INSIDE NMAI


........................ MAKING US AWARE BY MOLLY J. STEPHEY


A group of students and elders from Washington state’s Suquamish community visit the museum in Washington, D.C. to talk about pollution’s impact on their tribe. T


Vincent Chargualaf, a high school student from the Suquamish Tribe of Washington state, performs one of the community’s traditional songs in the Rasmuson Theater at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.


46 AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER 2013


he Suquamish called the Puget Sound home for nearly 10,000 years, long before the first European stepped ashore in 1792. Thanks to the region’s abundance of salmon, cod,


clams, geoducks, oysters and waterfowl, the tribe cultivated a meaningful relationship with and reliance upon the region’s water- ways.


“People of the Clear Salt Water” in the Southern Lushootseed language. Roughly half of the tribe’s 1,050 enrolled


members live today on Port Madison Indian Reservation. Although it represents a frac- tion of the territory their ancestors once called home, the Suquamish have managed to retain the fishing traditions that once de- fined their forebears’ way of life. But a new


threat to the tribe’s culture has emerged, according to We Are Aware/Are You?, a short documentary that was recently screened at the Mall museum. As the film explains, industrial pollution


In fact, the word Squamish means


from nearby Seattle – home to corporate giants like Starbucks, Amazon and, until re- cently, Boeing – has led to ocean acidification, which occurs when carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is absorbed into the ocean, raising pH levels and damaging young marine life. The film’s message was underscored by


the presence and passion of its creators: Vincent Chargualaf,


Tyleeander Purser,


Shaylene Sky Jefferson and Crystal Boure, four high school students from the Suqua- mish tribe who had traveled from Wash- ington state to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness about ocean acidification and its devastating impact on the fishing culture and


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68