Indigenous Resilience Voices at the The People’s Hearing in Tucson
Last month, the Indigenous Resilience Center was honored to serve as a partner for the Speak Easy, Speak Free People’s Hearing - a two-day public expression of testimonies, cultural celebration, and solution focused dialogue. The event focused on creating a space for lifting up the voices of local impacted communities, Tribal communities, grassroots organizations and advocates to share lived experiences, surface injustices, and propose solutions for environmental health, land rights, water quality, pollution, extractive industry impacts and more. It follows the nationwide “Speak Easy/Speak Free” framework, building on the inaugural People’s Hearing held earlier this year in Greensboro, North Carolina. Over 40 Arizonans testified about issues ranging from groundwater contamination, PFAS, mining threats, air pollution, and long histories of environmental harms in the communities.
In addition to serving on the planning committee, IRes helped with documentation that will serve to uphold community voices through the proceedings led by the Tishman Environment and Design Center at the New School in New York. The hearings aim to lay the groundwork for policies and movements that will secure clean lands and waters, healthy communities, flourishing and just economies, and vibrant cultures.
The People’s Hearing aligns with IRes’ mission to uplift Indigenous knowledge and resilience and reinforces our commitment to placing impacted communities at the heart of discourse on environment, justice, and health. The Center’s involvement shows that it’s more than just “talk about” community engagement, we walk alongside, help document, resource, and amplify community voices.
The People’s Hearing was both sobering and motivating, further strengthening the drive behind this work.”Testimony after testimony detailed the human experience and the survival that has endured a legacy of extraction, contamination, and environmental racism. “What was most apparent however, was the spirit of resistance and the imagining of a better world beyond harm to the people and environment. Elders, teenagers, and everyone in between spoke life into the room; sharing their experience humanized the very real fears and dangers of the climate crisis.” The community holds each other accountable and IRes’ presence felt like an answer to a call-in from our community. “What is clear from these accounts is that the systems in place are failing our communities and by upholding them, we fail each other.”
To Center staff, The Peoples’ Hearing felt like a wake up call and this extends beyond those that were present, it is a call to action for us all. The testimonies shared, while difficult to share the anguish, presents an opportunity for us to collectively push back, driven not by fear but by clarity and care for one another.