I do not like our president right now. Especially 'cos he's gonna be our president for eight years.
Uh, four years.
Oh, yeah four.
Lucky it's not eight.
Hi, my name is Justin.
And my name is GiGi.
My name is Asa.
I like that name.
Hi Mr. Asa.
Just call me Asa.
Okay. I'm not used to that.
I'm a Native American politician. Do you know what Native American is?
Yeah.
People that was here before.... when, um, the world was created.
Yes. That is the perfect answer, kid.
Where do you live?
I live on the Yakima Reservation, which is two hours southeast of Seattle.
Is that, like, near Mexico?
Uh...not quite.
Do you know what a reservation is?
Um...not really.
Oh man! Okay, it's this really awesome place.
It's a land that set aside specifically for Native Americans.
Each tribe has its own
unique language, its own culture, its own way of life.
What languages do you speak?
I speak English and also speak my tribal language.
It's called Sahaptin.
I heard of all the languages but not that language.
Can you teach me one word?
Oh yeah!
In our language we have greetings of the day.
So, in the morning we say 'shix maytski'
That's really hard to say. I don't know if I can say it...
'shix...'
'shuh'
'shix....' gotta say that with the X
'shuhx...'
'Shamanski'...
Hahaha....
'Shamayski'
Hahaha....
Close enough. People will understand what you're saying.
What do you do for a living?
I am on the Tribal Council
for the Yakima nation.
So that means I'm like an elected official.
My job is to speak for those that can't speak for themselves.
So like the water, the animals,
the land, the air,
Is it hard?
Yeah, it is very hard. And so right now
there's all these coal trains that come from the Midwest, and they ship them through the Columbia River
And that coal dust goes into the river
so now our fish, the salmon that I love to eat, is getting poisoned.
That's really mean.
I know. And so we're opposing coal trains.
We're opposing coal terminals, up and down the Columbia River
And we've been winning, and so it's good for us.
What kind of holidays do you celebrate?
I celebrate the same ones that you guys do.
But I call them different.
Columbus Day? You know, that's a big holiday.
I call it Indigenous People's Day.
When Christopher Columbus-
Oh, yeah, I know that story
Right? He discovered America..
He didn't really discover America, 'cos we were already here, right?
And treated them badly.
Even if they've been very nice
Yeah.
So my people lived here before Christopher Columbus discovered America.
Wow. That must be a long time ago.
But in the social studies book it did say that Columbus thought he was in India so then he called you guys...
...the Indians?
Yeah.
But... he was actually wrong.
I'm just really glad he didn't come across Turkey, or we would be called turkeys.
(laughs)
Were pilgrims nice to the Native Americans?
Uh... It was, I'd say 50/50
You know, some were good, some had good intentions, others were mean.
They gave us blankets, like, with smallpox.
It's a disease.
Because they wanted our land.
Oh, why, you shouldn't do that!
Tell me about it, man.
What does Thanksgiving mean to you?
For me, it means family. It means the time where we can come together.
For me, it means family, it means the time where we can come together.
What does Halloween mean to you?
Oh, I love Halloween!
Me too. I double love it 'cos it's my birthday.
What? That's way awesome!
The only thing though, I don't like about Halloween,
is when people dress as Native Americans. When people dress up as Indians, and wear headdresses,
when people dress up as Indians, and wear headdresses
They're making fun of my culture, and that's not cool.
Have you seen that? have you seen that?
No, I never seen that in my neighborhood
I usually see people dressing up as monsters or princesses.
Okay, that's good.
Don't dress up as Indians for Halloween.
Yeah, I'm not... I'm actually being a zombie.
Oh nice!
The best part about holiday is spending time with your family.
And your friends.
What do you wish that people knew about Native Americans?
I wish people knew about the Americans that we are still here. Yeah, we're thriving. We're not invisible. We're a part of the community. We have a lot of culture, a lot of history.
And we can really help people understand that
Thank you for meeting me today.
Yeah, that was actually pretty fun.
Yeah. It was pretty cool.
Fist bump.