Episode 26

The sting of those words, uttered years ago in Tooele, Utah, still burns hot, a phantom fire on my cheeks. It’s a memory etched into my soul, a stark, undeniable testament to a prejudice so deep, so vile, it chills me to the bone. Ny, my late Apache husband, had to witness it firsthand, the venom spewed from the mouths of people who, with a flick of their wrists, refused us service. “We don’t want your kind around here,” they’d spat, their eyes hard and cold. “You’re nothing but a filthy savage. The only good savage is a dead savage.” The sheer brutality of it, the absolute hatred radiating from them, was almost too much to bear. My current husband, bless his heart, wouldn't have believed such a thing could happen in the modern world if he hadn't seen it himself, standing there with me, witnessing the same dry cleaners spew those exact, hateful words sixteen years prior.

It’s a stark reminder, isn’t it? A brutal awakening to the fact that the land we walk upon, the very soil of what is now called America, Canada, and Mexico, was here long before them. We were here first. We are the original inhabitants, the true stewards of this continent. And yet, we are treated as outsiders, as an inconvenience, as something to be feared and despised. The irony is as bitter as the taste of ash in my mouth. They forget. They conveniently erase the inconvenient truth that this land is our ancestral home, and we are, by birthright, the only true Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans. This prejudice, this ingrained hatred, is a scar on the land, a stain on the soul of these nations, and a wound that continues to ache with every passing year.