Chokma!
About
I am a Chickasaw storyteller who strives to promote Indigenous flourishing through communicating Indigenous truths. Currently, I am a writer and documentarian who creates and edits content about Indigenous peoples for global audiences in solidarity with Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities.
I have written a 4-part educational video series on Tribal Nations for ClickView, an international educational company, as well as scripts covering a wide range of topics from Thanksgiving to Indian Removal. For Ancestry.com, I have written an overview and FAQs page about Indigenous DNA, centering on Indigenous perspectives to ensure that non-Native audiences fully understand the implications of Indigenous DNA and respect Tribal sovereignty. I have also written detailed historical timelines and narratives about Southeastern and Northeastern Tribal Nations from pre-contact to the present.
My previous experience includes my work with the Duke Gardens Equity Through Stories Program where I developed a program to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into Duke Gardens according to the direction of Tribal elders and community leaders. My primary focus was to create work that positively impacted Indigenous peoples, placing the power in the hands of Indigenous communities, and forging reciprocal relationships. I collected oral histories from Indigenous peoples across the Carolinas and created three audio documentaries as well as an interactive exhibit to educate the Gardens’ 500,000+ annual visitors. I also started a seed-sharing initiative to give seeds and plants to Indigenous communities and to assist in planting.
I have worked for the most popular Indigenous-centered podcast, All My Relations, as a content development intern focused on scriptwriting and research. For the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, I independently produced a film called “The Blackfeet, The Great Northern Railway, and Glacier National Park,” which features oral histories I collected from Blackfeet elders and archival imagery which was published by the Department of the Interior on YouTube and has garnered over 13K views. My op-eds have been published in the most popular Indigenous news outlet, Indian Country Today, and my work has been featured in The News and Observer.
I also serve as the President of the Native American/Indigenous Student Alliance where I oversee advocacy and community building for Native American and Indigenous students at Duke. I am proud to be a 2021 Udall Scholar in Tribal Public Policy!