Jan 12, 2011

Stuck Between

Sunshine Two-Eagle @ SE 37th & Belmont

On Christmas Day a song came through my window, a Lakota song sung by a weathered stranger on my unusually quiet corner.  I was curious to talk to her, so I grabbed my coat and went outside to meet her.  She had ambled on by the time I got outside, but I caught up with her down the street as she was sifting through a recycling bin full of holiday detritus.  I complimented her song and asked if she was Lakota.  "I speak Lakota," she told me, "But I am Sioux-- Oglala Sioux.  My name is Sunshine Two-Eagle".  

I told Sunshine about my photo series and to my surprise she agreed to participate.  What followed was the most authentic, engaging, and heart-breaking conversation I have ever had with a complete stranger.  Sunshine told me she is currently unemployed and lives in a halfway house, but is working towards her G.E.D at Portland Community College.  She is originally from Wounded Knee, a scrap of haunted land that would (and legally should) be the Great Sioux Nation.  She described the beautiful Black Hills of Dakota.  She shared her dream of Eagle Society, a politics whose currency is honor and respect.   She hinted at her spiritual councils:  Eagle, Bear, and Wolf.   She reminisced about her family & spoke in glowing terms of her husband and uncle, both dead before 50 due to coronary failure.  She told me in chilling detail of the extreme poverty of Wounded Knee, offering a story concerning her an encounter with tribal police on her 18th birthday for public drunkenness; at the precinct she was not asked where she bought the liquor, but rather where she got the money to buy the liquor.  Through personal stories, she described Wounded Knee's ubiquitous police presence, whose tactics of intimidation, harassement, and violence toward the Sioux community continue to this day.  She recounted her brief involvement with the American Indian Movement and how she renounced politics after seeing her friends and her elders humiliated, beaten, and even murdered by authorities to surpress their struggle for autonomy.  She revealed many very personal aspects of her life, past and present, that out of respect for her and her privacy, I choose not to repeat in this public forum.

Words cannot describe the honor I feel to have had this freewheeling conversation with Sunshine.  That honor is surmounted by her consent to be photographed, as I am the second person she has ever permitted to do this.  Her life and the history of violence perpetrated against the Sioux highlight a nightmarish contrast to the American Dream & the frivolity of Christmas.  The sad truth is that if you're White and you live in America, your way of life comes at the expense of the indigenous population; no matter what problems you have, they are trivial in comparison.  Imagine being stuck between two divergent worlds--two cultures in conflict-- not knowing where you belong or how to better your life.  Do you leave your home and your family and try to integrate into a world of privilege as an outsider?  Or do you remain on The Rez and freeze and starve and struggle with the Feds, the poverty, the gangs, the addictions, the despair looming over your life?  Think about that next time you open a Christmas present.  Think about the people at whose expense your lifestyle comes.  Think about how it must feel to wallow in the wreckage of an amazing and beautiful culture.  To help you visualize this, please check out Aaron Huey's TED Talk that provides the oral history of Wounded Knee , as well as an insightful photo series that portray the current conditions:  Give Back the Black Hills.  It really is the least we can do.     
       
   

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