Indigiqueer Pride 2021: Notes from the Swinomish, Nisqually, and Mohawk Nation

Nisqually 2nd Annual Pride Banner
Three people standing in a tented booth.
Indigiqueer Pride 2021: Notes from the Swinomish, Nisqually, and Mohawk Nation
Me and Ash

Josette: I descend from the Iroquois, Saulteaux, and Nisqually people. I currently reside in Tacoma, Washington, and I work here on the Nisqually reservation. I’m the Health Services Manager for our clinic health department.

Shara: I am Haudenosaunee Wolf Clan from the Akwesasne Mohawk Territory. I’m a prevention services supervisor with Akwesasne Child and Family Services. Our agency’s mission is to really empower and support the healthy family units within our community.

KP: I am from the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. I was born here and that’s where I’m coming from today. I’m also Iñupiaq on my mom’s side from the northern Alaska Region. I work for a nonprofit called Potlatch Fund in the Seattle area, and I’m also a musician. I have a band called Black Belt Eagle Scout. I recently helped plan a Pride Parade here at Swinomish.

NPAIHB: Tell us a little bit about the events in June in your communities and how it felt to attend them.

Josette: Nisqually just hosted our second annual Pride event. In April this year, I went before tribal council with a resolution to establish an annual Two Spirit and LGBTQ day of acknowledgement here at Nisqually, and that resolution passed. My understanding is that we’re one of the first tribal nations to pass a resolution like that. Our pride day is officially the last Friday in June.

On that day, we hosted our Pride event. Last year’s Pride event was our first and it was during COVID, so it was a drive-thru event. We had over 150 people attend that one, which for Nisqually, a smaller community, is an amazing turnout. This year, we were able to host the event in a street-fair style in the parking lot of our new health center. We had vendor booths and a DJ and food trucks. We had an estimate of between 250 and 300 people. It was such a joyful experience. Nisqually, not unlike many communities, has had an incredibly difficult year. We’ve lost far too many tribal members, many of them young people. So to me, what hit the hardest for me, was just the amount of joy I saw at the event. We could breathe and be together.

KP: This year we held our first Pride Parade that we had here in Swinomish, ever. And honestly, I just want to say thank you to Josette, because I if we hadn’t seen Nisqually declare a day of acknowledgement, I would never have known that a resolution like that was a possibility. When I saw the Nisqually resolution on social media, I took a screenshot, and I texted it to one of our senators. I was like, can we do this? And it came together really fast. We based our resolution on Nisqually’s, but made it our own. Some community members and I presented it in front of the Senate, which was difficult for me, because I don’t necessarily think you need the approval of your Senate or the colonial government structure to hold a Pride parade, but the Senate approval gave us access to funding and other structures which made organizing our parade easier.

We held our event on the last day of June. We planned it with just three weeks. We couldn’t have in-person gatherings, so we did a car parade. There were sixty-two cars in our parade. Swinomish is along the town of La Conner. There’s a bridge that goes from the town corner into the reservation, and we wanted our parade to start in town, so we had to partner with the town. It was really cool to be able to have our Indigenous community here at Swinomish and the non-Indigenous community come together for an event that was Indigenous-led. The very first vehicle in the Pride parade was our canoe with our youth riding in it. It was a really emotional day for me. I grew up here in Swinomish not really feeling like I could come out to people as queer. There was always like this notion of “Oh, we don’t talk about that.” So I didn’t talk about it. At the Pride parade this year, my youthfulness, my younger self, was finally able to feel accepted.

Shara: I so appreciate your vulnerability KP. It’s a testament to why I do the work I do as an ally. I’m always asking myself as an ally—what is my role? how do I create space without taking up space? This year, I challenged my team—they were nervous about getting involved in Two Spirit and LGBTQ+ programming, because they felt like they didn’t know what to say. I put together a workgroup, and we planned one Pride event for each week in June leading up to a Pride parade float. We live right along the St. Lawrence River. We’re very much a water people. Water has always been a key, a vital piece of our community. So we wanted to incorporate that into our event.

The day of the event, the biggest thing for me was seeing parents come out with young children who are questioning or just beginning to explore their identity and sexuality. It was so powerful to see them with their relatives putting in their canoes and their kayaks.

Josette: At our pride event, too, we had all of these families. I had so many parents come up to me and tell me that their child, or their niece or nephew just came out or is just thinking they might not be straight. I’ve known since a young age I didn’t identify as straight. I have an identical twin sister who had a big formal coming out when we were teenagers, so I just sort of didn’t say anything about my identity, because it was her thing and I didn’t want to take away from it. I know what it feels like to not feel like you can talk about who you are without fear of being rejected. Providing a healthier, supportive atmosphere so that our kids here aren’t going through those same things, so they can feel comfortable at home and in their clinic. That’s why I do this work.

KP: What motivates me is similar. Our theme for our Pride parade this year was, “Be who you are, Love who you are.” It was for youth here. We wanted to invite our community to step up and just say, we support you. If you’re Two Spirit, if you’re any identity within LGBTQ+, you can be who you are, and your community will love you. I’m excited to make connections with everyone being interviewed here, because we have ideas for next year. We want to do a Pride Paddle. There were families there who were in the parade supporting their loved one who’s Two Spirit or LGBTQ+.

Shara: Maybe we can connect and share ideas and resources for next year. For me this work is all about family. The Mohawk word for family is Ahkwatsire, and the root of that is Otsien:ha which is fire. One of the teachings is that when you have a strong family fire, you’ll have a strong nation fire, and then you’ll have a strong confederacy fire. So for me, when I think about what it takes to keep our nation fire strongest, it starts with our families.

NPAIHB: Thank you, everybody. I’ve been to a lot of different Prides. These events were categorically different than other Pride event I’ve attended. This was a celebration of family in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever seen or known was possible. It was something I think might be unique to our communities. I just wondered if any of you had any thoughts about that difference.

Josette: Here in Nisqually, everything we do is family. One of the first things we planned for the event was the kids’ table. They were right across from the DJ stand, so we had kids that would leave the kids’ table and dance in front of the DJ stand. With pride and Two Spirit services in general, I think parents now have a better understanding than previous generations of how important it is for kids to have support. I had a mother who pulled me aside at Pride for a conversation about her child who came out. She kept saying, All I know is I love her, and I have to learn, and I have to do better. I told her, You’re here with her. That means so much. That is mind blowing to me.

What I saw at Pride was these children who have shared with their families who they are, even if they don’t have the right language for it. And their parents are jumping in with both feet saying, Okay, we’ve got this, we’ll figure it out. We’re going to do this together.

Photo Credit to Swinomish qyuuqs, Josette Ross, and Shara Francis-Herne.

Nisqually 2nd Annual Pride Banner