This is the first article in my series about our changing Earth from interviews with Native Americans shared in We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth, edited by Dahr Jamail and Stan Rushworth (USA 2022). My presentation does not follow the order of the interviews.

# 1:  Raquel Ramirez (Ho-Chunk, Ojibwe, Lenca) – Awareness
        (Chapter 4, pp. 48-60)

Born on that memorable day of September 11, 2001, Raquel Ramirez is the youngest participant interviewed via Skype during the pandemic lockdown in midsummer 2020. She defines herself as an urban Native American, Ho-Chunk and Ojibwe, and other strong Native family roots. Growing up in California, she’s greatly influenced by the state’s indigenous cultures.

In addressing the crises we face on our changing Earth, Raquel considers awareness as a challenge to confront and overcome. Breaking free of ignorance in society and our own ignorance is, she acknowledges, an emotional and difficult process.

Awareness doesn’t just mean listening or hearing or recognizing. It is very much being present and being conscious of people beyond you!

Considering that our approach to living on Earth may be the problem, she posits that changing how we see things – our mindset – may pave the way to addressing the crises we face.

This lack of awareness is the reason why we are destroying Mother Earth. We don’t see our place in the world, our place within the system. Our purpose is to function within this space because we are of this Earth, and so not being aware of what our place really is, has resulted in us being able to disrespect, to desecrate, to harm the land.

Raquel also questions the perplexing, escapism phenomenon of people planning to colonize Mars within a hundred years. Are they giving up? Is that an easier way of solving our problems? It says something about us that leaving Earth is easier than changing the way that [we] think about the world.

Outreach to Indigenous peoples about how to take care of the world is a sore point for Raquel. This involves an insensitivity on our part that goes beyond an openness to listen and learn.

It can be very frustrating when a White person will come and ask for Indigenous wisdom that can solve climate change. There’s a certain kind of conversation out there that really just disregards how you’re asking people to just keep on giving you more and more, and you’re not taking into account that they’ve given so much.

She further expresses her frustration that Indigenous peoples have not been allowed to grow and heal from everything that has happened to them. The White person seeks their wisdom, while ignoring their pain and trauma.

If you can listen to the pain of Indigenous people, you’ll be better able to understand the pain of Mother Earth! The pain we’re carrying is not only the pain of our ancestors and the pain of genocide. We’re carrying the pain of our home being destroyed. And now we are expected to try to save the world?!

She believes that we can grow as individuals, if we are also open to feeling their pain. In doing so, we would work towards ending this broken cycle of life on Turtle Island.

There’s an awesome power that binds us all together. My actions are not independent to me. We’re obsessed with individualism and independence, but we’re not independent of one another.

Raquel describes how the current economic model is based on the narrative of the colonist and pioneer that’s all about conquering people and land. And if you can’t be aware of that, you’re going to continue to exacerbate those practices. She calls on us to examine our perceptions, the colonial legacy that still controls our lives, and its influence on our mindsets. Such work demands courage.

She acknowledges that our obsession with comfort and ease makes it difficult for a lot of people to address our collective trauma as a nation. Nevertheless, it’s a painful process that we must undergo. She’s glad that more people have become aware of what’s going on with our changing Earth and are getting out of a place of emotional numbness. With healing comes meaningful change.

When addressing human obligations within collapsing systems, ongoing and in the coming years, she frames obligations as human rights that come from our capacity to love ourselves and others, including people we’ve never met, as well as love for our planet. She emphasizes that the absence of love is destroying our planet.  

We have to love our children better and love ourselves better. We have to love our communities better and we have to love this Earth better… and we have to learn how to do it… and we have to want to do it…. That’s how we can change the Earth.

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I share Raquel’s view that awareness is an essential first step in changing our mindset and relationship with our changing planet. But the awareness she speaks of demands that we also acknowledge the pain and trauma inflicted upon our indigenous peoples. This will not be easy for some of the white members of my collective American family.

Bear in mind that awareness is grounded in knowledge of the truth. Since my limited knowledge of Native American history was based on Hollywood narratives, I have been slow-reading Ned Blackhawk’s book The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (USA, 2023). In erasing the cultures of these great indigenous nations, no more savages than the invaders/occupiers, humanity has lost centuries of knowledge and wisdom about living in harmony with Mother Earth.

Right now, our political leaders are undertaking another erasure of people across Turtle Island. This time, it is the deportation/detention of black and brown illegal immigrants, demonized as animals and criminals, who have made this land their home. Due to the indiscriminate manner of forceful arrest/abduction, Native Americans have also been caught up in this purge. The might-is-right mindset does not engender the changes we truly need.

As someone working on healing from the trauma of abandonment and loss, I can empathize with Raquel’s ancestral pain and trauma of genocide. It is a long and painful process. I cannot give back to Raquel and indigenous peoples across Turtle Island their ancestral homelands. I can only do my part in caring for the small space upon which I live and move. I can learn to better respect, protect, and love this land with all its creatures. I can do whatever is within my power to stop inflicting harm on Mother Earth.

In the spirit of awareness about which Raquel speaks, I will strive to be present and conscious of people beyond myself.