Jen Deerinwater is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, bisexual, Two Spirit, multiply-disabled journalist, speaker, and organizer who covers the myriad of issues her communities face.

With an intersectional lens, she will address the many and varied ways that resource extraction has had innumerable and severe consequences to Indigenous people.

This talk is intended to further educate non-Indigenous people on the impacts of resource extraction on Native communities and how to stand in solidarity with Native nations. The talk will begin with a brief historical overview of Indian law and policies that have led to many of our modern day problems, such as the high rates of violence against Native women and Two Spirits, and the connection to resource extraction.

Coupled with existing statistical data from secondary sources, she will include the primary research that she has gathered from her travels to Oceti Sakowin and other pipeline resistance camps and frontline movement spaces. This research consists of photos, videos, and interviews with Indigenous people, tribal leaders, and officials in the U.S. government, including 2020 electoral candidates. This talk will be tailored to give information on local tribal nations and resource extraction projects.

NOTE: This talk will be presented as disability accessible as possible through the use of a variety of teaching and communication methods, such as large print handouts, electronic versions of my presentation, and conveying information through auditory, visual, and hands-on activities.

Deerinwater of Washington, D.C., received a BA at the University of Southern California in gender studies and political science with an emphasis on American federal government; Graduate Certificate in women in politics and public policy at the University of Massachusetts-Boston; and an MS in communications management at Simmons College.

She's a contributor at Truthout, the founder and executive director of Crushing Colonialism and is a Freedomways Reporting Project fellow. Jen's work can be found in publications such as Bitch, Rewire News, and In These Times.  Her work is included in the anthologies Two-Spirits Belong Here and Disability Visibility due out summer 2020.

This talk is cosponsored by Students for Energy Justice; the Anderson Fund, Department of History; Environmental Studies Program; Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies; Department of Rhetoric and Compostion; the Departments of Politics, Economics, Anthropology; the Comparative American Studies Program; and the Multicultural Resource Center.