University Place

Ada Deer: Making a Difference

[drumming and vocable singing]

[audience applauding]

– Good evening and welcome. My name is Mike Fahey. I’m one of the managing directors at the Wisconsin Alumni Association, and we’re real pleased to have you here tonight for this very special evening. We want to thank Brian McInnes for his beautiful opening blessings. Brian is an associate professor in the Civil Society and Community Studies Department at the school of Human Ecology here at UW-Madison. He’s also an enrolled member of the Ojibwe Nation and a direct descendant of the Wisconsin Potawatomi Tribe, so thank you, Brian, for your opening. We also want to thank the Madtown Singers, UW-Madison students Michael Williams, Michael Gilpin, Lorenzo Guidano, and Gus Guenther for sharing their drumming and music with us this evening. Our opening ceremonies are a perfect reminder that humans have called this place home for 12,000 years and counting. We, as a university community, continue to create and build upon our partnerships with the 12 First Nations of Wisconsin. Today, this university rests on the ancestral lands of the Ho-Chunk Nation, the People of the Big Voice, who have called this place Dejope for time immoral.

But the story of the Native American on UW-Madison campus is not just about a past; it also continues today. It is a story of the American Indian Studies program created by Ada Deer and led in 1973, dedicated to providing academic, cultural, research, and organizational support to those interested in American Indians on campus and in our community. It is a story told by the American Indian Student and Cultural Center in Wunk Sheek, the American Indian student organization and their active involvement here on campus. It is a story that will continue to be told with the future generations, with the creation this fall of the position of Tribal Relations Director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by our good friend, Aaron Bird Bear. It is a story that we’ve told next door in Alumni Park, where Ada Deer, again, is one of the 120 alumni honored for the contributions they have left on this university and our world. And it is a story that is told with the Our Shared Future Heritage Marker on Bascom Hill that acknowledges the hard, but crucial truths concerning the historical relationship between the Ho-Chunk people and the United States, and how the University of Wisconsin-Madison came to occupy what long had been Ho-Chunk land. And that’s why it’s so important that you are here tonight, and we are all here tonight, to honor Ada Deer. This event was made possible thanks to the generosity of the Sandra G. Sponem Alumni Park Signature Program Series, and I want to thank a few individuals who made this event possible. Starting with Chancellor Rebecca Blank and her staff, the American Indian Studies Program at UW-Madison, and the staff at the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association.

I also want to thank PBS Wisconsin who are recording tonight’s event and livestreaming it currently on their webpage. So joining us here tonight are very special friends of Ada and all of us. Larry Nesper is a professor of anthropology and director of American Indian Studies program at UW-Madison. And Theda Perdue, who is the Atlanta Distinguished Professor Emerita of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Perdue has published 15 books, including the book that we are discussing tonight, Making a Difference: My Fight for Native Rights and Social Justice, the story of Ada Deer. And of course, Ada Deer, who probably doesn’t need any induction, but I’ll tell you a few things. Ada grew up on the Menominee reservation in Wisconsin and was the first member of the Menominee tribe to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1957. She was the first member of her tribe to receive a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1961. She led the struggle for the restoration of the Menominee’s tribal status and trustlands, and that work culminated on December of 1973, when President Richard Nixon signed the Menominee Restoration Act, which restored official federal recognition to the Menominee tribe. Ada went on to teach here at UW-Madison and lead the American Indian Studies program.

From 1993 to 1997, she served as head of the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and was a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. I, like many of you, have had the pleasure to get to know Ada, and I will tell you too, that not only is she a smart, strong-willed champion, but she’s also warm and humble person with a ready smile and an easy laugh, and a knack for making all of us feel special and wanted. And I suspect that that’s how she got a lot of things done. So please join me in welcoming Ada Deer, Theda Perdue, and Larry Nesper. Thank you. [audience applauding]

– Thank you, thank you, Michael. Than you for that introduction. Theda is here for two days. I’ve been here for 17 years. Theda’s here for two days because of Ada Deer.

I’m here for 17 years because of Ada Deer. Ada found me down in Muncie, Indiana, languishing at Ball State University. I had invited her to give a lecture, and she came down there and we talked for awhile. She gave a lecture, she taught a class, and then she said “Why are you here?” [audience laughing] “You don’t belong down here, you belong in Wisconsin. ” And as many of us know, when Ada gets an idea, she figures out how to go about doing it, and was able to bring me here to Wisconsin, do the things that she did to bring me here to the Department of Anthropology and then American Indian Studies as well. So that’s my origin story of this relationship. Theda got to tell the origin story of her relationship, which was similar, that Ada came down and gave a lecture and they were visiting and talking, and it was talking about travel and you both said at once, “I want to go to–”

– I, what did we say in unison, Ada? I want to go to Machu Picchu. [all laughing]

– And Ada said the same thing at the same moment, and so they said, “Well, we’re going to Machu Picchu. ”

– And we did.

– Right. So, that’s why we’re here, but we’re gonna have Ada read the first paragraph of this book so you get a sense of the sound of her voice as rendered in.

– “I am a Menominee Indian. “That is who I was born and how I have lived. “I am tall, like the trees that blanket my reservation “in Northern Wisconsin, and my skin is brown like their bark. “Although I have not lived there in years, “my roots grow deep in that rocky soil. “That soil has anchored me during tumultuous times. “I have roots elsewhere, “geographically, ancestrally, and intellectually, “and they too, produced and nurtured the person “I have become, “but my taproot is Menominee. ”

– Larry: Meegwetch, thank you for starting us. [audience applauding] So the first question is the origin of this. Let’s talk about the origin of this book, where it comes from, the early conception of it and that, we’ll start with Ada responding to that.

– Well, when you get such powerhouse people together, Michael, the late Michael Green, her husband and Theda, and me, we’re not just chatting over dinner. We have serious things to talk about. And so they told me that I should– Well, they told me that I should write a book, and I said, “Well, I hate to write. ” I’m a oral person, and I’m a victim of my writing instructors because I was impressed by the main point is that when you write it, it’s in permanent status. And so, they said, “Well, we can help you. ” I said, “Oh, really?” So, that’s how it started, over a dinner at this lovely home that they had, with artifacts. Now, Theda is very modest about her activities, but she and her late husband were world travelers, and when I mean world, they have been in over a hundred countries, and she probably have done more since then.

– You’re exaggerating. [all laughing] It’s closer to 90, but. . . [laughing]

– Larry: 15 books, 90. . .

– And a number of those with Ada.

– So we struck up a wonderful friendship, and we’re travel buddies in various places, Panama Canal, Italy.

– Theda: Egypt.

– Mexico, to start with. Okay, so, it’s been a process with this book. I’ve never done a book before, but I like to talk, and so they modified their ideas about how they would proceed with this, and so I went through many, many hours of interviews.

– 60 or more.

– Wow, it felt like more than that. [all laughing]

– Larry: And you like her. [Ada and Theda laughing]

– Well, they’re both charming people, okay. So, then it had to be transcribed, and then Michael got sick, and that took time, and then unfortunately he passed on, and anyway, here we are.

– And then, and then there were things that not only Ada couldn’t quite remember all of, but also, I’m a historian, and historians believe that you have to check every little fact. And so I ended up doing a lot of research in archives. I read Indian Country Today from the beginning to the end, looking for Menominee stuff. I thought I had covered everything that had been written about Ada or that Ada had written, until Ada’s longtime assistant passed away and her lawyer, who was handling her estate, called and said that there were 50 boxes of Ada’s papers from when she was at the BIA in her store room. So he had it moved over to Ada’s garage, and I went to Ada’s house to go through it.

Well, I opened the first box and I go through and fortunately, her assistant was extraordinarily well-organized and so, there was an index at the beginning of what was in it and each letter or whatever was in a file, and so I thought, “This is not gonna be that bad. ” And so I put that box down and I opened the second box, and a rat that was at least three feet long [all laughing] jumped out and over my left shoulder. [all laughing] Well, I sent Ada to the grocery store to get some d-CON rat killer, and I kept on plowing through them, although I must say that we did move them into the house at that point and proceeded from there. So this was really a, not only a joint effort, but a team effort because we had wonderful support from the American Indian Center at the University of North Carolina, who arranged for the interviews, arranged for the transcribing, and footed the bill for a substantial part of it, and I am very grateful to them. There is, I think there’s something very special about American Indian Centers on university campuses. We talk about Indians being tribal people, but there’s also a sense of community that cuts across tribal lines. And I think that in their willingness to help with this and to fund this, in part, I think that that demonstrates the existence of such a community.

– Ada: Thank you.

– Larry: So, 60 hours at least, right? Ada, probably more like a hundred, right? Some of that I assume, was pleasurable, to remember some of these things. What were some of the more pleasurable things to remember about your life in this process of putting together this story of your life?

– Well, first of all, I had to tap into my memory, and that was hard in certain areas because after all, as it says in the book, it was 83 years, and that was a lot of time to cover.

But actually, it was an interesting intellectual exercise because I had to rethink and also to remember. So remember that, rethink and remember, for those of you who are future authors. So at times it was frustrating because I was irked with myself that I couldn’t remember some of the things, but as you have heard, both she and her late husband were scholars, were and are scholars, and they uncovered a lot of stuff that I didn’t know, which I thought was fabulous, like this picture of me from 1939 when I was a teensy kid.

– That was in the box with the rat. [all laughing]

– Ada: Is that right? Okay. [all laughing]

– It’s in the book; not the rat, but the picture.

– Yeah, but they were troopers, and they worked hard and made good use of the time, and I didn’t know I had all that stuff, but I hardly ever throw anything away until I really looked at it. So that’s why I don’t allow anybody into my house because it’s piles of paper that I don’t have time to file. My dear friend Lydia Bickford was wonderful in doing that and so I certainly miss her. So cherish your friends and your family as you proceed with your life.

I think too often there’s, they take it for granted, and we can’t do that. Every day is a gift and a blessing. And I feel very blessed knowing both of these people here. They’re scholars, they’re teachers, they’re humans, and they are fun!

– Larry: Well, thank you, Ada. Theda, do you remember, in writing certain parts of the book that were either more pleasurable or challenging?

– I loved hearing about Ada’s childhood, and her memory of her childhood and her young adulthood, her time in New York when she was at Columbia University, her time there working as a social worker, it was just absolutely wonderful to hear her tell those stories. I think the hardest part to work on was her time at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. First of all, because that’s a chapter in Ada’s life that we know relatively little about, as it connects to her. We know a lot about the things that were on the front burner, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, during those years. Indian gaming was beginning to expand. It had been fairly limited until Ada was in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and all of a sudden, everybody wanted to get on the gaming bandwagon, and Ada was in some ways, a supporter of it, I don’t mean to tell your story, because it gave tribes resources to take over their own affairs.

As long as they were so financially dependent on the federal government, Indian tribes couldn’t plot their own course, and she was instrumental at connecting gaming money and tribal sovereignty. And this was such an exciting story because I thought it was one that really had not been told adequately. And I really enjoyed working on that. And I just didn’t know much about that period. You heard that I was a historian of the American South. I primarily taught American Indian history in places other than the South, but I do specialize on Southern Indian tribes, and so I learned a great deal from the period of the ’90s in particular, by going through Ada’s papers. Those 50 boxes were an education for me.

– Larry: Thank you. That time, let’s go to that time then, since you bring that up and detail that to some extent in your comments here on that period. I was struck, in reading that and then re-reading that section of the book, how much conflict there really was and the complexity of navigating the various interests among very, pretty egotistical people who had pretty clear agendas about what they wanted to have happen and what they didn’t want to have happen, rough figures like Slade Gorton, who was a very anti-Indian person and that, could you just comment on, how did you handle that with such apparent grace in terms of the outcome of some of the things that took place? You did recognize 226 Alaskan Native communities, which is nearly doubling the number of tribal nations, and that, that was not an easy thing to do, and that wasn’t something that everybody was excited about happening. But nonetheless, that happened and something that I think, deserves the applause that it is achieving here. [audience applauding]

– Well, that’s a whole story, but anyway, I’ll give you some of the highlights. I feel that it’s really important to have a grounding, and you have to do your homework and know what the issues are, and if you don’t know, then you have to do your homework. Okay, so in terms of the Alaskan Natives, I was certainly supportive of that, and I announced when I became the Assistant Secretary, I told people I wanted to do as much as I could, as fast as I could, for as many as I could. And of course, this surprised many. Because being the first woman and an Indian at that, plus being a social worker, these are not high ticket items in the society, right? Okay. There was a lot of curiosity, and the first time that I saw the office, it was this kind of drab, boring office. I’m very happy to say that my friends here in the social work community, Stephen Webster and his wife Susan, sent me this huge plant, and that brightened up the office to a degree. But I also decided that I wasn’t gonna have just this big long table, that where you had a front, somebody at the head, somebody at the bottom, and then others in between. So I said, “Well, I would really like to have a round table. ”

And they’re going like, “What?” So they said, “Well, okay. ” So out came a size table, like this peanut-sized round table. So then I said, “Well, that’s not what I would like, “and could you have someone go to the government warehouse?” And, “Oh, Aborigine woman “knows about the government warehouse. ” [audience laughing] Hello, yeah, I’m a graduate of Columbia University and University of Wisconsin-Madison, not Podunk U, right?

– Larry: Ball State.

– And I can think, I got a wonderful education at Madison, here. And so they came back with a wonderful circular wooden table, and I said, “Thank you, that’s right there. ” Okay, so then the people would come in, ’cause you’re constantly seeing people. And everybody would be questioning, “Well, where do we sit?” I said, “Well, it’s a round table. “You can sit everywhere, anywhere, “and we’ll all talk together. ” Well, that’s not what they were expecting.

You know, because there’s gotta be a head and there’s gotta be a foot, you know. So anyway, that was kind of weird to them, and so that kind of set them apart, or set me apart from the usual. And so I was aware that there would be a lot of subterfuge, because of my background. Being a woman and being an Indian because, and at such a high level. Well, even one one of my friends told me that, if this had been offered to her, she wouldn’t have taken it. Well, it’s not quite a question of being offered. You have to go through a very rigorous process to get nominated. You have to go through, once the headhunters decide that you’re a possibility, then they drop a list of people and they then have to go through a full FBI field investigation. And so, I actually went to one of the offices in one of the towns in Wisconsin. I think it was Green Bay.

I said “Hello, I’m Ada Deer “and I’m being considered for a presidential appointment. ” and they’re going like, “What?” This was right next to the Oneidas, so I think the Oneidas did some spadework there. At any rate, and so I said, “The only thing you’re gonna find “on my record are speed tickets. ” I said, “The world is in slow gear, “and the deer is in fast gear. ” [all laughing] And of course, they didn’t know. I like to be humorous, I like to laugh, you know? I wasn’t this ironclad bureaucrat, just sitting there like this, duh. No, but anyway, I don’t want to castigate all of the bureaucrats. There are some good people, there are good people around, but they’re in the minority. [audience exclaiming]

– Theda: You see why this was so much fun. [all laughing]

– Hey, what was this question now that you ask me?

– I don’t remember! [both laughing]

– Oh well, anyway, I wanted to finish this point that racism and sexism and all these -isms in our society as you can see, are very evident, and so when you’re at a high government position, people have various ideas, and I know that they undermine, if they don’t like you, they undermine you.

They lose your letters or they start gossiping. They couldn’t understand how I could be this far up, and I’m a single person by choice, and I made that, when I was very young I made that choice, and people were kind of surprised that, here I was in this high government position and I didn’t have a man at my side. So that upset a lot of people too. So anyway, so there were, I tell people that there were arrows from the. . .

– Theda: Indians.

– From the Indians, and spears from the whites. But I tell everybody I have tough deer hide. [laughing] Plus, I’m a very determined person.

So you have to have a good grounding in what you want to do, and I’d already announced that to them, but they didn’t believe me. And I think I get, sometimes I get undue credit for things, but I’ll take it anyway. So this is for Alaska, this actually arrives, it was a secretarial order. And it was, and I’d been to Alaska on my own before, coming into the Bureau. At any rate, I said “Well, I don’t really understand this. ” I’d made a call and called in the lawyers. I said, “I need to be briefed on this. ” And so they briefed me, and there’s so much chicanery that goes on. It was very sad to hear what happened. The, Senator Stevens, Ted Stevens was the senator, and he was this important person for approximately 50 years in Alaska.

And you go into the airport and it said Ted Stevens International Airport and Ted Stevens here and Ted Stevens there. He had a lot of power and he had a lot of influence, and he did quite a lot of good, but he also, in the terms of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, he didn’t consult the Indian people. He had a group of Indians that were supposed to be consulted, but actually, they made the decisions. His buddies made the, he and his buddies made the decisions about the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. He didn’t consult them.

– Which did not provide for, for Alaskan Natives’ tribal sovereignty.

– Right.

– That’s right. So, at any rate, this list came in, and then I asked people to explain this to me, and so I said, “All these villages “were left out of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act?” And they said, “Well, yes. ” And I’m saying, “What?” and I said to myself, you know– Actually, I’m always calm.

I’m not a very, emotional people, even though I’m angry because I don’t want to give them a reason for not listening to me. And so, I’m diplomatic and I read a lot about my Menominee people, and that was one of their strengths. They were diplomatic, and as a result of their diplomacy, I’m deviating a little bit here, but I try to be diplomatic with everybody. Look ’em straight in the eye, talk to them, listen to them, and then, in terms of managing conflict, you can’t manage all the conflicts ’cause some of them are too deep, and there are lots of hidden agendas by people up and down, above you and below you. But those that I came across, I recognized other tribes, and so then I finished, they finished the briefing and then, I said, “Okay, so if I, “my signature on here “means that all those Native villages will be recognized “and receive services from the government “like the other tribes do?” And they said, “Yes. ” Okay, so I signed it. And that just shows you how much power that one can exert, and you can’t dismiss the problems. If you don’t deal with them, then somebody else has to deal with them. And so, that was one of my proudest accomplishments, making it possible for the Alaska Native people to be recognized as federally-recognized tribes. [audience applauding] So this paper arrived at my desk.

I didn’t have to do a lot of homework and by this time, people are beginning to wonder, what kind of a person am I? I’m exerting, signing all these papers and I’m signing gaming compacts and

– She’s doing things for Indians.

– Yeah, I was doing my job.

– Yeah.

– Hello! [all laughing] So managing conflicts is hard, and you have to have determination, you have to have strength. You can’t let people tell you you can’t do it. Oh, I have to tell you a part of this. So look, I get into Washington, I start, I said “Okay,” this is with Menominee restoration. And so, I go first to the BIA and I see and I get to, an appointment with this guy, and I still remember his name. I still remember his name, Scott Keep. Well, I told him I was a Menominee Indian and I was here to work, we were terminated, and I’m here to work on the tribal restoration, and he just looked at me and said, “No, that’s not gonna help. ” Or, “That’s not gonna happen. ” What!

– This is in the 1970s. All right, go ahead.

– Right, but that was important for my whole story. And so, so then I said, “Well, who’s your supervisor?” So I go to his supervisor, it was a grand, “Oh, Aborigine knows to ask about a supervisor, wow. ” See, there’s these low expectations of women in general, of Indian people and brown people in general, and so you always have to be aware of this, but you can’t cave in. You just keep plowing ahead and going up, over them, or behind them, or getting somebody else who is more powerful to step in. You have to have all your tools there. So at any rate, the supervisor says, “Wow, wow, this is exciting, we’ll support you. ” So anyway, I’m there.

Fast forward, we’re talking about Alaska. There he was, all this time, still help, well not, not helping Indians. Hurting Indian people. There are a lot of people in the BIA and the government that don’t do what they’re supposed to do. And it was kind of a sweet victory to greet him as the Assistant Secretary when he was trying to dismiss me. He’s trying to dismiss me when I came to work on the Restoration Act. So you have to have a long memory, right? [all laughing]

– Ada has a very good memory.

– Yeah.

– So I don’t know, I kind of deviate, that’s the way my thought process goes. At any rate, what else? [audience laughing]

– Larry’s supposed to be asking questions.

– Okay, Larry, all right.

– Yeah, that’s right. Okay, what do you think, you said about the restoration is important, really an important critical thing, your name is really synonymous with Menominee restoration and also the recognition of the Alaska tribes. Is that gonna be your legacy, do you think? How do you look at what your legacy is gonna be?

– Well, I don’t even think about my legacy. I just think that I do what I do, and it gives me great joy to have the power that I had in the Assistant Secretary position. I recognized other tribes, and a lot of other things that were brought to my attention. And it was exciting, and you have this, you’re up there by yourself because you don’t have the support that you should have, and I knew that that was gonna happen, so I wasn’t befuddled by that. I just kept every day, doing what I thought was right and, so, I’m not done yet. [audience applauding]

– Larry: Do you think you’re ready to hear from, questions from the audience?

– Yeah, okay.

– All right.

– As you can see I can talk endlessly, but I believe in sharing and caring.

– Audience Member: I wanna ask about your time running for Congress, and how you think that might pave the way for Tricia Zunker now in District 7?

– Mm-hmm, okay, good. Well, let’s see. Let me say that I first got dragged into running for the Secretary of State office way back when, in the ’70s, and I came down, I was chair of the Menominee Restoration Committee, that was the interim tribal government that had to be set up immediately after the Restoration Act was passed by Congress. But then I decided then that we should also have a Democratic party in Menominee, and I came down to the Democratic party, and everyone said, “No, we’re not gonna talk about that. “We’re gonna talk about you. ” So I said, “I didn’t drive three hours down to here “to talk about me. ” Well, she was just adamant, so I caved in and she said, “Well,” I said, “What are we talking about?” “Secretary of State. ” I had a vague idea what it was. And then I said, “Why?” “It’s vacant.

” That’s a reason to run for Secretary of State, it was vacant. So I talked with a few people and they said, “Okay. ” Well, then I found out I really liked campaigning. I liked especially going up to Northern Wisconsin where they don’t, they’re not very fond of Indians up there, you know? So there I am up there, and not everybody, but most of the people, okay? [audience chuckling] I would walk into the office, I says, “Hello, you know, I’m Ada Deer, “and I’m running for Secretary of State. ” And they’re going like, “What?” So anyway, so you have to toughen yourself up, and I knew they would, that would be, I’m crashing through, right, okay. Sometimes you have to be really adamant in what you’re doing. At any rate, so then I said, “Well, the duties of the Secretary of State are,” and one of them is to maintain the seal of the great state of Wisconsin in addition to the administrative duties. Oh, you know, so I said, “Thank you very much, “I just wanted to let you know. ” Well, then my campaign troops said– Oh, I didn’t win, I came in 4th in the field of 9. Vel Phillips came and was the Secretary of State.

Okay, the next time then, my troops said, “You have to do it again. ” I said, “What, I did that already. ” “No, you have to try it again. ” So that time, then I became a candidate, and was 2nd in a field of 4. So I said, “Okay, I’m done with this. ” Well, my campaign troops liked campaigning, and so, [laughs] and they liked me and we had fun, okay? So anyway, we then, they call me up then and said, “Well, you have to run for Congress. ” And I said, “Congress?” I said, “Whoa, that’s a big step. ” But then I thought about all the people that I had met in Washington when I was campaigning for Restoration Act, and I thought wow, many good people, and that’s a whole long story, there’s books about the Menominees and you can read them, but anyway, and I could talk, but that’s not the focus of the time here. But at any rate then, so I said, “Okay. ” Well, we ran the campaign, and people were angry with me because I didn’t want any PAC money.

And I said the reason is, I want to be unbought and unbossed. And they would look at me like, “What?” [audience applauding and cheering] This was in 1992. And so I said– that’s the title of Shirley Chisholm’s book and it’s also on her gravestone. She was the first black woman to run and become a member of the Congress, and she was from New York. Okay, so then I didn’t win– I won the primary, which nobody thought I could because I didn’t take the PAC money, I didn’t do the usual stuff that you do. I don’t think you could do this now, but I raised over $500,000 from individuals. And the word got out pretty soon. Gloria Steinem and Wilma Mankiller came, and that was wonderful. There were about 250 women that paid $50 for the luncheon to hear those two and support me. Senator Bill Bradley, Maxine Waters, I had a variety of people, but the press didn’t like me because I didn’t report well because I didn’t fall into their traps.

They always wanted me to say something about my primary opponent who happened to be, that was his, his name was David Clarenbach. He was a wonderful person, he was on the straight line. He was supposed to just ascend into the position. He was an active member in the Madison community and he’d served on, I don’t know, some boards. Maybe it was the county board. And they were always asking me about him and I said, “Well, he’s running his campaign. “I’m running my campaign, we’ll see what happens. ” They were trying to trap me into saying something bad about him, which I didn’t do. Well, they just ignored me. So anyway, that was okay with me.

So when I won the primary, well, that was really something different. Wow, what happened? So I’m telling you all, whatever you’re going to be doing, you need to keep that in mind. Keep steady hand, do what you want to do, and then see what happens. So, this all was leading up then, to my time with being considered for Washington. At any rate, Mr. Clinton said– I didn’t win the primary because it’s very hard for any woman to really get up at that level, but at least I did it, and I had a lot of fun and I made a lot of friends. Some of you are probably sitting in the audience. At any rate, so then, my troops said, “Okay, that’s it. ” Well no, I gotta tell about the, when I, the press conference for the primary. It was kind of exciting.

I was kind of liking this, you know? At any rate, so I said, “I’ve been waiting all my life to say this. ” And my troops were saying, “You’re not gonna do that, are you?” And I said, “Well, yes, I’m the candidate “and you’re the campaign people, “and I don’t always have to do what you tell me. ” So anyway, I raised my hand and I said, “I’ve been waiting all my life to say this. “Me nominee. ” [audience laughing and applauding] I still have people coming up to me and they say, “Me nominee. ” [laughing] I think it’s a phenomenal impact.

– One of her slogans was “Nothing runs like a Deer. ” [audience laughing]

– Yeah, and the John Deere company, D-E-E-R-E, was upset; they thought I stole their motto. So I said– my troops were a little befuddled, and I said “Oh, they call again, I’ll talk to ’em. ” Well, they never called again.

So I always tell people, I’m the plain and simple Deer, I’m not the fancy Deere. [audience laughing] Well anyway, I kind of forgot exactly what this person wanted to know. [all laughing] Well, oh, I know, I was talking about Congress. So then I decided, when I was reading, I love to read, I could retire from life and read, but then I couldn’t get anything done and I have this do-gene in me. So at any rate, I read where Mr. Clinton wanted a government that looked like America, and I said, “Oh, that’s an interesting idea. “Why don’t I say, here I am?” A woman social worker, plus I won the Democratic primary, right? And I was the first person, first woman to be a chair of my tribe. Now, this was also hard for my tribal people too because some of the women and a lot of people said, “Our tribe has always been run by, “or not run, but led by men. ” I said, “Well, that’s part of the problem, right?” [audience laughing] You know, you gotta have humor in this. You can still make a point, right? And so, anyway, a long story short, I became Assistant Secretary.

That’s a whole interesting process and oh, I got interviewed by various people and so on.

– Audience Member: Not a question, just a comment, and I don’t remember if this took place when you were in Washington or New York, but a purse snatcher came after Ada and grabbed her purse, and it was in the papers, and I was so proud, she said, thought to herself and they quoted her, “My name is Deer,” and she took after him and got it back. [all laughing]

– It involved jumping on a city bus to chase them.

– Audience Member: Who is the most difficult person you’ve had to deal with in your career, and how did you handle him or her?

– Well, I don’t know if it was a person. Okay. When I got interviewed, I got interviewed by Henry Gonzalez, who was the HUD Secretary at the time, and by Bruce Babbitt, former governor of Arizona, and he was the Secretary of Interior, and that’s where Indians are, okay.

– Along with the forest service.

– Right, right, oh, and the mining. The mining isn’t out there anymore, but anyway, the park service and so on. So I told them, well, before, I said, “I thank Mr. Babbitt for “interviewing me,” and I said, “Before we get into this, “I just want to make one comment. ” I said, “Indian Affairs are very complicated. “There’s a moral issue, there’s the legal issue, “there’s a political issue. “And these all are intertwined. “And this really needs to be stated at the beginning of this, “that I’m extending to you my thinking on that to start with. ” I just took– I just started. I wasn’t sitting there like this, paralyzed. He said, “Well, you can count on leadership from me. ” So I thought “Wow, that was really good. ” I thought it was really, it was very quick, I was expected to be, I thought they were gonna grill me.

But anyway, so anyway, I became Assistant Secretary, and then it started out okay, and I just decided I was gonna do as much as I can, like I earlier stated, and over time, my relationship with him, and I didn’t have much of a relationship with him to start with. Over time, it didn’t, it just didn’t gel. And I don’t know what it was. I figured out it was another subterfuge, and I wasn’t gonna get all involved with all of that, I was just gonna continue. So somehow or other, he changed his approach. He called up and I went to his office, and I said, “Well, we’re talking about Alaska. ” I said, “Oh, okay. ” “Is Alaska Indian country?” And I’m thinking to myself, “What kind of a question is that?” I said, “Well, of course it’s Indian country. “Native people have been on this continent “for over 20,000, 30,000 years. “We’re the trustees of the. . . “And we are responsible for protecting “the Indian lands and resources and. . . ” Why are, oh, somebody told me about the Sensenetee decision. I think he was the, in the legal department, and his decision was that there was no Indian country in Alaska. And I’m saying, he said, and Babbitt, Mr. Babbitt said, “Well, I’m taking this, “I’m taking my position from John,” and John, oh, I can’t remember his last name now, but he was this secretary. He was the legal guy in the, for the whole entire Department of Interior.

And he said, well, he agreed with Sensenetee. I thought, “What kind of a deal is this?” So I said, “Yes!” No, you know, I’m just telling you, there are Native people up there that have been there forever, for a long time. So I said, “Well, gentlemen,” I said, “I don’t agree with you, and you’re both wrong. ” So I’m telling Bruce Babbitt and the head lawyer for the Interior Department that they’re both wrong. So I knew that that wouldn’t sit very well, but I’m not gonna sit there and agree with them. So I knew then that they wouldn’t like it. So anyway, I think that’s when he decided I had to go, right. I did my four years there, and people are still thanking me for my work, and I don’t know if they’re thanking Bruce Babbitt for his work, or the other guy. [audience laughing] My name is going down in history; I don’t know if theirs are. [audience laughing and applauding] But what I, gives me great joy is that when I go to Alaska, people up there say, “Ada Deer, wow!” Or that they’re just so happy that I come and that gives me great joy, that the people up there like me and they respect me and they honor me.

And I do that for them too. So you never know the opportunities that you’re going to have, and you have to have an open mind and an open heart, and I saw as many people as I could when I was Assistant Secretary and so, I’m glad that I had the opportunity to be of service to, not only my tribe for restoration, but also for the entire Indian communities, nations across our country.

– Audience Member: Hi, Ada, you’ve always been really good at telling journalists what they should cover in Indian Country. What do you think the most pressing issues are that journalists should be telling the country about?

– Well, I think they should, they keep calling people Native Americans, and this is one of my special irks. We are American Indians, in my opinion. And the reason I say this is the National Congress of American Indians. That’s the organization of tribal governments. It’s the National Indian Educational Association. It’s the Association of American Indian and Alaska Native Physicians. And one of the exceptions is NARF, Native American Rights Fund.

So I would like that corrected, but I don’t know if that will go. But right now, they always want to know what is the Indian problem, like there’s only one Indian and one problem. [audience laughing] It’s very sad, there are millions of people that are educated in our country, and they don’t know much about American Indians, they don’t know much about black history and culture. Now, we have two museums now in Washington, D. C. and so, they’re doing a really good job of educating people about American Indians and also about the black history and culture and slavery and all that. So, I would like people to do more in-depth reporting because it’s too oversimplified and lots of stereotypes occur. In terms of the current issue of voting. They are really suppressing the vote on the Indian reservations and Indian communities and that’s– [audience applauding] Indian Citizenship Act was passed in 1924, right? They didn’t ask the Indians. Somebody out there just decided they wanted to do this.

Well, and they didn’t hold sessions about educating people or anything like that. After World War II, one American Indian from one of the pueblos in New Mexico went to vote, and he was told by the New Mexico authorities that he couldn’t vote. “What?” he said. He said he just came back from Europe where he was fighting for freedom over there. And here, he comes back home, and they didn’t do a really good education of the state election people. So here, in 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act passed, and here he comes after World War II and they’re trying to, well, he took ’em to court and he won. So voting is going to be, and it’s a current problem. That’s one of them. There’s, water is a problem, we’re gonna be fighting over the water. And other resources.

So the person has to dig into what tribes are talking about and what are the resources. But I think, you have to look at the regions of the country and then see what they are, but there are a lot of federal laws that have been passed and they are American Religious Freedom Act and various other things, and they’re not always obeyed, so that’s one thing. And then of course, in any state where there are Indians, they’re the highest number of people in the prisons. And we always are at the bottom of whatever list is in the census, so there’s just a lot of work that needs to be done by the tribes and by individual people and also, you all need to refer, to inform yourselves too, and there’s all kinds of books that you should read. The People’s History of the U. S. , Indian Givers,

– Making a Difference. [laughter and applause]

– Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, all right. So anyway, I really really, well, really enjoyed our time here, and you’re a very attentive audience, and I want to thank you and echo the chancellor’s thank yous to all who were involved in this, and I think that the university should do more events like this to educate people and continue the wonderful education that is available to many people out there.

– And so, please join me again in thanking Theda Purdue and Larry Nesper and Ada Deer for the program.

[audience applauding]

– Larry: Thank you, and I’m gonna present Ada with this gift. [applause continues]
– Mike: So, on behalf of the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Alumni Association, we’re pleased to share these gifts with Ada and Larry and Theda. So thank you. [audience applauding]