INTRODUCTION By Crystal Echo Hawk 
Nawa (Greetings), relatives.
As with Americans of so many backgrounds, my upbringing was marked by duality.
On the one hand, as a young Native woman, I was surrounded and inspired by the incredible leaders in my family who fought for Native rights and advocated for education, health care, food sovereignty, child welfare, and cultural preservation across Indian Country. They taught me always to be proud of the history and beautiful culture of my Pawnee people. Still, like most Native people, I had to overcome the ignorance of others, facing toxic stereotypes, systemic racism, teasing about my last name, and bullying of all kinds.
Many groups in this country know what it means to be exploited and forgotten. At the same time, we know what it means to find resilience, to heal, and to live with incredible courage, strength, and joy. Over 9.7 million Americans identify as Native. We are innovating and leading in science, fashion, media, politics, and beyond. We are the story of America. And yet, our story is so often untold.
In 2015, I founded and co-led Reclaiming Native Truth, the largest public opinion research project by, for, and about Native peoples. The groundbreaking results exposed our invisibility among the general public and within our institutions, from government and education to health care and pop culture, and beyond. Nearly 78 percent of people in the United States know little or nothing about Native Americans.I This invisibility is what fuels injustices and the harm they create, including the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP), “Native” mascots and their impact on the mental health of Native youth, and the legacy of Native American Boarding Schools, through which one hundred thousand Native children were separated from their families and subjected to abuse and forced assimilation.
If our invisibility perpetuates harm, the stories of our incredible talent, creativity, and contributions have the power to change the future. Our research became the foundation for a new mission: disrupt the erasure and the stereotypes that continue to oppress us. To accomplish that mission, we needed to create an organization to drive the change, and so I founded IllumiNative with the goal of building power for Native peoples. We set out to foster a world that respects Native sovereignty and self-determination, where Native peoples author and drive our own narrative, and where our children see themselves authentically reflected in the world around them.
Our work is part of a movement of many movements that is shining a light on contemporary Native peoples and sharing with the world our thriving communities. In 2016, the demonstration at Standing Rock shook the world and delivered a message no one could ignore: we are still here. In the years since IllumiNative’s founding, we have witnessed and helped drive a transformational increase in the visibility of contemporary Native peoples and the issues impacting our daily lives. More people than ever, and more people in power, are seeing us and hearing our true stories. Together, Native-led organizations, tribal leaders, Native creatives, grassroots organizers, and our non-Native allies are elevating Native peoples nationwide and achieving authentic representation in all sectors of American life.
When Lily Gladstone (Siksikaitsitapii, Nimiipuu) took the screen—and the industry—by storm with her riveting, Golden Globe–winning performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, she amplified the experience of the Osage people and also signaled a seismic shift in the Native presence on television and film. Groundbreaking shows like Reservation Dogs have earned national acclaim, and Native-driven content like Rutherford Falls, Dark Winds, Molly of Denali, Prey, and Echo have disrupted our invisibility. They did so by replacing harmful stereotypes with power-building representation and challenged not only how non-Natives see us but also how we see ourselves. For so long, the narrative held that mainstream audiences didn’t want to see us on-screen; now both audiences and critics are hungry for Native-driven content.II We have always had the talent; finally, we have the opportunity to tell our stories, and we have so much more to say.
Our progress extends from Hollywood to the highest court in the land, where we are seeing the dawn of a new judicial era in which courts affirm treaty rights and tribal sovereignty. In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court ruled that 3 million acres of eastern Oklahoma still belong to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. In another historic decision, in 2023, the Supreme Court upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which protects Native kids in child welfare proceedings by keeping them in the care of their extended family or tribes whenever possible, helping maintain their sense of belonging and a connection to their identity. In the face of generations of family separation, this powerful precedent will benefit Native children and communities for generations to come.
We are achieving things they told us were not possible. For decades, Washington’s football team maintained and profited from a repulsive racial slur as its mascot and logo. When asked if they would ever change the team’s name, then-owner Dan Snyder said, “Never,” and every pollster told us to believe him. In 2020, standing on sixty-plus years of Native-led activism and organizing, we guided a coalition of forces that proved our critics wrong. Today, two-thirds of teams using “Native” mascots—over twenty-one hundred schools—have retired these racist names and images, a monumental victory for the well-being of our youth and for all of Indian Country.
Recent years have also seen historic levels of Native representation in the federal government. In 2018, Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin) and Deb Haaland (Pueblo of Laguna) made history as the first Native American women elected to Congress. By 2020, they were among six Native lawmakers elected to the House of Representatives, a record-breaking number, and the following year Haaland was confirmed as secretary of the interior, making her the first Native woman in the presidential Cabinet. The moment that fifty-first vote came in, it felt like our world opened up with potential. It is because of those like Representative Davids, Secretary Haaland, and the leaders found on the following pages that Native youth can dream bigger and live a life of possibility. May they never be afraid of being the first Native person to do something.
The contributors to My Life: Growing Up Native in America are shining examples of our resilience and achievements. They also highlight a powerful truth about Native peoples across Turtle Island: our strength lies in our shared experience and in our diversity. We are Two-Spirit and LGBTQ+. We are Black, white, Latino, Muslim, Jewish, and so much more. We are artists and activists and athletes hailing from reservations and big cities and small towns. We perform drag. We create TV shows. We build game-changing businesses.
As we acknowledge and celebrate our historic progress, we are reminded that everything is done in community and collaboration and that our hard-fought victories come in partnership and solidarity with our allies. Our work alongside non-Natives not only advances the cause of equity and sovereignty for Native peoples; it also helps build a multiracial democracy and a healthy planet for generations to come.
We have seen the power of stories, and our dream for the essays and poems in this book is that they continue building empathy among our allies, generating strength and momentum through our shared values and shared experiences. May these pages heal and inspire you. May they serve as an invitation, a call to action, and a galvanizing force to join us in creating a better world for us all.
Iriwe Turahe (In a good way),
Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee)
Co-Founder and CEO, IllumiNative
2024