Not Invisible: Native Peoples on the Frontlines

Episode 4: Meskee Yatsayte & Tabatha Frank

July 28, 2020 Red House Series Season 1 Episode 4
Not Invisible: Native Peoples on the Frontlines
Episode 4: Meskee Yatsayte & Tabatha Frank
Show Notes Transcript

Episode 4 of Not Invisible: Native Peoples on the Frontlines is a double feature of two powerful women. First, we hear from Meskee Yatsayte (Potawatomi/Diné) from Navajo Nation Missing and Murdered Relatives. Meskee’s work is about including all missing Native kin, including men and boys, elders, the disabled and the trans/non-binary community. Next we hear from Tabatha Frank (Tla-o-qui-aht Ahousat/Muchalaht) whose striking face paint has become an iconic symbol of the MMIWG2ST movement. Her advocacy work on her own and with Butterflies In Spirit, a dance group that shares the story of those who are missing and murdered, has impacted her own life.

Watch the PBS News Hour interview with Meskee: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/brief/304420/meskee-yatsayte

Follow Butterflies in Spirit on Instagram



Support the show

00:01

Tang say everybody. Before we start, we want to issue a content warning for this episode, which will contain discussions surrounding violence and murder around Indigenous women and families. The US and others. OTOs to the Imagine you're sitting in a room with the 10 women closest to you. They could be your sisters, your cousins, your friends, your auntie's your grandmother's. Now imagine that eight of those 10 women have been sexually assaulted or murdered. Indigenous women go missing and are murdered at a rate of over 10 times the national average. This is a staggering statistic. But it's a reality in Indian Country. Native women are 2% of the population. But in 2018, they reported over 730,000 cases of sexual assault. And in 2016, over 5712 Native women went missing or were murdered. And in 84% of the cases, the perpetrators were not native. 5712 I'm going to give a little perspective on that. The town that I grew up in the town that I'm currently in Peace River, Alberta, my hometown has a population of 6800. That's like almost the entire town, gone. This week on not invisible native women on the front lines, our focus will be on the MMI WG to S T issue.


01:58

What's really scary about these numbers tennis is they only include the women who are cisgendered or that the officials have identified as needed. So that leaves out any of our Afro indigenous or mixed race kin. This week, we chat with Meski a set day from Navajo Nation missing and murdered relatives. And she shares how those numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. miski wants to track all the missing and murdered including men and boys elders, the disabled and the trans and non binary community.


02:38

Yes, and also in this episode Shay, you chat with activist Tabitha Frank from the cluck wit house it and much love First Nations.


02:47

You might recognize Tabitha because she became an iconic image of the MMI WG to st movement when she painted a black hand over her mouth. She chose black instead of red to include all of the missing and murdered even folks outside of the community.


03:05

Alright everybody, let's meet these ladies.


03:11

neski Watteau, for talking with us. Can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work?


03:19

Well, yes, AC cadences in SA Misty Genova, Assa T Anisha. Hello, everybody, all my relatives and friends. My name is miski Yoruba Yachty. I am the founder of Navajo Nation missing persons I started this about seven and a half years ago, been at this for a while and I have experienced missing and murdered in our in my own personal ways. And this is something that is becoming a daily experience for a lot of our relatives out on the reservations and out and on all nations throughout the United States and Canada and also our relatives up in Mexico. So this has been ongoing, an epidemic that we we all, you know, considered silent, but it actually wasn't silent. I think it's just that we did it once realize that was there. But it's always been with us. And it's coming out of the darkness. And I think this is a reason why so many of us are talking about it now. And you know, this is something that we needed to be talking about from the beginning. So yeah, that's just a little bit about me. I'm also from Oklahoma. I am prairie band Potawatomi. And also Dinesh and Titi mega Mixteca. Mexican. I was born out in Oklahoma and right now I live out here in Siani G New Mexico. So that's a little bit about myself.


04:49

How did you get involved with Navajo nation's missing persons? What really drove you to start this?


04:55

I started noticing a lot of our relatives using the Facebook swap groups as kind of like, I guess, like a format for getting the word out about their missing relatives. So I got a little curious and started to see what you know, if there was any kind of pages or anything that would help and I came across nothing, nothing for the Navajo Nation. And so I came and actually went and looked a little bit more deeper, and I found another woman's page and hers was lost and missing in Indian country. And her name is Janet Franssen very wonderful person. And she was the only one at that time that had a Facebook page that was open and dedicated or missing. And when I looked through that, I've seen several of our dinner relatives that were on there. But I got a little bit more curious. And I started getting into like, how she finding this information out and I noticed that acronyms name is that kept coming up a lot. NamUs is a national missing and unidentified missing persons database.


06:00

Was there a specific incident that prompted your involvement.


06:04

So like I said, I've I've experienced with missing and murdered in my own way, and this affected, you know, my, my personal life deeply. And just having that experience. I didn't realize later on in my life that I would come back to it. And I didn't know about the missing and murdered indigenous women's movement. At the time. There really wasn't any awareness scene, I think everybody heard of what happened with our baby girl Ashlyn Mike. So at that time, that kind of triggered me to get something started for the Navajo Nation.


06:43

So name is, is the national database for missing an unidentified persons. Did you search for missing tribal members through the system.


06:54

So I kind of like through there and came up with some more of our DNA relatives. And of course, some of them were mis categorized into Hispanic and Asian and Caucasian. So just knowing I guess, being raised around here, you know, who is dnn, I guess, by their last names, and you get kind of familiar with, you know, who your people are. So I started looking more deeper into that mister pulling them out. And I said, you know, I'm gonna make a page just for this. So I did it at that time, it was I named it a little bit different. So I kind of started putting our, their, their information up there. And anytime somebody had gone missing, I would share just the original post from the Posty. And it kind of kicked off from there. At that time, I didn't let anybody know who I was a state of anonymous for four and a half years, I was helping our people and just not letting people know who I was, I just wanted to do it just to make sure that you know, we were I was helping somebody at the time. And then it got more deep into, you know, the MMI W movement got really heavy with media. And I noticed that they were just talking about the women. But you know, it kind of triggered me because a lot of our indigenous people that are missing are men, men and boys, and they were being left out. And at the time, there was a case where involves a missing and a woman. And I thought, you know, I think it's time that I need to come out and try and start helping the families, physically, not just over social media. So I had first came out 2017, I met a family and we marched over to the president's office. And it started from there. And from that point on, you know, I've just been speaking and just continuing to do what we do we search on our own time. And we help our relatives by making a fliers posting on social media, all the outlets and enter collaborative pages. And also we try to meet what meet up with the families, keep in contact with them and provide some flyers for them so that they are able to post that up in their communities.


09:11

There are legislators and activists that are trying to push through new laws around the MMI W or what we call the MMI, w g to st crisis. What are your thoughts on that?


09:24

Kind of just like just observing all the laws that are being, you know, brought up and, you know, I really wish that all of them could be passed and everything. You know, it's just a lot of the laws that they're bringing up are focused on women. And so I think, changing it to include all genders to have the task force for missing and murdered indigenous women. Through a couple of states, I believe Arizona and New Mexico have won. I also think that including our men, and our boys, LGBTQ relatives, I think we all, they all just need to be included in this because they should have been included from the beginning. If you're just going to focus on one gender, that is not going to be complete. So that law is something that I kind of wish that they would, you know, also include the rest, just one gender. So I'm really pushing that, you know, any, any bill or any law, always, you know, includes all genders, not just one. That's what I'm really, really pushing for is that all of our indigenous relatives to be included.


10:48

The MMI W activism community talks a lot about how non native should act, but what about our own communities? What are your recommendations for Indian country,


10:59

I think we need to start giving out a community action, like a kit, where we can let our relatives know what to do if this situation happens. So a lot of proactiveness in our communities, that's really what we need. And, you know, a lot of the situations that come up as jurisdiction, there's jurisdictional issues in every indigenous community. And that's something that we need to really focus on also. And, in a lot of places, the Amber Alert is not available. And that's another thing that we need to work on. And the Silver Alert, we also need one for our relatives that have a disability, we need an alert for that. And some some states, they do have that. But we just need more proactiveness. With this, I did create a text alert system. And it's just very similar to an Amber Alert, also a Silver Alert, and those are all officials, alerts. But for mine, it's an unofficial text alert that I created for three steps is actually we have one is called a turquoise alert, very similar to an Amber Alert that's for any missing or endangered child from zero to 17 years of age. And also we do have a coral color. And that's kind of like a medical alert if they have a brain injury or if they have a disability and they've gone missing and and not able, they're not able to speak for themselves or not be able to make very good decisions for themselves and they could put themselves in danger. And then we also have the Sterling alert again, it's very similar to Silver Alert and that's for our elders 60 years and older that have Alzheimer's or dementia, or just aging forgetfulness and you know they can be endangered when they go missing. So those three alerts are available. And all you need to do is just text the letters in in MTU. And that's this kind of like the acronym for Navajo Nation missing persons update. So in an MPU to the number 84483. We have over 22,000 people that are signed up for fuller


13:25

Meskhi thank you so much for your incredible work. Please let our listeners know where they can follow you and support your work.


13:33

So you can follow us on Facebook, it's Navajo Nation missing persons updates. And then also we're on Twitter and I believe it's in MPU one and we also have a 101 called Instagram so I'm really need to all of this social media stuff but we do have one on Instagram and it's Navajo Nation underscore missing persons. So those are the three social media outlets you can get a hold of us on and actually we have a Let's see an email and you can get a hold of me at an Mpu one@gmail.com.


14:19

Now we'll speak with tap at the Frank and activist and dancer who is striking face paint has become an iconic symbol of the MMI w g to esteem movement. Hi Tabitha. Welcome to not invisible native women on the front lines. Can you go ahead and introduce yourself for us?


14:37

Hi, my name is Tabitha Frank. I come from the class squid and has a much look first nations. I'm an activist for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. And I resonate on the Coast Salish territory.


14:53

So how did you get involved with it and then my W cause


14:57

so it started earlier. on in my life, I can't exactly pinpoint the time, but my son has an ad that went missing. Her name is Lisa Marie young. And she went missing in Nanaimo, British Columbia, June 30 2002. And I've been following her story ever since. Because it's, it's so close to home. And I wasn't really vocal about it, I would just show up at the rallies and, you know, be there to support his family, because his family is my family. And as I got older, I really wanted to, you know, put, put the message out there and get her name known, and get her story out there. So when I moved to Vancouver, I wanted to basically just getting the community. So I got a job at the Vancouver Aboriginal community policing center. And they are a huge, they have a huge program for the MMI w. So we support the missing women and girls family, they come in and they ask us, to help them find their missing loved one when the police won't do anything about it. And we go out there, we put up posters, we go up and down the streets looking for the missing loved one. And that's something that I really enjoy doing only because we've been four for four. So four family members came to us and asked us to go look for their family members, and we were thankful enough to find them. And that's something that I want to do for my my son's family is look for Lisa Marie. And you know, someone knows something. Someone knows, someone knows where, what happened to her where she is. And we want to get down to that because it's been 17 years. And my son is only 15 years old. And he was the one that you know, continuously brings up her name. And so when I when I came here, I when I started working for the Vancouver Aboriginal community policing center, I met Lorelei Williams, and she's one of the biggest activists for MMI W in Vancouver. And when I met her, she ended up asking me if I wanted to be a part of butterflies and spirit. And it's a it's a dance group that raises awareness for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, and we travel all around the world to you know, put the word out there that this is actually happening. And this is a thing. And a lot of people don't believe it. They're like, wow, that's still happening this day and age. Yeah, it's still happening. Like, it's 2020. And it's, you know, our women are sacred women go missing. And when she asked me to join, I was kind of hesitant, because it's a lot of the frontline work. And I was always the person that was never in the frontlines. I was always the one that was sitting in the background. And when I when I finally joined, I talked to my son about it, and asked him if he would be okay with me joining and he said, Yeah, and Lorelei was, you know, saying that we represent our missing loved ones on a t shirt, so we couldn't get their faces out there. And I don't know why it took me so long to think about his missing app. Because I was always, you know, standing with them. But I sat down and I was talking to him was like, I don't know who to represent. There's too many missing women. There's too many missing girls out there that I just it's hard to just choose like one person. And then he said, Well, what about my auntie Lisa Marie? And like, okay, I can do that. So I started butterflies in spirit with representing Lisa Marie. And my very first performance was butterflies in spirit. My My parents came. And after they saw our very first performance, my dad actually opened up to me and he broke down crying, and I didn't understand why I honestly thought it was just the movement of what we were doing. But it opened up a door for him tonight to have the conversation that I had an aunt that was murdered before my time, like before I was was born. And it was hard for him. He


19:50

had a huge meltdown. He was the first time he's ever talked about it since because they were only 19 years old when she went missing. And eventually, like, a few weeks later, they found her body in a river. And they they know exactly who it is, but they just never brought justice to Iris Frank. So I, you know, it just hits so close to home knowing that I had an aunt that was murdered, my son has an aunt that's been missing. And you know being in the frontlines, like I feel, I feel happier that I can just be that voice for not only my, my aunt's and my son's aunt, but for every woman out there that's grieving.


20:42

Could you share a little bit more about your aunt? Yeah, her name.


20:45

Her name was Iris Frank, and she was murdered in Port Alberni in 1980. They can't exactly pinpoint a time of her death, because she was found in a river, like, months later, so they don't know exactly when she died. But it's gonna hit 30 years in around April, they just don't know if it was April or March. So this year, it's gonna hit 30 years of my being gone, and no justice has been served.


21:16

How has that impacted your family?


21:19

Now that the conversation has been opened between my dad 90s He's on his healing journey is now to the point where he can, you know, talk about how they were so close, like they were best friends. And this was the one time he never went with her when she went out, you know, hanging out with her friends, because he was always with her. But the one time he didn't go, she went missing. And he took that it took a big toll on him. Like he kept blaming himself for that. So when, you know, when he opened those doors for me, he, he started expressing you know, who she was and how beautiful she is and how I resemble her. And when I, when I looked at the picture, I was like, wow, I kind of do look like man, that's, that's weird that I didn't get a chance. Like, I never got a chance to meet her. But when I when I perform, I feel like I have a connection with her. Like I, I've never met this woman, but it's it's a part of me is, you know, dancing to honor her. And I feel like I continuously call her spirit when we go dancing. And it also helps, you know, not only myself, but my dad, my family members feel in a good way. It just hits so close to home, knowing that I had an aunt that was murdered, my son has an aunt that's been missing. And you know, being in the frontlines, like I feel, I feel happier that I can just be that voice for not only my, my aunts and my son's aunt, but for every woman out there that's grieving.


23:04

Could you tell us a little bit more about butterflies in spirit.


23:07

So with butterflies and spirits, it's a mixture of hip hop dancing and traditional dancing. And I'm more in the traditional side. So when we when we perform I, I dance in my traditional way.


23:27

So I wanted to talk a little bit about what your father said about you looking like your aunt, because there's a very famous image of you in the community on social media. You know, it's it's very striking the picture of you with the image of the Black Hand over your mouth. Did you choose that image because it resembled your aunt.


23:48

It was oddly enough, it was just something that I was I was scared to put out in the universe only because of the following. I do have I do get a lot of you know, hate on my social media. And it's kind of known that, you know, just because he has so many followers, X amount of followers, people start like, sending you hate messages. And I was kind of terrified to post my picture. But I, I chose that picture because I wanted you know, I wanted to get the word out there. And I specifically chose the black handprint in the beginning because I wanted it to represent all women and girls, not just indigenous.


24:35

This image it really is striking, very, very powerful.


24:39

After I posted it, it it went viral and all I could think about was you know, maybe one day someone will come forward and tell me what happened to my aunt or maybe one day someone will come forward and you know, say I'm sorry, but this is what happened to Lisa and just getting that word out there was just, it was. It was crazy to me. I didn't expect it to go viral. And I didn't expect to have so many people, you know, say positive things about it and say, you know, I have an aunt or I have a sister that went missing too. And thank you for sharing. And thank you for raising the awareness.


25:28

Brody, Sanchez, and indigenous beater. You know, he created that beautiful medallion from that image. How did that come about?


25:37

He searched me through hashtags. And he just put in MMI w. And he was scrolling through Instagram, and he saw my picture. And he was like, That's it. That's the one. And then he messaged me. And when he messaged me, I think I was kind of in a in a bad mood. I was almost not going to respond back to him. But I looked at it. And then he's like, Hey, I'm an artist. And I came across the picture. And I was just wondering if I could use it was like to make a medallion. And at that time, I just kind of brushed it off. I was like, Yeah, whatever. Sure. You can use it. And that's all he had to hear was yes. And he had a deadline to do this medallion. And was about five or four days. I'm not. I can't remember how many days it was. But he only had a certain amount of time to get this medallion done. And all you needed was a yes. from me. When I said yes, he started on the project. And then he kept sending me snaps of the medallion piece by piece. Like he's like, Look at this. It's like almost, you know, halfway done. And I looked at it and I was like, oh my god, I wasn't expecting it to look that beautiful. Like, I didn't expect it to look like me. Like I I didn't know that he was, you know, very detailed. He was like a huge artists in the Shoshone band. And when the finished product came to what it is today, I look at like, I look at it with like, amazement, because he's such a great artist. And the way we came to become a team was Instagram.


27:24

And after that you became partners, right? So


27:28

when we became partners, it didn't end up like that we, we decided as business partners, so he told me that it was going to be on a BTN. For indigenous day, he said the host is going to be wearing the medallion. And it's going to be this day. And I said okay, cool. So he asked me, How would you feel if we made stickers, and a goodie mean, stickers means like to raise awareness for the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. I said, Okay, what do you what are you planning? Like, what is it that you want from this? And he's like, Well, I want to sell stickers. So I can, you know, help raise awareness and get the, you know, get the image out there. Um, I said, I don't want to do it for profit. And he's like, no, no, no, he's like, I want you know, to give you a percentage, so you can do, you know, put it towards butterflies in spirit, because I know you guys travel a lot to raise this awareness for the MMI w. And I thought that was a great idea. And I just basically said yes. And then it went from stickers to T shirts to hoodies, to, you know, almost anything you can do with this image. And when we had a performance in Montana, and I end up telling you, because I've never met Brody, prior to this, like I didn't meet him before he beaded the medallion. So I messaged him is like, hey, we have a performance in Montana. And then he's like, Oh, we're at and I said, Paulson. He's like, Oh, I'm from Paulson was like, Oh, really, and and I invited him out to come to one of our performances, music, I'd love to give you some, you know, T shirts and hoodies so you can take back with you. I said, Okay, so we end up meeting up. Well, I was in Montana, and we just created this friendship, like and it wasn't just like a business partnership. We became friends and then we stayed in contact. And then after a while, we kind of know we're in a relationship. I wasn't expecting it to turn out this way. But it's, yeah, we're we're partners now.


29:53

The end result of that Medallion is beautiful. Would you say that it's had an impact on your work,


30:01

every performance we go to, there's always someone out there this is, oh my God, that's your face. There's like, oh, I have your T shirt, I have your hoodie like, and I don't know how to feel about it. Like, I don't know if I should be happy, or if I should be, I just don't know how to feel. But there's a lot of people out there and it still fascinates me when people you know, send me their image or send me, you know, pictures of them wearing it and you know, at rallies and stuff, and just it's I'm honored. I'm really honored that it's not only it's not just, you know, my face, its representation of the whole and the my Adobe movement.


30:41

Who have you been surprised or excited to see wearing the image? And what other organizations are you involved with? Or supporting?


30:50

Oh, let's start with question one. The Idaho Coalition for the MLA W. Brody has a connection there. So they they partnered up to order more than 100 T shirts and more, more than 100 hoodies. So he has a partnership with them. And the proceeds go does their MMI w. And I'm 1,000% okay with that. And I haven't partnered up with many people on my end, just because I feel like Brody's the one that's putting it out there, because it's his medallion. It's not, I want to make that clear that it's his medallion. It sits in his, you know, his place. I don't have any connection with it. Besides it being my face. And it's beautiful in person. It's, it's so beautiful in person, you have to see it up close, just to see how detailed he put into the Medallia.


31:54

You're out there every day. What do you think is working? And where could there be some improvement.


32:01

So what's working now I feel is the rallies is getting, you know, the word out there. And social media is a good platform for spreading the word. And what's not working right now is the reconciliation with the police. They say they want to acknowledge that, you know, indigenous people, were here first. And they want to make that connection because they want to build a relationship with us. And for me working for the Vancouver Aboriginal community policing center. That's actually what we are trying to do is build a relationship with the police. And it's, it's not easy, because the justice system was never built for us. It was always built against us. The justice system was it started way before? Well, it started basically around residential school. And, you know, they made laws to take away their children and they made laws, you know, to make sure that the families were separated, and our culture was never included. And so now, they're trying to build that relationship back up, but they're there, they're not changing the laws. They're not changing. You know, the way they think they they're so programmed to back in the day that it's still reoccurring, and it's still affecting us. And it's still affecting indigenous people. And, you know, they don't take these cases seriously, because they, they think that, you know, these women are addicts or sex workers, they're runaways. And, you know, majority of them aren't there. They're not runaways. They're not sex workers, their day to day people, day to day people like you and I normal people and they go missing or they go murdered. Because, you know, the police didn't take it seriously.


34:16

What do you think is the biggest hurdle that native communities are facing?


34:22

I I honestly want I hate to say this, like, I want this to end and then I hopefully one day I can, you know, put my T shirt away. I can put my my hoodie down, you know, eventually and just let it go down in history thing, but you know what, we brought this awareness and it's eventually gonna, you know, be taken seriously. And I don't want to, I don't want to wear my hoodie. My my T shirt, you know, every day. And for the rest of my life, I don't I don't want that I actually wanted to be put, put to rest eventually. So the the image can can be put aside for, you know, my grandkids to be like, Wow, my, my grandmother raised awareness and you know what people took her seriously?


35:28

What message do you have for Native people about me my WG to St. To stand


35:34

strong stand together? You know, we, we as indigenous people have a powerful voice, and we need to learn to use it more and stay true to our culture.


35:52

How can people who wants to help support your work,


35:56

share the image, share the image, you know, buy a t shirt or hoodie for the proceeds go to the butterflies in spirit and at the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls coalition in Idaho. We also want to branch out to other organizations for other MMI W. Whoever wants to, you know, build a relationship with us we're willing to open up to that to


36:26

any final words for our listeners,


36:29

I hope for going forward with this is that we have a better future for the indigenous community. I hope that you know the 1% we are that 1% That, you know survived genocide. And I just hope that we continuously move forward in a good way.


36:50

Tabitha, thank you so much for your time, we really enjoyed your stories that was top of the frame dancer with butterflies and spirit and inspiration for one of the most iconic images of the MMI WG to st movement. I'd also like to think one more time mesquite? Yes, that's a founder of Navajo Nations missing and murdered.


37:12

Every day. More and more of our indigenous relatives are under threat. And every day, more and more rise to fight back. So please join us next time when we speak to two of those people fighting back, Jordan Murray, Daniel and rosily fish to indigenous runners who are using their platforms to amplify the crisis. Until then, hi, hi, I'm Tanis Toronto.


37:38

Watteau. I'm Shay Vassar.


37:44

This has been not invisible native women on the front lines of Red House series production. This episode of not invisible was produced by Steena Hamlin and Barry Adelberg, written by Vicki Ramirez, Shea baster and Barry Adelberg, edited by Steena Hamlin and next by Matt Gundy theme song, another side by wild whispers and produced by Ben Reno, Ely love and Megan Lee. Our executive producer is Jen Beagle. I'm your host town esperando