Okay, thank you so much.
Can I just have you slowly say and
spell your first and last name?
Jonas Hill, J-O-N-A-S-H-I-L-L.
In which tribe are you from?
Oneida Nation.
And anything we should put
underneath, are you an elected
official within your tribe?
Yes, I'm a councilman, council
member, excuse me, council member
for the Nav Nation. Yeah.
A lot was said today in
this speech, coming out of it, what
are some of the things that are
still sticking with you?
I think recognizing
the tribal self-determination
and that tribes have
the inherent sovereignty to
govern the programs
and services
within the nation for
our community members and
the approach of
enhancing support for
financial resources
for the nations.
And when he spoke of tribal
sovereignty and he brought it even
to education he even made
some points that people don't even
know what that is.
Do you think there needs to be more
than just Act 31
in the classrooms to really educate
the public overall on
tribal sovereignty,
economic independence, and what it
means that actual government to
government relationship?
I think it's important.
Our self-determination truly
explains our identity as
how we can self-govern as a nation.
Tribes, through Act
31, education
is key for
anybody within the state.
Intergovernmental relations are huge
as well, and they play a huge role
with being able to
gain support in
the assembly, the state side, fellow
side.
It's important that people know
what these services do for
our members.
I think when an
elected official sees an
approval for a bill or something,
they don't really understand that
those are helping children and
kids, or kids and families
to get food on
the table, to get to school,
to get to work, to get clothes
on their backs, those
resources are huge for tribes.
and he also spoke about
the need for
more language revitalization
especially coming out of the era
of the unfortunate boarding school
era. How important is
this moment of language
revitalization not just in Alaina,
but all tribes across the state?
Cultural revitalization is huge,
it's our identity, it's who we are,
it's how we can be
our people, you know, be us as
people, Native people, by speaking
our language, practicing our
culture, attendance ceremonies,
and being able to carry that on from
our ancestors.
Let's talk about the environment
briefly. He spoke about the
environment under the threat of
climate change and also under
the threats of the current political
presidential administration.
How important is it to maintain
the environment in this
time, in this era, when it's also
has always been important to
Native nations in the state?