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Veterans Day weighed on Lizette Rivera, a United States military veteran and the faculty sponsor of Diversity @ ESF 24/7/365.

After participating in ESF’s first Veterans Day celebration, Rivera presented on missing and murdered Indigenous women and children during the Diversity @ ESF 24/7/365 meeting this evening.

Rivera, the director of student inclusion initiatives and special assistant to the chief diversity officer at ESF, and Emily Li, a junior at SUNY-ESF and founder of the group, chose this week’s topic because it is Native American Heritage Month, Rivera said.

The meetings are meant to be a safe space for participants to share what is truly on their minds after listening to difficult topics, Li said.

Meetings are held on Wednesdays from 5:30-6:30 p.m. and Thursdays from 1-2 p.m. The group has met since the fall 2018 semester in person but turned to Zoom this semester.

“This is not just a presentation,” Rivera said. “This is meant to promote dialogue.”

Rivera started her presentation by playing a video of a poem, “MMIW: Pocahontas.” “MMIW” stands for missing and murdered Indigenous women, and the woman reading the poem recognizes Pocahontas as the most famous missing Indigenous woman in history.

Rivera had tears in her eyes following the reading of the poem because she learned from the poem that Pocahontas was captured at 10 years old.

“I’m not going to lie, this choked me up,” Rivera said when the poem ended.

She then played the TEDx video — “Running for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women” — hosted by Rosalie Fish, a member of the Cowlitz Tribe. Fish said that the murdering and kidnapping of Indigenous women is an epidemic in the United States. Children are significantly affected by these events because they are left without mother and grandmother figures, she said.

Rivera decided to add the word “children” to the evening’s title because Indigenous children are not exempt from the trauma that Indigenous women face, she said.

After watching the TEDx video, Rivera teared up again because the story related to her own experience as an Indigenous woman, she said. While she grew up in Chicago, her family is from Puerto Rico and of Taíno heritage.

“We are the first people that Columbus encountered when he came to the Americas,” Rivera said. “My people were the first ones that went missing, and were murdered and raped in silence.”

Before the group moved to an open discussion, Li reminded everyone of the group’s six rules to keep in mind during the time. They included only speaking to one’s own lived experiences, not sharing what other people say outside of the meeting and remembering to leave time for others to speak.

It is important to follow these guidelines because it creates a safe space and a brave space for everyone to confidently share what is on their minds, Li said.

One of the members who has attended since fall 2019, ESF graduate student Rose Osborne, said she comes to the meetings because the conversations push her to think about topics on social justice, race, sexuality and politics.

“I don’t get that so much at ESF,” Osborne said. “This is one of the few spaces that consistently I can talk about those kinds of things with other people. I can learn things like I did tonight. I can hear other people’s perspectives and explore aspects of my own identity.”

Published on November 12, 2020 at 12:12 am

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