Show notes
Jeremiah Julius spoke with Darrell about his seventh year elected to the council, now
the Chairman of Lummi nations. Jeremiah introduces himself as a father of three and an avid
fisherman who loves serving his people. He is in his first 30 days as the chairman, and it feels
like “drinking water from a firehose.” He’s already formed a team, setting the goals and plans
they’ll seek to accomplish in the upcoming years as he continues to adjust to this eye-opening
and fulfilling job.
Jeremiah recounts that the council has done good things already in the small time he’s
been elected, and will continue to do good things with the whole community while rebuilding
relationships both outside and within. He has already set such a precedence. Within the first
day, he called a meeting with the council and his team. This helped set the stage for cooperation
and doing everything in line with who we are and what we value. Looking to his first 100 days
in office, Jeremiah wants to find out how to go beyond just communicating with the
community, and move into community involvement with the council. He does not have any
fantasies that such a task will be easy, but all the more he is committed to bridging the gap.
The first week he and his team participated in a retreat where they listed the priorities
in Lummi including; continual strengthening of Sovereignty and treaty rights; investment in
community development; an emphasis on Health just as the council emphasized last year;
economic development including diversifying past gaming; taxing outside government as a
sovereign nation and finding a way around dual taxation. He is painfully aware of the unmet
needs that keep getting unfulfilled during budget time, and wishes to fulfill them eventually.
Darrel asked Jeremiah how and if he has been prepared for this new responsibility in
leadership. Jeremiah admitted that its impossible to fill the shoes of past leaders, but being able
to grow up with those leaders and on the water, with the importance of what defines us and
who we give him the strength he uses to this day.
He noted that his experience with hunting and preparing ducks with his friends and
family was another way he had become prepared for leadership. Self-education too was very
important, as he asked everyone what to read then went ahead and read those books. Books
about business, how to set trends, how to look to the future beyond the now.
There really isn’t one right way to become prepared as a leader of the Lummi Nation,
but in the end, Jeremiah admitted it was how he learned from his parents, grandparents, and
children. The most important lessons he learned were these: being Lummi, being a fisherman,
knowing what the water means to him, and how it connects him to his grandpa, his children, his
aunts and uncles.
He moved on to the importance of homeland beyond just the reservation and the need
for partnership with governments on equal footing, of looking beyond the paternalistic attitude
that has been put upon the Lummi nation and getting off the ‘menu’ and onto the table. He
states that the Lummi nation has gotten to the table, unlike the past years. Darrell then
reminded him of how his own aunt and mother closed down the ferry terminal, how Larry
Kinley went to Washington DC to get a place at the table and how this place at the table lays a
foundation for leadership.
Jeremiah went over the threats to sovereignty and treaty rights and the situation of
children in the ‘system’. He himself had father figures to raise him after his own father died, but
many children, he reminds us, do not have that and are caught in the ‘system’. The need to
belong to a family and Lummi nations, of mothers to sons, daughters to fathers, these things
need to be strengthened and preserved.
Yet there is also the breakage of net pens that release alien fish species into our
waters. Culverts and pollution have attacked the salmon and driven their numbers low,
threatening the survival of Lummi Nation. This and the problem of judicial reversals on high also
loom. The fact is, there are outside entities have a hard time viewing the senior water rights
held by the Lummi Nation.
In all of these threats, Jeremiah is concerned how to pierce through the misleads and
lies that outside communities will swallow in the upcoming times. How do we send out the
message of who we are when they do not know who we are? How do you deliver that
message? Those attempts to make it ‘us’ vs ‘them’, how do you stop that? The new chairman
does not know the answer, but he knows that we do not pick fights. When we do fight it is
necessary. Quoting Darrell, Jeremiah said “we fight the fight and we never give up. We fight
good fights.” He also noted that its always to protect; Either archeological sites or fish streams,
there is a need to stop and look at what yesterday held to know where all this destruction and
development is moving us towards.
Delivering the message will be hard, but it is being done says Jeremiah. As an example,
he brought up the victory of Xwe’chi’eXen, where the outside was educated about who the
Lummi nation are.
With all this heaviness, could there possibly be words of encouragement? Yes, and
Jeremiah reminds us all: “We together do so much. We do great things, we hold ceremonies,
when we come together as families it is a feeling that cannot be replaced, it cannot be beaten
by any other feeling. That’s what we need in our community. There’s so much work and
celebration that must be done. Lets do it together. Lets fight together, not with one another.
Lets celebrate together, with one another, lets love together.” At the end he pleaded for all to
think about what they say before they say it, especially with social media where things can
never be taken back. When were courage’s, it’ll encourage the youth without saying a single
word. What we do now the future leaders will do also.
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