Letter from Jenny Slagle, Director of Tribal Relations
/Content warning: this letter addresses the topic of missing and murdered indigenous women including domestic and sexual violence.
My name is Jenny Slagle, and am a member of the Yakama Nation, and descendant of the Northern Arapaho tribe. I work at Better Health Together as the Director of Tribal Relations and in November 2019, I was elected to the Spokane Public Schools Board of Directors - the first Native American woman to serve.
“Women’s words are the not the stuff of history.” writes Clara Sue Kidwell in her essay, “Indian Women as Cultural Mediators,” in which she compares fact and fiction of Native women such as Pocahontas, and laments the lack of written testimony. “They did not write their own accounts to analyze their own actions.”
In 2011, my sister Felicia Brooks was murdered in Yakima, Washington by her abusive boyfriend. As an Urban Indian Health Institute report identifies, when (and if) media reports on missing or murdered Native women, they often discuss prior criminal history and/or drug use, perpetuating stereotypes and victim blaming. Unfortunately, this was how my sister was portrayed. She left behind six children, one of whom my husband and I were blessed to raise.
May 5th was the National Day of Awareness of Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls in remembrance of a murdered Montana Native American woman, Hanna Harris. May 5th is Hanna's birthday.
Native American values teach us that women are to be revered as beautiful, givers of life. Women are our first teachers; mothers and grandmothers raise the children, teaching respect for elders and tradition. This multigenerational relationship ensures that knowledge, strength, and struggles build stronger and resilient nations.
As Native people, our history is our strength, and our strength is our history. Our shared story is our strength, a living and evolving history of resistance and resilience is in every Indigenous person. Continued injustices are often invisible, such as the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls - MMIWG.
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman crisis across the United States, and here in Washington State, is urgent in many ways. A 2018 Urban Indian Health Institute Report shed some light on the epidemic. Washington State has the second highest number of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in the US. Through data collection, they were able to identify 506 MMIW cases. Although Seattle has the highest number in the state, it’s an issue that affects many Native families, including mine.
In 2013, another of my sisters, Angela Billy went missing for almost two weeks before a private search party found her body near a riverbank. Her death was listed as drowning, however, the mysterious circumstances surrounding her disappearance and area where she was found – behind an abusive ex-boyfriend’s rural home, were not thoroughly investigated.
My family’s losses are just two examples of this epidemic. I've been hesitant to tell their stories, because they're not mine to tell. But my sister's voices were taken away. I now advocate to bring awareness of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. I need to make sure they're not only counted but show that they were much more than just a statistic. Native men and transgendered people also disproportionately go missing and are murdered.
As a member of Red Ribbon Skirt Society of Spokane, we're working to create a tribal community response toolkit for action when a woman goes missing in our region. We can only bring awareness by raising the visibility of this epidemic. As we do this, we'll continue to hold our law enforcement and governments agencies accountable for improved data collection, and dissemination of available resources. As UIHI states "Our lives depend on it".
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