NUIFC Sit Down // U.S. Representative Mary Peltola Interview
The NUIFC is thrilled to joined by U.S. Rep Mary Peltola, Yup’ik, for a conversation about her time in Congress, what she’s been fighting for, how her values and background shaper her views, and how we continue to build towards a brighter future.
Making history in 2022, Peltola became the first Alaska Native to serve in congress and the first woman to hold Alaska’s statewide House seat for the term. Her victory came months after she won a special election following the death of longtime Republican Rep. Don Young, giving her the seat for the full two-year term. Peltola was a state lawmaker from the rural community of Bethel for a decade and mostly recently worked fort a commission whose goal is strengthen the Alaskan salmon population. This informed her policy of being “pro-fish, pro-family, and pro-freedom,” which she leveraged to be elected by a margin of 55%-45% in the final tabulation round.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
I wanted to start by asking you how Congress has been. What have been your focuses and what has your experience been like?
I campaigned on a platform of being pro-fish, pro-family, and pro-freedom. Alaska Natives and all Alaskans have a strong identity to seafood and the resources that the Bering Sea provides, and I think that was a real unifying thread throughout Alaska. I'm committed to doing what I can at the federal level to increase abundance, as we’ve seen that so many of our marine resources are in very low abundance and we're very concerned about this. I don't think we're going to be able to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which is the overarching federal legislation that governs federally managed fisheries, but I do think that working with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and some of the national standards within NOAA is a good way to keep pressure on them.
The pro-family piece is looking at education, livable wages, food security, health and safety, appropriate infrastructure for schools, and things like that. And then the pro-freedom piece is largely about women's reproductive rights and bodily autonomy. As I'm sure you know, we have a history across Indian country of being sterilized without our consent or even knowledge, so I know it’s important that women have control over when and how they grow their families.
Here at the NUIFC, our biggest focus is to help create thriving American Indian and Alaska Native urban communities. As you know, a lot of statistics for Native communities both on and off-reservation are particularly bleak. In urban centers across the US, our Native communities are facing poverty at rates usually 3x higher than whites. Can you think of specific legislation or policy you support that could make a dent in those statistics?
I'm a strong supporter of the Child Tax Credit. When that was provided during COVID, it was a great subsidy because parents didn't have to apply for it, it just showed up in your bank account. It was $300 for every child under a certain age, and it really made huge strides in decreasing poverty and increasing food security. Across the board, the federal government provides different subsidies to corporations and wealthy people and if you look at the amount of support being provided to affluent people, it's much more than the amount provided to people living below the poverty line.
The programs that most people in poverty situations would be eligible for have a lot of hurdles to apply for and receive them, like multiple forms that are very hard to find or certain verbiage or language. A lot of times we don't know how to navigate those processes. So we’re really looking systemically at how we can help people get away from living hand to mouth and instead living in ways that are much less stressful and much more conducive to a high quality of life.
How has being a Native influenced your perspective and how you approach your work as a member of congress?
It influences everything I do. I came from the space of salmon advocacy work on behalf of 33 tribes, where those 33 tribes each elect their own commissioner who then works to manage our salmon stocks. And it’s stressful work, you’re fighting over salmon on your own river with your own neighbors and it becomes very, very challenging. But we were able to be effective because the commissioners and the leadership came at it from a place of love, and we overtly talked about that.
One of the teachings from Yup’ik elders is that the most powerful thing on earth is the human mind, but only if it's used in the right way, in a disciplined way. Hate and fear are lazy emotions, but love is an elevated way to approach things but it’s also more challenging to come at things from a place of love. But we must do that when we're working in adversarial spaces, we can’t get to solutions if people feel threatened, attacked, defensive, or combative. We can't get to solutions when we're fighting and looking at things with this perspective of winning and losing so we must find ways to work in a really collaborative manner.
Do you think those values were something people responded to when you were running for office? Your election was historic for a bunch of reasons, and it’s not exactly common for a Democrat to win statewide in Alaska, correct?
Yes. Alaska is an R+10 state, meaning Trump won it by 10 points in our last election and I was able to win by nearly 10 percentage points as well. I think that my campaign and my message were something people weren’t accustomed to hearing, I was a little bit of a lone voice. I was careful not to ever attack the other candidates running, I wasn’t part of any attack ads against the other folks running in the race. I’m also careful to not even refer to them as opponents because they're fellow Alaskan leaders.
A lot of non-native people would approach me and say “I'm so glad that a part of your message is about love because we really need peacemakers.” Another thing I think is noteworthy is that early on there was apprehension about me because I'm from rural Alaska and I’m a Native woman. People projected onto me that those are the only groups that I would be representing and working for. So I made it clear that from the very beginning, Native people are holistic. When we talk about working for people, we mean every single person in our community, regardless of the color of their skin. We know that we're all connected, everything is connected. So that means everyone in the state of Alaska, no matter what their ethnic background is or their gender or gender identity or religious viewpoints, I want to work for everybody. People saw that as a strength.
What has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned while in Congress so far? Has your perspective changed on anything from when you were running for office compared to now actually being in office?
It’s been pleasant to meet the number of people who are very high caliber, who are here for the right reasons, and who are so intelligent and effective at representing their constituents and messaging while working to make positive changes. And that’s on both sides of the aisle, which has made me optimistic. And although it’s shocking how deeply partisan it is here; I’ve had many Republicans approach me and verbalize that they want to work together and they're looking forward to working together. I have the advantage of coming in after Congressman Young, who represented Alaska for 49 years and built good and deep relationships on both sides of the aisle. So I've had Republicans let me know that their friendship with Congressman Young was so deep that they want to continue supporting Alaska and the causes that he worked on for so long. So, that has been a wonderful surprise.
One of the biggest challenges the NUIFC and our cohort of urban Indian non-profits face in our civic engagement work is how many people in our communities have an understandable distrust in what the government can do for them and how much their vote can make an impact. What would you want someone that doesn’t think their vote matters or isn’t sold on voting to know?
Every vote matters. In my election, every vote mattered. I've seen municipal elections in my hometown where 11% of the electorate voted. So how can you say a majority of the people wanted anything if only 11% turned out to vote? Indian Country, when we first became eligible to vote, we’ve had historically very high voter turnout across Alaska. We had high 80%, 90% voter participation and we’ve sadly seen that plummet to match the national averages, which are very low, like 30%. That is not democracy, when we don't have everybody voting, it's not democracy. We need people to be engaged and I think part of that is making sure that we have people who are running who are inspiring enough that people want to go spend the time to go vote.
I think that we need people to be running in all the elections up and down the ballot. In Alaska, because we're such a small state and especially among Natives, it's the down-ballot candidates that really are inspiring and getting people out to vote because they know them. It’s their relative or their neighbor or their classmates’ relative and that gets people out to vote for the down-ballot person which also gets more people voting for the races at the top of the ticket. So as Natives, we need to get Natives running up and down the ballot so we can encourage more voter participation and get people to commit to being super voters.
Are there any other messages you’d want to share with our readership?
You know the one thing I will say is that no matter how you're Native, you are Native. No matter if you live on your ancestral homeland or in the city, you’re Native. If you have kinky hair or blonde hair or blue eyes or pale skin or dark skin, you’re Native. I think the way that we look it can sometimes trick people into thinking we're not native, but I just really want to give a shoutout and validate all the different shapes and sizes that we come in and whatever level you're working to help advance our society, it’s really appreciated. Despite the concerted effort to erase us, we are still here and we're still strong and we're surviving, and we will continue to survive.