Tribal Research Specialist: The Podcast

#42 Tribal Boomer Exodus: Indigenous Gen X on Reframing Identity and Governance in the Void with Guest Pat Matt

• Shandin Pete, Patrick Matt Jr. • Season 2 • Episode 42

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In this episode, Qʷlm tl Stltla (Patrick Matt Jr., Qlispé) joins the discussion on the phenomenon of the older generation of tribal leadership retiring and how the next generation will fill the void with new ideas about identity and governance. Discussed are issues related the short longevity of the newly adopted governance structure of tribal nations. Since 1934 the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have governed from an imposed model in the form of a formalized constitution. The mismatch of traditional values and norms are discussed and new ideas are postulated to take on emerging leadership roles.

As always, thank you for listening!

Guest: Qʷlm tl Stltla - Patrick Matt Jr., (Qlispé)
Hosts: Shandin Pete (Salish/Diné)

Episode Sponsor: Wyld Gallery - Austin Texas

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Shandin Pete:

One time, just with this happened just one time where we, we did a whole episode. And I forgot to hit record. And about the last last 10 minutes I finally hit record and I was so bummed. I turned pale white when I looked and seen there was no record button. We were getting really into a good topic two, we had a good Convo going, man, it was a good one and just bombed. I had to tell him as well. All that was really great. What you all said, but I did record none of it. So we'll do a redo at some point. And of course, it never happened after that. They're like, wow, yeah. To me. Amateur hour. All right. All right, then. Rudy, Goofy? Let's see here. Let me we hadn't recorded an episode in about a month and a half. A bit behind. You know, um, you know, Aaron, right. But he's internet went down. And I guess he was short of funds. He has the Elon Musk, I guess the star link or whatever that is, I don't know. Couldn't get the dough to get it going again. I said, man, we got to record you know, and every time he wants to record, I'm busy. And every time he wants to record I'm busy. Yeah. So he just said, Well, just, I don't know. Just go solo. I said, why? It's not a solo show, though. There's always two people in a guest or two people. So he said well, as well figured out. So that's I know, I know who's pretty chatty. Jason. So I'll get Jason. Jason's got some chats going on. You know, he can. He's got some insight and all that, you know? Yeah. Yeah, you see him in the story. You're gonna be in there too long. You're gonna get in trouble because you didn't get the eggs back in time for whatever. But orphans.

Pat Matt:

But chances are you're gonna at least see him in the star.

Shandin Pete:

high chance there's a high chance he's gonna be in the store. Yeah, in the in the cold pop or the hot the warm pop aisle. You know? You get the 12 pack. It's warm.

Pat Matt:

He's Hey, or the deli?

Shandin Pete:

Oh, for sure. Well, that's the second stop. Or the first depending on his hunger level. Yeah, so that song there is. I mean, it sounds like owl dance. Sound like it's from maybe the 50s. Hard to say. But I'm, again, I'm not sure who it is. I'm not. Not sure the the singers the geography sound like bloods though to me? I don't know. I just don't know. So hopefully someone perhaps, perhaps. Ha ha. Yeah. So you brought into both the academic and the tradition. That's not perhaps is truly an academic word. Because you don't say you don't say maybe. Because then you sound like you sound like you're deep. You're selling from Pablo. deepen the reds. Oranges. Yeah, I don't rub No. Oranges. You know, and you got you know, you got some mixed blood in there. And then you say, perhaps I don't know. Maybe I go. I'll go I'll go both ways. You know, maybe. Yeah. And and on my mood, you know? Yeah. Because you know, you know how it is under res. You kind of got to be a chameleon in a way. You have to adapt

Pat Matt:

It's all about adaptation. It is

Shandin Pete:

right. It is.

Pat Matt:

It's about surviving in your environment. Whether it be physical or whether that be you know, communal, intellectual, even who

Shandin Pete:

you know at first I thought you're gonna go go clockwise around the Medicine Wheel spiritual, physical, I didn't know, I didn't know that.

Pat Matt:

Well, we could throw new metaphysical.

Shandin Pete:

Let's come up with the new one. So what would it be metaphysical? What does that cover?

Pat Matt:

Well met metaphysical could cover the known and the unknown.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, I'm with you. I'm with it. So as we work our way around the wheel of medicine,

Pat Matt:

physical, mental, emotional, it touches on all of them, and then metaphysical things. I think this is the big dot. Then what you should do is get a shapeshifter on the show and you can really get

Shandin Pete:

into we need to shape shifter it's a call out many shapeshifters listening to dabble research specialists, we want you on we might even do a special video version, just the shape shift. Yeah. Well, we kind of shape shift that medicine wheel into a single dot one ERP, I don't know, as goofy. So yeah. I had a question for you. Sure. Now, you've been you've been studying some. What do you been studying leadership? Organizational Leadership, organizational leadership. Okay. Yeah. And that's through what? What institution?

Pat Matt:

Grand Canyon University,

Shandin Pete:

Grand Canyon University organizational leadership in whereabouts? Are you in your studies? Like,

Pat Matt:

I'm, I'm probably I'm one class away from graduating.

Shandin Pete:

Holy cow. Yep. So

Pat Matt:

if I've, after this week, I finished this week out and then I have my last class.

Shandin Pete:

What are you can do? Get Rich. Take over. Not the funny thing. With natives when you get a degree. There's not much else after that. Well see, well, in a way.

Pat Matt:

There's, there's a person I know in the Flathead community here, and she was really big on posting her progress on social media. Okay. And she really, really celebrated when she finally got her degree her master's degree. Oh, yeah. And, um, and what was funny is then then, then immediately, she got a job in an another field.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, unrelated.

Pat Matt:

Case. Pretty much unrelated. Yeah. And, you know, what baffled me. Um, but, you know, to each their own, you really don't know what you're going to do with your degree until you really get down and do it, I guess. Right, and figure it out. But once I get my degree, what I figure I'm going to do is start keeping an eye on the on the possible prize. Okay. Possible prize would be for positions that open up in upper management or executive management. At the tribe, Oh, CSKT. And go for it. I guess

Shandin Pete:

you're brave man.

Pat Matt:

Yeah, you're brave. Yes.

Shandin Pete:

Those are the those are the those are the pot shot. positions. Right. Those are the ones everybody's gonna love and

Pat Matt:

well in.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, let's hear it.

Pat Matt:

So here's the deal. Soon, and it's happening now. Yeah. All the baby boomers are either on the verge of retiring, or they've already done it. And there's a slew of them that are going to create a huge leadership vacuum. Right. Right. So some of these some of these people have been there. 20 3040 years, man.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. A long time. Yeah. You

Pat Matt:

know, how they never blankets. You've been working over 20 years. You've been working for 30 years. And, and, and if you take a look at management, some of those upper positions, people have been there a long time, man. Yeah. Yeah. And once they go, what's going to happen to us?

Shandin Pete:

Right? Yeah, no, You're right. Yeah. And I said that sort of sarcastically, you know about Yeah. You know,

Pat Matt:

that's a way to explain it, though. Because it's, it's a matter of fact.

Shandin Pete:

It is. It is. That's a very, that's a very good point. And that's, I guess that's one of the one of the things that I guess, folks hope for when they encouraging their, their children or grandchildren to go to school is that just to feel some sort of void in, in the chain of, of our of our tribal life, I guess, in many different ways. But those upper positions? Yeah, you're exactly right.

Pat Matt:

Let me let me give you an example of when, when I failed this process, okay. The failure roughly roughly 56785 to 10 years, about eight years ago, or so. I'm just going to name drop them. Dr. Frank Ira approached me and asked me if I would be interested in being mentored to take over directorship of the channel at sales couldn't be college, that's KCTV. SK CTV, which then, at that time, it gained a letter in the alphabet, it was que es que si. Oh, right. Right. Right. And, um, I just didn't think I was ready. I just think I was up for the task. And, and I was a little apprehensive, and I think I gave him a claw. And you'll, and, and it never happened. And what ended up happening? Is he he never found anybody else to fill his shoes. Right. And, as you know, now, the channel is no longer in exist. Right. Right. And so that was a lesson learned for me. Yeah. Hey, there's, there's this leadership vacuum that is happening just because of Father Time. Yeah. And and all the people that you thought were all we're going to be there forever are suddenly departing in, in so what did we do? Um, what I know about CES KT in the tribal organization, the, the whole organization as a whole. There are leaders, managers, division managers, department heads, executive directors, they, they are having these conversations about what's going to happen. Yeah. And so, then, I started looking at you know, what, you know, if, if, if you walk down the hallway, down the education department at CES K T, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Cut out their partner. You got that res internet? Res internet?

Pat Matt:

Here, let me let me try to move it closer to the modem here.

Shandin Pete:

Okay. Okay. So, yeah, so you walk down the hall, CRP T education?

Pat Matt:

Department. Department. Yes. And they they have all the tribal members degrees, post balls, right? starts out with the associate someone and your Bachelor's that follow that, right. And then on the opposing wall, you have the master's degrees, and then you have your doctorates. Right? And I've, I've been on The Bachelor wall forever and ever, and there's probably 5060 7080 Maybe 100 People with bachelor degrees, right? A lot of matches, you close the ball, people with master's degrees, you might have only 30. Really? 30 or 40. Max. Wow. And, um, with people with PhDs, you have less than 20. Wow. Right.

Shandin Pete:

That's quite, I don't know what it is compared to other tribes, but it seems small.

Pat Matt:

Yeah, it does. It really does. And as a person who has had a bachelor's degree for gosh, ever now.

Shandin Pete:

I've ironed it out. Yeah,

Pat Matt:

I've looked at the wall of fame and was really envious of the other wall, right? Oh, yeah. And I see my peers, right. No, it doesn't matter. As a matter of fact, we were talking about Jason, Jason's out there. What the hell? Along with other people that I grew up with and came up with, you know what? I'm feeling pretty shabby on this. Want to jump over on this wall? Not the reason I got my degree. The reason I got my degree was because I felt like it was time that strike while the iron is hot. And do it while I'm still young enough to have the motivation to do it. Anyone? Yeah. Yeah. And you're a man of education and you? Do you know exactly what I'm talking about how important and imperative it is for our tribal people. Oh, man. Yeah. To be educated. Yeah. in whatever field.

Shandin Pete:

Right. Agreed. Agreed. So this is, so this is a good, a good, good place to insert the question I was gonna ask you, because it touches on everything you sort of said. Did you freeze up again? are you just standing really still? You must have froze up. With your provider, he had to get your kids to get off their iPads. Yeah. Maybe if your stream some the old lady streaming some Walking Dead. Maybe tell her to pause throwing a video or some throw an old DVD if you got a VHS dig that out? I don't know. Internet provider who's your internet provider? Like I'll

Pat Matt:

say in spectrum. Yay. Yay for spectrum. But like you said, everybody, and their grandma was using internet in my house? Oh, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

That's yeah, I had that issue in our Lea. Everybody have to go dark. You know, go back. Well, probably got a

Pat Matt:

couple cousins. I got probably got a couple of cousins outside my house using my Wi Fi.

Shandin Pete:

Password, man. I'll be I won't I don't need to come in. I just want to.

Pat Matt:

Yeah, I'll just park out here for a while. won't bother you.

Shandin Pete:

Because what's your Wi Fi password? I don't know. I don't want to come in. Well, you don't want to come in. I just gotta check my Facebook real quick. All right. Okay, so this is the question. I was gonna ask you after all that. Yeah. So if you think about, so, yeah. So part of the part of the effort of tribal folks get in degrees, is really to meet a need, sometimes a personal need, but sometimes they want to fill a role in a tribal government, you know, they want to take tribes generally want to take our own affairs into our own hands. You know, for the most part, you know, but I think, in a lot of ways, tribal, tribal entities, especially formalized tribal governments, trying to maintain some assemblance of tradition, are really going to be confronted with this. This dilemma, if you will, of providing a serviceable government that meets the thing, modern things that tribal people expect, I guess. Yeah. So we're, we're confronted with that. And then also trying to balance bringing in some traditional models. And also maintaining a certain degree of I guess you could say the, you know, the Catholic colonial model, because we don't live truly in a traditional society anymore, where a truly traditional form will work anymore. I think that's true. I don't know. It might be arguable, I could be wrong. I don't know. So we're balancing this desire to be to maintain certain traditions, but also to keep afloat this government that provides services in particular, and maybe it's arguable, but in a particular colonial way. I don't know if you agree with that or not? If you don't, that's good. And maybe you got some understandings. I don't because I like we'd like to say on this podcast, we don't know at all. We're just kind of bouncing ideas back and forth. So how then, do you foresee the future of tribal government, especially in your degree, the things you've studied the things you know, of your own cultural traditions and those kinds of things? How do you see a good balance of maintaining traditionalism while also maintaining this modernism that we've adopted and we've grown accustomed to?

Pat Matt:

As you said earlier, sounding it's it's a fine balancing act for any formalized tribal government. Right? We To all of us as Native people, whether your lip whether you work in government, or work for your tribe or not, you come to an understanding of, of our people trying to keep one moccasin in the past. Okay, to maintain our tribal identity, to keep alive, our tribal cultures, and traditions, and all that comes with that languages and customs and practices, ceremonies, et cetera. Yeah. And then one moccasin in the future for the sake of, of our children and the generations after us, can as we stand in the present, and we know,

Shandin Pete:

we know, so there's three legs.

Pat Matt:

Well, no, it's kind of APEC.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, so one Moxon.

Pat Matt:

Just as we stand in the present, right, and, and we and we always have to have some sort of placement there. If if we want to maintain our tribal identities as a tribal people in as as to keep ourselves culturally and traditionally afloat. Yeah. Along with keeping our eye on what's to come, when we as Indian people, or Native American people, however, you want us to indigenous creatures, and we, as indigenous populations, we, we, we don't control the scheme of things around here anymore. And so we always have to have an eye out on to see what's coming. Okay. If if you're going to be a wise people, you don't want to get sideswiped by, let's say, governmental legislation, right. You know, where, where there are local, or regional or national laws that are presented to Congress or whatnot that are detrimental to our people who we are our land base, so on and so forth. So, with the balancing act, how do I, how do I see what let's go back to the question? Okay, what, how did you phrase that?

Shandin Pete:

So maintaining a modern, serviceable government? Right, which I think we could, we could argue whether that includes colonial structures, or traditional structures, we don't know. But we're accustomed to having a tribal health, we're accustomed to having an education depart, you know, things compartmentalized into these things. Sure. So to maintain that, but also, like you said, this piece about identity that includes a whole slew of things, traditions, customs norms.

Pat Matt:

So there's a phrase that I came across in my studies that I think really pertain to our tribal people, like I said, whether we work in government, or whether we, you know, we work for grant or whether you work down at the grocery store, the trading post, per se, and, and that is developing and improving your cultural competencies. Right. And I've fully feel that any worker that lives on or let's just say on a reservation, or for a Native American organization, like they're not always on reservations for, for example, in Butte, you got the beauty Indian senator. Right. But don't you think it would be important, even if they don't live on a reservation, there's still a native population to be served for those workers to have a certain cultural competency? Yeah. Yeah. To be able to serve their people. And, and so that aspect right there of improving and developing cultural competencies for tribal workers, whether they're tribal or not, I think is essential. Yeah. In the answer of how do we maintain this, how do we how do we balance this? And so I think right there we can we can really find some improvements and find a little bit of hope, of, of, of fine fine tuning and polishing organizations that serve tribal people.

Shandin Pete:

Right. Let me jump back a little bit here. Because you said something that was really important And I hear it often in we all hear it often about identity. Right? So we want to maintain our identity. I mean, I hear that quite a bit. It's really important. But one of the questions I have about that, specifically pertaining to this idea of this tribal government that we have no. Do our, our, do our identities evolve? Or are we stuck with a certain type? And we have to maintain that moving forward?

Pat Matt:

You know, that's a great question. I believe that's personal. Okay. That boils down to, to the individual, you know, do you have the desire to maintain a tribal identity? Or are you comfortable with the status quo? Okay, whatever the status quo is that some tribal, some tribal communities in tribal organizations are more cultural, and more traditional styled in look and feel than others. Okay. Yeah. Right or wrong? You know, or perhaps, and, and so, that's all arguable, but how do we truly do that? What what, what sort of what sort of programming? Do we develop? What what sort of functions? Are we going to deem acceptable at a tribal organization that would allow us and help us to do that? I can give you a couple examples. Okay. Recently, recently, within this past year, a tribal member from the Arley area, who's become very proficient in the Salish language, has proposed teaching language classes to tribal workers at work during certain times of the day. Right. Yeah. And what has happened is that that that has become acceptable. And he can either use their brakes or they can get a change of duty. Especially. You go to individual managers, right. Your is your manager gonna allow that?

Shandin Pete:

Right. Right, right. Nope, somebody's downloaded another episode. Somebody's one wants to watch a little Big Bang Theory. They're downloading and right now cut you right off. You're on a roll. god darn it. See what happens. See if he rolls back in? Just open that door and give a good yell? Get off that internet. I don't know what are what the speed they're in a era where you're at, you're in? I think you're in Polson, you should be able to get a decent speed and Polson they just did you get the low package. He's still on the introductory package. You got the I don't even know what it is like a gigabyte now gigabytes a lot. He's still in like, he's still in megabytes. He must have got the cheap package. I would I was uploading these podcast episodes in early and it would take it would take six, four to six hours to upload an episode. When I got here to Vancouver. They upload in maybe a minute, minute and a half. That's fast as super fast. And we're accustomed to that on accustomed to the GL atom. GL atom. Yeah. Yeah. Mute.

Pat Matt:

Yeah. When yelled at everybody,

Shandin Pete:

come on. Save some cool. Okay, so let me get back to this what you're just saying, because so the reason I was saying this about identity, right? So the way I the way I see identity, and maybe a little bit off, and I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying identity is something that's that's affirmed and shared or I would say maybe co created amongst, say a tribal people, my identity depends on my neighbor. Their identity depends on their neighbor. So having this in alignment of identity seems to be an important thing, because then in a way, we all see each other as very similar. So what I what I was more getting at was our idea of identity. How is that allowed to change to meet the needs of today? So if you saw an example would be when a horse came. When we first got the horse, our identity sort of changed. We became more mobile Are we engaged in more warfare? So the the, what we were what embodied us sort of changed a bit, and we and we adapted to it, and we just moved forward and didn't think about? Well, we need to get back to the pre horse times. You know, our ancestors didn't think that I don't think anyway. I mean, we got to, we got to remedy this situation, because our youth don't know what it's like not to have a horse. I don't think that was the thought it was this, this natural progression to allow an identity which is filled with many things to change. So I'm thinking today, we have this form of government that were was really sort of placed upon us, but became a necessity as we moved into a more modern world. But are our identities allowed to change? Because of that?

Pat Matt:

You know, I think, I don't even think it's, you know, me personally, it's, it's not something that is allowed or isn't allowed. Right. It's something that just happens. There you

Shandin Pete:

go. Yeah, I think you're right there. Yeah. Now the real Pat, Matt's coming out. We don't want it. I don't want to talk to the organizational leadership. Pat, Matt. Let's talk to the real Pat man. dragging him out. We're dragging him out a little bit. Yeah. I want to hear what you think. Yeah. No, you're right, though. You're right. Yeah. So my choice of words. We're not? Yeah, a little off. But yeah, we are who we are, just because of the circumstances that we're in

Pat Matt:

the circumstances that we are in and the way that people react to the circumstances. Right. And that's, you know, I got to take it back to the leadership though. Okay. It's, it's really people follow the leader. Right. They follow leaders naturally, you know, naturally. Yeah. And us as tribal people. We've been following our leaders since time immemorial. You know, we've entered in our leaders, we've kind of put our hope and our stock and our chiefs or sub chiefs, the people that seem to have the talent to know what to do, and handle circumstances when they arise. Right. Right. Yeah. And so now, as we've come to this moment, in time, where we are all pretty much organized in these the way, the way you would say it, these colonial systems with that were forced or not forced upon us. Were, it's it's up to us. I feel to put our own stamp on it and make it

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah. I truly feel that. Yeah.

Pat Matt:

In order for us to survive as self governing, self sufficient. Yeah. Sovereign People. We have to make it our

Shandin Pete:

right. Right, right. We and we've said it on this podcast many times is we take what works. We take what works, what seems to work, and what doesn't work. We just cast it aside.

Pat Matt:

Not always though. No.

Shandin Pete:

You're right. No, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

Pat Matt:

we got a lot of dysfunctional systems out there. We got a lot of broken systems. Yeah. And we a lot of times, we just adopt, you know, whatever model or system that's available and say, Hey, these guys do it. Here's here's the laws and bylaws, policies and procedures. Let's just put our tribal logo over it and roll with it.

Shandin Pete:

What Why does that happen? Why does that happen? It's easy, because it's easy. Yeah. Because it's easy. Yeah. You don't have to? Well, yeah. But

Pat Matt:

that that was a time I think when self governance when it was just baby and brand new. Right. Right after the IRA. Right. Indian Reorganization Act, right. Yes. ES QUE TE first tribe to formulate a tribal constitution laws and bylaws. And what year was that? You know, 1935 1935? Yeah. Year after Congress ratified the IRA, we were literally first out of the gates. Yeah. But in in for any tribe that did it after that. It was brand new, you know, we we adopted the council system versus the chief system. We we started running things like, you know, the great white father. And, and, and, and everybody in DC and and, okay, if it works for them, it's going to work for us, you know. But, but for a lot of tribes, I think self govern Minutes. As as shiny as the phrase sounds, yeah. Is what is and maybe was and still is intimidating.

Shandin Pete:

Like in the form in the form that it was, it's presented

Pat Matt:

in the form that. Yeah. And at that time, you had a lot of really thick, heavy racism, and probably a lot of objectors, and a lot of people seeing in the surrounding world, and even in a tribal community like ours, where we're the minority, right on our own reservation, right, where a lot of people might have been saying, No, don't do it that way. You have to do it this way. Yeah. You don't I mean, a lot of people telling you what to do the BIA Boston Indians.

Shandin Pete:

Right. Well, did you know that in, in the early 1910s, there was two fractioning. Committees? I don't know if you studied that. Yeah, there was there was this, there was the Flathead Business Council. And then there was more what they thought was more official, tribal, more of a tribal council or kin, or what they call it, a business committee and then a tribal council.

Pat Matt:

Right. And that's a conversation in itself. Right there.

Shandin Pete:

Right. Right. Right.

Pat Matt:

Do we have a tribal council? Or do we have a tribal Business Committee? Yeah. And that's, that's the argument right there. Right. That's, that's something to be discussed, to be discussed. Right there. Right. And the way So, me personally, I feel that they kind of got to be a little bit of both. Yeah. Because our tribal council, our leaders are basically, I don't know, I'm not going to use the word lightly. But do you? I don't know if you could call people chiefs these days, or what, but they are our leaders. Yeah, you have to know something about the way things work in the world to be able to lead the people, right, I truly feel that, but at the same time, have enough traditional values, to be able to guide us as a tribal organization, and, and to be able to lead in a way to where people can look at us and say that's a tribal organization. Tribal leaders. Right,

Shandin Pete:

right, right. Yeah, we could we could elect Al Gore on to the tribal council, but you know, he's, I get rid of the great leader, or Bernie or any, any politician, and they're gonna know, governance, they're going to know procedure, policy law,

Pat Matt:

all Chairman Sanders, Airman Sanders.

Shandin Pete:

So this leads to this, this next thing he talked about, about about developing cultural competency. Now, this is this is one we've talked about a number of times on previous episodes. Yeah. And first of all, we've established that, you know, every, nobody really has cultural loss, because the act of living and being in a society is predicated on the idea of having a culture. But what I think missing is expressions of traditions, from past generations. So this is so this is the question I had when you said that piece about, okay, we we need to develop cultural competencies? Well, the big question then is really, who defines what cultural competency is?

Pat Matt:

Well, around these parts around these parts, okay, you would have to look at the committees, you'd have to look at the culture committees, and, and to see and take a look at and most likely draw from, what they have, what they, what they teach, what they promote, what they think is important as cultural knowledge. Okay, borrow from that use that the problem is, is sometimes the committee's, you know, and I'm no chaining them guys are going to be listening to this or not, but sometimes not. They're not always open to share the information and disseminate it in a way that could be, let's say, helpful for all right. Right. And, and rightfully so, I can understand that we've had so much taken from us considering culture and tradition that I understand the need to protect. Yeah, okay. But at the same time, you know, a person like me would ask, wouldn't it benefit everybody? Our entire organization if we created an incident tooted cultural competencies into the workforce, teach them require them, right? actually require it. Hey, you're a Californian that just moved to the reservation 25% of our workforce is non tribal one of these guys get a job. Should we not require them to learn and understand our people learn about and understand our people so that they can better serve the tribal population? Or, or is it going to be hot and cold? Yeah. Yeah, so so that was something that I ran into, I ran into a wall. A couple years ago, I was the the tribal social services department when I when I worked there, was asking me to develop a presentation like a PowerPoint, a cultural presentation, that would be helpful in teaching our social workers cultural competencies to better serve the tribal people. Right. And so I started going with it and naturally I reached out to the culture committees and ran into an immediate

Shandin Pete:

nope, paused up there. A little pause. Somebody's playing a little bit too much candy crush. Or maybe just maybe all uncle Rico is parked out in the garage. Pull up in the driveway. He knows your password. He's talking to do is honey through Facebook talk or whatever that is Facebook talk. Yeah, he's got his Facebook call to his honey over in us. Maybe he's got to honeys. Maybe he's got one on hold. Another one he's talking to she's from weapon it. Another one's from us? Can they're both kinda having a chat, video chat, even video chat that takes a lot of Wi Fi. Okay, so you. So this is the thing you said? You said, You got this. This asked to do some cultural competence competency. One of the problems is you want to do it through a PowerPoint, that's not your problem. But problem is that the expectation to deliver called cultural competency through some high quality presentations. Well, that's a start. Right. But right, so you're developing these presentations, naturally, you go to the culture committee. So what happened?

Pat Matt:

Well, like I said, I was vetted. Who, what, when, where, why, what are you going to use this for who you're going to teach it to? So on and so forth? was emailed the form? And the the form wasn't, I said exactly what I needed it for, for these purposes, and what we've been talking about, right, and it just wasn't received well, and it didn't get approved. Right away. And I needed it done. It was time expedient. Yeah. And I had to move on without him. Yeah. And I had to gather my own information and look for my own sources and so on and so forth, which is possible through TFS Culture Center, you know, you got the internet you got family stories, you got photos that people have of their own and so on and so forth. And so I did, you know, I'm, I move move forward without him but I'm, obviously everybody doesn't put stock into what cultural comp improving cultural competencies can do for an organization. Right. Um, but what what I feel that it does is it improves relations, of course, between the organization and the people. And but but it also can do a great, not a greater thing. But another great thing, which is to improve the policies and the procedures within the organization itself, to to be able to create some policies around this where it's required learning where, where it's part of the initial training process. Yeah. Where it's worth part of the reception process for new employees, tribal or more non tribal, in do you know, this as well as I do. There are a lot of tribal people themselves ourselves that really don't know much about who they are, where they come from, even on the song reservation. If if your Salish versus ponder Eva versus Cooney write us some kid at to Eagle. Um, they may not know what they are and they just say I'm saying this Cooney.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Yeah. And literally,

Pat Matt:

you get that a lot. Yeah, you do. You really do. And imagine all the people that are working in the workforce, and that have been there like 2010 20 3040 years. There are a lot of people that will say the same thing.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, they got it from their service. Yeah, they're gonna say the same thing.

Pat Matt:

Gonna say the same thing. Um, and that's not everybody. Yeah, that's not everybody. But like, as I feel, and it goes back to the conversation we were having 20 minutes ago, that it starts with the individuals.

Shandin Pete:

All right, let's take a quick second to get a shout out to our Patreon sponsors. Our $5 donors have got Julian Peterson, Heather sub Brett benna. I think that's how you say it. Mary Bobbitt, Jason free asure. We've got Ryan Swanson, Emma Lafave. Also included with a $2 donation is Marzano J, Rachel holster, and then on the $15 donations, we've got Louella. Bryn, thank you. Thank you, thank you. And in addition to that, we'd have our other $15 sponsor, Dylan shields, are $25 sponsors, thank you very much to wild Gallery, and Ray Donnelly, jump on over to wild gallery, check out his website, check out what he's got. Thank you, Ray, Donnelly. And also, Travis Davis, thank you for your continued sponsorship of the show. Thank you to all our Patreon sponsors. Right? I understand that when you sit down, let her know what you're talking about. Yeah. So this is so this is the thing, and and it's problematic. We all know it, everybody knows it. When you put the well, I shouldn't say this. So I don't mean this, to cover everything. Inside some instances, when an organization puts the responsibility of tradition and cultural propagation in the hands of a small group of people, you run a danger of number one significant amount of loss, because, like, in a way we, if we get lazy and say, Well, I'm going to shuffle that off to that those people, they're going to do it. So I don't have to worry about it. Yeah, but then you run, you run the risk to just because we're humans, where we're subjected to the vices of the world. You know, we might, you know, get struck with some greediness or some maybe overcautious behavior to try to out of the guise of protection, then we run the danger of, of, of cutting off access to things that people ought to know. And that, that the convergence of those two things can spell quite at quite a danger for, for the living, breathing part of what we would call a cultural thing or a tradition that's strong and a community. So, you know, this, I think this manifests well in, in tribal government, because that's, like, the front. The first and foremost thing when people think about tribal government, is not that it's modeled after, you know, colonial systems or, you know, federal systems. They might think, okay, tribal government must be some sort of traditional thing. There must be some manifestation of tradition in there. But what is the tradition? And, and I think there's always a call to make it stronger. But how do we do that when we're faced with, with our own people saying, No, we can't. We can't teach that we can't let that out because somebody might. I don't know what are they going to do sell it or some? I don't know. I don't know what the what the what the fear is to be and to teach tradition, even if it's to non non native people, because that helps broaden people's understanding of the how we are that part I don't quite get.

Pat Matt:

Right in. Right. I think that the impact has more positive ramifications than it does negative. Yeah, because Really think building an understanding between cultural groups? Yeah. Can can do amazing things. Yeah. I mean, people, that part of the reason that Well, I guess one of the main the fuel for racism, I feel this fear. Yeah, I don't know you. I don't know what you're about. Yeah, I don't know this stuff at power hours. I don't, I don't know, the stuff that I hear about ceremonies and this and that. And, you know, I just don't know it. And I don't know, if you're, if that's a danger to me, or to my culture or not. Yeah, so I'm just going to put some negative energy on that. And, you know, we call that racism or, or whatnot. But I feel that the positive ramifications far outweigh the negative. And because creating, understanding between cultural groups creates commonality, and commonality, produces friendships, produces, hey, I kind of know about this a little bit. And those guys ain't that bad. And people can end up arguing for us that we don't even know. Yeah, you know, yeah. And so then so I really think it the positive ramifications is it could help and heal communities.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Agreed. So what's the answer, then to this dilemma that we have amongst our own people of this guarding, guarding of things guarding of, of understandings, this this bureaucracy of approval, so I can't talk to my, my, my grand folks, because I might need an IRB because I they might think I'm maybe trying to do some researchers, you know, it gets to this goofy layers of bureaucracy to try to learn something is kind of goofy. I mean,

Pat Matt:

my my first answer is going to be I don't know. The second, but the second answer goes into a experience that I had with Chile. Johnny early. Yeah. And I interviewed him one time on a small power documentary. Yeah. And we, he was, he was asked what could improve the Arley? Celebration? Yeah. And he said, I even think he might have said he didn't know at first, but but then he said, to tear down the power grounds and start back over again. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and you create everything into a circle. Yeah. To a nice big circle, because that's the way it used to be in the old time. Yeah, is m, we used to camp in the circle, the teepees used to face in a circle. Yeah. And then he said in the circle was the drum. Right. And, and that was the heartbeat of the people. Right. And so for some of this bureaucracy is some of this stuff, you know, first, you know, I could come up with a lot of ideas, and I want to talk about this leadership model, if we're gonna have time, it might help, okay, but I just go with Johnny and say, tear it all down and started all over, ya.

Shandin Pete:

Know, that, sometimes, that's just the way to go, you just got to hit the reset. You know, I believe that some time and I remember having a conversation with him about the same thing. He's spread that word quite a bit. And even there was an instance where there was a building that was trying to get built, you know, tribal building, and there was an advocacy for it to be in a more traditional structure, you know, around. Somebody on the committee was concerned about the how difficult it would be to clean. So so got scrapped, and it was made into a square.

Pat Matt:

Hey, we still Indian tacos committee sells eating tacos for stuff like that.

Shandin Pete:

Goose? Yeah. So I don't know. There's a lot of things to talk about in that, you know, what is the what is the what, what sort of cultural competency to folks need? To what level do they need? You know, that does we, I feel, I feel we need some information. I don't, and maybe I don't know if we if anybody's done it, or, or has conceived of it. But where are we at? where's the where's the benchmark for us? Right now? What's the baseline data for what people know? And what we think that's important to know? Because I think you even you and I might disagree on what we think is important. Your neighbor might disagree on what we think is enough. pourtant thing, but I don't think we have that yet. And but I don't know if that would help. I just don't know what I might curiosity lies in that. What do people know? What are those? What is the membership know? What do they not know? What do we need to know? That's going to help us to affirm that identity for ourselves? So you mentioned this leadership model that you said might let's have some commentary on what I just said.

Pat Matt:

Well, we didn't I think, I think that's really a whole, like, nother show, right on what we think is important enough to really break down and teach if and so, tribal organization was innovative enough to even implement it. Right? Because right now, as far as we're concerned, you and I, and what we know about CS, k, T, and confederated, Salish and Kootenai Tribes, there's a zero benchmark, right? You can come in cold and just start going and, you know, hit the ground running. Yeah. And that's it. The only cultural competencies you're going to learn is by someone who might be maybe friendly enough, or mean enough to teach. That's pretty key

Shandin Pete:

friendly or mean. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And even then you're not you're not sure. How accurate that might be.

Pat Matt:

Right? Because of the individual. Yeah. Because the individual and how far they've come? Are they? Yeah, right. So like I said, the development of, of something like that would really lie in, in the hands of the people that choose if they want to do that or not? Yeah. And then they would develop that on their own well, they're going to need to learn some history, they're going to need to learn, you know, some cultural pathways of how we do things around here, some some some cultural appropriations. Um, you know, what, what do you what do you do when, you know, you're, you're invited to, you know, native home and you're offered food? That's simple things. Yeah. You know, I, I really wouldn't get too complex. Unless that person, you know, after, you know, whatever amount of time want to take it there. Yeah. Or, or, like I said, or if someone's friendly enough to teach it to them. Or, or mean enough to rebuke them? If, if if they like they disrespect an elder openly disrespect an elder something? Yeah. Scope, so or brave enough? We'll put it that way. You know, someone might say, golly, you know, oh, no, just Golly. No, but But so, so if, if, if we take it, so, so that's policy, that's a policy issue? Are you gonna write it in a policy or not? You're gonna put it into action or not? Yeah, that says something, it's, you're gonna do it or not. But the sort of organizational leadership model that I think would help in this situation, and it goes back to the original question, what you talked about how we balance? Yeah. How we balanced the old, how we balanced the president, you know, what is? What does that look like? Are there any answers? And for us here at CES k t, we have a tear based leadership model. Okay. So smartly, rightfully so, on top of the tear, we got the tribal population, directly under the tribal population, you got tribal council, directly under Council, you got the executive directors, under the executive directors, you then have your department heads under them, you got your division managers under them, you got your program managers, and then under them, you got your case managers, and then your floor workers, your personnel, so on and so forth. Yeah. And, you know, it's a flow system. Yeah. And it it was it seems to have functioned. And there's there's positive and negative things to be said about it. Right. But when I was writing about it, I was like, What can we bring it down? Instead of a tear based model, a circular model. Okay, inside the circle, the people the focus The people who we serve. And then right around them, we have the decision makers. And then outside of them, you have your your workers, your innovators, your people that boots on the ground. And then And then around them, you have your fringe workers in your different grants and this and that whatever. And so around the tribal people, the decision makers, I feel it doesn't have to all be Council, the way we do it now, where everything is brought up to the table of the tribal council, and then you guys say yes, or you guys say no. Right? And what I propose, is that in this centric model, that the decision makers also include your executive directors, your people that control or manage finances, you know, your, your, your top fish, your biggest fish, you know, in the tank there. Yeah. But but then you also have your your people that are full of cultural competency. And those number of people out there, they share the decision making so that it all just doesn't lay on the people that we elect every four years. Yeah. Because they come and they go, No, right. And so, to me, and it goes back to what Johnny said that in that interview, the reason he would tear it down and start it and build it back up again, is because Indian life is in a circle. Okay. And so why can't we govern ourselves in the same way? Right? In the same sort of model. Now, it's arguable whether that is in place or not, but I really don't think it is just from my observations. But it's an idea. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it. That's, that's that leadership model I wanted to talk about. You know, is it is that viable? Would would the tribes be willing to tear down and start at all, you know, build it back up again? You know, I can change. It's hard. It is, and especially in an organization that's been doing things the same way for so long. Yeah. You know, you come in as an idealist or you come in as an innovator. You're gonna have a hell of a time. Yeah. Hell of a time trying to make changes. You see, that's what we always talk about every election cycle. We want to we want everybody says that. really new. always goes back to the same old same old

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, yeah. What is that? Yeah. So this is the thing. So thing you describe the two the two models? I mean, it's you could argue that well, the so the one is fairly linear. Right? That yeah, we have population Tribal Council Executive Division program. I mean, very, very linear. The other one you described, I guess, in in I don't quite see the circularity in it, I suppose. Because it seems like the same thing. Right. The people that seems like

Pat Matt:

the same thing, but the difference, but the difference is in the decision making. Okay, where it's not just brought to the table, you're sitting in front of 10. Council members. Right, trying to trying to convince them or inform them or sway them. Yeah. Into what sort of decisions in so many times on the great ideas? Yeah. Or any idea really, but even but, but great ideas more, so the grip makes my point? Yeah, good, are great ideas. They get tabled. Because the council doesn't feel that they have enough information, or that they're not they need to talk to the other people first before they can even make a decision that kills. And that's it. So yeah, put those people there. Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. Cuz think about it. Our kids back in the day when we counsel if you put it in your mind and put it in my mind, they're all sitting in a teepee. There's there's a chief but there's their advisors. You got your sub chiefs

Shandin Pete:

are under a tree

Pat Matt:

or under a tree? Yeah, at Council growth. Government officials with the whole Yeah. Sending you Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Okay, I get it. I get it. This was the question

Pat Matt:

you see either centric, see how that would change. And then and then the power flows out instead of flows down. Because what happens when it flows down? Is that there's you run the danger, and it's very reality that there's a lot of power and control.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the human. That's the humaneness.

Pat Matt:

That's the humaneness of it. Oh, I'm above you. Yeah. See, I'm above you on the flow chart. You're below me. Yeah, I'll fire out there. Listen to me.

Shandin Pete:

I'll write you up. write you up. Yeah,

Pat Matt:

I'll do whatever. But in a circular model. If you put all those people sort of on the same playing field. Yeah, maybe you can eradicate a lot of that. Maybe like I said, it's just an idea.

Shandin Pete:

Right, right. Right. Yeah. So this is the thing. When you said that about the decision makers, and the cultural competencies, those kinds of things. So right now, as it stands today, you don't have to know one thing about the traditions and the history of the CSN K T to get elected onto tribal council. It's not a requirement.

Pat Matt:

There's there's really not a set list of requirements. Yeah. Basic, basically, the requirement is is that you are a tribal member. Yeah. You You've lived in your district that you're running in for for at least a year. And and that you don't have a felony. Right. Those are That's it? That's it. no culture, no tradition, no language. No, no participation in something else that that, that that would qualify you. Yeah. Yeah. As a tribal leader. Right. Right. Basically, ambition qualifies you these days. It's ambition.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Yeah. So in that particular way, that was quite different from the traditional model where, you know, chiefs were elected on there. Not necessarily, because there was never a question of you of your competency in your cultural pursuits that in the old days, that was never a question. I wouldn't think it was more based on your your successes. Like you're maybe you had some really great war deeds, maybe you're, you're a really good orator of things, you're either you can convince people of things you have proven to make decisions that produce good results. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. So that seems that that seems to follow suit with sort of how it is today. But the only thing missing is that a lot of the reasons why a person would have those particular skills, those particular values and virtues that was found in the chief in the old days was because of their immersion in a functioning cultural organism that celebrated those particular virtues. Yeah, I don't think we have that today. Nobody celebrate someone, when they're really good and honest. That's it as a tribal people, and there's no venue to celebrate people for that.

Pat Matt:

We might get a good little head nod, you know?

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Somebody might say, Oh, that guy's pretty stand up guy. Yeah, etc, etc, in that, and that might bleed into some people's reasoning for voting for certain people for tribal council. But I guess my so my, my my guess the thing I get hung up on when we talk about, like trying to teach or disseminate cultural competency is that in a way, it feels inauthentic. If you know what I mean, like we're trying to package something, and hand it off to someone in a in a in an environment in which maybe that thing doesn't belong. Whereas if they develop cultural competency in a in a more natural fashion, they would have done it since youth they would have been involved in certain things on their own volition, but not a lot of people were afforded that luxury because of boarding school, the all kinds of stuff, you know, that, that that contributed to the assimilation into more of a non Indigenous or non native way of thinking. So I have I've have a struggle. I'm not saying I'm against it, I'm just saying I have a struggle with seeing how that could come about, like how can we teach cultural competency number one, we have a problem with even allowing people to learn about traditions because of the bureaucracy of committees and those kinds of things. Number two, it seems difficult to replicate authenticity in order for someone to embody a traditional and cultural pursuit that would seem to mirror what our ancestors had or did not Um, so that I have trouble seeing that I'm for it. I think it's something that we need to figure it out. But I just, I have trouble seeing it. And maybe you have some ideas on or seen some examples of how that worked.

Pat Matt:

You know, like I said, I I tried developing something that was palatable. Yeah. To not only the tribal person that has lived on the reservation their entire life versus your immigrant from California.

Shandin Pete:

Right. Okay. Meeting the audience. Yeah.

Pat Matt:

Right. And so, so what that broadens the scope of an audience? Yeah. If, if the the information would have to be broad? Yeah. At first, it would have to be broad. And what I would suggest is what it would look like, what what would make it more authentic for people like you that have what whom I feel have a real strong foundation in cultural competency. Is that is that it comes in levels, comes in doses. Here's your intro. Here's your intermediate. And should should you work for us long enough? Here's your long term. Yeah. And so on and so forth. Like, education is a lifelong journey. You know that? I know that. Yeah. So why shouldn't it be for people in the workforce?

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Yeah. Tribal workforce? I agree. I agree. I can see that what you're talking about. And I know, there's been efforts done in the past. I know they had a language class for for complex employees, and it was pretty under under attended and slowly faded. So there's there's that also, that factor two is interest in a lot of people. They don't want to know, they don't care to know. And I think, policy that prescribes that someone ought to know something, then it starts to bring out the American in us, you know, well, it's my right. You know, there's my right, it's all about me and my right to do what I want.

Pat Matt:

Yeah, but Well, then. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Well, that's when you come up with crafty ideas. Where you where you trick people with incentives? Oh, yeah. You know, gift cards, in, in, I firmly, I firmly believe that incentives, you know, really can help. Organizational Change. Yeah. For for to motivate people. Are they necessary? No. Is it? Can it be even an insult? Where, look, I have to give you a free Indian taco for you to learn something about us? You know, no, no, it could be insulting, but but at the same time, you know, there's ways Yeah, we we've we're still evolving. Yeah. And, and these are the questions that come up in the midst of it, right. Yeah. And so that's it.

Shandin Pete:

That's it right there. I think you hit it on the head right there. We're in we're in flux, man. How long have we had this? This form of Tribal Government? Not even 100 years? Not even 100

Pat Matt:

years? Not even 100 years? 90 years? Yeah. Coming up on 90 years we've

Shandin Pete:

we've been badgering people who get elected to tribal council for less than 100 years about getting stuff done

Pat Matt:

there's there's this one travel member and I'm not gonna name drop this is funny. He's been trying to get on council for the last maybe two cycles maybe three. Yeah, and and his biggest thing is he thinks what's going to get him there is if he complains his way to the top and since that's not working now he's getting pretty proficient at making Council means

Shandin Pete:

Oh, okay.

Pat Matt:

Well, you know, work Yeah, well, if I can't complain my way to the top, then then I'm gonna laugh my way to the top. Like, I'm gonna insult Yeah, you till I get to the top. Yeah. Then what are you going to do with your memes man? You're gonna start making memes about the people are making fun of people. You gotta keep the laughs going, driving Let's go and somehow

Shandin Pete:

Oh man, that's crazy. Yeah, there's a lot of things, man. And I think you summed it up there at the end. were babies. And everyone who, who sees the past of how, I don't know why this is the thing I don't get. Why do you even want to be on council? Why would you want to do that? I don't get it. I don't get it. I mean, I get it. I get the idea of serving your people want to make change? That's maybe good. You know? What, what a what a job, man. What a tough job. I tell you what, and I don't know it's not monetary. Well, for some people, it is monetary.

Pat Matt:

For some people that are you know, getting getting by on, you know, your EBT and yeah, getting getting by on your beat WorkSafe sales, whatever, you know, council sounds like a pretty dang good thing.

Shandin Pete:

And they don't seem like you got to do much. You know, it's

Pat Matt:

like, it's like, Gladiator that sounds easy enough. Man. So crazy. No, but see, there's there's this quote, I guess it was some old Greek philosopher or something. I can't remember who he was. But I remember what he said. Yeah, it's it. It's a it's a meme. But but it's an intelligent guards. Those who desire power are not fit to hold it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and really is, ambition shouldn't be your only qualification.

Shandin Pete:

Right. Right. Right. And I think that's true with not only, you know, tribal council, but you know, Department Head executives. I think that's, that's true with all those if we if we had a sense, yeah, good.

Pat Matt:

I'm just gonna, just going back to me, and and where I want to take my career. I don't want to be an executive manager, just so I can be the boss. Yeah. Because that sounds ridiculous. Just coming out of my own mouth. But to but to create

Shandin Pete:

a lot of other people to

Pat Matt:

to create organizational change, yeah. To, to help our tribal organization become something better, more efficient, a little more innovative, and still more culturally viable. And to, to to help sculpt us into something that we probably needed 90 years ago. Right. Right. Cuz we started off doing it like those guys. Yeah. And we've been pretty much you know, I mean, there's been some pretty good, you know, the mission statement of CES KT, the main mission statement is be guided by traditional principles. And values. Yeah. Boom. That's the main mission statement right

Shandin Pete:

there. Yeah. Yeah. And and, okay, go ahead.

Pat Matt:

Go ahead. No, go.

Shandin Pete:

And then it goes back to well, what are those traditional values?

Pat Matt:

Yeah, that and honestly, honestly, do we look like that right now? Do we really look like if you look at the CS K T, organizational structure? Yeah. The entity of who we are. Yeah. How traditionally principled and valued. Yeah. Are we know there's some good things I'm not gonna sit here in basketball a lot against stuff. Like, like, like the department I work for? That mission statement is. Helping people is the way of life. Yeah. Because that's an apartment I work in. We're human service department. And yeah, it's it's not just your job. It's your way of life. Yeah, yeah. And I liked that. And I really appreciate that. And I think that embodies a traditional principle.

Shandin Pete:

Agreed. And, yeah, we better cast that out there as a as a disclaimer, we're not bashing. Nobody. We're just discussing. We're just discussing. So hopefully anybody listening won't take offense. We're not

Pat Matt:

We're not making Council means we're not making AMS the wrong podcast.

Shandin Pete:

Now I forgot what happened. To save some important Oh,

Pat Matt:

no, no, your disclaimer.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, yeah, that was the disclaimer. Yeah, just just want people to know that, you know, we talked about a few departments tribal council, we're not trying to bash we're just saying how we feel. And that's important. What this is, the thing I was thinking about was, so you know, the whip, the whip used to be a traditional form of governance. And if that mission statement holds true, shouldn't we be slowly inching back toward that? But then I'm arguing against myself at the beginning of the podcast, where I'm saying, Well, shouldn't we also be allowed to evolve our values? And how we enforce or encourage or manifest those values? We ought to be allowed to evolve those to meet the present?

Pat Matt:

Yeah. Like you said, like, like the introduction of the horse. Yeah, we didn't, we didn't have the horse. The horse technically wasn't a traditional thing. Yeah. But But, but it helped us and heard us in a way, because like you said, it got us in a little more trouble with the warfare, you know, and the horse dealing days. And that to me, you know, that, that can that can bring glory, but that can bring pain, you know, so So, so there's, there's positives and negatives there. But the people evolve with it. Anyway, we can Well, that's who we are now. We're horsemen.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, I guess my thought there is that, you know, when I, when you see when you read that mission statement, really what is what, what is the traditional value that we're trying to get to? And we'd run the danger oftentimes of looking to the past. I mean, value is a value that that seemed like it doesn't change as we go through generations. But how we manifest that or affirm that, I think is really like the tradition that affirms that, I think, is what sometimes we're missing. Because we used to have it, we used to have a process to affirm values. But we don't have that now we have an American version, a watered down version of that. So we don't put things aren't celebrated in the same way that they are today. No, yeah, recognize people for for deeds, good deeds, the way we used to. And the whole, that whole complex of doing that was was a was a was a process of really affirming identity. And we we lost that. And I don't see a lot of effort to try to bring something such as that not that same thing, but something such as that. forward to today.

Pat Matt:

I agree. Yeah, I agree. I think some of the answers there, those founding lie, and some of the things we talked about, are the possible answers or pathways to you know, get get to at least get to the place where you can possibly convince people that are the decision makers, that that that that these that these changes are good and useful and beneficial for the organization in cultural competency. That's right. Some people in we can just rephrase that learning about the culture ways and traditions and life pathways of the people that you're working for. Yeah. Working with and working for. Yes. And, and a lot of that comes through the information. And what we talked about, again, is the educational aspect of it. Yeah. Yeah,

Shandin Pete:

it's a tricky one. That's a hard one.

Pat Matt:

I but then then it goes to that balancing act. Right. Right. Well, well, we can take what we have from there. We can bridge it into what we have now and where we're going. Yeah. And a lot of that comes through policy, the the dreaded, dreaded P word. Like God, yeah, it really does. But, and so someone like me, who is looking at, you know, executive leadership somewhere down the road. Yeah, I'll be looking at those things. Yeah.

Shandin Pete:

And I think that's one of the problems. It's not something that can be solved immediately. But we have to make a policy if we have to make a policy to make people do and act a certain way. Yeah, I think we I think we've already missed the mark. I mean, so let's

Pat Matt:

say you gotta be tricky again, you got to you got to work it right? You You have to, um, take a take a look at using the language not as in. If you don't, you will get fired. But here's what happens if you do. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, instead of instead of a punitive thing, yeah. More of a more of a positive unit. In Yeah. You, you're going to be more value to this workforce, if you have more cultural competencies. And that'll look damn good on your resume. Yeah. If you want a promotion, if you're looking to get higher up on the ladder, so on and so forth, it might look, it might look better on your benchmarks, right? You might just get paid more in your own job where you're sitting now, because your cultural competencies through the data that we collect, yeah. It's higher.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah. And fairly, that's not rewarded. No, in fact, in fact, that sometimes it can be a detriment.

Pat Matt:

Depending on the situation,

Shandin Pete:

yeah.

Pat Matt:

You're gonna be that mean? Indian telling everybody that they're not doing it? Right. Yeah.

Shandin Pete:

Well, I was more thinking about, you know, people tend to get culturally for things and then getting turned down. No, no, we need you here.

Pat Matt:

Yeah. But, but to, but instituted in a way, and all these words are ugly institution call is just all this stuff. But but but to instill it into the culture of the organization itself, not the culture of the people. Yes. But the culture of the organization where the organization says, This is good. We all need this. Yeah. Yeah. But but not the organization where, where, where you have the workforce, creating the value for it. You create the value.

Shandin Pete:

Yeah, that's the key. I think you're right. You're right. So yeah, man, this has been a great conversation we've got what is your title? What do you do?

Pat Matt:

So I'm the director of the families first grant families first program, I'm the program director for that. So can call that a program manager. Okay,

Shandin Pete:

so you're on let's let me count the rings here. 12345. year the six ring down? You're pretty low. Wait,

Pat Matt:

wait. Just a worker bee.

Shandin Pete:

That's the place to be the worker bee.

Pat Matt:

Yeah, what but what the good thing about managing a grant is, especially when it's money that really doesn't have a whole lot of stipulations from the feds, because it's federal money. Right? It comes it comes down from the AFA or the the anyway comes down from the last myself there for for a second there. But but they don't put a lot of stipulations on it. And in the grant language, you just really have to meet topics in have to approach that topics and develop your own way into making those benchmarks. Yeah. And so and so I've instilled programming. I think that that wasn't called for but what I thought was helpful. What did I do? I created a traditional arts class for families, where they could come in and pick projects and hire knowledgeable culture leader. I mean, he usually pizza, which is a little bit of the new trend. That's right. Um, that's awesome, man. But, but I think it's something that helps in and what has happened is even the workers around my grant are like, Hey, can I come to that class? Like, of course, okay. Yeah. You know, of course, you know, if you want to come and learn to That's great. Yeah. You know, and so like I said, it boils down into the individuals and skill set. So since I had that creativity in I've instilled some other classes and stuff too, but I don't want to talk about that. But that's, that's that's the individual aspect of what we're talking Talking about is somebody willing to do it? Yeah. Is is somebody willing to put their money where their mouth is? Yeah, it just make it happen? Or are we going to talk about it all day and say, Oh, that'd be a good idea.

Shandin Pete:

To kind of like what we're doing here. Yeah, well, one.

Pat Matt:

Here is the think tank. Yeah. Right. That's great. Thanks. Yeah. And then, you know, those those ideas, then get spread around and people start getting possibly motivated. Yeah. I really like being on your show. Sean Dean. Yeah. Just kind of bummed at Jason for decision. No, this in our sauce

Shandin Pete:

is that I'm really mad at him. I'm mad. I don't think I look at him when I see him.

Pat Matt:

You're probably just real colonizer now watching football.

Shandin Pete:

wins.

Pat Matt:

He's a boy in his wiener. Wiener water?

Shandin Pete:

Well, he missed out. But you're right. I think you're right. This has been a great conversation from someone who's on kind of on the front lines, you know, and a testament to something that I think is really important that we can't wait for the leadership, we have now to do something, because they're probably they probably have a lot on our plate. First of all, yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe everybody's on a different level of what they know, and what they can do. Traditionally, we've got to acknowledge that and we can't, you know, berate or belittle someone for just not knowing. That's, I think that's pretty important. If we're going to be together in this, we have to acknowledge that. But I think it's great that, that you take what you know, and try to try to get it into what you do. I think that's really important. And I think that holds a lot of merit to what you said about what can we all do as an individual to increase the cultural competency, if we, if we create another person who has just a little bit more knowledge than we do? And get them a job and imagine what they're going to do you know, they're going to do the same thing that you do plus a little more. And imagine we have 10 Other people like that, you know, just starting out is what say what you're gonna say,

Pat Matt:

I'm just gonna say just just how it really helps heal, and bring not only individuals, but different cultures and the community together. Yeah. And cultural it to me can only make us stronger.

Shandin Pete:

Right, right. And I think, well, the one thing I get hung up on a lot, and I try not to is, is his authenticity of what we do. And I don't I don't think I don't think I need to be there. I think if anybody is just doing something, whether it's not exactly what I think they should do, that shouldn't matter. And admittedly, I do that I judge and think, Well, that's not really sort of the way that we should be doing it. But it's something and evident power is one person who you know, for from the for the people that they serve, you know, in your case, family first, if anything that you do is helping them to regain some sense of identity of their of themselves, man, that's a win no matter what it is. Who cares if they're stringing up dream catchers? In a way,

Pat Matt:

that's not even our culture. Back in the day FKC, one of my first cultural project was a dream catcher from someone else's culture,

Shandin Pete:

bringing up a dream catcher. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I mean. That's it. I mean, yeah, it's something and everyone has an entryway into a point. And then hopefully, they'll have those teachable moments where somebody says, Well, this is not really the thing that we do here. Maybe try this, you know what I mean? And I think we rely on each other and we should have, we should pull our guard down to accept that, that criticism or that redirection that and I don't think we're really great at that anymore. We put up our barriers, and we get ashamed and embarrassed about what we don't know. We get defensive about what we do know. Since this vicious cycle, it doesn't help anything. But man, this has been great. Yeah, this is good. I didn't we didn't we didn't need that bomb. Jason. He distracted as a

Pat Matt:

matter of fact, we had a better conversation without an A.

Shandin Pete:

Oh, please join is red wieners.

Pat Matt:

No, so a if I ever get invited back somewhere down the future, I'm hoping that he'll be there. I know. Jason's got a lot of intelligent ideas. Yeah, no, he's he's a thinker. And yeah, he is. Yeah, I just really appreciate him too. But you are too man and I really appreciate this. So Awesome m&ms who are having me?

Shandin Pete:

All right, partner, you have a good day. All right, get to studying and see soon. Okay, net, net.

Pat Matt:

Net. Net weeks

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Aaron Brien

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Shandin Pete

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