WORT 89.9FM Madison
Wisconsin Native Vote 2024
(speaking in foreign language) So my name is Maria Haskins. My spirit name means changing sky woman. I live in Shano. My clan is Martin. I'm a first-line descendant of the Lakutiri tribe here in Northern Wisconsin. And then I also have Stackbridge in Oneida lineage. I'm a mom. I'm a significant other, a daughter, an auntie, a cousin, a sister. And I carry all those responsibilities as best as I can. - That sounds like a lot of responsibilities. And tell me about your work. You're working on the Get Out the Vote campaign, specifically for Native Americans. - I work with Wisconsin Native oldest and the manager of that team. We work to dismantle any type of racism that's going on at the polls. We work towards voter education. In recent years, Native Americans, we were classified as something else in other elections. And so really what we try to do is bring light to a lot of those issues within communities. And right now, what I see in communities close to home is I see a lot of my people struggling with opioid abuse. I see a lot of my relatives struggling with homelessness. I see a lot of my relatives at times struggling with food insecurity. So those are a lot of the bigger issues that we're seeing people having major concerns about. There's also a lot of talk about women's reproductive rights, wanting to make sure that we are ensuring that our children have the same rights, if not more, as they grow older. And a lot of our conversations that we have with people are what can you do to vote for those next seven generations? And I don't know about a lot of other people, but I know with me and my teachings, a lot of my relatives have taught me that my ancestors and my grandmother and before her, they said prayers to get me to where I am today. Current where I am sitting here speaking to you. And that's a huge blessing in itself to think of how my grandmother's prayers are still protecting me and guiding me today. Then we wanna make sure that we're looking out for the next seven generations, so my children and their children and their children and so on. And we wanna make sure that this earth here on Turtle Island and all over the world is being preserved so that our children can benefit and take care of Mother Earth in almost that same exact way, if not better. And so we really look to see what can we do to help remedy what's going on, to look out for those next seven generations. And so when you see those signs that say vote for the next seven, you know, I really take that seriously because the issues that we have now, if we don't start looking at ways to remedy them and to take care of our relatives, what's going to be left for those next seven? So those are a lot of the hot issues that we're looking at. There's definitely other things I think that people keep in the forefront of their mind. But a lot of the things that I see people talking about right now are the opioid crisis. It is the homelessness issues. It is the food insecurity. You know, it is how to preserve Mother Earth. It is water protecting. It's taking care of things so that we can go in a full circle. - What are some of the reasons you've heard from Native folks about why they will or won't go out to vote? - There's a lot of different things. The one thing I hear the most is things won't change for me if I vote. One thing that I heard recently, a man told me don't matter who's president. I still got to wake up at 6 a.m. and go work. You know, and there's a lot of truth to that. That's a lot of the answers that we get. You know, our voice doesn't matter. Whenever I vote, you know, things don't change. There's been some mistakes. Whether it might be not being educated about it, you know, whether it could be blatant racism. We do have people who say I won't vote like my tribal ID doesn't work at the polls. So that's why we're working pretty hard to educate, you know, different poll workers about what those tribal IDs might look like, different things like that. - So what do you say to people who say that they don't think their vote matters? 'Cause I've heard that too. - So I think a lot of it is having a conversation remaining very issue based, you know, along with our organization being 501(c)(3) and not endorsing any candidates, you know, our biggest thing is just people getting out there to exercise their civic duty, if you wanna call it. Some of those questions I give to people are, why do you feel like your vote doesn't matter? And then they come back with saying, well, nothing changes. And then it's talking about, well, what do you care about? And some people might say like, oh, well, I have a relative who's struggling with X, Y, and Z. And then it's like, okay, well, if you have an relative who might be struggling with X, Y, and Z, what policies can help that relative? What policies can help you? Somebody told me we were doing role-playing one day and I said, nope, I'm not gonna vote. And my co-worker said, well, what if your daughter, what if your baby was running for office? And that is something that it really made me pause and think because we all wanna support our children, right? And so it's really kind of getting people engaged about something that matters to them. There's a lot of people whose children attend public school and maybe there's an issue of like school lunches. It's really just finding something that somebody might be passionate about and seeing how that conversation can grow into them making the decision. Like, yeah, I think I'm going to go vote. The other bigger thing that I would speak to people about is Native Americans, we've not always had the right to vote. You know, my grandma's mom was not even concerned. My great grandmother was not even considered a citizen of the United States initially until 1924. So there's a lot of conversation that can go into that direction of how we were not classified as citizens. And then even after we were classified as citizens, there continued to be different barriers that we met when we went to the polls where they wouldn't allow us the right to vote. And I think even in talking to young women, like I was at a powwow this summer and there was a young woman, I asked her, I said, are you going to vote in this coming election? She said, no, I said, how come? And she said, I just don't be getting into those types of things. And I said, oh, why? And she said, well, it just doesn't matter. She was, couldn't have been any more than 19 years old. And I said, had a conversation with her about women's rights and how it's important for us as women to be able to make choices for our body and having the ability to make them for ourselves. And, you know, I don't know if it changed her mind. But, you know, she still didn't like register to vote. She didn't fill out a pledge card, but I could tell that she was definitely thinking about it. That's just kind of an example, I think, of when you're speaking to people about that, you're wanting to remain very issue-based in finding something that matters to them. - Yeah, and then that's a start to get her thinking. - Yeah, yeah. - What specifically is your group doing to get out the vote? - So there's a lot of projects in the work. So like recently there was a native tailgate event that we did at American Family Field, where we provided opportunities for people to come and register to vote. They filled out pledge to vote cards. We received 1,000 tickets and we were able to spread them across the different tribes in Wisconsin and invite, you know, a vast number of people to the stadium to celebrate being indigenous and having the ability to vote. Another thing that we're looking to do is we're trying to captivate that 18 to 30 age range. So it's finding creative ways to really get your message out to younger people. So getting together with different social media influencers that people might follow them and they can send that message out to people. We're currently trying to put some work in with the Milwaukee Bucks to see what kind of messaging we can get out there, to engage people in an event that way. We're doing different geo-TV rallies where, you know, it offers more opportunities for registration and giving that commitment to vote. We also have tribal mailers that we give to different tribes. One is like a reminder of, hey, you know, don't forget to go out and vote. The other thing is a mailer that the tribes can send to their tribal members and it can be used as a form of proof of address when people are registering to vote. We're also tabling at different events within the communities, encouraging people, meeting with them face to face, conducting those one-on-ones with people. As Native Americans, it goes back decades, hundreds of years. Like, this is how we formed movements together, was we organized. And so that's what we're doing is we're organizing movements because then you can bring power. Relying on that relational organizing piece, which means that we're building relationships with community members across the board, we want to talk to leaders, we want to talk to community members, we want to talk to the younger generation because we want to know what it is that we can engage you to help you exercise that democracy. And we'll just continue to find creative ways to reach people and get them to give that commitment to vote. - If people are listening and they want more information or they want to help out in some way, do you have any suggestions for folks? - Absolutely. If anybody is interested in coming out and helping us do door-to-door canvassing or tabling in communities, or simply just being a part of the movement, they can go to conservationvoices.org. Slash Native Vote. There's a lot of information about our program on there. People are more than welcome to reach out to myself or our civic engagement director Anjalee Bassine to see where there might be any appropriate avenues for them to volunteer with us then. We also have a pretty active Facebook page, Wisconsin Native Vote, where people are reaching out to find out different opportunities to come and volunteer. And also just be present at the projects that we're doing. If anybody is welcome, any project or event that we are working on, all of the public is welcome. So please come on down. If we're in your area and we're doing something fun and you have interest in it, come on down to that event and we would be happy to get acquainted with you.
Political impact of Native Americans on US elections