grew up,
so like things you can't tell yah stout is that
(35:43):
it's right up there with Valencia. But yeah, like I'm
obviously I don't have full cultural affluency, so it's on
me to kind of listen and then over time rather
than be frustrated and bulldoze shit, Well.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
You're I mean, obviously you're You're very good at that
in my opinion what I've seen from you so far.
But I'm very curious actually from James and Molly, like
when you guys first started going to the reservation, what
surprised you, What was different than you had envisioned? What
you know, because I'm assuming you got all your knowledge
(36:13):
of what reservations were like like from Hollywood, Like I
did you know what was fact what was fiction?
Speaker 5 (36:20):
Yeah, it was my first time like on a reservation,
and I think it was.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
It.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
It sort of felt like a little bit of a
different country, almost like you're in Arizona and you drive
three hours and you feel like you're in a really
different place.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
It feels just a little bit different, and just it's
beautiful a.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
The one I'm on was, or the one that I
went to is in White grig Or, Arizona.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
It really is beautiful in the mountains along a river.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
But it's you know, a lot of single story housing
that are all kind of government cookie cutter housing. And
I got to kind of go into the homes too
when we were doing house visits, So that felt I
felt very like privileged and it felt special to be
able to do that as a very foreign person, right,
I felt I felt like an outsider. And yeah, I
(37:16):
mean a lot there isn't They're not central heat for
these houses. Some of these houses. Lots of the floors
were dirt, like not actual flooring on the houses. So
that was I think surprising to me because it seems
like that is not something you think of when you
think of America. But that was that probably was like
(37:37):
the most surprising. But then like the street dogs running
around everywhere was kind of classic, I think.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
But my first my first drive down, I like.
Speaker 5 (37:44):
Had to stop because like a pack of dogs went by,
and that was kind of out of a out of
a movie.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, I didn't know, Like obviously I'm not American either. Yeah,
it's shocking. I actually am from Texas. It's the Harry
Potter films on repeat. Uh that's how I learned to
be a terf. No, I am not a turf. I
I don't think they need I don't think that, yeah,
(38:11):
there's people should go away. I so like I didn't
maybe receive a lot of that like sort of ingrained
kind of British for we fucking did settle colonialism everywhere.
I don't want to erase that for a second, but
I you know, so I just go to the restaurande
my bike through it. Pascal yaki Ros has nice rose
(38:33):
lovely bike lanes. And it's much smaller than like the
Tohn Autumn Rears, which is next door that's besides Connecticut.
For people who aren't familiar.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
And.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I know, I'm from a part of England that's very
rural where people talk to each other. And that's the
thing that I don't like about living in a town
in California is that everyone just kind of lives in
a little box and kind of moves around and doesn't
talk to each other. And at least in my experience
on the reservation, everyone is friendly and nice. Most of the
(39:07):
people I run into with friendly and nice, and so
I really like that. First guy I ran into was
a traditional artist, David Moreno, who does he runs an
art program there. He's a very lovely guy, and uh,
we just were chatting, I think, and I was trying
to encourage. I think I was trying to encourage him
(39:29):
to come on a bike ride with me, and like,
you didn't have a bike, So then I was just
trying to encourage, Like I was like, maybe I could
get some bikes and come back, And I spoke to
some people and diabetes prevention and we got some bikes
and came back. But it's like Obviously people's houses aren't
super duper fancy, but they're fine. Like people have some
nice houses on the res Like, you know, I didn't
(39:50):
grow up in a super fancy house, and like the
houses that are not that distinct from those that I
see in San Diego. It's beautiful too. Like actually down
if you go on the Autumn Reservation further down. We
did a ride there in twenty nineteen, and we went
out the night before from the Yaki Reservation with the
(40:11):
group of us and we did like a big camp
out and then we did a ride the next day.
Their roads are not quite as nice as the Yaki roads.
We all got we ran out of innertubees because everyone
got so many punctures. Like it's yeah, it's beautiful landscape.
It's really gorgeous. I think the biggest shot to me
was the donkeys. The donkeys on the Autumn roads or
(40:33):
something else, like just just wild ass donkeys that like
at night, it sounds like they're a murder occurring. It
just makes these horrendous noises and like you puncture on
your bike and you go for a little bit of
shake because it's very hot, and suddenly you realize, like
ten budles, like just just chilling there too. So that
was the weirdest thing. But like, I know, people shouldn't
(40:56):
just walk onto reservations and start like trying to have
their cultural immersion experience or whatever. That's it's a bit cringe,
but yeah, like people equally shouldn't think that it's a
scary or different or dangerous, like Arizona feels foreign to me,
Like I go to Phoenix and that that is that
is a scary experience for other reasons, but like, no,
(41:16):
I've always felt very welcome and comfortable there.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Yeah, but I can just add one more thing.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Oh sorry, just I think the other That's a great point, James,
But like the striking part for me too is that
I felt very Yeah, I felt very welcomed when I
was there, and they like have a very soft way
of speaking, and I'm like a loud, annoying American and
so like have obviously they're American as well, but I
have kind of a loud voice, and they're very soft
(41:44):
spoken and so gentle and so just like appreciative and
I kind of for me, I was like, wow, this is.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Like amazing that you have resiliency to feel appreciative when.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
Like, I don't feel like you should, you know, feel
grateful or appreciative to me.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
I thought that was like my most ranking, but.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
I felt Molly's so nice. She's like trying to apologize
for being Listen, you're talking to two podcasters like obnoxiouses
are nature. It's like part of our DNA. You don't
need to explain yourself there, Victor, You've already touched on
this a little bit. But do you find yourself still
still dispelling myths and stereotypes about Native Americans even at
(42:25):
medical school?
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, yeah, all the time, and you know, we talked
about the medical misconceptions and and and those things. But
I think there it's it's like, like I said, I
feel like the American educational system, it left so much
room for interpretation and what it did give was and
a lot of it wasn't true. But I think what
(42:49):
I'm really battling is that people just the level of
exposure they have is so minimal that they're coming into
these conversations and dicussions with pretty much almost nothing. And
so the average American knows very very little about Native Americans.
(43:11):
And when I say that, I don't mean Native American
culture because I don't think anyone, any Native American, really
cares if they know our culture or not. In fact,
they might even protect it. But we're talking about what
is the experience of Native Americans in this country, what happened,
what were the policies, what are the issues that are
(43:32):
still going on today. You know, there's the level of education.
Speaker 6 (43:37):
It's just not.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
To the point where I find we can even have
these discussions, discussions that we need to have. So I
think the most taxing thing on me is that whenever
I talk about Indigenous experiences or anything related to Indigenous health,
I have to give so much background that every time
I have to educate someone on you know, what is colonization,
(44:01):
what happened, and the very basics of of I think
that should be basic in this country, all these basics,
and by that time, you know, I think people have
gotten so much information that maybe they didn't know before.
Speaker 6 (44:17):
They get overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
And these things can also be very touchy subjects, I
think because we haven't been bold enough in the US
to actually just talk about them. And I think people,
you know, might be a little afraid to acknowledge these things,
and somewhere inside and I think what would have helped
(44:39):
with that is if they were exposed to it in
you know, starting in elementary school history, starting.
Speaker 6 (44:47):
In middle school, high school, all of.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
These things I think will make well, we need to
start doing that in the educational system if we're really
going to make progress.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, as like someone who teaches history, oh it has
taught history. I think that's very true, and sadly it's
only getting worse, like places like Florida, right and making
it harder and harder to talk about that. But I
think when people come certainly so like I teach a
community college course, an American history course, and I think
(45:18):
when people come to that course, I mean California, like
many of them, for instance, could not name the tribe
who's the cancestral and current homelands they are sitting in
and learning. And then obviously to understand those experiences, you
have to have a name for them, right, And if
you don't have a name for the people, then you're
a long way from understanding, I guess. But it's something
(45:40):
that's still desperately lacking in the American education system, and
it doesn't seem like people are pushing hard enough to
get that rectified, Like it's Yeah, it's a very big
gap even in places, you know, like you could be
at school in Arizona, like you could be an hour
(46:02):
from some of the biggest reservations in the United States,
right the Autumn and the Navajo, and maybe not an hour.
Everything's a long way away in Arizona. But and and
not understand anything about those people's lived experience if you're
in Scottsdale.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
In the Bay Area. I've grown up in the San
Francisco Bay Area and I didn't I knew very little
about the native people that were here until my one
of my oldest son had to do a project here
in San Francisco on the Miwalk tribe. And then only
then did I learn. I'm like, oh my god, they
were everywhere here. You know, there's so much the lonely tribe.
So even here, you know, which is a relatively progressive,
(46:43):
not florid and system, you know, did I not learn
a lot about that? But I also, Victor, I also
hear you, like, I know, it must be exhausting, and
we appreciate you coming on to talk to us about it.
James and I have talked about this before. It's it's
something that I at least grapple with sometimes, like in
terms of like bringing on guests, you know, like I
want people to talk about these things that are difficult
(47:07):
and sometimes maybe even a little traumatic to like talk about.
But there's this balance of like, well, I want the
people who've experienced it and know the most about it
to speak about it, but also to want to keep
re exposing people to like the same exhausting trauma every time,
you know, it becomes a tough thing for me at
least to figure out in balance, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Yeah, definitely, Yeah, I think you know, these podcasts are
a great way to do that, to have these discussions
because it actually I think it takes away from the
taxation because it hits a lot of people at once,
you know, and.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Listeners in the tens. We have listeners in the.
Speaker 6 (47:51):
Yeah, that's better.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Yeah, we do a QR code so you can just
be like, hey, hey, check this out.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
So so be from Sorry, I have one last question
for you. You know, you mentioned that you want to
go back and practice on the reservation. I'll be a
part of the community again. Do you plan on bringing
in traditional healing components to your practice, and if so,
are you gonna do specialty training is there like a
version of a fellowship that you will do for that.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Yeah, I really want to do traditional practices. I'm not
a traditional healer myself, but I want to partner with them.
I feel like I have the connections to traditional people
to do stuff like that.
Speaker 6 (48:48):
One of the things like I really want to do.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Is try to do a lot of public health initiatives
out of my practice, Like, for instance, I want to
try to find ways to help people grow their own food,
start their own gardens, do community gardens. I really want
to get our traditional foods up and running again. And
there's a lot of people are already working on this, you know,
(49:13):
which is amazing.
Speaker 6 (49:14):
I just want to be.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Of service to that effort, and I think I think
that is one of the most important things right now.
I also really want to do like public health initiatives
around language revitalization. I think language is so important when
it comes to the mental health of Indigenous youth enous.
I believe that Indigenous youth who know how to speak
their language are more mentally strong during the continuing tides
(49:41):
of colonization that they face in this Western world if
they have their language. I think that that's huge in
terms of resilience as culture as well. I think, you know,
finding ways to to sort of support culture as medicine,
culture as prevention, participating in ceremonies as you know, making
(50:05):
it you know, very apparent that to to your audience
and to the world that that that is protective of
Indigenous health, indigenous mental health, and so that you know,
there's all these facets of traditional traditional ways of life
that we're all very healthy to us. And I think
a huge part of the battle is that we're still
(50:25):
having right now because the colonization is revitalizing those things,
and then those things, you know, the more that they're revitalized,
the more that we decolonize, the healthier we're going to be.
But at the same time, recognizing that Western medicine can
also be very effective too, if it's just properly funded
and if the service is effective. And so that's the
(50:47):
other the other side of the coin that I want
to be working on as well.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Oh, excellent, man.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Yeah, one thing I wanted to touch on before we
finish is because it seems relatively current and new ze
right is and I think Victor my next one point
that like colonization isn't a thing that stopped. It's a
thing that we keep doing like we not we including Victor,
but you know, like weird people like me, like the
(51:18):
Indian Child Welfare Act. Right, Iqua is a thing that
the Zupreme Court is is like set up to take
a swing at. And I know that that is an
area of great concern to many people. And I was
just in a tribal building last week looking at books
for Yaki children right to help them stay connected with
(51:39):
their culture. If they're an Inn family, which is not
a tribal family, Can you, if you feel comfortable, explain
what iqua is and then the damage it does to
young people to be pulled away from their culture and
sort of get like this little active conversation that happens
every time that happens.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
Yeah, I'm glad brought that up because colonization is definitely continuing.
For instance, we think about the Black Hills in South
Dakota and the gold mining, the gold rush there. Well,
there's still dozens of gold mining permits that are pending
right now in the Black Hills. There are dozens of
gold mines still operating there. And then the Coda and
(52:20):
Dakota are still fighting for the Black Hills. It's just
one instance. We see that all across the United States,
and I think when it comes to the Indian Child
Wealth for ACT, that's another really good example. So basically
the Indian Child Wealth for ACT if a Native child
is in the foster care system, and basically it helps
(52:46):
to support those children to find a placement with the
family who is either who is from their tribe, from
their cultural background. And the reasoning behind that is because
they to number one, to stop the history of assimilation
(53:08):
when it comes to taking Native children from their families.
And we know about that, you know, through the US.
Speaker 6 (53:16):
Boarding school system.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
That was one example, but it kind of transitioned at
a point once boarding schools were terminated, those forest boarding schools,
it kind of transitioned into the foster care system. And
at one point a huge proportion of Native children were
in foster care and they were being placed with white families,
(53:38):
and those white families were not exposing them to their
cultural background, and that in itself was potentiating assimilation, because
that's another Native child. Dozens of Native children, thousands of
Native children who don't know their language, their culture because
they've been removed from community due to systemic factors right,
(54:02):
And so this bill it doesn't it doesn't say, oh,
you can only go.
Speaker 6 (54:06):
With a Native family.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
It helps to ensure that if there is a suitable
Native family from their tribe, that they will get first
priority because they know that culture is also very important
to Indigenous child wellbeing as well.
Speaker 6 (54:22):
So the battle right now is being brought on by.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
This lawsuit that primarily handles like mining and oil companies,
but they're taking this Indian Child Welfare Act lawsuit pro
bono because if you can get rid of the Indian
Child Welfare Act on the basis that they're claiming, it's
it's racism, right, They're claiming that Native people are getting
(54:50):
some unjust preferential treatment when it comes to adopting Native
children over white people on the basis of race. Where
that falls short is that the basis of the Indian
Child Welfare Act is that Indigenous peoples are not a race.
They're sovereign nations. They have a political status distinct from
(55:13):
all other any other race in the US. And that
is the basis that tribes are arguing for that, Hey,
we have this political status, we're a tribal government. We
have the rights to raise our children we have the
rights to teach our children to make sure they grow
up in community with our culture. That's not a race issue.
That's a political issue that relates to our political status
(55:36):
as a tribal nation, as a sovereign nation. And so
they're going to be battling that in court. But if
the Supreme Court decides that this Indian Child Welfare Act
is you know, racist or discriminatory based on race, it
means that a number of other bills another under of
(55:57):
other things in the law that that, for instance, that
exist due to the political status of Indigenous nations, have
the potential to also be thrown out on the basis
of racial discrimination.
Speaker 6 (56:12):
And that I think, will you know, will lead to.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
A lot of a lot more land grabs, a lot more,
a lot less services being provided, for instance, like the
Indian Health Service, for instance, they might say, oh, why
do Native Americans get this healthcare? They might they might
start taking down a whole bunch of other things that
are really important to us. So it's really it's a
huge issue right now.
Speaker 1 (56:36):
It's a troubling time. And I could see how people
in the past might have said, Oh, don't worry, that
won't happen I think it's pretty clear that these things
can happen pretty quickly and pretty aggressively.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Now.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
I think the last couple of years, I've showed a
lot of people that things can get worse somehow, you know,
and that these things can be taken more and more
can be taken from people that have already had so
much taken from them.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
So I guess I like to finish off normally instead
of just being like, here is some sad shit and
support thing to it and then kind of like dropping
the mic asking people how they can do something to
stand solidarity. So like, if either of you want to mention,
I know this bears is flat. There are other attempts
to appropriate and colonize Indigenous land, sacred spaces and fucking
(57:24):
border wall. It's bulldozing Kumi graveyards. Like, as I'm talking
to you, are there ways that people can stand solidarity
with Indigenous communities?
Speaker 4 (57:33):
I'll go first because Victor will have a better answer
than me, and he can. He can. You can jump
in after me. But I think as like a low
level entry thing.
Speaker 5 (57:43):
That people can do, and it kind of touches on
how trying to remove the burden on asking for education
and doing the education yourself for that.
Speaker 4 (57:52):
What people can do is just you can read books
by Native.
Speaker 5 (57:56):
Authors and that teaches you a lot of history. And
there's like some incredible Native authors who are writing beautiful
stories that are weave with fact and fiction book books,
and then like Native Media Reservation Dogs is like a
TV show on Hulu that is a really great show
that everyone should watch. So I think you can do
(58:19):
some like easy things that just takes remove some of
the needing to be taught to on yourselves and you
can just learn about what we're missing.
Speaker 4 (58:29):
So those are like very very easy.
Speaker 5 (58:30):
And then in terms of like just from my point
of view as a as an MD, there are a
lot of ways to get involved because these the reservations
are chronically understaffed. They're just like rural medicine IHS or
not IHS. Royal medicine is very under understaffed in in
our country, and so there's always opportunities for doctors to
(58:54):
go and work and it's like valuable and amazing for
us and for the community to be able to do.
So there are ways to do that through local companies
and directly through the IHS sites.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I think conversation. You know,
I would love if white allies would talk to their
family members and their friends. And I think there are
a lot of moments where in these day to day
(59:28):
personal interactions when Natives might come up to stand up,
like if you hear something that is ignorant, you hear
something that might be racist, to stand up to the
people that you know in your own circles and say, hey, no,
that's not correct. To talk to your friends and family
(59:49):
about what you learned with regard to colonization. Are the
issues that Native American people face because I think some
of the people that we listen to the most of
the people that we love, our friends and our family,
and I think there needs to be a lot more
conversation in those spaces, a lot more accountability because I
know that it can be very hard when when difficult
(01:00:11):
things come up in those personal interactions to challenge someone.
But I think that that is where that that sort
of thing can really move the needle in the long run.
And I think that sometimes people just choose to stay silent,
and I would like that to change this.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Yeah, very well said. That seems like a fantastic place
to close it here. Thank you. Both so much for
coming on and hanging out with us. You've been listening
to the House of Pod and it could happen here.
Let's get some plugs in for you guys. Can you
Let's start with you, Victor. Tell us where people can
(01:00:49):
find you or plug anything you want to plug.
Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
Come to the rest. Just ask for me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Original Facebook.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Yeah, my Instagram and Twitter are Vlocarmen V L O
C A R M E end.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Very cool and Mollie.
Speaker 5 (01:01:10):
I exited the Twitter sphere after Elon Musk took over,
so I'm off, but you can find me in Sacramento.
Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
All right. You guys have been so awesome. Thank you
both for coming on. We hope to talk again sometime.
Speaker 6 (01:01:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (01:01:31):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
And welcome to a very special joint episode of two
shows that you hopefully love, one the House of Pod.
I'm Cave. I'm the host of that show and it
could happen here with my good friend James Stout. James, Hi, Hi, Kvey.
I'm very excited about this. This is a rare privilege. Yeah,
I'm very excited too. We'll get straight to it. Just
(00:28):
a quick reminder if you're not following one of these
shows and you're following the other, yeah, all of both.
Why not and leave a nice review if you like
the shows either way. But we're really excited, so let's
get straight to the episode. How's that sound yep?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Must get.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
And welcome back.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I know. Every week I say this is a special episode,
and I'm usually lying ninety nine percent of the time
is not special. But this week is very special. It's
special because I've never done this before. I'm very excited.
It's a topic I really have wanted to cover for
a while. But I'm going to be covering the topic
with a good friend of mine who has an excellent show,
(01:22):
and we're doing a joint show release thing and I've
never done it. It's like a marvel team up, and
I'm very excited for it. James stout. James, I'm gonna
introduce your first journalist podcaster host of It could Happen Here, which,
if you're listening to this on it could happen here,
you already knew that. James. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hi, thank you. Yeah, And I don't watch many Sweeper
hero movies, so I'm now concerned as to which Marvel
hero villain I would be.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Well, I was thinking more of the comics. But if
I have, if I have the pin you to a character,
it's Moonnight. I think that's clear.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, it's gone straight past me, buddy, but I'm sure
I hope that.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Take my word for it. It's cool. James. Can you
tell us a little bit about what we're covering today.
Let's let's talk to our people about what then we'll
introduce our guests. But let's tell people of what we're
trying to cover today.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, of course. So we're talking about like healthcare and
an indigenous context and how we can both learn from
and stand in solidarity within Indigenous communities when it comes
to healthcare.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I guess excellent. And to help us with that, we
have two guests. We have a medical student at a
little school called Harvard I think it's a liberal arts
school out in the east somewhere, named Victor Lopez Carmen.
He was the prior elective co chair of the United
Nations Global Indigenous Youth Caucus. He is a member of
the Crow Creek Sooux tribe and also from the Yockey tribe.
(02:43):
Is that correct, Victor?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Okay, excellent, welcome to the shows.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Thank you so much. I'm honestly props to pronouncing all
that right.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Oh yeah, no, your stuff. I'm going to get right.
Our next guest, whose name is Molly, I'm gonna probably
destroy her name because that those are the names I
have a hard time with. Doctor Molly Hollweaver. Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Correct?
Speaker 1 (03:05):
E r? Doctor at UC Davis, one of my favorite
hospitals in the world. Is that also correct?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
That is correct? I work at you see Davis.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So I guess maybe we should start, like if we
want to start out by explaining maybe how healthcare like,
what things that when we look at healthcare and indigenous context,
what things we're looking at the differentiate it from healthcare
in other context?
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
What will be the areas that both of you guys
think that folks who aren't familiar with this because sadly,
I think a lot of the United States they either
don't think they know Indigenous people or maybe they really
don't like and we can explain that lots of Indigenous people,
most Indigenous people live off res too. I think that
would be very valuable. But what sort of topics will
(03:54):
be be looking at when we're looking at healthcare from
an indigenous perspective.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
I think like when you look at indigenous peoples in
the US, you think of our traditional health system as well,
like that was what we always had, that was what
we've had for thousands of years, and the efforts to
maintain the traditional health, traditional healing practices. And then you
look at the Western health system, the different systems we
(04:20):
have access to today, including the Indian Health Service, which
is unique to US, tribal clinics, tribal operated clinics, and
hospitals everyday hospitals that anyone else uses, because, like you said,
the majority of Native Americans today in the US live
in cities or urban contexts.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Mollie, let me ask you, because people may be wondering,
how did you become involved with delivery of healthcare to
the Native American population.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah. Thanks, I am, it's great to be here. Thanks
for having us.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
I'm excited to chat with you all.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
I kind of had a unique opportunity.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
I've always been interested in Indian health service as a
healthcare delivery system and Indigenous peoples. And when I started fellowship,
I did a Global Health Fellowship and I started in
twenty twenty, so it was, you know, not a great
year to be a Global Health Fellow for many reasons,
and so I had very you know, obviously, we were
(05:25):
on lockdown and work was hard and stressful as an YEARDOC,
and so we were trying to be creative and you know,
how we can do this global health fellowship.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
And so I got in touch.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
With a awesome physician, Don Maggio, who is the edy
director at White River, which is Apacha Nation in Arizona.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
It's like three hours east of Phoenix.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
So he went to high He was a Highland Alum,
a Highland DM alum which is in Oakland and now
works full time at White River. Anyways, got connected with
him and everything that was going on during the pandemic
because as I'm sure you guys are all aware and
probably a lot of our listeners that the Navajo and
Apache tribes we had much higher rates of COVID and
(06:13):
of severe COVID, and so I went as first for
kind of public health outreach. So I went and did
some contact tracing and helped do They did a really
cool program of outreach in the community to go and.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Check on the locals and we would go and.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
Check pull socks so we'd see how high their oxygen
saturation was and see how people were doing to try
to catch disease early.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
So that's how I kind of got.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Into doing it, and then I loved it there and
wanted to keep working, and so I continued to moonlight,
which means I worked kind of as a locums. I
don't know if I need to explain that for medical
Dragon Cave, but I worked, you know, every one to
two months, I would fly to Arizona and work on
the res for a week.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Very cool. So Victor getting back a little bit to
where Native Americans are getting their healthcare? What is what
is your interest? Once you're done and when you graduate
from where are you? You are? Are you right now?
Speaker 6 (07:14):
I'm a fourth year, so my last year, Oh.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
My god, for you buddy, how are you liking it?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I'm liking it less. No, I'm not like like I
like medicine. I still maintain medical school. Like I'm ready
to be done with school.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
You got senioritis? Is that what you mean?
Speaker 6 (07:35):
Pretty much? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
You're a rising fourth here or have you already matched? Uh?
Speaker 3 (07:40):
No, I'm a I'm a rising fourth here. I'm applying
your residency now, so.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
So so talk to us about where what you would
like to where you like to go and what kind
of medicine you'd like to practice.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Honestly, anywhere that will take me.
Speaker 6 (07:59):
Doctor. But yeah, I really I want to go into pediatrics.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
I always wanted to help and take care of Native
kids and back in the community for sure. I want
to go back and be a community member again. I've
been gone for so long. I feel like I've been
only only able to go back for like you know,
breaks and things like that, and it's it's it hasn't
been enough for me as an Indigenous person.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
So I'm ready to go back.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Be a doctor, be part of the community, be there
for ceremonies, be there to be patients.
Speaker 6 (08:35):
That's my ideal.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I think one thing that's really interesting, especially and like
we have this chance to talk to you, which we
which we often don't have. Is you mentioned like balancing
western medical technology with indigenous medical technologies, right, And I'm
really interested in hearing how you would approach that for
folks who aren't familiar or for folks who don't have
(08:57):
the knowledge of indigenous medical technologies that you might odd
be you maybe have people who you go to for that.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah. Yeah, Well, I think it's important to just already
start the conversation that so much indigenous medical technology has
already been appropriated by western medicine as western medicine, aspirin,
for instance, many traditional healing practices that were and are
(09:24):
still find themselves seeping into the field of psychiatry or
around parenting mental health the way that, for instance, that
Indigenous peoples. I think there's a growing understanding in the
medical field about planetary health and the impacts of climate
change on health, and a lot of that has already
(09:46):
been said and fought for by Indigenous peoples for a
very long time, and so there's already a lot of
stuff there that we're working with. And I think it's
important to give Indigenous peoples their flowers. But yeah, that
I think when it comes to integrating on the clinical level,
it's going to differ from community to community. You might know,
(10:07):
but in the possible Yaki tribe, the health division employs
a team of traditional healers that come up I think
monthly from Sonora, Mexico, from the villages and Yaccu. Patients
can elect to see the traditional healers with or without
a Western trained physician, and there's a whole room where
(10:30):
they have all these herbs and plants that Yaki people
have been using for thousands of years, and I think
that's very beautiful. One reason we've been able to do
that is because our tribe elected to run their own
health division rather than having the Indian Health Service run
it for them. We had the capability to do that
(10:52):
at the time. Not all tribes do have the capability,
yet we had it, and I think it's been beneficial
for us because it's given us more freedom to bridge
Western a traditional medicine in a way that works for us.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
The Yacky system is a really great one, like and
like people. Probably that people won't be familiar with it.
I guessing most people listening won't be familiar with it,
but it's allowed the tribes to all kinds of cool things,
like in I've been involved in a diabetes prevention cycling
program there for ten years, something like a long long time.
(11:26):
But there are things that can be done because of
that block grant or running their own system as opposed
to having IOHS run the system. Could you like, because Marley,
I think you're more familiar with like an IHS clinic model, right,
would one of you want to explain the difference between
the two of those for people who aren't familiar.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
IHS versus the tribe.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
The Pascuayaki tribe run their own system. I think they
get a block grant, correct me if I'm wrong, Victor,
they get a block grant for MYHSS, and then they
spend that as they see fit.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
Yeah, I can speak to the IOHS side, but for
me this in Victory. You can correct me if I'm wrong,
But for me it was easy to It's kind of
similar to the VA for just for medical doctors to
understand in that it's a set of money that the
government sets aside for a certain population and the veterans for.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
The VA and IHS for.
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Natives, and but there's obviously disparity between even those two,
Like per captive spending is way higher in the VA
than it is on IHS, but it's a yeah, Western system,
and all of the staff on the hospital, like the
reservation hospital or the Indian Hospital, are all employees of IHS,
(12:39):
so they're actually kind of like federal employees. And we
can kind of get into the weeds of it later,
but there's you know, a lot of turnover because it's
a sometimes it's hard places to live and so and
they're young. They kind of recruit young doctors, and there's
a lot of turnover for the for the primary care doctors.
And then in the er where I work, there very
(13:00):
few forward certified YAR doctors, so it's staffed by non
em certified docs.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
That sounds right to me. The only other thing I
would add is that the Indian Health Service it's predicated
on what's called the federal trust responsibility that's built over
decades of Supreme Court precedent smaller court precedents over the
years that I think a lot of them were based
(13:28):
in treaties made with Indigenous peoples. And basically this means
that the government, because of the harm, the oppression, the
colonization that has been dealt upon Indigenous peoples across the
United States. There's a trust responsibility for the federal government
to sort of to do something about the lingering impacts.
(13:50):
They have a responsibility to provide health services to indigenous
peoples in the US. That was also in many of
the treaties that were made with indigenous nations. And I
think it does go over people's heads sometimes that this
is not a favor, this is not a gift. It's
a responsibility based on centuries of oppression, and that that
(14:15):
responsibility is not fully being met right now because the
Indian Health Service is severely underfunded. The way that the
funds are appropriated is unique to government health care programs.
The way the veterans, for instance, Veterans Affairs is appropriated
is much more effective than the way Indian Health.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
Service is appropriated at the federal level.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It might be worth explaining here just briefly, that not
all tribes are federally recognized, right, and not all Indigenous
people are part of federally recognized tribes, And how would
that impact their access to healthcare?
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, well, you know, federal recognition isn't perfect. It's a
really arduous process, and not all tribes are federally recognized.
For those tribes who aren't, they don't have access to
those services like the Indian Health Service or the Bureau
of Indian Education, for instance, and many other federal grants
(15:12):
that Indigenous peoples and Indigenous nations can apply for or
just automatically get. For instance, during COVID nineteen there were
specific funding allocated for tribal nations. Those tribal nations who
are not federally recognized, they wouldn't have bad access to them.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Let me shift here is a little bit here and
get to a question that is I think going to
be very difficult to answer, and it's one of those
impossible questions because there's so many parts to it, I'm sure,
and it varies so much. But I like to talk
a little bit about the major health issues that you
guys feel are facing Native Americans right now and whether
or not if they are at all different from the
(16:01):
rest of the US population, And then we could talk
about what barriers there are to care in that regards.
But we'll start with you, Molly. Can you tell us
from your experience working there, what are the major health
issues that you feel may or may not be the
same as the general population.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Yeah, I think at the end of the day is
it's very similar.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
You're seeing the same disease processes that you're seeing in
the general population, but you're seeing everything's a little bit
more severe. I would say, like there's more there's higher
rates of the chronic disorders like diabetes and hypertension, and
it's kind of more severe long term effects of the
(16:46):
diabetes and hypertension, and at younger ages.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
I think that was kind of what was most striking
to me.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
You're seeing the long term, the bad effects, the long
term bad effects.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
At younger ages. You're seeing all.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
Use disorder is a problem everywhere in the United States,
but on tribes alcoholics disorder is much higher.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
And again, like I I was, it was shocked.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
It was honestly shocking to see thirty year olds who
had n stage liver disease from alcohol use disorder. And
I saw on some of the sickest people I've seen
have been from my from my time there. So everything
just is you know, a little bit harder. And the
reasons for that, as we can talk about, are like
(17:29):
totally multifactorial, but in line with poverty, funding is a
huge like funding and poverty go hand in hand education,
and just the fact that yeah, they've been oppressed for centuries.
But yeah, I think it's at the end of the day,
it was the same. I was seeing the same things
(17:50):
that I would.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
See at UC Davis, but I was seeing.
Speaker 5 (17:53):
It on a more extreme basis.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
I would say, Victor, Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
I think it's important to note to sort of say
that these problems exist all across the US, because there
can be stereotypes associated with health concerns like that are
attributed to the way that we live, or our culture,
or just inherent to who we are. Like there's this
(18:20):
prevailing I think notion that I don't know what came first,
but I think in the medical field, I still hear
about it. Like in class sometimes they'll say, like Native
Americans have the highest rates of diabetes or heart disease,
but they won't say why, and it makes people think that, oh,
like are they just not catching on?
Speaker 6 (18:42):
Like are they just living badly?
Speaker 3 (18:44):
And when you don't say why, it kind of I
think it it creates a lot of ignorance and a
lot of room for interpretation. So I think it's really
important to talk about those background reasons for instance, with diabetes,
I think a lot on a lot of reservations, there's
no access to one, traditional foods which have been you know,
(19:07):
through policy, eradicated through government policies over the decades and centuries,
and no access to healthy foods.
Speaker 6 (19:15):
These are food deserts.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
And at the same time, like doctor Hallweaver mentioned, there's poverty.
So if you're trying to get healthy food, you don't
have Number one, it's not in the reservation. You might
not even be able to afford it. If you can
get off the reservation. Not a lot of people have,
you know, not everyone has a car or the ability
to mobilize, you know, hour and a half to the
(19:39):
health food store. And so you know, a lot of
these That's just one example of like some of the
systemic reasons why somebody could get diabetes quite early. And
there's also a lot of lingering trauma and mental health
impacts that I think play into the high rates of alcoholism.
A lot of you know, in policy, there was there
(20:02):
were some early efforts to try to I think, to
try to limit alcohol on reservations that we still see today.
On some reservations, alcohol is entirely illegal on the reservation.
But you'll see you'll still see businesses right on the
border of the reservation just camp themselves there right on
(20:25):
the border, knowing that these that the population is vulnerable,
maybe not knowing.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
That it's because of the historical trauma and things.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
But but there's there's something there, you know, so there's
still an aspect of being targeted there by something that
that you know, the community is highly vulnerable to still
to this day.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
It's a really interesting point that you bring up, because
I remember being in medical school and you know, you
sit in these lecture halls and some they would bring up,
like Native Americans being a high risk for all these
It would be like one of these little footnotes that
would be in a lot of our lectures and that
sort of thing. They never explained why, I mean medical
school particularly then, was I wouldn't want to touch anything
(21:06):
that they might see as an even mildly political issue,
even though not discussing it made it one. Really, do
you must be annoyed by this? Does this happen to
you like you are you like sitting in your lecture
class and then like the teacher will mention something about
Native Americans. Then all like the white students in your
class just turned their heads and like look at you
(21:26):
to see your response.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Yeah, yeah, you're like what listen, I just like find
a wall and I stare at it, just just anticipating it,
just looking in deep thought until it passes.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Right, smart student, Molly, you're going to add something.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
I was going to add to that victor that. Yeah,
just to highlight the food desert. Example, during COVID, right,
the White River Reservation had one grocery store and during
the lockdown it was only open, you know, from nine
am to three pm on Monday, Wednesday Friday, Like it
(22:10):
had really limited hours, and that was there one grocery
store for the entire reservation, and so it was just
even you know, during the pandemic, everything got a little
bit worse. But yeah, they're very limited access to healthy
foods for sure.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
One thing that I was like recently educated about during
a discussion about diabetes prevention was epigenetics. And like, my
I'm a doctor of modern European history, so if I
go off the rails at any point, I'm going to
lie on one of you three to gently guide me back.
But I found that fascinating the concept of like intergenerational
(22:48):
trauma and epigenetics and how that can impact healthcare today.
Is that something either of you could explain to listeners who,
like me, a relatively ignorant on it.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And that's the I can take this one actually, because
actually it's interesting because I did an episode recently about
the intergenerational trauma of the Persian diaspora after the revolution
and how this most recent set of protests sort of
reignited this trauma. And excuse me, one of the guests
(23:22):
mentioned that there was a study in mice in which
they looked at sort of epigenetics of stress response, and
they had pregnant mice and they like, they would give
them the scent of rose blossom or something, and then
they would shock them, and then the mouse would grow
to be really fearful of those shocks that were associated
(23:42):
with the rose blossom. And then what they noticed was
that like, the children of the mice would also respond
poorly to like that same rose blossom scent, even though
they didn't have the exposure to it. And I looked
into it, I mean, because the truth of it is, yeah,
I don't think you can inherit specific phobias that just
(24:02):
doesn't happen, But I kind of pushed back on that
point a little bit, and I got a lot of
messages from molecular pathologists who are like, so, you can't
stress during pregnancy. It can be it can affect the DNA.
It can affect the DNA, and that can be passed
down changes in the DNA disruption of the DNA. You
can't inherit specific phobias or or fears or stresses per se,
(24:27):
but it can clearly cause genetic damage when you have
that much stress. And then on top of that, of
course we're talking about the psychological impact it has on
someone and then how they raise their children and how
their children grow up. So it is I agree, it's
a very interesting subject, but I don't want to get
any more molecular pathologists emails. Molly.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
What I was going to say, I'm glad you took
this epigenetics quession from me.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
You know one thing about your your going back to
what you were saying, victor about the situations that have
sort of predicated this. Correct me if I'm wrong. But
my understanding is most of the land that these Indian
reservations were on in the United States, like there's STrenD
twenty six. If I read that correctly. Is not on
great land. It's like land that's close to like mines
(25:17):
or places where there's some sort of radiation or there's
some sort of issues not great like for growing food
itself directly, there is that correct? Is that part of
this correct?
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:29):
I think a lot of it was. The intention was
to put indigenous peoples on land that wasn't as fertile,
and that's kind of goes back into what I was
talking about traditional foods and how it's difficult. But I think,
you know, I don't know if this science was all
there at the time, and I think now a lot
(25:51):
of indigenous land, a lot of reservations actually they found
out that they're yeah, they're on like on top of
big mines and like things that the Western world funds
really valuable. And so there's a there's a shift almost
to almost you see it in like policies and lawsuits
today to start trying to grab more minerals from the
(26:15):
land that that that they had actually put us on,
which they didn't think was valuable. And now they're like, wait,
there's like copper under there.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Yeah, that's a good example of that, right exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Well, you know, the podcaster and the rapper propaganda prop
I'm James. You probably have met him, you know. He
he speaks about how initially they put the African Americans
in the waterfront. They said, here, you're gonna live in
these places by the by the the ocean where you
can't really grow things that well. And then after a
(26:51):
while they realized, oh no, that's really valuable property. And
then they started trying to find ways to get them
out of there. Seems to be our our national m O.
Can we get back to the IHS a little bit?
So you guys have mentioned Indian Health Services. It's come
up a couple of times. And James, I'd also want
to hear your because you've worked there as well. I'd
like to hear, like, what are some things that the
(27:12):
IHS is doing well? What are some things that need
work and how I just.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Want to say the IHS, I think they they they're
doing what they can't a lot of it.
Speaker 6 (27:26):
They're doing what they well with what they have.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I would say, like a lot of the issues are
underfunding and we don't exactly know how well, Like we
don't really know the potential quite yet because they just
don't have enough funding, so I think, like I would
just like to insert that caveat into the conversation first.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I you know, I only have
experience on one reservation and there, you know, everyone.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Is different, for sure. I think someone might know more
than me.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
But the Alaska Health System Indian Health System is still
far AHS, but it's like kind of its own thing,
and they are the kind of the gold standard or
they're they're kind of the they are doing the best
with what they have. And I don't know, maybe you
guys know, James or Victor that if they have more
funding is probably a big part of it. If they
just have more funding, But they are kind of touted
(28:19):
as the leader in IHS right now.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I know, but less about this in either view, I'm sure.
But I know I worked on an ih grant years
ago with someone who'd worked with Alaska Native people and
they were talking about this Promodores de Salul model, which
I don't know if you guys are familiar with that.
It came from Oakland actually, but like it's a p
(28:42):
mental model for health education that they had implemented there,
and we were trying to get money to implement that
in the Yaki Reservation didn't work shockingly.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
But.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
That model that they used of like using people from
the community to educate people from the community rather than like,
I guess you could call it like white men and
white coats, worked very well for them, and I think
it's it's a very desirable model to replicate. It's not
that expensive either, and we were doing it with diabetes prevention, right. So, Like,
(29:15):
chiefly my thing is riding bikes has been my whole life,
and so it is, yeah, just a big old bike
riding hippie, but like, riding bike is very good for you,
as it turns out, which is which is so the
thing that we've been doing with a lot of my
friends on the Yaki Reservation is getting folks helping them
(29:37):
out with a bike and helmet and lights and all
the things that you need, teasing them to fix the
bike right, and then having them go ahead and ride
the bike, and then like it, having them bring friends
and family members to come back and ride the bike
and have a goal event as part of that. And
that's worked very well for us too. So that model
that they implemented has been super successful within this very
(29:59):
small context of them getting Yaki folks to ride bikes.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah, just going off of that, I mean, that sounds awesome.
And I think one of the limitations of the IHS
is that it's this huge bureaucracy, so it's hard to
do stuff like that, Like for instance, at the Yaki tribe.
I'm sure you know, we're not the easiest tribe to
work with, but but.
Speaker 6 (30:21):
We're probably easier than the IHS.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, because.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
And I think that that's a huge limitation, Like even
if you want to do a study on the IHS
has to be approved by like all of these government
officials and bureaucrats, and and I think that that makes
it really difficult. And especially because you know, and there's
so many branches of the government that the Indian Health
(30:48):
Service there's just one small, you know, piece of it,
and it's not necessarily one that's like heavily prioritized by
the government.
Speaker 6 (30:57):
But there are improvements that are mad.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
I think in this last appropriations bill, the Indian Health
Service got like funded a lot more than it had previously,
so hopefully we'll see some improvements. I think they're doing
really well when it comes to digital health, the integration
of electronic medical systems. I think that made a significant
impact when that was introduced. And then you know, I
(31:25):
think the Indian Health Service, like the model does well
in giving a lot of freedom to tribes to choose
do we want to continue with the Indian Health Service
or do we want to take our health system over
and run it ourselves but still use them same money
that would have been used anyways. I think that's what
a lot of the clinics in Alaska did in terms
(31:48):
of having like it's called six thirty eight clinic or
six thirty eight clinics or tribal health systems. It's really
cool what they did in Alaska because those are some
of the most remote, remote villages you know, in the
US and uh and I think that is something that
we should be paying more attention to, especially you know
when we're talking about you know, we talked about Alaska
(32:11):
that they're remote, but a lot of tribes in other
parts of the US are maybe not as remote, but
they're in very similar situations and that they're kind of disconnected,
like on food deserts.
Speaker 6 (32:23):
And I think the same model can be used, but not.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Every tribe is at the place where they're capable yet
of taking over like the operations, the staff. There's a
lot of work that needs to be done, and every
tribe is kind of in a different place.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I'm interesting. I'm interested. I think you were mostly tongue
in cheek. But when you when you mentioned the yacky
tribe is not that easy to work with, what what
do you mean? Like, is it is? Is there a
lot of different opinions? Is that? Why is there? Is
it hard to why is it hard to manage? Or
why would that be difficult?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
We're just very militant, and I think I think we
just you know, we're just do our own thing and.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Uh, very independent and.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah, yeah, we're just kind of like I think, I
think we just have a very rebellious nature in us,
like sort of uh yeah, just really had strong and
like we don't work the same on the same timeline.
I think sometimes it's like, for instance, like like.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
I'll tell you a story.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
There was this uh, this shrimp farmer dude, our traditional
one of our traditional spiritual leaders political leaders. He passed
away in early two thousands. His name was on Selmo Valencia,
and uh they were bringing down there trying to introduce
shrimp farming in the traditional villages in so Noda Mexico.
So they brought this guy all the way down. He's
(33:51):
this businessman and uh, you know, he's running on time,
and uh they bombed down to the traditional authorities in
one of the publos and then all of a sudden,
right in the middle of the meeting, the snake. You
see this snake on the floor go by, and then
Alsoma Valencia. He's like stop, wait for a second, and
(34:15):
he grabs a snake and then he looks at it
and he says, we have to stop the meeting.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
I have to go back to Tucson.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
And this business guy is like, what the hell you know,
I just came from like Manhattan, and I flew all
the way. I'm in this village like and they stopped
the meeting, and this guy's like confused. I think he
got really angry and that never happened to him in
a business meeting before.
Speaker 6 (34:39):
But there was a traditional.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Aspect that I think we just put that above everything else,
Like during even today, during time to ceremony, like, no
one's answering emails, no travel government official is going to
get back to you within that those like three four
weeks because they're doing spiritual practices and honoring that.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, yeah, I get from my perspective, everyone is lovely
and like it's nice to have a community where everyone
cares about each other and like wants everyone else to
be healthy, and like that's great. There are times when,
like recently we did a live show to raise money
to buy more bikes and someone from iHeart was trying
to get a W nine out of us, and I
was like, no, it's it's like Eastern weeks. It's not
(35:22):
it's not going to happen, like it's just id but
it's fine. You explain it. And like I always attribute,
like I'm not fully culturally fluent, right, Like I'm a
guy from England, Like it was different where I grew up,
so like things you can't tell yah stout is that
(35:43):
it's right up there with Valencia. But yeah, like I'm
obviously I don't have full cultural affluency, so it's on
me to kind of listen and then over time rather
than be frustrated and bulldoze shit, Well.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
You're I mean, obviously you're You're very good at that
in my opinion what I've seen from you so far.
But I'm very curious actually from James and Molly, like
when you guys first started going to the reservation, what
surprised you, What was different than you had envisioned? What
you know, because I'm assuming you got all your knowledge
(36:13):
of what reservations were like like from Hollywood, Like I
did you know what was fact what was fiction?
Speaker 5 (36:20):
Yeah, it was my first time like on a reservation,
and I think it was.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
It.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
It sort of felt like a little bit of a
different country, almost like you're in Arizona and you drive
three hours and you feel like you're in a really
different place.
Speaker 4 (36:38):
It feels just a little bit different, and just it's
beautiful a.
Speaker 5 (36:43):
The one I'm on was, or the one that I
went to is in White grig Or, Arizona.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
It really is beautiful in the mountains along a river.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
But it's you know, a lot of single story housing
that are all kind of government cookie cutter housing. And
I got to kind of go into the homes too
when we were doing house visits, So that felt I
felt very like privileged and it felt special to be
able to do that as a very foreign person, right,
I felt I felt like an outsider. And yeah, I
(37:16):
mean a lot there isn't They're not central heat for
these houses. Some of these houses. Lots of the floors
were dirt, like not actual flooring on the houses. So
that was I think surprising to me because it seems
like that is not something you think of when you
think of America. But that was that probably was like
(37:37):
the most surprising. But then like the street dogs running
around everywhere was kind of classic, I think.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
But my first my first drive down, I like.
Speaker 5 (37:44):
Had to stop because like a pack of dogs went by,
and that was kind of out of a out of
a movie.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Yeah, I didn't know, Like obviously I'm not American either. Yeah,
it's shocking. I actually am from Texas. It's the Harry
Potter films on repeat. Uh that's how I learned to
be a terf. No, I am not a turf. I
I don't think they need I don't think that, yeah,
(38:11):
there's people should go away. I so like I didn't
maybe receive a lot of that like sort of ingrained
kind of British for we fucking did settle colonialism everywhere.
I don't want to erase that for a second, but
I you know, so I just go to the restaurande
my bike through it. Pascal yaki Ros has nice rose
(38:33):
lovely bike lanes. And it's much smaller than like the
Tohn Autumn Rears, which is next door that's besides Connecticut.
For people who aren't familiar.
Speaker 5 (38:43):
And.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
I know, I'm from a part of England that's very
rural where people talk to each other. And that's the
thing that I don't like about living in a town
in California is that everyone just kind of lives in
a little box and kind of moves around and doesn't
talk to each other. And at least in my experience
on the reservation, everyone is friendly and nice. Most of the
(39:07):
people I run into with friendly and nice, and so
I really like that. First guy I ran into was
a traditional artist, David Moreno, who does he runs an
art program there. He's a very lovely guy, and uh,
we just were chatting, I think, and I was trying
to encourage. I think I was trying to encourage him
(39:29):
to come on a bike ride with me, and like,
you didn't have a bike, So then I was just
trying to encourage, Like I was like, maybe I could
get some bikes and come back, And I spoke to
some people and diabetes prevention and we got some bikes
and came back. But it's like Obviously people's houses aren't
super duper fancy, but they're fine. Like people have some
nice houses on the res Like, you know, I didn't
(39:50):
grow up in a super fancy house, and like the
houses that are not that distinct from those that I
see in San Diego. It's beautiful too. Like actually down
if you go on the Autumn Reservation further down. We
did a ride there in twenty nineteen, and we went
out the night before from the Yaki Reservation with the
(40:11):
group of us and we did like a big camp
out and then we did a ride the next day.
Their roads are not quite as nice as the Yaki roads.
We all got we ran out of innertubees because everyone
got so many punctures. Like it's yeah, it's beautiful landscape.
It's really gorgeous. I think the biggest shot to me
was the donkeys. The donkeys on the Autumn roads or
(40:33):
something else, like just just wild ass donkeys that like
at night, it sounds like they're a murder occurring. It
just makes these horrendous noises and like you puncture on
your bike and you go for a little bit of
shake because it's very hot, and suddenly you realize, like
ten budles, like just just chilling there too. So that
was the weirdest thing. But like, I know, people shouldn't
(40:56):
just walk onto reservations and start like trying to have
their cultural immersion experience or whatever. That's it's a bit cringe,
but yeah, like people equally shouldn't think that it's a
scary or different or dangerous, like Arizona feels foreign to me,
Like I go to Phoenix and that that is that
is a scary experience for other reasons, but like, no,
(41:16):
I've always felt very welcome and comfortable there.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Yeah, but I can just add one more thing.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Oh sorry, just I think the other That's a great point, James,
But like the striking part for me too is that
I felt very Yeah, I felt very welcomed when I
was there, and they like have a very soft way
of speaking, and I'm like a loud, annoying American and
so like have obviously they're American as well, but I
have kind of a loud voice, and they're very soft
(41:44):
spoken and so gentle and so just like appreciative and
I kind of for me, I was like, wow, this is.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Like amazing that you have resiliency to feel appreciative when.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
Like, I don't feel like you should, you know, feel
grateful or appreciative to me.
Speaker 4 (41:59):
I thought that was like my most ranking, but.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
I felt Molly's so nice. She's like trying to apologize
for being Listen, you're talking to two podcasters like obnoxiouses
are nature. It's like part of our DNA. You don't
need to explain yourself there, Victor, You've already touched on
this a little bit. But do you find yourself still
still dispelling myths and stereotypes about Native Americans even at
(42:25):
medical school?
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yeah, yeah, all the time, and you know, we talked
about the medical misconceptions and and and those things. But
I think there it's it's like, like I said, I
feel like the American educational system, it left so much
room for interpretation and what it did give was and
a lot of it wasn't true. But I think what
(42:49):
I'm really battling is that people just the level of
exposure they have is so minimal that they're coming into
these conversations and dicussions with pretty much almost nothing. And
so the average American knows very very little about Native Americans.
(43:11):
And when I say that, I don't mean Native American
culture because I don't think anyone, any Native American, really
cares if they know our culture or not. In fact,
they might even protect it. But we're talking about what
is the experience of Native Americans in this country, what happened,
what were the policies, what are the issues that are
(43:32):
still going on today. You know, there's the level of education.
Speaker 6 (43:37):
It's just not.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
To the point where I find we can even have
these discussions, discussions that we need to have. So I
think the most taxing thing on me is that whenever
I talk about Indigenous experiences or anything related to Indigenous health,
I have to give so much background that every time
I have to educate someone on you know, what is colonization,
(44:01):
what happened, and the very basics of of I think
that should be basic in this country, all these basics,
and by that time, you know, I think people have
gotten so much information that maybe they didn't know before.
Speaker 6 (44:17):
They get overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
And these things can also be very touchy subjects, I
think because we haven't been bold enough in the US
to actually just talk about them. And I think people,
you know, might be a little afraid to acknowledge these things,
and somewhere inside and I think what would have helped
(44:39):
with that is if they were exposed to it in
you know, starting in elementary school history, starting.
Speaker 6 (44:47):
In middle school, high school, all of.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
These things I think will make well, we need to
start doing that in the educational system if we're really
going to make progress.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Yeah, as like someone who teaches history, oh it has
taught history. I think that's very true, and sadly it's
only getting worse, like places like Florida, right and making
it harder and harder to talk about that. But I
think when people come certainly so like I teach a
community college course, an American history course, and I think
(45:18):
when people come to that course, I mean California, like
many of them, for instance, could not name the tribe
who's the cancestral and current homelands they are sitting in
and learning. And then obviously to understand those experiences, you
have to have a name for them, right, And if
you don't have a name for the people, then you're
a long way from understanding, I guess. But it's something
(45:40):
that's still desperately lacking in the American education system, and
it doesn't seem like people are pushing hard enough to
get that rectified, Like it's Yeah, it's a very big
gap even in places, you know, like you could be
at school in Arizona, like you could be an hour
(46:02):
from some of the biggest reservations in the United States,
right the Autumn and the Navajo, and maybe not an hour.
Everything's a long way away in Arizona. But and and
not understand anything about those people's lived experience if you're
in Scottsdale.
Speaker 1 (46:20):
In the Bay Area. I've grown up in the San
Francisco Bay Area and I didn't I knew very little
about the native people that were here until my one
of my oldest son had to do a project here
in San Francisco on the Miwalk tribe. And then only
then did I learn. I'm like, oh my god, they
were everywhere here. You know, there's so much the lonely tribe.
So even here, you know, which is a relatively progressive,
(46:43):
not florid and system, you know, did I not learn
a lot about that? But I also, Victor, I also
hear you, like, I know, it must be exhausting, and
we appreciate you coming on to talk to us about it.
James and I have talked about this before. It's it's
something that I at least grapple with sometimes, like in
terms of like bringing on guests, you know, like I
want people to talk about these things that are difficult
(47:07):
and sometimes maybe even a little traumatic to like talk about.
But there's this balance of like, well, I want the
people who've experienced it and know the most about it
to speak about it, but also to want to keep
re exposing people to like the same exhausting trauma every time,
you know, it becomes a tough thing for me at
least to figure out in balance, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Yeah, definitely, Yeah, I think you know, these podcasts are
a great way to do that, to have these discussions
because it actually I think it takes away from the
taxation because it hits a lot of people at once,
you know, and.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
Listeners in the tens. We have listeners in the.
Speaker 6 (47:51):
Yeah, that's better.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
Yeah, we do a QR code so you can just
be like, hey, hey, check this out.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
So so be from Sorry, I have one last question
for you. You know, you mentioned that you want to
go back and practice on the reservation. I'll be a
part of the community again. Do you plan on bringing
in traditional healing components to your practice, and if so,
are you gonna do specialty training is there like a
version of a fellowship that you will do for that.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
Yeah, I really want to do traditional practices. I'm not
a traditional healer myself, but I want to partner with them.
I feel like I have the connections to traditional people
to do stuff like that.
Speaker 6 (48:48):
One of the things like I really want to do.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Is try to do a lot of public health initiatives
out of my practice, Like, for instance, I want to
try to find ways to help people grow their own food,
start their own gardens, do community gardens. I really want
to get our traditional foods up and running again. And
there's a lot of people are already working on this, you know,
(49:13):
which is amazing.
Speaker 6 (49:14):
I just want to be.
Speaker 3 (49:15):
Of service to that effort, and I think I think
that is one of the most important things right now.
I also really want to do like public health initiatives
around language revitalization. I think language is so important when
it comes to the mental health of Indigenous youth enous.
I believe that Indigenous youth who know how to speak
their language are more mentally strong during the continuing tides
(49:41):
of colonization that they face in this Western world if
they have their language. I think that that's huge in
terms of resilience as culture as well. I think, you know,
finding ways to to sort of support culture as medicine,
culture as prevention, participating in ceremonies as you know, making
(50:05):
it you know, very apparent that to to your audience
and to the world that that that is protective of
Indigenous health, indigenous mental health, and so that you know,
there's all these facets of traditional traditional ways of life
that we're all very healthy to us. And I think
a huge part of the battle is that we're still
(50:25):
having right now because the colonization is revitalizing those things,
and then those things, you know, the more that they're revitalized,
the more that we decolonize, the healthier we're going to be.
But at the same time, recognizing that Western medicine can
also be very effective too, if it's just properly funded
and if the service is effective. And so that's the
(50:47):
other the other side of the coin that I want
to be working on as well.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Oh, excellent, man.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Yeah, one thing I wanted to touch on before we
finish is because it seems relatively current and new ze
right is and I think Victor my next one point
that like colonization isn't a thing that stopped. It's a
thing that we keep doing like we not we including Victor,
but you know, like weird people like me, like the
(51:18):
Indian Child Welfare Act. Right, Iqua is a thing that
the Zupreme Court is is like set up to take
a swing at. And I know that that is an
area of great concern to many people. And I was
just in a tribal building last week looking at books
for Yaki children right to help them stay connected with
(51:39):
their culture. If they're an Inn family, which is not
a tribal family, Can you, if you feel comfortable, explain
what iqua is and then the damage it does to
young people to be pulled away from their culture and
sort of get like this little active conversation that happens
every time that happens.
Speaker 3 (51:59):
Yeah, I'm glad brought that up because colonization is definitely continuing.
For instance, we think about the Black Hills in South
Dakota and the gold mining, the gold rush there. Well,
there's still dozens of gold mining permits that are pending
right now in the Black Hills. There are dozens of
gold mines still operating there. And then the Coda and
(52:20):
Dakota are still fighting for the Black Hills. It's just
one instance. We see that all across the United States,
and I think when it comes to the Indian Child
Wealth for ACT, that's another really good example. So basically
the Indian Child Wealth for ACT if a Native child
is in the foster care system, and basically it helps
(52:46):
to support those children to find a placement with the
family who is either who is from their tribe, from
their cultural background. And the reasoning behind that is because
they to number one, to stop the history of assimilation
(53:08):
when it comes to taking Native children from their families.
And we know about that, you know, through the US.
Speaker 6 (53:16):
Boarding school system.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
That was one example, but it kind of transitioned at
a point once boarding schools were terminated, those forest boarding schools,
it kind of transitioned into the foster care system. And
at one point a huge proportion of Native children were
in foster care and they were being placed with white families,
(53:38):
and those white families were not exposing them to their
cultural background, and that in itself was potentiating assimilation, because
that's another Native child. Dozens of Native children, thousands of
Native children who don't know their language, their culture because
they've been removed from community due to systemic factors right,
(54:02):
And so this bill it doesn't it doesn't say, oh,
you can only go.
Speaker 6 (54:06):
With a Native family.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
It helps to ensure that if there is a suitable
Native family from their tribe, that they will get first
priority because they know that culture is also very important
to Indigenous child wellbeing as well.
Speaker 6 (54:22):
So the battle right now is being brought on by.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
This lawsuit that primarily handles like mining and oil companies,
but they're taking this Indian Child Welfare Act lawsuit pro
bono because if you can get rid of the Indian
Child Welfare Act on the basis that they're claiming, it's
it's racism, right, They're claiming that Native people are getting
(54:50):
some unjust preferential treatment when it comes to adopting Native
children over white people on the basis of race. Where
that falls short is that the basis of the Indian
Child Welfare Act is that Indigenous peoples are not a race.
They're sovereign nations. They have a political status distinct from
(55:13):
all other any other race in the US. And that
is the basis that tribes are arguing for that, Hey,
we have this political status, we're a tribal government. We
have the rights to raise our children we have the
rights to teach our children to make sure they grow
up in community with our culture. That's not a race issue.
That's a political issue that relates to our political status
(55:36):
as a tribal nation, as a sovereign nation. And so
they're going to be battling that in court. But if
the Supreme Court decides that this Indian Child Welfare Act
is you know, racist or discriminatory based on race, it
means that a number of other bills another under of
(55:57):
other things in the law that that, for instance, that
exist due to the political status of Indigenous nations, have
the potential to also be thrown out on the basis
of racial discrimination.
Speaker 6 (56:12):
And that I think, will you know, will lead to.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
A lot of a lot more land grabs, a lot more,
a lot less services being provided, for instance, like the
Indian Health Service, for instance, they might say, oh, why
do Native Americans get this healthcare? They might they might
start taking down a whole bunch of other things that
are really important to us. So it's really it's a
huge issue right now.
Speaker 1 (56:36):
It's a troubling time. And I could see how people
in the past might have said, Oh, don't worry, that
won't happen I think it's pretty clear that these things
can happen pretty quickly and pretty aggressively.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
Now.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
I think the last couple of years, I've showed a
lot of people that things can get worse somehow, you know,
and that these things can be taken more and more
can be taken from people that have already had so
much taken from them.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
So I guess I like to finish off normally instead
of just being like, here is some sad shit and
support thing to it and then kind of like dropping
the mic asking people how they can do something to
stand solidarity. So like, if either of you want to mention,
I know this bears is flat. There are other attempts
to appropriate and colonize Indigenous land, sacred spaces and fucking
(57:24):
border wall. It's bulldozing Kumi graveyards. Like, as I'm talking
to you, are there ways that people can stand solidarity
with Indigenous communities?
Speaker 4 (57:33):
I'll go first because Victor will have a better answer
than me, and he can. He can. You can jump
in after me. But I think as like a low
level entry thing.
Speaker 5 (57:43):
That people can do, and it kind of touches on
how trying to remove the burden on asking for education
and doing the education yourself for that.
Speaker 4 (57:52):
What people can do is just you can read books
by Native.
Speaker 5 (57:56):
Authors and that teaches you a lot of history. And
there's like some incredible Native authors who are writing beautiful
stories that are weave with fact and fiction book books,
and then like Native Media Reservation Dogs is like a
TV show on Hulu that is a really great show
that everyone should watch. So I think you can do
(58:19):
some like easy things that just takes remove some of
the needing to be taught to on yourselves and you
can just learn about what we're missing.
Speaker 4 (58:29):
So those are like very very easy.
Speaker 5 (58:30):
And then in terms of like just from my point
of view as a as an MD, there are a
lot of ways to get involved because these the reservations
are chronically understaffed. They're just like rural medicine IHS or
not IHS. Royal medicine is very under understaffed in in
our country, and so there's always opportunities for doctors to
(58:54):
go and work and it's like valuable and amazing for
us and for the community to be able to do.
So there are ways to do that through local companies
and directly through the IHS sites.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I think conversation. You know,
I would love if white allies would talk to their
family members and their friends. And I think there are
a lot of moments where in these day to day
(59:28):
personal interactions when Natives might come up to stand up,
like if you hear something that is ignorant, you hear
something that might be racist, to stand up to the
people that you know in your own circles and say, hey, no,
that's not correct. To talk to your friends and family
(59:49):
about what you learned with regard to colonization. Are the
issues that Native American people face because I think some
of the people that we listen to the most of
the people that we love, our friends and our family,
and I think there needs to be a lot more
conversation in those spaces, a lot more accountability because I
know that it can be very hard when when difficult
(01:00:11):
things come up in those personal interactions to challenge someone.
But I think that that is where that that sort
of thing can really move the needle in the long run.
And I think that sometimes people just choose to stay silent,
and I would like that to change this.
Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
Yeah, very well said. That seems like a fantastic place
to close it here. Thank you. Both so much for
coming on and hanging out with us. You've been listening
to the House of Pod and it could happen here.
Let's get some plugs in for you guys. Can you
Let's start with you, Victor. Tell us where people can
(01:00:49):
find you or plug anything you want to plug.
Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
Come to the rest. Just ask for me.
Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
Original Facebook.
Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Yeah, my Instagram and Twitter are Vlocarmen V L O
C A R M E end.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Very cool and Mollie.
Speaker 5 (01:01:10):
I exited the Twitter sphere after Elon Musk took over,
so I'm off, but you can find me in Sacramento.
Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
All right. You guys have been so awesome. Thank you
both for coming on. We hope to talk again sometime.
Speaker 6 (01:01:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 7 (01:01:31):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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