Published: May 25, 2024
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing in response to the Letter of Dismay published by a member of the Berkeley Friends Meeting as an individual who heavily advocated for the return of the Woolman center to the Nisenan. I find that the letter completely misunderstands fundamentals to Indigenous culture and resource management and will be a great stain on Towards the Right Relationship.
Even if the Nisenan did build a casino on the property, I happen to work on a reservation that benefits greatly from having a casino bringing in business. It enables the tribe to allow me to access their critically endangered language for free, children with developmental disabilities to be adequately diagnosed, fight to preserve their salmon and fishing rights, hold tribal events free of admission costs, and that's only the aspects I've witnessed. Also, to minimize the suffering of California Indigenous people, and erasing the California genocide strikes a particular chord with me considering my first Quaker trip was to the site of one such massacre. And yes, casino funds do directly go to making sure the people I serve are clothed, fed, and housed in the literal sense. Business to the casino makes my job as an allied healer serving on the reservation enormously more effective and accessible to those who need it.
Suggesting that the money be better allocated to the World Wildlife Fund or the Sierra Club misunderstands Indigenous models of ecology, fundamentals of which would be easily revealed if Berkeley Friends Meeting had done their due diligence to talk directly to an Indigenous group. I work with Indigenous people every day-- and I talk to them. Indigenous people and cultures protect an enormous swath of biodiversity on this planet, and they know the land we live on best. Wildfire management is a great cause of human suffering in the state of California, and whose management techniques are we now adopting? Indigenous techniques that reduce blaze severity, mortality, and loss of housing. Indigenous heritage revival specific to California literally means countless lives saved, both inside and outside reservations.
In regards to Quaker education, I did my due diligence to investigate that the reasons why Quakers are on Turtle Island, religious prosecution, are now obsolete. I see European linguistic and cultural revival to facilitate the slow but sure return of Quakers to Europe to be key on my mind. I don't need a special school to be Quaker when I have the internet and can access all sorts of information, just like how I don't need to be in Europe to be culturally European.
Quaker education in my experience as a Young Friend is alive and well, and it's because of the value of integrity that I saw the return of the land to the Nisenan as just. I have wanted for very little in my journey and consider the preservation of critically endangered or revival of Indigenous heritage to be more important than the Woolman center. The Ben Lomond center last I checked, is still my spiritual home, and the right relationship can lead to the most wonderful places. If the Nisenan are anything like the Indigenous cultures I serve, who is to say they can't accommodate some Young Friends a couple times a year-- the people I serve make some great salmon, and our patronage would further benefit them.
As a Young Friend, I don't need a specific school to teach me Quaker values when I have the internet, thank you very much. If we did donate money to a college, why not the former residential school turned school where Indigenous culture is now thriving? PBS has a video about that, it's free to watch.
Obligatory resources list, mind you all of these are FREE to access:
Documentary on the California Genocide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeksO_rGepw&t=2s
Documentary on the California Genocide, 20 years later highlighting effects of mercury poisoning: https://www.westernfriend.org/news/letter-of-dismay/
Basically anything from PBS Origins produced by Indigenous people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIjnxwi79hc
Indigenous fire practices: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/fire/indigenous-fire-practices-shape-our-land.htm
Timeline of traumatic events in Native history, many of which happened in California. https://nativephilanthropy.candid.org/events/yuki-massacre-at-bloody-rock-california/
It's also worth checking how Indigenous run casinos use their funds, because in my experience they're generally pretty transparent about it, and in my case have enough funds to donate back to the community outside of the reservation as well. Land Back is a central tenet to the way I live, how I operate as a Quaker, and decolonize my thinking and perspectives on a daily basis. We are guests on land that is not ours, for reasons that no longer exist-- I have never experienced religious prosecution because I'm Quaker. I feel like I can't be open about being Quaker when I'm spoken over by those who frankly don't understand anything about Indigenous people, which does not make the Right Relationship via Quaker Peace Teams any easier. Obligatory citation of Paula Palmer: https://friendspeaceteams.org/trr/ I'd like for Young Friends to be talked to, not talked over. If the intent of the article was to make the next generations of Quakers preserved and heard, this certainly wasn't it.
Next time, maybe talk to Young Friends and understand how the Quaker faith is able to adapt and evolve to new formats and realities. The digital era allowed me to access the Quaker way even while serving in some of the most remote places on Turtle Island, and isn't that the truly spiritual, what transcends the physical realm? If the schools are either inaccessible or unaffordable, what use are they of to me? Give it to people who can and will utilize the resources to begin to heal the past. (Seven generations, anyone? Just me? Free lecture is around here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGia5Gsv6l4) Seriously if you go to a single Tribal event you will hear about this very sustainable philosophy, which part of the SPICES was it? Oh right, literally ALL of them.
As a Young Friend I advocated for the return of the Woolman center to the Nisenan, and might have been the first one to mention them a few winters ago on that property. This is central to my Quaker faith and practice, and just on every single level the right thing to do. Indigenous culture is enjoying a revival, and us Quakers will be fine. For us to be panicked about our survival when we have not faced several hundred years of cultural and apocalyptic destruction is a matter of misplaced priorities.
from Anna Illés, Unaffiliated Young Friend (5/22/2024)