Hello, and welcome to this bonus episode of America A History Recorded straight after our recently published episode, what were the American Indian Boarding Schools genuinely like?

One of the most heartbreaking episodes I've recorded on this podcast.

And please do listen to the full thing on the feed if you haven't yet.

I'm joined now by my guest from that episode, Jacqueline Fierce Siegel from uea.

Jackie, thank you for hanging on.

Yep, I'm still here.

Wonderful.

So, you know, we talked in detail on the main podcast about what those boarding schools were and, and, and the fallout of that, and also, you know, the, the Joe Biden apology that he made towards the, the end of his, of his term.

I'd like to just touch on for a moment, you know, what the next few years especially might have in store for Native American communities in the US Because Trump has brought in a very MAGA agenda, and that's been made very clear from sort of the, the first few days even in office.

So that's reason to be concerned if you're a Native American, isn't it?

I think it is.

I mean, it's obviously, it's very early days, and of course, there were some Native people who voted for Trump, but on the whole, I would say that there's a huge amount of alarm in Indian country because we already had four years of a Trump government, and Native people saw what that meant for them.

Yeah.

But this second term feels different in that it feels more organized, it feels a lot less restricted in terms of what they're trying to do and the brashness that they're trying to do it with.

Why do you think Native Americans might have voted for Trump knowing that, you know, because this, this is no surprise.

He's doing what he said he would do.

And it's, it surprises me that, you know, non white, non males would even consider voting for Trump, to be honest.

I don't, I can't.

I mean, that's such a complicated thing.

I don't know the answer.

And I think the vast majority didn't.

And right now, a lot of those executive orders are having an immediate impact on some Native peoples.

For example, these ICE raids, you know, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, people who are going into communities and arresting people.

And we've already seen whole planeloads of people have been sent back to their home countries.

Well, the Navajo Nation office has been flooded with calls.

Obviously, they're in the southwest of America, calls from Navajo citizens who are living off reservation, who have been threatened by the ICE raids, presumably, because they don't look White.

And of course, they have been told they must carry their identity.

So I think there's fear in the Native communities about what this hostility to non whites is going to mean.

And obviously, they are not immigrants.

They're the one group in the United States that can't be called immigrants in any way, and yet they feel themselves as under threat, have to prove their identity.

And then, of course, in the previous administration under Trump, we saw that this whole support for the oil industry, we now, you know, part of his campaign this time was under the title Drill, Baby Drill.

So that's likely to affect many Native communities.

We saw the protests against the Dakota Access pipeline that was going to go under the Mississippi river just above Bismarck, which was a white community.

And when they realized that if there was a leak it would affect their water supply, then immediately the plan was to move it downriver and put it under the lake, the Ohio Lake, which was the water supply for the Standing Rock people.

And that site was very fierce.

And the Trump side was allowed the continuation of the building of that pipeline.

It had been stopped by Obama, and Trump let it be built.

So from that point of view, there is a fear about what that oil industry and the lack of respect for natural resources and especially for the people up in Alaska who are sitting on a lot of resources, and the determination is to drill in Alaska.

So I think different aspects of the lack of sovereignty that's going to be allowed to Native peoples, lack of respect for natural resources, which they obviously are trying to safeguard for their own communities, and a general fear of the hostility to groups that aren't straightforwardly white Americans.

Yeah.

And I think on sort of the drilling point, I mean, Trump has been actively following through on that agenda by rolling back environmental policies, by pulling out of the.

Or certainly getting the wills in motion to pull out of the Paris Accord.

And that must be very worrying for Native communities.

But I think it's very worrying for Native communities, and it's very worrying for a lot of other people in the United States who would like to see at least some kind of attempt to not pollute the environment and not to drill further and make fossil fuels, make America more dependent on fossil fuels.

But I think for Native people in particular, who have very.

Have always been resilient and have always fought, they are aware that they're going to have to continue fighting for their sovereignty to remain as independent peoples, as well as for the rights of their individual citizens within their nations, there is not going to be much tolerance for separate communities like Native people have, who are members of both the United States, citizens of the United States and citizens of their own nations.

Yeah, it's a very worrying time.

And you touched on the immigration piece and sort of the mass deportations that Trump is threatening.

And there's a crazy irony both, both to that and also to him wanting to revoke birthright citizenship because actually the, the one, the one community that should be exempt from both of those are Native Americans.

And it's just, it's just, it's crazy to me that Trump has the audacity to stand there and say that he wants to do all of this stuff when, you know, the, the biggest perpetrators of that are white settlers.

Well, I mean, Native people have only been citizens of the United States since 1924, and that's partly because so many of them fought in the First World War.

So they haven't had rights.

They are excluded, specifically excluded from the Constitution.

So they haven't had the normal rights of American citizens until quite recently in the last hundred years.

But they're also, some Native communities living close to the borders have found problems with the immigrant communities, the immigrants moving onto their land.

So there's been a complicated issue for them.

But there are communities that have had the wall built right across the middle of their lands, and that has not been something which Trump did.

That's not something which has been welcomed.

So they actually have their lands divided by the wall.

So I think it's a period of fear.

I mean, I think we saw the Bishop of Washington speak out about the numbers of people who are frightened.

And I think in that group, there are a lot of Native people who are frightened about their individual rights, the sovereign rights of their communities, and just what living in the United States is going to mean for them in these next four years.

Yeah, it's a very worrying time for a lot of people in, in, in the US Right now.

Jackie, thank you for talking to me both here and also on the.

The main episode.

As always, it's, it's truly enlightening to, to, to learn a little bit more about Native American history every time we speak.

And anyone listening to this podcast, as always, we'll leave more information in the show notes so that you can learn and explore further.

And, you know, if you do like what you hear on the podcast, remember to rate and review and follow the show because that bumps us up the algorithms, helps other people find us, and that's awesome.

But thank you so much for listening and goodbye.