Episode 34

The weight of those words, spoken with such venom and certainty, still settles in my chest like a cold stone. Sixteen years, and the sting remains. "We don't want Your kind around here. You're nothing but a filthy savage, the only good savage is a… savage." Ny, my late Apache husband, his face a mask of disbelief and hurt, had stood beside me, a silent witness to the ugliness that clung to the very air of Tooele, Utah. The dry cleaners – a row of them, all offering the same chilling refusal. It wasn't just one shop; it was a collective, a united front of prejudice that branded us, not as people, but as an unwanted stain.

It’s a strange thing, this feeling of being an outsider in your own homeland. We were here first. We are the original inhabitants, the true stewards of this land. And yet, we are often treated as if we are interlopers, as if our presence is an inconvenience. This deep-seated hatred, this vile prejudice, it festers in places you wouldn't expect, cloaked in the mundane everyday. It’s in the averted gazes, the hushed whispers, the outright hostility that can erupt without warning. It’s the constant reminder that no matter how much we contribute, how much we strive, there are those who will never see us as equals, who will cling to caricatures and condemn us with the same tired, hateful rhetoric.

The White House, too, has played its part in this ongoing narrative of dispossession and disrespect. Lies spun long before the Trail of Tears, designed to justify the theft of our lands, our resources, our very existence. They coveted our gold, our silver, our gemstones, our timber – anything of value that lay beneath the soil or stood tall upon it. And in their relentless pursuit, they cared little, and still care little, for the consequences that would befall us. The Bible speaks of turning the other cheek, and indeed, we have done so. We have absorbed blows, endured hardship, and offered kindness even when it was not reciprocated. But there comes a point, doesn’t there? A point where the constant turning leads to a severe case of whiplash, an exhaustion that settles deep into your bones.