Becoming neighbors in Indian country

Tonight was the annual meeting of Suquamish Olalla Neighbors and my last meeting as co-chair.

We started four years ago when Chief Seattle's grave was desecrated. I was new in Suquamish then—I had just bought a log cabin on the Port Madison Reservation, home of the Suquamish Tribe, across the Agate Passage Bridge from Bainbridge Island.

When I heard about the desecration, I waited for a community leader to step forward to express condolences to the tribe so I could join in. It was clear to me that this was a moment when the community needed to close ranks against this sort of hate crime.

When nothing happened, I called the people I knew, we met in my living room, and then called a public meeting at the main church in town. Sixty people showed up -- some from the tribe but mostly non-tribal people -- and we talked about what we could do to heal a community that turned out to be more divided than I had understood. Our group publicly expressed our condolences to the tribe and offered to help with restoration, and participated in their ceremony to reconsecrate the gravesite.

Since then we have held annual pot lucks to celebrate those who are strengthening our community. One time it was the young tribal canoe carvers who brought the tribe the gift of the first hand-carved canoe in decades. Another time, it was the teachers and librarian at the local elementary school who turned a drainage ditch into a marsh where native reeds grew, and then brought in tribal elders to teach the children to weave traditional baskets from those reeds.

We were invited to work with the tribe on getting a small park returned to the tribe that was once the center of their village and the home of Chief Seattle. Some of the non-Indian residents of the reservation strongly opposed the return of the park – some of them have been opposing the tribe on any number of issues for years. We worked closely with the tribe, we asked for everyone’s input, include those opposing us, and in August, the tribe won back the land.

After four years as co-chair, I stepped down tonight because I think changes in leadership are healthy and because it is time for me to turn my attention even more fully to YES! I think this will be an important and transformative year for YES! leading up to our tenth anniversary next year, and I want to keep my focus here. More on that later.

Meanwhile, I plan to stay involved in Suquamish Olalla Neighbors. We have way too much fun together, whether it’s helping the tribe host other tribes arriving on the annual canoe journey or convincing the county commission that most of their constituents do indeed want the tribes to be treated with full respect as governments, just as the treaties indicate.

Even our monthly meetings are full of surprises. Ted George, a tribal elder who co-founded Suquamish Olalla and is our honorary co-chair, tells stories of how things were and reminds us of how things could be. We hear about the people who negotiated the treaties and about the tribal kids who used to dig clams to earn money for school clothes or a Saturday night date. Tonight we also heard from the two monks at the Buddhist Temple on Bainbridge Island who are planning a peace walk from the nuclear installation at Hanford, in eastern Washington, to the Bangor submarine base. The last day of the walk will take place on the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and will start at Chief Seattle’s grave.

By the time we are finished listening to each other, something has shifted. In ways that are often intangible, we are creating a new foundation for our small community.