Transcript:

00:00:09 Michele Goodwin:

Welcome to The Long Way Home, a five-part, limited series that journeys into the heart of substance use disorders and recovery. With a focus on women, people in recovery, vulnerable communities, and those who have traveled the long way home, we explore how addiction uniquely impacts pregnant people, mothers, adolescents, and young adults. 

Through conversations with leading experts, lawmakers, and people in recovery, we examine the intersection of addiction, the criminal legal system, systemic neglect, and the enduring effects of colonization. We center the right to recovery, recognizing it as a complex, lifelong process that deserves time, attention, and resources.

This series is a space for truth telling, learning, and imagining a more just and supportive path home.

In this fifth episode of The Long Way Home, we aim to better understand Native American culture and addiction, with New Mexico State Senator, Angel Charley.

00:01:33 Michele Goodwin:

State Senator, Angel Charley, thank you so very much for joining me for this critically important episode that is part of a series that we are doing on Ms. Magazine, shining a light on The Long Way Home, and in this particular episode, we wanted to turn a light on understanding Native American culture and addiction, and we’re so happy that you are joining us, and we realize that we can’t conflate or essentialize, but we did find it really important to ground the voices of this series with people who have intimate knowledge and awareness, and we’re very grateful that you are joining us for this podcast episode.

I want to start off by asking you about your life, because much of it has been dedicated to advocating for Native women and communities, and this work has been central to your work in public office, as well, where you serve as a member of the New Mexico State Senate. So, let me start off by asking, what inspired your advocacy and your decision to run for a state senate seat in New Mexico, and then, from there, we can talk about your advocacy experience.

00:03:04 Angel Charley:

Well, first, thanks for having me, Dr. Goodwin. I appreciate the opportunity to be on this platform and share a little bit about what I know, and there wasn’t a specific instance that got me to run for office. I think it’s been a series of moments my entire life that led me to that decision, one of which was the home that I grew up in. I grew up in a home that experienced a lot of violence, domestic violence, and at the root of that was, actually, substance use by my parents. There was a lot of alcohol in the home growing up, and so, understanding that as a root cause and then wanting different.

I just remember being a little girl, thinking, I am not going to have this life, right? Later, I had found the words of, like, it stops here. It stops with me. I am going to be a cycle breaker, and no more, and that is what brought me into public policy advocacy, and then we passed our first bill as advocates when the Supreme Court was reviewing the Indian Child Welfare Act. We thought, you know, we better codify this into state law, and then we did that, and it was an ah-ha moment in this can be accessible. We can make policy that meets the needs of our communities, but we have to engage in the system, and so, that’s a little bit of the journey, but again, not one single reason brought me to the decision.

00:04:46 Michele Goodwin:

Thank you for sharing, both in terms of the intimacy of your own life and that journey and the desire to break the cycle, which is your story and a story that we’ve heard so often at Ms. Magazine, Ms. Studios, as we engage with our listeners, our viewers, the people who read our magazine, and then, specifically, for this series, we wanted to shine a light and also normalize how we talk about these issues, because, so often, intimate family violence or substance use are kept in the shadows. They’re closeted, such that there is then stigma. There’s shame. There’s embarrassment. There’s humiliation.

And with all of that, it makes it difficult for people to come forward and get the help that they need or even to articulate for help, help that may not be available, but at least, with the articulation, there is the knowledge that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. That there are people who need to be embraced and connected with in order to provide the care that they deserve. So, I appreciate that. I’m curious about how your advocacy experience is then shaped by this understanding that you have by your background. Would you say that where you’ve come from, what you’ve experienced now helps you or guides you, as you have public office, as you represent folks in New Mexico?

00:06:31 Angel Charley:

One hundred percent. Absolutely, through and through. It is my lived experience that is my best qualification to have the seat that I do. I don’t come from privilege. I don’t come from power, and so, I’m not interested in protecting those things as a state senator. I’m very much interested in advocating for policies that support people in need, right, where…people whose only experience with the system is oppression. I am very interested in shifting that dynamic so that we have a functional, working system that supports people. That is my goal in having this seat. You know, I’m a state senator. I’m in here for four years. I do plan to run again, but I’m not going to take any four years carefully. I’m like, I’ve got four years to be here. I’m going to do as much as I can. I’m not here to play it safe. Let’s go.

00:07:46 Michele Goodwin:

There is a report from the IllumiNative which shows that there has been a deficit in the narratives about Native American communities and matters of alcoholism and substance use, and when there are stories that come forward to depict substance use, addiction within Native and Indigenous communities, oftentimes, it’s done without a rooting in history. It can be done in ways that engage in stereotypes and that ignore community strengths. So, I want to then start this journey of our talking about substance use and addiction with how historical patterns of colonialism and various exploitations have an ongoing or lingering effect, or do they have an ongoing and lingering effect, within Native communities in the United States?

00:08:58 Angel Charley:

Yes. So many stories that are told about our communities or our people don’t bring the authentic, lived experience and voice of Native people, and what that does is serve to dehumanize our communities.

00:09:19 Michele Goodwin:

So, I want to ask you, how do colonial policies and ongoing structural violence help to explain patterns of substance use in Native communities, or do those patterns of historical harms have an effect today?

00:09:36 Angel Charley:

Absolutely, they have an effect today. So, I want to answer in kind of two ways. One is around the narrative and storytelling that happens about our community. Too often, those narratives and stories, when they don’t come from our own community, they are told through a lens that allows for the dehumanization of our people, and when you have our dehumanization, you are able to then other us or have distance from us, and it allows for a social isolation of a people to kind of have their struggles, and then the other part of this is, yes, those ongoing colonial legacies in our community.

And really, what we’re talking about is historical trauma, and there is an organization in New Mexico, who I love and respect, called Tewa Women United, who’s doing generational healing work, and they do this activity where they have participants stand in a line, and each person represents a generation of people. Each person is carrying a rock. Now, the rock, for themselves, is manageable. You can hold that weight. It would be a lot nicer if you could, you know, set it down and think of setting down the rock as a symbol for your own healing. Well, what they do is have the first person start to hand over the rock.

Now, the second person is holding two rocks, and then that third person gets the rocks from the first, and so, it symbolizes the weight that gets carried down through generational trauma, and that’s what we have. We have a legacy of separation from land, our culture, and our communities, the boarding school era. I mean, all of the assimilation policies have effects that are deep-rooted and that we’re grappling with in our communities right now, and so, when it comes to addiction, it is not something that has happened in isolation or individualism.

These are outcomes of collective, systemic oppression and assimilation policies that’ve existed with the purpose of eradicating our people and our culture and our languages, and so, when we have someone, an individual, who is struggling with their addiction, we have to think of them as a part of the collective, because healing doesn’t happen individually, either. Healing is a collective journey for our communities, in particular and especially.

00:12:31 Michele Goodwin:

So, you’ve touched on issues that have a long historical arc, from colonialism to the tragic history of the boarding schools with forced assimilation of children, children literally being kidnapped from their families and placed in schools where they were abused physically, sexually, and otherwise, to ongoing harms, and I want to pull up a statistic here that is from an article that was written by Julie Gameon and Monica Skewes. It’s from 2021, Historical trauma and substance use among American Indian people with current substance use problems.

What’s interesting about this article is that it gives us two viewpoints. One viewpoint, based exactly on what you’ve shared, as resulting in the highest disproportionately high rates of substance use disorders amongst Native American communities, but at the same time, very high prevalences of lifelong abstinence from alcohol, and so, I’m wondering if you might be able to help us unpack that and understand it? That, on one hand, continuing high rates of real trauma resulting in disproportionately high rates of substance use, and yet, at the same time, also high rates of abstinence.

00:14:10 Angel Charley:

I’ll take it one step further. We just received a presentation in our Indian Affairs Committee, and the same presentation we got in our Legislative Health and Human Service Committee, talking about alcohol alleviation across New Mexico, and one of the data points that was shared is that Native people in New Mexico consume less alcohol per capita, but experience higher negative rates associated with alcoholism, up to and including death. Now, that type of data that I just mentioned and the one you mentioned means that our communities are experiencing this at disproportionate rates.

And it is hard to reconcile this when you have stereotypes that are out there and prevalent in the world that allow for the perpetuation of our dehumanization again, and you know, I grew up hearing them. I grew up hearing those stereotypes. I grew up knowing people who had deep, complicated relationships with substance use, and I know the exact same amount of people who have chosen to not use any substances their entire life, and so, again, this just goes back to are the stories that are being told and the narratives that are perpetuated about Native people authentic and from the experience of actual Native folks?

00:15:54 Michele Goodwin:

You know, this brings to mind for me a saying that is attributed to Africa, and I remind people that Africa is a continent, not a country, and so, this saying is that the tale of the hunt will glorify the hunter until the lioness has her say, and again, it is that the tale of the hunt will glorify the hunter until the lioness has her say, and this comes to mind for me as you speak, because you’re sharing that narrative matters, and who gets to hold the pen or the typewriter or the keyboard associated with narrative matters?

And so, the depiction of Native American / Indigenous people in ways that are negative and stereotyped, clearly, are ways in which people in those communities would not necessarily depict themselves and their journeys, and those stories are not fully inclusive of what brings people to those spaces, and so, I want to take a slight digression as we talk about substance use disorder, because what you have been saying is that we have to look at histories.

And sometimes, those histories are even in the present, and so, I wonder if we could just take a slight digression to just talk a bit about what…and again, not to conflate, but really, what are some of the challenges that are being experienced by Native American communities in real time in the United States? What does that look like?

00:17:39 Angel Charley:

It is a chronic underinvestment in our communities by the federal government, and we have a unique relationship with the federal government. There are trust and treaty responsibilities that were made by our ancestors, with the federal government, for the ongoing protection and wellbeing of our communities, as Indigenous first stewards of the land. So, I’m talking about all of the different agencies, especially now, under this administration.

IHS, or the Indian Health Service, has been chronically underfunded for years. The Department of Interior has…it’s a moving target to have sustainability and ongoing conservation of our lands, but the rural nature, also, of our communities, right, it means access to care and quality care is harder for rural. Transportation is the number one barrier to wellness in our tribal communities in New Mexico, I’ll say, and so, you have all of this distance from wellbeing, whether it’s, like, actual proximity or ideology, right? We just, we have been systematically positioned to struggle as Native people.

00:19:05 Michele Goodwin:

Wow, that is powerful, and yet irrefutable. I think about, for example, the Trail of Tears, and so, Trail of Tears, right? So, three words, but more than three words, right? What it means to be marched off of your land. Now, if we were to put that in context with people who’ve bought property in Montana, in Wyoming, in Vermont, in various places, and the very prospect or idea that someone could come onto their land and say today, pack it all up, pack up your kids’ toys, and by the way, let’s remove your shoes, right? The Nikes that you wear, the Adidas that you wear, those Uggs that you wear, let’s take them off, and now we expect you to walk, and it would be an outrage for people to just have to do that to walk next door, right? Can you imagine that folks had to do that and they were only going as far as next door and the government was making them do that? People get outraged when the government is paying them to do that for eminent domain so that the government can build an airport, but imagine what…right? You go ahead.

00:20:28 Angel Charley:

That was the example I was just going to bring up. We had an eminent domain issue come up this past legislative session, and rightfully so, people were outraged about a transmission line that was going to come through the state, and to be able to make that connection for people, you know, let’s talk about eminent domain. As a First Nations person, as an Indigenous person to this land, we have a whole continent of people who have been forcibly removed. Now, I’m Navajo, and I’m Pueblo. On my Pueblo side, I am connected to the land of my ancestors. On my Navajo side, there has been first removal, and so, I say that to also recognize the privilege of my Pueblo heritage to be in connection with our places of origin.

00:21:26 Michele Goodwin:

And that’s powerful, but you know, just as a thought experiment, it’s something that people don’t put themselves in, right, to think about what that would be and what that means for future generations then, as that passes through family, oral histories, and now there is a science that’s suggesting that, somehow, in people’s genes, that they are holding onto past stories, past traumas. I want to turn to what makes for a better society? How do we address these issues and move forward? So, in 2025, the Indian Affairs Committee put together a work plan that includes “updates on substance use issues, suicide prevention, drug trafficking, youth violence, and behavioral health in New Mexico.” I’m wondering, what might a Native-community-centered response to concerns about substance use look like? What does that look like? What would you recommend? What are some of the key ingredients that should be paid attention to?

00:22:48 Angel Charley:

I love this question, because it allows for us to decide what this looks like for ourselves, and that is the pinnacle of tribal sovereignty. Our ability to transcend the outcomes of historical trauma, including substance use issues, depends on our ability to reconnect with our culture, our language, our land, our stories. Substance use treatment, in our communities, it doesn’t mean going into a rehab center or…it doesn’t necessarily mean going into a rehab center or practicing western modalities of healing.

There have been studies and numerous stories about a reconnection with culture that is fundamentally healing for our people. When we are closer to our culture, our language, our songs, our traditions, we are well. In thinking about what do our communities need to heal, we need access to all of those things, and then there’s an inherent responsibility to create access to those things in our own community, right? These things cannot be replicated or created outside of our communities themselves.

So, the responsibility is ours, and that is a heavy responsibility, but we come from a people that have resisted and committed deeply to our resiliency. Our languages that are still alive were protected and fought for. Our songs that are still sung were hidden and shared. Our traditions and our cultures that’ve been passed down were done so with deep intention, and we still have access to them, and it’s our responsibility to keep those going forward. So, I mean, it really is just honor our trust and treaty responsibilities. Ensure that our communities are resourced so that we can build the solutions ourselves.

00:25:15 Michele Goodwin:

My final question, and the time goes by way quickly, too quickly, is that, given your new role, what are your hopes for the future of community-driven policy initiatives? You know, part of this connects to a question that we ask on all of our podcasts as we wrap them up, is that we’re concerned about a silver lining and hope. You know, what does that look like? So, I would just add that to this question about, given your new role, what are the hopes for future community-driven policy initiatives to overcome these vestiges that we’ve talked about, of colonialism and more, and that address substance use in a culturally-informed way?

00:26:03 Angel Charley:

My biggest hope is that I am not the last one, and I mean I hope that the others are coming after me, because we don’t have parity in our state legislature, though we do have the largest majority of women and women of color serving in this country. I know that for us to get to parity with Native people representing our community, which is 20% of New Mexico’s population, we need 17 of us in there, and there’s nine. So, there’s still work to do. So, I dream about and pray for the ones who are coming after me, and once we’re in here, we get to do the creative, and sometimes impossible work, of making sure that the system meets our needs and that we don’t have to replicate a western system of justice, of healing, of survival in order for our communities to thrive. We can actually make that system adapt to our ways of knowing as Indigenous people, and that’s my hope with this role.

00:27:19 Michele Goodwin:

That’s powerful. I want to thank you for joining me for this episode, which is part of our series that we are launching, as part of our Women in Democracy, Long Way Home, and in this episode, Understanding Native American Culture and Addiction. Thank you very much, New Mexico Senator, Angel Charley. Thank you for joining me.

00:27:44 Angel Charley:

Thank you so much for having me.

00:27:48 Michele Goodwin:

Guests and listeners, thank you for joining us for our special limited series podcast, The Long Way Home. We want to thank our guests, and to our listeners, we thank you for tuning in to learn more about addiction and recovery.

For more information about what we discussed today, head to msmagazine.com. This podcast series is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. We are ad free and reader supported, so we encourage you to support independent feminist media.

Look for us at msmagazine.com for new content and special episode updates, and if you want to reach us to recommend guests for our show or topics that you want to hear about, write to us at ontheissues@msmagazine.com.

We want to thank collaborators for this project, including Professor Regina LaBelle. She is the Director of the Center on Addiction Policy at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law. She is also a Professor of Addiction Policy at Georgetown, where she is also the Founder and Director of the Masters of Science in Addiction Policy and Practice Program.

Our producers for this episode are Roxy Szal, Oliver Haug, Allison Whelan, Mariah Lindsay, and our intern is Emerson Panigrahi. We also thank Jennifer Weiss Wolf. The creative vision behind our work includes art and design by Brandi Phipps, editing by Natalie Hadland, and we are always grateful to you, our listeners.