Tribal leaders and community members, and State government leadership addressed a packed Capitol Rotunda for the 39th annual American Indian Day on Friday. The event kicked off with a Tewa language invocation, the National Anthem and singing from the Santa Fe Indian School Students Drum Group.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham lamented that this would be her last American Indian Day as governor and spoke of her collaboration with the state’s Native Nations, Pueblos and Tribes.
"New Mexico is the only state in America that recognizes that it's a collective of leadership, not one more important than another," Lujan Grisham said. "Realizing that the power of our collective work and prayers is what lifts up everyone in New Mexico."
Lujan Grisham went on to boast her administration’s accomplishments for Indian Country over the last seven years, mentioning education funding, rural health care, childcare funding and more. But she noted, there’s more work to be done.
“It's not enough until every water settlement is done. It's not enough until all sacred lands are returned. It's not enough until we equalize educational outcomes. It's not enough until your communities are safe and clean. It's not enough until they're free from drugs and risk,” she said.
KSFR could not independently verify Lujan Grisham’s claim of a total $2 billion in state funds spent on Native communities during her tenure. Some of the largest individual projects that speakers mentioned included a $19 million Incident Command Center and a $24 million bridge project in the Navajo Nation. Navajo Nation President Buu Van Nygren, who alternated between English and Diné, lauded the partnership between State and Tribal governments.
He called the bridge project, "an example of how collaboration saves lives and strengthens communities.”
Department of Indian Affairs Secretary Josett Monette told KSFR that in her final year on the job she is working to ensure Native leaders know what state resources are available to them, highlighting a handbook with resources for Native Nation, Pueblo and Tribal leaders that her department is working on.
Although next year’s American Indian Day will be under new state leadership, Santa Clara Pueblo Governor James Naranjo is optimistic for the future, saying that every day is American Indian Day.
“We wake up in the morning and the creator is going to give us light and he’s going to give us darkness," Naranjo said. "Everything else, what we do when we wake up, is up to us."
