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First Peoples Fund is pleased to introduce Jessica Kaneakua (Kānaka Maoli) as the new Development Assistant! Kaneakua is a community organizer and advocate based in Hawai’i.

“When I saw the opportunity to become the new Development Assistant,” says Kaneakua, “I jumped at the chance!”

In her professional work and community leadership, Jessica seeks opportunities that help build personal and community agency, or “chang[ing] the conditions in which flowers reside so that they may thrive.”

Kaneakua attended Macalester College, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. “I am a trauma-informed care trainer,” says Kaneakua. “And I look forward to bring trauma-informed care practices to my work.”

Kaneakua is also a board member for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Native Hawaiian Revolving Loan Fund, which works to improve the lives of Native Hawaiians through financial assistance. “As Kānaka Maoli [Native Hawaiin], I'm drawn to organizations that recognize and perpetuate values and practices that reflect my own,” which is why Kaneakua joined First Peoples Fund. “I am passionate about actively decolonizing so that I may reconnect to my own ancestral wisdom.”

As the new Development Assistant, Kaneakua supports fundraising efforts that lift programs and initiatives at First Peoples Fund.

“I have been following First Peoples Fund for some time. My role will support the Collective Spirit of artists and culture bearers.”

Kaneakua is currently pursuing a Master of Legal Studies in Indigenous Peoples Law through the University of Oklahoma, College of Law. “I look forward to bringing my knowledge and skills from my educational program to First Peoples Fund,” says Kaneakua.

First Peoples Fund welcomes Heidi K. Brandow (Diné & Kānaka Maoli) as the new Communications Manager!

Brandow is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, whose work is centered on the inclusion of Indigenous people and perspectives in the development of ethical and sustainable methods of creative engagement. She is co-founder of the Harvard Indigenous Design Collective, which supports the education and work of Indigenous architects, planners, designers, scholars, allies, and alumni of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where Brandow earned her Master of Design Studies.

While Brandow considers herself a visual artist more than a designer, she admits her artmaking process is nontraditional. “I realized that art and design are a perfect marriage,” says Brandow, who was featured on the Design Voice Podcast. “Because where art asks the questions, I think design opposes the answers.”

Brandow is also an advocate in social justice. While studying Industrial Design at Istanbul Technical University, Brandow co-led an art-project that documented the solid waste and recycling industry in Turkey. The (in)dispensable Project revealed the harsh day-to-day lives of individuals working in the solid waste industry.

Human trafficking and unsafe working conditions were some of the everyday threats these workers faced. “I always have this intention of thinking how I can apply my experience and energy towards uplifting not only Navajo Nation or Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) people,” said Brandow on the Design Voice Podcast. “But for Native people at large,” including kağıt toplayıcı (or garbage collectors) in Turkey.

In May 2021, Brandow led a community lecture called Decolonial Curatorial Praxis & Community Engagement. In her lecture, Brandow challenges museums, including her alma mater Harvard University,  on their unethical collection practices. In recent decades, academic institutions and museums have been called out for gathering artifacts without consent from the communities they steal from. But Brandow is changing that.

“We hope to initiate a different type of thinking,” says Brandow.

As Communications Manager, Brandow is excited to elevate the mission of First Peoples Fund, where she plans to execute communication strategies that will advance Native artists and cultural bearers across the nation.

Anthony Hudson is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, performer, and filmmaker. Anthony is known as Portland, Oregon’s premier drag clown Carla Rossi, an immortal trickster whose attempts at realness almost always result in fantastic failure. Together they have been featured at the Portland and Seattle Art Museums, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, the 2019 Portland Biennial, the Risk/Reward Festival, PICA's TBA Festival, Melbourne’s Yirramboi Festival, and more. Anthony also regularly hosts and programs Queer Horror – the only LGBTQ+ horror film screening series in the United States – at the historic Hollywood Theatre.

“I’ve always been an activist,” says Two-Spirit Anthony Hudson (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde), who uses they/them pronouns. “And I see my [creative] work as activist work.” Hudson is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, filmmaker, and performer. Notably, Hudson performs as the hilarious drag queen Carla Rossi in Portland, Oregon.

“I’m an angry, tired person,” jokes Hudson. “And a lot of my work comes from responding to things I see in the world, like confronting white supremacy.”

Hudson says their drag persona Carla Rossi lampoons colonization. During the height of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Hudson released a video in which Carla mocks former Fox News anchor and Trump supporter Kimberly Guifolyle, who garnered attention on the internet for her over-the-top speech at the 2020 Republican National Convention.

Hudson explains their activism is always humor-centered. “I want [my work] to be funny, and I want it to be relatable, and I want to make something that people can empathize and connect with and laugh with and laugh over.”

“I want [my work] to be funny, and I want it to be relatable, and I want to make something that people can empathize and connect with and laugh with and laugh over.”

“Otherwise people won't listen,” warns Hudson.

Yet confronting white supremacy and other prejudices hasn’t been easy.

“I started the first gay-straight alliance in my school district when I was in high school,” says Hudson, who grew up in a small town in rural Oregon. “And we got death threats and parents would threaten to picket.” But funneling these hardships to produce art — and drag persona Carla Rossi — motivates Hudson. “I try to do the things that young Anthony would have wanted to see in that small town.”

In addition to drag performances, Hudson co-hosts Gaylords of Darkness, a weekly queer feminist horror podcast, and they curate and host Queer Horror, a bi-monthly screening series at Portland’s historic Hollywood Theatre. As a multidisciplinary artist, Hudson also acts, produces, writes, and lectures, which is arduous work, especially while managing a touring schedule to make ends meet.

STANDING UP (AND OUT)

Then COVID-19 hit.

Like many artists who rely on in-person performances for income, Hudson had to rethink their career when a global pandemic unfolded in 2020. “I realized that I had broken myself by overworking for several years,” admits Hudson, which is why they applied to the Artist in Business Leadership Fellowship with First Peoples Fund.

“[The fellowship] is about refocusing and recentering,” says Hudson. One of Hudson’s fellowship projects is to figure out how to do less income-driven touring and expand more of their time to generate new art, particularly digital media. And Hudson doesn’t have to strategize alone. The camaraderie and support from other First Peoples Fund fellows has been significant, Hudson says.

“[First Peoples Fund] is about bettering ourselves and our communities together.”

As pandemic restrictions lift, Hudson wonders how they (and Carla Rossi) will return to in-person performances. “The world is racing to go back to normal. I don’t want to be a part of that,” says Hudson. In particular, Hudson is critical toward venues that were reluctant to help artists during lockdowns but who are now rapidly booking artists as restrictions loosen or lift, despite COVID-19 related deaths still occurring.

The inconsistent venue support during lockdown, on the other hand, inspired new work for Hudson. Carla Does Drag is a new show in which Carla Rossi is held captive and is forced to perform for an audience. “Carla hasn’t performed since before the pandemic,” jokes Hudson. “So the entire show is about Carla failing to do drag correctly!” Carla Does Drag will premiere at Stanford University in November 2021. Hudson also plans to film and distribute Carla Does Drag as part of their fellowship project.

At the root of Hudson’s work (and drag persona Carla Rossi) is radical honesty. “This is about confrontation,” advocates Hudson. “This is about discomfort. This is inspired by my ancestors. I want to be unabashedly Native, unabashedly queer, unabashedly me.”

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Tyler Star Comes Out (Húŋkpapȟa/ Mnikȟówožu/Oglala Lakȟóta/Cheyenne) has been passionate about writing since 5th grade. “Poetry is something I really love. I always carry a notebook just in case I get inspired.” Star Comes Out, who graduated high school last month, participates in Dances with Words, a youth development initiative of First Peoples Fund that works with young writers on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

“I write poems in Lakota to help myself be more culturally involved,” says Star Comes Out.

Established in 2015, Dances with Words has collaborated with nearly three dozen young people this year alone, says Autumn White Eyes (Oglala Lakota/Turtle Mountain Band of Anishinaabe), Program Manager of Youth Development at First Peoples Fund. “The program offers workshops, open mics, feedback sessions, and invites guest speakers to talk with our youth.”

Poet and 2020 Cultural Capital Fellow CooXooEii Black (Northern Arapaho/African American) was thrilled to collaborate with Dances with Words for an open mic event. “You could tell [the youth] are passionate about their writing,” says Black. “Dances with Words gives young people a chance to be heard, which is especially important for indigenous writers at a young age.”

Wohpe Clamore (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe), an 11th grader from Rapid City, South Dakota, wants to grow as a poet. “We had guest speakers who told us to incorporate Lakota words into our work,” says Claymore. “We did a lot of writing prompts and icebreakers which helped my writing. And we’re encouraged to give and receive feedback on our work. I love feedback!”

Claymore plans to write a book of poetry about relationships and grief.

History and Healing

Like many young Native writers,  Wohpe Claymore and Tyler Star Comes Out acknowledge writing can help process intergenerational trauma and personal grief. “We learned about land treaties,” says Star Comes Out. “And we wrote our feelings down, which was helpful and healing.”

Star Comes Out also describes learning about Indian residential schools during a writing session, a tragic history for all Native peoples, especially when Native communities are uncovering unmarked mass graves in Canada and the U.S. in recent months. After their writing session, youth were encouraged to smudge themselves. “The staff are part of our tribe, so they understand our ways,” says Star Comes Out. “And it helps me feel connected and safe.”

Confronting difficult subject matter, like racial injustice, and writing about it was a recent workshop topic at Wóoyake Théča Oyáte, an inaugural virtual poetry festival hosted by Dances with Words. Ty Defoe (Giizhig), an interdisciplinary artist who led the workshop in May 2021, was invigorated by what he saw.  “I felt I was in conversation with not only future generations, but it was healing at the same time,” says Defoe. “[The youth] gave me hope.”

“I felt I was in conversation with not only future generations, but it was healing at the same time,” says Defoe. “[The youth] gave me hope.”

Wóoyake Théča Oyáte is a week-long virtual poetry festival that offers daily workshops, open mics, and networking opportunities for youth ages 13-19 residing in Oceti Sakowin Territory. The purpose of this festival is to assist Native youth in exploring literary and oral history traditions across cultures, develop their own narratives, and to be heard in their communities.

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CooXooEii (pronounced Jaw-Kah-Hay) Black advocates that youth should express their feelings, especially through writing. “In Indian Country, youth are not taught [to share their feelings],” says Black. “Bottling emotions can lead to toxicity, and emotional maturity is important for breaking [harmful] cycles we’ve seen in the past.”

Voices of the Future

In March 2021, youth from the Pine Ridge Reservation participated in the Thunder Valley Youth Initiative Leadership Summit, in partnership with Dances with Words and the Native Wellness Institute. The summit discussed topics such as health and wellness, drug and alcohol prevention, environmental justice, and racial equity. And two Dances with Words participants led a morning blessing in the Lakota language.

"We were really excited to offer this Youth Leadership Summit with Thundervalley CDC,” says Autumn White Eyes. “In the height of the pandemic when schools were entirely virtual, First Peoples Fund wanted to offer a virtual summit for youth all across the reservation to gather and learn together in leadership and art skills.”

First Peoples Fund offered two workshops based on feedback from the youth. Jaida Grey Eagle (Oglala Lakota) led a photography workshop on racial equity, and Dances with Words poet mentors led a writing workshop on environmental justice. Nearly a dozen youth participated in the summit.

Dances with Words is more than a writing program for young writers. The program offers arts education knowledge connected to community and societal issues, while preparing youth to grow as emerging artists and civic leaders. Tyler Star Comes Out didn’t realize she was an artist and an activist until Dances with Words. “I learned that I really like activism,” says Star Comes Out, who participated in the Black Hills protest against white supremacy last year and wrote a poem about her experience. “That’s another thing Dances with Words talks about: politics and environmentalism go together. That’s what inspired me to go to college.”

“That’s another thing Dances with Words talks about: politics and environmentalism go together. That’s what inspired me to go to college.”

Star Comes Out plans to attend Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado this fall to study political science.

“I realized my resiliency starts with standing up for things I believe in.”  

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Ty Defoe (Giizhig) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, storyteller, and Grammy Award winner from the Oneida and Ojibwe Nations. Ty has an integral approach to artistic projects by pulling in social justice messages rooted through words, music, literature, theatre, and now film with digital media components. Some of his favorite places to tour (virtually or physically) are in Native communities across Turtle Island and inspiring future generations to come with Indigenous futurism.

More than a decade ago, Ty Defoe (Giizhig) won a Grammy for his collaboration on the album Come to Me Great Mystery - Native American Healing Songs (2008). As a writer and interdisciplinary artist — who also hoop dances, acts, and directs — what can top a Grammy? Dreaming seven generations ahead.

“If you aren’t dreaming seven generations ahead,” explains Defoe, who quotes an Anishinaabe value, “You’re not dreaming big enough.”

“If you aren’t dreaming seven generations ahead,” explains Defoe, who quotes an Anishinaabe value, “You’re not dreaming big enough.”

The future Defoe dreams of is fiercely Indigenous and queer. “As an Indigi-queer person who comes from a myriad of artmaking practices, I am forecasting rainbows,” advocates Defoe.

Recently, Defoe was commissioned by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to produce a digital story for the Visual Sovereignty Project, which aims to decolonize O!, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s digital platform. Defoe’s project, titled Strong Like Flower, is about tribal and personal sovereignty. “It’s an intimate piece of symbolic literacy from my Ashinaabe worldview,” Defoe explained in a Q&A session with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

A central force of Defoe’s work is decolonizing western depictions of gender. “Art  has the power to amplify and uplift Two-Spirit and Indigi-queer individuals, processes, and practices.” For instance, Defoe is making a Two-Spirit Indigi-queer pop-up powwow at the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art at The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas, for Fuse Box Festival’s Live in America scheduled to debut in October 2021. The powwow is co-produced by his collaborators Amanda Luke and Jamelyn Ebelacker at All My Relations Collective, a social justice arts collective.

Future Forward with First Peoples Fund

As a 2021 Cultural Capital Fellow, Defoe is publishing a digital graphic novel (again, with his collaborators Lux Haac and Katherine Freer from All My Relations Collective) that will offer cultural knowledge —  or narrative artful medicine, as Defoe describes —  for Two-Spirit and Indigi-queer people, especially youth. “My worldview is Anishinaabe,” elaborates Defoe.”This [project] is about centralizing peace and at the same time exploring artful disruptions.”

Offering wisdom that withstands time is important for Defoe, just like his Ashinaabe and Oneida ancestors did for him. “I lead with messages and stories about what’s happening in current times,” says Defoe, which shapes a better future for Native people. “Futurism is something I’ve been dreaming about. And some settlers are like, ‘What’s that?’”

“[Indigenous futurism] is about glitterizing traditional practices while creating reparations to give back to our communities.”

And what nurtures Indigenous futurism, explains Defoe, is First Peoples Fund. “Being a Cultural Capital Fellow, I’m able to contact First Peoples Fund staff, who are there to engage in conversation about the artmaking process.”

While the artmaking process isn’t always easy, admits Defoe, collaborating with non-Native and colonized arts programs is even more challenging. “But I feel I don’t have to do cultural translation [with First Peoples Fund]. I can fully be myself. This is why it’s important to uplift Indigenous queer people, and why it’s important to talk about futurism for our people.”

“At First Peoples Fund, I get to dream,” says Defoe, perhaps seven generations ahead.

Marjorie Kunaq Tahbone has a wide range of talents and skills centering on her Iñupiaq and Kiowa heritage.

Raised at her family fish camp outside of Nome Alaska, Marjorie uses resources from the land to create her art. It is important for her to learn the skills of hide tanning, skin sewing, and the knowledge that has been passed down for generations because it is essential to having a strong cultural identity. She also works to teach these valuable skills to those interested in learning. Using traditional art forms and designs inspires Marjorie to create modern art that allows for a deeper connection to her ancestors. She is working on a master’s degree in Indigenous Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Marjorie is a 2021 Artist in Business Leadership Fellow.

Marjorie Kunaq Tahbone (Inupiaq, Kiowa) is a traditional seamstress and fashion designer.

And she makes mistakes.

From a young age, her mother encouraged missteps and errors. Tahbone was raised in a fish camp outside Nome, Alaska, and her mother let her fail, especially while learning traditional seal tanning techniques. “My mom gave me liberty to make mistakes [while tanning] seal,” Tahbone says.

Because, and as her mother put it, you have to start somewhere.

But through failing and learning, Tahbone strengthened her skills to sew kammak, or traditional mukluks boots. “My process is to learn how it was done traditionally,” Tahbone says. “So I do research. I look at books and pictures. I try to do it the way that my ancestors have done it. Then I start using my own artistic mind [by] using different materials and different designs.”

“[First Peoples Fund] helped me not just financially, but they developed my foundation,” Tahbone says. Several years ago, she participated in First Peoples Fund’s Native Artist Professional Development (NAPD) program, where she learned how to write an artist statement and an artist resume. NAPD hosts virtual webinars on business topics like social media marketing, artist calendaring, contract negotiations, and more (watch archived webinars on First People Fund’s Youtube Channel). Eventually, Tahbone went from attending these workshops as a student to teaching them as a certified NAPD trainer. And recently, she co-instructructed an entrepreneurship workshop titled Pricing + Marketing + Artists Calendaring.

Eventually, Tahbone was selected as a 2021 ABL fellow and has taught virtual classes on Naniq carving (seal oil lamp).

“I'm just really honored to be in this position where First Peoples Fund supports me [and] I can do projects.”

- Marjorie Kunaq Tahbone

Traditional Motherhood

In May 2021, Tahbone began a 5-year project (which her ABL fellowship will help support) that will teach Indigenous mothers and women how to process ugruk — an arctic seal — for seal oil, food, and hides. “These women learn to get out of their comfort zone and make mistakes,” Tahbone says. “But [they] feel good about doing something that their ancestors have done since time immemorial.”

When asked why this project is necessary, Tahbone continues, “I want to empower women [who] feel like they can’t speak up. I'm still learning how to speak up because I was raised in a colonial mentality that women must be polite and be kind and smile and not cause a ruckus. So I'm using my art to [cause a ruckus].”

What also empowers Tahbone is motherhood. “I teach my [3-year-old] daughter [that] she's allowed to make mistakes. She’s growing and learning. And I feel like a lot of adults need that support,” she says. “We are raised to not make mistakes. And if we do, we're not good. We  need to get rid of that mentality and start bringing back our traditional ways of raising people with love.”

This includes traditional motherhood. Tahbone elaborates, “Our traditional parenting is showing love [while children] try and practice on their own. It's so valuable.” For instance, Tahbone describes her daughter as an independent dresser: “My daughter [will] say, ‘I need to do this by myself,’ and so she will. She’ll put on her clothes all by herself. They'd be backwards or inside out. I don't correct her. It still functions as a shirt, and she feels proud that she did it on her own. And I just love it.”

Marjorie Kunaq Tahbone (Inupiaq, Kiowa) teaches business workshops for Native artists through First Peoples Fund’s Native Artist Professional Development (NAPD) program. Tahbone covers time management tips, art pricing strategies, and other entrepreneurial skills that artists need to build their businesses. As important as the skills are, the learning really begins when workshop attendees discover that growing an arts business is a personal journey. “[Students] realize where they come from is really important,” says Tahbone.

Artmaking often starts at home, especially with traditional Native arts, since customs are passed down from one generation to the next. But for the last year, artists have struggled with marketing and selling their work during a global pandemic. Artists must adapt to the new landscape, continuing with their journey despite the obstacles. “The need [for business development workshops] is high,” says Tahbone.

In response, First Peoples Fund collaborated with Tahbone and others at Kawerak, a nonprofit organization based in Nome, Alaska, to offer virtual workshops for Alaska Native artists. Formed in 1967, Kawerak empowers artists and culture bearers in one of the most remote areas in the world: the Bering Strait Region.

Kawerak is a longtime grantee of the First Peoples Fund’s Native Arts Ecology Building grant program. The program helps Native nonprofit organizations, including Native Community Development Financial Institutions, better support Native artists in their communities through coaching, training and funding.

Responding to the Need

But what do Alaska Native artists need?

With the financial support from a Native Arts Ecology Building Grant, Kawerak led a 2018 comprehensive survey for creative individuals residing in the Bering Strait Region (a study that was modeled after the 2013 Establishing a Creative Economy analysis published by First Peoples Fund). For Kawerak’s study, over 170 people completed a detailed survey, in which 68% reported that they rely on selling their artwork  — such as beadwork, sewing/fashion, doll making, wood carving, visual arts, and so on — to supplement their monthly income. Furthermore, the survey identified the need for three business training areas:

1. Pricing artwork
2. Marketing artwork in galleries, and
3. Teaching others about their artmaking practice

In response, Kawerak and First Peoples Fund curated 30 hours of business workshops for Alaskan artists, through, again, the NAPD program.  

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Kawerak Leads the Way

The survey also brought to light broader policy issues that directly affect artists. Around 44% of the respondents identified ivory and bone as a primary material for scrimshaw and figurine-making. This same percentage also noticed a decline in sales of their art pieces, likely due to bans that forbid possessing or selling ivory.

As a way to help educate the public about the difference between the use of marine ivory versus ivory from elephant poaching, Kawerak collaborated with the Alaskan Walrus Commission, the U.S. Department of Interior, and other organizations to publish a brochure about Alaska Native Ivory. Marine species ivory is regulated by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and takes into account the traditional Alaska Native practice of a no waste approach where all parts of a walrus are used for food, clothing, heat, and art materials.

Alice Bioff, Business Planning Strategist at Kawerak, advocates, “Alaska Native artists who carve Pacific walrus ivory harvested during subsistence hunting are key to our communities’ economic development, keep our traditions alive and strong, and pass down our rich heritage from one generation to the next.

“I see firsthand the economic impact of selling ivory has in our communities. But most importantly how the arts and crafts keep our traditional practices alive and strong, beautiful work being passed down from one generation to the next.”

- Alice Bioff, Public Testimony, March 28. 2017

Aaluk Edwardson (Iñupiaq) has been performing on stage since she was five years old.

She's performed classical work, new plays, experimental theater, dance theater, period plays and in film. In addition to acting, Aaluk has directed, sang, recited poetry and supported productions backstage. She is most drawn to performance with a social consciousness, theater that explores the infinitely perplexing nature of human emotion, and art that continually questions the nature of existence itself.  Aaluk is a 2021 Cultural Capital Fellow.

Aaluk Edwardson (Iñupiaq) admits she can’t do it all, although she has accomplished plenty. She’s an actress, a singer, an emerging novelist, a playwright, a director, and a community facilitator. “I'm in my 30s,” Edwardson says. “And I feel like in your 30s, you realize you can't do everything, which is a good thing to realize.”

In addition to her artistic range, Edwardson is also the founder and director of Creative Decolonization, LLC, which is “dedicated to supporting decolonization efforts that use art and the creative process to learn, inspire and heal.” In fall of 2021, Creative Decolonization will launch an online course for students to learn what culture is while exploring their own cultural identities. Course topics will include “creative engagement in the service of culture” and “storytelling as a healing medium,” just to name a few.

The origin of Edwardson’s culturally-rooted creative projects started at home, in Utqiagvik, Alaska, when she began performing in community theater productions. Then, in 2004, she worked in recruitment at Iḷisaġvik College, Alaska’s only tribal college. Next, she worked in health and community grants for the Arctic Slope Native Association. Eventually, she moved from Alaska to New Hampshire with her three-year-old son to finish her undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College.

Yet Edwardson began to notice a disconnect between what people thought about her cultural identity, Inupiaq — known as Alaskan Eskimo when she was growing up — and what she understood it to be. The disconnect seemed to extend to other Native people she knew, too.  “There was a misunderstanding about what it meant to be Iñupiat,” Edwardson says. “I was a cultural ambassador. I started trying to bridge cultural misunderstandings. I really fell in love with cultural exploration and the formation of identity, especially within the context of a collectivist society at Dartmouth. It was the missing piece I needed to really launch myself as a creative and cultural professional”

In 2019, Edwardson debuted ATTA, an Iñupiat play she wrote and directed that responded to swelling suicide rates for Iñupiat boys and young men. “My writing has always focused on digesting what it means to have a cultural identity alongside trauma, addiction, loss, or grief for the purposes of facing challenging emotions and healing.”

A year prior, Edwardson wrote an autobiographical poem that was published in a deeply personal anthology for teen survivors of sexual abuse. Edited by Erin Moulton, Things We Haven't Said: Sexual Violence Survivors Speak Out (2018, Zest Books) received positive reviews from Booklist and Kirkus Reviews.

“I've dealt with PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] my whole life,” Edwardson shares. “And a lot of people I know have as well.“ In her poem Where I Go When I Go Away, Edwardson mentions it’s “a really good example of exploring what it means to be whole while living with PTSD. The poem takes the reader on a journey to gain a deeper sense of personal empowerment through healing.”

“It’s through learning from this pain

That I’ll finally find that happy place

That I’ve heard about

but never thought I could attain.”

- From Where I Go When I Go Away by Aaluk Edwardson

Sovereignty Stories

“I’m honored to be selected as a fellow amongst the other incredible fellows,” she says.

As part of Edwardson’s Cultural Capital fellowship, her project Sovereignty Stories will be a virtual curation of unipkaat, or legends, told in both Iñupiat and English.

“Our legends bring me joy, hope, show me how to be and how not to be,” Edwardson says. “As an Iñuit artist, I stand on the shoulders of hundreds of generations of beautifully creative people. This fellowship will support the education, practice and sharing of these important ancient stories to help us work together as stewards of the land, sea, and sovereignty.”

Edwardson is currently producing five short media projects with Iñuit artists, filmmakers, videographers, and cultural knowledge bearers for Sovereignty Stories, a three-phase project designed to engage Inuit families across the Arctic in intergenerational storytelling conversations. The first phase of the project will launch in fall of 2021 with the release of a video, accompanied with culturally-rooted discussions and Inuit language learning resources. Follow the campaign on Bright Shores social media channels Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, and sign up for the newsletter.  

“The impact of this project is huge,” Edwardson says. “Bringing those old stories that encourage sovereignty, cultural empowerment, and community wellness will help us regain balance as Iñupiat.”

“And First Peoples Fund is helping with that. Thank you!”

-  Aaluk Edwardson

First Peoples Fund recognizes that Tribal Sovereignty and Black Liberation go hand-in-hand. 

As we observe and celebrate Juneteenth, also known as Jubilee Day or Black Independence Day, we stand in solidarity with Black lives, our extended kin. And we add our voices to the demands to end the violence inflicted upon Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, to dismantle the systems that hurt us and our intercultural families. We acknowledge that this violence is compounded for Black and Afro-Indigenous people.

First Peoples Fund has long been involved in intercultural movement work, hand-in-hand with partners like Alternate ROOTS, NALAC, PA’I Foundation and others. We practice Collective Spirit®, that which manifests a self-awareness and sense of responsibility to sustain the cultural fabric of a community. Collective Spirit® moves each of us to stand up and make a difference, to pass on ancestral knowledge and simply extend a hand of generosity.

We find strength in challenging the dominant cultural norms, modes of learning and social approaches that don’t match our commitment to cultural equity and change-making in our own communities. And with this in mind, we co-founded the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) with our partners Alternate ROOTS, NALAC, PA’I Foundation and SIPP Culture.

ILI is a leadership experience for artists, culture bearers and arts practitioners. It emphasizes overlapping experiences and mutual accountability while honoring differences of histories, traditions, vocabulary, and more. ILI is our commitment to developing leaders that can share their journeys toward sovereignty and liberation. 

Every day we are reminded that when Black and Indigenous people join together in movement work, that’s when some of the most transformational change happens. We continue to be committed to this work. And we lift up the voices of our Black and Afro-Indigenous family and kin.

Hāwane Rios is a Kānaka Maoli (true human being), singer, songwriter, poet, chanter, and dancer.

She is a kiaʻi (protector) working to shield Mauna Kea, Hawai‘i’s tallest mountain, from further development. 

She is an educator and award-winning musician who says her songs come from the deepest parts of her spirit, guided by her ancestors. Her mother, Kumu Hula Pua Case, raised her steeped in the traditional art forms of her Native Hawaiian people.  She is a dedicated cultural practitioner. 

She is now, also, a 2021 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellow.

“The most challenging thing that I face as a musician is not being able to make a living off of my art and be supported solely by that,” she said. “Add in the effects due to the global pandemic, all of my scheduled performances, potential touring opportunities, and speaking events all canceled and or postponed -- it’s tough.”

She said she hopes the support from First Peoples Fund can help her on the way to become an independent artist with her own record label, producing her own music. “I also hope to be able to offer this recording space to other artists in Hawaiʻi,” she said.

Hāwane’s debut album, Kū Kiaʻi Mauna Together We Rise, was named 2020 Contemporary Album of the Year, by the The Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Arts in their Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards. She is writing her second album including stories about contemporary life.

“As an Indigenous creative, I believe I have a responsibility to follow in the ways of my ancestors who recorded their lives, the changes of the land, and the shifts in society through the mediums of expression that I have been called to,” she said. “Our language, our genealogies, our legends, and stories were remembered and passed down to us for a sacred reason. I feel profoundly connected to writing about the times we are living in so that the next generations can hear a part of our story of healing, reclaiming, and reuniting.”

She didn’t grow up speaking her Native language but learned it later, in college. It was a revelation. “Learning ‘Ōlelo Hawaiʻi inspired me to start writing my own songs to remember stories that I was told in my language that I could finally understand,” she said. “I wanted to remember what the love of my ancestors sounded like to me. As I get older, I see how important it is to pass on these stories in mediums of expression that reflect the time we are living in now. I now weave both English and ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi in my songwriting to help to create more bridges of connection and also to encourage our young ones to learn our language and cultural practices.”

Hāwane has mapped out an innovative plan for her fellowship. She wants to record storytellers relating one ancestral story and one contemporary story of the Kohala and Waimea Districts on Hawaiʻi Island. She then plans to write an original song or chant for each story and record a studio version of them. In keeping with her connection to the land she plans to record the stories in the places that the stories are about. She plans a series of these collections and aims to complete one a quarter.

And she wants the work to be accessible. For that she is turning to technology. 

“One of the most effective ways of sharing and connecting online is through audio,” Hāwane said, adding she wants to create a podcast channel to upload the stories in episodic format. She also envisions video versions of the pieces and included the cost of a website domain, film producer, and editor in her budget proposal.

“I believe in creating innovative ways to get our stories to the next generation that is raised in the era of technology,” she said. “I feel that bringing our stories to online platforms that the youth resonate with will help to keep them connected to the land, to our values, and to one another.” 

Which is, to Hāwane, the deepest channel in the river.

“I was raised by the stories of my people. I have been shaped by the rain, wind, ocean, mountains, and valleys that my ancestors wrote songs about. Someone never stopped speaking our language, never stopped dancing, never stopped chanting, and never stopped believing in our traditions,” she said. “And that is why we are still strong and proud of who we are and where we come from today.”

Great physical distances and vast oceans have proven scant barriers for the deep, productive and lasting collaboration that binds Hawai‘i’s PA’I Foundation and First Peoples Fund (FPF).

“Our principals and our values align in our support for our Native peoples” says PA’I Executive Director Vicky Holt Takamine and 2013 Community Spirit Award honoree. “And that is what’s been so great about the work we’ve been able to do with First Peoples Fund.”

Founded in 2001 with the mission to preserve and perpetuate Native Hawaiian arts and cultural traditions for future generations, the PA’I Foundation found inspiration in First Peoples Fund which, though only five years old when PA’I launched, was already a leader in the field of supporting Native artists and culture bearers.

“We’re pretty isolated,” said Vicky. “We don’t get in the conversation sometimes.” But that isolation diminished when Vicky met First Peoples Fund President Lori Pourier at a Ford Foundation gathering in 2005. That meeting kicked off an abiding working relationship, partnership and personal  friendship. FPF helped by opening doors to funders with a genuine spirit of generosity -- “it’s not something they just talk about, they do it,” said Vicky -- and offering programs and training, in particular the Native Artist Professional Development Trainings that introduce business and entrepreneurial skills to Native artists. 

“When I first heard about (NAPD training) I thought, ‘We have to have that here,” Vicky said. The trainer’s made the trip to Hawaii and the program became a cornerstone in the PA’I - FPF alliance.

“Our artists really enjoyed the experience,” said Vicky, who soon doubled down and asked FPF to come back and teach Native Hawaiians to lead the artist development trainings. Those trainers are active today: Ka'ohu Seto (2016 Community Spirit Award honoree), Kaloku Holt (2016 Artist in Business Leadership fellow) and Ka’iu Takamori (2017/18 Intercultural Leadership Institute fellow). 

“[Our] trainers from Hawai‘i are just excellent,” said Ben Sherman, a former chair of the First Peoples Fund board who conducted the first NAPD sessions in Hawai’i. “They are unique to Hawai’i.” But also fully in harmony with First Peoples Fund’s vision and approach.

The common thread is values. The PA’I Foundation is founded on values that branch off the word Aloha:

Akahai - meaning kindness, to be expressed with tenderness; 

Lokahi - meaning unity, to be expressed with harmony;                  

ʻOluʻolu - meaning agreeable, to be expressed with pleasantness;

Haʻahaʻa - meaning humility, to be expressed with modesty;

Ahonui - meaning patience, to be expressed with perseverance.

For First Peoples Fund, values occupy the core of the organization and also their artist development training.

“It’s the most important part of our training,” said Ben. “We don’t teach (the artists)  how to do their art. They have the talent to do that. We ask them about their values, their family values, their tribal values. Only then do we teach them how to be business people and talk about planning, pricing and marketing.”

And that fit right in with the PA’I Foundation, Vicky said. “We speak the same language,” she said. 

In 2019, PA’I was named a recipient of a First Peoples Fund Indigenous Arts Ecology Building Grant (now the Native Arts Ecology Building Grant) designed to expand FPF’s work beyond individual artists and culture bearers by helping Native nonprofit organizations support Native artists in their communities. 

“With [support through that] program, we could focus on next-level development –– to work with those artists that had come to the first training session, and develop a second, higher level,” Vicky said. Part of that is working on the artist’s portfolios and applications for grants and gallery space. “Their artwork is already stellar, but sometimes we can help with the presentation,” said Vicky, offering an example:

Humility is a core value throughout Indian Country. “We Natives don’t like to brag about ourselves,” she said. “Sometimes we need someone to brag for us.” 

Vicky reads through artist presentations and applications and has, on occasion, suggested places where the artist could be more direct in describing his or her accomplishments. “They’ve gone through the (Native Artist Professional Development) trainings. Now let’s fine tune their applications,” said Vicky. With the Indigenous Arts Ecology Building grant PA’I could help the artists up the next rung, all the while continuing to develop the institutional support for a thriving Indigenous art ecology -- and economy.

Just as First Peoples Fund partnered with Minneapolis-based Artspace to build the state of the art Oglala Lakota Artspace on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, PA’I is collaborating with Artspace to create a center in downtown Honolulu -- the Ola Ka 'Illima Artspace. The Hawaiian iteration occupies the first floor of an already fully occupied 84-unit affordable housing building and when completed will include a dance studio, gallery space, as well as conference room and office facilities. Plans were that the space would be open by now but the pandemic had a hand in introducing delays. “We hope to begin our tenant improvements this summer and open in 2022,” said Vicky. “I’m looking forward to inviting Lori to the grand opening” to help cut the ribbon on a new venture, something Vicky and Lori have done before.

“We used to find ourselves at the same conferences for leaders of arts organizations,” said Vicky. “And we kept saying to each other, ‘these panelists aren’t speaking to us. Everything is designed for a Western audience. This doesn't apply to us.”

Some of it was nuts and bolts. A speaker might suggest that the arts leader direct his or her marketing department to undertake a project. “We’d look at each other and say, ‘Hey, I am the marketing department,’” said Vicky. Other issues were deeper. “To us, our connection to the land is sometimes more important than the work. The land comes before us. That’s in our organizations.”

They found others agreeing with them and decided to form a new arts leadership organization to address their values, interests and needs. Their conversations led to the launch of the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI) with Alternate ROOTS, First Peoples Fund, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC), and the PA'I Foundation. Today ILI takes fellows on a yearlong program that challenges dominant social norms while honoring differences of histories, traditions, and vocabulary. ILI develops leaders specifically within the arts and culture field to adeptly respond to significant changes that impact society, politics, environment and economy. The new organization provides a tangible way to practice intercultural work with partner organizations, build  solidarity, capacity and healthy social narratives for organizations of color across the nation. 

“We can’t separate our principals and values from the mission,” said Vicky. “They are embedded in our actions.”

Which can sometimes be, well, direct. “My hula (Native Hawaiian dance) is a form of resistance,” said Vicky explaining that western colonizers quashed most forms of Hawaiian culture but let hula continue, thinking it was merely a form of entertainment. Instead it was the lifeblood of the entire culture. Stories and language and values were embedded in the songs and passed down to new generations. “Our culture survived through hula,” said Vicky. It then experienced a renaissance in the 1970s with a revitalization of all aspects of the Native culture. Vicky was part of that as a student in the 70s and the work -- to preserve and perpetuate Native Hawaiian arts and cultural traditions for future generations -- continues to this day.

When Moses Goods (a 2021 FPF Artists in Business Leadership fellow), one of Hawai‘i’s most prominent theater artists, began his career 20 years ago there were few Native Hawaiian’s in his field. “ I had no footsteps to follow in,” he said. But today, things are different. “Even though there is still so much more that needs to be done, there have been huge advancements toward creating a space for Hawaiians in theater,” he said. 

And though credit for that is deserved in many quarters, it’s perhaps not unreasonable to think one might also tip one’s hat in the direction of the PA’I Foundation and her big sister, First Peoples Fund.

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Moses Goods (Native Hawaiian) is one of Hawaiʻi’s most prominent theater artists.

He has written thirteen full length plays and traveled nationally and internationally performing his original works which are strongly rooted in Native Hawaiian culture.

“But the most rewarding experience of my career involves my mother,” he said. She was forbidden by her parents from speaking her Native ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) in the hopes it would help her excel in a Westernized world. She forgot many of the stories she was told as a child about her own family, history and culture.

“When I decided to make Hawaiian stories the focus of my artmaking something beautiful happened within my mother,” Moses said. “She began to remember the stories that she had forgotten. She thanked me. In that moment I realized that I was the conduit that reconnected my mother with what was thought to have been lost.”

Dedicated through his art to uplifting Native Hawaiian culture, Moses was chosen as a 2021 First Peoples Fund Artist in Business Leadership Fellow allowing him added freedom to “explore how different combinations of words, movement, visuals, sound and even silences can evoke imagery in the mind to bring our mo‘olelo (stories) to life,” he said.

And also adapt to pandemic realities.

Before the disruptions of Covid, Moses founded the ʻInamona Theatre, an organization dedicated to telling Native Hawaiian stories. (ʻInamona is a traditional

relish made from the kernel of the candlenut and is sprinkled sparingly over meaʻai -- nourishing food. No matter how skilled the storyteller, their work is merely a condiment to the greater sustenance -- the stories of the ancestors.)

But now he must adjust to the new paradigm.

“The success of theatrical endeavors has always been largely dependent on audiences gathering together in shared spaces,” Moses said. “But with social distancing now being the ‘new normal,’ virtual gatherings have proven to be the best option on a very short list of alternatives.”

So he plans to expand his online presence and increase his ability to develop his art

Virtually.

“Like most artists throughout the world, I find myself at a pivotal moment in my career,” he says, noting a need to place more emphasis on virtual performances. To do this well, Moses said, he needs to have suitable space to work and to upgrade his audio visual technology. He plans to dedicate some of his fellowship resources toward these goals.

“Since the pandemic started, platforms such as YouTube, Zoom and Facebook Live have become essential tools for performance-based artists,” he said. With the space obtained through his grant resources and upgraded audio-visual equipment, he plans to start a YouTube channel by developing a series of videos that will highlight his creative talents in an online setting.

He also plans another creative shift by putting more of his energy into the design and construction of theatrical tools, such as masks, puppetry, headpieces, and costuming.

“These tools have always existed as subsidiary facets of my creative work, but as I now move toward capturing my work virtually, I recognize the tremendous impact that visual storytelling can have upon virtual audiences.” he said.

While always keeping an eye on his core mission to share the stories of his ancestors.

“About a year ago I toured one of my shows throughout New England titled ‘My Name is ʻŌpūkahaʻia,’ a true story about one of the first Hawaiians to leave the islands having ended up in Connecticut,” he said. He gave one performance at an affluent boarding school in Massachusetts. After the show, the lone Native student in the audience approached him and, through tears, expressed how the show’s themes of healing and identity resonated with her.

“She shared stories of her family’s complicated history with Christianity and the trauma that her ancestors experienced having to attend boarding schools in the Navajo Nation,” Moses said. “Then she told me of her aspirations of someday becoming a Native filmmaker and how my performance inspired her to tell Native stories. That was my turn to shed tears. I don’t think that there’s anything that inspires me more than the thought of that single child in the audience receiving messages and inspiration from their ancestors. That’s what keeps me going.”