Short Answer Questions

Savanah Smith (Descendant Fort Peck Assiniboine), Fort Peck Community College STEM Student Retention Specialist.

By Savanah Smith, Fort Peck Community College STEM Student Retention Specialist

2024-2025 Indigenous Visionary Fellow

The Indigenous Visionaries: Women’s Leadership Program has brought a vital piece of my learning and growth full circle. Our cohort has laughed, cried, and celebrated the intricate balance that is womanhood, together. Sometimes you just need to laugh like an auntie, cry like a child, and be wrapped in the comfort and understanding of your mother. With this group of women, we’ve taken the time to be intentionally vulnerable in a way that, as Indigenous women in a modern world, we don’t often make the time to do. Our sessions have provided opportunities for us to praise and build up the leaders in each other.

At my core, I know that I will never stop growing or expanding who I am, in relationship to others as well as with the natural world. Most importantly, I’ve been encouraged to look at my many roles as a queer woman, mother, and auntie, and really reflect on how these, along with many other aspects of my identity, intersect. Sometimes aspects of who I am are in agreement, and other times I have had to figure out how the different parts work together, where there might be discomfort or tension. It is in our best interest, not to be so set on who we are, that we don’t allow ourselves to grow and change throughout our lives. We are dynamic and multifaceted, complicated and beautiful, and all of it contributes to us finding the medicine we carry to help others.

We’ve discussed taking the time to not just pray but reflect on prayer and acknowledge the prayers of the powerful women that have got us here. I often pray to my grandmothers, about my community, my children, their health and happiness, my relatives, and even for guidance to better serve those around me in a way that fulfills the things I am most passionate about. While our ancestors’ prayers are strong, we cannot continue to get by on the prayers of our grandmothers alone. We must send up prayers for ourselves as well, and we must meet those prayers half-way so that we can realize the roles that have been designed by the creator especially for us. We are much more than life givers. We are students, second shifters, degree seekers, caretakers, trans, people of color, sole providers, aunties, and the granddaughters our grandmothers have prayed for. In this very moment, we are a living and breathing manifestation of the prayers of our relatives.

While women, especially Indigenous women, are hardly ever recognized for our contributions in shaping the future, we have always been there making sure that all the work is done, that all the gardens are tended, that all the people are fed, and that the home is in order. We take up roles that some might say don’t belong to us, because women do what needs to be done in this life. So, while we often read about men in leadership positions, Indigenous women have always been leaders, leaders that carry others, leaders that heal wounds, leaders that consider the past, the present, and the future. Indigenous women and women of color are now leading the work to address trauma they and others have incurred over generations.

We’ve carried the weight of ancestral trauma we didn’t understand. We’ve carried the burden of secrets, fears and truths we’ve never told. It is through our shared vulnerability and intentional inclusivity that decolonization, not just of this country; but of our minds and ways of life, can take place. This means rethinking our role in the community, stepping outside of what is comfortable, and reclaiming space. Our histories have been altered by the Indigenous women and women-identifying relatives who have sacrificed and blazed trails for us. Much like our ancestors, we have had to sacrifice and struggle to make ends meet, to provide, and often to survive. Today, though struggle is not absent, we have education and ancestral knowledge to pair with our collective voices that we can use to demand and make change.

Change is scary because it forces us to rethink who we are and how we got here, while presenting us with a choice. We can choose old behaviors, despite our restlessness and dissatisfaction, our habitual ways are comforting and routine. Synonymously, change can be an origin point, a new beginning. Change provides us with a brief opportunity to rewrite our destiny if only we embrace it with an open heart and mind. It calls us out for the ways we have been complacent and begs us to set boundaries, break cycles, and stop shrinking ourselves. It asks, what is your medicine?

Savanah’s great, great, grandmother Kills in the Woods Woman “Susan” surrounded by her daughters.