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Rates of murders, sexual assault, and disappearances of Indigenous people are higher than the national average.
A 2016 report by the National Institute of Justice shows at least 4 in 5 indigenous women have experienced violence, and 56% of them experienced sexual violence.
The San Antonio-based nonprofit American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions has planned its 2nd Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and People (MMIWP) Week of Action.
We’re talking today with the group’s program manager, Ramon D. Vasquez.
He says their event is meant to align with the National Day of Awareness for MMIWP across the Americas, May 5.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
VASQUEZ: This type of work around missing and murdered indigenous women and people, girls, Two Spirit — all of those different identifiers for how this epidemic has impacted our communities — is not just about highlighting those that have gone missing or have been murdered or who have experienced very traumatic situations or scenarios, but also around this effort of amplifying the voices of those that have been impacted by colonialism for many, many years.
This is an ongoing issue that has been impacting indigenous communities from time immemorial, from first contact.
This day is significant to empower those that have been doing this work, and, more importantly, those that have been impacted — families, victims, survivors — and also to continuously shed light on that history that continuously gets put to the back burner or wants to be set aside, especially by policy and governments.
MARTINEZ: Why do you believe that the numbers are so disproportionate of the murders and of the disappearances of Native women and Native people. Why are those numbers so disproportionate even today?
VASQUEZ: One of the biggest key parts of our work as American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions, but also many different organizations that represent indigenous people across the nation, across this continent, (what) we discuss over and over again, is again a systematic erasure of Indigenous people. More transparently, kind of the whitewashing of what this country is and what these lands are, and what they should be based off of those colonial narratives — not based off of the Aboriginal people of this land who are continuously seeking not just that recognition, but that reclamation of these spaces, of these places that are significant to them, that are spiritual to them, that are home in the deepest sense of that word.
And so, I think because of that, people constantly are overlooking our communities visibly, but more importantly, in data. And so, because that data just is not being built in a significant way, in an authentic way, with the people, for the people, by the people, even that that type of work is on the back burner for many, many organizations, many, many governments, many businesses and sectors.
That identifying of Native people everywhere and anywhere is critical, and most often, again, it feeds back into these continuous stereotypes of Indigenous people or Native people here, tribal people living on reservations or in rural places, and not really identifying or recognizing that at least 70% of all native people who come from these tribal communities live off reservations and in metropolitan cities like San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, like LA, like New York, like Chicago. Everywhere and anywhere, there are Native people represented in every major city.
And so, how we continuously uplift and shed light on those individuals is critical. More importantly, how we continuously amplify the policies that have been created to help sustain tribal sovereignty and Indigenous people beyond reservations and beyond their own tribal communities. Wherever they are, they should be identified, valued, and resourced based off of those practices of tribal sovereignty.
MARTINEZ: You're talking about awareness, you're talking about action. American Indians in Texas, this is the second year now that AIT has embarked on an MMIWP week of action to help that awareness lead into action, not just for a week, but as a continuing effort. So, let us know what American Indians in Texas has planned for this week, starting on May 5.
VASQUEZ: Yeah, so May 5 is going to be a critical day for us. This is where we're launching our second proclamation reading at the steps of City Hall today. We're looking forward to having as many people there as possible that we can fit before it becomes a hazard. And so, that proclamation reading is going to happen. We're going to have a couple of speakers, hopefully some council people can come and help be in solidarity with us.
May 6, the following day, on Wednesday, we are going to have our MMIWP community meal and panel discussion at the Witte Museum. That's going to be happening at 6 p.m. at the Witte in the Memorial [Auditorium], I believe. That event is going to have a couple of our community members who are going to be speaking on this epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and people. This will be a buffet style community meal and panel. So, there'll be plenty of seating, plenty of ways to engage.
The following day, May 7, at the Carver Community Cultural Center, we're going to be having an Action Lab that's going to be hosted by our San Antonio MMIWP Coalition members. And so that Action Lab will help bring minds together, bring brains together to help really define our efforts around this work.
The following day, on May 8, we're going to be having an open SA MMIWP Coalition members meeting, so if any new people who are interested in joining the coalition want to engage with us and get involved, they can join us at this coalition meeting, and they will help guide that ship and help us lead this work into its next phases. That'll be at our AIT-SCM main campus on 1616 East Commerce Street, in our Spirit Waters Art Gallery.
And the close of our week of action on Saturday, we are gracious enough to be partnering with a Native women-led motorcycle club called Nita’s, who are going to be bringing together many, many different motorcycle riders, large trucks, maybe even some low riders to help kind of amplify this message and awareness of this epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and people. We're going to be having a benefit ride with them at Mission Espada. They're going to be having open registration from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and then kickstands up at 10 a.m. to take that route that we have already set out all the way to our main campus at 1616 East Commerce Street, where we'll have more of an arts market and art walk highlighting this epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and people. We're looking forward to bringing people back to our space to kind of have that communal setting. And so, there'll be some food, there'll be some activities and stuff and a DJ.
Our local effort is just one drop in the bucket compared to what's happening across the nation. Our relatives in Dallas and what MMIW Texas Rematriate is doing consistently, those are the folks that are really doing a lot of this work with direct services and things like that. And our hope is to get to that point as well, and these types of benefits and fundraising efforts help get us there.
MARTINEZ: So, this is the second MMWIP week of action, and I'm curious as to what you learned after the first one, or how perhaps you have seen the awareness grow since then?
VASQUEZ: Yeah, what was great about the first one is we really look to figure out what were the highlights, what we want to bring to the table, as far as the wins that we had after last year.
Although there wasn't a whole lot of participation, there was consistent participation. We had many different individuals that really showed interest, not just in one event, but all events came to almost all the events throughout that week and really helped build this base of individuals that really are looking to get involved and want to help create impact around this issue.
And I think, to me, that's more important than the overall crowd that we want to expect at these events. What we care most about is that, again, this is not just a week of action that should continuously live on during this week, but these are efforts that can grow and build each and every day. These impacts on our families and our communities happen each and every day. So, we have to be ready and prepared with individuals that are open and available to do this type of work, volunteer their time, most of all, because that's exactly how a lot of this work ends up happening.
You have families who have been impacted that want to give back. You have people that just have seen this issue get to devastating points in their cities or in their states. And so, we want to help uplift those individuals that are really ready to do the work, and encourage them to join us and bring us into a place where we can see a new level of what this work can look like for us here locally.
MARTINEZ: Ramon Vasquez, thank you so much for talking to us today.
VASQUEZ: Thank you, Norma. I really appreciate this highlight. Thank you.
