Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (65 page)

Eleanor Ned-Sunnyboy
, Allakaka’ Tribe, states, “I am an Athabascan woman from the village of Allakaket. My involvement with the violence against women movement began informally many years ago. Coming from an Alaska Native perspective, I am a very strong believer in the promotion of our inherent sovereign right to govern ourselves as indigenous people of this land and in the restoration of our ‘Traditional Law’ of respect for all.”

Nila NorthSun
, Shoshone-Chippewa, has been publishing since 1975. Her fifth and latest book,
love at gunpoint,
is available through West End Press, University of New Mexico distribution. Nila publishes in numerous anthologies and currently is a grant writer for her tribe in Fallon, Nevada, where she now makes her home. Nila was recently awarded the Indigenous Heritage Award for Literature.

Stormy Ogden
, Tule River Yokuts and Kashaya Pomo. As a former prisoner, Stormy knows firsthand the violence that follows our Native women into prison. Since her release she has continued to advocate for women. She has written several articles along with presenting on the Prison Industrial Complex and Colonialism. “Growing up Indian made me an Activist and surviving prison has made me an Advocate.”

Juanita Pahdopony
, Comanche, teaches full-time at Comanche Nation College and is an advocate for Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation and the retention of Native students. She is a published writer, professional artist, and filmmaker.

Kimberly Mullican Querdibitty
, Choctaw/Chickasaw descent, has a B.S. degree in psychology, is working on her master’s degree, and is currently employed by the domestic violence program at the Apache Tribe. Although she does not claim a certain racial background, her Native roots are a distinct part of who she is. She hopes this poem will inspire all that read it, as it was created from personal experiences.

Sharon Lynn Reyna
, Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation, states, “I am from the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe in Wisconsin. I am fifty-four years old and a Mother of three. We need to break the cycle of violence.”

Kim Shuck
, Tsalagi, Sauk/Fox, and Polish, has an M.F.A. in Textiles from San Francisco State University. She is the mother of three children who range in age from eleven to sixteen. Her first book of poetry,
Smuggling Cherokee,
won the Diane Decorah Award from the Native Writer’s Circle of the Americas.

Petra L. Solimon
, Laguna/Zuni, is the daughter of Elliot and Lucina Solimon of Laguna Pueblo. She is an enrolled tribal member of Laguna. Her clans are Big Sun and Little Eagle.

Venus St. Martin
, Colville/Nez Perce, resident of Lewiston, Idaho, is currently a full-time student at Lewis-Clark State College and a full-time employee for the Nez Perce Tribe Wildlife Management Program. She is married to Haace St. Martin and is a full-time mother, mentor, and confidante to two daughters, Kaniesha and Mariah, two sons, Isha and Sydney, and a stepson, Pesha.

Kelly Gaines Stoner
, is the director of the Native American Legal Resource Center and director of Clinical Programs at Oklahoma City University School of Law. Stoner teaches Indian Law-related classes and Domestic Violence Law at Oklahoma City University School of Law. Stoner has worked in the domestic violence field representing Native American victims of domestic violence in state courts, tribal courts, and CFR courts for the past eleven years. She is the supervising attorney for the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma and Oklahoma City University School of Law’s Native American Domestic Violence Project.

George Twiss
, Oglala Lakota, is a veteran of twenty-three years of Indian Country law enforcement. He has served in many capacities—a tribal and BIA police officer, BIA criminal investigator, and, most recently, as the director of the only private, nonprofit domestic violence probation department in the nation, Cangleska, Inc., on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He is a nationally recognized expert in the issues of child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence investigations. His experience in Indian Country law enforcement and law enforcement administration serves him well in his role as head of Law Enforcement Technical Assistance and Training for Sacred Circle, the National Resource Center to End Violence Against Native Women (a project of Cangleska, Inc.). He believes he has an obligation not only to the women of his nation, but also to other women in Indian Country. Twiss seeks to help other Native men rediscover their sacred trust to provide for the safety of women, including role-modeling and living a sober and nonviolent life as an example for their children and grandchildren. Part of that trust is advocating for and protecting the rights of Native women to be safe from violence and safe in their own bodies, spirits, and thoughts.

Danielle G. Van Ess
has been studying, rallying, and working to end men’s violence against women for more than fifteen years. Danielle spent three years working as a staff attorney and lead trainer for the National Center on Full Faith and Credit in Washington, D.C., a project that was then part of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence Legal Department. Danielle provided technical support from her office and traveled extensively, including several visits to Indian Country, to conduct trainings on federal and corresponding state and tribal laws related to domestic violence and firearms. Since 2004, she has moved three times and had two babies, taking a temporary break from full-time work. She is happy to be finally settled down with her husband and their daughters just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Danielle is now anxious to resume her domestic violence legal work as well.

Hallie Bongar White
is the executive director of the Southwest Center for Law and Policy, a tribal Technical Assistance provider for the USDOJ, Office on Violence Against Women. She is an attorney licensed to practice before the courts of several tribes, the state of Arizona, the U.S. Federal District Court for the District of Arizona, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. White trains nationally and regionally on issues related to sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, abuse of persons with disabilities, firearms violence, and abuse of elders in Indian Country. She is the former director of the Indian Nations Domestic Violence Law Program and is a graduate of the Native American Studies Department of the University of California at Berkeley. White attended the Master’s Degree Program in American Indian studies and the College of Law at the University of Arizona. She has served as an assistant attorney general and as a clerk of the Court for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. White has also assisted numerous tribes in drafting domestic violence and protection order codes. She is the mother of five children and has two grandchildren who are enrolled members of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She and her family reside in Tucson, Arizona.

James G. White
is an attorney and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. He serves as a justice on the Nation’s Supreme Court. He is licensed to practice in Kansas (1984), Arizona (1992), federal district courts, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the legal director of the Southwest Center for Law and Policy, a nonprofit organization, which, in cooperation with the Office on Violence Against Women, provides training and technical assistance to tribal communities and to organizations and agencies serving Native Americans/Alaska Natives on domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and other topics.

Coya Hope White Hat-Artichoker
, Sicangu Lakota, is Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota Coya loves poetry and the spoken word. Much of Coya’s work deals with the interconnections of her various identities and communities she exists within.

Victoria Ybanez
, Navaho, Apache, and Mexican, is currently the Tribal Technical Assistance coordinator for Praxis International, working with Rural Domestic Violence and Child Victimization Tribal Grantees to strengthen their ability to develop tribal domestic violence responses. Victoria has been involved with the battered women’s movement for twenty years, bringing a depth of experience with domestic violence, homelessness, poverty, and racism to her work. She holds a bachelor’s degree through the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and is a graduate of the Institute for Renewing Community Leadership, University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

About the Editors

Bonnie Clairmont
, HoChunk, citizen of the HoChunk Nation of Wisconsin and member of the Bear Clan, resides in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she is employed with the Tribal Law and Policy Institute (TLPI) as the Victim Advocacy Program specialist. Prior to her employment with the TLPI, Bonnie was Outreach/Client Services coordinator for Sexual Offense Services of Ramsey County, a rape crisis center. She’s worked for more than twenty years advocating for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, providing multidisciplinary training/collaboration on the needs of women and children who are raped and battered. She has dedicated much of her work to providing and improving services for victim/survivors of sexual assault, battering, and child sexual abuse, particularly those from American Indian communities. She has been a member of the Ramsey County Sexual Assault Protocol Team (a project for which she co-authored a grant and provided primary leadership). For four years she coordinated the Strengthening the Circle of Trust conference, a conference focusing on sexual assault and exploitation perpetrated by American Indian “spiritual leaders/medicine men.” Bonnie, and her partner Jim, have two children, Lakota Hoksila and April Rainbow, and five grandchildren.

Sarah Deer
, J.D., Mvskoke, is currently employed as Victim Advocacy Legal Specialist for the Tribal Law & Policy Institute in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and is an online instructor of tribal legal studies at UCLA Extension and former lecturer in law at UCLA Law School. Formerly, Sarah worked as a grant program specialist at the USDOJ in the Office on Violence Against Women in Washington, D.C. Sarah received her J.D. with Tribal Lawyer Certificate from the University of Kansas School of Law and her B.A. in women’s studies and philosophy from the University of Kansas. While a law student, Sarah was employed as assistant director of Douglas County Rape-Victim Survivor Service, Inc. Sarah serves on advisory boards for numerous antiviolence organizations and projects, including the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence and the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. Sarah is a co-author of two textbooks published by AltaMira Press:
Introduction to Tribal Legal Studies
and
Tribal Criminal Law and Procedure.

Carrie A. Martell
is currently attending law school at the University of New Mexico. She plans to focus on Indian law. Carrie wants to work with Native women who are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, developing laws that protect women’s place within their communities, as well as representing women in the courtroom. Carrie was employed by the Tribal Law and Policy Institute prior to law school and was fortunate to work with Sarah Deer and Bonnie Clairmont on the later stages of this book. Carrie thinks it is important to educate people about violence against Native women through Native women’s voices. Carrie received her master’s degree in American Indian studies from UCLA.

Maureen L. White Eagle
, Métis/Turtle Mountain Chippewa, has practiced law as an attorney in North Dakota, Minnesota and in several tribal jurisdictions since 1981. She developed and managed the civil legal services program for Native survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center from 2002 to 2005. She received a Bush Leadership Fellowship for 2005—2006 to study the status of women throughout the world. Upon her return to the United States, she formed Partners for Women’s Equality, an international organization that supports human rights for all women, and she currently serves as executive director.