Not Our Native Daughters

10/22/2026

In the teachings I carry, our names connect us to identity, gifts, responsibility, and belonging. Our names remind us that we have something to offer our people. Before we ever speak about what harmed us, we deserve to remember who we are: Indigenous people with knowledge, abilities, and gifts from Creator. Even if we have not discovered those gifts yet, our lives have worth and possibility. THERE IS MORE TO OUR STORY THAN WHAT WE SURVIVED.

Colonization, boarding schools, and the disruption of our families and ways of life have left pain across generations. Sometimes we recognize that pain in our lives; sometimes we are still finding words for it. Trauma can influence how we see ourselves, what we believe we deserve, and how we relate to others. That is why acknowledgment and self-awareness matter. What have I come to believe about myself because of what happened to me? Does that belief reflect my worth—or the hurt I have carried? OUR PAIN DESERVES ACKNOWLEDGMENT. OUR LIVES DESERVE POSSIBILITY.

I HAVE EXPERIENCED HEALING. AND I AM STILL HEALING. We can say, “That was wrong. That should never have happened to me,” and give ourselves room to heal. We do not have to find a reason the harm happened or turn it into a lesson to deserve peace. For me, faith and forgiveness have helped loosen pain’s hold on my heart. For someone else, the beginning may be speaking honestly, accepting support, or setting a boundary. Still feeling grief, anger, anxiety, or depression does not mean we have failed. HEALING MAKES ROOM FOR WHO WE ARE BECOMING. We can reconnect with culture, nurture our abilities, and make room for vision and purpose. To support Not Our Native Daughters’ work with Native youth, survivors, and families, please donate: text NOND to 44-321. ⏩️⏩️ PLEASE SHARE.. share the good medicine 🙏🏽🪶

We encourage everyone to seek trauma-informed care approaches. Our prayers are with you, and we all deserve to carry the medicine we have been given because everyone deserves love, nourishment, blessings, and a good life. May we carry this in ourselves and into others.

10/21/2026

Have you ever wanted to sing or learn to sing backup at powwows? Join Tiana Spotted Thunder tonight at 7 PM Mountain Time on Zoom for the Wicaglata Circle, part of the Wicahpi Olowan Music Program.

This women-only gathering offers a safe, welcoming space to sing, ask questions, share stories, and learn about Wicaglata, its protocols, and its importance. Whether you’re just beginning or looking to deepen your understanding, you’re invited to join.

Register here: https://formstack.io/C85A9

Not Our Native Daughters is also happy to welcome Tiana Spotted Thunder back for another singing class coming soon! In the meantime, please join her online this evening and PLEASE SHARE! 🫶🏾🪶

10/21/2026

A quick shout-out to Johnson Roanhorse, one of our Indigenous Youth Voices youth leaders, who harvested this beautiful bull elk yesterday! We love seeing our youth carry forward our ancestral traditions, connecting with the land and learning what it means to provide for family and community. Elk helps sustain many families across the Plains region throughout the year, and these teachings carry responsibility, gratitude, and respect for the life that feeds us.

Let’s show Johnson some love! Like this post and leave a word of encouragement. Our youth deserve to see their community cheering them on. We’re proud of you, Hii3eti johnson ❤️🪶

10/21/2026

10/21/2026

Colonialism does not end when the history lesson does. It continues when resources are promised, withdrawn, and Native communities are left to absorb another loss, then blamed for struggling to stay afloat.

This year, we lost significant funding for Indigenous Youth Voices. We still have the grant award letter promising support for our IYV programming—but the funding never came. We also went unpaid for programming we provided. For a grassroots organization, those losses mean reaching into our own pockets to keep commitments to our youth. We kept ours. We are still waiting for others to keep theirs. We began this work with our own money, our own pain, and a determination to help our people. Our willingness to sacrifice should never become the funding plan.

We keep saying this because it has not changed: less than 1% of philanthropic dollars explicitly benefit Native Americans, and only a portion reaches Native-led organizations. “Native-serving” and “Native-led” are not interchangeable. Leadership and accountability to our Tribal communities matter. When institutions talk about decolonizing philanthropy while keeping resources and decisions out of our hands, what has actually changed?

When you say “support Native nonprofits,” remember the grassroots organizations answering calls after hours, helping families through crisis, and taking youth onto our ancestral lands. At Not Our Native Daughters, your support goes back into community through our MMIP Family Support Fund and Indigenous Youth Voices. Behind every funding gap are families who still need help and youth who deserve to know we will show up. Their needs do not disappear when funding does.

We are still here. We are still doing the work. But we need support to sustain it. Please donate, become a monthly supporter, or share our work with someone who can give. Text NOND to 44321 to support our work or IYV to 44321 to invest in our youth. Help us keep our commitments to our people.

10/20/2026

PLEASE SHARE!

10/20/2026

This is emotional work for me because I am a survivor, too. When I speak about violence against Native women, I am speaking about something that lives close to home. Through this work, I have known of women who called for help and did not receive the protection they needed. Their families are left carrying a question no family should have to ask: Why wasn’t her life enough of an emergency?

More than FOUR IN FIVE American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime. More than half have experienced sexual violence. More than half have experienced physical violence by an intimate partner. NIJ, 2016 report, using 2010 survey data. Those numbers should outrage us. I refuse to accept them as our daughters’ future. We carry families, ceremony responsibilities, knowledge, and leadership. We spend our lives protecting our people. Who is protecting us?

Systems built through our dispossession need fundamental change. Underfunded Tribal and BIA law enforcement, delayed responses, and gaps in survivor services have a human cost. A woman’s survival should not depend on how many officers are on shift. Domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, and the MMIWR crisis belong in the same conversation. Native men: we need your voices and action. Challenge abuse. Hold your relatives accountable. Stop protecting reputations at the expense of women’s lives.

To people outside our communities: our lives deserve your outrage and your action, too. Whatever your politics, our lives should never be negotiable. We need more people disturbed enough by this violence to act—to demand resources, support survivors, and refuse to look away. Beyond our communities, this is a call to humanity.

Protect us. Respect us. Value us while we are here. Text MMIP to 44-321 to help NOND provide direct financial support to MMIP survivors and families impacted by this crisis. Our daughters deserve to inherit more than our warnings. They deserve to inherit our protection.

10/17/2026

DENVER, WE DESERVE ANSWERS.

Denver City Council approved the Key Lime Air lease on October 13 in an 11–1 vote. Key Lime also operates ICE deportation flights. Shout out to Councilmember Stacie Gilmore she was the only NO vote!

This lease covers passenger-service operations, not ICE charter flights. Council members argued that rejecting it could threaten airport funding without stopping deportations. Still, our community deserves to know: What enforceable protections and accountability come with this agreement?

Shontel M. Lewis is also running for Denver mayor in 2027. Her decisions today deserve scrutiny as she asks to lead this city.

Please email the members on the YES list. Ask why they supported this agreement and what they will do to protect human rights. Request a written response.

Amanda P. Sandoval — [email protected]
Kevin Flynn — [email protected]
Jamie Torres — [email protected]
Diana Romero Campbell — [email protected]
Amanda Sawyer — [email protected]
Paul Kashmann — [email protected]
Flor Alvidrez — [email protected]
Shontel M. Lewis — [email protected]
Darrell Watson — [email protected]
Chris Hinds — [email protected]
Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez — [email protected]

Thank Stacie Gilmore for her NO vote: [email protected]

SHARE THIS. Email them. Our families’ dignity deserves more than statements of concern.

10/15/2026

It’s time powwow committees take our emails and outreach seriously when we offer protocols to help protect our people. These conversations deserve attention before harm happens.

With the concerns being raised around the Black Hills Powwow, I keep thinking about how listening and putting these recommendations into practice could help prevent harm. The attached protocols were developed through the Colorado MMIR Task Force, which I serve on. They address respectful conduct, accountability for MCs, centering survivors, and clear ways to report safety concerns.

We are here to share our expertise and work together to prevent harm. Our intention is never to blame or shame, but to help strengthen the spaces where our people gather. Our women, children, and Two Spirit relatives deserve to feel safe, respected, and protected.

Please share these protocols with your communities and powwow committees. We all share responsibility for making our communities safe, and that means listening, learning, and taking action together.

Who we protect tells our people who we are.

Protocols Credit: MMIR Colorado Taskforce. Please follow our page.