A Decade of Uplifting Indigenous Voices 

The Indigenous Speaker Series is celebrating its 10th anniversary at UW Tacoma this year. Now a virtual series, Professor Michelle Montgomery said that the original plan was to have speakers come in person to amplify Indigenous voices discussing what she calls “place knowledge,” promoting dialogue about cultural and lived experiences.  

However, when it became apparent that virtual connections would provide more opportunities for both speakers and listeners, the series went online. Partnering with organizations such as the Living Breath Symposium and the American Indian Studies Center at UW to lift the voices of Indigenous people and bring them to a wider audience, Montgomery said that in many ways the work is just beginning. 

“We fully went online right before the pandemic,” said Montgomery. “The more people I would invite to speak, the more they would ask to do it virtually because they were coming from different nations. It wasn’t always affordable to pay for airfare, lodging, and all that.”  

The speaker series is much more than just a monthly discussion. Like Montgomery herself, it engages people across Indigenous communities, not only in the United States but across the world, on many topics and issues. Montgomery refers to herself as a “forever student,” and her many degrees indicate that truth. With degrees in plant pathology from North Carolina University and bioethics from UW Seattle, as well as a Ph.D. in language, literacy and soci-cultural studies from the University of New Mexico, Montgomery advocates for Indigenous communities, climate justice, marginalized voices, and place-based knowledge. She teaches in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences as well as the School of Education at UW Tacoma, and the School of Medicine at the UW in Seattle. 

Funding has come from a number of unique sources. The series has worked with co-sponsors of many kinds and from many places, including UW Earthlab, and the Center for Global Studies on the Seattle campus. The Bay and Paul Foundations provided a $200,000 donation, and many other organizations have continued to sustain the series. 

“These places have just been of tremendous help. I was on a committee with some elders and one of them said she really admired the work that we do and wanted to support us,” she said. “It’s just reaching out to people to co-sponsor and share place knowledge.”  

Speakers receive an honorarium to tell their stories. But the funding has also helped Montgomery supply micro-grants to various Indigenous communities like the Haida Gwaii of British Columbia, who are using traditional weaving techniques to make sails for their boats in the Haida Sails Project. She’s also directed $5,000 to the Menominee Tribal College in Wisconsin for their community to buy miniature solar panels.  

“These communities are in such dense woodland areas, that when the power goes out, the phones die, and these miniature solar panels allow them to keep things charged and usable,” Montgomery said. Some co-sponsors have even supported U.S. doctoral graduate students doing post-graduate studies among indigenous Maori people in New Zealand. 

The series also features indigenous writing retreats at the Jamestown S’klallum Reservation and Resort in Sequim. “It gives people a safe space to write and to network,” said Montgomery. “Out of the retreat and the funding and support from the Bay and Paul Foundations the series has published two edited books,” she said. The books are Voices of Indigenuity and Reindigeinizing Ecological Consciousness and the Interconnectedness to Indigenous Identities. “A lot of these include speakers from the series as well as other indigenous community members.”  

Montgomery said that a third book is in the works that will mark the series’ 10th anniversary called How Do We Listen: Indigenous Eco-Mindfulness. 

Working closely with a number of communities, Montgomery believes in empowering people. “I’m just always asking how I can pay it forward,” she said.

She said the Indigenous Speakers Series bubbled out of her mentorship under Dr. Daniel Wildcat at Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas. From him, Montgomery said she learned about the deep interconnectedness of communities, and she developed a passion for climate justice and addressing environmental health disparities as well as place knowledge.  

“If we’re developing a program in the South Puget Sound, it’s not just about South Puget Sound because we’re all interconnected. So, what can I do to bring knowledge to share with our campus and students and then out to the community?” she said.  

That question — and a continual drive to learn more, share more, and understand the world all communities share — continues to push Montgomery to listen to and raise up voices from around the world that might not otherwise be heard. She said she plans to continue doing just that.