As an indigenous woman,
I grew up with stories.
Stories explain the world.
And science explains the world.
And often times people are like, "Well,
there's a huge split between tradition
and science." And it's like, Actually, no.
A lot of tradition is just explaining science
in a way that communicates to the masses.
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Between Worlds
Between Worlds Episode 7
A lot of us who grow up in different communities
that aren't part of the majority,
we live in two worlds.
You can often feel sort of isolated.
I'm Stockbridge Mohican Munsee.
When I was in high school,
our mascot was the Redskins.
They had this big porcelain
native that they would bring out.
This girl came up to me one day, and she's like,
"I'm so sorry they're doing this to you."
And I was like, "What?"
That's when it clicks. Like--
"Oh, people see that and they think of me?"
My culture is rich and it's complex,
but it's definitely not a cartoon.
I felt like an outsider.
And I ran away.
Here I was, like, hopping buses,
and living on my own,
and feeling sort of lost.
I needed an outlet to express myself.
So I started a blog.
I would write these ramble-y rants
about indigenous issues
and people started giving me advice,
all of it unsolicited, but all of it
exciting, 'cause it means somebody's hearing me.
I remember one of the comments was like,
if you're serious about changing this,
you would go to school.
I think a lot of seeds sort of fall,
but that was the seed that was sort of planted,
and it was kind of like, "Yeah, I do want to go to school.
But I don't really know how."
[laughter]
I didn't know anyone in my direct family
that went to college,
so it was like, "Who do I talk to? Who do I ask?"
how do i go to college
And I think that's where I realized, like,
"Okay, it's not just about how to go to college,
it's about what college,
how to pay for college--
there's a lot of acronyms, and this alphabet soup
that I didn't understand.
But I made it my mission to understand all of this.
And then I made out a plan.
Instead of a mainstream school,
I knew I wanted to go to a tribal college.
These schools are so important,
because it's our own community teaching us,
and setting the measures for success.
That first day of class,
in walks our professor, who is a doctor.
It sort of blew my mind, 'cause I'd never met
somebody who was a doctor, who's Native American.
So I was finally around other students
who were similar to me in a larger sense.
No one here has ever asked me
why I don't look like Pocahontas,
or if I live in a teepee.
However you are, that's Native.
It really helped me develop my confidence,
and that's such an important part of pursuing things.
And so I went from, like, how to go to college
and how to pay for college,
to what comes next in college.
science internships in D.C.
Everyone has internships.
And so it's like, "Well,
how do I get an internship?
Like, where are internships offered?"
I got an internship in D.C.
at the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
which is one of the oldest science organizations in America.
I love science, and I love tech,
but right now the indigenous voice
is largely missing from these industries.
That's a cyclic problem. There's not a lot of Natives
because the opportunity isn't there.
Let's create the opportunity,
so we can get more Natives in tech.
If you asked me years ago
if I would ever be invited to the White House,
legally invited to the White House,
[laughter] or flown to New Zealand for research,
or organized American Indian hackathons,
I wouldn't fathom those things.
I would dream about those things,
but I wouldn't actually see how
to go from A to B.
- Robin is trying to open a whole new world
to her peers.
They see through her example
that they too have that potential.
There's nothing wrong with not knowing something.
There's no opportunity that you're not allowed
to at least try for.
There's often this idea that in order
to get opportunities, we have to leave the res.
But I feel like we need to start looking at
creating these opportunities on the reservation.
You can be a researcher. You can be a computer programmer.
You can do this AND you can bring your culture with you.
[Native singing]
We're the generation that was able to go to tribal college,
because of the work that the people before us did.
I'm gonna be part of that generation
that gets a Ph.D. and spreads this further.
That's how you bring a community up.
[Native singing]
To all those using technology to create opportunity for all
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