[Applause] in May 2019 I qualified for Washington state championships in track and field and dedicated my four races to the missing and murdered indigenous women epidemic to me highlighting this issue was not a political stance or a personal demonstration but rather a means of survival we asked Escape Rosalie fished seat stuff Buckle suit option hello my name is Rosalie fish and I just introduced myself in my traditional full shoot seed language I am from the college and Muckleshoot tribes I am honored to be able to speak with you all today what brings me here unfortunately is an epidemic indigenous women and girls Across the Nation are intensely vulnerable to violence so much so that murder is the third leading cause of death in native women in Native communities we all have someone an aunt mother sister or daughter we all have a relative affected by this and I wear red today in remembrance of our Stolen Sisters native girls are critically affected by lack of visibility by the dominant culture and lack of action to protect them if you are American Indian or Alaskan native which I will refer to as native or indigenous or if you come from a community Like Mine The Following will not be new information for the rest please look around you and find five women consider them a represented sample of these native communities and then think of them as your very own immediate or extended wonderfully imperfect family I see your families as wise beautiful diverse broken and brave now consider this according to the National Congress of American Indians as native women they will experience higher rates of violence experience violence more commonly at the hands of non-native perpetrators and as victims of violence be less likely to receive needed services specifically the data tells us what no one wants to hear of the five four will have experienced violence within their lifetimes and they are 1.7 times more likely than a white woman to have experienced violence in the past year more than half will have experienced sexual violence within their lifetimes and they will face murder rates more than 10 times the national average in some counties the urban Indian Health Institute based in Seattle brings our stories to the light of day their 2018 report missing and murdered indigenous women and girls describes how missing and murdered indigenous women disappeared through the cracks not once but three times in life in media and in data of their 506 unique cases identified across 71 Urban cities in the United States more than half of the cases were murder cases 135 cases include victims age 18 or under 42 cases were related to domestic violence and 29 is the median age of victims but the youngest victim being an infant less than one year old and the oldest victim being an elder of 83. I grew up watching community members disappear it was only a few years ago when I discovered that this is happening across the country the absence of Native American representation in Congress contributes to the Erasure of indigenous women some legal practices are in place the special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction allows for the prosecution of non-native offenders by tribal associations if the crime included domestic violence Dating Violence or criminal violation of protection orders this may bring relief to some but the law does not cover sexual assault stalking or sex trafficking this means that Native American women who live in urban areas and experience sexual assault are not protected by these amendments a suspect cannot be convicted unless the victim is native the offense occurred on tribal lands and if the tribe can provide a defendant and diverse jury for the trial 71 percent of native people live in urban settings who is protecting them in January 2019 Deb Holland from New Mexico was elected as one of the first Native American women to serve in Congress her work as a co-sponsor on the violence against women reauthorization act of 2019 means that indigenous women will not be left unprotected forgotten or invisible you have heard about the multitude of women who make up this epidemic the long lasting effect though is felt by native children when mothers grandmothers and female caretakers vanish children are left without the adults they need in their lives this issue compounds in communities with high rates of single mother households like the Pascua Yuki reservation in Arizona where 43 percent of households account for single mothers at the intersection of lgbtq low-income or children with disabilities and you can quickly see how the disadvantages are stacked against them this issue is impacting families who already have difficult lives in the words of Ladonna braithful Allard we are people of trauma to acknowledge a native child is to empower them to acknowledge native youth is to stop erasing them my story illustrates how Native children can fall through the cracks I first experienced racism in elementary school when I was teased wearing my moccasins the older I got the more I was mocked for representing my culture and my Heritage I then only embraced my cultural practices on the reservation and I tried to blend in when I was at school I entered 9th grade as most 14 year olds do I was insecure passive and looking for Direction I was uncomfortable with my sexual orientation in my place in Social settings I was sexually harassed by upperclassmen who evidently faced no consequences for photographing cat calling pinching and grabbing young girls like me without help I found it increasingly difficult to find any joy in my life I began to misuse antidepressants and fall behind in school at 14 years old I decided that my life was no longer worth living I attempted to take my own life on February 9 2016. in the 1964 Olympics Native American Billy Mills shocked the world and came from behind and to win the gold medal in the 10k race since then he has dedicated his life to serving American Indian communities he once said your life is a gift from the Creator your gift back to the Creator is what you do with your life it was not always easy to view my life as a gift sometimes it felt impossible I was fortunate enough to survive my attempt and I spent my 15th birthday celebrating my partial recovery with family I then enrolled at Muckleshoot tribal school at tribal school running became part of my recovery running empowered me and made me feel valuable when I ran at Muckleshoot I ran to represent my community when I arrived at track meets in a tribal school uniform I was perceived by rivaling schools as a joke despite my qualifying times I'll be excluded from larger Invitational meets due to my school size I had been asked if I even owned a uniform during a home sporting event a rival school had put graffiti in our bathroom offensive slurs such as Indian Savage were plastered on the Stalls it became apparent to me that I can't protect Muckleshoot tribal school youth from the racism and Prejudice of others I can however prove these biases wrong through example the best way I could do so was through running training on my own could be isolating and discouraging but I wasn't working for just myself the more work I put into practice the better I performed at meets and therefore the better I could represent my community and challenge the Prejudice I faced from bigger schools through running I could demand acknowledgment it empowered me and saved my life even when I began to slip through the cracks my running would find me and bring me back because of running I now attend college at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge Iowa I did not always know how to use my voice and running gave me a powerful non-verbal platform Jordan Marie Daniel from the Lakota tribe ran in the 2019 Boston Marathon with a red handprint as a way to use her running platform to raise awareness for the missing and murdered indigenous women epidemic when I saw the photo of Jordan in her uniform I felt powerful I felt like I wasn't alone anymore I found her contact information and I asked her permission to follow in her footsteps and to raise awareness from my stolen relatives at my state track meet she was beyond enthusiastic and supported me like a mentor she's since then guided me at the time I was running track and field at Muckleshoot tribal High School I qualified for state championships and I dedicated each of my races to a missing or murdered indigenous woman in my community I asked permission from the families and then created a photo with a poster board and their stories and put it by the race results so that Spectators would need to see that my relatives are real that this epidemic is real and it's happening across the country I painted a red handprint over my mouth as a way to represent the indigenous women that have been silenced through violence along with the letters mmiw down my right leg after I received each medal I brought it to the poster display where I gifted it to one of the women I was representing I won the 1600 for my Aunt Alice Looney who went missing in 2004 from Wapato and was found deceased 15 months later the police had no answers for my family I won the 800 from Jack for Jackie Salyers from the Puyallup tribe who was pregnant at the time of her death Tacoma police shot her as they were attempting to arrest her boyfriend she was a mother of four the officer was never held accountable after being cleared by a review board of his own peers I won the 3200 for Renee Davis a member of my Muckleshoot community Renee and her unborn son masi Molina were shot and killed by Auburn Police during a welfare check with her other two children present I dedicated my sportsmanship medal to Massey I placed second in the 400 for Misty Upham a member of the blackfeet nation and a successful actress who was invited to the Golden Globes for her performance in Frozen River Misty was found deceased in a bottom of a ravine by my reservation after Auburn Police did not look for her and then mislabeled her death as a suicide acknowledgment is power native youth Across the Nation have the ability to use individualized platforms share their messages and their stories indigenous women and girls Across the Nation are intensely vulnerable their self-image is distorted and in the worst cases they are no longer here they are our sisters our mothers our daughters and our aunts as I improved after my suicide attempt I found a greater and new appreciation for life running for missing and murdered indigenous women made me feel like I was finally doing something bigger than myself some of us are more visible than others indigenous women need the larger communities to hold the legislator accountable to combat this epidemic allies can use their power and visibility to advocate for change each of us have a platform mine is running and through platforms such as Athletics art and music we have the ability to speak for those who have been silenced and I am ready to hear from you thank you [Applause]