Julián Castro On Fixing The Federal Relationship With Indigenous Peoples: 'We've Slid Backward Under Trump'

From social media to the ballot boxes, Native peoples are making their voices heard. In 2020, Native American voter turnout is expected to rise, and in battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina, gaining the trust and support of Native voters — most of whom tend to support Democratic candidates — could have a massive impact on the results of the 2020 election.


Some presidential candidates have seemingly gotten the memo that it's been far past time to supply outreach to Indigenous peoples. Among them is former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro, who in July introduced the People First Indigenous Communities plan with the aims to both respect the sovereignty of tribal nations and Indigenous groups and strengthen their support systems inside the federal U.S. Government.


The plan features five areas of focus: honoring tribal sovereignty and strengthening Native presence in the federal government; honoring treaty commitments made by the federal government to native communities; seeking justice for Indigenous women and fixing the jurisdictional quagmires that often let perpetrators to target them with few repercussions; supporting Native communities whose right to vote has routinely been undermined by suppressive laws; and committing to supporting Native peoples while in the continental Americas. As Vox points out, Native activists have pushed for several of those changes for years; that politicians are finally working to acknowledge and honor that work is a much-needed, and overdue, step in the correct direction.


Castro's plan was a first for the 2020 pack and marked a pretty significant shift in the ways that candidates approach outreach and engagement with Native peoples. (Another candidate, Elizabeth Warren, has previously been taken to task for her past claims of Native ancestry. She has since apologized repeatedly, and revealed a plan her own a couple of weeks immediately after Castro unveiled his.) Engagement between candidates and Native communities has also been marked by a commitment to appear at the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa, on August 19 and 20 — the initial of its kind to focus entirely on Native issues. The Native American Rights Fund explained that they had extended invitations to "all major Democratic and Republican candidates," which 10 Democratic hopefuls accepted; Mark Charles, a member of the Navajo Country who is running as a Independent candidate, also attended the forum.


Ahead of his August 20 appearance at the forum, Castro discussed with MTV News about how the plan came about, why listening to what Native peoples and communities have to mention is integral to the work that needs to be done, and how no policy is complete without a shift in cultural thinking, also. For the last one, he thanks Native activists on social media for paving the way — although also acknowledges it's up to those in long-established seats of power to do their part, too.


MTV News: How did the People First Indigenous Communities plan come about, and what sort of alerted you to its necessity?


Sec. Castro: Working with the tribal communities Once I was HUD secretary, I saw the deepest poverty of anywhere in the country. As soon as I visited Pine Ridge in, I believe it was 2015, I had the possibility to be able to see first-hand a lot of the challenges that Indigenous communities face and hear about those challenges, whether they're land-based tribes or non-land-based tribes.


Our team sat down with advocates for Indigenous communities to understand the scope of investments that need to be made and different issues that should be tackled in years to come. As you know, the plan we have — from health care to respecting tribal sovereignty, and building a stronger nation-to-nation relationship — re-implements some of the things that [President] Obama did, like the White Residence Tribal Nations Conference. So the way that our team worked it up was to listen and learn directly about the needs of Indigenous communities.


MTV News: Since the rollout of your plan, we've also seen Elizabeth Warren's plan, and also other concerted efforts to reach out to Indigenous peoples, like the commitment to attend the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum. However how come do you know it took so long for candidates from any party to prepare a concerted effort towards Indigenous communities?


Sec. Castro: There's no question that Indigenous communities have been terribly failed to notice, neglected, under-invested in, and mistreated in years past. I'm delighted that I was piece of an administration that started to improve that relationship and take it more seriously. The Obama administration was a much stronger partner than most administrations had been in the past, however right now we have to build on that, especially because we've slid backward under Trump.


MTV News: Historically, Indigenous peoples have plenty of reasons to be wary of the federal government, and that can affect census response, voting, and thus several more issues. How would you work to earn that trust back?


Sec. Castro: First, I would approach our Indigenous communities with humility, respect, and also a willingness to listen and learn and understand the peer-to-peer role that we play. Secondly, you should be dedicated to following through on the promises we made, whether it's investments that we're calling for, or treaties we hope to recognize, or powers that we wish to grant. For instance, as you saw in the policy, I've mentioned that before any major infrastructure assignments happen over tribal land or on tribal land, that there should not only be consultation — there should be consent.


MTV News: In your meetings with tribal leaders and people from different sovereign nations, what have you learned for now, or opened your eyes to with regard to certain experiences and obstacles being placed in their way?


Sec. Castro: I mean, in the housing context, I learned about the tremendous lack of good housing stock on most tribal lands and the way the needs are so connected there. As soon as I went to Pine Ridge, and this applies, I'm sure, to other Indigenous lands, they spoke to me about the real challenge of economic development and jobs and the fact that Pine Ridge is for now away from a major employment center. So all of those issues of jobs, transportation, housing — they're all connected.


MTV News: If we can talk about that connectivity for a second — a lot of Native peoples were in real danger throughout the polar vortex last year because, as you mentioned, their housing moves them at far greater risk throughout extreme climate moments. Yet many reservations also account for some of the poorest counties in the U.S., So there really is very little cash or infrastructure to repair these issues. How would you approach assistance and empowerment just from an intersectional perspective?


Sec. Castro: Well, I believe we need to come up with new spending for housing on Native lands. And I've called for a very ambitious investment in housing that is affordable. And I definitely visualize Native communities as included in that.


MTV News: We’ve saw a lot of young Native people — like Allen Salway, @lilnativeboy on Twitter; the actor Sivan Alyra Rose; and model Daunnette Reyome —  who are mobilizing by using social media to prepare their voices heard and combat a lot of misinformation about their realities. How essential is the youth voice to your plan, and to your vision?


Sec. Castro: Young folks are most crucial to this vision because our hope is that this generation, number one, will take the United States in a different path of actually living up to its obligations and recognizing the contribution that Native people have made to this country over the years. The young folks are a generation that has, I believe, a real appreciation for contradictions among all of us, and are prepared to celebrate that. So that presents a real possibility for people to strengthen cross-cultural understanding.


MTV News: What role do you know mobilizing on social media specifically has played in dispelling stereotypes and breaking down harmful myths?


Sec. Castro: I think social media is so powerful right now that it does play a significant role. Frankly, we're all on Twitter and other platforms, and thus it has direct relevance. And thus I would encourage all the young people and the young-at-heart folks who are out there attempting to dispel those myths and attempting to pursue a vision of inclusion and empowerment for Native communities to keep it up because it needs an in general strategy.


MTV News: There's a pervasive quantity of miseducation in the mainstream about the mistreatment of Indigenous peoples, from the real meaning of Thanksgiving to... Whenever I went to public elementary school in California, the curriculum largely framed the Spanish missions as a good thing rather than a testament to forced assimilation and genocide. How would you push for a shift in the narrative to be more accurate for centuries of wrongs against tribal nations?


Sec. Castro: We need to begin early. I support changing the dialogue of textbooks. We need to create ensure that from the very starting any time students learn about Native communities that they have history that is accurate, that reflects a full perspective of what happened in history without a slanted or caricatured perspective, which is typically what people have learned.


MTV News: Those caricatures permeate into a lot of current pop culture: People suitable headdresses and warbonnets at Coachella, and several sports teams are still using offensive names and mascots, including literal slurs, as is the case of the Washington team. The State of Maine recently banned public school sports teams from participating in Native appropriation, nevertheless sports teams in the NFL and other federations are private enterprises. Given there really are Supreme Court decisions about the trademarking of certain terms, how do you hope the conversation evolves from here?


Sec. Castro: I would like to listen to learn from Native communities on what the ideal way to do that is and why we should shape that in the future. Nevertheless I'm absolutely prepared to work on it.


I also hope that [the conversation] grows, especially to our big media. Hollywood has a role to play, because they oftentimes further a lot of the stereotypes, also. Certainly, broadcast networks and cable networks have a tremendous role to play in their programming and why they highlight, or several times don't highlight enough, the contributions of Native Residents of the
U.S. And the reality of both their successes and their continuing challenges. So there just needs to be a lot more awareness along with programming and possibilities that are afforded for Native communities to speak their truth and for that to be reflected in the popular culture and in our educational experience.


This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.