Why I’m With #LandBack

Anyone following the 2020 US election knows that Arizona flipped blue for Democratic nominee Joe Biden. However, they may not have heard about the role Native Americans in the Navajo Nation played in turning the swing state blue for the second time in seventy years, where, despite facing the most severe rates of COVID-19 in the country, reportedly 60-90% of their eligible registered voters went for Biden. The Democratic party and liberals everywhere owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Navajo Nation, and this debt should only be repaid by supporting the Land Back movement and the fight for Indigneous land sovereignty everywhere. 

The Land Back movement is an intergenerational fight to return stolen land to Indigneous nations across North America. With several historic wins for tribes over the past year, including a  2020 Supreme Court ruling, which reaffirmed that nearly half of Oklahoma is Muscogee land, support and momentum for the Land Back movement is rapidly growing. To build on this momentum, the NDN Collective, an Indigenous led organization in South Dakota, launched their LANDBACK campaign on Indigenous People’s Day 2020. They continue to fight for the Sioux Nation’s claim to Mount Rushmore and surrounding public lands, and seek to empower Indigenous people across North America in their fight to reclaim stolen land. 

In order to combat centuries of genocide and erasure, Land Back is essential for health equity and improving the livelihood of Indigenous people. Since the dawn of Columbus’ landing in 1492, Indigenous people in North America have seen unimaginable loss of their ancestral homelands to racist European settlers. Johnella LaRose, an Indigenous leader says, “the taking of the land, the heart of the people, ...was such a deep soul wound… and the cause of a lot of problems”. 

Through policies and repeated violated treaties by the United States government, Native Americans were forcibly relocated into concentration camps with inhumane conditions that made them highly susceptible to the virulent spread of European diseases. These “first evictions” dealt tremendous blows to tribes all across the continent and contributed to a cyclical downwards spiral that impacted their livelihoods. In his book Eviction, Matthew Desmond makes the critical connection between eviction and poverty, which further explains why land dispossession has led to 1 in 3 Native Americans living in poverty and accounting for 10% of the national houseless population in 2019. 

As I finish up my last year at UC Berkeley, I reflect on how I’ve spent my time here studying intersections. That is to say, drawing upon Kimberle Crenshaw’s “Intersectionality”, the way different societal issues interact and relate to one another. I’ve learned about global development and poverty, city and regional planning, and the bleak history of the foundation of America. I’ve critically analyzed how immigration dances intimately with health and medicine. I’ve seen how disparities in food access and education tie closely with mass incarceration and disability. The more I learn, it is apparent to me that there is a common thread to all of these different societal issues; land. As a non-Indigenous person, I recognize that from raging income and wealth inequality to anthropogenic climate change, all of our modern day issues in this late stage capitalistic society are rooted in the dark history of settler colonialism of North America.

Furthermore, the land that Native Americans have been relegated to is not only disproportionately proximate to environmental contaminants, but also is easier for “extracting and polluting enterprises” to access. Just earlier this month, Minnesota governor Tim Walz approved the last permit to start construction on the Line 3 tar sands pipeline that would violate the treaty rights of the Anishinaabe nation. Oil spills threaten Indigenous land and water, and only add to the environmental hazards that exacerbate Indigenous health outcomes. 

Today, centuries of government sanctioned structural violence, or harm towards certain marginalized groups embedded in societal structures, have caused a myriad of poor health conditions to be embodied in the Indigenous body-politic. Indigenous people face high mortality rates of heart disease and cancer, experience higher rates of chronic disease than any other ethnic group in the United States, and are 5.3 times more likely to be hospitalized from COVID-19. Rightfully returning land to Indigenous people is the most holistic way to start to rectify the severe damages dealt to Indigenous health and livelihood. Artist Heather Sweetgrass explains that “‘Land Back’ means a lot more than getting our stolen land back; it’s about acknowledging the destruction that colonialism has brought and how our very culture, our essence, who we are has been completely ripped away”. The NDN Collective’s LANDBACK campaign takes this acknowledgement and is committed to dismantling the structures of injustice that led to this current bleak reality. Truly, Land Back works towards healing the “deep soul wound” of Indigenous peoples. 

Not only does Land Back increase health outcomes for Indigenous people, it benefits us all. Indigenous people worldwide account for 5% of the population, but manage around 25% of land and foster over 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Their leadership is crucial for combating climate change and environmental destruction. Indigenous people are now being consulted for water ecosystem health, forest fire strategy, and general land and resource management. Conor Varela Handley of the NDN Collective states “Returning land to Indigenous hands is the quickest, most effective form of environmental protection and climate action”.

As UC Berkeley students, we are continually benefitting from and complicit in the occupation of Indigenous land. As a land grant university, our institution directly sits on the territory of the Lisjan Ohlone people. We have the remains of Ohlone ancestors put on display in Kroeber Hall. The University of California has financial investments in the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, Native Hawaiian land. We’re literally getting a few days off of school for Thanksgiving… but don’t get me started again. The evidence is everywhere. We need to stand up and do the work. Pay your Shuumi land tax to Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an Indigenous women led organization rematriating land to Indigenous people. Support your local Indigenous leaders and movements. We have an enormous debt to pay. Join me in working to repay it now.