In late 2019, when Mechem Frashier, Diné, heard about a virulent coronavirus spreading in the city of Wuhan, China, she paid attention. She knew from her decades-long career as a nurse that viruses like this don’t respect borders and that soon it could be in the United States. She was right.
When Frashier heard about a cluster of cases in nursing homes in Washington State in early 2020, she sprang into action. She packed up her four-year-old twins, loaded her car with supplies, and headed from her home in Albuquerque, N.M., to Sanders, Ariz., on the Navajo Nation where she’s from. “I really started getting concerned because my mom is still back on the reservation with my uncles and my aunts and my cousins,” she explains. “And I thought, ‘OK, I need to start preparing.’” For Frashier, it felt safer to have her children ride out the pandemic on the reservation with her extended family while she went back to work at Presbyterian Healthcare Services in Albuquerque.
View from the Mainstream
Much of the reporting in mainstream media about the effects of COVID-19 in Indian Country has depicted communities in distress awaiting outside help. Van Jones, a political commentator and co-founder of the nonprofit Dream Corps, wrote an op-ed for CNN comparing the effects of today’s virus to the smallpox epidemic that devastated Indigenous communities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Reporting from outlets like CNN, National Public Radio, and The New York Times calls the situation dire. Stories mention the lack of resources and absence of government response. More broadly, some commentators are writing about what needs to be done to help Indigenous people survive the pandemic. The $8 billion in federal CARES Act funds slated to go to tribal governments whose businesses and health care systems are being hit hard has generated more news.
Indian Country Responds
There is another story emerging that belies the notion of passive Indigenous communities awaiting outside help. In tribes across the country, governments, health care providers, and individual community members are working together to make a difference and figure out what’s next.
Cherokee Nation donated more than 5,000 KN95 masks to the hard-hit Navajo Nation and 2,500 masks to emergency personnel working in the 14 counties surrounding the nation in Oklahoma. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. pointed out that this time it’s the Navajo Nation that is in need — next time, it could be the Cherokee Nation.
Native organizations are also stepping up to respond. IllumiNative, which focuses on changing the national narrative about Native people, launched a campaign called Warrior Up. In social media posts, town halls, a podcast, and videos, it put Indigenous voices front and center.
During a virtual town hall hosted by IllumiNative and the NDN Collective, Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today, noted that many discussions of Indian health occur without the voices of Native people. The town hall took a big step toward changing that by including Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, Abigail Echo-Hawk of the Seattle Indian Health Board, and Dakotah Lane, director of tribal health at the Lummi Nation. All described how their communities are combatting the virus.
The Lummi Nation in Washington State, for one, has been multitasking since January 22, when its first case was diagnosed. Lane said the tribe’s response has been to increase testing, patient care, and importantly, telehealth capacity by investing in cellular infrastructure, establishing Wi-Fi hotspots, and distributing iPads. One major obstacle has been instilling a habit of physical distancing. “We are social people,” he explained.
That’s something Frashier understands. She’s been telling her family back on the Navajo Nation to stay put, explaining the seriousness of the disease and how it can spread. “We live with extended family — with grandmas and grandpas,” she says. “It’s hard to say, ‘Listen, you can’t visit your relatives right now.’ ”
On the Front Lines
Frashier and her colleague Sequoyah Fellow Jessica Tsabetsaye, a physician assistant at Presbyterian Healthcare, understand the risks better than most — but both feel that being out in the community is the right thing to do. They’ve been testing people in New Mexico since late March, just a couple of weeks after the virus locked down the nation.
Tsabetsaye, Zuni Pueblo, has been testing people at a drive-through facility that saw almost 800 patients in one day. She says it’s a privilege to be working on the front lines. “We are one of the leading states to be testing the largest number of people per capita across the United States,” she says. “We have been the single organization able to test 40 percent of our New Mexican population. We’re very happy to provide that service and any data to our surrounding communities to help fight this virus.”
Data is important. A recent breakdown of cases along racial lines in New Mexico shows that more than 35 percent of cases are among the state’s Native American communities. Faced with that daunting number, Tsabetsaye and Frashier started working on a mobile unit to bring the test to citizens at some of the pueblos near Albuquerque. Among the challenges these communities face is accessing enough tests. “Usually the number of tests that their local clinics have are only a fraction of their community population, so the providers in the clinics have to be selective when they test,” says Tsabetsaye.
Frashier adds that the daily number of cases has been known to double and even triple, aggravating the barriers to adequate testing. Those spikes prompted tribes in New Mexico to reach out to the Department of Health for help. Frashier is pleased that the mobile testing unit she works on is part of the solution. “Being Native ourselves and able to provide this service is important to us because we understand the lack of resources out there in Indian Country,” she says.
Frashier and so many other health care providers across communities are working to be sure the challenges Indian Country is facing during the pandemic are met. And when she thinks about her children back on the reservation, her feelings are mixed. She is concerned about their safety, but also glad they are spending this time with relatives and doing the things she did when she was growing up. “They have the opportunity to learn their culture,” she says. “They are learning to speak the language because they’re with my relatives. And so it’s kind of an opportune time for them, even though the rest of the world is in chaos.”
