yeah my scanner goes white go Lauren eat
ghusl I don’t know what got Nate a gay
dad can’t go welcome everybody my name
is Lauren I’m on the people the great
hill and I’m also the Herren clan I grew
up on a cattle raucous Indian
Reservation and in 1998 I made a
decision to move to Rochester
Cattaraugus is about a two-hour drive
from here but for me it’s like a whole
other world away in 98 I made the
decision to move here because I was 16
years old and I had a four month old
child and I wanted that child to grow up
with opportunities that I didn’t have so
it was on September 13th and 98 that I
went to our annual community Fall
Festival and I met up with my uncle
there since we’re at the Fall Festival I
wanted to say goodbye to everybody that
I knew and it took all day long and it
was around 4 o’clock that my uncle
approached me and he said Lauren it’s 4
o’clock it’s getting late we gotta go so
we packed our things into his van and we
began our voyage I was so scared leaving
I was so scared that I cried I cried
myself to sleep during the first half of
that trip when I woke up we were at our
new home in Victor New York my children
and I have called this place home for
the past 20 years this is going on again
State Historic Site and we stayed there
with my aunt and uncle when I moved
there I quickly learned that this place
is the site of a 17th century Seneca
town now what that means is that my
ancestors lived there in the village in
the 60
hundreds what my children and I lived
there we got to learn about the daily
lives of our ancestors I wondered why it
was at that point that I was learning
about these things and I internally
questioned why I didn’t learn about
these things when I was growing up on
the rez nonetheless I embraced the
lessons when I was 23 years old I
decided to go to college and that was
when I decided but that was when I
started learning asking myself another
internal question I asked myself am i an
apple am i red on the outside and white
on the inside it was like I it was
consistently checking in with myself to
make sure that I was being true to where
I came from and becoming the person that
I was supposed to be however it was when
I was in college I learned several
things it was in college when I was
studying fine art and I was able to
express myself through my art and it was
in college when I was learning about the
subject of historical trauma and it
brought to my awareness why elders
discouraged young people from leaving
the reservation and it was in college
when I was studying art therapy where I
found answers to the questions that I
had about my own behaviors and my own
the way that elders discouraged young
people from leaving the reservation and
I realized that the reason that they
discouraged young people from leaving
the res is because back in the 1800s
people were forced away from their homes
and their families and forced to attend
these boarding schools where there was
an attempt to kill the Indian to save
the man I thought about it and I thought
how ironic is it that the same system
that attempted to take the identity of
my elders is the same system where I
found mine I found myself in the
education system in 2016 in November my
son angel and I went to Standing Rock at
Standing Rock there was a camp where
people were occupying this this land it
was a site where the Dakota X’s pipeline
was being built a project that enabled
crude oil to be transported through pipe
that ran underneath the Missouri River
this pipeline ran through treaty land of
a Standing Rock Sioux those people were
moved to protect not only their lands
but also to protect the water many other
people felt the call angel and I were
among 10,000 other people when we were
there angel and I were there for three
days and we became a part of this
community everybody there their purpose
was to protect the water and it was
incredibly beautiful everybody it was
very welcoming and everybody treated
each other very well there was a woman
in our campsite one day she told me she
said you know
everything that we need is right here
there’s no reason to leave when she said
that to me I thought about the way that
gun owned again ran as a village just
like that everybody put in together to
when we got there I had a friend that
had been there he and he guided us into
the camp when we entered there was a
woman at the entrance and she oriented
us and she welcomed us in and me and
angel started following my friend on
Flag Road the main road into camp we
started to roll up our windows and then
we stopped we could smell the burning of
the campfires sage and Indian tobacco it
reminded me of entering ceremonial
longhouse and if you close your eyes and
if you think about being embraced by a
grandmother and how soft and warm she
feels and he smell her perfume or if you
enter into the household from your
childhood and you smile your favorite
food cooking that was what it was like
for angel and I entering camp and I
looked over at angel and I felt tears
running down my cheeks and I said angel
that experience made me think
differently about spaces me and angel
came home and I Drive around the
Rochester area a lot Drive everywhere
and as I’m driving in my car I look out
at the landscape in my car window and as
I’m looking I think about how my
ancestors walked this territory the word
unknown dawat got means people of the
great hill and that we a Seneca people
that’s how we refer to ourselves the
hill that that word mentions a South
Hill and that Hill is in Canandaigua and
I can go to Canandaigua Lake and I can
see that hill when I approach the shores
of Lake Ontario I think about the
peacemaker who United to holding nashoni
people the Ghana WETA Jota nashoni
is what we refer to ourselves but others
Drive to Ithaca and on my drive to
Ithaca I pass sonica Lake and I continue
and then I pass pay the lake and I think
about I actually imagine how were those
two lakes and that served as a goalpost
for holding nashoni men playing a game
at the yl a game that you know today as
lacrosse my ancestors inhabited this
territory right here and I can only
transitioning between these spaces has
and my thoughts are that my culture does
not exist in a physical space my culture
exists within my mind and it exists
within my heart and it is up to me to
share with people as I see fit
I am immensely proud of the person that
has emerged from the questions the
doubts and the fears and I have found a
Donny ho [Applause]
ghusl I don’t know what got Nate a gay
dad can’t go welcome everybody my name
is Lauren I’m on the people the great
hill and I’m also the Herren clan I grew
up on a cattle raucous Indian
Reservation and in 1998 I made a
decision to move to Rochester
Cattaraugus is about a two-hour drive
from here but for me it’s like a whole
other world away in 98 I made the
decision to move here because I was 16
years old and I had a four month old
child and I wanted that child to grow up
with opportunities that I didn’t have so
it was on September 13th and 98 that I
went to our annual community Fall
Festival and I met up with my uncle
there since we’re at the Fall Festival I
wanted to say goodbye to everybody that
I knew and it took all day long and it
was around 4 o’clock that my uncle
approached me and he said Lauren it’s 4
o’clock it’s getting late we gotta go so
we packed our things into his van and we
began our voyage I was so scared leaving
I was so scared that I cried I cried
myself to sleep during the first half of
that trip when I woke up we were at our
new home in Victor New York my children
and I have called this place home for
the past 20 years this is going on again
State Historic Site and we stayed there
with my aunt and uncle when I moved
there I quickly learned that this place
is the site of a 17th century Seneca
town now what that means is that my
ancestors lived there in the village in
the 60
hundreds what my children and I lived
there we got to learn about the daily
lives of our ancestors I wondered why it
was at that point that I was learning
about these things and I internally
questioned why I didn’t learn about
these things when I was growing up on
the rez nonetheless I embraced the
lessons when I was 23 years old I
decided to go to college and that was
when I decided but that was when I
started learning asking myself another
internal question I asked myself am i an
apple am i red on the outside and white
on the inside it was like I it was
consistently checking in with myself to
make sure that I was being true to where
I came from and becoming the person that
I was supposed to be however it was when
I was in college I learned several
things it was in college when I was
studying fine art and I was able to
express myself through my art and it was
in college when I was learning about the
subject of historical trauma and it
brought to my awareness why elders
discouraged young people from leaving
the reservation and it was in college
when I was studying art therapy where I
found answers to the questions that I
had about my own behaviors and my own
the way that elders discouraged young
people from leaving the reservation and
I realized that the reason that they
discouraged young people from leaving
the res is because back in the 1800s
people were forced away from their homes
and their families and forced to attend
these boarding schools where there was
an attempt to kill the Indian to save
the man I thought about it and I thought
how ironic is it that the same system
that attempted to take the identity of
my elders is the same system where I
found mine I found myself in the
education system in 2016 in November my
son angel and I went to Standing Rock at
Standing Rock there was a camp where
people were occupying this this land it
was a site where the Dakota X’s pipeline
was being built a project that enabled
crude oil to be transported through pipe
that ran underneath the Missouri River
this pipeline ran through treaty land of
a Standing Rock Sioux those people were
moved to protect not only their lands
but also to protect the water many other
people felt the call angel and I were
among 10,000 other people when we were
there angel and I were there for three
days and we became a part of this
community everybody there their purpose
was to protect the water and it was
incredibly beautiful everybody it was
very welcoming and everybody treated
each other very well there was a woman
in our campsite one day she told me she
said you know
everything that we need is right here
there’s no reason to leave when she said
that to me I thought about the way that
gun owned again ran as a village just
like that everybody put in together to
when we got there I had a friend that
had been there he and he guided us into
the camp when we entered there was a
woman at the entrance and she oriented
us and she welcomed us in and me and
angel started following my friend on
Flag Road the main road into camp we
started to roll up our windows and then
we stopped we could smell the burning of
the campfires sage and Indian tobacco it
reminded me of entering ceremonial
longhouse and if you close your eyes and
if you think about being embraced by a
grandmother and how soft and warm she
feels and he smell her perfume or if you
enter into the household from your
childhood and you smile your favorite
food cooking that was what it was like
for angel and I entering camp and I
looked over at angel and I felt tears
running down my cheeks and I said angel
that experience made me think
differently about spaces me and angel
came home and I Drive around the
Rochester area a lot Drive everywhere
and as I’m driving in my car I look out
at the landscape in my car window and as
I’m looking I think about how my
ancestors walked this territory the word
unknown dawat got means people of the
great hill and that we a Seneca people
that’s how we refer to ourselves the
hill that that word mentions a South
Hill and that Hill is in Canandaigua and
I can go to Canandaigua Lake and I can
see that hill when I approach the shores
of Lake Ontario I think about the
peacemaker who United to holding nashoni
people the Ghana WETA Jota nashoni
is what we refer to ourselves but others
Drive to Ithaca and on my drive to
Ithaca I pass sonica Lake and I continue
and then I pass pay the lake and I think
about I actually imagine how were those
two lakes and that served as a goalpost
for holding nashoni men playing a game
at the yl a game that you know today as
lacrosse my ancestors inhabited this
territory right here and I can only
transitioning between these spaces has
and my thoughts are that my culture does
not exist in a physical space my culture
exists within my mind and it exists
within my heart and it is up to me to
share with people as I see fit
I am immensely proud of the person that
has emerged from the questions the
doubts and the fears and I have found a
Donny ho [Applause]
Please follow and like us: