Funding for New Mexico in Focus is provided by: Viewers Like You >> Nash: This week on New Mexico in Focus, ours becomes the first state to truly reckon with the government practice of forced sterilization of native women and other women of color.

>> Pinto: I can imagine how devastating it was for these women who were sterilized without their consent, to find out that they couldn't have children.

>> Nash: Plus indigenously positive returns with a look at the vital role tribal libraries play in their communities.

New Mexico in Focus starts now.

>> Nash: Thanks for joining us this week, I'm Nash Jones.

Tonight we are thrilled to bring you the latest installment of Indigenously Positive, our collaboration with nonprofit news outlet New Mexico in Depth.

We are in the second season of this series now.

And before I tell you a little bit about what's in this week's episode, a shout out, Indigenously Positive has won another award, this time from the Society of Professional Journalists, Top of the Rockies contest.

And I just want to say we are so proud of NMPBS█s Benjamin Yazza, who directs and produces the series and and NMID█s Bella Davis, who hosts it.

This week finds Bella in Zuni Pueblo with a story about the history and vitality of tribal libraries.

That's coming up at the bottom of the hour, and you will want to stick around for it.

Before that, we will bring you a conversation between senior producer Lou Divizio and Mason Graham of Common Cause, New Mexico.

On the docket good government and elections.

So kind of core issues on our show.

They'll explore a choice that you will see on your ballot come November, whether to finally make New Mexico the last state in the nation to pay its lawmakers a salary.

Plus, Lou will ask about election protections and a few other items you'll want to hear about.

But we start tonight in conversation with three state senators as they look to shine a light on a super dark period of New Mexico history.

In 1976, a federal report found a staggering number of indigenous women had been forcibly or unknowingly sterilized at Indian Health Service facilities throughout the early 1970s.

Senate Memorial 14, which passed earlier this year, directs the Indian Affairs Department and the Commission on the Status of Women to investigate and find out just how many indigenous women, as well as other women of color, IHS and other providers, sterilized between 1907 and 2018.

KUNM█s Jeanette DeDios sat down with the memorial's Democratic sponsors, Senators Linda Lopez, Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, and Shannon Pinto.

Here's Jeanette.

>> Jeanette: Senators, thank you so much for being here with me today on New Mexico in Focus.

Let's go ahead and start with Senator Lopez.

Tell me a bit about what led to Senate Memorial 14 and why did you feel like this was necessary now?

>> Lopez: There was a group of women that approached both Senator Pinto and I last summer and Elena Giacci who is a renowned, nationally recognized trainer in Indian country with regards to domestic violence, sexual abuse.

And she, as well as Keely Badger, who's an attorney and works in Indian Country, also on many different issues and is a lawyer and has done much research with regards to reproductive justice in the United States and around the world, as well as, miss Jean Whitehorse.

But they approached us, and gave us some background history, as to the issue on reproductive justice, but forced sterilization of indigenous women in our country and the history that they shared with us.

of course, too, is that they had just been in April of last year in front of the United Nations, and the United Nations, at that point in time last April, had a convening where there were other countries around the world who were present, ensuring information about forced sterilization of their own indigenous women in different countries around the world.

So they came back after that presentation and had, I think, a renewed energy interest and see what New Mexico could be doing with regards to this particular issue.

And so they approached both Senator Pinto and I and asked, to learn for us to learn more information, but asked if we would be interested in presenting this information, as well as a potential memorial, bill or commission, whatever we would be able to introduce and get pass through the session, to put New Mexico first in this country of ours, about recognizing, the serious issue.

And now Senate Sedillo Lopez, I'm curious to know what was the governance, the government's rationalization for forced sterilization historically.

>> Antoinette: Oh my gosh, historically, this country has always had an element of racism since its founding.

And, one place that you can really see it with was Margaret Sanger, when she was pushing the birth control pills.

We all see birth control pills as this really feminist innovation.

And it was it really helped a lot of women, make a lot of choices about their lives.

But her rationale and how she sold it was about eliminating undesirable people.

Which is she was it was very racist.

And unfortunately, that racism permeated our medical system.

And so not only do you see it happening with native women, you see it happening with African American women.

And you see it happening with The reason I got in was because one of the first law review articles I wrote, I worked on when I was at UCLA was an article written by Antonia Hernández about the sterilization of Mexican American women in Los Angeles.

So if you're Mexican American and if you were on, public assistance, almost guaranteed you get sterilized when you went in to have your baby.

It was horrible.

>> Jeanette: Wow.

>> Antoinette: It was horrible.

>> Jeanette: And how many of these do we know were carried out?

You know, what's the impact did this practice have on indigenous communities?

But also, like you mentioned, indigenous, communities of color?

>> Antoinette: Well, the numbers are not known.

That's one of the things that I think is really important.

This little study examined, I forgot, is it Los Angeles Memorial Hospital?

I forgot the name of the hospital.

It's been a while.

But there was a hospital that was kind of, where everybody who was on public assistance went, and they did a study of those records.

And what they found was a lot of sterilizations carried out without consent or without informed consent or, you know, against women who spoke only Spanish.

And the documents were in English.

And so they did this study and and like I said, two things.

If you're on public assistance and you were Mexican American and you were in there to have a baby, almost guaranteed you would end up with a sterilization.

It was it was really bad.

So the percentage in that hospital was high, but that was one particular hospital in Los Angeles.

So it's unknown how many women.

I think that's the importance of the memorial.

>> Pinto: Well, I don't think it's just the hospital.

Well, so, for example, in Gallup, there was a Saint Mary's hospital that I understand there was a birthing center there during the 70s, and it closed and it turned to RMCH But what happened with the records?

How do we backtrack it?

What happens when there's a turnover with these health care facilities?

So I'm very curious, because that was just like two weeks ago, someone was telling me they had their daughter there and I was like, “Oh, there was a hospital there.” >> Jeanette: And I know this is interesting with this house memorial, you know, it was hear during the interim meetings, but also during this legislature.

Senator Pinto, I'm interested to know, what did you hear from survivors or family members of survivors?

>> Pinto: Well, certain women did come forward and tell us their stories that I don't feel is my place to retell, but is very concerning and very emotional and very traumatic in some instances.

Not just a generational trauma, but, the children now, it's -- we're still -- I'm very concerne because even just last year, there was an organization, I went to a meeting and there was a resolution in there that they were going to put forward to the national legislature about.

Kind of the birth control, but only for Indian Health Service hospitals for Native American teen pregnancy.

They were the only ones listed.

and I was like, why are we singling out just this entity Just solely this population at this time of this day and age?

It shouldn't be, happening like that.

>> Jeanette: And now I know one of the most common issues back then was language barriers.

Do we know if that's still an issue or are there other barriers?

>> Pinto: Yes.

We did have, young lady, come forward and tell me tell of an incident of about a patient that came from the reservation because most of our care is referred out to specialists.

And, they came in to Albuquerque and they were there for four days, and they just needed a certain test to be done.

But the patient only spoke Navajo, and they never brought a translator in.

My understanding is through IHS, there is not really a record, within the records, saying that there needs to be a translator there, but, and I know with some work that Senator Lopez done that there is supposed to be some sort of mechanism in there for our health care facility to have a translator and even funding.

>> Jeanette: and, Senator Lopez, how exactly where these forced sterilizations carried out.

What did doctors do or say to these patients?

>> Linda: Many times, from the stories that we've heard, is the patient would go in, maybe for, appendicitis or some other, illness that they'd have to go in and they go in for that surgery that may have happened, needed to take place, but then inevitably, there was another procedure that was taken place, and they didn't find out until much later.

And we don't know.

Again, those are stories that have been shared.

We had some during the interim that were shared with us.

And I sincerely believe that once this memorial continues to unravel and we get some more organization in moving forward with it, I believe there's going to be many more stories coming forward.

And I know some of the stories that we've heard too is, you know, there was one person, in fact, Jean Whitehorse, she has shared her story numerous times of where she had a daughter.

But after this procedure, which she didn't know about, she was wondering why she couldn't have any more children.

And again, after you go back and have another, and visited to the doctor for another illness or whatever it may be, you find out what happened.

And if I may say also, too is the issue on interpretation.

It's an issue that affects both for our indigenous communities, especially for our elders, but also in, Mexican-American communities and others.

We had stories shared with us, too, even by one of our state representatives.

She was in a state of New York under stress, under duress, etc.

if her husband hadn't read the list, for what she was supposed to sign, she would actually have signed away her ability for reproduction.

>> Jeanette: So when we're talking about native communities before colonialism, Senator Pinto, how were they different from the settler communities in terms of structure?

How were the gender roles different?

>> Pinto: I think back then they were very specific.

I mean, even today, you know, there's some ceremonies culturally that we do that only the women, touch or, or take care of.

And then even the males, they, they do a certain aspect on that.

And but when I think about this book, after colonialism, we already had women's health reproductive.

They already had some of the like the doulas and stuff, these, these processes that they go through and even the speaking, even the, the Kinaaldá you know, that process in that speaking and the mentoring that would happen amongst the women, I think it's very important.

But I know, too, that you can't keep everything the same.

There's some good parts you got to And then you got to move along as far as technology and what's out there.

>> Jeanette: And what we're seeing now in most indigenous communities is that they're run by men.

What challenges does that impact for Native American women?

>> Pinto: Well, I think in that when we talk about reproduction, because during Covid there was some issues with funding in the health care facilities.

And the first thing that got cut was OB-GYN department.

And, you know, children decide to come into this world.

I understand it is not, can't really be a set time when they want to come.

They're going to come and, and so that's a, that's an emergency.

But to have to go two more hours or three more hours to see an OB-GYN or even get some special care when your giving birth.

When we talk about equal access, equal funding, talk about title nine, some of these things that already exists for equality for women, why does it not exist for our health care funding?

>> Jeanette: So as Native Americans, we often continue to fight about sovereign lands.

But what about the sovereign right to our bodies?

That is very essential, because even some of the mandatory treatment that they're trying to implement.

I think there's a fine line there where you cross invading that and allowing the individual to have that right.

And it goes it it's tough because when we talk about the age where you should be able to make your own decisions, but there also should be that advocacy aspect where someone should be able to advocate for their child.

In that sense, if need be.

And Senator Lopez, I believe there was some legislation that we█re trying to make sure that there was not a crushing of the individual's rights.

>> Jeanette: Well, thank you so much to the three of you for being here, I'm going to ask you to stick around so we can take a look at Senate Memorial 14 more and how it relates to today.

>> Bellson: For our population to be a superior library for a population of 6000, we should have at least a staff of 6 or 7.

>> Nash: Stay with us for the latest installment of Indigenously Positive in about 40 minutes.

But first, an update on the now completed months long national search for Albuquerque's next police chief.

Mayor Tim Keller this week appointed Cecily Barker as the city's next top cop, following the retirement of former chief Harold Medina.

Barker served as interim since January, which Keller called the ultimate interview.

>> Keller: She knows the department.

She knows the community, and she has had a exemplary track record to date.

>> Nash: Barker was born and raised in Albuquerque, the first woman ever appointed to lead APD.

She's been with the department for all of her 22 years in law enforcement.

She started there before the U.S.

Department of Justice found a pattern of excessive force at APD, and held leadership positions throughout that 11 year reform project that just ended last year.

>> Barker: That experience has shaped how I lead today.

We've made important changes that have strengthened both accountability and transparency, and those improvements are here to stay.

At the same time, we remain focused on our core mission, which is reducing crime throughout Albuquerque.

>> Nash: Barker says the agency has proved it can do both.

>> Barker: Now it's about maintaining that momentum, continuing to drive down crime and ensure that every person in Albuquerque feels safe.

>> Nash: Meanwhile, Keller also appointed Raul Bujanda as public safety executive director, a position Keller has resurrected after one saying it was unnecessary overseeing police, fire and community safety.

The former special agent in charge of the FBI's Albuquerque office had an interesting description for himself at a news conference this week.

>> Bujanda: I'm a softy, hard because I always want to make sure that we are getting it right, and if we're not getting it right, then I want you to tell me about it, because I won't make those changes that need to be made because I got thick skin when it comes to that.

>> Nash: Varner recently led the FBI's investigation into a yearslong DWI corruption scandal at APD and other local law enforcement agencies.

The Albuquerque City Council must confirm both appointments, according to a council spokesperson.

That could happen as soon as its next meeting on April 6th.

Now to an issue New Mexico voters will decide on in November whether to pay our state lawmakers.

It's the latest piece of a larger push to modernize our state legislature.

One of the groups that's had a big hand in driving that conversation is Common Cause New Mexico, a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on maintaining the democratic process.

Part of that mission means analyzing how our democratic processes can function most efficiently.

This week, senior producer Lou Divizio sits down with the group's policy director, Mason Graham, to ask how paying our legislators could bring New Mexico up to speed with the rest of the country and expand access to our halls of power.

>> Lou: Mason Graham.

Great to see you again.

Thanks for being here on New Mexico in Focus.

>> Graham: Thanks for having me.

>> Lou: Of course.

Now I want to get to a lot of different aspects of modernizing the state legislature.

It's something we've chatted about quite a few times over the last few years.

This year there's actually been some movement on that.

There's a ballot measure that lawmakers passed.

It's going to go out to voters in November asking if they want to pay our state legislators.

Can you break down that measure?

What exactly is inside it?

What would voters be approving if they voted for it?

>> Graham: Well, what we're looking at is paying New Mexico senators and representatives.

We're the last state in the country that doesn't pay our legislators.

Any type of compensation.

They receive some per diem for the work that they do in Santa Fe is around $200 or so.

But, you know, that doesn't really cover rooms.

It doesn't cover, you know, the, expenses that you might accumulate, when you're leaving your job to go work in the legislative for 30 or 60 days.

So what we're looking at is actually trying to bring New Mexico's legislature up to a professional standard.

So we have a part time legislature, as many people know.

But the other reality is that a lot of our legislators are fall within one of the three R's that we call it, which is retired, rich or wealthy, or extremely resourceful.

So there's a big disparity when it comes to the resources that you have in order to run and serve in office.

And then the actual capacity that a senator or representative has to legislate.

So what we're trying to do with this is to make sure that across the board, all of our legislators have the ability to bring good policy to New Mexico, to do the work, you know, in that interim period and making sure they're fairly compensated.

>> Lou: Sure.

There have been previous efforts on the books to pay our legislators.

I know there was a proposal to create an independent salary commission in the past that didn't go anywhere.

I know other states have done that.

We settled on the $68,000 figure that's in the ballot proposal.

How did that come about?

>> Graham: So this type of legislation has been brought up in the New Mexico Legislature for several decades, actually.

It goes as far back as the 1990s.

In the late 90s, we actually had this issue on the ballot at one point, where it failed.

And there's been a number of ways that we've proposed paying legislators or, providing them compensation.

The salary commission is one in recent years that I've actually had the ability to work on.

We've done polling a common clause that shows that people want transparency about the amount the legislators make.

Since our legislators don't make anything, you know, there's nothing for us to report on as far as the earnings that they receive from their legislative work.

But if we are to start to implement a salary or compensation for legislators, maybe an independent commission would be the best way to do that, just to make sure that there isn't any self-dealing.

You know, we don't want legislators deciding the amount that they earn.

So we weren't able to do the salary commission this time around, although it's been proposed in recent years.

What we're looking at now is, providing legislators a salary that's equal to the median household income of New Mexico, which is around $68,000.

And so that mirrors what they have in the Alabama Constitution, where they also rise and fall, their compensation with the state's overall economic growth.

>> Lou: Okay.

What's the opposition been over these decades, like you mentioned?

Why has it taken so long?

>> Graham: Well, I think when we're talking about paying legislators, a lot of people, you know, have apprehensions when it comes to paying politicians.

Any amount, you know, if we're talking about increasing the salary for the governor's office or increasing the salary for, members of the judicial branch in the courts.

Everybody wants to take a look at that, because these are, you know, taxpayer dollars that we're talking about.

So that's always going to be concern.

The other concern is, you know, are we creating career politicians is this somebody who is going to run for office and serve just because they are going to be promised as paycheck?

And I'd like to push back on that here in New Mexico, that the fact that we don't actually pay our legislators enables more, career type politicians to not just run and serve in office, but to stay in office.

And I think that's the biggest challenge.

You know, we've had legislators who have served over three decades in office.

They don't have any real challenges in their district, and they are very comfortable in their seat.

And since they might be one of those three R's that I mentioned before, they have the resources or they retired and they have a lot of time, they don't ever have to worry about, you know, those challenges in the competition.

And they are very comfortable legislating the way, that they know how.

But now that we added this, additional element of compensation, we could introduce the opportunity for people to say, you know, I want to also run for office, and we want to see that.

>> Lou: Yeah, absolutely.

Now I want to open the lens a little bit and talk about legislative modernization broader than just paying lawmakers.

So two years ago, the Legislative Council approved full time aides, for lawmakers.

How has that helped the work that they do?

And in turn, the policy that we've seen coming out of the roundhouse, have you noticed a difference?

>> Graham: Now, I've gotten an opportunity to work with a lot of the legislative aides and, since they've been implemented.

From what I've heard as feedback from the aides themselves and the legislators is that they're very they're very helpful.

You know, and I've seen them on both sides of the aisle.

You know, when they were initially talking about implementing legislative aides, a lot of people feared that it would be a barrier to kind of the, easygoing nature of our legislature.

And like, you can email or call your legislator, you know, that you're going to get that person, you're going to get your senator, you're going to get your representative.

So people were worried about that additional step.

But what I've actually seen is that the legislative aides have been able to be effective with, communications with constituents.

You know, policy research, you know, they show up to, some of the meetings that maybe the legislator can't be present on, but the legislative aides have been able to step up in some ways.

And that is definitely help with the capacity.

>> Lou: Has it changed at all the influence of lobbyists on specific legislation?

I know in some cases lobbyists work on bills, helped write them in some cases.

Has is that changed at all?

Can we expect more of a shift if we were to modernize a bit more?

>> Graham: I think we definitely want to see a shift in the way that lobbyists engaged with legislators right now, because our legislature is unpaid, and for a long time they didn't have a paid professional staff person.

The influence of groups of interest groups, private interests, whatever you call it, lobbyists, is pretty great here in the state.

And they work very closely to, create the laws, provide the research and the information because the legislators just simply don't have time.

And these are extremely complex issues that we're talking about.

You know, we're talking about health care, education, climate, all of these things and when you are working within a 30 or 60 day period and you're getting passed a bill that you might not have, you know, in your area of expertise that allows for the lobbyists to swoop in and tell you, you know, which way you could you should vote on the bill.

>> Lou: Now, you mentioned time being a factor too, and that's another step further down the road, I think.

But there was a proposal to change each legislative session to 45 day sessions.

And you mentioned 30 and 60 is what we have now.

So really that would just spread the same amount of time over two years.

And we're seeing more and more get it packed into what we have now.

Where is the balance for time.

And so that lawmakers have enough time to go through these complex bills, like you say.

>> Graham: So there was a report that was done by UNM Bieber, and they polled legislators on the amount of time they spent outside of the legislative session doing like policy, where constituent meetings came out to about 20 hours a week.

So when we think about the 30 or the 60 day period, the legislators are working, it's really not that there's a lot of work that goes on outside of the round House in their districts, and with constituents that they do that goes uncompensated.

Now, if you█re talking about the allocation of time for legislative work in the Round House, we would really want to increase the number of days from this 90 day biennial cycle to maybe 90 days every year.

So 120 days, something more like what Nevada has.

Now I think the biggest determination on time for the New Mexico Legislature and what legislators are able to get done, actually comes down to the governor's message.

The governor has the ability to determine which bills are germane during the even numbered years, which is also the shortest legislative session.

And what we would really like to see is that any bill is germane because, you know, some of these issues are happening right now in these communities, and there are serious issues that need attention, but they can't be brought up until that 60 day cycle where everything goes.

And so some of the proposals, like the 4545 day bill, which restructures the number of days in the biennium, is interesting because on the face, it shortens the number of legislative days, but it would also remove the governor's call.

So in those two 45 day sessions, anything would go.

However, the best way for us to really professionalize our legislature, in addition to these other two modernization tenets, paid staffing and paid legislators would be to increase the number of legislative days.

>> Lou: Okay.

Just a quick note.

The Bureau of Business and Economic Research, BEBER, thank you for that.

One more thing, I know you guys are watching at Common Cause, is voting access.

We know the Trump administration is doing everything it can to restrict voters, requiring ID, that hasn't happened yet, but proof of citizenship, these are all proposals that they're pushing in Washington.

Outlawing mail in voting.

What should we be aware of as New Mexicans in this push from the white House?

I know you're working on an election protection program.

How's that been going?

>> Graham: So here in New Mexico, we're actually very fortunate because we have the best elections in the country.

And that's objective.

There was a recent study done by, MIT and their, elections and democracy, department that determined New Mexico is the number one state for election administration, which is fantastic.

And part of that comes down to our voting convenience centers.

We have, places that people can go and vote on Election Day in every county.

We've got ballot drop boxes in every county.

We've recently passed two amazing voting rights reforms for, you know, tribal lands and indigenous people who can request, you know, an absentee ballot without a traditional address that's typical on, tribal reservations.

And then also we have, you know, the back end, voter registration system as well, so people can register to vote right there at the MVD, we have same day registration.

People can update their registration and vote on the same day.

So because we've taken the time to bolster our elections and our democratic process, we're pretty well insulated, I would say.

Now we run a program that puts volunteers outside of polling places, and their entire goal is to make sure that voters know their rights.

They are watching for threats of intimidation or voter violence.

They're making sure that people have, like, the documentation that they need in order to register same day, because, you know, it's not all the same.

And then overall, just be encouraging of folks for getting out there and, you know, casting a ballot and participating in, you know, this amazing process that makes, you know, our country, our country.

>> Lou: Now that program, if some of these proposals go through, if elections become federalized as, President Trump has proposed, are programs like that enough?

What else would need to be done to protect elections in our state?

>> Graham: Unfortunately, the program itself would not be enough.

You know, these are volunteers.

These are citizens who are very passionate about democracy and elections, who want to make sure that your right to vote that's sacred, is protected, and the president is trampling all over that.

There will need to be some additional measures, definitely.

We've heard from our congressional leadership, our senators and our, you know, our representatives that they are not going to approve any of those measures to try to, claw back some of the voting rights that we already have.

I think ensuring that they hold that stance, is super important.

And then also here at the state level, our legislators, you know, those are your the first line of defense for things that are coming down.

We're going to do our part to make sure that people are safe and protected.

But we're definitely willing to go that extra step, if we see anything come down from the Trump administration.

>> Lou: Okay, understood.

Mason Graham, thanks so much for being here.

>> Graham: Thank you.

>> Nash: Thanks again to Lou and Mason Graham for that discussion.

Now let's return once more to our roundtable conversation on forced sterilizations in New Mexico.

In addition to unearthing the total number of women who were sterilized during the last century.

Senate Memorial 14 will create a record of survivor testimony and an assessment of how accessible reproductive health services are today for indigenous women.

KUNM Jeanette DeDios focuses first on that last point, asking the senators just how difficult it is for native women to find a doctor in their community who specializes in reproductive health care.

>> Jeanette: Senators Lopez, Pinto, and Sedillo Lopez.

Thank you for sticking around.

And welcome back.

Since Roe v Wade fell four years ago, New Mexico has been seen as many as a sanctuary for reproductive health care.

Senator Pinto, how difficult is it for indigenous communities, for indigenous women in our state to access reproductive health care?

>> Pinto: We don't have a women's health facility within our area -- within that region.

We have to come all the way into Albuquerque.

I think that's one of the goals.

Hopefully, with the new IHS building, that will have some kind of a little bit of a center in that sense, for our children and our women, because that general health care, especially when it comes to the child and the mother, the closer you can stay to home, I think it's, it's the people that the doctors and those that want to work in our area.

They care a lot.

There's some of them that been there for years, and they're really vested within the community, and they stay there.

And when you come out of that out of from our area, it it's sometimes it's not as great.

So I hope I hope we get a little bit better, better access.

>> Jeanette: And did the Dobbs decision change that landscape or have there are these barriers existed since way back in the 1970s?

>> Pinto: I think within the rules and guidelines of IHS, there are some changes that need to be made because there are some guidelines there that don't allow certain things to happen.

I know one of the things, for example, within dental is they won't allow the the gas to be used.

Although that's probably one of the best humane ways for children to, you know, get, get dental care.

But there are some other things that I, I'm not sure because I only know about IHS, the way I get health care, the way my my sisters get health care, and the share the stories we share.

But specially when you talk about birth control.

I know there were times where there was the implants that were pushed in their way to some of the women in my generation, and it didn't seem like there was a follow up on it where it got embedded depo, different things, and then they go back and there's problems with their, their, their reproductive stuff, and then they got to go in and practically almost do surgery to take it out.

I mean, it just gets gets really very risky when there's no follow up.

And I'm very curious why they implement it just to pay the pharmaceutical company.

But the follow up in the following care.

Does that happen?

It needs to happen >> Lopez: Now maybe the memorial needs to be expanded.

What I anticipate, too, is that after we have this, an initial, how should I see organization?

And we are able to get some of the professionals who can come, to sign on this, I think, is going to grow a little bit more than what even I think the initial, wording that we have in the memorial at this point, because there's so much more than just, and anything that deals with reproductive justice and as you know, that's that's expensive.

It's pretty big.

But necessary.

>> Lopez: because it's not only reproductive justice, but it's, you know, forced sterilization, but also experimentation on women's bodies, like using certain high levels of, of, birth control with high levels of, the hormones and then realizing decades later that they didn't need so much.

Yet they had experimented on women's bodies for decades and mainly bodies of color.

That's what's so upsetting about the Depo-Provera in in Indian Country.

>> Jeanette: That█s definitely devastating to hear.

And with Senate Memorial 14, it'll also create a record of survivor testimony.

Now, these are tragic personal histories.

We've already heard some of it right now, but Senator Sedillo Lopez, how do you see survivor testimony informing your work going forward?

>> Lopez: Well, I think it's the most important thing because otherwise we don't have the records.

So if survivors don't come forward and tell us what they've experienced, then that it gets pushed under the rug.

We're not aware of it.

There's no reparations for it.

There's no, I can imagine how devastating it was for these women who were sterilized without their consent to find out that they couldn't have children.

When in the culture, having children is just one of the most, important things.

And so it just that emotional harm, I think that this, this issue is so important for so many ways and I, I think we should continue to focus on it.

>> Jeanette: So the fiscal impact report for this memorial notes that it might be difficult to obtain information from the Indian Health Services.

As Senator Lopez, what power does this state have to get this these information?

>> Lopez: Well, part of it, of course, too, is for us even just to begin this process, to begin the conversation.

But I know that there's been some conversation happening behind the scenes already.

We need to be able to work with our congressional representatives, of course.

Because they too have, an actual access to the Department of Interior and other.

So we will be outreaching, to our five elected congressional representatives, and also to, you know, we have, a person who lives in our state who served as a secretary of the Department of Interior.

And I believe in conversations with her that we can also learn more about the, you know, what goes on within the department and maybe some more contacts and persons that we can begin to do some, you know, information requests and figure out how we can do.

I know that in one of our committee meetings.

Doctor Begay, also gave some information as to how she was impacted.

But she's been in the system, too, and I believe she and some of her other, professional colleagues, of course, can help guide us.

And those are part of the persons I believe that as we put together this commission, this group of persons, to lay out the plan.

>> Jeanette: And do we know if the legislature has subpoena power?

>> Lopez: The legislature does have subpoena power, but that is very limited at this point.

But we just had a, a commission that was put together by the House of Representatives dealing with, Jeffrey Epstein, and such.

And they did, and we're given subpoena power.

So if that's an outcome, it's necessary from this initial meeting, we can propose that to the legislature, too.

So there's there's always an option on the table.

>> Jeanette: And this study seems to be the first domino.

Senator Pinto, what's the end goal here?

Does that look like physical a physical memorial, a state apology, possibly reparations for survivors?

>> Pinto: I think the victims know it's more about acknowledging.

And I think that's where the apology.

It's just that first step.

When you talk about getting to the the next, atonement step just to get things rolling, it's that acknowledgment because the denial or just not even saying anything is I mean, we know that's not a a way to move things forward.

So I'm hoping we actually get a little bit more on it.

For, for those that have become victims of it.

>> Jeanette: So these findings are meant to be reported back to the governor by the end of 2027.

Senator Sedillo Lopez, if you run out of time and there's still so much more work to do.

How will you do it?

>> Lopez: I think we could.

One of the findings can be that we need more time because, these records we've been talking a lot about, like BIA records, different, different records that we need, to see the, the scope of it.

So we could talk about numbers, but also the victims stories will guide us.

I'm guessing that we're going to find victims in a lot of different places, including urban hospitals.

And so I think that when, when we know the scope of the problem, we can, as part of the memorial, extend it, for more time and subpoena power is going to be very important so that we can, ensure that some of the hospitals are not going to want to share their records.

And so we may have to we might have to go that route.

But I'm hoping that as soon as we, get the publicity we need, we we're seeing this in the Epstein, what they call the truth commission.

We're seeing people come forward.

That nobody was, or at least the system didn't seem to be aware of.

At least the Department of Justice allegedly wasn't aware of it.

And I think that's going to happen here, too.

>> Lopez: Again, this is we█re the first in the country to have this.

And what part of our conversations have been to is to this, this may have more of a, I call a snowball effect, right where it continues to grow in other states may follow right within the indigenous communities across the country.

Working with their local elected officials in the state that once it grows, I believe that there's going to be more of a push.

So it's not just New Mexico asking, but it will be other states that will mirror what we're doing too.

And part of that, I think, is, there's, you know, through the United Nations, of course, they're supportive of this endeavor.

But there's also the repertoire who's willing to come to New Mexico.

And he's like the in one of the persons in the, in the chain of command at the U.N., who's willing to come to New Mexico and bring I think, the, you know, that that brings in itself its own media and exposure for the country and the world about what we're doing here.

So that, I know, is it's on the list to happen.

>> Pinto: Well, I think with any of our indigenous communities, any of the issues don't seem to be solved very quickly.

It seems to take years.

The boarding school and MMIP, and they think this is going to be one of them to.

>> Jeanette: And do we know of any laws that might come out of this?

>> Pinto: Well, I think one thing that I read and, and some other articles was that there is no legislation that kind of says it's illegal to have coerced or forced sterilization, but there's malpractice.

And yet we've chipped away a little bit, on that.

So, we'll see.

>> Lopez: It could be extended the statute limitations, like we did for, for a sexual assault and rape or sexual assault of children and rape of adults.

I could see an extension of the statute of limitations.

Because a lot of these happened a long time ago.

And so, there's issues of culpability and issues of liability, issues of atonement, reparations.

Maybe we don't extend the statue of limitations, but there's reparations offered or, you know, who knows?

I think part of it is involving the people affected and and involving as many communities as possible, because it's outrageous.

I mean, this is just, like you said, tort liability.

They're not supposed to do this without informed consent.

That is wrong.

It is an automatic malpractice action.

But we're not, because some of these cases are so old.

It's kind of a loss of justice, which, when when the cases is no longer viable, has a medical malpractice case, and it was the government that did it.

Another alternative is reparations.

>> Lopez: remember here in the state in New Mexico.

We've also during my tenure in the legislature, we have had legislation introduced similar to what you mentioned, senator Sedillo Lopez.

About women who are on public assistance or if they have been found to, you know, have drugs in their system when they've given birth for them to be forcibly sterilized.

And we've had legislation, thank goodness we've killed those bills, quote, unquote, in the legislature.

But the it's still it's still part of the conversations that we're having.

And I believe that is it's dangerous for us to continue to to even have that.

But as I've mentioned previously in other conversations, it's another form of eugenics.

And it's it's not in just in this country, but as I've learned in listening to the other ladies, is that it's worldwide.

Of what they have done to indigenous sisters around the world and continue to do it.

So it's not it's not something that was the practice in the past, but it's currently happening as we speak.

>> Pinto: And I'm curious to see what other states still have that kind of legislation in there.

It's it's in their statute.

>> Lopez: It's it is deplorable.

>> Pinto: But uranium is one of the issues too.

That's, been very old.

And we know that was another way.

So interesting.

>> Lopez: Yes.

>> Jeanette: Senators, thank you so much for your time.

>> Lopez: Thank you.

Thank you for taking the interest.

>> Lopez: Thank you too.

>> Nash: Thanks so much, Jeanette DeDios for coming over from KUNM to facilitate that conversation and to Senators Shannon Pinto, Linda Lopez and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez.

Switching gears now.

Zuni Public Library was established in 1974 and now in its 52nd year, serves about 6000 people.

The library sits about 45 minutes away from the nearest public library in Gallup, and that drive is even longer for some Diné communities.

Zuni█s is 1 of 24 tribal libraries in New Mexico, each providing essential and varied services things like pottery making classes or storytelling events in their native languages.

In this week's installment of Indigenously Positive, our collaboration with nonprofit newsroom New Mexico in Depth, correspondent Bella Davis takes us to Zuni Pueblo to find out how they are keeping things calm, C-A-L-M that's the nexus between the Pueblo█s census archives, library and museum.

>> Bellson: Our patrons come.

They make time out of their day to come to our library and let's provide the best service.

Let's have them feel that they've accomplished something, and that an accomplishment is like improving their quality of life just for that one day.

And so that's that's my passion.

[music] >> Bella: Throughout New Mexico, there are 24 tribal libraries supporting their communities in different ways, despite typically having few staff members and limited budgets.

Zuni Pueblo█s is one of the most remote.

To get to the next closest public library.

It's a 45 minute drive to Gallup.

>> Bellson: We█re that little hidden gem -- the shiny turquoise that you can be -- for our community.

And I remember as a youth -- because I live across the street.

I would walk over here, and then as an adult, I learned how to apply for jobs online at the library.

>> Osterloh: The tribal public library serves as a public library, so they're open to the public, but they really are there to serve their communities, so -- they're Pueblo, tribe or Nation, with whatever -- needs and wants that the community has.

>> Bellson: When we did this book collection -- rebuilding it, we focused a lot on self-help, because our headstart teachers were taking classes and they were like, “where's your self-help collection?” And we're like, “we really don't have one.” So we focused on that.

They don't really realize that it's biblio therapy when they're, you know -- going to check out a certain subject area.

All these books are little Free Library books.

So the intent in studies, is that each child should have, at least up to 23 titles of books at their house.

So that's what -- it's from pre-K through eighth grade.

We requested for this one.

Native American authors and titles.

So they gave us those in the higher grades.

>> Bella: The library makes up one portion of what Zuni Pueblo calls, CALM.

>> Bellson: It's Pueblo Zuni census, Pueblo Zuni archives, Pueblo Zuni library, and Pueblo Zuni A:shiwi A:wan Museum.

We're always just striving to -- create these programs that work together.

And I think ultimately what connects us is our backgrounds and the Zuni language and culture.

>> Quam: For a while, actually, it was a one person staff.

So I did a little bit of everything.

So we're here as a resource.

We're here, as one of the places that's -- ready to help with historical photos -- or different things within history.

We're here to help.

And I think we have some really good people that have come through the museum that have really showed us how valuable some of these resources are in different hands I█m actually expecting, pretty soon, high school seniors they█re working on their Capstone project.

They're focusing on a village of Hawikuh which is one of our ancestral villages that█s about 13- 14 miles southwest of here.

Physically, yeah, I can understand, but culturally, we can actually call this place an ancestral site while we see what we see with our physical eyes.

What we feel in our heart is that this place is still very much spiritually alive, that our ancestors are still here.

>> Johnson: So we are the Zuni tribal census office, we do the population counts for the whole Zuni Pueblo.

Other than the population -- we help with birth certificates, we help the community with BIA forms and pretty much all vital information.

>> Luna: the work that we do with the library, it's mostly just -- general help here and around the building.

Other than staying late to help monitor their classes that they have sometimes.

>> Bellson: We're building on -- trying to be consistent with Zuni language.

So team member -- she translated the Smokey the Bear story for us in Zuni.

So, that's where we want to do a storyboard.

We have the life-size Smokey the Bears, paint it, put it on the wall with the story in Zuni language.

So we had a community member translate it for us.

>> Osterloh: I think for many of the libraries, it█s not all, but many of the libraries, they face challenges with staffing.

And so not being able to have -- be able to be open as much as they want to because maybe there's only one person who works there.

>> Bellson: For our population to be a superior library for a population of 6000, we should have at least a staff of 6 or 7 -- we█re a staff of two.

So imagine what could happen.

>> Osterloh: We don't have currently any -- college or university in our state that offers Library Science courses.

We used to have an associates program or certification program at a few of our community colleges and those have gone away.

And I think a lot of that was just because of lack of students.

That's something I would love to see.

And I've had some conversations and having it be specifically for tribal librarie especially looking at -- wanting to increase the number of community libraries on the Navajo Nation, we have three, there are 50 chapters, right?

So there are many other chapters who have expressed interest in having a library, but they just don't have a person.

>> Johnson: So we do collaborative work with the, public library, the museum and archives.

If somebody is going to school using their computers, trying to apply, they need their census card.

So we're down the hall.

We can help them if they need help.

Reaching out to community, we all get together and plan, and help each other that way.

>> Quam: I think for these places that are here, it's really important for, people to understand that we're doing the best that we can.

We are from the community.

We are by the community.

And as the name implies, A:shiwi A:wan this is for us, by us.

And we want to nurture a lot of that.

We know we have the intellect, we know we have the skills, and we know we have the talent and we know that we have the initiative and passion to create a real big difference in our community.

And, I love the idea of being able to make that happen.

So we've been working really well with the library.

And I think we're setting ourselves up to collaborate more, just really good writers that are here.

And if we can enable them, maybe we can start to publish our own.

And so we don't have to burn books.

We can definitely create our own.

>> Bella: One change Valerie hopes to see has to do with the Rural Library Endowment Fund, which the legislature created in 2019 to help support libraries in rural areas, including in some tribal communities.

State lawmakers have put tens of millions of dollars in the fund since then, but the money is only available to libraries serving populations of 3000 or fewer.

>> Bellson: So in the last census, we were at 6000 here in the community.

So if they could just change the language to like 10,000, that would be awesome.

Because this endowment fund, it's growing, the pot is growing.

>> Luna: Upgrades and equipment would definitely help.

There are newer technologies that I could be using, but I work with what I have and what I have is still pretty good.

Earlier, I used to do a lot of, digitization of the resolutions or digitizing the census rolls, processing, several of the administration like boxes.

For these ones what's interesting.

They would use their thumbprints.

If they couldn't spell their name or couldn't write, they would use their thumbprint as their signature.

>> Bellson: Over the summer the ZYEP youth participants, we had a table with the postcards.

So they were sitting down and writing postcards to, Senator Heinrich and then Gabe Vazquez.

And, you know, it was being sent out that way.

Without really knowing it, they were already having an experience of advocating for themselves and for their community.

I was, a stay at home mom until my kids, entered mid school.

And so this, prior to that, with my involvement, that's why I believe I learned how to advocate.

And it was always not only for the best, for my children, but for the community.

You know, it was always that intent is like, we're all deserving of what's best for us and what's out there.

>> Quam: So I think when we get to connect over time, we'll see, voices and perspectives of Zuni over time.

And that's been one of the interesting things I think we can have endless conversations about, of collaboration, of what Zuni was like in our history and how, really how special we are to still be here as a community, as a people, without the worried about documenting from ourselves in books.

We are the books.

>> Nash: Thanks to award winning journalists Benjamin Yazza, and Bella Davis and the folks at the Zuni Public Library for bringing us that story.

Thanks too, to everyone else who contributed to the show, for New Mexico PBS, I'm Nash Jones.

Until next week, stay focused.

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