{"id":552879,"date":"2018-03-28T13:30:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T19:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=552879"},"modified":"2018-03-28T13:30:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T19:30:36","slug":"what-the-2018-midterms-could-mean-for-native-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/03\/what-the-2018-midterms-could-mean-for-native-voting\/","title":{"rendered":"What the 2018 midterms could mean for Native voting"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong> Patricia Roybal Caballero was a freshman lawmaker in New Mexico\u2019s House of Representatives when she walked into a popular Santa Fe restaurant in 2013 for a meeting with some of her colleagues. Roybal Caballero, a community and economic developer of Piro-Manso-Tiwa ancestry, was by then used to dealing with negative perceptions about her race, but what happened next astounded her.<\/p>\n

\"Patricia

Courtesy photo<\/p>

Patricia Roybal Caballero<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cBefore I had a chance to ask for a table, the hostess said, \u2018I am sorry, but we\u2019re not taking applications right now,\u2019 \u201d Roybal Caballero told me recently.<\/p>\n

For that kind of encounter to happen to a lawmaker in the state capital, in a city with so many people of color, was a reminder of the need for her to be a voice for marginalized people. Although there are 6.6 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the country, Roybal Caballero is one of only a few dozen Indigenous state lawmakers. That\u2019s a discrepancy worth considering as we head toward 2018 midterm elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at our Indigenous populations in the state of New Mexico, it is the voice of New Mexico,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are what represents the best and worst of histories of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Roybal Caballero, racial misconceptions and ignored histories don\u2019t stop at local restaurants. In a\u00a0December speech<\/a> at a charter school conference, the state\u2019s education secretary, Christopher Ruszkowski, said America was built on \u201cfreedom, choice, competition, options, going West, Manifest Destiny.\u201d Manifest Destiny is a thorny 19th-century concept \u2014 a justification of the expansion of American colonialism that destroyed countless Indigenous communities and lives\u00a0\u2014 but here it was again, being glorified.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of those moments I refer to as an educational and teaching moment,\u201d Roybal Caballero said, \u201cwhich I\u2019m finding these days to be almost every moment, that we are subjected to these kind of references.\u201d<\/p>\n