This story was originally published through The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Debra Haaland writes American history.
The 60-year-old New Mexico congresswoman will be America’s first cabinet secretary in U. S. history next month when she assumes the country’s land duty and herbal resources at the head of the Department of the Interior under Joe Biden.
Haaland is a member of Laguna Pueblo, one of 574 sovereign tribal nations in 35 states. According to the 2010 census, 5. 2 million people, or about 2% of the US population, have been able to do so. U. S. , They identify as Native Americans or Alaska Natives, descendants of those who have survived U. S. government policies to kill or assimilate indigenous peoples.
In January, it will be Haaland’s task to comply with the government’s legally binding obligations to the tribes, treaty obligations that have been systematically violated with devastating consequences on life expectancy, political participation and economic opportunities in the Indian country.
In an interview a few days before her appointment, Haaland told The Guardian that, as an internal secretary, she would “advance priorities on climate change, tribal consultation, and economic recovery. “
It is a great task with high expectations after 4 years of racist rhetoric and destructive setbacks in the environment of the Trump administration component, which has shown contempt for the climate or environment by turning ecological fossil fuel projects into public and tribal lands regardless of culture and environment. ecological sites.
“I will be fierce for all of us, for our planet and all our protected lands,” Haaland said in his acceptance speech. “This moment is profound when the fact that a former secretary of the interior once proclaimed his purpose to “civilize or exterminate” us. I am a living testament to the failure of this terrible ideology. “
Indigenous communities in the United States and around the world are incredibly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis, such as sea point rise and droughts, and the environmental hazards of polluting industries. As interior secretary, Haaland will play a key role in reversing Trump’s setbacks and will also be a key lieutenant on Biden’s new weather team.
This isn’t the first time Haaland has made history. In 2018, she was one of the first two Aboriginal women in Congress, along with Sharice Davids of Kansas. In January, six Native Americans, four Democrats and two Republicans, who broke records. .
Representation and diversity are important, according to Haaland, because life reports shape political decisions. “We don’t want other people who have the same point of view, we want other people from other parts of the country, who have been raised in other ways, who bring this history and culture with them and use what we’ve learned from their parents and grandparents, and they bring all that to our decisions,” he told the Guardian.
This is a complicated path for Haaland, which, like a disproportionate number of Native Americans, has experienced homelessness and depended on food stamps, and is also the product of racist policies such as the forced withdrawal of thousands of indigenous youth from their families between 1860. and 1978. At the age of eight, Haaland’s grandmother was sent to a Catholic boarding school for five years, a hundred miles from her home.
“There are many other people in this country who have suffered ancestral traumas thereafter. I bring this story with me, I’m a product of America’s assimilation policy. I am convinced that this is incredibly vital to the disorders we suffer. “are running for Congress. “
“Indigenous women have been reported missing and killed since Europeans arrived on the continent in the past 1400. Violence against women is one of my priorities. This won’t be solved by just two laws, but now is the time to dig deeper and keep working,” he said.
Haaland will be the american Native with the most years of service in the United States since Republican Charles Curtis, a member of Kaw Nation in present-day Kansas, who served as vice president of Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933.
It will be from a government facing unprecedented complex and interconnected challenges, adding an uncontrollable pandemic, a global economic recession, developing famine and a climate emergency.
Haaland’s track record across partisan lines can also be important to Biden’s success, at a time when the country, and lawmakers, are deeply divided.
She said: “I’ve led more Republicans to point out my spending than any other Democrat. It is vital for all of us – county commissioners, governors and mayors, not just Congress – to be sure that we paint in combination for the common good. We want to pass legislation that helps others across the country, and we want to make sure those messages are disseminated . . . I will continue across the aisle into our environment and be sure that vulnerable communities have a say in what the country is doing to move forward.
The approximately 70,000 Interior Department workers oversee one-fifth of all U. S. land. But it’s not the first time And 1. 7 billion acres of coastline, as well as control of national parks, shelters and herbal resources such as gas, oil and water.
According to the U. S. Geological Survey, a change in priorities within the Department of the Interior may have primary implications for global warming, with about a quarter of all U. S. carbon emissions. But it’s not the first time They come from fossil fuels extracted from public lands.
Earlier this year, Haaland issued an invoice establishing a national purpose of protecting 30% of U. S. land and oceans. But it’s not the first time Until 2030, a plan that Biden’s administration has since followed as a precedent for its environmental agenda.
“Environmental injustice and economic injustice have taken over so many communities, and they have had enough. They need us to pay attention to them and succeed. . . As far as the Indian country is concerned, I must ensure that tribal leaders – and all marginalized communities – have a position at the table.
Unlike Trump, Haaland believes Biden will consult with Native Americans, as the government is legally obliged to do so. “I’m sure this president will pay special attention to the Indian country, so so many [Indians] came to vote and helped him get to Arizona and Wisconsin. “
Restoring Trump’s eroded protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, monuments in southern Utah that are sacred to Native Americans, is a priority for Haaland.
The November election came after a summer of unprecedented protests deceiving racial justice caused by the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who killed through a white police officer kneeling on his neck for about nine minutes.
Progressive Democrats, in addition to Haaland and the so-called Squad, made up of the two congressional parties, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, have increased demands from protesters for radical structural adjustments to racial inequalities in health, housing, immigration and education, employment and the environment.
“So many Native Americans have joined the Black Lives Matter protests because Indian Country has identified that we are allies in the fight for environmental justice, economic justice, and racial justice. These frontline communities deserve the resources to recover,” Says Haaland.
This article was amended on December 29, 2020 because an earlier edition cited an old figure who said there were 567 sovereign tribal nations in the United States and that lately there are 574 tribes identified at the federal level.
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