A man wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat is accused of shooting Native American activist Jacob Johns during a prayer event recently in Española, where local officials were planning to reinstall a statue of Spanish conquistador and war criminal Juan de Oñate. Ryan David Martinez is charged with first-degree attempted murder, as well as a fourth-degree felony count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Antonia Gonzales, correspondent with New Mexico in Focus, which airs on New Mexico PBS, spoke with two people who were there: Janene Yazzie (Diné), Southwest regional director with NDN Collective, and community member Nathana Bird (Ohkay Owingeh and Kewa pueblos).
NATHANA BIRD: I heard the gunshot go off. And I stopped. I went around the corner. I was thinking like if this happened, like, if he comes around this side, how am I going to protect myself? Where is everybody? And I stood up immediately. And at that point, he was already running to his car and had gotten in his car and I immediately ran towards that area. And then at that point, everybody was like “Call 911. Everybody call 911.” And so it was just awful. It was definitely something that forever was like a life-altering experience,
NMPBS: And I'm glad you're safe. And thank you for sharing that. And, Janene, you were also there, what has your life been like, since the event?
JANENE YAZZIE: After Jacob was able to get medical attention, which wasn't until 10, 15 minutes later, we switched into having to do our own work to ensure that the witnesses were safe that we were recording witness statements. I went around to like smudging people because this was a family event. And people were very traumatized by this type of violence being brought into such a beautiful, prayerful and loving space. We've been having to fight a narrative war that has been trying to frame this as if there was some element of danger in our taking a stand and having this prayerful gathering, when really the danger wasn't coming from us. The danger was coming from these right-wing extremists and agitators who felt compelled enough to come armed with weapons, and to heckle and harass the gathering of people that were there.
NMPBS: Well, thank you for sharing that. And I also want to talk about the historical context and Nathana, what does the Oñate statue mean, in particular, to you, to Pueblo people to Ohkay Owingeh, which -- the statue was originally next to your community?
BIRD: For me only, that represents the brutality that was put up against our people, there was a lot of destruction, there was a lot of violence, violence against our women, sexual violence, enslavement of our people. And so now it's really trying to figure out like, knowing that there's this history that exists in our community and knowing that we’re all sort of in this community together is how do we really start to grapple with the way that colonization and the way that these folks came in into our community years, generations, ago? And it still lingers here, but how do we really sort of have these conversations of yes, we are acknowledging history -- and yes, history does tell a story of how this impacted our communities? We still carry that.
NMPBS: Janene, across the country, when there's opposition to, say, Confederate statues, there's often an acknowledgement about that history, including slavery. So why is it that something like this may not be understood more widely in the public, especially when it comes to Native American history?
YAZZIE: The lack of education around the true history of this country and the whitewashing of the education of our general public behind a lot of this right-wing extremism, and this white supremacy rhetoric that is rampant throughout our country, is this belief that they're the true patriots, they're the true Americans. And it's ironic, because if they really did believe that, you would think they would uphold and understand that the establishment of this country was only enabled through treaties with Indigenous peoples. We were never conquered, as brutal as these colonizers were. And Oñate represents some of the most brutal crimes of colonization, so much so that the Spanish crown is the one that banished him from this area.
When we talk about what we're fighting for, and the solutions that Indigenous peoples are bringing to the table, those solutions are enabled by upholding our right to sovereignty and self-determination -- rights which were never taken away, but that are embedded in the very constitution of this country, as the supreme law of the land. That is why we are still here as sovereign nations. That is why our rights are both nation rights and collective rights to both our unique spiritual, political and economic ways of living, and of creating systems of governance and systems of community, and why we will continue to push forward and uphold those rights. We will not allow these acts of violence to perpetuate fear in our communities or to perpetuate cycles of trauma, because we come from generations of cycle-breakers and of people who have resisted this and all of its brutal forms throughout history to still remain here in our homelands, carrying on these worldviews, our languages, our spiritual and traditional teachings, and we will continue to do so for future generations to come.
This is an edited version of the interview that ran on New Mexico in Focus on October 6, which is available in full here.