This week, I spent most of my time collating my notes into one cohesive document. Attempting to bind together all the nuances inherent within any aspect of Federal-Indian relations, I spent a fair amount of my time deciding between sharing what I felt might be too nuanced information and too simplistic of an explanation. For the staff members soon to be reading it, I sincerely hope my account of the topics presented are coherent so much as they may be cogent.
Otherwise, this week felt very melancholy to me. Being my last week with the Senator, I didn’t want to face the truth that, in just a few days, I won’t be talking to constituents anymore. I won’t be looking into pieces of legislation. I don’t have to keep up with the news so intensely. I won’t need to know the ins and outs of SBA loans programs, the intricacies of dealing with the IRS, nor anything about substantive federal responses to the coronavirus pandemic. I also won’t be talking to co-workers in the same way. There will be no favors for Erin, tasks from Bre, calls with Marcus, or catch-ups with Allison. At least for the next few months, I likely won’t be in contact with Ryan, Greg, or Kate. I won’t be routing casework to Jocelyn or Rachel. In essence, I’ll be apart from a collection of co-workers I’ve taken to be a sort of work family. Though I now look forward to working with the First Alaskans Institute again through their Summer Internship Program, I do hope to be able to come back in the fall in order to continue working with the Senator and the D.C. office. It is my hope that, as school again draws me to D.C. in the fall, that I may again serve my fellow Alaskans in working with the Senator. This fellowship has afforded me so many beneficial opportunities, even amidst the time of impeachment and the coronavirus pandemic. Through it, I have learned more about myself as well as the world around me. More about my people and our history. And more about what I can do to be an effective changemaker in the years to come. So, while I leave now in working elsewhere, I hope this isn’t the end of my time with the Senator, nor the end of my time being a representative for the Native people of Alaska.
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As I finish up my second to last week, I’m continuing to work on my favorite type of projects - deep research memo drafting. Using publicly available, verifiable resources, I’ve learned more over the course of five days about Federal Indian Law as applied to Alaska than I could’ve dreamt of learning through a university course. Working alone, I’ve felt free to let my curiosity take over. Any question I have I can immediately seek to answer through further research. Any interest I have is nearly immediately sated, as I have been free to research, read, and report back on topics like PL-280, ANCSA, ANILCA, the amendments to both ANCSA and ANILCA, etc.
One thing I have always hoped for within my personal scholarship is to learn more about the political environment under which Alaska Natives have lived, struggled against, changed, and thrived. Though my connection culturally with the Alaska Native remnants of my family have historically been more lacking than I would like to admit, I always hoped to at least have an intellectual connection to the framework under which they lived. For me, this final culminating project has represented large steps towards achieving that private goal. I feel more confident in my knowledge of the legal problems and public safety issues facing rural Alaska. I feel more confident in my knowledge of how important ANCSA has been for all residents of Alaska. And I feel more confident in knowing, politically, legally, and policy wise, where I come from, and what I can still do for my people. In this, I am grateful for our Elders and their willingness to share their knowledge online. I am grateful for the many regional corporations, universities, and third parties willing to devote their money and time towards accurately reflecting the history of our Alaska Native peoples. And I am grateful to Senator Sullivan’s office for trusting me to be a reliable source in sharing what I have learned with others. I recognize that the information I know hold is great, and extremely nuanced. I am sure that I know less than I think, and must continue searching for knowledge in order to actually trust that the knowledge I hold is akin to truth. But I am grateful to have the opportunity to better educate myself on my people. And to be trusted and respected enough to be considered a responsible source on some of the issues I have been looking into. I feel like with this latest project I have been able to branch out fully from the tasks of the average intern and immerse myself in a niche I love. In this sense, not only have I felt happiest about the work I have been doing this week, but I feel confident and capable as well. Ever grateful to have the opportunity to truly branch out and work on what I love and have always been interested in. One of the first things I was ever told about working in Sen. Sullivan’s D.C. office as an intern was that “you can make this internship your own”. In essence, given the great number of issues our government oversees and legislates, it is possible for any intern to directly work on, research, etc. things that are of special interest to them. For example, before the coronavirus pandemic, fellow interns who were interested in the finance sector were able to go to committee hearings involving the U.S. Treasury. Others were able to see witness testimony from higher ups in the armed forces as they testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. For my part, I’ve been able to see witness testimony from indigenous leaders and members of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Department of Energy in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. I’ve also been able to sit in on meetings with Alaska Native community leaders and regional representatives with members of our team and the Senator. During my time with the office, I have also been able to go to conferences concerning Alaska Native issues and meet with elders I never thought I’d be able to hear from, much less be able to talk to. In working with Sen. Sullivan’s office, I’ve been exposed to experiences I never could have pictured, during a time no one could have foreseen.
In being away from the office, experiences like these are fewer and further between, if not impossible. Yet, gratefully, I’ve still been able to dig into issues I care about while being away from the office. Online, I’ve been able to do more research into federal policy as it pertains to Alaska Native communities, regional corporations, etc. Learning more about ANCSA, ANILCA, and a litany of other pieces of legislation, I now feel like I’ve been able to learn about issues and individuals I care about holistically - first in person, now by research. Of course, there are still plenty of things I want to look into. There’s so much more I to learn and I think it’s amazing that I’m able to learn while I work. I haven’t been to many workplaces, but something tells me that learning and working about issues one truly cares about is a rare thing. Work, I’ve learned, can be tedious. Research can be beyond annoying. Writing and rewriting can be frustrating beyond belief. But working towards things one cares about, working towards something that inspires you, that isn’t work. It may be upsetting, but it isn’t an endless affliction. Completing a task under the umbrella of one’s inspiration is more of a triumph than a trial. Now, working on form letters, information memos, etc. and applying what I’ve learned to the task at hand, I feel more secure in my work. I feel like I’ve been able to make the fellowship my own, even as it’s changed. Though it ends soon, I’m happy to have seen it this far, and am proud to see it through to the end. No matter who you talk to, finals week seems to carry a measure of austerity. My father still tells me of dreams he has, now decades past his time at university, in which he is anxiously awaiting his coming finals. Waking up in a sweat, he realizes that that time in life is far past, and I’m again reminded of how important it is to do well in my classes.
As I consider my time in college, finals week represents the death to all fervor surrounding collegiate spirit and happiness. It is a time where organized campus activity ends, and the chaotic degradation of one’s emotional, physical, and psychological well-being begins. Representing a seemingly everlasting tumult of stress and anxiety, finals week can become a week of trauma for any given student, as classes vary in intensity, expectation, and evaluation. It is a time of perseverance, but also of all-nighters, breakdowns, and exhaustion. For many students, finals week represents not only the culmination of their term, but quite possibly the truest test of their commitment to themselves and their futures. For this reason, I was grateful to the office for allowing me to take the week off to complete my final papers and study for my final exams. Putting aside my work laptop and phone for a week, I pushed myself into my studies. Making sure I was 100% caught up on my classes, I went to work drafting final papers, making study guides for my final exams, and put everything else to the side. Over the course of the week, I learned more than I ever thought I would on Ceuta and Melilla (two Spanish occupied cities on the African continent), the historical collection and theologian analyses of the Gospels, and quotidian procedures guiding congressional practice and procedure. With my classic finals work/study combination of a can of Pepsi, a bag of gummy bears, my favorite music, and plenty of space, I was simultaneously exhausted and desperately trying to consume every piece of pertinent information I could. It was a weird state of mind to be in. Yet I still pushed on every time I felt like faltering because even with the coronavirus pandemic, my peers and I were expected to complete our exams and assessments as previously scheduled. In some classes, the majority of my grade rested on this final week of work. Buckling down, papers strewn across my room, hair a bit wild, my mind raced the entirety of the week. I lost my appetite and my sense of time. I lived in hoodies and sweatpants, and slept by my computer. I’m sure I looked a mess, but I never really had time to check. This past week, I just worked. Anticlimactically, my week ended with a click of a button. Submitting my papers via Blackboard or email, finals week ended with a sigh rather than exhilaration. Closing out my tabs and shutting down my computer, I felt relieved, hungry, and exhausted all at the same time. Over the course of my weekend, my grades began to trickle in. And by the time of my writing this, I’m proud to say I ended the semester with a 3.8 GPA. I’ve still got a little bit of sleep to catch up on, though it’ll be nice to relax a bit before summer classes start up next week. In line with last week, this week I continued to answer constituent inquiries and take notes on the White House Task Force briefings. However, this week seemed to bring a preponderance of constituent inquiries that I could not answer. On the phone – sometimes for hours – with upset constituents, there were times where I felt frustrated myself in being unable to fully assist them. In the moment with them, though I was taking notes on their issues in order to pass them along to other staff members within our office who would be able to assist them, I wished I could do more.
I came to D.C. both for academic and professional purposes. It has always been my intent to use my skills and opportunities, privilege and potential to serve others. In working with Sen. Sullivan’s office, I am grateful to join others like me, similarly devoted to the public good. Throughout my time with the office, I’ve been proud to work with everyone I’ve come into contact with. I believe we do good work, and are able to help people who need it. With this, paired with my internal frustration, I felt confident that while I may not have been able to directly, fully assist the individual I was speaking with, our team would. No matter the issue, from PPP loans to EIDL loans, EIP questions to VA concerns, our team is amazingly equipped and perfectly suited to handle whatever comes our way. That being said, in being the first contact point for the individual from our office, I often wondered how were we able to end up helping the person who called in. With this question in mind, I was overjoyed to get a couple of emails this week containing constituents’ reactions to our office’s work. These were constituents who I had talked to, who had gone through various trials and tribulations, and who graciously offered their opinions on our work when talking to other members of our team. Sanitized of all other details, the reactions I was able to read meant a lot to me. It was nice to receive their thanks and know that we helped. That the work that we do helps people. That they feel heard. And that they feel supported. Especially in a time like this. Discombobulating and disconcerting, the coronavirus pandemic has upended plenty of peoples’ lives, not just my own. “Normal” hardly seems recognizable after months living in an altered reality. For many people who have called in over the past week, “normal” hardly seems like a possibility now. “Normal” represents a dream. Reality is much different. Yet, through our work, we might make “normal” a possibility again. The comments from this week attest to that. So I continue to work. To take notes. To listen. To support and to help. It’s not only my job to. Not only my responsibility to. But it’s my privilege to. I’m grateful for my chance to do so. I just can’t wait for more. |
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Photo used under Creative Commons from Mike Juvrud