PHOENIX – Many things are at stake for voters this election season, with reproductive rights and immigration being the top issues on the ballot.
Indigenous voters may swing many races in Arizona as activists and candidates push them to vote. Democrats clinched the state in the 2020 election with the Native American vote.
Jesse Yazzie, the artist coordinator for Indigenous People’s Day Phoenix Fest, said it’s hard to determine whether this is a good or bad thing.
“It seems like everybody is divided within the country,” said Yazzie. “Even families are being divided.”
Congressional candidates Jeff Zink (R) and Yassamin Ansari (D), along with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, spoke at Arizona Center during the festival on Monday, urging Native American voters to vote in the upcoming election.
Both candidates are running for Congressional District 3, which encompasses downtown and South Phoenix, as well as parts of Glendale and Avondale.
Zink, the only Republican candidate to accept and speak at Indigenous People’s Day Phoenix Fest, urged the audience to ask questions about his views.
“This is completely unprepared, where I’m now getting questions asked so that you can find out what I believe and how I would be a congressman and would represent you in Washington, D.C,” Zink said. “How do you know my heart if you don’t ask me tough questions?”
Phoenix Councilwoman Kesha Hodge Washington gave her opening remarks at the festival about Indigenous People’s Day, stressing the sacrifices that Native Americans have made toward suffrage.
“I’m not going to tell you how to vote; I’m just going to encourage you to exercise your right to vote. Many people have perished for that right, and we want to make sure their sacrifice is not in vain,” said Washington.
A town hall discussion with members from the Phoenix Indian Center brought up specific issues like tribal sovereignty, nature at the U.S./Mexico border, and the importance of voting for indigenous people.
Native Americans in Arizona were nearly dead last when it came to suffrage compared to other states up until after WWII when the state Supreme Court overturned a 1928 lawsuit that rejected Native suffrage. Native Americans enlisting in the war had finally opened a pathway for suffrage.
Even so, Native Americans still deal with many obstacles to voting. Polling places can be several hours away, and voter ID laws like H.B. 2492 can make it impossible for Native people living on tribal reservations to register to vote.
Lourdes Pereira, a project specialist for Tribal Tech LLC and member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, said there’s a lot at stake in this election for Indian country. During the town hall, she said the building of the border wall desecrated sacred land and made her rebury some of her ancestors.
She also said that voting in this election would help preserve tribal sovereignty, which she explained as tribes possessing the ability to have their own policies regarding their own people.
Noble Bilagody, a mechanical engineering student at Arizona State University, said it’s easy to think that voting is useless, as he’s seen it happen with his friends.
“I feel like [this election] matters a lot more than the other ones because it feels like a big fight for democracy,” said Bilagody.
“It’s really easy to get caught in a cycle, you know, where it seems like nothing you do matters – like everyone’s all corrupt anyway,” he said. “And I try to tell [my friends] that it’s important either way, that every vote matters.”
