May 5, 2019 - Johnnie Jae: Resiliency within Native Communities
May 5th, 2019
From May 10th - 12th 2019, Tribal leaders, activists, change-makers and artists will be convening in Houston, TX for the first Indigenous Peoples Movement conference.
Last Real Indians co-editor Matt Remle recently connected with Johnnie Jae, who will be presenting at the conference, about Native resiliency, mental health awareness and issues she's currently working on.
Tell us about yourself?
My name is Johnnie Jae. I am Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw, born and raised in Oklahoma but currently residing in Los Angeles. I am the founder of A Tribe Called Geek, an award-winning media platform for Indigenous geek culture and STEM. My advocacy work has led me to be a part of amazing organizations like Not Your Mascots, Live Indigenous OK, March For Racial Justice and the Women Warriors Work Collective.
You'll be one of the featured speakers at the upcoming Indigenous Peoples Movement conference, what will you be presenting on?
I'll be presenting on Resilience within Native Communities, which is something that I feel should be highlighted more in talking about the struggles we face as Indigenous people. Our communities have endured and are enduring terrible injustices that are traumatic and devastate our communities, but those injustices, tragedies and devastation do not define who we are as a people. We are not a defeated people and we do not cower in fear or sorrow.
We rise up and we fight back. Despite everything that should have broken us, should have eradicated us, we are still here. We survive because of the strength, resiliency and love that we have for each other, our communities, nations, land, water and all humanity. Yes, we need to talk about the injustices and the pain that our communities feel, but we also need to acknowledge our resiliency and the good within in our communities because that is how we change the narrative, that is how we reclaim and own our autonomy and power.
Acknowledging our resiliency is also how we help our communities heal, because it reminds us that in spite of our struggles, in spite of our tragedies....we can survive, we can heal and we can thrive.
*From May 10th - 12th 2019, Tribal leaders, activists, change-makers and artists will be convening in Houston, TX for the first Indigenous Peoples Movement conference. For more information go here
What issues are you currently working on?
May is Mental Health Awareness Month as well as Lupus Awareness Month, so I'm going to be focused on helping campaigns to raise awareness because I am Bi-Polar, a suicide attempt and loss survivor and I have been surviving Lupus since I was 9 years old. Both are pretty important to me because the rates of Suicide and Lupus are disproportionately affecting Native communities as we often lack the resources to provide adequate treatment and culturally sensitive/relevant physical and mental health care.
Addressing Mental Health and Suicide is of the utmost importance because Native Youth have the highest rates of suicide among all ethnic groups and it is the second leading cause of death among youth 15-24 years old.
The problem is that we are still learning how to have these hard conversations within our communities because of the stigma attached to mental illness and suicide, as well as the impact of historical trauma that has led us to believe that talking about these issues only exacerbates the problem.
Thankfully, we're at a point in time where are learning and working to figure out solutions that work for our communities while also respecting our cultural boundaries and beliefs.
How can people support, or learn more, about your work?
People can learn more about what I do at
and of course they can always feel free to chat it up with me on
twitter - www.twitter.com/johnniejae
facebook- www.facebook.com/johnniejae
and
Instagram - instagram.com/johnniejae
by Wakíƞyaƞ Waánataƞ (Matt Remle- Lakota)
Matt Remle (Lakota) is an editor and writer for Last Real Indians and LRInspire and the co-founder of Mazaska Talks. Follow @wakiyan7