Good Day Uncut: Indigenous Peoples' Day Philly

Philadelphia, we are uncut. Bam! What up, y'all? Nope, it's good day uncut, man. I'm out here. So listen, I'm in Shackamaxon Park, also known as Pentreedy Park. So we, you know, Philadelphia has this old 52 Weeks of Firsts going on. If we're going to celebrate the firsts, why don't we celebrate the first people of this land here, man? So we out here, Indigenous Peoples Day going on. Let me flip this around for y'all so y'all can kind of see. we got people coming out here now man just getting set up we got a lot going on we got vendors we got a stage over there i'm trying to find my bell she is the organizer of this situation and she's going to give us a real overview of what's going on and get us all caught up on indigenous people's day the purpose of the day you know what i mean what we're hoping to accomplish today what education we're hoping to give people today we got and if you ain't doing anything today man come on out look we got people out here hanging out already the vendors are here you know uh they got the little stage performance so they got an event this goes from 11 to 5 p.m so there's gonna be plenty of going on man so you probably want to get out here get a little history get a little education be part of this indigenous people's day event uh i think i found her over here let me go over here real quick see if she's ready to go my bell's over there she's ready to go? Hold on. Hold on. Flip this around here. First of all, here we go. What is that? Can we just, uh, can you throw that mic on you? Just clip it right here. Yup. Just clip it right on this shirt there. Okay. All right. Beautiful. So everybody, this is Ma Bel, Ma Bel. Please introduce yourself. Okay. Yes. My name is Ma Bel Negrete. I am the executive director and co-founder of Indigenous Peoples' Day. I'm a Chilean from Pehuenche Inca heritage and i've been living in United States for a very long time and we're right now uh celebrating our 10th anniversary of Indigenous Peoples' Day that we started in 2017. Okay we have a lineup of amazing uh speakers uh performers and we have the companions right now we just heard from uh council member uh Ruki, and some of the leaders from the Delaware Tribe of Indians. And they're now going to be starting with a lineup of performances that are going to entertain us and teach us about the history, the struggle, the resistance that is happening right now, you know, across the continent to celebrate indigenous peoples. Well, talk a little bit about the history and the struggle for this day and the reasoning behind that. Well, relatives from the 70s went all the way to the United Nations to tell the people of the world that it was enough of the abuses that indigenous peoples of the Americas were suffering and dealing with. As part of that gathering, they also declared that it needed to be for change, Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples Day. It was the first time that it was ever brought to the international level. This was like indigenous communities who were coming from the United States, Mexico, South America, and Canada, who came to the United Nations. Ever since then, the American Indian Movement in the United States, the indigenous movement of Mexico and South America and so forth, has always resisted this day, you know, because our history has not been told. Oftentimes, colonization is glorified or even mythologized, but people don't hear about, from the indigenous perspective, what really happened in the Caribbean, for instance, when Columbus arrived to the Americas. When Columbus arrived to the Americas, it was in the Caribbean islands. It met with the Taíno people. It met with the Arawaks and even part of South America. Never put a foot in what is now known as the United States. so today we're celebrating not only our existence because we have survived after 500 plus years of being you know i would say colonization but also every if you go all over the americas you're going to hear this story but today we're also telling people that we exist that it's important to celebrate with us because believe it or not american indian you know history is also usa a history it's also his the history from the past it's also your history because you would not survive if we didn't share with you all the type of crops and food that we raise you know grow across the continent all the things that we offer to the people you know so today we're uh in celebration because it's a beautiful you know i get emotional right right it's like it's so cool that i can bring friends and family and relatives you know from the north of the united states you know or from this region you know to come and visit like we right now we have like a booth from the delawares um there's a delaware uh the delaware center and from new york and also from the delaware tribe of indians there's members tribal members who are here there's also members from la cuotas there's members from the key trust community in Ecuador there's people from the Peru there's people from Mexico there's like also people from like there are Cherokees you know so it's like it's a full-on pan-indigenous movement right it's like a indigenous family reunion right so so and just from the perspective of the indigenous people when you talk about i mean for so long and for so many years throughout history you know we've celebrated Columbus Day on today right from the indigenous perspective like what was it like growing up And having that be taught from the American's perspective and knowing at home you were hearing something different or knowing something different. Right. So in my experience growing up, so first I grew up in Chile and then I came when I was like a teenager. Gotcha. But in the times that I grew up there and even in the United States as a teenager, you know, and growing into an adult. what was and it came down even much later when i was older is like how invisible we are and in part is because people don't talk about us in a way that is substantial you know they don't talk about our history you can talk about like the history of europe you can talk about the history of other places in the world but do we ever consider like teaching or learning about what was the Mayans in the past and the present? What was the Aztecs? How are the communities from the Aztec Empire still living today, you know? It has changed into other new communities. How is, like, my people, the Picunche, Mapuche, still resisting the, you know, the state and the incursion and, like, you know, like, taking over, you know, the land? Or even, like, the Lakotas, how they're still fighting right now in the Black Hills to preserve the ancestor, ancestral land, you know, the Lenape, where they're now trying to come back to their homeland and reclaim this land. All those stories are not being told. They're invisible. You don't hear them in news. You don't hear them or even in the, you know, in the movies, you know, and even in the past, whenever they talk about the indigenous peoples or the Indians, no, it was always mischaracterized or used or abused you know and it was like you know, laugh at, you know so i think this is a moment of like pride you know all right so listen yeah we got to take a quick commercial break right so we're going to take a break for two minutes then we're going to go out we're going to walk around check out some of the vendors maybe meet some of the uh the people who have come in from other parts of the country to take part in this and get their perspective on Indigenous Peoples' Day and what's happening out here maybe talk to a couple visitors listen good day uncut we'll be back in two minutes we appreciate y'all hanging out with us give us two minutes we'll be right back out here at indigenous people's day welcome back to good day uncut we're out here at indigenous people's Day We got your man Mike standing there for Hank today you know so listen we're gonna talk to a couple of performers that are gonna be out here today man so we got my man over here let me come over here i'm gonna i would introduce him myself but i'm sure i'll mess up his name so to avoid that making a mess of that i'm just gonna let him introduce himself peace brother can you just hold that microphone man and just introduce yourself for the people please uh my name is Adriel Aviñano i'm from Oaxaca Mexico okay are you here just for the event or did you do you live in the states now i live here in Philly okay cool cool so first of all man i feel really good about it how long have you been in this been in in america like 19 years okay okay so when you first came to the states man um there was not a celebration of indigenous people's day uh it was but it wasn't like uh as big as it is today okay okay but now have now that you've seen it's grown uh what is your your thoughts and your feelings on it man and when you look at it today and i know there's still a fight going on to get it recognized it was in it was out but y'all are still out here celebrating uh you know on on today yeah well so i feel like this feels amazing now that we get like more recognition with like with everything not going like right now that we like get recognized as indigenous people not just from here in the united states with us in mexico too because before colonization there wasn't any borders so we uh we're excited feel excited and now they recognize us as indigenous people too so when you see people come out here what are you hoping they walk away from here with man the they like take you know all this like uh like all those stories all these teachings from like all of our elders that uh they have like so much uh meaning and uh they learn you know what we uh we offer to them because one thing that i always say like uh we believe in spirits right and then uh we believe the spirits they have no color they we believe they're all equal so that that's what i want to like the people take you know they're all equal it doesn't matter if you're like from any part of the world we're real humans all right but so what role are you playing out here today i know i was looking over here early i see you had the headrest going um what what is what are you doing out here today so today we're like uh we're in charge of like the mexica dance as known as the aztec dance okay so i'm i'm one of the one part of the the leaders of this group is called way solid so that i mean saw the turkey that's what it means to turkey yeah turkey yes okay turkey so yeah so they're like we're gonna have more campaigning from other groups of the area like here in Philly New Jersey Delaware in New York can you show us I see you holding the headdress over here can you just show us what we got going on and how this works you can clip that mic on if it makes it easier yeah it's uh this is my my headdress this is what I use for to what we call it pray on movement that what is the dance that's how like the Mexica people pray and using all these like our regalia all these like music instruments it's just a combination and that's how we like how does how we pray yeah I was like saying that I haven't finished it I still gotta put like more more feathers i still like need to put like more macaw parrot eagle and still not done so you're building this in real time yeah uh-huh yeah yeah yeah there's like it takes time you know i i put like my prayer my intention on it because and every time it's a different scenario its for different kind of people so we set our intentions for it so so you said you put your prayer and your intentions on on the on the headdress yeah yeah so it's not just a matter of let me throw some feathers on here and throw it on my head there's really some thought and some intention and some and that goes into this yes can you just explain that a little bit to me man you know it's just like i just because today we're like uh getting joined by other groups and then we have uh this other teacher that joined us i just want to put like a good intention so we can like all flow nicely today and then we have like a beautiful prayer today and then we can all coordinate because you know we're humans and sometimes we bump into each other so i hope like today we flow you know and then and nothing happened to uh today bad at all to anyone because sometimes we get like uh a little anxious and all that so we put our prayers so nobody gets hurt or like you know and everything goes well today and then you said you had uh this sister out here. Monique. What's her name? Monique. Monique. You mind introducing yourself, Monique? Oh, sure. I'm with Fox 29. I'm sorry. I probably should have told you that in advance. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well. So what role do you play out here at Indigenous People's Day, Monique? You can just hold it in your hand or click perfect. Okay, sorry. No, it's cool. Have it. No, I caught you off guard, so take your time. Well, I'm here accompanying Adriel and his wife Tina with their Aztec dancing group, an indigenous group that's local here in Philadelphia, they call it Cholot, and they were kind enough to invite me here to include me today to be able to show the musical aspect of our indigenous culture in Mexico, so which is playing clay flutes, which is playing bamboo flutes a bunch of wind instruments that make various sounds imitating nature based off of what our ancestors observed and listened to way back before the Spaniards came on their ships to colonize us got you so are you from Philly I am NOT I was born in Los Angeles California but I live in mexico been living there for like 13 years already got it so coming here today so you made the trip here today to be part of this event yes uh to be part of this event to hold space for players who want to begin their journey and to also give a class about the origins of ancestral indigenous music and to hold a concert would it be possible we got to go to a commercial break yeah But, when we come back from the break, would it be possible for you to just play a tune for me on your flute? Of course! Yeah! Alright, so we're gonna take two minutes. When we come back, Monique, who traveled from Mexico to Philly for Indigenous Peoples Day, she's gonna pull out her flute, she's gonna give us a little, a little, small little class for us non-flute players, and a little history behind these wind instruments that she's working with. We'll be back in two minutes. Thank you all. Stay, hang with us. We'll see you on the other side. People's Day out here at Pine Tree Park. Jermaine, Mike, we're just hanging out, man. Just enjoying the day. The sun came out. It's beautiful out here. How you feeling, brother? Good to see you, man. So we're going to come over here to Monique real quick. And she said she's going to try who's on stage. Not really competing. Complimenting. And harmonizing. There you go. You took that back up. We're going to compliment. We're going to compliment. There you go. Okay. So this is a clay flute. This was made by my teacher, Javier Quijas de Chayot. Okay. One of the first legends to play clay flutes here in the United States. What's the significance of this particular instrument? It represents all the four elements. All clay flutes represent all the four elements. Wind, water, fire, and earth. And you have the human element which puts into place the creativity, that connection with spirit, right? To be able to make that tune. And this is used for Aztec dancing. Got it. Aztec dancing. So it just creates a complete vibe, a complete, I guess, harmonic composition musically when you play with the drums and you play with the flutes. And then you have the dancers and it's just a beautiful harmonization, a physical representation of the spirit of our people. Excellent. Thank you so much. All right. So listen, I'm going to move on here. We're going to walk around a little bit, check out some. Let me grab that mic off you real quick. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate y'all. Thank y'all. Y'all enjoy the rest of your day out here. So we're gonna walk around a little bit man and see who else we got now There was a young lady who told me she was gonna hang out with me, but I don't know where she went that quick So, let me see If there's somebody else we can talk to because this is um, my man, right? You mind if I talk to you real quick, brother? Do you mind if I rap with y'all on Fox 29? All right, so first of all, look at this. He's got the headdress on they got they all ready to go you are a native land talk about it so let me uh let me give you can i give you this microphone real quick and have you introduce yourself my name is and i'm here representing taíno people of the caribbean representing my organization and also my tribe and this is my friend And real quick, just talk a little bit about taking part in Indigenous Peoples Day, being out here, seeing the celebration, having Philadelphia celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day in the way that they do. Yeah, we're so grateful to be invited to come here to Lenape land. We're not from here. We're from the Caribbean islands. So we flew out here to be here with everyone, celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day. This is very meaningful for us because when Columbus arrived, he arrived in the Caribbean in the first Native American tribe he met were Taino people. So to be here representing our people, representing the work that we do with language, culture, and all that reclamation work, it's really meaningful. So, and then to, when you get, have you come in the past or is this your first time? I was here in 2024. forth. Okay so now I don't know how big these events get outside of Philadelphia but I mean Philly has been celebrating it for ten years now. Yeah. And I've watched it grow. When you think when coming here obviously it was enough for y'all to think you know what we'll make that trip. So what do y'all think about the idea of what they what we do here in the city for Indigenous Peoples Day especially in time when it's being fought again. Yeah I think it's so important to acknowledge the indigenous peoples of every land and it's so important to acknowledge the indigenous people of this land the lenape and it's so meaningful to have everyone here from different communities celebrating indigenous people the first people to uh fight against colonization so i think it's really special and it it's about celebrating our culture our heritage our languages and just being together in celebration that's what's happening up here too man got any thoughts um i think it's uh i think it's a beautiful event um to all indigenous people whether what color you are what island you represent um we are all connected many of us are related we're all family and i think this event is huge it's important and um next year i would like to see it to uh expand to grow furthermore get bigger that's what's up thank y'all so much it's great to meet y'all enjoy your time in the city thank you brother mike Mike, I'm sorry, yep, so listen, yep, no thank y'all appreciate y'all, y'all take care, so look ma'am so we just out here, so they'll be going on from 11, it started at 11, it's gonna be going on till five o'clock, as you can see there's plenty of vendors out here, there's people coming out to enjoy the day, to be part of the day, it's a couple puddles out here, so watch your step but um listen, we're gonna take one more break, we'll be back in a minute and a half and we're gonna wrap up my part of Indigenous People's Day celebration but you can come out here and be out there till five o'clock yo Indigenous People's Day in Philly let's go here at Penn Treaty Park we're gonna talk to one more person real quick before we wrap up, we got about a couple minutes left in the show, is this sister right over here uh Mabel is uh she's running the building so she's not oh are you ready so who are we going to meet over here Mabel uh we're going to be meeting uh Tony Anna she's a Delaware uh well a tribal member from the Delaware Tribe of Indians uh also she's a chief of staff for the government and we're going to learn more about her all right let's go over here see if she's available to rap with us real quick before we run out of time now she's i'm sorry to interrupt guys can i talk to you for one second please can we give you that microphone just real quick introduce yourself please Tanya Anna i'm the assistant chief of the Delaware Tribe of Indians out of Bartlesville Oklahoma okay so i would say what brings you to Philly today but i think it's pretty obvious it is just talk a bit about Indigenous People's Day and the celebration of Indigenous People's Day and and the role that you that you're playing in today's event well i was um generous Mabel was generous enough to invite me in and so i've been working with Mabel and the other people on the board has brought us up here our tribal member Sonia over here she lives back here and so she does quite a few things for us since we are so far away I came here 22, 23, and I was so impressed with the first year that I came that now I don't think they can keep me away. It's absolutely an awesome event. So to be part of this celebration, right, and to come to Philadelphia and see how Philadelphia has created this event. Well, the indigenous people of Philadelphia have created this event and it has grown over the last couple of years. I mean, what kind of thoughts does that give you? What kind of feelings does that give you? It gives me great feelings just to be here because the tribe that I'm from, this is our homelands. And so to come back here, to be on the same land that my ancestors walked on, they were born and died here. And then when I drove up here this year, to be able to drive the same directions that my ancestors took was just, it was heart-wrenching. But when I got here, it's good. That's what's happening We gotta wrap it up We got 10 seconds Left in the show Thank you so much Enjoy your stay in Philly Look guys Get out here man This is going on From 11 o'clock To 5 o'clock Don't miss out on Indigenous People's Day Here in Philadelphia Be here Or be square