Negin Farsad: So you founded this organization. Tell us how you got here.
Anathea Chino: Sure.
Guw’aadzi haupa, I'm Anathea, my pronouns are she / her. I am from Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. There are 19 Pueblos in New Mexico. Ours is one. We are known as the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States. There are about 5,000 enrolled tribal members at my community, and we've inhabited our lands for over 2,000 years.
I grew up between my Indigenous homelands and College Station, Texas, where my mom was getting her PhD, and I spent hours staring at the stars from the back of our hatchback, a little yellow Toyota Tercel named Banana. It was a different time, not wearing a seat belt in the back of the hatchback, staring at the stars, going between New Mexico and Texas, while my mom drove us home to ensure that I was deeply connected to our cultural traditions.
And early on, I learned that my Indigenous identity was threatening to a lot of people. Our existence is an act of resistance. And just a reminder that we are not a nation of immigrants, that we have thriving Indigenous cultures all across the United States. And people are reminded, when they meet me, of the history of the United States, and when engaging with Indigenous people.
It is empowering now, but when I was a kid, it was othering. And it was a reminder that our education systems treat us as historical relics, and we often don't get education about Indigenous communities or peoples after the 1800s.
But I discovered my purpose in 2004, during a presidential campaign, mentioning that it's not all presidential campaigns. And what I recognized was that there wasn't the infrastructure in New Mexico, and I organized the 10 southern Pueblos in the state.
But what struck me was, even in a state where we make up over 10 percent of the population, that very few people knew about our communities, engaged with our communities, asked us what mattered to our communities. And nationally, we make up about three percent of the population. And in places like Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, we are a very powerful voice.
So with an organization like ours, we're creating space for Native leaders to thrive in systems that were not created for us.
And to be clear, the Native leaders are not representing only Native communities. We are representing all communities. And one aspect of that is voting, for sure, but we're building space for Native visionary leaders to be able to step into our power. And there are few things more incredible than watching somebody come into one of our leadership training programs, really timid and shy about how they got there. They had been nominated, they self-selected, but once they are leaving our programs, they are saying, "I am going to be the next governor of my state." And watching that transformation is something that is just so incredible that I have the deep honor, and our team has the deep honor of being able to help shepherd.
But engaging in systems of democracy is accessible to everyone, and we're building pathways. It's not perfect by any means, but it's progress. And my encouragement to everybody here is to be what you're fighting for.
I am fighting for our existence of Indigenous peoples to continue. I'm also fighting for queer people. I am proudly queer. I am fighting for women. I am fighting for joy. And I am fighting for our ability to be able to dream.
So that's a little bit about my story. It's really incredible to be here.
NF: Yes, I love that.
(Applause)
I love the purpose of this organization. And I wonder, let's say you have to make the case for why -- I mean, it makes sense that anyone who is Native would buy into the purpose of this organization. But can you make the case for why, let's say, your average white guy would care about this organization?
AC: Yeah. I feel like research shows us that people want a more reflective democracy. An average white guy has a vested interest in understanding the demographic shift of the country, and being able to be a part of that shift, and recognizing what it means to be able to have more voices and the value of having different voices, different perspectives in our democracy benefits all, consistently, over time, over decades, over generations.
And so we have many white allies in our community and a part of our organization that are working side by side with Native leaders, with leaders of color, with women, queer people, trans people, beautiful, smart, qualified, capable, viable leaders. And we are witnessing that shift of being able to, like, see what systems power shift looks like, and it is important that they recognize and that they are starting to recognize the value in being participatory in that.
NF: Yeah. I mean, as an Iranian-American, I've been fed basically, like, white stories my whole life. I feel like I totally get it. And I could be a great leader to just white families all over the place if I had to.
AC: Run for office.
NF: If I was asked, I mean, I could really hold it down. OK. And then so here's just -- I know it is something about the current race, and whatever side you're on, Kamala does not really address her own race in the election. She kind of famously deflects questions about it. What do you think about that when you're talking to people who you're training to run for office?
AC: It’s a really good question. When I started, actually -- In 2013, I left -- I was an investment advisor for an organization. My portfolio was a little over 14 million dollars, and I had access to national organizations and leaders and understanding the highest political net wealth funders in the country.
And when I left that organization, I went to cosmetology school, and I started my own political styling business to help women of color run for office. And the reason I did it, the world was different then. This was about 2013. But the reason I did it is because the message that we were getting and what was attempted to be fed to us, was that we needed to assimilate in order to run.
And what I wanted was to be able to remove aesthetics as a barrier to running. I'm so glad that the world is different now, and we proudly see people wearing traditional regalia in the halls of Congress, in the halls of, like, government systems all across the country.
So my answer to that is we are in, also, a shift, taking back our identities. It is like we are in the middle of what that looks like for Indigenous women running for office. Part of our training program is helping them to identify what that story looks like, to be able to, like, go to the doors of white neighbors and non-Native neighbors and find a connection, and to be able to tell them how you are going to work to make the communities better and different, and how you are going to fight for them, and to be able to hold that Indigenous identity in that process -- that has been a long track of us being able to get there and identify what it means to be able to hold white supremacy in this model of this shift, of, like, how we are moving outside of that and how we are able to be representative and how we are moving forward.
How that relates to Kamala's journey, I have no clue, but what that looks like for Native leaders, and Native women in particular, is something that we are very proudly and very visibly shifting every single day.
NF: Thank you so much for sharing your civic story. Ladies and gentlemen, Anathea Chino.
AC: Thank you so much.
(Cheers and applause)
