Go-Gi-Sgk So-Qui-Li Isadora Dimalanta

Senior Project

McGeehan - Harley

05/21/2020

My Indigenous sisters are vanishing and don't get the attention they need.

Bianca Linares, a Mexican-American Makeup Artist, from Morphe Cosmetics made racist

comments towards the Indigenous community on May 4 on Instagram. Bianca went to apologize

for the hateful remarks but, the next day posted on her account a picture with her middle finger,

which has since been deleted from her feed along with the apology posted on Facebook.

Even so, they can still be found circling the internet. May 5, nationally known in the U.S. as

Cinco de Mayo, commemorating the Mexican Army's victory over the French Empire at the

Battle of Puebla. This is also a mournful day which the Indigenous people around the world

honor MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women). While this comment is speculated to

be photoshopped Bianca replied in her direct messages on social media, “go missing and

murdered why don’t you.” This country doesn’t seem to care if anything happens to us at all.

Rather than making jokes about this issue, we actually need to be taking it more seriously. Police

officers should be putting every case into their databases, reaching to the news channels, and
Amber alerts. Our officers should be more diligent in doing so. Indigenous communities have

pushed to the back burners and been forgotten about since 1492.

The Urban Indian Health Institute did a November report and found that there have been 506

cases of missing and murdered Native women and girls in 71 cities across the U.S. since 2010.

Of those 506 cases, 128 or 25% were reported missing, 280 or 56% were murdered, and 98 or

19% are still unknown. However, this data is almost certainly an undercount.

UIHI identified that 153 cases did not exist in law enforcement records. Police Departments are

here to protect and serve everyone, but is it protecting and serving if you miscount MMIW

cases? We are going to you if something’s wrong, not to make matters worse.

According to the National Institute of Justice, 97% of Native women who have experienced

violence had been victimized by non-Native perpetrators. It’s startling when you know there’s

over 5,000 indigenous females missing and murdered and the majority of every case the killer is

not found. Meaning that murderers of these cases are walking freely like nothing happened,

probably planning their next attack.

According to the Los Angeles Times, native girls and women are killed at a rate 10x higher the

national average. That’s higher than any other racial group combined. One of my cousins from

the Shinnecock Indian Nation in Long Island, New York went missing a few years back and

luckily she was found. Family and friends said she just ran away, but she was still missing.
Women are essential to life, for giving life. We are natural-born nurtures. Every woman needs to

feel safe, however Indigenous women are disappearing at a drastic rate higher than any female

population throughout the United States and Canada. If females don’t feel safe in their own

communities, there is good possibility they will not feel safe outside their community.

The Not Invisible Act is a law that is also about the epidemic and is supposed to work with

Savanna’s Act. Ultimately, the bill would create an advisory committee comprised of law

enforcement, tribal leaders, survivors, and family members of a victim, which will make

recommendations to the Departments of Justice and the Interior for how to address the crisis. It

would also designate an official within the Bureau of Indian Affairs to improve violent crime

prevention efforts across federal agencies.

As stated by an article from CBS News, “On May 7, Democratic senators took to the Senate

floor to condemn their Republican colleagues for not being willing to support VAWA.” The

Violence Against Women Act is designed to improve criminal justice and community-based

responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking in the United States.

Violence resonates between Violence Against Women Act and Not Invisible Act, just on two

different levels. Both Acts mention different types of violence like how VAWA brought up

dating violence and sexual assault and NIA sole purpose is to work with other Acts to reduce

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. There are many factors that intertwine with MMIW,

like violence of any sort.

Former President Barack Obama reauthorized the passage of VAWA in 2013 extending

provisions to protect Native Americans and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Other pros to

this reauthorization includes; providing for more care and assistance for LGBTQ+ victims,

providing law enforcement with better resources to investigate cases of rape, continues to allow

relief for immigrant victims of domestic violence, empowers tribal courts to prosecute those who

commit domestic violence on tribal lands, regardless of whether the aggressor is a member of the

tribe, and gives colleges more tools to educate students about dating violence and sexual assault.

25 years ago, Sonya Nadine Mae Cywink was along with the tens of thousands missing and

murdered cold cases. Her family did everything in their power to find her killer. On August 30,

1994, Sonya’s body was discovered a 40-minute drive Southwest from London, Ontario. Wilfred

Laurier Cywink Sr., father to Sonya, learned that she was also pregnant when she was murdered.

He not only lost a child, but a grandchild.

“Twenty-five years later, we are still searching. We still want that closure. We need to have that

as a family.” said Naomi Abotossaway, one of Sonya’s sisters.

Families are being broken everyday and night due to this epidemic. They just want clarity to find

their daughter, niece, auntie, grandma, a friend. A son, uncle, grandpa, nephew. Whether alive or

not, families just want the truth.

Could this be because society infrequently sees of White families having to go through these

harsh times like our fellow BIPOC (Black/Indigenous/People of Color) families do? On

numerous occasions, when a White person goes missing the area panics or they’re found. When

a White person is murdered, their killer will habitually face the consequences. Yet, we rarely see

precautions like such being done to our Black and Brown communities. Which makes it more

important to speak out about the wrongful injustices we face in society.

Others can argue that since this epidemic stems from many outcomes, it’s harder for the higher

ups to make decisions on what to do. Based in the U.S. Department of the Interior, Charles

Addington the Deputy Bureau Director – Office of Justice Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs, at

the Department of the Interior stated, ”While it is widely believed that there may be a correlation

between opioid and other narcotics abuse, human trafficking, domestic violence, and MMIP,

without sufficient data, it is difficult to draw solid conclusions.’’ Addington also said, ”Federal

agencies must develop concrete solutions to improve agency data collection to ensure these

crimes are being tracked and investigated appropriately so that any trends can be properly

identified and addressed.’’

In conclusion, MMIW isn’t just a crisis, but an epidemic and what I also consider modernized

genocide. Settler colonialism, a term I recently heard of, is a form of colonialism that seeks to

replace the original inhabitants of the colonized territory with a new society of settlers. You’d

see this being organized or supported by an imperial authority. When settler colonialism happens
it looks like violent depopulation of original inhabitants. When you put two and two together,

this is happening.

Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, coined the

name “Highway of Tears” because too many girls and women have ended up here alone,

missing, and murdered.

Covid-19 has a terrible impact in the Indian Country because they’re highly affected by this

lockdown. Personally, I know of a few elders that have passed away due to covid 19. The Navajo

Nation in the Southwest spreads through 3 states alone and has very poor resources. My dad and

his girlfriend live there and I'm praying everyday for everyone there. I think to myself the impact

that MMIW has is an advantage right now. The perpetrators that walk freely on the streets daily

can easily snatch up some females from surrounding Native communities. No one would notice

because the virus test tents are in the Navajo Nation, so maybe a person that works there can

drive back.

From April 2016 – February 2017 DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) is a Keystone XL Pipeline

that crosses through the Standing Rock/Sioux Indian Reservation, killing their water supply on

the Reserve including neighboring towns. Nations and tribes came to the frontlines and protected

the water. They made a huge tent city, however, men working for the Pipeline would sexually

abuse the native women and rape them.

When will violence towards my people end? One day that we have to pray on. We have to keep

pushing through and having faith that our stolen sisters will one day be heard loud and clear.

We’ll always fight for our women and it will not stop.

Tabutne ~ Thank You.