Hello! Welcome back to another semester of “Through Indigenous Eyes.”
I realized that I never introduced myself last semester: My name is Sorsha Khitikian, and I am a junior at Tufts. I am Yurok, a tribe on the Klamath River in Northern California, but I grew up away from my tribe’s reservation, making me an ‘urban Indian.’
I started this column last semester because I wanted to provide an Indigenous perspective on political topics that weren’t necessarily connected to Indigeneity and to highlight Indigenous connections that weren’t obvious to non-Native people. Indigenous perspectives are frequently left out of conversations; at the Daily, Indigenous people are a small minority of staff members. Making my voice heard through this column felt like a way I could contribute to the conversation while simultaneously staying informed politically. Unfortunately, the semester did not go as planned.
Once President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration immediately began pushing executive orders that harmed Indigenous people. The administration made it a point to erase Indigenous people and their contributions to the United States by flagging our existence under ‘DEI.’ I wrote in my column about how Missing and Murdered Indigenous People data was erased from federal sites and how Indigenous place-names were stripped (specifically, Mount Denali was renamed Mount McKinley). What I didn’t get to write about was how Navajo Code-Talkers and their contributions to winning World War II were seemingly erased from U.S. military sites, or how the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention center was built without tribal consent on Indigenous stewarded lands. As the semester went on, I became increasingly angry at the state of the world. Not only that — I felt defeated. I kept reading the news to find how devastating Trump’s rhetoric and actions were for everyone, not just Indigenous people. When I finally flew back home in May, I was nearly certain I wouldn’t write this column again.
Back in Los Angeles, I immediately started packing for a cross-country road trip back to Tufts. My mom (who’s Indigenous too) and I really wanted to make this a trip of a lifetime. As avid national park and museum enjoyers, we traveled from the Grand Canyon all the way to Niagara Falls, before arriving back in Somerville.
Hitting the road in our rental car, my mom and I saw so many places I count myself lucky to have seen. What stuck out to me most, though, was how much Indigenous culture was woven into the landscape we passed. I saw everything from Indigenous ruins to tacky ‘Indian’ stores that claimed they sold authentic Native goods. I went to some amazing (and not so amazing) museums. I got to talk with my mom about what we were seeing and think through how our Indigenous heritage manifests itself throughout the country. Of course, Trump’s policies impacted lots of our experience, which I will get into in future articles this semester. Most importantly, I became inspired by what I saw, and by the time two weeks passed, I had so many topics I wanted to write about.
This semester, my column will be less focused on explicit political issues and will instead explore the different ways Indigenous people and Indigenous cultures are portrayed throughout the continental United States. Inspired by my road trip, I will show you how Indigenous life makes itself visible throughout our country, even when explicitly repressed by those in power. I’m excited to take you with me!
