Jennifer Van Syckle  0:00  
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Talking Health in the 406, where we're one community under the Big Sky. I'm your host, Jennifer Van Syckle, longtime health care worker turned health educator. In our state, the largest minorities are not black, or Hispanic populations. Unlike much of our country, the largest minority are Native Americans. And if you did not grow up on a reservation, or in a tribal community, or even a tribal household, there's a lot you might not know, which is why I'm very excited to welcome our guest today, Amy Stiffarm, Amy is an Aaniiih woman. And she shares a little bit of her life from being raised in Harlem, Montana, to getting a PhD in Indigenous Health Studies from the University of North Dakota. This is one of the most fun and interesting podcasts I think we've done to date. You don't want to miss it.

Again, thank you, Amy, for joining us for this podcast. We really appreciate it. And you've had a very interesting journey. And you've come a long ways. Because I read about you in the newspaper back in I think, April and I remember thinking, well, we got to talk to this gal. And then interestingly enough, there you were at my daughter's soccer practice. And so it was like poetic that the universe just boom, put you put you there with us. But I'm curious. So tell me, tell me about like your roots. Tell me about where did you grow up at? Where Where did your story start? At?

Amy Stiffarm  1:40  
Yeah, it's funny how things work like that. And I'm glad we got to meet. Um, I grew up in Harlem. I'm from the Fort Belknap Indian community Harlem is like three miles off the reservation. But that's where majority of the agency kids go to school Fort   Belknap is in north central Montana. And it's home to two tribes, the Aaniiih or White Clay that we're for federally recognized as Gros Ventre , but we prefer White Clay or Aaniiih. And then the Nakota, or Assiniboine, people also live there. And we're two completely different tribes, like we don't really have any of the same, you know, different, completely different language, different customs and all of that, pretty separate in that way.

But that's where I grew up. And then it's kind of interesting, because I have like a really, I feel like my family and my connections are kind of like cast a wide net, because my paternal grandmother is from Rocky Boy. And when she married my grandpa, who was from Hays from Fort Belknap,

they lived in Rocky Boy for a while and my dad and his siblings grew up there until they were about middle. My dad was about middle school age and my grandpa started working for the BIA

Jennifer Van Syckle  3:03  
BIA is that Bureau of Indian? Yep, he worked for

Amy Stiffarm  3:07  
the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And they have offices all over different reservations and whatnot. And so he went to work for them. So that's a federal agency. Yep. It's a federal agency. So my dad and siblings went to high school and Browning can have a lot of like good friends there. And then on my mom's side of my family, her, her mother was an family from East Glacier. So they're Blackfeet and then my grandma, kind of part of the relocation times relocated to Missoula, and that's where my mom went to high school. So it was just it's just kind of all over like sometimes people would ask me, are you a Browning Stiffarm and I'm like, there's no like no, that's not a thing. You know, like Stiffarms are from Fort Belknap but not really realizing you know, like that's what they would kind of refer to my family as is like a Browning Stiff arm so when my dad graduated from college and married my mom they moved to Fort Belknap and so that's where me and my two older brothers were raised.

Jennifer Van Syckle  4:18  
And so I know in the article I read they talked about and forgive me if I've pronounced the Aaniiih that you were Aaniiih women I think was like the the headline and so do you you know, what do you identify as

Amy Stiffarm  4:33  
so yeah, the article said Aaniiih , and technically I am Aaniiih  because that's where I'm enrolled. So there's this whole weird thing with blood quantum and whatnot. Now that's kind of controversial but wherever you're enrolled at like that is your tribe but and, and for people it's different though because my as far as culture goes like my grandpa, my Who was Aaniiih ? He kind of stopped practicing traditional things. And I don't know why this there's like a lot of things where we like just it wasn't talked about it wasn't No one sat me down and explained to me. I don't know why that happened. But my grandma and my Rocky Boys side was very traditional. She spoke Cree. And they did ceremony there. And so when I received like, my ceremony name, it was in Rocky Boy. And then my dad and uncles participated in ceremony and Rocky Boy, now that I'm older I do I participate in ceremony and Rocky Boys. So like, kind of culturally and like how we were raised even. We're more on the Chippewa Cree kind of side of traditions. And that, you know, for growing up in Fort Belknap, there were things that were different about us, like, for example, when somebody passes away, both Aaniiih and Nakota tribes, they cut their hair. But that's not something that Chippewa Cree people do. And so, I was always kind of confused to growing up like, well, how come will do I have to do this? Like, you know, asking all these questions, and we didn't, then, you know, older generations, I don't think really understood the importance, or really understood like, what was happening in this knowledge translation, this breakdown, and how important our indigenous knowledge would be and how much we would need it, especially for health and whatnot. So like, something my dad always says, like now that I'm older, I'm kind of finding out the whys. And I'm like, welcome. You never told us that. And he's like, I didn't know what to tell you like, and I didn't know what to ask my parents. Yeah, it's kind of it gets a little tricky, but it's on me. Aaniiih  I do say Aaniiih , like first because that's where I grew up. And that's where I'm enrolled at. But I also acknowledge my family from Rocky Boy and my Blackfeet side of my family, because it's, you know, that they are, I am them, you know, that they are the reason why I am who I am. And so I just kind of think it's important to always acknowledge where you're from and where you came from. And not just for to acknowledge them, but so people know who you are, you know, especially when you're working in tribal communities, you, you want to be able to tell people who you are. And when I go to Browning, I'm still Bunny's girl are Barb's daughter, you know. And so it's just a way that we connect, that's

Jennifer Van Syckle  7:34  
awesome. Tell me about if you can about your use of mentioned your ceremonial name. A

Amy Stiffarm  7:39  
lot of tribes have ceremony names, or Indian names, it's really important for a lot of different tribes to have, or for people to have their learning. Nowadays, it's been really great because people are giving their children instead of English names like names and their language, which I think is so such a great strength and so important and just to be, you know, making non Indigenous people learn their names and whatnot. I am not a very good Cree speaker at all. But I actually got my name from my my namesake is my great aunt, but we call grandma and my dad named me after her. So her name was Amy chief goes out chief stick. And when they named me, Amy, she said, Don't give her an Indian name, like I'm gonna give her my name. Usually, you get names pretty early when you're young, because part of it is, they say, when you when you go back to stars, or go back, when you pass away, when you go to be with your ancestors, that they'll call you by your Indian name. And so it's important for people to have their names. I was a little bit older when I got my name. And she gave me her name it like translates to goes with the bear spirit, but it's like, there are different bear spirits. And this one, the bear spirit is the black bear. Older names are really long and so it's kind of one of them older names, but um, black bears are are very human like and they were very respected for that their ability to walk on two legs and kind of their human nature and their intelligence in that just how they how they are and how they are how they move, I guess in this world and so very, very respected and have a lot to do with healing. And so that was kind of, I think, a strength that I would pull on especially when I was like thinking about applying to different schools and whatnot. I I would think of that, you know, like, No, this is you know, doing the right thing or this is what I'm supposed to be you know, you have to give yourself those little pep talks like my name, I think really grounded me in some moments. And actually, just this past summer I was was on a work trip and in browning on the Blackfeet rez, and there was an elder there, Mary Ellen, the Fram boys. And we were eating lunch. And she surprised me. And we were at the Headstart. And we were learning about the cool things that they're doing and all the families they're serving. And they were talking about how they used to have a program where the elders would come in and name the babies, and how important that was, and how great that was. And here's, she surprised me, she had Kevin kicking woman come in, and they gave me a Blackfeet name, it was one of the greatest honors, I feel like because she, you know, reminded me that I'm part of their community that my parents are part of that community. And that, you know, that to that they're proud of me and for getting my degree and for doing the work that I'm doing. And so, so now I have two names. And which is common to like people will have can have more than one name. So mountain butterfly woman is also my Blackfeet name. That's

Jennifer Van Syckle  11:23  
fantastic. So now, in certain circumstances, will you use both those names when you introduce like yourself? Sometimes

Amy Stiffarm  11:32  
I do. But also, sometimes I am ambivalent on that. Because sometimes I feel like, Yeah, I'm just gonna say, but other times, I feel like, Oh, this is just, you know, this is for me and for ceremony and for family stuff. And, you know, I don't really, I don't know if my girls know, my girls have their names. My oldest, they got named, and ceremony a couple summers ago. My oldest is Yellowbird. Girl, and my youngest is Sundance girl. So like, we all know our names and know it's important. You grew

Jennifer Van Syckle  12:07  
up in Harlem, and then after high school, did you leave Harlem Did you? What was your course after that? Looking

Amy Stiffarm  12:14  
back now, I was very much afraid of failure. And I was like, kind of paralyzed in fear. So I didn't really apply to college. My guidance counselor, like called me in my senior year and was like, why didn't you apply to college? You know, so she was concerned. And so she sat down like three applications in front of me. And she said, I couldn't leave her office until I picked out one. And so I picked MSU northern because I kind of felt like I knew I would never go there because it was like Havre, my brother was there. And, um, I will never go to Northern so I'm gonna fill this out to get out of here. After high school, you know, I kind of was getting into trouble. I have nothing to do in a small town. And my mom and dad, were like, You need to go to SKC like you're gonna go and mostly because everywhere else was not like this was in the middle of the summer. And you can't just apply to college in the middle. What's SKC?  Salish Kootenai College, where it is on Flathead Indian Reservation, and in Pablo, so kind of their agency headquarters. Thankfully, other people saw what I couldn't see. Even after I got in, like, the day before, like, I hadn't even packed anything, like I didn't want to go. And my brother had to come and like pack me up. He was so annoyed with me. I had one sock when I got there. Like, I was like, oh, oops, like, it was just like a last second thing. And it was like, I was like, I don't want to go and I remember my mom looking at me and being like, you're going and it wasn't like, you're out of here. Like you can't live here anymore. But it was more of like a, you deserve an education. Like you can do this. So my grandma lived in Polson, so I had a place to live. And so let me say my grandma was my college roommate. My mom and dad used to travel a lot when we were kids. So sometimes we would get to go. But a lot of times my grandma would ride the bus from Missoula and come and stay with us kids. So we were always really close. I had no idea what I was going to major in which was one of my big like, reservations about going to college is I don't know what I want to do. Like I have no idea. So that summer when I was home I was still like oh I don't know if I want to go back or out you know, I'm just in liberal arts like I don't I don't know what I'm gonna do and I I kind of wanted to be I thought like if there was anything it'd be like around nutrition or whatnot because had gone to as a kid a lot of funerals back home. And like we just like that's just something you did. You showed up for other families and you would help in the Kitchen, I would pass out food to elders and you know, just knew exactly wshat to do to go. As soon as you get there, you walk in, and you ask, like, who needs help, or you stay in, you clean up, you know, like, there's just just things that you do. I learned that, you know, a lot of the deaths that occurred were preventable, and like, we're from chronic disease. And so I'm like, Oh, well, it's, you know, it's about the food, like, I want to learn about nutrition. And as SKC didn't have a nutrition department, after my first year, you know, I was still kind of in this, like, I don't know what I want to do. And so I remember I've printed everything out. And I like, put down all of these, like, associate degrees of like, what I wanted, like what I could do, and it was like education, nursing. And then like the science one coming up, and I was like, like I said, I was afraid of science, because it's gonna be too hard. But when I would look up, like what it would take to be a nutritionist, like you did have to have like a bachelor's in science and go on and get your master's in nutrition, or dietetics. So I decided to do that. And I was really scared. Like, I remember the first day of class, I was out in the parking lot. And I was just, like, nervous. And I just remember, you know, praying, like, you know, open up my mind, like, Help me, help me try to learn this helped me, I know, I was kind of like, had this block, a lot of times it think it was presented a lot in a way of like science being in direct opposition with culture and tradition, and like our teachings and our stories. And so it kind of almost felt like it wasn't, you know, you had to pick either or something. That's how that was. That was what my perception of it was. But at Salish, Kootenia college, it's a tribal college, every reservation in Montana has a tribal college, not only they were made, so people don't have to leave your community as SKC was a little bit different. Because they, they had a few programs that were really outstanding, like their nursing, environmental science, and they actually had bachelor degrees. They have, they have a lot of actual I think they now even have a master's degree in education. But anyways, I decided, you know, I need to, I'm going to open up my mind, and I'm going to just do my best. And so that year, I went in, and I took a chemistry class from this woman from Barbados, who like got her PhD when she was 21. And she was like, amazing, like, she blew my mind, she was hardcore, like, we had so much a lot, a lot of homework. But she was very like, can do this, like, this is like you deserve to do this kind of it was really empowering. I felt like, and I learned it and at tribal colleges, especially my experience at Salish Kootenai College, all the classes had to be grounded in culture, whether it was you know, an elective, or it's an indigenous language, or even science, and so it always had to be connected to culture. And it was there when I started learning about things like, like Tylenol, like what, where, where different medicines, like where they actually come from, and how people how tribes would use willow bark. And then when you take that derivative, what's in that plant, it's would give you like, Tylenol after, you know, certain periods have been processed in the labs and whatnot. So it was kind of my first learning about indigenous science and like about indigenous people being scientists and about like science, catching up to indigenous knowledge through different experiences and our different experiments and whatnot, like, you know, making medication and whatnot based on what indigenous people would use when they were sick or when they were hurt. I ended up getting my associates. And at that time, like I said, there were other there are other bachelor's degrees, but not in science. And I was looking at different schools like U of M, and MSU. To continue on in science. But I didn't want to go to U of M because I looked at the price tag and I looked at the class size, and I was like, I don't really want to do that. Like I don't I again, I was like kind of scared. But I also felt like leaving the environment at SKC where there were like, sometimes six students in our class and I could go in and ask a question of my instructor and they would like sit down with me and help me understand there's just so much support and the cultural aspect of being around your own people to it. is important or was important to me. And so the director of the program at the time said, Listen, it's not accredited yet, but I'm pretty sure it is. But we have this four year life science degree. And it's, it's supposed to be accredited next year in November. If it does, then you'll be the first one in the program. And so I decided to stick around. And sure enough, it got accredited. And I was like, the first graduate of the life science program at SKC. And at that time, tribal colleges, they had a lot of like environmental science degrees and kind of around that realm, like wildlife biology, that kind of stuff. But this was really the first like molecular base science program out of any of the tribal colleges. And so through there, I was able to get more experience in the labs, we were doing research projects, we got to travel all over to different conferences, and being able to present and present posters and oral and like, I actually won, I started winning poster presentations. And so that like, boosted my confidence and kind of helped me stay on track. And you had to have good grades to be in the lab and to be working and to be going on these these trips and whatnot. So that that was a really big incentive for me. When I was a senior, I had some electives open. So I took issues in American Indian health through the nursing program. And that's when I really first started looking into stuff about like traditional birth and being interested in why there's not really much known about traditional birth and what birth is, is like, Amy at that point, had

Jennifer Van Syckle  21:54  
you when you decided to go after that life science degree. Had you kind of given up on the nutrition idea, or was that still going to be your launching point into the Masters,

Amy Stiffarm  22:02  
I was interested in health because of that class that I took, knew I was interested in research, but I didn't really know what so my advisor, my my, one of my professors is SKC, he hired me as the laboratory manager. And so I helped manage the lab helped students in the lab. But he was constantly bugging me about applying to graduate school. And so was my mom. So between the both of them, they drove me crazy enough that I applied to University Montana School of Public Health, and I got in so I started about a year after I graduated, I started that program

Jennifer Van Syckle  22:40  
to get to like the Tribal College, can a non Indigenous person attend school there? Definitely.

Amy Stiffarm  22:46  
And I think that's the best thing about tribal colleges is, you know, that's where you learn some, like the federal Indian policies and what has really happened. And then you also get to learn, like, I think about my nursing class, and there were non Indigenous students there. And they were learning, you know, not just nursing principles and how to be a nurse, but they were learning about, like, that was a required course for them, they had to learn about caring for indigenous people, and you had to take cultural elective. So you had to learn about indigenous culture. And I think that's like, only fair, you know, we've had to learn all of this western science and all of this, all of our education is from, you know, a Eurocentric mindset. And so at a tribal college, yes, you learn the scientific methods and all of that, but I also learned about culture. And so for indigenous people, it's so important, I think, if you're going to work with tribal communities to have that background, so, and that's going to help me so much better for them when they're working in tribal communities. But even more important, it's going to be better for the tribal communities that they're serving.

Jennifer Van Syckle  23:54  
Well, and it's interesting, because, you know, Native Americans are our largest minority in the state of Montana. And I think there's a lot of want, I don't know if it's me personally, but I think there's a lot of want to know because now how do we how do we reach into these communities and help more like with chronic diseases? I feel like I see it, I've seen it in my day job, how do we help more? How do we you know, diabetes, tons of it in tribal communities, we're trying to we're trying to stem the tide everywhere in the US, how do we help what do we do and you know, same with diabetes prevention and different approaches are needed you know, maybe getting back to exactly like he talked about with nutrition and yeah, instead of promoting you know, let's use fake sugar you know, hey, let's go out and maybe it is these roots instead that we need to be using or these berries off the trees and that would be more accepted and but I feel like there is a lot of unsure because uncertainty in so many aspects of life because there's unknown you know, even just going I saw you at the Pow Wow and this last weekend, and I posted videos on my Facebook page, and I think I had six comments of oh my god, that would be so awesome. I've always wanted to go to one of those. But there's this fear of like, I'm not indigenous, is it okay for me to even go? Yeah, a lack of knowledge, which therefore brings in surety on how to proceed and how to go, you know. So I think that's awesome that I'm sitting here, I'm still a few years from college from my oldest, and I'm sitting here thinking, I think I'm gonna add tribal colleges to the list, because this would be fantastic. Yeah, it's great.

Amy Stiffarm  25:33  
And then even like, virtual options to like, I'm a big proponent of that, when I give presentations and stuff, I'm like, every reservation has a tribal college in the state, we are so incredibly lucky to have that. And so like, what if, you know, like, I don't think it's too big of a stretch to, for people to consider, you know, taking a class like looking and seeing if there are any courses that you could take online, and, you know, even looking at their libraries to see what kind of books they're recommending, I think there's a really good place. It's, they're great for indigenous people, but non Indigenous people to, and about the Pow Wow thing, it's funny, because we were just talking about this on a call of, you know, people living in Missoula, and not realizing like, they could go to Kyoto. And I think, for the most part, you know, if it's, if you weren't supposed to be there, you wouldn't hear about it, you know, like, like ceremonies and that that's very much like, within the community and pretty private, for the most part, not somewhere, somewhere where, like a non community member would just show up. But it'd be hard to find out about anyway, like, if you didn't know about it. But powwows, you know, they're advertised and they're, they're out in the community, if you see a flyer for an event, like a Pow Wow, it's because they want the community to go. And I will say like, that is, that's so important for like, as a native person, who a lot of my teachers were non native, a lot of the folks at Indian Health Service were non native. Like, we knew, we remembered the ones who came to our stuff, you know, the ones who came out there. It was, it was important to us, and I don't think we could, like explain that to somebody like, being a kid. But we It made us it made me feel more comfortable with somebody to know that they were they there wasn't a US in them kind of feeling like they were, you know, they supported, come watch me play basketball, but come watch me dance at the powwow too. I think like a lot of times, if it's, if it's advertised, you can totally go and especially if you have, you know, like our daughter's play on the soccer team. And so she got to watch my daughter dance. And you know, like, that's kind of that's building relationships. And that's building trust. And that's showing your daughter that are our daughters, that people are different and come from different backgrounds, but that they can still, that they're still still could be friends, and they still are team. And I think I think that's important. And even like to go a step further, if you are somebody who has funding or you know how to help, the solutions are in the communities. And when I was getting my graduate degree, I kind of felt like the vibe was let's learn about all these bad things. Like let's finally let's try to learn and let's try to help our let's try this. Let's try that. But now, after finishing my PhD, and in that program, it's very much like, what are the strengths already in the community? And what can we you know, when we're talking about like diabetes, like what, what's already worked, what what has already been sustaining wellbeing and tribal communities. You know, what, what was there before settler colonialism came and caused all this disruption in health, our traditional practices and our traditional foods, and so an outsider, or an outside researcher or an outside health organization isn't going to know that and so they need to be really intentional about investing in the community, sharing the resources and bringing in indigenous folks to lead projects and to help number one decide where what what issue they want to address, but to how they want to address it. So I'd say those are, those are some really big things that I think people are still learning. You know, it's kind of like, well, how can we help and education is important in that, you know, finding out like, what is the real history of the United States? What are the federal Indian policies that were enacted to, you know, first exterminate, then assimilate indigenous people and how Does that impact us today? You know, there are things that aren't ancient history that still are affecting people. And it's it's there, it shows in our health statistics and in these high rates of things like diabetes and mental health disparities, all of that. And you can trace those back to the history of what happened to indigenous people as the United States was being created. And so yeah, I think it is, it is scary. But there are places to start now, especially like the tribal college just learning I think is a great place to start. When I started my job before I started working for them, like full time as an employee, they hired me on contract because they wanted to do stuff in tribal communities. But they none of them were native. And they said, This is not us. Like we, we have the funding, and we would much rather hire an indigenous person to lead this work, not like hey, come be on our project and be on our poster. So people will trust us. But let's like we they valued like Indigenous ways of knowing and ways of being enough to understand that it's not them, like we'll hire an indigenous person to lead this project. And so that was how I first started working with the organization on my right now. And I think, I think more people need to do that.

Jennifer Van Syckle  31:25  
So you finally got the courage to go to U of M, you finally left your tribal indigenous population actually moved to Missoula and went to school? Well,

Amy Stiffarm  31:33  
I didn't have to move. It was an online program, okay. But I was officially in, in classes where, you know, I would be like, the only native sometimes. So that was hard. And I remember kind of feeling like, I'm not gonna bring up Native issues, like, I'm not gonna bring up anything like, I don't want to have to go and explain things. And I don't think that lasted very long, because it was always, just in my nature to if we're learning about, one of the first classes I took was maternal child health. And so if we're learning about a certain issue like gestational diabetes, then it was always in my nature to go and find the additional information that was specific to tribal communities and Native American populations. So I was kind of doing like all of that extra work. And so when I was in my graduate degree, so when I had my daughter's I had my head my oldest, that was when I really got inspired and interested in lactation, lactation rates and breastfeeding and all of that. I was scared. My baby was like a day old, like, I'm not doing it right. I don't know if I'm doing it right, was kind of a mess. And I called down to the Public Health Department, and like, within two hours, somebody was at my door, and they were like, showing me the different positions, and they were literally like, No, you're doing it like you're fine. And then after that, I was like, you know, I knew that nothing was wrong. Like I was doing it, and she was getting enough food and so that after that, like there were no more issues. Well, I went home to Fort Belknap, and my cousin had a baby shower for me. She was like, Oh, we just got back from Great Falls. She had just had a baby. And she had breastfed This was her third baby, and she breastfed all her babies. And her third baby was having issues with like a tongue tie. And they were like driving a Great Falls or driving like going back and forth. And I realized that in Fort Belknap, there was only one Certified Lactation Consultant for the whole reservation. And they were also like the WIC lady. And so she didn't have that she couldn't have someone come up to her house where she was like postpartum, and she didn't get that support. So I started looking, you know, I remember hearing like Native American breastfeeding rates are low. So I started kind of like looking into that. And nobody was really talking about that part about like, the morality of it and not having those kinds of supports, like it was just like that it was low. And I'm going to do everything we can to increase these breastfeeding rates or something. But it wasn't talking about the why. In my research on breastfeeding, I got introduced to Cami Goldhammers work and she was a social worker, who ibclc so it's like international breastfeeding lactation consultant, Certified Lactation Consultant. She was the first one who I ever remember linking low breastfeeding rates to assimilation efforts like boarding schools. And so she talked about how well Well let's think about this right. Let's go back a few generations and, you know, when you remove children From the family unit from the community, and you place them in these institutions without any of their family there, they're all kids, except for the adults, like no one's there, you know, taking care of babies or having babies, they don't get to see how their parents took care of their sibling, how did their parents feed their their siblings when they were born. Of course, we have low breastfeeding rates when you think about it that way. And so she also talked a lot about really strong points of promoting breastfeeding in indigenous communities. And one thing that she would say is like, breastfeeding, our lactation is food sovereignty. And when we think of like our first foods, and we're thinking of food sovereignty, milk medicine is very much a part of that.

Jennifer Van Syckle  35:51  
You've got my boy, my wheels are turning here. I mean, yeah, on so many aspects, it's fantastic. And the breastfeeding with my own personal experience, massive amount of guilt, massive amount of guilt, I remember struggling I remember being in tears, and working so many years and ultrasound, I remember I would literally give patients a bottle boxes, sampler formula, and I would say do not feel guilty Fed is best. This idea, the milk medicine, maybe would help with that guilt would help were like, to me that just feels better in my brain, even as a non Indigenous person for that, and if it would help that guilt and if it would help the messaging not only in tribal populations, but everywhere, but all across Montana.

Amy Stiffarm  36:39  
Yeah, and that's, I think that's a big thing, too. Like, as a as like a learning about that and becoming a big advocate for breastfeeding and whatnot. It was always about helping people, making sure like, I wasn't ever blaming one person for you know, I know so much about the odds, and all of these things that like can go wrong. And it's more about like helping the systems setting people up for success and not, you know, definitely not shaming anybody but being supportive and coming back to some communities who, because of assimilation efforts, and, you know, they call it epistemiside or, you know, this, this destroying of traditional knowledge that happened, you know, coming back to communities that weren't aware of, you know, the importance or that kind of first food teaching of milk medicine and not really being as supportive of an even making it harder, like being, like, making people feel like they had to be modest or like it was not modest to like feed your baby whenever they were hungry. And so there were a lot of like, other barriers, like systematic barriers, that Cami's work, and you know, kind of how she taught about how she teaches about helping and being. She's like a Shiro for maternal child health for indigenous people. But it was always about the systems. It was never, it was my helping the mothers who wanted it or birthing people who wanted it. And not, you know, it was never about like shaming anybody, but just helping people be aware of the systematic barriers and looking at ways to improve those. Absolutely. And

Jennifer Van Syckle  38:29  
I can see where change is definitely, definitely needed. We're going to take a pause right there in Amy's story, but don't worry, she's back in our next episode. And on behalf of myself and the podcast team behind the scenes, we want to thank Amy for sharing her story with us and spending time with you today as well. If you would like any information on what you heard today, visit our website at Talkinghealthinthe406.mt.gov. Until next time, take care

Transcribed by https://otter.ai