Young & Indigenous

During the month of September, CSSP embarked on filming the pilot for our first narrative series titled “Canoe Journey”. This coming of age story centered around youth mental health and finding your identity places an emphasis on immersing yourself in culture as a preventative tool. It was a 10-day shoot and the YAI team was there on set during all of production playing various roles within. We we...

Skelotses is our ancestral territory, it is our homeland. In the final part of our series with the Lummi Summer Youth Program we travel by boat through our homeland, the San Juan Islands; we are reminded how culture and community are used as preventative tools for positive youth mental health. We listen to youth tell us what they learned, and elders explain origin stories as well as more recent tr...

In the second part of the Walking with our Ancestors event, we highlight local Native artists. On this day various local artists came in to instruct the youth on language, beading, cedar weaving, wool weaving, and traditional medicines. We listen to them as they speak on their experiences both in life and with their practice, as well as the youth while they are soaking in all the knowledge. ...

Walking with our Ancestors is an event we are documenting with the Lummi Summer Youth Program. Centered around youth prevention, this event is in collaboration with the Northwest Indian College and the purpose is to instill the importance of cultural identity. This is the first episode in a three-part series and in it we highlight Aunt Ernestine talking about her life living on Portage Island alon...

Welcome back to Young and Indigenous Season 2! We’re super excited to continue through our journey of storytelling and also to introduce two new members to the team. Santana and Haley join-in alongside Isabella and are eager to get this new phase of the podcast started. We can't wait for you to see what we have in store for the future!

As season one of Young and Indigenous wraps up, we come together to give thanks to everyone who has been involved in our podcast so far. Hy’shqe to each and every person who shared their words with us and stay tuned for the next phase of our work! Special thanks to Michelle and Kyla Polasky and Eliza Julius for their hard work and beautiful spirits. Your contributions will always shine in the podc...

Chatting with S'Klallam and Lummi Tribal member, Elaine Grinnell, we are immersed and captivated by her singing and storytelling. She shares stories with important life lessons like the whale story but also the salmon story that teaches the origin of the salmon's hooked nose. These lessons, and many more, are shared along with the importance of bringing back the old ways, eating healthier foods an...

Lummi Nation member Mark Julius joins us in this episode of Young and Indigenous. As we go through his inspiring life story, we talk about growing up in poverty alongside his 14 siblings and what it was like living and surviving on their own while still being kids and ending up playing and swimming in the Nooksack River at the end of each day. Having spent some time in the foster care system, he h...

The pain of residential schools is still being felt today. I want to introduce our guests Suann Riddick and Fred Lane; in this podcast episode you will get to hear some of the research that Suann is doing on residential schools. What we went on through the boarding school era was tragic and Suann speaks to the stories of over 150,000 Indigenous children who were forced into these schools. Indigeno...

Young and Indigenous Presents Oomagelees Cynthia Wilson from Lummi- another one of our beloved elders. She is a Lummi Language teacher. She didn't just teach me language, though, she taught me how to sing, dance and make give away items for ceremonies. She taught us many things about our culture. I am thankful she did because I would have never known these valuable cultural traditions without her....

In this podcast episode I’m sitting down with one of our dearest and beloved elders, Juanita Jefferson, who tells many stories from her time. Lummi Language is sacred to us and was almost lost back in the 1800’s when residential schools were brought upon us. The choice to speak our language was taken from us. Someone decided that we were too savage, that we needed to be put in school to learn not...

Young and Indigenous presents Danita Washington explaining her experiences throughout her life on being a mother, big sister to her siblings, and also her nieces and nephews. She talks about how it was back in their day compared to how different it is today--so you get to hear a little bit about the way we used to do things. There are many old stories from her time that I love to hear, especially...

This episode will be the first of the Salmon People series where we share the voices of strong Indigenous youth who reflect on their cultural ties to salmon and vocalize why we must take action to save this crucial relative for the ecosystem and culture. Featured in this Episode are two youth from the Lummi Nation, Sadie Olsen and Jayden Phair Williams. You will also hear voices of Indigenous Lead...

Oral tradition is a sacred practice within All of our culture, communities, And families. Along with the coordinated dance of simply talking and being heard, oral tradition helps people learn life lessons their own way. Join us in this episode as we listen to Chesa Chesquin (Gary Julius) a Coast Salish Artist and Storyteller of Lummi Nation. Listen closely as there are many lessons to learn in the...

Through time immemorial our people and ancestors have used the oral tradition of storytelling to pass down history, values, language, and culture to each generation. This has preserved our knowledge and kept our resiliency to carry on Shelangen- our way of life. We would like to thank Smak i’ ya’ Matt Warbus for continuing to teach the Lummi language and also pass down the importance of storytelli...

In this episode of Young and Indigenous you will be listening to an elder, Steve Point, share wisdom and guidance during his annual Healing Conference in the Sto:lo Nation of Canada and also the responses to his words from the Young and Indigenous team. His insight into wellness and deeply moving life stories are valuable teachings that can have positive impacts on the livelihood of anyone willing...

Being Indigenous to a unique place provides a powerful source of identity for the original inhabitants of that land. To find common threads across a diverse group of Native American and First Nations peoples, we conducted numerous interviews on what it means to be indigenous. Beginning with our own reflections, we then turned to our friends and family and finally to the staff and students of the N...

In this first episode of the YAI podcast we talk about learning the language of our Native American culture: we are the Lummi people from the Pacific Northwest in Bellingham Washington. Growing up I didn’t get to be involved in my culture as much as I wanted to because different families had their own ways of doing things and mine didn’t practice culture as much as other families did. My brother T...