**2. Situating the Researcher**

As I am both Indigenous, and work with Indigenous people, I make sure to situate myself in my work. I address power relationships, introduce myself, demonstrate my respect to all those who participate, engage in reflexivity to understand my positionality and relationality, and understand the colonial history that brought us to where we are today [25,26]. My name is Heather Sauyaq Jean Gordon. My Iñupiaq name is Sauyaq. I was named after my paternal grand aunt, who upon her passing, my grandmother gifted me her name. Sauyaq means drum, and through my work I seek to continue the heartbeat of the Indigenous drum, making sound to advocate for Indigenous rights. I am Iñupiaq and Euro-American; however, I was raised outside Homer, Alaska on a reindeer ranch, growing up learning Iñupiat Ilitqusiat (Iñupiaq values). I am an enrolled member of the Nome Eskimo Community, a federally recognized Tribe in the U.S. I grew up learning how the Iñupiaq side of my family experienced and continue to experience colonization through such practices as forced boarding school, assimilation education, and Jim Crow racism. These atrocities directly happened to my family, and my being here demonstrates their great resilience and ability to survive. I seek to honor my ancestors through my work and provide this explanation of my background to the reader so that they understand that I approach research in a respectful way and will advocate for Indigenous rights.

#### **3. Racialization and Racism: The Colonization of Indigenous Peoples in Alaska**

Alaska Natives have been seen as a separate race by their Russian and American colonizers since first contact. They had a darker skin color and appeared physically different from colonizers which colonizers believed made Natives intellectually, culturally, socially, and physically inferior, justifying different and unequal treatment and oppression of the Natives [6,7]. Racism was first inflicted by the Russians as they colonized Alaska in 1741. They exploited the land and resources, waring and enslaving the Indigenous populations they encountered, seeking to acculturate and assimilate the Natives through education, religious conversion, and marriage [9,10,27].

The U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russian in 1867 [28] led to continued slavery and mistreatment [29]. In 1884, Christian missionaries and the U.S. federal government took over education from Russian Orthodox missionaries [30] and set out to "civilize" the Alaska Native populations by getting rid of their cultures, languages, and traditions [9]. Richard Henry Pratt, who founded the Carlisle Indian boarding school, is famous for saying, "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." Indigenous students at U.S. boarding schools were beaten, punished, underfed, and sexually abused; many children died from this while still others died of diseases [8,11].

The U.S. continued the racialization of Native people through blood quantum which they used to justify racist policies such as school segregation and land ownership [31]. The history of blood quantum goes back to treaties made with Native people in the 1800s where Native people were described as "half-bloods" and was continued during the Allotment Period, 1887–1934, where "full-bloods" were considered incompetent to conduct business [32]. In 1905, when the *Nelson Act* was passed [33], Alaska youth were required to attend public schools. This was when the Alaskan Jim Crow era took hold and "white children and children of mixed blood who lead a civilized life" were able to go to one school and Natives of pure blood had schooling separately [34]. Being civilized often meant they spoke English. The second *Organic Act* in 1912 [35] codified the racially segregated school system which remained segregated until Alaska became a state in 1959 [9]. When the *Indian Reorganization Act* (IRA) came to Alaska in 1936 [36], the Bureau of Indian Affairs built lasting systemic racism into Alaskan Tribes, guiding them through creating their governing documents and making Tribal enrollment based on blood quantum [31].

The *Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act* (ANCSA) of 1971 continued systemic racism in Alaska, allowing only people of <sup>1</sup> <sup>4</sup> Native blood to sign up as shareholders in the new regional corporations [15]. The *Marine Mammal Protection Act* (MMPA) of 1972 created additional systemic racism as Alaska Natives had to be <sup>1</sup> <sup>4</sup> Native blood to harvest marine mammals and work with the marine mammal products [37]. When marriages result in a child under <sup>1</sup> <sup>4</sup> blood quantum, the child is unable to hunt for subsistence or work with animal skins or ivory [38]. This restricts Alaska Native families from passing on their culture to children that are "not Native enough" and raises issues of food insecurity and food sovereignty. Today, no Indigenous person in the U.S. can escape blood quantum as it is required to get a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood card if Natives want to be eligible for a variety of types of assistance required from the U.S. due to treaties [39]. Blood quantum describes who is considered "Indian," separating them from Whites and further promoting a White dominated racial order in the U.S.

While blood quantum continues to systemically racialize Natives, identifying Native people solely as a racial group ignores their inherent sovereignty as self-determining Tribal Nations and communities that are separate governments from U.S. state and federal governments [40]. For Alaska Natives to have a government-to-government relationship with the federal government, they need to be federally recognized, and listed as Tribes on the Department of Interior's *Federally Recognized Tribes List Act of 1994* to qualify for aid required from the U.S. under existing treaties [2,18]. All Native Peoples in Alaska were not traditionally Tribes but instead many consisted of bands and families, and this formation of Tribal governments according to the IRA is yet another method of colonization that Native peoples had to adhere to if they wanted to have the government-to-government relationship with the federal government to get their rightful benefits from treaties. In Alaska, this is further complicated due to Alaska Supreme Court decisions and Governors of Alaska not recognizing the existence of Tribes and Tribal sovereignty [18].

Racism in Alaska has been recently explored in a study by the Alaska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights [41]. The study was prompted by an atrocity in which three youth in 2001 videotaped themselves shooting Alaska Natives in Anchorage with frozen paintballs. In the study, the director of the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission noted the systemic racism issues and Alaska Native people provided testimony about racism in Alaska. Patten of the Copper River Tlingit stated that "Apartheid

is a very real thing here in Alaska." Panelist Savland of the Alaska Native Coalition for Employee Training explained how the State neglects Alaska Natives, "In light of such wide disparities between the wellbeing of Natives and the wellbeing of other Alaskans, one might expect the state of Alaska to be sufficiently concerned ... state policy, controlled by the urban non-Native majority, turn against Natives with a vengeance ... the state is making political war on the poorest and most vulnerable of its citizens defined by race."

This background explains how racism was built into colonization practices from the start. Racist policies sought to destroy Indigenous cultures and assimilate Indigenous children. This racism was codified into legislation that is still in practice today. ANCSA and the MMPA both utilize blood quantum and the MMPA prevents Native families from passing on their culture to their children if they are not Native enough [15,37]. This racism and colonization are embedded into land ownership and management which further limits Indigenous subsistence rights that will be explained in the next section.
