San Jose State students, faculty, staff and guests raised awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the Spartan Memorial Chapel on Thursday.
The event, hosted by the Red Earth Women’s Society Group and SJSU’s Native American Student Organization, featured several panelists who shared their stories and experiences with losing loved ones.
Iesha Bayona, the executive assistant to the CEO & board of directors at Indian Health Center, opened the event with the performance of a traditional honoring song.
“During the song, I want you to think about somebody that you have lost, particularly to violence,” said Elisa Marina Alvarado, the artistic director at Teatro Visión and mediator of the event. “Somebody that has gone missing and you don’t know what has happened to them.”
Performing the “Strong Women’s Song,” Bayona said the song was credited to
Anishinabe kwewag and Zhoganosh kwewag, two incarcerated women who, in the 1970s, were in solitary confinement in the Prison For Women in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
“This song has been carried on all over to remind folks of the resilience of our people,” she said.
Afterward, Alvarado invited individuals from the crowd to shout the names of relatives and friends who have gone missing, murdered or lost.
“This is something that we have to do in communities – too big, too heavy – for families alone or people alone to do the searching, to do the pushing of the police,” Alvarado said. “To try to get laws to change so that there is funding to do the special investigation . . . there is so much work to be done.”
Louise J. Miranda Ramirez, tribal chairwoman for the Ohlone/Costanoan-Esselen Nation, began the panel discussion by introducing herself as the Mother of Green Star, a young girl killed at 14-years-old.
“Understand that the violence our women and children face – we are survivors of domestic violence,” Ramirez said. “It is time we teach our young men not to be violent with women – women are sacred.”
She said she was proud to see young student guests who attended the event because that means her culture, and the cultures of other Indigenous tribes, will carry on toward the right direction.
“I can only talk about the world as a minority,” Ramirez said. “We must fight – to protect ourselves, to protect our people and to protect our ancestors.”
She said she remembers seeing her father beat her mother at a young age, and calls for future generations to be different.
Apache tribal member Kelly Gamboa is the founder of the Red Earth Women’s Society Group.
“Marlene Bueno, that’s my niece,” Gamboa said. “She went missing for two weeks and then they found her body – beaten, mutilated and caught on fire – she was 17-years-old.”
She said her niece was a beautiful girl and thought Bueno was kept safe.
“That’s what started me on this journey of being a part of the Red Earth Women’s Society,” Gamboa said. “I want to stress that we have to quit desensitizing our children.”
After two weeks of searching for Bueno, she said her mother had a heart attack because they could not find her.
“Over the generations, we’ve been treated so badly and so poorly – we were considered subhuman for crying out loud,” Gamboa said. “And so it’s easy to dismiss us and it’s easy for a woman to go missing and nobody is saying anything.”
She said one step toward advocating for the safety of Indigenous women, elders and youth is to change the way we think, talk and act in different communities.
“I’m not saying it’s right or wrong when it comes to non-Indigenous people,” Gamboa said. “But look at Laci Peterson – they made a movie about it – nobody knew my niece’s name, who she was or what family she represented.”
Makah tribal member Sonya Tetnowski is the chief executive officer of the Indian Health Center of Santa Clara Valley and a member of the Not Invisible Act Commission.
The Not Invisible Act Commission is a cross jurisdictional advisory committee composed of law enforcement, federal partners, tribal leaders and family members of missing and murdered individuals and survivors, according to its page on the U.S. Department of the Interior website.
As part of the commision, Tetnowski helped create six committees to combat violent acts against Indigenous people, as well as provide services to get them back on their feet.
She said some of the committees include law enforcement and investigation that identify and respond to missing, murdered and trafficked Indigenous people, and which reports and collects accurate trafficking data.
“Young girls and teens are praying as adults to avoid talking about pedophilia, child rape and the kidnapping and trafficking of our people,” Tetnowski said.
Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Sharon Rose Torres is the Native American team lead for the Native American in the Family Outreach and Engagement Program at the Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Service Department.
By 12-years-old, Torres said she had already been in seven different foster homes after being separated from her mother and sister at a young age.
“They were all non-Indian foster homes,” she said. “That means my role was to clean the house and I was a body to the men in the house – I was a maid and I was used a lot.”
Since returning to San Jose, she said she has been sharing her story over the past decade to raise awareness for the young girls in her situation.
“Those things should not happen to children and our children should not be targeted,” Torres said. “Especially those children in foster care that have nobody.”
Navajo Nation Tribal Member and public health junior Mahon Walsh is the president of the Native American student organization at SJSU.
Walsh said former SJSU president Mary Papazian held an address at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, which included the proposal of a student success center for the Native American student organization.
“We knew, as a student group, our biggest priority is to have a space to come together and have programs and events like this,” he said. “To have some place where students feel visible and seen – not only for students here today, but students in the future.”
After years of the organization fighting for a student center, Walsh said he received a letter from President Cynthia Teniente-Matson, which featured a two phase program: an interim space for the student organization and the promise of a student center.
“Of course, long term, is phase two, which could take five to seven years,” he said.
