Diane Rehm show; [1993-11-15--excerpt], Interview with Wilma Mankiller, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation ; Part 1

This broadcast to The Diane Rehm Show was made possible in part by the travel books and language center on Cordella Avenue near the Bethesda Metro Center, sellers have guidebooks, maps, histories, narratives, atlas's and a comprehensive selection of language cassettes and language learning materials, as well as foreign language literature. Good morning and welcome back to The Diane Rehm Show on Eighty-eight five F.M. in 1987, Wilma Mankiller became the first woman elected chief of the Cherokee Nation with 56 percent of the vote. She was reelected in 1991, this time with 82 percent of the vote. Chief Mankiller says voters by that point were far

more interested in competence than they were in the fact that she was a woman. Chief Mankiller was born in rural Oklahoma in 1945. At age 12, she experienced firsthand the US government's controversial removal policy of Native Americans when she and her family were relocated from their home in Mankiller Flats to San Francisco, California. Chief Mankiller, it's an honor to have you here. Oh, thank you. I'm happy to be here. Your name brings a lot of attention. Talk about its origins. Well, Mankiller originally was a title like a military title in the old Cherokee Nation, someone who watched over semi-autonomous Cherokee villages. And this one fellow liked the title so well, he kept it as his name. And that's who we trace our ancestry back to. But when people give me a hard time, I tell them it's a nickname that I earned and let them wonder what I did to ha. You said that being principal chief of the Cherokee Nation

is like running a big corporation and a small country at the same time. Talk about what it means. Well, and I would add to that and also being a social worker because well, I serve as the chief executive officer of a very large organization. We have a budget of about 78 million dollars. We run Head Start centers, daycare centers or our own high school, five primary health care clinics, build houses, build water systems, their job training and run businesses and that sort of thing. And so on. Any given day, I could be dealing with a personnel problem, a budget problem, talking to a member of Congress about a piece of legislation that we have that we're working on to have a community meeting that night. And so it is very, very there's a political side to it on the business side and also on an individual basis. Tribal members feel comfortable driving up in my yard or calling me at home and asking me to help, you know, with an educational problem or health care problem and the relationship to the state government

of Oklahoma and the national US government. Explain it. Well, we have we don't we have less of a relationship with the state government than we do with it, with the U.S. government. We have a direct government to government relationship with the federal government and which is a continuation of the way the relationship between the federal government and tribes began, which was a and a government to government relationship. In fact, the Cherokees had a treaty with Britain even before we had a treaty with one of the colonies. And then later, I think our first treaty was with South Carolina. So we have a long history of the government to government relationship you. So you're dealing with not only things like Head Start, but I mean things like water lines, taxation, nutrition. That's right. I mean, all of the problems that the entire federal government is dealing with on a nationwide basis we were dealing with in your own nation. Is there a group of tribal elected

tribal representatives with whom you meet then on a regular basis and who cast votes and that sort of thing? Well, the the I'm elected at large and the elected officials in the tribe or myself, the principal chief, a deputy principal chief and a 15 member tribal council, 15 and so and everybody's elected every every four years. And so we work collectively on on the resolution of problems. We have our own judicial system, our own tax commission and law enforcement and that sort of thing. So on a tiny scale, I deal with many of the same issues that the federal government deals with. Your father was a full blooded Cherokee. I gather. Your mother was Dutch, Irish, my mother's Dutch and Irish. In fact, I've spent a lot of my time working on native issues and researching native history. And this year I'm taking my mother to Ireland to look at her history and that side of the family. We're going to take a trip together.

The Trail of Tears for the Cherokee Nation in 1838, 1839, when they were moved off their own land. You experienced your own Trail of Tears when at age 12, you and your family underwent a whole removal talk about what was promised and how that came about. Well, we were. We I'm one of. Eleven children and we my family and I were farmers, we farmed both for our own consumption and also we saw what we could for cash crops and there just wasn't enough to go around. There are too many children and not enough to go around. My oldest brother had quit school to help support us and in the eighth grade. And so he and my father would go off to work in other places so they would have cash for us to to buy clothes and shoes for school. And during this period of time when we were having a rough time, the Bureau of Indian

Affairs came to my father and offered him this what they called a great new program. And the idea was to take families like ours, rural Turkey families and native families from lots of tribes and move them to urban areas where the choice of New York, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco and Oakland. We took Oakland. And so we it was it was a dramatic change. We went from living with no electricity, no indoor plumbing, no paved road near our house, almost no amenities at all. Got on a train and Stilwell, Oklahoma, and three days later ended up in downtown San Francisco in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, the Keys Hotel. And so it was a dramatic change. My brothers and I, the first night in San Francisco had heard sirens. We had no idea what the siren sounded like. And so we assumed it was some kind of animal. That's all we could relate it to. We had no idea what to expect going to San Francisco. We'd only been to Muskogee, to the state fair on a school sponsored program. So it was a dramatic change

from our very isolated life in eastern Oklahoma. What did your parents expect when they got there to say they expected a better life for their children, better than the life we had had at home? They in fact, they had been promised a better life and a better life for us. Ended up being eventually a housing project, a very rough housing project in San Francisco. And so the the better life actually never existed. And we eventually all returned home and came full circle and went back to our home in eastern Oklahoma. How was your father able to support the family in San Francisco? Well, the job they got my father was at a rope factory. He was making very, very little money. And my my brother, oldest brother, again, helped him to to make enough money to support the family and keep us going. So and then eventually became a longshoreman and became active in unions and that sort of thing.

And the housing the housing went from bad to worse. We were in a flat first for a while. And then when my oldest brother married and there was my we just had my father's income. We couldn't keep up the house. And so then we moved to the housing projects. And your mother, how did she fare? My mother, I think, actually oppose moving to San Francisco even more strongly than my my father. She had also been raised in a very rural area, and it was just difficult for her to cope with living in a city, living behind everything she had ever known in the city. She did the best she could given what she had to work with. What about schooling for you? What school was very difficult. When I arrived in San Francisco, I was just approaching puberty, which is a very volatile time. And and also my name was very different. I looked differently than the other people my age.

I spoke with an accent and Oklahoma accent in San Francisco. And so and I dress differently. And so it was an extremely difficult time for me. I hated school and I hated being in school. I think at that age you want more than anything to be like everybody else. And I had to ask our next door neighbor to show me how to use a telephone. I had never, never roller skated, never wrote a bike, all those kinds of things that young people on my block were doing. And so it was a very difficult time for me. And my mother tried to help. I told her about my problems in school and and not getting along and not people not liking me and how much I hated it. So she decided to give me a home permanent to make me prettier. It was awful. And I'll never forget that even all these years later, my mother's giving me a home permanent, which was even made. It made me look even worse. Would you say that the beginnings of your political awakening began in those years in San Francisco?

Well, I think that they began in San Francisco, both because we ended up being friends, close friends with people from the San Francisco American Indian Center with other. A native people who had also participated in the relocation program and also just my father and my family had kind of a very political atmosphere at the house, we always argued about politics and some issue that was going on either in the community or nationally. So that kind of set the stage for my interest. Or was there a sense on your part as you were leaving your home in Oklahoma and heading for San Francisco? Was there a sense in your 12 year old mind of what you were leaving? Absolutely. I remember I memorized I don't think that I knew fully what I was leaving, but I memorized every tree and memorized my house. I memorized the road.

I memorized the school. I had wanted to to stay with relatives and asked my parents if I could stay with relatives. I considered running away. And so I had a strong sense of what I was leaving. I just had no sense of what I was going to. I couldn't conceptualize a city or San Francisco, which obviously didn't have a television or anything like that. So I couldn't I couldn't imagine what San Francisco was, only that I was far away and not good the first time you married. You were relatively young. Yes, I was very young. I married right out of high school. And I, I think like a lot of young girls, that my husband was college educated and he came from a fairly wealthy Catholic family and he represented a life that I, you know, that that I had never had access to. And so I married him in a way, I think to get out of the life that I was in and into, into a new life, that marriage did

not last very long. It lasted actually for about 10 years. And as I became, he wanted a kind of a traditional household wife, housewife, and as I became more politically aware and more active, began to do volunteer work in the community and that sort of thing, the marriage fell apart. When did you actually return to Oklahoma? I returned briefly in the summer of 1976 and then returned permanently in 1977. And we were divorced by then and I just moved back. I had no money. My I rented a U-Haul truck, put everything I had in it and headed out across the country. I had no car, no job prospects in Oklahoma, but I just knew that it was time to go home. And so I and my two girls or our dog and our guinea pig headed across the country and with our sacks of sandwiches and went home and then soon found a job with the Cherokee Nation.

What was it like for you to go home? Well, it was easier than I thought. It was easier returning than it had been leaving. I found immediate acceptance in the the more traditional community. I saw one of my father's first cousins at the store and I asked her, do they still do tribal ceremonies here? I have ceremonial dances. And she said, yes. And so I went to one of the ceremonial dances and became accepted by that community. So it was easier being integrated than I than I thought it would be. And then I remember one day I was walking across the courthouse square and still there were lots of old Cherokee men, a certain chew tobacco and just talk about what's going on in their world and what was looking up some land or something. Not long after I returned home and this one man said to the other, There goes John Mankiller, the granddaughter. And then I knew, you know for sure, that I was was such a wonderful feeling.

And that made me feel more like I was home than anything else, probably. And the political activism on your part, how did that begin and how were you received in that way? Well, when I was in the Bay Area, I had been very politically active in Indian rights issues and treaty rights issues. And that kind of gave me some skills in both development and political activism. And when I came home, I learned to listen and to not come home and think I knew more than people because I'd been away. And so just kind of listened, sat on people's porches and drank coffee and talk to people and listened to people. And then after I got the job of the Cherokee Nation, I developed programs and provided services and that sort of thing. So I was home for a while before I ran for election, the first time in nineteen eighty three. It was really kind of almost like a fluke. Our principal chief then who was chief then develop systemic cancer.

And while he was. Ill I did a lot of work that he asked me to do and he liked my work, and so when he recovered and ran for chief in 83, he asked if I would run as deputy chief. And that's how I got involved in the political side of the trial was a very rough election. Were there a fair number of women involved politically within the Cherokee Nation at the time? No, no, there were no. When I began working for the Cherokee Nation in nineteen seventy seven, there had never been a female deputy chief, a female chief. There had there were no women executives. There were some women program directors, but no women executives at all. All the executives were men. And so I didn't begin my work there with the idea that I would become chief. It was just unprecedented. And I began work there with it, you know, firmly believing that we have a greater capacity to solve our own problems than we've ever been given credit for and developed programs accordingly

and then just kind of moved up the hierarchy until I ran for election in 83. And what was that election? You said it was quite rough, but what was it like for deputy chief? Well, it was a shock to me. I thought that that my politics would be the big issue in rural eastern Oklahoma, a very conservative part of the state. And I was prepared to to discuss my beliefs and views with people. And it was shocking that the only issue in the nineteen eighty three election was my being a woman. And it was a very painful, extremely hurtful experience to go to community meetings and have my own people say to me that if I was elected, that our tribe would be the laughing stock of all the tribes because we have a woman help having to lead the tribe. And that sort of thing was very difficult to counter that Chief Mankiller? Well, at first I didn't. At first I would just stand there and look hurt and my,

you know, a fairly decent debater. But because I was unprepared for that kind of argument, it was so nonsensical, I just could not deal with it. And later I decided that I was going to lose the election if I if I got sort of drawn into nonsensical arguments about women and leadership. And so I decided to just stick with the issues and move forward and ignore what was going on around me. And I saw a little thing on the back of a tee box in 1983. This as something like don't ever argue with a fool because someone walking by and observing you won't be able to tell which one is the fool. And I thought that was good advice. I thought these were foolish arguments about women not being able to lead. And so I wasn't going to get drawn into the debate. So I stuck with the issues and was elected in that way. What about the women, the tribes and the kind of support or lack thereof that you received from them? Well, at first I think I received more support from older people and people,

I would say 60 and over than any other group. That's the group that that started with me and has pretty much stayed with me as time as the past. I've received more support from from, you know, different people, but both men and women. The older population were my main supporters initially and later on. Did you glean a number of supporters among the female power? Absolutely. Absolutely. In the 87 election, the female vote made all the difference in the world. And then in 91, lots of lots of support. So it went from 56 percent to. But your first election running for chief of the Cherokee Nation, you're going in 56 percent of the vote. What about for deputy chief? What percentage did you actually win? I can't remember, but it wasn't 56 percent. It was just enough to win, but just barely enough.

And then once in office, as deputy chief, did you begin because of your focus on the issues, simply to see the opposition fall away as you concentrated in the areas that you knew people needed you to know? It didn't happen that easily? I thought it would. I thought by winning the election that people would would think that I had a mandate and would be cooperative and and helpful. There was still a lot of resistance to me for a long time. And I remember I was also president of the tribal council and I remember trying to conduct tribal council meetings and not having the cooperation at all of the members of the tribal council, that sort of thing. There was a lots of problems for for quite a number of years before people finally decided I was there to stay and that I meant business and I was going to continue on. Since your reelection in 91, had there been a far greater number of women now standing for elections themselves

on the tribal council, for example? Yes, in fact, we now have five members, five women who are today as. Yeah. Out of 15 out of 15. That really is remarkable. And then are to and then I've used my position to appoint women to positions of importance to both of our our judges, our women and our chief of staff. The last chief of staff position was helped by a woman who went to our health department to run our health system. And the women are, you know, in lots of important positions. Their director of communications is there's a woman and that sort of thing. So I've tried to appoint people and also work with girls in our tribe to help develop their sense of self and get them to view themselves as potential leaders or in many cases as leaders now in their own young communities. Would you suggest it is a battle won or are you continually fighting it?

No, I think I'm continually fighting it. I think that I've done the best that I could during the time that I've been there to put women in important positions and try to encourage other women to step up and assume leadership positions. Where do you see resistance come from? Well, I think that it comes there's a segment of our societies in our society as well that simply simply don't believe women should be in leadership positions. And that's where the resistance comes from. There are a group of people that that I think will be happy when, in their words, the tribe, quote, returns to male leadership, unquote. Wilma Mankiller is with me. She is principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Her new book is called Mankiller Chief and Her People. This broadcasted The Diane Rehm Show is made possible in part by artists environmental systems, offering Radan lead paint, asbestos and environmental inspection and test services to homeowners, buyers and building inspectors. The number at RTC is one 800 seven to two fifty

five eighty nine. Talk about what you see as some of the greatest problems facing the Cherokee Nation today. Well, I think one of the biggest problems has got to be health care. And we're not sure how the overall national health care reform plans will impact the Indian Health Service and ultimately impact individual native people. And so that's a huge issue for us. We have a tribal population of 150000 enrolled members, many of whom live there at home. We're doing the best we can and building clinics. And as for primary care, as well as doing health care, education, but I'm very, very concerned about how people can, you know, take care of themselves both when they're well to maintain wellness and also when they need treatment. That's a big issue for us. High school dropouts are also a proud high school dropout or a problem. We I think we we now plan to concentrate a lot on

after school programs, summer school programs. We put a lot of effort into early childhood education, a tremendous amount of effort there as well. And unemployment is at, what, 15 percent? I would say around 15 percent. And but it depends on it changes from community to community. You know, community is it is that I would say less than 10 percent. But in some communities it's higher than in others. The total population of the Cherokee Nation and the geography it spans outline it for us. Well, it's about I would say I don't know what the square mileage is, but it's all or part of 14 counties in eastern Oklahoma bordered by Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas. And the concern that used to be expressed so greatly about alcoholism within the Indian tribal nation.

To what extent does that remain a concern? Very much in in your in your area? Well, in our area, the alcoholism problem among the churches is about the same as it is in the general population. With some tribes, it's much higher and some tribes it's probably lower. But we it's still a significant problem because it's a significant problem in society. And we focus our efforts on alcohol prevention, on youth and try to do education among youth. When you take these youth who may, in fact, be dropping out of high school, are they staying within the Cherokee Nation or are they leaving? No, they're staying. Within the Cherokee Nation, even most people who go off to college like to come home and return to their family and also to the community and to the tribe, if you think that's becoming more important in the last five, 10 years, perhaps, you know,

I think it's becoming more important in the last 10 years. I really do. Why? Well, I think that people have a strong need for some sense of community and they can get all kinds of other things as they go out in the world. But they can't replace the sense of community they have when they're with people that they have a lot in common with. And besides being related to have a lot lot in common with and who form a community. There was a lot made of the 500 anniversary of Columbus's, quote, discovery of America last October. And I just wondered what that, uh, that whole celebration meant to you and your people. Well, I think I think you can focus on that and that hold the celebration and either be very angry about everything that's happened, particularly

that Columbus himself was personally responsible for, or you could use this as an opportunity to do education. And what I and others did that around me use this as an opportunity to provide education. And the biggest problem, I think, is that school boys and girls everywhere go to school and learn about Columbus as if the world began when Columbus arrived and there was no discussion of the people that were here before Columbus. And so I think in many ways last year actually allowed us to provide a lot of education. And I tend to focus on on the positive rather than the negative. And so I focused on education last year. But considering the decimation of the Native American population in this country in the last 500 years since Columbus arrival, what do you what do you foresee for the next 500 years?

Well, you know, I'm actually optimistic because I think that if we as a people have survived everything, we've survived historically. And if you think about it for a minute, will we live with a government that actually had as a policy, as a federal policy, wiping us off the face of the earth at one point and then had these other policies, the relocation reservation policies, Indian water boarding schools, you know, all those kinds of policies. If we've survived all that and managed and land on our feet and remain in 1993, culturally distinct group of people, then I think we're going to survive the next 500 years. If we've managed to to survive all that, we can look forward to the next 500 years, I think, and in a very optimistic way is the optimism shared by men and women alike within the Cherokee Nation or within the total Native American population as a whole, or is that

a predominantly female point of view? I think that that is more female. In fact, the this particular time we're living in right now, according to one Oneida fellow who talked to me, told me that this is the time of the women. And he calls it in his way, the time of the butterfly. It's the time of the women right now that we're in. And it may be time for women to be in leadership positions. I think that my own unscientific observation of women's leadership is that women tend to take the long view and that women are able to see the interconnectedness of things of health to jobs and education, to health and and to housing, to education and health and that sort of thing. I think women are able to see the interconnectedness of things in a in a uniquely female way. And that, I think would be very helpful to world leadership.

How is that related to the butterfly? Well, I think that well, some some tribes say that that that that men and women should lead in cycles. I'm not sure I entirely agree with this, but some sometimes some tribes say that there are times when men should lead and then there are times when women should lead and because of the crisis we have.