Category: News

By Kalvin Valdillez, Tulalip News; photos submitted by Paula Cortez, Teri Nelson, and Anita Matta

On the morning of May 17, an intimate ceremony took place at the Tulalip Dining Hall as the community, Tribal police department, and the families of William Williams Sr. and Charlie Joe Cortez gathered to pay tribute to the two fallen heroes of Tulalip. Nationwide, police departments take the time to honor and recognize those officers who paid the ultimate sacrifice and died in the line of duty every May 15^th, and its corresponding week, which is officially known as Peace Officer Memorial Day and Police Week. 

Tulalip Police Department Chief of Police, Chris Sutter, shared, “Just a little history on the importance of this day – in 1962 President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation which designates this week of May 15^th as Peace Officer Memorial Day and Police Week. That was sixty years ago. Today and this week in Washington D.C., officers from all over the country and their loved ones are having ceremonies at the [United] States Capitol.

“This year, President Joseph Biden sent out a Presidential Proclamation and in part, this what that proclamation reads: ‘Every day when law enforcement officers pin on their badges, they make an extraordinary commit to the American people. To rush towards danger, regardless of the risks, and to faithfully stand up for the rule of law. Across our neighborhoods, towns, and cities, they put themselves in harm’s way, hoping to return safely to their families. On Peace Officers Memorial Day and during Police Week, we celebrate the remarkable courage of our law enforcement community and honor the fallen heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect their fellow Americans’.” 

At the beginning of the month, the annual Washington State Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Project took place in Spokane. During the memorial project, a candlelight vigil is held for fallen officers from around the state. Each year, a select number of fallen officers are recognized during the memorial project and their names are etched into a granite wall outside of the Public Safety Building in Spokane. At this year’s remembrance, Tulalip tribal member and TPD Fisheries Patrolman, William Williams Sr.’s name was unveiled on the wall next to Charlie Joe Cortez.

On the Officer Down Memorial Page, a website dedicated to the memory of all of the fallen officers across the nation, Williams’ dedication states that he drowned while patrolling Quil Ceda Creek in July of 1965, and that he was reported missing after his boat was found unoccupied. His body was recovered along the creek in the days following, just west of the I-5 overpass in Marysville. 

TPD Fish and Wildlife Officer, Charlie Cortez’s End of Watch date was on November 17^th of 2020. While on duty, and after assisting a distressed boater in rough and stormy conditions, Charlie’s fisheries vessel capsized in the Salish Sea. After a two-day search and recovery mission, Officer Cortez was pronounced lost at sea and his body has yet to be recovered and returned home to his family. 

These two brave men and Tulalip tribal members dedicated their lives to protecting their beloved tribal community. And with each passing day, their presence is missed more and more by their families and community, but their memory continues to live on through their loved ones and fellow TPD officers. Which is why gatherings such as Honoring Our Heroes event are of the utmost importance, to remember their sacrifice and their commitment to keeping the people of Tulalip safe.

Chief Sutter expressed, “I’m excited to see the community come together – this is good medicine for healing, supporting, and loving each other. We are gathered here today to show respect and remembrance for our fallen officers. This is a solemn event and we want to support each other and love each other and celebrate the lives of our two fallen heroes from Tulalip. And it’s not lost on me that they were both from the fish and wildlife patrol enforcement, and how dangerous and how quickly the waters can change. I want to acknowledge our fish and wildlife officers today and thank them for their sacrifice and service to the community along with all of our police officers.”

Following a blessing by Tribal youth drummers, the people were invited to share stories of their time spent with the fallen officers. Speakers included family members, their fellow brothers and sisters of the badge, and several Tribal leaders.  

“When I got up and spoke, I remember thinking that this was such a healing moment for the families and officers,” said Officer Cortez’s mother, Paula Cortez. “It was special. I’ve seen ceremonies like this held at other departments, and I’m just so grateful that TPD decided to do it as well.”

While recollecting on a time period during Charlie’s childhood, Paula continued, “I shared a cute story about Charlie when he was a little boy. We were driving down the road, he’d see a cop pass by and he’d say, ‘cheese man, cheese man!’. I looked at him like what are you talking about, and he’d be pointing at the policeman. I was wondering where in the world he got cheese man out of policeman. So, when we were driving down the road again one day, and I saw another cop, I said, ‘oh it’s the cheese’. That’s what it meant; they were the cheese men.”

The Tulalip Police Department plans on holding an Honoring Our Heroes event every year during Peace Officer Memorial Day and Police Week to bring healing to the community from here on out, by recognizing those two fallen officers who died in the line of duty while protecting their homelands.

“The honoring was really special to me, and it turned out really nice. It gave everybody who didn’t get to make it to the memorial services an opportunity to share some of their stories that they had together. As Charlie’s mother, I will always do anything and everything that I can to keep his memory alive.” 

By Micheal Rios, Tulalip News

It’s been over a decade since visual storyteller Matika Wilbur uprooted her life entirely and sold all her material possessions to fully invest in her vision: to photograph the vast beauty and diverse spectrum of Native American culture, unveil the true essence of contemporary Native American issues, and showcase the magnitude of tradition that unites Native America.

She named her vision Project 562. A moniker that reflected the number of federally recognized tribes at the start of her journey back in 2012. There are now 574 federally recognized tribes, yet her intention behind choosing the name Project 562 remains intact as she intended to both inspire and educate. 

“While teaching at Tulalip Heritage High School and attempting to create a photography curriculum with a narrative that our children deserve, I found an outdated narrative,” she recalled of her journey’s inception. “It’s an incomplete story that perpetuates an American historical amnesia. It’s a story that’s romantic, dire and insatiable…it’s the story of extinction.”

Matika points out the extinction theme often associated with Native America is easily perceived by doing a quick Google Images search. If you search for ‘African American’, ‘Latino American’ or ‘Asian American’, then you will find images of present-day citizens who represent each culture. You’ll also see proud, smiling faces and depictions of happy families. 

But if you search for ‘Native American’ the results are very different. You’ll see many black and white photos of centuries old Native Americans who are “leathered and feathered”. 

“All of these images and misconceptions contribute to the collective consciousness of the American people, but more importantly it affects us in the ways that we imagine ourselves, in the ways we dream of possibility,” explained the Tulalip citizen turned nationally renowned photographer. 

After dedicating the last 11 years, traveling more than 600,000 miles and visiting more than 400 sovereign tribal nations (spanning from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska to the Miccosukee in Florida’s Everglades), Matika has returned home. And with her return came the exciting announcement that she received an exclusive book deal with Ten Speed Press.

While on the road to fulfilling her vision, Matika became one of the Pacific Northwest’s leading photographers and has been exhibited extensively in regional, national, and international venues, such as the Hibulb Cultural Center, Seattle Art Museum, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, The Tacoma Art Museum, the Royal British Columbia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts in France. 

Even more impressively, some of her stunning photos are now included in the Google Images front page when searching ‘Native American’.  She’s literally helped change the powerful Google search algorithm to showcase a more modern, vibrantly fierce Native American spirit. 

Another momentous experience for her and the local community took place on April 26, when the now 39-year-old Matika presented Native American students of Marysville Getchell, Marysville Pilchuck, and Tulalip Heritage high schools with her crowning achievement – Project 562: Changing The Way We See Native America – a whopping 416-page hardcover book showcasing Native American culture through breathtaking photos and stories from hundreds of tribal nations. 

“I set off on this journey to change the way we see Native America. To put together a body of work that represents who we truly are. This journey has taken me across all 50 states, from the Arctic to New Zealand to Puerto Rico to over 1,000 tribal communities in between,” shared the expressive homegrown icon to the Heritage high school students. “All of you are why I did this. Even if I don’t know you personally or you may not know me, it’s so important that you, the children of this community, know how truly loved you are. You are our hopes and our dreams and our future.

“I want you to know that despite what anybody tells you, despite the lies you’ve been told about yourselves, and despite the false narratives written about your ancestors, you deserve all the goodness. You deserve all the medicine. You deserve the opportunity to believe in yourselves. I want you to know that these pages were written for you. Even if you don’t read it immediately or just a little at a time, never forget this book and all its messages within were made for you.

“For me, in this moment, I feel like my dream came true, but I also can’t help but think of all the relatives who didn’t get to see their dreams come true,” she continued. “Hopefully, you too can live to a time where you can see your dreams actualized. If I can leave you all with one final message it’s to dream bigger, imagine bigger…because you deserve it.” 

Within her book, which currently ranks #2 on the Amazon Best Sellers list for Art & Photography, are candid conversations about tribal sovereignty, self-determination, holistic wellness, historical trauma, decolonization, rematriation and many more on the importance of revitalizing culture. This creative, consciousness-shifting work is available for purchase locally at the Hibulb Cultural Center and the Elliot Bay Book Company, or through digital purchase via Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

“This book means so much to me because I didn’t even know of her or her journey until the beginning of this year, but I’ve learned through her stories and presentation how much she’s done for our community and many other tribal communities across the country,” shared 9^th grader Lilly Jefferson. “I’m so amazed looking at her photos and can’t believe she fulfilled her dream even though no one believed in her in the beginning. I’m really excited for when I grow up and make new dreams because I won’t forget her and what she said. I will dream big!”

“After all her travels and visiting all those other tribes, she still chose to come back home and give back to her community. That’s pretty cool,” added 16-year-old Image Enick. “Listening to her story gives me more inspiration for a dream of mine. I have an idea to create a YouTube channel and document travels to other tribes who play stick games. The game is played different the further you travel, and I’d like to learn how they play in Rocky Boy, Montana and across the border in Canada. Knowing we have a tribal member here who has visited all the tribes, it makes me feel good to think I can approach her with my idea and get tips on who to talk to and where to go when I decide to start my own journey.”

In the most respectful way, Matika estimates she’s been welcomed into a thousand different tribal communities because they not only supported her project whole-heartedly, but also because they too desired to see things change. From media coverage to Google Images search results to what’s written in history books, Native Americans deserve an accurate portrayal of their thriving, dynamic traditions and remarkable oral histories that have sustained Native America since time immemorial.

“We were all silenced. We don’t tell-all because we can’t tell all – because we might get a spanking. There was a lot of things I’ve seen, a lot of things I heard, a lot of things I don’t want to remember. We kept our secrets all this time. We don’t talk about it; we should talk about it. It’s okay to heal, we are not healed yet. I’m 99 years old and I’m still healing yet. It’s hard. It’s very hard.”

-Ernestine Lane, Lummi Nation

By Kalvin Valdillez, Tulalip News

In the late 1800’s, the US government made it their mission to erase the cultural identity of the Indigenous population by establishing boarding schools throughout the country. The official slogan for the Civilization Fund Act was ‘kill the Indian, save the man’. Children as young as three were forcibly removed from their families and tribes to attend these horrific assimilation academies. And if the children spoke their ancestral languages or practiced any of their traditions at the boarding schools, they were punished harshly and faced physical, emotional, and mental abuse. These institutes continued with these practices well into the sixth decade of the nineteenth century.

Resilient is a word that this current generation of Native people identify with because they are actively putting in work to revitalize and recover their languages, dances, songs, and traditional way of life. And after decades of attempts, from both religious and governmental institutions, at demonizing our people and practices, we are still here, and we are still standing strong. 

Many of today’s Indigenous activists and cultural bearers are quick to credit the older generations who experienced the atrocities committed by the boarding schools, and who held strong and passed on their traditions to the next generations. For Tulalip, there are several prime examples of resilient tribal members who preserved the culture despite harsh assimilation efforts. One such individual is always held in high honor for the sacrifices she made to ensure that the history and traditions of the sduhubš people are accessible to their future generations for many years to come, and she is none other than Harriette Shelton-Dover. 

On the morning of April 23, the reason why many Coast Salish children bravely endured lashings, beatings, or solitary confinement, and the reason why many children were laid to rest at a young age, was on full display at the Tulalip Gathering Hall. The reason they made those sacrifices could be seen on the button-designed shawls and vests, the cedar-woven hats and headbands. Those sacrifices could be heard on the elk and deer skin hand drums, and in the voices of their descendants who utilized their ancestral language, in both song and prayer. The sacrifices were present in every dance step, in each bite of salmon during the lunch hour, and through the act of smudging with sage bundles every time someone walked through the doors of the Gathering Hall. Those sacrifices were made by young children who kept the cultural fire burning in the darkest of times. 

The price those elders and ancestors paid did not end with corporal punishment at the boarding schools. Over time, due to the threat of those punishments, they learned to hold their emotions in, which resulted in heavy baggage that was also passed down their lineage. And though most boarding schools have been disestablished, the trauma wounds they caused are still very much exposed and present in every Native community throughout North America. 

Until recent years, the history of Indian boarding schools remained widely unknown to the general population. The first step in healing those trauma wounds was simply making people aware of the damage caused and the lives lost during the boarding school era, as well as getting the federal government to acknowledge their role in the attempt of cultural genocide.
In 2021, the first Native American to serve as a US Cabinet Secretary, Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative to investigate what took place at these schools by reviewing records and speaking to the tribal nations that were affected by Civilization Fund Act. The results of that investigation, released in May 2022, show that between the years of 1819 and 1969, the US operated or supported 408 boarding schools across 37 states, along with at least 53 burial sites for Indigenous children. 

In the following months, Secretary of Interior Haaland and Bryan Newland (Bay Mills Indian Community), the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, organized a yearlong journey across the nation, known as the Road to Healing Tour. The goal behind the tour is ‘to connect communities with trauma-informed support and facilitate collection of a permanent oral history’.

The Road to Healing made its sixth stop of the tour at the Tulalip Gathering Hall. In addition to the 200 or so tribal members in attendance, a group of professionals from Indian Health Services, whose expertise is in trauma-informed care, were at-hand to support the boarding school survivors and their decedents throughout the day. 

Secretary Haaland was escorted to the front of the Gathering Hall by a group of Tulalip singers as they opened the ceremony with the sduhubš welcome song, also known as Harriette Shelton-Dover’s song. After blessing all four corners of the longhouse-style hall, cultural bearer Glen Gobin shared a brief history of boarding schools at Tulalip.

He shared, “There were three phases of the boarding school. Father Chirouse came shortly after the treaty signing, he set up a school at the mouth of Quil Ceda. Then he moved it down towards Priest Point and actually built a school there – that’s why it’s called Priest Point. And as our children passed away, he started a cemetery there also. I was doing research and I saw that my grandma’s sister, age 6, was one of those who died and is buried at that cemetery. 

“And then, I believe it was in the late 1860’s, the Sisters of Providence petitioned the government to start a school. That school was across the bay where Mission Cemetery is today – and that’s why there is a cemetery there. As the children passed away, they were buried around the school grounds. 

“That [school] burned down in the late 1800s and then the government took the program back and said, ‘we’re going to run this ourselves now’. And so, in the early 1900s, the boarding school was developed – that was ran like a military camp. And as we heard many of our elders talk throughout the years, what they knew, or witnessed, or what our grandparents told them – was about the constant marching, the constant inability to speak their language, the constant inability to see their family when they wanted to, because they were taken away and brought to the schools to civilize them.”

Following introductions by both Deb Haaland and Bryan Newland, they opened the floor for the survivors, and their descendants, to share how they were affected by the Indian boarding schools. 

Virginia Bill, daughter of survivor Lottie Sampson (Swinomish/Upper Skagit) stated, “When she got here to Tulalip, she did talk of having to be marched everywhere. She talked about that bell that would ring. I think it was in the 1980s, we were brought here to a ceremony to commemorate that bell. I found my mom sitting alone by herself, and I asked her what she was thinking. She said, ‘Thank God, that silence. No more will that bell tell me where to go, where to be’. I read some documents that said they were going to make Tulalip the Carlisle of the Northwest. I read some of the official papers, where the former priest that was here referred to our families as savages. When you read those articles, it breaks your heart. There are no commemorative plaques, no ribbons, there are no stories telling us about the success of our mothers and fathers – there is no ‘congratulations, you made it’.”

Boarding School survivor and Lummi tribal member, Jewell James, said, “My great-grandfather talked about how they would burn his tongue and torture him, and stick his tongue on frozen pipes outside during the winter every time he used his Lummi language. It was a real traumatic experience. My mother, when she was three, ended up at Cushman (Indian Hospital). And she battled with depression. There was no job or income or food on the reservation, so it was either Cushman or you starve. And she would always talk and cry about how at the age of three, they put her in the basement with the rats and blocked off all the lights. She’d always talk about how she had to hide in the corner and hope the rats didn’t get her.”

The tears were pouring as boarding school survivor Matthew War Bonnet Jr. (Lakota), recounted his boarding school experience. He said, “at nighttime, in the dormitories, the kids would cry because they were lonesome for their parents. Sometimes the priest who shared a little room off to the side, would get disturbed about that. He would come out with his belt, pick up a kid off the bed and whack them for crying. When you’re six years old and you see that, you get scared, you start holding things in.”

After about two hours and several testimonies, Haaland and Newland called for the first break, and a traditional Tulalip lunch was served to the people. During this time, they asked for all the media outlets to excuse themselves for the day. The following sessions provided the opportunity for more survivors to detail their experiences at the boarding schools, while delving deeper into topics that they were not comfortable sharing in front of the cameras. From what we gathered through social media, the event extended into the late Sunday evening. Important work took place, and the healing process began for many, as they opened up for the first time about the terrible things that occurred at the schools in a private and supportive setting. 

Secretary Haaland expressed, “Your voices are important to me, and I thank you for your willingness to share your stories. Federal Indian Boarding School policies have touched every Indigenous person I know. Some are survivors, some are descendants, but we all carry this painful legacy in our hearts. Deeply ingrained in so many of us is the trauma that these policies in these places have inflicted. My ancestors and many of yours endured the horrors of Indian boarding school assimilation policies carried out by the same department that I now lead. This is the first time in history that the United States Cabinet Secretary comes to the table with the shared trauma – that is not lost on me. And I’m determined to use my position for the good of the people.”

She continued, “In Washington state alone, there were 15 boarding schools, leaving intergenerational impacts that persists in the communities represented here today. It is my department’s duty to address the shared trauma that so many of us carry. To do that, we need to tell our stories. Today is part of that journey – I want you all to know that I’m with you on this journey. I will listen, I will agree with you, I will weep, and I will feel your pain. As we mourn what we have lost, please know that we still have so much to gain. The healing that can help our communities will not be done overnight, but I believe very strongly that it will be done. This is one step among many that we’ll take together to strengthen and rebuild the bonds within Native communities that Federal Indian Boarding School policies set out to break. Those steps have the potential to alter the course of our future.”