Summary

This episode of Empowering California discusses the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people (MMIP) and Native American women. The conversation highlights the historical and systematic factors that contribute to the high rates of violence against Indigenous women and the challenges faced in seeking justice. The importance of community involvement, education, and building alliances is emphasized in addressing and preventing MMIP cases. The episode also explores the legislative and policy steps being taken to address the issue and bring about positive change. The guest, Keely Litton, shares her personal experiences and the pivotal moments that shaped her dedication to this cause.

Keywordsmissing and murdered Indigenous people, Native American women, historical trauma, systematic issues, jurisdictional challenges, community involvement, education, legislative steps, positive change

Takeaways

• Missing and murdered Indigenous people (MMIP) is a modern-day crisis affecting Indigenous communities across the United States and Canada.
• The high rates of violence against Indigenous women and people are influenced by historical trauma, systematic issues, and jurisdictional challenges.
• Community involvement is crucial in addressing and preventing MMIP cases, as it fosters support, awareness, and collaboration.
• Education and understanding are key in bringing about positive change, as they help raise awareness, build alliances, and support legislative efforts.
• Legislative and policy steps, such as improving data collection, enhancing law enforcement responses, and supporting tribal law enforcement, are being taken to address the MMIP issue.

Titles

• Legislative Steps to Address the MMIP Issue
• Education and Building Alliances for Positive Change

Sound Bites

• “If we don’t bring these stories to light, many of our families will not seek justice or will not receive justice.”
• “The pandemic of missing and murdered is based on racism and prejudice, but a larger part of that is the systematic jurisdictional issues.”
• “Legislative steps, such as improving data collection, enhancing law enforcement responses, and supporting tribal law enforcement, are being taken to address the MMIP issue.”

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I’m James Ramos. Welcome to Empowering California. Today, we dive into a crucial and heart -wrenching topic affecting our communities, missing and murdered indigenous people and Native American women. We are honored to have Keely Litton, Executive Director of the Strong Hearted Native Women’s Coalition, join us to illuminate the challenges Native American families face and how we can bring awareness to these issues.

This discussion is vital for understanding and supporting those impacted by MMIP, so stay tuned as we explore ways to make a difference together. For listeners, who have inquiries or need further clarification on any of the topics discussed, you’re encouraged to reach out with your questions questions@EmpoweringCalifornia.com.

This is a modern -day crisis affecting Indigenous communities across the United States and Canada marked by the disproportionate disappearance and murder of Indigenous women, men, and children. This issue stems from a complex interplay of factors including systematic racism, legal jurisdictions, challenges, and historical oppression. Efforts to address MMIP involve raising awareness, improving data collection,

enhancing law enforcement responses, and fostering community -led initiatives. The movement seeks justice for victims and their families while advocating for systematic change to prevent further tragedies. It’s an honor to have Keely, the Executive Director of the Strong Hearted Women’s Native Women’s Coalition, join us on Empowering California. Today, we are diving deep into the critical and sensitive topic of missing and murdered

Indigenous people, a crisis affecting countless lives and communities across California and the United States. Keely, your dedication to this cause and your efforts to bring about change are truly inspiring. Welcome to the podcast and thank you for sharing your insights and experiences with us and our listeners. Ms. Linton, can you explain the scope of the MMIW crisis and why it’s critical

to bring these stories to light. Thank you for having me. With Missing and Murdered, it’s really important to understand the historical violence. And because it’s such a pandemic against our tribal communities, if we don’t bring these stories to light, many of our families will not seek justice or will not receive justice. And there’s such a historical fear of law enforcement and policy, but we want to make sure that we find our

our family members and bring them home. And so if we’re not sharing and we’re not educating legislators in our community to support us, we may never, you know, find justice. So I think that’s why it’s really important. Thank you for that. What do you believe are the systematic issues that contribute to the high rates of violence against Indigenous women and Indigenous people? gosh, there’s so many, I think.

The most important one, it would be the jurisdictional issues, especially for us here in California that because of public law 280, that gives the state limited jurisdiction over tribal lands and also the lack of infrastructure development into tribal law enforcement and tribal justice systems that our own sovereign nations have been prevented

the ability to properly look after our community, find justice for our community, develop our own law enforcement and justice systems. And then there’s such an integrated problems between federal jurisdiction, tribal jurisdiction, state jurisdiction, that a lot of times, you know, our community doesn’t know where to go, victims don’t know where to go to seek justice or help or assistance. And so we have to navigate between all of these jurisdictions. So,

systematic changes, you know, we’re starting to see that change, both at the federal level and state level to see, you know, more conversations, more collaboration between law enforcement and tribes, more collaboration. There’s still more that’s needed as far as response, as far as investigation that all plays a part of it. And I think the misconception oftentimes is that the pandemic of missing and murdered is

based on racism and prejudice. And it is, there’s a huge part of that, but a larger part of that is the systematic jurisdictional issues that we see in Indian country that causes more difficulties and barriers for people to seek justice and to seek help and assistance. Public Law 280 is an area that has been highlighted as a major cause for MMIWs, at least here in the state of California, Public Law 280 state.

And when we look at the states, the six states that Public Law 280 asserted their jurisdiction and took the jurisdiction away from tribes, we see the highest components of missing and murdered indigenous women, indigenous persons in those states in general. We just had a hearing at the state capitol on this topic and educating those within the legislature, even in the state of California, on what Public Law 280 is and the jurisdictional divide.

and how Public Law 280 was created not to protect Native American people, but it was created to protect non -Natives from Native American people. So we have to start to discuss that component moving forward. Thank you so much for bringing that forward. Can you share insights into how historical injustices have paved the way for current MMIW crisis? Well, it’s a lot about what you just mentioned. Really since the beginning of colonization,

We’ve experienced violence against tribal people through annihilation. And then after that, we saw termination policies that went into place that were enacted by our government that followed through to the state governments. And so laws and policies like the one that you were just talking about that in California, you know, there were policies in place that didn’t protect Indian people, it protected non -Indian people.

And those systematic policies historically are carried through today in a lot of the policies and understanding. And that is what is so dangerous when it comes to missing and murder, because we have a lack of education, not only by our law enforcement agencies, but by non -tribal communities that we need their support. And it’s so important, because you just did that education at the legislation level on Public Law 280.

In my field, you know, I work on domestic violence and sexual assault and working with victims and a good majority of what I do is provide education on public law 280 and how it plays out in our communities at the tribal level and how that affects our victims, our families. And without that education, it just for non -tribal people, it plays into them accepting the norm of those systematic.

policies that cause us harm at the tribal community level. So yeah, I mean, we could probably spend hours talking about the historical trauma and built into that system that still is in effect today. It definitely is the mentality of those policies from colonizational times, Spanish incursion, Gold Rush era, and mentality towards California’s first people and the nation’s first people.

stereotypes, names, the S word that’s derogatory towards Native American women. We finally moved in 2022 in the state of California to make sure the state, and we got rid of that term here in the state of California. But still in the years 2022, 2024, we’re still fighting those stereotypes that came upon our people from the colonizational period. So we have to gain allies and

more that we could talk about these issues on podcasts like this and get the voice of our people talking about these issues. It’s been talked about by non -Indian people, but now is the time for the true voice of California’s first people to be front and center and discussing these issues. Absolutely. In terms of legislation and policy, what steps are being taken to address the MMIW issue that you’re deeply engaged in? So there’s national policy, obviously, that have been

put into place like Savannah’s Act and the Not Invisible Act and locally the policies of putting state legislation into play like the Feather Alert. And those are all, you know, small steps of those little pieces that we need to fix within state legislation in order to provide and support tribal governments in order to properly handle missing and murdered cases in their own lands, but also to support

the relationship between tribal governments and the state governments and allowing that relationship to grow through law enforcement. So one of the most important laws, I think, that we recently got passed was AB 44 were allowing tribal law enforcement to access cleds and that recognition of tribal law enforcement. I know you, I believe you just put through another policy to support tribal law enforcement recognition in the state.

That relationship is so important when it comes to investigating cases and supporting families when someone is murdered or missing, because that helps stem those jurisdictional issues that we were just talking about. And so those policies are really important. So that upcoming policy, I know it failed last round, but I know a lot of us are really supportive of that continuing, because that makes a huge difference when it comes to servicing our families.

on the ground level. Having those relationships are really important. Also, a couple other policies that we’re looking at supporting this as well, especially when it comes to the missing children out of foster care. A lot of what we see in murdered and missing in our area is a lot of our girls being trafficked into the sex trafficking ring, and a lot of them are recruited out of the foster care.

system, the facilities and the holding before they go into homes and then also out of homes themselves. And so that’s a really important to build to look at and holding child welfare accountable for when our children go missing out of foster care as well. So there’s a lot of, you know, in the different realms of legislature, but really important. They seem like small policies, but to

us, they’re going to be really huge in building those relationships with tribal governments and the state legislation, and local county legislation as well. It’s true. We did move the bill on CLETs allowing tribal governments to access CLETs to find out who’s coming on federal Indian reservations so we could be more proactive to missing and murdered indigenous women.

We did have a component in there that talked about policing on Indian reservations. We currently have a bill that’s moving through and we made some amendments and hopefully on the 16th of April, we’ll get that bill through. And part of our job in the state legislature, just like yours, is educating people over and over and over on the issues that are affecting our people. And when you get into the legislature with Public Law 280, CLATS, Access,

There’s a lot of misconceptions. A lot of people think, even some law enforcement officials think that tribes have their own sovereign authority to police when they truly don’t understand the complexities of the laws themselves. And if they don’t understand the complexities, then the harm that’s coming to our people continues to rise. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that historically, especially when it comes to law enforcement, our tribal governments have had a strained relationship with local agencies from cities or towns close to us, or especially county, like the sheriff’s department. There’s always been a strained relationship. And so we see, too, when tribes build a relationship, a good, healthy relationship between

those law enforcement agencies, you know, we see more action and more community support, but we need to see that throughout the state. It’s very, you know, broken and sometimes volatile as we know, like historically. So really historically, it’s like, you know, currently, you know, we have a long history of just bad relationships with law enforcement, with tribes and the community. And so if we can build on that and better those relationships,

you know, our community will see more support and these cases that we have will receive more support. We have one case that it crossed two counties and the tribal reservation and no one’s talking to each other and it’s the community and the family that has to advocate and fight to say, why aren’t you talking to this county and why this and why that and you know, and to try to figure out what’s going on with their loved one’s case because he’s still missing and so that can be really problematic.

when law enforcement isn’t communicating and there’s no support and lack of infrastructure. So. Thank you for that. How important is community involvement in addressing and preventing MMIW cases? Really, really important. Well, obviously, because it’s our families and our community members that are being impacted. But I think also when

in relationship to, you know, we know our community, so we know, you know, the intricacies of our community and what’s going on. And when law enforcement is not listening, oftentimes it’s the lack of response to our community and the distrust of law enforcement that makes it difficult for cases. And so if our community is not trusting our law enforcement investigation or they’re not supported within our community, it can cause

harm in an investigation and in a case when we’re trying to find people. But oftentimes, when there is a lack of response by law enforcement, we see our community really rally to each other. And then we start doing our own searches and start doing our own, getting private investigators involved so that we can find our loved ones and our important people. But I think we have to educate our community, too, on the

process of investigations because we’ve seen it if there isn’t an open communication with, whether it’s tribal law enforcement or the sheriff’s department, we’ve oftentimes seen cases where the community can cause harm to an investigation if they’re not, we might be prepared to hand out flyers and take some action. Law enforcement might want to keep it on the down low because they’ve located

And they don’t want to alert a perpetrator or something like that. So there has to be that like give and take, I think, an investigation so that the community is not causing harm to an investigation, but so that we’re actually supporting an investigation moving forward. So we’ve seen some give and take there too, as well. Now, it’s definitely important to have build that mutual respect and understanding so that those that are investigating could continue to investigate those crimes, but also the mutual

Respect and understand on both sides so that that relationship starts to be built before you have to get into a situation like that How do you balance the need for immediate action with the importance of respectful and cultural? sensitive approaches I guess it’s kind of difficult when it depends on the relationship again, it goes back to those relationships and as

Our organization as advocates, we try to make sure that we have good working relationships with both the community and the officials, whether that’s law enforcement or tribal leadership, so that action can be taken and then any concerns or fears or even to overcome some of those fears. I think our community members oftentimes take steps and provide information to law enforcement investigations.

but there’s a fear of giving away their DNA or what’s gonna happen. You need to have investigators come into your home and do an investigation sometimes. And so are they gonna have access to some of your sacred items or so making sure that their law enforcement is informed to be careful when they’re touching things or when they have to do things or making those conversations upfront before

law enforcement, you know, law enforcement has oftentimes, you know, come in and raided homes before with no regard to our culture or our spiritual beliefs. And so things, you know, get damaged or harmed or disregarded. And so it’s important to have that conversation with law enforcement and investigation things as well. But I also think our community has to learn to understand.

what the process is, why are we asking for DNA, how it’s gonna be used, where it’s gonna go, things like that. And making sure, picture whether that’s taking pictures. Sometimes there’s certain things that we don’t want pictures taking of, but if it’s part of a crime scene or something like that, then we have to work through those things. So it is a balancing act, and that education has to happen quickly and immediately and making sure that we understand.

that each party’s, all the parties understand what everybody’s role is and what can happen. So it can be kind of a tricky balancing thing. And I think there’s also a lot of cultural concerns when it comes to someone who’s been murdered. You know, we have certain practices on how we treat someone’s body and how we bury somebody and things like that. So again, those are when something happens and, you know,

that body is being disrespected or the thought that it’s being disrespected by law enforcement can be really difficult too when, you know, there’s certain things they have to do to collect evidence and do these things. So those kinds of things are all big balancing acts. It’s hard to balance it, but I think sometimes, you know, people aren’t in still disregard our heritage, our culture, and so it makes it difficult.

It’s definitely difficult, even with the cultural affiliations with a member that could go, is missing, explaining to law enforcement, those investigating, that they could be from, have family in different areas in the state of California, different reservations, different tribal affiliations. So then the broader the search could go out in trying to convince those law enforcement or those to enact an alert.

And those are some of the topics that we’ve been discussing within the amendments to the federal alert and try to educate law enforcement on it, which the commissioner, DeRay, he’s been open and supportive of all these different changes that we’re making. So it’s just for our people here in the state of California in the year 2024, we’re still educating on the issues that have impacted us since the time of colonization.

can the average person do to support the MMIW cause and help bring about positive change? Education. Education and understanding. And I think that’s, again, it goes back to kind of what we’ve been talking about. Like, we’ve always have to educate. So the more that non -tribal members or community members understand and can educate, then that brings more awareness.

And then when we need policies passed, if it has to go to the public for a vote or we need support of state legislatures or things like that, the general public, the more that they know, the more that they can support. And then the more they understand, too. And I think also that our communities need to look at, we have some really good tribal programs that provide victim services and support that.

Knowing who those tribal programs are and being able to support our local programs is really important because it does take funding to, you know, provide services to families and things like that. And we have some really good tribal programs doing a lot of good work in this area that can be really supported by people having those, first knowing those resources and then supporting those resources. It is, and building allies because the crisis of missing and murdered

Indigenous women, Indigenous persons here on Indian reservations in California isn’t something new. I grew up with it. It’s faced us for generations over generations. But we need the help of allies in the state of California, those from different areas, different groups, different communities to rally with us and stand with us on these issues. California…

still is placed in the top five of states of not even investigating these murders against the original people of the state of California. So we call on our allies, our allies to stand with us as we stand with them on many issues here in the state of California. It’s time that we stand side by side and start to bring some resolve to the issue and the crisis here in the state of California on missing and murdered indigenous women. Absolutely.

I think too, it’s not just, and I know we’ve kind of talked a lot about law enforcement, but it’s our allies and, you know, the sex trafficking providers that, you know, our county, almost every, I don’t want to say almost every, I don’t know. In our other area in Southern California, I know several of our counties have sex trafficking task force, or there’s sex trafficking.

you know, type of coalitions or victim service programs. And so to realize that murdered and missing isn’t just about like one thing. So oftentimes people try to silo it, like it’s separate from sex trafficking or domestic violence or these other crimes or even substance abuse. And they try to silo it. And it’s so integrated into all of these other, you know, pieces of violence that occurs against our people.

that making sure that we have those allies in those areas so we have more resources to pull from, we have more support from other local victim service providers, and then a better understanding. And then again, it goes back to that education of how much our non -tribal service providers understand tribal communities so that when they are called in or asked to support, they have that understanding to be able to do that in a good way.

and be able to support us. And that’s really important, our clients, because we don’t always have enough resources at our tribes. We have a lot, but we often don’t have enough. And so the more non -tribal partners we have, the more our tribal people can outreach and feel safe to be able to go to a non -native program and realize that they’re not going to be harmed or treated inappropriately, or there’s no, you know, those misconceptions.

can go away about our people. And that’s one of the hardest things, getting rid of all of those misconceptions that people have of us. It’s true. Thank you for bringing that up because every time an issue deals with Native American people, the mind of those that don’t truly understand things, it’s a separate issue. But they’re all intertwined, right? Sexual abuse, domestic violence, all those issues.

that resources are going to to deal with in the state of California, we have to always insert, including California’s first people, when that should be a given when we’re talking about it. It shouldn’t be that the crisis of missing of our indigenous women is a Native American issue. No, it’s a statewide issue when we’re talking about the public safety of all in the state. That’s why it’s so important to have your voice here on empowering California. Thank you, Ed.

Now let’s take a moment to learn about our guests. What pivotal moments in your life helped shape who you are today? Ooh. You know, I think the biggest pivotal moment for me was becoming a mother. I think that shifted how I viewed the world. It shifted how I viewed people in my life. Because it’s like, how does this, you know, it just changed how I

felt about, it wasn’t just about my life, it was about my child’s life. And so I think that just shifted how I started doing things and moving me forward too, because everything was, my child was like, what if this was my child? Or what if my child was in a situation? So everything kind of became how that might affect me and my child. So yeah, that was the biggest pivotal moment.

I guess about other pivotal moments, I think death is prevalent in our lives. So things when I lost my grandmother and I lost a really close uncle, those pivotal moments kind of shift, being more appreciative of the family time that we have, things like that. And so those moments, I think, help shift and shape my life as I continue to grow.

and change too, so loss, unfortunately, is Pivot’s things, I think. Can you share an unexpected journey or project that significantly impacted your path? I feel like the path that I have in my career was chosen for me. I was kind of headed in a different direction. I went into school. I always knew I was going to go to college and this is what I was going to do.

I got into, I became a domestic violence advocate for our Indian health program in San Diego. And I was that, this will just, I always wanted to just kind of do like social work or something, like maybe be a social worker or like something in that field. So I thought, well, this would be kind of a good education and stepping stone. And I was almost headed to the path of, you know, becoming an lawyer too. So I thought, well, maybe that would be a good thing to do as well. And so I kind of.

tapped into that a little bit and doing other things. But my path just, you know, when I became a domestic violence advocate, my first client was my age. We were both pregnant. And, you know, her choices and her pathways led her down, unfortunately, this violent path. And that, again, when you talk about pitiful moments, I think that kind of really struck me too as

You know, this is my community, this is my relative, this is, you know, and realizing that the work that I do for my tribe and for my people is really significant. And I think that really called me in. So I’ve been in this field for now over 20 years, and every time I’m in my community, it’s personal. It’s not a job that I go to and I can just go home.

It’s a job that stays with me no matter if I’m at a community of honor wherever I go. My path was chosen for me. I think I just kind of stuck with that. Unlike others, right? You carry the weight of our people, right? Their voices forward in the path and the career that you’re in. Yeah. And I think we’re always reminded, a big thing of what I do is teaching our history and our, you know, the historical violence and

the work that I do, but for, you know, that hits home, right? When you learn a lot of those histories that we didn’t teach growing up, those things were like, my gosh, that’s why this is, and that’s why that is. And then you also realize, you know, why we carry a weight, right? You kind of get an understanding, like I know my grandma went to boarding school and I know, you know, these things in your personal life, but then you realize it’s so much bigger than just our family and our community. It’s happened

across the country to tribal communities. And so that weight is, you know, knowing that all of our ancestors have, you know, fought and died for generations to get us to where we’re at today. And so, you know, that is a constant reminder, I think, for a lot of us, especially when we do the work in our own community, like how we do this. Your work that you do, I’m sure, is a reminder, too, of just the pathways that

brought us here based on what our, you know, our grandfathers and grandmothers went through. So, absolutely. Definitely. What’s one piece of advice you have received that you would like to pass on to others? Don’t let anyone ever tell you no, or that you can’t. That was, that was my grandmother’s advice was don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do something and don’t let them tell you no.

I’m sorry, I’ve carried it with me. Thank you. That’s some great advice. And thank you for sharing a little bit more deeply about who you are as a person and what drives you to tackle these tough issues. The more we dive in, the more we learn, the more we touch these topics of domestic violence, MMIW, atrocities towards our people. Others can just go home that night and eat dinner for us. We carry that with us. And so

We have to have a way to spiritually connect, whether it’s through our culture or other ways to continue to move forward. So thank you for doing that. And thank you for joining us for this critical discussion. Your insights and experiences have truly illuminated this significant issue, offering our listeners not just understanding, but also pass towards action. Your contribution to raising awareness and advocating for change is invaluable.

To our audience, thank you for listening and engaging with such an important topic and the call to action to stand as our allies. Remember, every conversation like this brings us closer to understanding and bringing solutions. Stay tuned for more enlightening discussions here on Empowering California. Together, we are making a difference. This is your host, James Ramos.

Until then, stay informed, engaged, and empowered. Pahiko T ‘niv, see you later.