Finding connection beyond dna tests

One phrase spoken by guest Kim TallBear, a professor of Native studies at the University of Alberta, Canada, changed my perspective: “One does not have to be us to be good kin.” She went on

to say, “You’re getting a lot of nonindigenous people wanting to be us instead of doing the work of being in good kinship. It’s a lot easier to take a DNA test and do your genealogy than it

is to work to be in good relation with Indigenous people.” In another episode, Wilbur said, “If you want to know what your purpose is, you only have to ask yourself how you will feed the

people” — meaning how will you use your own talents and gifts to be in good kinship. So, I asked myself, instead of spending hours on Ancestry.com trying to prove my heritage, how could I

spend that time trying to be in good kinship? It wasn’t long after that I met Diane and Michelle Schenandoah, a mother and daughter of the Haudenosaunee, on a trip with my husband to

Loveland, Colorado. We visited the studio of sculptor Jane DeDecker, who was working on the _Ripples of Change_ monument to commemorate the women’s suffrage movement. The final piece is now

on display in Seneca Falls, New York. Diane, a fellow sculptor, was hard at work helping DeDecker create Oneida Indian Nation activist and educator Laura Cornelius Kellogg, who is depicted

as part of the monument. While my husband interviewed Diane about her position as an Oneida faithkeeper and her depiction of Kellogg, I chatted with her daughter, Michelle, who is around my

age, 40, and we are both nonpracticing attorneys. I shared that I’m a published author and was then running a public relations agency focused on book launches. Our talk quickly turned to the

book Michelle wanted to write. I felt an instant connection with Michelle and was inspired by the podcast message. This was the first time I felt I had a clear answer to the question of how

I could be in good kinship: by sharing my experiences and resources with Indigenous people instead of trying to be one of them. BEING IN GOOD RELATION Since then, I’ve spent time offering

advice to Michelle, as well as other authors and documentary producers — who were either Indigenous or whose works featured an Indigenous person — about how to contact literary agents to get

a book published and get media coverage for their projects. I’ve never charged for any of those sessions, and this work only scratches the surface of what I want to do in the future. My

husband and I travel the country year-round for our work, and the way I experience America has also been forever changed. I find myself asking: _Whose land is this? Why do we celebrate

colonization and the expansion of the West as if it were our great accomplishment as a nation? Why was I in my late 30s before I knew the true extent of what has been stolen from Indigenous

people through broken treaties and meaningless promises?_