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Interview Essay: Indigenous Values with Joey Cole

Amado Garcia
City University of Seattle
PSY 316: Psychology of Difference
Professor Leela Bhuyan-Duncan
November 24, 2024
Interview Essay: Indigenous Values with Joey Cole
Joey Cole is Native Community Health Worker and this paper explores their experience

as well as their values. This interview was conducted to better understand Indigenous values, his-

torical traumas, as well as Joey’s individual perspective.I chose to interview Joey because they

are so deeply connected to their Mohawk heritage and because they are a community advocate.

Their story is one of impressive syntheses of the traditional and the new, showing how Indige-

nous values endure and adapt in the face of modernity, and all the challenges that modernity

brings to bear against them.

During my conversation with Joey, I wanted to get a better understanding of their grati-

tude practices, how they live in harmony with the land, and how they and their community heal

from generations of trauma. Additionally, I was curious to get their take on how colonization is

still affecting them and how cultural misrepresentation affects their day to day lives. Here in this

dialogue, I want to honor their voice and connect their experiences to the crux of cross cultural

psychology which emphasizes the importance of empathy and interconnectedness.

Interview Summary

Joey Cole (they/them), a Mohawk native whose traditional name is Kawenohare (Goh-

way-nuh-huh-lay), serves as a Community Health Worker for Indigenous Populations through a

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lung cancer screening program at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. They feel a deep connection to their

heritage and a commitment to fostering resilience within Indigenous communities.

When asked, they described Thanksgiving in their culture not as a commercial holiday

but as an ongoing practice of gratitude, marked by ceremonies such as the Thanksgiving Address

—a structured prayer expressing thanks to all beings, from people to the Creator. This ongoing

practice aligns with Indigenous values of maintaining balance and reciprocity with the natural

world. Additionally, the commercial holiday of Thanksgiving is considered the National Day of

Mourning for many natives, but individually speaking, they consider it a day of reflection and

the cultivation of peace.

Being native to the land is not just about honoring it but also practicing a holistic connec-

tion that integrates offerings to the land, ancestors, and cultural traditions. These offerings—

whether through tobacco, food, personal items, or cultural expressions like song and dance—are

seen as prayers, stories, and acts of preservation that sustain the interconnectedness of past,

present, and future generations. They feel that there is not natural world without humans and vice

versa. Their native name means “speaker of the Earth”, and they believe our goal, as humans,

should be to have a symbiotic relationship with the world around us.

When discussing how non-Indigenous individuals can support Indigenous communities,

Joey stressed the importance of understanding sovereignty, decolonizing language, and advocat-

ing against harmful representations and stereotypes. This includes challenging appropriation,

speaking out against offensive language, and educating oneself on Indigenous perspectives. Joey

highlighted that healing within their community requires connection to cultural practices and val-

ues, as colonization has left a legacy of trauma embedded in the DNA of Indigenous peoples.
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Yet, this trauma is matched by remarkable resilience, which Joey attributes to the strength found

in community and cultural preservation.

While many Elders, who endured the trauma of Indian boarding schools and forced reli-

gious conversions, are now burdened by illness and environmental degradation, Joey feels the

younger generation has found a renewed sense of purpose. They are reviving languages, passing

on teachings, and leveraging modern platforms and education to bring resources and awareness

to their communities.

Considering that Joey now lives in Seattle, leaving the reservation was a deeply emo-

tional and layered decision. While it allowed them to grow and find ways to support their people,

it also created a sense of disconnection. It is weighted with both gratitude for the opportunities

their departure provided and sorrow for the time spent away, hoping to restore their connection

to their community as they give back, and eventually moving back one day.

As a native person, they are used to their identity being misrepresented or dismissed.

Growing up, they were often seen as ethnically ambiguous, subjected to slurs, or thrown into

stereotypes. These experiences, while painful, are not uncommon and point to broader systemic

issues such as the disproportionate rates of missing Indigenous men, women, and children in the

U.S.

Finally, Joey offered a profound perspective on success, contrasting mainstream views of

achievement as a final, individualistic goal with their culture’s emphasis on “balance.” For Joey,

success means achieving harmony, peace, and alignment with life’s goals and tasks, reflecting

the collectivist and interconnected values central to Mohawk identity

Analysis
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Another reason why I decided to interview Joey is because Shiraev & Levy briefly men-

tion Indigenous Psychology (2020, p. 29), and mentioned that in order to appreciate the psy-

chology of any cultural group, let alone indigenous ones, you need to know their social, histori-

cal, economic, political, spiritual, and religious background. They also mentioned that Indige-

nous people focused on using concepts and methods drawn from the culture that is the object of

study itself, not outside theories that may or may not be appropriate (2020). Joey’s interview re-

sponses; for example, their mention of the Thanksgiving Address as well as the different deter-

minants for “success” ooze this sort of security of one’s place in the world, with an incredibly

generationally connected backbone that has been admittedly faced historical trauma through col-

onization, but also is an invaluable framework for understanding our connection to the land and

each other.

Regarding the “Thanksgiving Address”, it is also known as the Haudenosaunee Ohén:ton

Karihwatéhkwen, and although land acknowledgements are becoming increasingly popular, es-

pecially in Seattle, this address could be a better replacement (Wemigwans, 2023). Regarding na-

tive ideals around ownership, Joey says is succinctly “there are no apostrophes”. Often land ac-

knowledgements ring empty and do not necessarily explore the history of stolen land, nor ongo-

ing injustices, so the idea to go beyond gestures and for non-natives to focus on honest self-re-

flection and education. Similarly, I agree that this is the time to prioritize substance over symbol-

ism and this includes challenging ownership norms, and encouraging self reflection. How many

times has someone spoken a land acknowledgement without knowing the history behind what

they were saying? Making a shift away from acknowledgements towards Haudenosaunee

Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen, could create more meaning and also strengthen connection to the

world around them, while skipping over the performative bit.

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On the note of exploring history, examining the historical trauma the tribes of Washing-

ton, many tribes are landless including the Duwamish Tribe who used to occupy Seattle. Many

have been fighting for treaty rights and have been consistently denied (Porter, 1990) since the

Treaty Point of Elliot in 1855 (Governor's Office of Indian Affairs). Right now, the government

is reviewing new rules that allow tribes to reapply after being turned down before. But the

Duwamish Tribe worries the proposed changes will make it even harder for tribes to reapply.

These include, for example, a new five year time limit for reapplication and a new obligation for

tribes to prove that in reality the reapplication is likely to work out favorably for them (Interior

Bureau of Indian Affairs, 2024). Lacking federal recognition or land, still to this day the

Duwamish have worked to hold fast to their identity and continue to fight to make their treaty

rights stick, so that their cultural heritage can be preserved.

The Duwamish Tribe’s enduring fight against the lack of federal recognition and land

acts as a loud and everlasting contest to the long standing role of cultural transmission, which

has kept the tribe’s identity, traditions and collective memory going despite all adversity. Cul-

tural transmission is both a bridge spanning the distance across past, present, and future genera-

tions, it ensures that values, stories, and practice can persist, even as they are subjected to sys-

temic erasure. Passing down their cultural knowledge and traditions affirms their sovereignty as

people. Joey’s perspective on cross-generational learning leaned heavy into this core concept.

With respect to Indigenous peoples, sovereignty is very different from the European no-

tion of sovereignty, or Westphalian sovereignty (Bauder & Mueller, 2023). The European model

involves a country administering a single territory in full and in this sense the boundaries have to

be tightly closed and the power centralized. This idea historically has been used to legitimize col-

onization, since lands of the Indigenous were taken and their systems of governance treated as ir-
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relevant or destroyed because they did not conform to an European mold of authority and owner-

ship (2023).

Unlike, however, Indigenous sovereignty entails no control of land. It’s relationships; re-

lationships to the land, community and culture. Indigenous sovereignty stood counter to the ide-

ology of ownership, property, and rigid borders, and instead stressed responsibilities to care for

the land, and the claims of relationships to the land and to each other. (2023). Understanding

sovereignty in a historical sense, really made the justification for colonialism clearer, especially

through their actions of valuing centralized, territorial control of regions.

This preference was ignited by ethnocentrism, since European colonizers judged the

governance systems and worldviews of Indigenous peoples as inferior or invalid, because the Eu-

ropean colonizers looked at the Indigenous people with the European standards of culture. Al-

though ethnocentrism can be the motivator for harm, in order to understand it better, I had to

look at the functions of ethnocentrism and in this specific context, ethnocentrism allowed for the

rationalization of taming people who were different. The European view of rationality, hierarchy,

and ownership of land, governance, and power entrenched the idea that land, governance, and

power should be shaped accordingly, and that relational and collective views do not belong, so

this framework for approaching “primitive” culture with the intent to change it for the better, as

mentioned by Joey when they were speaking on how boarding schools affected Indigenous el-

ders.

Boarding schools, are an example of forced acculturation, a situation whereby individu-

als are forced to adapt to a new cultural environment. Indigenous children, some of them just ten

years old, were suddenly taken from their homes and placed in situations that forbade their lan-

guages, their traditions and their spiritual practices (Evans-Campbell et al., 2012). Feeling alien-
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ated, loss and confusion about identity were parts and parcel of this sudden and enforced cultural

transition. The shock of these harsh punishments for practicing cultural traditions, or speaking

Native languages also left deep psychological scars. This acculturation shock from accultura-

tive stress was not a temporary one — it continued for generations. Evans-Campbell and others

have noted that long-term effects include substance abuse and mental health issues (2012). The

negative consequences of boarding schools are a reminder of how cultural superiority actively

pursued the diminishment of culture in children.

Moving forward, Cross-Cultural sensitivity is necessary and relevant, regarding the In-

digenous community. Boarding schools are not just historical injustices, denial of sovereignty is

not just a historical injustice, it’s an ongoing source of psychological and cultural harm that must

be acknowledged.
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References

Bauder, H., & Mueller, R. (2023). Westphalian Vs. Indigenous Sovereignty: Challenging

Colonial Territorial Governance. Geopolitics, 28(1), 156–173.

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Evans-Campbell, T., Walters, K. L., Pearson, C. R., & Campbell, C. D. (2012). Indian

Boarding School Experience, Substance Use, and Mental Health among Urban Two-

Spirit American Indian/Alaska Natives. The American Journal Of Drug And Alcohol

Abuse, 38(5), 421–427. https://doi.org/10.3109/00952990.2012.701358

Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs Releases Public Communication From Duwamish

Tribe. (2024, Sep 19). Targeted News Service

https://www.proquest.com/wire-feeds/interior-bureau-indian-affairs-releases-public/

docview/3106966779/se-2

Porter, F. W. (1990). In search of recognition: federal Indian policy and the landless

tribes of Western Washington. American Indian Quarterly, 113132.

Shiraev, E. B., & Levy, D. A. (2020). Cross-Cultural Psychology: Critical Thinking and

Contemporary Applications, Seventh Edition (7th ed.). Routledge.

Treaty of Point Elliott, 1855. (1855). Governor's Office of Indian Affairs. Retrieved from

https://goia.wa.gov/tribal-government/treaty-point-elliott-1855

Wemigwans, J. ;. M. L. (2023). The Haudenosaunee Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen Thanks-

giving Address: Moving Beyond the Havoc of Land Acknowledgements. Engaged

Scholar Journal, 9(2), 121. https://doi.org/10.15402/esj.v9i2.70829