Leticia de la Vara
Organizer extraordinaire

Civil Rights Forum

Major wisdom laid down today in the lobby. The panelists, Raul Yzaguirre, John Echohawk, Peterson Zah and (fourth name to come) are civil rights and community leaders, they are doers and thinkers and at today's event they were just telling truth.

Leticia was the lead behind the scenes making sure all the pieces fit together. And they did beautifully. The setup with John Echohawk as the lead speaker...telling me there are 4mm Natives in more than 500 tribes across the US, soveriegn nations mind you, 1% of the population...telling me that the US government holds their land in trust - whatever that means - and the supreme court ruled in the 1800s that Native tribes were not foriegn nations, rather a nation within a nation.

Then on the panel you had Raul Yzaguirre laying down the truth from beginning to end. The significant issue facing the Lation communities and Native communities is the shared legacy of conquest - bam! How conquest changes a culture and has implications for a culture that aren't shared or understood. We need to know someone's pain, we need to know their story he said.

A moving event, a learning moment definitely, filled with pretty heady talk. My kind of thing!

More pictures later. Maybe...

Nice work Leticia!