05/16/2026
On May 13, 2026 I attended the Colville MMIWP event and spoke! Excuse the poor recording. Below this I will paste my little speech,
Hello, thank you for being here.
For showing up. For choosing not to look away.
Because it’s easier to look away.
It’s so much easier to scroll past a face you don’t recognize, to hear “missing” and assume someone else will handle it.
To believe this doesn’t happen as often as it does.
But it does.
And that’s why we’re here.
We call this a crisis, an epidemic.
Missing and Murdered indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people.
MMIW.
A name that had to be created because the world wasn’t paying attention.
But even that name doesn’t fully capture it.
Because this isn’t just about people going missing.
It’s about who gets searched for..
And who doesn’t.
My sibling’s name is Kit.
Kit went missing in November of 2021.
When I say missing, I don’t mean there was urgency.
I don’t mean there were headlines,
I don’t mean people flooded the streets searching.
I mean they were gone.
The system hesitated.
First, Kit was labeled a runaway.
Just like that.
A single word that changed everything.
Because when someone is labeled a runaway, when someone indigenous, the search slows. Doesn’t matter the age. Kit was 16.
The concern softens, the urgency disappears.
And suddenly, a missing person becomes less of a priority.
That label is one of the quiet ways this crisis happens.
It isn’t always loud, not always obvious.
It’s deadly in the way it delays action.
And this is where Kit’s story stops being just ours.
This isn’t unique.
It’s happening over and over again to indigenous people across this country.
People go missing, assumptions are made. Words and rumors thrown around, Labels assigned.
Labels like “Junkie”, “criminal”, “Troubled youth”, “problem child”, and so many more. The labels that matter, forgotten, “Human”, “Mother”, “Sister”, “Daughter”, “Sibling”, “friend”.
Then? The efforts are minimized.
And families are left to fight for attention. Most people don’t realize it, but, the indigenous community only makes up about 2% of Washington state’s population despite the immense size of our reservations. And yet they make up 5-7% of the missing person’s cases. This isn’t including those that go unreported.
So, I fought.
I fought to get an investigation.
I fought to be heard.
I fought to make people understand that Kit is not a person to be labeled, filed away, and forgotten.
Kit is a person.
Kit is art and imagination.
Dinosaurs, dragons and music.
A quiet, soft, warm presence that made people feel safe.
Kit is non-binary.
And even that.
Even who they are,
Became something I have been forced to defend.
Because identity matters. Representation matters.
When you don’t see someone clearly, you don’t search for them clearly.
And that’s how people disappear deeper.
We don’t have any concrete leads in Kit’s case.
No answers.
No clear and definitive evidence of what happened.
Just… Gone.
And when there are no answers, your mind fills the silence.
With questions that don’t rest. Scenarios you cannot escape.
Where are you?
Did you suffer?
Do you know I’m still looking? Do you know I ever started looking?
This is what loved ones carry.
Not just grief but a deafening uncertainty.
Endless, unresolved, unanswered uncertainty.
For indigenous families this weight is often heavier.
Because it isn’t just personal, it’s systemic.
Indigenous women and girls face some of the highest rates of violence in the country.
They are disproportionately targeted.
Disproportionately missing.
Disproportionally ignored.
And Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ individuals in this community face even further risk.
More invisibility.
More dismissal.
More chances of being misunderstood or overlooked.
This is not an accident, it’s a pattern.
When you combine this with labels like “Runaway”, “Junkie”, “troubled teen”
With bias…
With lack of media coverage..
People vanish into a system that was never built to protect them equally.
Kit is part of that reality.
Whether anyone says it aloud or not.
Because Kit deserved urgency.
Kit deserves attention.
Kit deserved to be searched for immediately and fully, rather than forgotten and disenrolled from school quietly. Swept under the rug.
And they still do.
So I’ve taken that pain,
That anger,
That refusal to accept silence..
And I’ve built something with it.
I created Finding Kit.
Not just to find my sibling.
But to fight for visibility.
To support families like my own who are still searching.
To make sure that when someone goes missing they are seen as a person first, not just a label or a case number.
Because I know what it feels like to be ignored.
To feel like you’re screaming into a void where no one is listening.
And I don’t want anyone else to stand in that space alone.
Finding Kit is about breaking silence.
It’s about pushing stories forward where they would otherwise be buried.
It’s about honouring people who deserve to be remembered loudly.
Because silence is what allowed this crisis to grow.
And silence is what keeps it alive.
So we have to be louder.
When you leave here today, don’t leave this behind.
Talk about it.
Share and say their names.
Pay attention to the cases that don’t get coverage and ask “Why?”
Support the families, the organizations doing this work.
Because awareness is not enough if it fades tomorrow.
I am still searching for Kit every single day.
In every post, every conversation, every moment like this.
Because love doesn’t stop. Even when the answers do.
I don’t know where Kit is.
I don’t know what happened.
But what I do know is this:
They are loved.
They are missed.
And they are not forgotten.
And as long as I have a voice, I will keep saying their name.
Because this is how we fight back against silence.
So I’m going to say it and I want you to feel it.
Kit.
And now, think of every name we haven’t gotten to say today.
Every face we didn’t get to show.
Every story still waiting to be heard.
They matter too.
This isn’t about just one person. This is about all of them.
And one day, we will live in a world where no one has to fight this hard just to be searched for.
Until then, we keep speaking.
We keep showing up.
We keep fighting.
Together.
