November 4, 2025 • 40 mins
As any indigenous community might tell you, many of this country’s newest trends — from Ayahuasca to hot yoga — are not so new after all. Taking other cultures’ traditions may be as American as baseball, apple pie, and light tax evasion, but where’s the line between borrowing, reinvention, and outright theft? Lakota writer, actress, and comedian Jana Schmieding has some thoughts.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
When European explorers arrived in North America, they wanted to
settle land that was already settled, so you know they
ended up stealing it bit by bit in horrific and
harmful ways. Let's be real about it. Right today, people
are still stealing from Indigenous people. But it's not just land.
It also comes in the form of policy, commodified wellness,
(00:21):
and media. So why does this keep happening today? I
speak with Lakota writer, actress and comedian Janish Meeting.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I like to say, like gluten free, honey, it's indigenous.
If you're a keto girly baby, it's indigenous.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Here queen o, hey, I'm cal Penn And this is
here we Go Again, A show that takes today's trends
and headlines and asks why does history keep repeating itself.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Today?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
America's wellness culture, how Native people are reclaiming their stories,
and what an Indigenous led movement like Land Back could
actually look like in practice. Big Fan of the Cat,
is it one cout or two? It's a little bloe.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
There's two cats. But this is SHAWSI the Orange boy.
He loves to be on camera.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
To get into the past, present, and future. Of Indigenous theft.
I'm so excited to have Jana schmeeting on today the
Big Ol' Callie. She's a Lakota writer, actor, and comedian
known for her breakout role on Rutherford Falls and her
work on reservation dogs. She helps bring authentic Indigenous voices
to mainstream television, and she's the host of her own
(01:41):
podcast called Sage Based Wisdom, where she shares advice, humor,
and cultural commentary from an Indigenous perspective. Welcome, my fellow
Emmy nominated but not winning Jenna.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Of course, not really excited to talk to you. I'm
a fan of obviously, not just of your acting, but
also the work that you do in this space. So
you're Lakota. What does that mean in the larger sense
of tribal identity? What does it mean to you personally?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I am Mini Kanju and Sichangu Lakota, two different bands
of the Lakota Nation. I am enrolled in the Cheyenne
River Lakota Sioux tribe, which is the tribal nation of
my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, and both of those tribes
are currently located in South Dakota. But the Lakota people
(02:30):
were sort of a nomadic people who occupied territory from
up in Canada down to you know, sort of like Oklahoma,
northern Texas and was in partnership with the land in
those areas, and so yeah, it's a pretty big group
of people. My reservation is the Chyann River Reservation in
(02:54):
central South Dakota, and I have a lot of family
that lives out there. My grandparents relocated from the reservation
to Oregon, so I grew up in Oregon. I grew
up off of my tribal land, but I grew up
in a very diverse Indigenous community in Oregon, where there's
a lot of people that relocated to the west from
(03:15):
their tribal nations. And my grandparents were like really foundational
members of the native community, really trying to like use
education to like build up the urban Indian community in Oregon.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You've said in the past that Lakota is one of
the tribal affiliations people pretend to have the most next
to Cherokee.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Why is that, Yeah, I don't know. People are wild.
I think I believe that the stories of resistance, of
indigenous resistance, and especially like resistance to westward expansion sort
of largely revolve around the Plains nations, and the Lakota
(03:54):
Nation happens to be sort of a nation that really
really resisted a lot of colonial acts. In fact, today,
the day that we're recording today is June twenty fifth,
and it's actually the Lakota people call this day Victory
Day because this is the day in the Battle of
Greasy Grass or a Little Bighorn, where the Lakota people
(04:17):
in partnership with the Cheyenne killed George Armstrong Custer. So
Custer died on this day, this day back in eighteen
seventy six, by bitch. So yeah, the Lakota people like
(04:39):
really resist and continue to. We know from the Standing
Rock Movement that took place in North Dakota on the
Standing Rock Reservation that we resist invasion of land and
resource theft, which has happened forever since since the white
man came. We are the Lakota people like really really
(05:00):
and we've been we've been fighting for our land back
for a long time through various lawsuits and you know,
we've were boots on the ground kind of folks. And
so yeah, we're also one of the poorest tribal nations,
We through our resistance movements have difficult partnerships with the
federal government because the Lakota Nation sort of resists any
(05:22):
mining and any like oil production on our lands. We
don't make that oil money. Like the Osage. You know,
you saw Killers of the Flower Moon. The Osage got
absolutely ripped off when they opened up oil development on
their land.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Okay, the US has, I guess it's fair to say
a complicated history with a complex value system or value
systems in many ways, and then in other ways, whether
you're reading the grade school history books we talked about,
are like the Howard's inversions. There is this genociding throughout
(06:01):
our history, which, by the way, including today, our values
sadly seem to be pretty straightforward genocides that we're either
supporting around the world or continuing in some respects.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Right here, does American as apple pie baby o?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Because that answers my question, like, am I wrong in
this view? Is there a more complex view? And then
within that view, what are some of the things that
the United States, as we currently think of it, in
all its complexity, has stolen from indigenous people directly indirectly
in the past. Are there things that are ongoing that
(06:34):
like you know, you mentioned the Dakotas, and what should
people have an eye on right now?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
What people should have an ion right now is the
big beautiful bill and the sale of two hundred and
fifty million acres of public lands, because public lands are
tribal lands. All land is indigenous land and we should
all treat it as such. All of us are existing
on native of indigenous land. The land is indigenous. The
(07:03):
land is going to survive us all and it's going
to react. And I think that the biggest theft that
is ongoing is land. I mean genocide is I see
it as a byproduct of land. Theft I would say
(07:26):
land is also there's a genocide of our land as well,
you know, a carelessness with which the federal government and
the white sort of colonial mindset sees land as a
resource that will keep giving and giving and giving and
we just take. Like I said, Indigenous people live within
this philosophy of reciprocity. Even when we pick a single
(07:50):
plant from the earth, we offer tobacco in exchange, or
we water the plant, or we you know, pull the
invasive species around them to make sure that it thrives.
Like we always treat the land as if it's our relative,
because it is. It is our relatives. It's like, I
can't stress that enough. But I also think that historically
(08:14):
the reason that Indigenous people have been genocided by the
gov is to get us off of the land so
that they can take the land. And we see that happening.
You know, I hope that it's okay that I speak
freely about this, But even in Guzza, we see that.
(08:36):
You know, Trump is already talking about building resorts, beachfront property,
waterfront property. He wants to build Gaza back up into
this resort in the Middle East. And it's just the sickest,
sickest understanding of not only land as like a just
(08:56):
a piece of property, you know, just just something that
we can zoom and the people are simply in the way.
So Indigenous people are always just kind of in the way,
and how do we get rid of them? And they're
like resistance movements so that we can just sort of
exploit the land because we don't care about the land either.
We just want it to feed us. So yeah, everything
(09:17):
kind of comes back to land and our need to
protect it.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
But so what how does this play into the history
with indigenous communities.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I was raised with the understanding that Indigenous people in
North America are in partnership, are in communication with, are
in exchange with constantly with Palestinian people. Because if we're
looking at the Palestinian experience historically, like we might look
(09:48):
at the Indigenous experience historically, they feel as if they
are being colonized. We are watching an active colonialism happening
on their land. Now, I don't want to get into
the politics of like whose land is who? And I
think that the Palestinians, as an Arab group of people
(10:10):
identify generationally intergenerationally with being on that land and wanting
to protect it and feeling partnership with that land, and
so Indigenous people in North America, I think, feel a
lot of kinship with other colonized groups. And we see
in our movements that you know, a lot of Native
(10:34):
people were coming, you know, have been just like showing
up for Palestine, you know, in the last few months. Well,
it's the same history repeating itself. We have to look
at it like that, and we do look at it
like that, and when we do, we see what is
happening and we are reminded of our own, very very
(10:57):
tragic history. You know, it's seeing what happened to us
happening before our eyes. It's devastating to see our relatives
overseas being sort of colonized by a nation that has
strong affiliation, if not partnership, with the United States. Also,
(11:18):
colonization is only had a stink on it in like
the last ten years, twenty years, like before that, you know,
Americans were like, I mean, they called themselves colonists. They
like you know, it's like the original white Americans. Europeans
called themselves colonists. They were proud of it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Setler, Colonialism is a real thing, yes, how people refer
to themselves, Yes, and.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Something that they were proud of. We are the brave colonists.
We invented this land. We came to this beautiful, pristine
wild landscape with no recognition that for millennia Native people
have been cold altivating this land and working in partnership
with the land, building herds that they could follow planting,
(12:08):
having in very complex agricultural systems. And it's so mind
boggling to me.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
When you were talking, it just made me think, like
I often feel like I should get a free pass
on these conversations with you about indigenous issues because my
family is from where Columbus thought he was going.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, it's just like I can I can plug into this.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Well jump to the present of indigenous thievery, and this
question sort of straddles that line. Back in the sixties,
when psychedelic experimentation started to take hold, it called attention
to the fact that the US government had outlawed their
use in indigenous communities. We obviously have a history of
government intervention and religious in many ways to like curb
(12:59):
and control communities. Think about obviously mushrooms payota for example.
Can you talk a little bit about how the uses
of hallucingens in indigenous society has a spiritual practice and
since we're talking about the present, also maybe some of
the co opting that's taken place. And I'll just I'll
drop this nugget where like I live in New York,
(13:21):
but I work in La often, and there's there's this
insane grocery store called Airwan that was very close to
a place I was staying in.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
LA And I love the Haley b versumth I just remember.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Walking in and seeing like a ninety dollars turmeric and
it was packaged to look all like indiany and I
was like, yo, I missed the fucking boat here on
top people ninety good, y'all will pay ninety dollars for
Tumeric for the shit you just put a little bit
in your teeth? Yeah, but do you know do you
know the health benefits of it?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Like?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, no, I know that's why it's in everything. But
you'll pay ninety bucks for this. And then I'm like,
should I start a business that like sells white people
Tumeric for ninety dollars? I have no problem doing that.
But anyway, so that's my version of this question, yes,
is what's the history of that?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
First of all, uh, let us not be so silly
to pass up an opportunity to pitch a show where
we actually play wise medicine people for dumb white people
in LA making a killing like a reverse shark tank,
(14:33):
like basically getting white people to have you ever watched
Real Housewives? Every Real Housewives franchise hires a fucking weird
non native, non Indian like a white person who is
a spiritual leader to come and do some kind of
whax ceremony with them, every single one, And I think
(14:54):
to myself, who is this fucking person And I bet
that they're driving a nicer car than me. Yes, what
am I doing with my life the way I want
to trick people? Yeah, I think it's been so co opted.
I don't know a ton about the hallucinogenic practices of
(15:15):
the Lakota people. I will say that hallucinating and dreaming
and subconscious and unconscious star gazing, you know, astrological understanding,
like is very much a part of religious practices of
many different indigenous people, and every different tribal nation had
(15:39):
its own spiritual beliefs. And the beliefs of my people
are that the white buffalo calf woman, a white albino
buffalo calf, emerged to these two men and said to them,
here is how to be good humans. And she taught
them these seven sacred ceremonies that the Lakota people still practice.
(16:04):
And she said, this is how to be a good
relative to the world. And so like, our origin story
is feminine. The moon is a woman, the sun is
a man. And you know, we have our own star knowledge,
We have our own philosophies about dreaming and the realities
(16:26):
of dreaming and believing our own visions and really trusting
our own intuition. So I think that those kinds of
things I feel in my own life now, I'm like,
this is how I honor whatever spiritual fundamentals that may
have been lost. So much of that was erased through colonization,
(16:48):
so much of our religious beliefs. We were literally beat
for speaking our language in boarding school. Through the boarding
school system, so it was illegal for Native people not
only to like do hallucinogen or whatever, you know, but
to practice our sacred ceremonies. We were not allowed to
do that until the nineteen seventies, until the Religious Freedom Act. Wow.
(17:11):
So yeah, it's very fucked up. But I will say
that I am so fucking offended almost I just have
to laugh now because the way that folks, especially in LA.
I don't know why, I think LA is really victim
to it, because I think through like the individualism of
(17:34):
the entertainment industry, sort of this non collective Mimi me
point of view, it leaves people feeling spiritually vacant and
susceptible to sort of these magical fixes to life's problems,
(17:55):
and instead of finding the answer in community and participating
in community, people are just to pay one thousand dollars
and go do ayahuasca across the border, you know, and
it's like, okay, I guess go shit your pants and
bar for three hours and that will solve it. But like,
I don't if you don't have the context for ayahuasca,
Like you don't have like the upbringing and the understanding
(18:17):
of its importance and why people used it and what
have you, Like you're just going to basically like purge
yourself of bad feelings then like whatever makes you feel good,
like some again, some likely non indigenous person is making
a fucking killing off of your dumb ass, So congrats,
I laugh at you.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I feel this way about the commodification of a lot
of South Asian cultural things as well, right, the like
the resort yoga retreats. I'm like, I mean, if you
want Janet to take you to South India and do
a yoga retreat at her face, give you an ire
Vedic saw treatment, fine, I mean, if that's your vacation,
(18:57):
that's fine, do it. Yeah, But I yes, I don't
fully it's well, no, I understand, it's a commodification of
certain things that you feel like you can pick and choose,
and more power to you if you feel like that's
what you want to do, but I'm generally not. That's
why I was asking more about the to put it
in the right context. It sounds like we have the
same thought about this one. I want to talk about
(19:20):
food for a second, because food is obviously a huge
transmitter of culture. What indigenous foods are part of American
culture today that might surprise people.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Oh my god. I like to say that potato chips
are indigenous, So shout out potato chips, shout out anything
corn based. We basically sort of bioengineered corn to be edible,
to be able to create masa like. Oh along with corn,
I like to say popcorn. Popcorn is a snack food
(19:52):
that I think is a Native snack food. Okay, I
think indigenous food culture also is something that it's like, God,
we have such a rich regional history with food, and
it's crazy to me that only recently has indigenous food
culture been having this kind of re emergence. And I
(20:14):
think that that has again a lot to do with
the visibility of Native people through our resistance movements. We
have like the Lakota chef Sean Sherman, who is called
the Sioux Chef Sioux, the Sioux chef. He is bringing
like indigenous food knowledge of his region to people's plates.
(20:37):
And he is like a James Beard awarded chef. I
like to say, like gluten free, honey, it's indigenous, Like
if you're a keto girly baby, it's indigenous. Like it's
just an indigenous diet, like a lot of the starchy stuff,
potatoes of any kind, like and you were talking about Ireland,
(20:58):
Like during the famine in Ireland, Indigenous people brought over
the potato to Ireland. There are alliances recently in northern
California southern Oregon, there has been a dam removal project
that has taken forever and they're trying to repopulate the
(21:20):
rivers with salmon. And there has been this salmon fertilization
project in partnership with the indigenous people of Northern California
and the Maudi people in New Zealand who are sending
their salmon, eggs and sperm to the States so that
we can so indigenous people like work together to like
(21:42):
build our food culture, make sure that we are feeding
each other. And that is the food culture of Native people.
We feed each other.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So I want to move from food to what we
do right, I won't speak for you. I am an actor,
which means that I'm selfish and I'm insecure and in
need of attention all the time, like all at once.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
The trifecta.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yes, the trifacta. So if you'll indulge me with this
question on the topic of representation, I'm curious about the
complexities of indigenous stories these days, like how often are
non indigenous actors cast to play Indigenous characters, what's the
impact of indigenous writers and directors right now? And most
as I was getting ready to talk to you, I
(22:25):
was like, most interested in like the internal beef, because
the internal beef, at least in the case of the
South Asian community, is super interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Is juicy.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It's juicy because it's a lot of like, for example,
older Indian and Pakistani people don't view Pewter sellers brown
face in this movie The Party with the same abhorrence
that I and a lot of people in my generation do,
But everyone sort of agrees that, like, okay, brown face
that still continues today is really wrong on a lot
(22:57):
of levels. And I'm guessing our listeners by and we
understand that, or we can do a whole new episode
on that after the Middle East one. Yeah, but when
you have this internal beef that goes deeper, there's like
there's generally no singular arbiter of a diverse community, right,
So sometimes like the same South Asian aunties and uncles
who didn't have an issue with Peter Sellers in Brownface
will watch something with actual Indian actors and say something like, ugh,
(23:21):
but he's Cindy and he's playing a gud Drati.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
That's not good. What what the hell is that your.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Issue is with the internal be Like how are you
okay with the brownface? But you're not okay with like
a Punjabi playing a Maliali.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Like that's just great? So what is this version.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
In the Indigenous community?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I think the Indigenous media is sort of like our
internal beef is sort of like still in the nineteen
nineties sort of it feels like, you know, it's kind
of like, oh, sellouts are kind of still a thing
where it's like the Native people who are more like
political are They're like, are you selling out to be
on NBC? Or you know, it's like are you selling out?
(24:01):
You know, like that kind of vibe where I think
everybody generationally can get on board with what we call pretendians,
which is like people who are non native pretending to
be Indians or pretending to be Native. I think that
there have been a lot of non native people cast
in Native roles. I would say that we aren't quite
(24:24):
at the point where we're bitching about sort of the
purity of art is this tribal nation being represented accurately.
There's a lot of Like I was recently, I did
a film up in Canada with the Cree folks, and
I'm not Cree. I don't speak the language, but I learned,
you know, and so I'm playing a Cree woman. And
(24:45):
the career are like a very large tribal nation, and
there are a lot of bands and sub tribal nations
within the Cre nation. So whatever the point is, there
might be a lot of people who are like, she's
not Cree, she shouldn't be playing, you know whatever. But
in terms of represent we still are not big enough
to be playing, you know, Like there is just we
(25:07):
don't have enough yet, And that is part of the
internal movement that we are building that like the two
handfuls of us who are here are trying like desperately
just to like bring folks in and train them up
and get folks prepared for the rigor of this industry.
I get that too.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I think that my takeaway from the internal beef in
the South Asian community is that, like I look, I
grew up without seeing faces that look like mine on screen,
So I completely understand the want to get that representation
as specific as pausible. So if you're a fan or
a watcher of something and you don't feel that feel
(25:49):
or you want that feel to be even stronger, totally
get the criticism. But you very rightfully outlined the practicality
of that within the artistic community and how we're always
trying to be better. But like we just need to
continue to fund that pipeline, encourage that pipeline.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Absolutely. Uh.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
You had mentioned the biggest example of indigenous theft is
the land we're currently on. Can you talk about the
land back movement? What is it? Why is it important
to you?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Landback is important to every Indigenous person. It is a philosophy,
a mindset. I think a lot of non native folks
are intimidated by the idea of land back because everyone
is afraid of having to give their land back to
these sort of unnamed savages that were for people who
(26:38):
have lived here for generations. You know, this is their land.
They feel ownership over it. And I think that that
is kind of the crux of the problem is that
white people feel ownership over the land. They feel like
they own the land, and there's very little understanding of reciprocity.
So landback is really a return of the land to
(26:59):
Steward's who believe in that culture of reciprocity, who believe
in the idea. I mean, listen, legitimately, if people want
to give their land back to tribal nations, and it
has happened. It has happened through you know, court cases,
it has happened through privatization, it has happened through Native
people literally buying their own land back. Like we are
(27:21):
going about this in many different ways. It is also
a philosophical reclamation of our land can be managed better
than what it is now. For example, the La fires
that happened in January, it didn't have to be like that.
We have been warning our local government for decades. We
(27:41):
need to be we need to be doing controlled burning.
We need to look at the northern and southern California
indigenous land management philosophies. We need to get rid of
these non native plants that are really just fodder for
you know, timber, for these uncontrolled burns. And the point
of land back is a reclamation of land as our relative,
(28:07):
as a partnership. It's a point of view as much
as it is like a legitimate like, please return our
land so that we can manage it better for all
of us. You know, land back to indigenous people is
good for everyone. It's not just a philosophy, it is
a legitimate attempt. I mean in Rutherford Falls, you see
Terry Thomas in season two goes to bat for the land.
(28:28):
He uses his casino as a means of reclaiming their
tribal territory. And that's one of the ways that our
media sort of imagines a future for us, like how
can we use the current systems that we have? And
(28:49):
the Native people are very adaptive and creative about the
ways that we go about this. We've had to be,
so it's sort of like how can we work together
to make sure that land back Also like in terms
of like you know Gaza for example, like land back
to Palestinians Palestinians need that land. You know that they
(29:10):
will care for that land. They know how to cultivate
and work with that land. They have generations of all
of orchards and agriculture that sustains that land, and managing
the beaches and managing the sea shores and the ocean life.
You know, like that is their purpose in that land.
And so if we're looking at land back as a
(29:34):
global movement to ensure that the land is given to
people who are going to treat it with respect and
love and reciprocity, then like, who doesn't want that? I
don't know people who want to own land.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
What's the relationship between government entities and land? Back in
June of this year, the Yuruk tribe reclaimed over forty
seven thousand acres of forestland in the state of California,
which I think was the biggest land back deal in
the history of the state. The FBI has also in
the past helped to recover and repatriate you know, I
(30:08):
hate the term artifacts, but artifacts and remains. How does
it work when these are the entities that are not
usually trusted, Like is this a breadcrumbs from the table situation?
Or is this is this something that really gives you
hope or is it both?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's both, and you know, I think Native people we
live with a sense of hope that like, you know,
this is our purpose in life, is to protect the
land and to make sure that the generations that follow us,
like have access to their land and to their ceremonies
and to the beautiful relationship that we can have with land.
And I think that, Yeah, the Yuruk is a really
(30:47):
great example what we don't know. You know, we all
saw these headlines like the Uruk was granted a lot
of their land back, you know, by the government, which
can sort of encapsulates the reallylationship between tribal governments and
the federal government. The tribal government owns a lot of
Native land or has put it in trust, so it's
(31:09):
not really our land, you know, it's like it's in trust,
so it is like in perpetuity. Like this is always
kind of like this weird negotiation with the federal government
that they have to sort of grant us access to
our land. It's such a weird relationship. It's very complex.
I won't bore you with the finer details, but I
(31:29):
will say that the Yuruk case was years years in
the making. The Yuruk folks had to I mean it's
been it's been an ongoing legal struggle, and there's so
many different entities, you know, we have like the timber
industry and the local farmers and the indigenous groups. They
had to create their own nonprofit that was like an
(31:50):
objective nonprofit to look at all of the different you
know parties and sort of be a mediator for all
of these different issues. So yeah, it's a complicated intergovernmental ordeal.
And Native people have such a complex relationship with government,
I will say governments because not only are we dealing
(32:12):
with the federal government, the you know, Bureau of Land
Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs is all within
the Department of Interior, which is why having deb Holland
as our Secretary of the Interior under Biden was so massive.
To have an the first Indigenous person and a woman
to be in charge of the Department of the Interior,
(32:33):
which is all of the native public parks, you know,
public you know, everything is like our land. And now,
oh my god, I don't even want to talk about now.
It's so depressing. Oh I don't want to I can't
go there. But you know, we see that now the
Department of Interior under the Trump regime is sort of
(32:54):
like they're they're sort of disbanding, They're ready to sell
it off. They want to get rid of all these
public parks, you know, and so much of what we do.
And the FBI also so like, for example, jurisdictionally, when
it comes to like criminal activity on a reservation, crime
can be dealt with with the tribal police, but tribal
police do not have the resources to manage these crises,
(33:17):
so it has to go to the federal government, which
is why the FBI is so heavily involved in tribal politics,
because the FBI is always on tribal land. I think
it's especially criminal for that to be the story of
Indian Country because we just released Leonard Peltier after a
(33:38):
decades long battled Leonard Peltier, who was part of the
American Indian movement in the nineteen seventies to advocate for
Indian Country and sort of how we were being treated
by the federal government and had this big standoff and
wounded me with the FBI, and Peltier served a lifetime
prison sentence basically for allegedly shooting an FBI agent, which
(34:01):
he did not do so anyway, longest political longest longest
held political prisoner. So that's our relationship with the FBI.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
You touched on this, and it's it's probably great for
my sort of last question because we wanted to look
at the future, and you talked about deb obviously in
the former Interior Secretary. What does your ideal indigenous theft
less future look like? Is it more land back? Is
it something like reparations? Is it just colonizing Europe? Both
(34:43):
realistically figuratively, but but just kind of, you know, pragmatically,
what does what does the future look like?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Colonizing Europe is not a bad idea? I love that pitch.
I am like, no, no, we already we do so much
spaghetti at our feasts, So I'm kind of like, do
we colonize Italy? They kind of like took Italian Americans
have a long history of redface in Hollywood, So maybe
(35:11):
we go to Italy, But I don't I think that
the future. There's a great book by Lakota scholar and
historian and author Nick Estes called Our History is the
Future by Nick Estes is a great account of the
Lakota resistance movements up to now and up to Standing Rock,
(35:32):
and how Standing Rock was such a monumental example of
how the Lakota people have fought for our land for
so long and have lost and we have won. And
I think that that is our future is we will
continue to fight for the land. And I envision a
future where we have leadership in this movement and where
(35:55):
because of our visibility in media, because of our visibility
in entertainment, because of our visibility and our advocacy in education,
in public education especially, and because of our visibility in politics,
people like deb Holland you know, knock On Wood. I
hope she becomes the governor of New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
More Indigenous leadership begets visibility, begets advocacy, begets a philosophical
shift toward an Indigenous frame of reference for everyone. And
I really feel that if more people can move from
appropriating our spirituality and our and our practices to taking
(36:40):
on a more a deeper understanding of the way that
we exist with the land and the way that we
exist in community together, this will make a stronger nation.
We will be as stronger as a people. That is
the future that I envision and I have to hope
that we can get there. Of course, it does not
(37:01):
come without struggle, but we know from history that Indigenous
people live and struggle. We have accepted struggle as a
part of our humanity, and I think that that is
like the perfect way to be right now, is comfortable
with struggle and finding joy in struggle and moving with
(37:22):
joy through the world and trying to get more folks
on our side.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
That's probably a great way to sum it up. But
I'll just ask one more question since you mentioned representation
and potentially being governor of New Mexico. You're a writer
and an actor, so you also have a direct effect
on the future of culture and representation for indigenous communities.
What kinds of stories and roles are you writing? What
are you making right now? What are other people making
(37:48):
that you're excited about.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
My whole thing is indigenous Indigenous joy, Indigenous humor. I
think humor really humanizes Native people. We need to continue
to be humanized. Unfortunately we do not have that luxury.
I think the more we humanize ourselves in media and
in entertainment, like you know, the Annenberg released a study
(38:11):
that showed the correlation between how people vote or look
at our indigenous issues after watching Rutherford Falls or Reservation
Dogs versus watching like Yellowstone tailor Shared's TV show, and
that they are more likely to understand and vote for
land back movements, That they are more likely to vote for,
(38:31):
you know, native political leaders, that they are more likely
to understand reservation politics and the need for Native economic prosperity.
So I think we are in a unique position to
be more visible to non Native people, to like showcase
(38:51):
our complex history and to say we out here. And
also we are cool as fuck, So like, stop staging
your ghosts away and like join the land back movement.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Babe Well said, Well said, this has been. Here we
go again. I'm your host, Calpen. My guest today was
the delightful Janish meeting. See you next time. Here we
go again. As a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffo
Media in association with New Metric Media. Our executive producers
(39:27):
are Me Calpen, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Caitlin Fontana is
our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Additional writing from Megan tan Our consulting producer is Romin Borsolino.
Tory Smith is our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly,
(39:48):
logo by Matt Gosson, Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline
Johnson and Meghan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Basner, Isaac Dunham,
Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but
especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etor. Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
When European explorers arrived in North America, they wanted to
settle land that was already settled, so you know they
ended up stealing it bit by bit in horrific and
harmful ways. Let's be real about it. Right today, people
are still stealing from Indigenous people. But it's not just land.
It also comes in the form of policy, commodified wellness,
(00:21):
and media. So why does this keep happening today? I
speak with Lakota writer, actress and comedian Janish Meeting.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I like to say, like gluten free, honey, it's indigenous.
If you're a keto girly baby, it's indigenous.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Here queen o, hey, I'm cal Penn And this is
here we Go Again, A show that takes today's trends
and headlines and asks why does history keep repeating itself.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Today?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
America's wellness culture, how Native people are reclaiming their stories,
and what an Indigenous led movement like Land Back could
actually look like in practice. Big Fan of the Cat,
is it one cout or two? It's a little bloe.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
There's two cats. But this is SHAWSI the Orange boy.
He loves to be on camera.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
To get into the past, present, and future. Of Indigenous theft.
I'm so excited to have Jana schmeeting on today the
Big Ol' Callie. She's a Lakota writer, actor, and comedian
known for her breakout role on Rutherford Falls and her
work on reservation dogs. She helps bring authentic Indigenous voices
to mainstream television, and she's the host of her own
(01:41):
podcast called Sage Based Wisdom, where she shares advice, humor,
and cultural commentary from an Indigenous perspective. Welcome, my fellow
Emmy nominated but not winning Jenna.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Of course, not really excited to talk to you. I'm
a fan of obviously, not just of your acting, but
also the work that you do in this space. So
you're Lakota. What does that mean in the larger sense
of tribal identity? What does it mean to you personally?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
I am Mini Kanju and Sichangu Lakota, two different bands
of the Lakota Nation. I am enrolled in the Cheyenne
River Lakota Sioux tribe, which is the tribal nation of
my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, and both of those tribes
are currently located in South Dakota. But the Lakota people
(02:30):
were sort of a nomadic people who occupied territory from
up in Canada down to you know, sort of like Oklahoma,
northern Texas and was in partnership with the land in
those areas, and so yeah, it's a pretty big group
of people. My reservation is the Chyann River Reservation in
(02:54):
central South Dakota, and I have a lot of family
that lives out there. My grandparents relocated from the reservation
to Oregon, so I grew up in Oregon. I grew
up off of my tribal land, but I grew up
in a very diverse Indigenous community in Oregon, where there's
a lot of people that relocated to the west from
(03:15):
their tribal nations. And my grandparents were like really foundational
members of the native community, really trying to like use
education to like build up the urban Indian community in Oregon.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You've said in the past that Lakota is one of
the tribal affiliations people pretend to have the most next
to Cherokee.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Why is that, Yeah, I don't know. People are wild.
I think I believe that the stories of resistance, of
indigenous resistance, and especially like resistance to westward expansion sort
of largely revolve around the Plains nations, and the Lakota
(03:54):
Nation happens to be sort of a nation that really
really resisted a lot of colonial acts. In fact, today,
the day that we're recording today is June twenty fifth,
and it's actually the Lakota people call this day Victory
Day because this is the day in the Battle of
Greasy Grass or a Little Bighorn, where the Lakota people
(04:17):
in partnership with the Cheyenne killed George Armstrong Custer. So
Custer died on this day, this day back in eighteen
seventy six, by bitch. So yeah, the Lakota people like
(04:39):
really resist and continue to. We know from the Standing
Rock Movement that took place in North Dakota on the
Standing Rock Reservation that we resist invasion of land and
resource theft, which has happened forever since since the white
man came. We are the Lakota people like really really
(05:00):
and we've been we've been fighting for our land back
for a long time through various lawsuits and you know,
we've were boots on the ground kind of folks. And
so yeah, we're also one of the poorest tribal nations,
We through our resistance movements have difficult partnerships with the
federal government because the Lakota Nation sort of resists any
(05:22):
mining and any like oil production on our lands. We
don't make that oil money. Like the Osage. You know,
you saw Killers of the Flower Moon. The Osage got
absolutely ripped off when they opened up oil development on
their land.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Okay, the US has, I guess it's fair to say
a complicated history with a complex value system or value
systems in many ways, and then in other ways, whether
you're reading the grade school history books we talked about,
are like the Howard's inversions. There is this genociding throughout
(06:01):
our history, which, by the way, including today, our values
sadly seem to be pretty straightforward genocides that we're either
supporting around the world or continuing in some respects.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Right here, does American as apple pie baby o?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Because that answers my question, like, am I wrong in
this view? Is there a more complex view? And then
within that view, what are some of the things that
the United States, as we currently think of it, in
all its complexity, has stolen from indigenous people directly indirectly
in the past. Are there things that are ongoing that
(06:34):
like you know, you mentioned the Dakotas, and what should
people have an eye on right now?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
What people should have an ion right now is the
big beautiful bill and the sale of two hundred and
fifty million acres of public lands, because public lands are
tribal lands. All land is indigenous land and we should
all treat it as such. All of us are existing
on native of indigenous land. The land is indigenous. The
(07:03):
land is going to survive us all and it's going
to react. And I think that the biggest theft that
is ongoing is land. I mean genocide is I see
it as a byproduct of land. Theft I would say
(07:26):
land is also there's a genocide of our land as well,
you know, a carelessness with which the federal government and
the white sort of colonial mindset sees land as a
resource that will keep giving and giving and giving and
we just take. Like I said, Indigenous people live within
this philosophy of reciprocity. Even when we pick a single
(07:50):
plant from the earth, we offer tobacco in exchange, or
we water the plant, or we you know, pull the
invasive species around them to make sure that it thrives.
Like we always treat the land as if it's our relative,
because it is. It is our relatives. It's like, I
can't stress that enough. But I also think that historically
(08:14):
the reason that Indigenous people have been genocided by the
gov is to get us off of the land so
that they can take the land. And we see that happening.
You know, I hope that it's okay that I speak
freely about this, But even in Guzza, we see that.
(08:36):
You know, Trump is already talking about building resorts, beachfront property,
waterfront property. He wants to build Gaza back up into
this resort in the Middle East. And it's just the sickest,
sickest understanding of not only land as like a just
(08:56):
a piece of property, you know, just just something that
we can zoom and the people are simply in the way.
So Indigenous people are always just kind of in the way,
and how do we get rid of them? And they're
like resistance movements so that we can just sort of
exploit the land because we don't care about the land either.
We just want it to feed us. So yeah, everything
(09:17):
kind of comes back to land and our need to
protect it.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
But so what how does this play into the history
with indigenous communities.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I was raised with the understanding that Indigenous people in
North America are in partnership, are in communication with, are
in exchange with constantly with Palestinian people. Because if we're
looking at the Palestinian experience historically, like we might look
(09:48):
at the Indigenous experience historically, they feel as if they
are being colonized. We are watching an active colonialism happening
on their land. Now, I don't want to get into
the politics of like whose land is who? And I
think that the Palestinians, as an Arab group of people
(10:10):
identify generationally intergenerationally with being on that land and wanting
to protect it and feeling partnership with that land, and
so Indigenous people in North America, I think, feel a
lot of kinship with other colonized groups. And we see
in our movements that you know, a lot of Native
(10:34):
people were coming, you know, have been just like showing
up for Palestine, you know, in the last few months. Well,
it's the same history repeating itself. We have to look
at it like that, and we do look at it
like that, and when we do, we see what is
happening and we are reminded of our own, very very
(10:57):
tragic history. You know, it's seeing what happened to us
happening before our eyes. It's devastating to see our relatives
overseas being sort of colonized by a nation that has
strong affiliation, if not partnership, with the United States. Also,
(11:18):
colonization is only had a stink on it in like
the last ten years, twenty years, like before that, you know,
Americans were like, I mean, they called themselves colonists. They
like you know, it's like the original white Americans. Europeans
called themselves colonists. They were proud of it.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Setler, Colonialism is a real thing, yes, how people refer
to themselves, Yes, and.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Something that they were proud of. We are the brave colonists.
We invented this land. We came to this beautiful, pristine
wild landscape with no recognition that for millennia Native people
have been cold altivating this land and working in partnership
with the land, building herds that they could follow planting,
(12:08):
having in very complex agricultural systems. And it's so mind
boggling to me.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
When you were talking, it just made me think, like
I often feel like I should get a free pass
on these conversations with you about indigenous issues because my
family is from where Columbus thought he was going.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, it's just like I can I can plug into this.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Well jump to the present of indigenous thievery, and this
question sort of straddles that line. Back in the sixties,
when psychedelic experimentation started to take hold, it called attention
to the fact that the US government had outlawed their
use in indigenous communities. We obviously have a history of
government intervention and religious in many ways to like curb
(12:59):
and control communities. Think about obviously mushrooms payota for example.
Can you talk a little bit about how the uses
of hallucingens in indigenous society has a spiritual practice and
since we're talking about the present, also maybe some of
the co opting that's taken place. And I'll just I'll
drop this nugget where like I live in New York,
(13:21):
but I work in La often, and there's there's this
insane grocery store called Airwan that was very close to
a place I was staying in.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
LA And I love the Haley b versumth I just remember.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Walking in and seeing like a ninety dollars turmeric and
it was packaged to look all like indiany and I
was like, yo, I missed the fucking boat here on
top people ninety good, y'all will pay ninety dollars for
Tumeric for the shit you just put a little bit
in your teeth? Yeah, but do you know do you
know the health benefits of it?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Like?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, no, I know that's why it's in everything. But
you'll pay ninety bucks for this. And then I'm like,
should I start a business that like sells white people
Tumeric for ninety dollars? I have no problem doing that.
But anyway, so that's my version of this question, yes,
is what's the history of that?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
First of all, uh, let us not be so silly
to pass up an opportunity to pitch a show where
we actually play wise medicine people for dumb white people
in LA making a killing like a reverse shark tank,
(14:33):
like basically getting white people to have you ever watched
Real Housewives? Every Real Housewives franchise hires a fucking weird
non native, non Indian like a white person who is
a spiritual leader to come and do some kind of
whax ceremony with them, every single one, And I think
(14:54):
to myself, who is this fucking person And I bet
that they're driving a nicer car than me. Yes, what
am I doing with my life the way I want
to trick people? Yeah, I think it's been so co opted.
I don't know a ton about the hallucinogenic practices of
(15:15):
the Lakota people. I will say that hallucinating and dreaming
and subconscious and unconscious star gazing, you know, astrological understanding,
like is very much a part of religious practices of
many different indigenous people, and every different tribal nation had
(15:39):
its own spiritual beliefs. And the beliefs of my people
are that the white buffalo calf woman, a white albino
buffalo calf, emerged to these two men and said to them,
here is how to be good humans. And she taught
them these seven sacred ceremonies that the Lakota people still practice.
(16:04):
And she said, this is how to be a good
relative to the world. And so like, our origin story
is feminine. The moon is a woman, the sun is
a man. And you know, we have our own star knowledge,
We have our own philosophies about dreaming and the realities
(16:26):
of dreaming and believing our own visions and really trusting
our own intuition. So I think that those kinds of
things I feel in my own life now, I'm like,
this is how I honor whatever spiritual fundamentals that may
have been lost. So much of that was erased through colonization,
(16:48):
so much of our religious beliefs. We were literally beat
for speaking our language in boarding school. Through the boarding
school system, so it was illegal for Native people not
only to like do hallucinogen or whatever, you know, but
to practice our sacred ceremonies. We were not allowed to
do that until the nineteen seventies, until the Religious Freedom Act. Wow.
(17:11):
So yeah, it's very fucked up. But I will say
that I am so fucking offended almost I just have
to laugh now because the way that folks, especially in LA.
I don't know why, I think LA is really victim
to it, because I think through like the individualism of
(17:34):
the entertainment industry, sort of this non collective Mimi me
point of view, it leaves people feeling spiritually vacant and
susceptible to sort of these magical fixes to life's problems,
(17:55):
and instead of finding the answer in community and participating
in community, people are just to pay one thousand dollars
and go do ayahuasca across the border, you know, and
it's like, okay, I guess go shit your pants and
bar for three hours and that will solve it. But like,
I don't if you don't have the context for ayahuasca,
Like you don't have like the upbringing and the understanding
(18:17):
of its importance and why people used it and what
have you, Like you're just going to basically like purge
yourself of bad feelings then like whatever makes you feel good,
like some again, some likely non indigenous person is making
a fucking killing off of your dumb ass, So congrats,
I laugh at you.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I feel this way about the commodification of a lot
of South Asian cultural things as well, right, the like
the resort yoga retreats. I'm like, I mean, if you
want Janet to take you to South India and do
a yoga retreat at her face, give you an ire
Vedic saw treatment, fine, I mean, if that's your vacation,
(18:57):
that's fine, do it. Yeah, But I yes, I don't
fully it's well, no, I understand, it's a commodification of
certain things that you feel like you can pick and choose,
and more power to you if you feel like that's
what you want to do, but I'm generally not. That's
why I was asking more about the to put it
in the right context. It sounds like we have the
same thought about this one. I want to talk about
(19:20):
food for a second, because food is obviously a huge
transmitter of culture. What indigenous foods are part of American
culture today that might surprise people.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Oh my god. I like to say that potato chips
are indigenous, So shout out potato chips, shout out anything
corn based. We basically sort of bioengineered corn to be edible,
to be able to create masa like. Oh along with corn,
I like to say popcorn. Popcorn is a snack food
(19:52):
that I think is a Native snack food. Okay, I
think indigenous food culture also is something that it's like, God,
we have such a rich regional history with food, and
it's crazy to me that only recently has indigenous food
culture been having this kind of re emergence. And I
(20:14):
think that that has again a lot to do with
the visibility of Native people through our resistance movements. We
have like the Lakota chef Sean Sherman, who is called
the Sioux Chef Sioux, the Sioux chef. He is bringing
like indigenous food knowledge of his region to people's plates.
(20:37):
And he is like a James Beard awarded chef. I
like to say, like gluten free, honey, it's indigenous, Like
if you're a keto girly baby, it's indigenous. Like it's
just an indigenous diet, like a lot of the starchy stuff,
potatoes of any kind, like and you were talking about Ireland,
(20:58):
Like during the famine in Ireland, Indigenous people brought over
the potato to Ireland. There are alliances recently in northern
California southern Oregon, there has been a dam removal project
that has taken forever and they're trying to repopulate the
(21:20):
rivers with salmon. And there has been this salmon fertilization
project in partnership with the indigenous people of Northern California
and the Maudi people in New Zealand who are sending
their salmon, eggs and sperm to the States so that
we can so indigenous people like work together to like
(21:42):
build our food culture, make sure that we are feeding
each other. And that is the food culture of Native people.
We feed each other.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
So I want to move from food to what we
do right, I won't speak for you. I am an actor,
which means that I'm selfish and I'm insecure and in
need of attention all the time, like all at once.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
The trifecta.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yes, the trifacta. So if you'll indulge me with this
question on the topic of representation, I'm curious about the
complexities of indigenous stories these days, like how often are
non indigenous actors cast to play Indigenous characters, what's the
impact of indigenous writers and directors right now? And most
as I was getting ready to talk to you, I
(22:25):
was like, most interested in like the internal beef, because
the internal beef, at least in the case of the
South Asian community, is super interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Is juicy.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It's juicy because it's a lot of like, for example,
older Indian and Pakistani people don't view Pewter sellers brown
face in this movie The Party with the same abhorrence
that I and a lot of people in my generation do,
But everyone sort of agrees that, like, okay, brown face
that still continues today is really wrong on a lot
(22:57):
of levels. And I'm guessing our listeners by and we
understand that, or we can do a whole new episode
on that after the Middle East one. Yeah, but when
you have this internal beef that goes deeper, there's like
there's generally no singular arbiter of a diverse community, right,
So sometimes like the same South Asian aunties and uncles
who didn't have an issue with Peter Sellers in Brownface
will watch something with actual Indian actors and say something like, ugh,
(23:21):
but he's Cindy and he's playing a gud Drati.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
That's not good. What what the hell is that your.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Issue is with the internal be Like how are you
okay with the brownface? But you're not okay with like
a Punjabi playing a Maliali.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Like that's just great? So what is this version.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
In the Indigenous community?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I think the Indigenous media is sort of like our
internal beef is sort of like still in the nineteen
nineties sort of it feels like, you know, it's kind
of like, oh, sellouts are kind of still a thing
where it's like the Native people who are more like
political are They're like, are you selling out to be
on NBC? Or you know, it's like are you selling out?
(24:01):
You know, like that kind of vibe where I think
everybody generationally can get on board with what we call pretendians,
which is like people who are non native pretending to
be Indians or pretending to be Native. I think that
there have been a lot of non native people cast
in Native roles. I would say that we aren't quite
(24:24):
at the point where we're bitching about sort of the
purity of art is this tribal nation being represented accurately.
There's a lot of Like I was recently, I did
a film up in Canada with the Cree folks, and
I'm not Cree. I don't speak the language, but I learned,
you know, and so I'm playing a Cree woman. And
(24:45):
the career are like a very large tribal nation, and
there are a lot of bands and sub tribal nations
within the Cre nation. So whatever the point is, there
might be a lot of people who are like, she's
not Cree, she shouldn't be playing, you know whatever. But
in terms of represent we still are not big enough
to be playing, you know, Like there is just we
(25:07):
don't have enough yet, And that is part of the
internal movement that we are building that like the two
handfuls of us who are here are trying like desperately
just to like bring folks in and train them up
and get folks prepared for the rigor of this industry.
I get that too.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
I think that my takeaway from the internal beef in
the South Asian community is that, like I look, I
grew up without seeing faces that look like mine on screen,
So I completely understand the want to get that representation
as specific as pausible. So if you're a fan or
a watcher of something and you don't feel that feel
(25:49):
or you want that feel to be even stronger, totally
get the criticism. But you very rightfully outlined the practicality
of that within the artistic community and how we're always
trying to be better. But like we just need to
continue to fund that pipeline, encourage that pipeline.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Absolutely. Uh.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
You had mentioned the biggest example of indigenous theft is
the land we're currently on. Can you talk about the
land back movement? What is it? Why is it important
to you?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Landback is important to every Indigenous person. It is a philosophy,
a mindset. I think a lot of non native folks
are intimidated by the idea of land back because everyone
is afraid of having to give their land back to
these sort of unnamed savages that were for people who
(26:38):
have lived here for generations. You know, this is their land.
They feel ownership over it. And I think that that
is kind of the crux of the problem is that
white people feel ownership over the land. They feel like
they own the land, and there's very little understanding of reciprocity.
So landback is really a return of the land to
(26:59):
Steward's who believe in that culture of reciprocity, who believe
in the idea. I mean, listen, legitimately, if people want
to give their land back to tribal nations, and it
has happened. It has happened through you know, court cases,
it has happened through privatization, it has happened through Native
people literally buying their own land back. Like we are
(27:21):
going about this in many different ways. It is also
a philosophical reclamation of our land can be managed better
than what it is now. For example, the La fires
that happened in January, it didn't have to be like that.
We have been warning our local government for decades. We
(27:41):
need to be we need to be doing controlled burning.
We need to look at the northern and southern California
indigenous land management philosophies. We need to get rid of
these non native plants that are really just fodder for
you know, timber, for these uncontrolled burns. And the point
of land back is a reclamation of land as our relative,
(28:07):
as a partnership. It's a point of view as much
as it is like a legitimate like, please return our
land so that we can manage it better for all
of us. You know, land back to indigenous people is
good for everyone. It's not just a philosophy, it is
a legitimate attempt. I mean in Rutherford Falls, you see
Terry Thomas in season two goes to bat for the land.
(28:28):
He uses his casino as a means of reclaiming their
tribal territory. And that's one of the ways that our
media sort of imagines a future for us, like how
can we use the current systems that we have? And
(28:49):
the Native people are very adaptive and creative about the
ways that we go about this. We've had to be,
so it's sort of like how can we work together
to make sure that land back Also like in terms
of like you know Gaza for example, like land back
to Palestinians Palestinians need that land. You know that they
(29:10):
will care for that land. They know how to cultivate
and work with that land. They have generations of all
of orchards and agriculture that sustains that land, and managing
the beaches and managing the sea shores and the ocean life.
You know, like that is their purpose in that land.
And so if we're looking at land back as a
(29:34):
global movement to ensure that the land is given to
people who are going to treat it with respect and
love and reciprocity, then like, who doesn't want that? I
don't know people who want to own land.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
What's the relationship between government entities and land? Back in
June of this year, the Yuruk tribe reclaimed over forty
seven thousand acres of forestland in the state of California,
which I think was the biggest land back deal in
the history of the state. The FBI has also in
the past helped to recover and repatriate you know, I
(30:08):
hate the term artifacts, but artifacts and remains. How does
it work when these are the entities that are not
usually trusted, Like is this a breadcrumbs from the table situation?
Or is this is this something that really gives you
hope or is it both?
Speaker 2 (30:25):
It's both, and you know, I think Native people we
live with a sense of hope that like, you know,
this is our purpose in life, is to protect the
land and to make sure that the generations that follow us,
like have access to their land and to their ceremonies
and to the beautiful relationship that we can have with land.
And I think that, Yeah, the Yuruk is a really
(30:47):
great example what we don't know. You know, we all
saw these headlines like the Uruk was granted a lot
of their land back, you know, by the government, which
can sort of encapsulates the reallylationship between tribal governments and
the federal government. The tribal government owns a lot of
Native land or has put it in trust, so it's
(31:09):
not really our land, you know, it's like it's in trust,
so it is like in perpetuity. Like this is always
kind of like this weird negotiation with the federal government
that they have to sort of grant us access to
our land. It's such a weird relationship. It's very complex.
I won't bore you with the finer details, but I
(31:29):
will say that the Yuruk case was years years in
the making. The Yuruk folks had to I mean it's
been it's been an ongoing legal struggle, and there's so
many different entities, you know, we have like the timber
industry and the local farmers and the indigenous groups. They
had to create their own nonprofit that was like an
(31:50):
objective nonprofit to look at all of the different you
know parties and sort of be a mediator for all
of these different issues. So yeah, it's a complicated intergovernmental ordeal.
And Native people have such a complex relationship with government,
I will say governments because not only are we dealing
(32:12):
with the federal government, the you know, Bureau of Land
Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs is all within
the Department of Interior, which is why having deb Holland
as our Secretary of the Interior under Biden was so massive.
To have an the first Indigenous person and a woman
to be in charge of the Department of the Interior,
(32:33):
which is all of the native public parks, you know,
public you know, everything is like our land. And now,
oh my god, I don't even want to talk about now.
It's so depressing. Oh I don't want to I can't
go there. But you know, we see that now the
Department of Interior under the Trump regime is sort of
(32:54):
like they're they're sort of disbanding, They're ready to sell
it off. They want to get rid of all these
public parks, you know, and so much of what we do.
And the FBI also so like, for example, jurisdictionally, when
it comes to like criminal activity on a reservation, crime
can be dealt with with the tribal police, but tribal
police do not have the resources to manage these crises,
(33:17):
so it has to go to the federal government, which
is why the FBI is so heavily involved in tribal politics,
because the FBI is always on tribal land. I think
it's especially criminal for that to be the story of
Indian Country because we just released Leonard Peltier after a
(33:38):
decades long battled Leonard Peltier, who was part of the
American Indian movement in the nineteen seventies to advocate for
Indian Country and sort of how we were being treated
by the federal government and had this big standoff and
wounded me with the FBI, and Peltier served a lifetime
prison sentence basically for allegedly shooting an FBI agent, which
(34:01):
he did not do so anyway, longest political longest longest
held political prisoner. So that's our relationship with the FBI.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
You touched on this, and it's it's probably great for
my sort of last question because we wanted to look
at the future, and you talked about deb obviously in
the former Interior Secretary. What does your ideal indigenous theft
less future look like? Is it more land back? Is
it something like reparations? Is it just colonizing Europe? Both
(34:43):
realistically figuratively, but but just kind of, you know, pragmatically,
what does what does the future look like?
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Colonizing Europe is not a bad idea? I love that pitch.
I am like, no, no, we already we do so much
spaghetti at our feasts, So I'm kind of like, do
we colonize Italy? They kind of like took Italian Americans
have a long history of redface in Hollywood, So maybe
(35:11):
we go to Italy, But I don't I think that
the future. There's a great book by Lakota scholar and
historian and author Nick Estes called Our History is the
Future by Nick Estes is a great account of the
Lakota resistance movements up to now and up to Standing Rock,
(35:32):
and how Standing Rock was such a monumental example of
how the Lakota people have fought for our land for
so long and have lost and we have won. And
I think that that is our future is we will
continue to fight for the land. And I envision a
future where we have leadership in this movement and where
(35:55):
because of our visibility in media, because of our visibility
in entertainment, because of our visibility and our advocacy in education,
in public education especially, and because of our visibility in politics,
people like deb Holland you know, knock On Wood. I
hope she becomes the governor of New Mexico.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
More Indigenous leadership begets visibility, begets advocacy, begets a philosophical
shift toward an Indigenous frame of reference for everyone. And
I really feel that if more people can move from
appropriating our spirituality and our and our practices to taking
(36:40):
on a more a deeper understanding of the way that
we exist with the land and the way that we
exist in community together, this will make a stronger nation.
We will be as stronger as a people. That is
the future that I envision and I have to hope
that we can get there. Of course, it does not
(37:01):
come without struggle, but we know from history that Indigenous
people live and struggle. We have accepted struggle as a
part of our humanity, and I think that that is
like the perfect way to be right now, is comfortable
with struggle and finding joy in struggle and moving with
(37:22):
joy through the world and trying to get more folks
on our side.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
That's probably a great way to sum it up. But
I'll just ask one more question since you mentioned representation
and potentially being governor of New Mexico. You're a writer
and an actor, so you also have a direct effect
on the future of culture and representation for indigenous communities.
What kinds of stories and roles are you writing? What
are you making right now? What are other people making
(37:48):
that you're excited about.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
My whole thing is indigenous Indigenous joy, Indigenous humor. I
think humor really humanizes Native people. We need to continue
to be humanized. Unfortunately we do not have that luxury.
I think the more we humanize ourselves in media and
in entertainment, like you know, the Annenberg released a study
(38:11):
that showed the correlation between how people vote or look
at our indigenous issues after watching Rutherford Falls or Reservation
Dogs versus watching like Yellowstone tailor Shared's TV show, and
that they are more likely to understand and vote for
land back movements, That they are more likely to vote for,
(38:31):
you know, native political leaders, that they are more likely
to understand reservation politics and the need for Native economic prosperity.
So I think we are in a unique position to
be more visible to non Native people, to like showcase
(38:51):
our complex history and to say we out here. And
also we are cool as fuck, So like, stop staging
your ghosts away and like join the land back movement.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Babe Well said, Well said, this has been. Here we
go again. I'm your host, Calpen. My guest today was
the delightful Janish meeting. See you next time. Here we
go again. As a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffo
Media in association with New Metric Media. Our executive producers
(39:27):
are Me Calpen, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Caitlin Fontana is
our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Additional writing from Megan tan Our consulting producer is Romin Borsolino.
Tory Smith is our associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly,
(39:48):
logo by Matt Gosson, Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline
Johnson and Meghan Halson. Special thanks to Glenn Basner, Isaac Dunham,
Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but
especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etor. Thanks for listening.
See you next week.
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