Introducing the Panel and Today's Topic

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I am your co Host for today, Dr. John Delind. I am joined, as always nowadays, by my co host, Kara Burrell. Hey, Kara.

Guest 2 [00:00:12] Hey, John.

John Dehlin [00:00:12] So glad you're joining us.

Guest 2 [00:00:14] Yep, two live streams in one day. We're pumped. We're ready.

John Dehlin [00:00:17] We are crazy. We're doing a two for today, and that's just because I'm going on vacation soon and this was a too important of a topic to not address. It is July 19, and we are here to talk about a super interesting and important topic. Some of you who follow Mormon Stories podcast closely will remember that a few years ago we did a series called Losing the Lamanites where we interviewed several Mormons or ex Mormons who were raised in the LDS Church, who were either are either Native Americans or Latinos or Latinas. I think we interviewed five or six different people. For me, it's one of the things I'm most proud of and it's one of the most important topics that we could cover on Mormon Stories podcast. And following that vein, and of course, bringing back two Mormon stories, we are bringing back Sarah Newcomb, who was one of the people that we interviewed originally during that series of Losing the Lamanites. And we had Sarah back at the Thrive Conference as well. So Sarah is no stranger to Mormon Stories podcast. Sarah, we're so happy to have you.

Sarah Newcomb [00:01:24] Hi. Thank you. Glad to be here.

John Dehlin [00:01:26] Sarah is the reason why we're doing this. She organized this panel and she also has been doing work, kind of social media work, around advocacy for Native American Mormons and ex Mormons. Sarah, do you want to talk about that just really quickly before we introduce our guests?

The Lamanite Truth Blog Origins

Sarah Newcomb [00:01:44] Yeah. I run the Lamanite Truth blog and it started about a year after I left the church. So back in 2017. And I just because of the experience I had, I kept looking for information on people that had left the church that had been labeled as Lamanite. And I couldn't find anything anywhere. So I started, yeah, writing a blog and kind of discussing all the theology and experiences and trying to see if I could just highlight. Highlight an issue that definitely needs attention, definitely needs talked about, and it's still current. And that's what a lot of people don't realize is that Native Americans are still being taught that they're Lamanites and that the Book of Mormons, their history in the missionary programs and from church officials.

Guests Introduce Themselves and Their Backgrounds

John Dehlin [00:02:44] So, Sarah, tell us about what was the impetus for creating this panel today, what you wanted to cover? And then why don't you go ahead and introduce. Allow our two guests to introduce themselves. But we'll start with the gleam, the glimmer in your eye of what you wanted this episode to be and why.

Sarah Newcomb [00:03:02] Well, a few years ago, I want to say it was in 2019, we did a panel on Mormon Stories podcast. And I was on a panel with three. Three Native American men. And it was amazing. There's just something very healing about hearing other people's stories that were similar to mine. But I kept thinking, we need ladies, we need more women, because there's also, like, that healing space of having other Native American women that have a different perspective and different views, being able to hear their voices and. And highlight those voices. So I. Yeah, I just really wanted a group of ladies since then. Since we did that group podcast.

John Dehlin [00:03:46] Love it. Love it. Okay, well, that. I think that brings us to our two additional panelists. We have Monica and Ann joining us. So, Monica and Ann, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast.

Monica Crowfoot [00:04:02] Thanks for having me.

Ann [00:04:03] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:04:04] Monica, why don't you go first and introduce yourself, and then Anne will have you introduce yourself.

Monica Crowfoot [00:04:08] Okay. So I'm Monica Crowfoot. I grew up on the Navajo reservation in a small rural town called Window Rock. And my mom was on the placement program, and she grew up with a family in St. George. And my dad was in boarding school in the US Residential schools. They were both converts. And my dad went on a mission when he was 24, and he got married in the temple. And so I'm born under the covenant. But, yeah, we grew up in the church. I grew up in the church. My dad was bishop and held several state callings. And it wasn't until George Lee was excommunicated that my. My parents both decided to leave. So George Lee actually. Just

John Dehlin [00:05:10] tell us the story of George Lee for those who don't know.

Monica Crowfoot [00:05:13] So I was quite young. I was only 12 years old when. When all this happened. But so George Lee was actually. Had actually been my dad's mission president. So they were really close friends. And George Lee at this time was in the quorum of the 70, I believe, and he was the only Native American in that hive leader, leadership. So it was a really big deal for a lot of Native Americans at the time.

Sarah Newcomb [00:05:40] So

John Dehlin [00:05:42] representation, Right, to have that representation.

Monica Crowfoot [00:05:45] Exactly. And it was almost that, I guess, prophecy of Lamanites blossoming as a rose because we finally had representation in higher leadership. So, you know, people were really excited. We're becoming more righteous and redeemed from this Lamanite curse. Right. So.

John Dehlin [00:06:11] And, Monica, if I can Just tell me if I'm right about this. Having grown up in the 70s and 80s, I like when Spencer W. Kimball was prophet, the Lamanites was probably his primary focus, just like the Book of Mormon became Ezra Taft Benson's focus. Spencer W. Kimball, even before he became prophet, he was just always beating the metaphorical Lamanite drum. And there was a good reason for that, because if you look at the title page of the Book of Mormon, the Book of Mormon was primarily written for the Native Americans. And so it was doctrinally and theologically consistent that the church would really, really, really care about Native Americans. Right. And Spencer W. Kimball was kind of the culmination of that, am I right?

Monica Crowfoot [00:06:55] Exactly. And so I, you know, growing up in, I guess in the later 80s, you know, still being a child, I didn't, I didn't know all of the gospel doctrine. But my parents, I think Spencer W. Kimball was a prophet while they were going to byu. So it was a huge thing. I remember having this Spencer W. Kimball statue in our home is just this little statue because of the Indian program that they were implementing. And so my parents had one and I've actually seen a lot of those in different native households. But he, I guess in my parents generation he was very admired and looked up to, you know, knowing what I know now, I'm not sure why, but it was almost this chasing redemption type thing. They really wanted to blossom as a rose. And that was a huge slogan put forth for my parents. And you know, the whole skin whitening and, and whiteness and delightsomeness was really huge. And growing up, I guess not so

Guest [00:08:21] much

Monica Crowfoot [00:08:23] for myself, like hearing it directly from the prophets because I was so young. But you know, my parents hearing it from the prophet and then in turn, like that's how they raised us. So growing up we were believed, we were taught to believe that our culture was bad and our forefathers were wicked and if we were righteous enough, then our skin would lighten. So my mom's family, she had, there were nine kids in total in her family and, and all nine of them went on the placement program. And so the Indian placement program was a program implemented by the church. It was an assimilation program, much like the Catholic Church and their residential schools. So basically natives had one choice. They could send their children to government run boarding schools where they were assimilated, their hair was chopped off, they were treated horribly, starved, abused, all kinds of horrors, murdered. You know, they're, they're finding so many graveyards at the schools now. These unmarked graveyards and so the Catholic Church implemented these boarding schools and ran these boarding schools, while the LDS and Mormon Church ran the Indian placement program, which basically assimilated Native American children as soon as they, I think as soon as they were baptized, they could live with a white Mormon family, mostly in Utah. My, my aunts and uncles, they were all from Loop, Arizona and kind of scattered across Utah Valley, St. George. They were all over the place. And I, I actually found some of their letters. And I think one of my uncles was as young as five and he was very homesick writing to his siblings, you know, because they couldn't see each other while they were in these programs.

The Indian Placement Program and Cultural Genocide

John Dehlin [00:10:38] My stomach is already in knots and

Guest 2 [00:10:40] I, you know, we've only 10 minutes in.

Guest [00:10:44] Yes.

Monica Crowfoot [00:10:45] Yeah. It was really heartbreaking because you hear so often, and I've kind of received a lot of backlash for speaking out against this, but you hear so often about how wonderful the Indian placement program was. And it's a double edged sword because on the one hand they're taken away from their families, they're separated from their siblings, they're assimilated in these white Mormon households. Some of them are sexually abused, some of them are physically abused, some of them are treated as like. Some of them received great education, some of them were treated nicely. So it was just kind of this random luck of the draw on what kind of family you would get. So when I bring those things up of the good and the bad people, you know, native people who are all in Mormon, they tend to become very defensive and say, well, that didn't happen to everybody. Or the abuse rate was lower than the Catholic than what happened at the Catholic residential schools. But the thing is, abuse is abuse. If somebody is raped on the Indian placement program by the bishop or by their, their host families or the host siblings, it's the same. It's the same abuse. Sexual assault is sexual assault. Physical abuse is physical abuse. So it, it's really sad that people have tried to downplay what happened, what actually happened during these programs.

John Dehlin [00:12:30] Yeah, yeah. Not, you know, and just because. Oh, go ahead, Sarah, please.

Sarah Newcomb [00:12:36] Oh, I was just going to add because of the research I've done and the people I've listened to that have talked to me about it. There's also the spiritual abuse, and I don't want to ignore how deep that actually was. So children that were part of this program were told that like part of their education was assimilation, was saying, you're not, this isn't your heritage, you're actually Lamanite. And so when they would go home to their family during the summer. They were told, do not participate in ceremonies. Do not dance. Do the dancing. Do not do the powwows, because those are all traditions of your father's turning away from God. And so Native American traditions were kind of demonized with the children. So the children, some of the people I've listened to, one lady in particular said that it felt like she had to lie. Like, when she'd get home, she'd participate so that she didn't make her family sad. But when she would go back to the placement program because her family wanted her to get an education, so she'd have to go back to, you know, kind of make her parents proud or make her family proud, she'd go back to the placement program, and then she'd have to lie there about, no, I didn't participate in dancing. And not everybody kept that a secret. Like, there were people that were kicked from the program for simply being Native American with their spirituality and everything. But most people also don't realize that Native Americans didn't have religious freedom until 1978. Like, people were being arrested still at that point. And just because the American Indian Religious Freedom act happened in 1978, even after that, there was still a lot of religious persecution, which can actually still continue today. But. So I just wanted to throw in that side of spiritual abuse also.

John Dehlin [00:14:40] Thank you.

Guest 2 [00:14:40] Wow. Intense. Yeah. We're going back to Monica.

George P. Lee and a Untold Mormon Story

John Dehlin [00:14:45] Yeah. Monica, you were going to. You were going to mention what happened to George P. Lee. And that story's never been told, I don't think, on Mormon Stories podcast. So. So Kimball calls him to be a general authority.

Sarah Newcomb [00:14:56] He.

John Dehlin [00:14:57] He's the. The charismatic, you know, laymanite, Quote, laymanite, a Native American general authority. And you were saying that what happened to him impacted your parents. Why don't you just tell us whatever you want to about that story?

Monica Crowfoot [00:15:13] Definitely. So, really quick with what Sarah was saying. I. So growing up, I didn't learn my language, I didn't learn my culture. All of that was very kind of thrown out the window. My. My parents really wanted us to focus on us being laymanites, us being Mormons, and that was the most important thing.

John Dehlin [00:15:36] So when George, is that called cultural genocide just for those who are trying to understand these terms?

Monica Crowfoot [00:15:43] Absolutely. Because you. You begin to self love yourself, you know, you self loathe you. You hate who you are. You. You're taught to hate who your people are. You hate the traditions and ceremonies, and you're taught that it's savage and dirty. And you know, not of God or not of Christ.

Sarah Newcomb [00:16:05] And you think that these are in the past, but I've had, just this year I had a missionary tell me that ceremonies were tradition. Like Native American ceremony is the remnant of Native American ancestors turning away from God and becoming unrighteous. So we're talking about children in the placement program, but it's still believed by members today. It's still current.

John Dehlin [00:16:32] And tell me if I'm wrong. It's not just about the damage that's done by thinking that you have a problematic or a bad heritage. There's also a positive psychology aspect. I mean, any Mormon would know, isn't it great to know about your pioneer ancestors and how that gives you strength and it gives you a sense of identity and meaning and purpose and multi generational solidarity. It's not just that you live feeling like your ancestors are, quote, bad, which is of course the most awful thing, but you also are deprived of the multi generational connection and, and pride and culture and identity that can be so affirming. Am I right?

Sarah Newcomb [00:17:20] Yeah, that definitely was the case for me. Like, I'm Tim Tian from the First Nations. My people are up in Alaska. And when I'd go home, like, I was told not to join in the dancing. And I, you know, growing up and being told you're Lamanite, you know why you're not supposed to join in the ceremonies, you know, why your people's skin is a little darker. And, and so it definitely affected my identity with not feeling like, like I had to choose. I couldn't be Tsim Tian. I couldn't learn the traditions, I couldn't learn the language. I couldn't. I didn't need to ask my elders for, for any information or stories, you know, about how or where we came from. Why ask them where we came from when I'm being told the Book of Mormon is my people's history?

Monica Crowfoot [00:18:07] Yeah, yeah. I mean, in, in my wards, it was 90% Navajo, 90% Native. And so even in our stake, it was 90% Native. And all throughout the, you know, sacrament meetings or conferences, we would have people say, you have to choose. You can't be Navajo and Mormon. You can only, you know, you have to choose one or the other.

John Dehlin [00:18:33] Yeah, that's sad.

Monica Crowfoot [00:18:35] But yeah, getting back to George Lee, he appeared on our doorstep and asked my dad for help. And my dad was really surprised about what was going on. And, you know, there were a series of talks and he ended up moving into our house. And my dad helped his family move into one of our properties that had, was empty at the time.

John Dehlin [00:19:01] So what can you tell us about what happened?

Monica Crowfoot [00:19:05] So I remember, I, I mean from a 12 year old standpoint, I just remember that he was on trial for molesting a 12 year old girl.

Guest [00:19:18] Girl.

Monica Crowfoot [00:19:19] And I don't remember how that trial went out, but I do remember these talks with my parents. And he had said that the church was trying to frame him and get him kicked out because there was all, all these, all this racism going on, that the church had billions in stocks. And I think those are the two things that I, I kind of clung on to because they, he knew his scriptures really well and you know, they would have these Sunday meetings instead of going to church. And so we, we weren't part of the meetings as children. We kind of just, we didn't really know what was going on. But my parents ended up asking for their names to be removed from, from church records.

John Dehlin [00:20:16] I would love to have a historian or someone who really has tried to track down all the information. Let me just tell you a couple of the dynamics I'm aware of. One is that Kimball dies at some point and Ezra Taft Benson does not carry on the passion and the commitment to the Native Americans and Lamanites, which from your perspective, you might even argue that's a good thing, that maybe they're being left alone a little bit more. But anyway, the church clearly pivots after Spencer W. Kimball dies to be caring about and talking about Native Americans less, which I heard upset George P. Lee because he's like, wait a minute, why all of a sudden are we forgotten? Why was it like a really important thing and now we're kind of forgotten and it's not important. And so there was that dynamic. Yeah. And then George P. Lee, there were questions about whether he was losing his faith or questioning his faith, starting to talk about things that made the brethren uncomfortable. And then there was this whole strain of was he engaging in abuse and, or was that him being framed? Because it would be super embarrassing for a general authority to lose their faith and, or start questioning and criticizing church leaders. And I don't, I have no idea what the truth of all that is. But I'm just saying those are some of the strange of the dynamics that I've heard mentioned in the past. Does that even sound remotely possible, Monica?

Monica Crowfoot [00:21:49] Definitely. And so, you know, I don't feel comfortable speaking what is true and what is not because I, you know, as I was saying, I was 12 years old at the time, so I just heard all of these Rumors. But what I do know is that for the next three years, my parents were very close with George and his wife and his. And his children. And they. These.

Guest [00:22:21] Well, he started this new,

Monica Crowfoot [00:22:26] I guess, following every Sunday, you know, the adults would go. And so he proclaimed himself to be the new Lamanite Seer that was prophesied in the Book of Mormon. And because he knew his scriptures really well, he was able to say, you know, here and here and here talks about Lamanites blossoming as a rose and us leading the Gentiles. And so he proclaimed himself as the Lamanite Seer. And they. They would have meetings either at our home in Window rock or in St. George, and they started having their own sacrament and I guess trying to be more. A more pure version of the church, kind of like, you know, the Church of Christ and their foundational beliefs, I

John Dehlin [00:23:26] think almost like a Native American Denver snuffer, basically kind of becoming more fundamentalist and yes, claiming. Claiming his own authority and in that sense, bucking traditional patriarchal male lines of authority. That's not going to sit well with the brethren.

Monica Crowfoot [00:23:45] Exactly. And so at the end of these three years, my dad didn't feel quite comfortable anymore attending, especially because George had just divorced his wife and he was encouraging others at his meetings to divorce their spouses because you're supposed to sacrifice everything and give your whole life to God and.

John Dehlin [00:24:22] Starting to sound cool. That starts to sound cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Monica Crowfoot [00:24:25] And so, you know, out of one culty thing to another culty thing.

Guest [00:24:32] But yeah.

Monica Crowfoot [00:24:35] So my parents, they kind of had a falling out with George. And it wasn't until December 1996 when my brother died just three days after Christmas. George came during the funeral and he said, okay, let me back up a few. So I guess. So my brother died. There was a huge outpouring from our old ward because they had kind of ghosted us once we left the church, but there's a huge outpouring from our old ward. And it was. There were these two sides. One side was saying, well, you know, your son died so you could get back on the straight, narrow path. Your son died so he could. You guys could all come back to the Mormon Church and go to heaven and see him again and live with him forever. And on this other side, George came and said, well, God took your son because you stepped back into the Mormon Church. So my poor parents, you know, and I didn't see the manipulation until, you know, I became an adult. But it was very manipulative and it. It seems to be very Manipulative. Anytime somebody dies, it's almost like these vultures come and they say, oh, you have to come back to our church. Or you have. See, that's why we are in this church, because this is the only church that has a true gospel where you can, you know, be with your families forever and, you know, even in death. So, so it was, it was really this, like, tug of war with my parents. And we did decide to go back to church shortly after that. I, I was 15 at the time when we decided to go back to church. So they went back, they did go back and they stayed. And so when my dad left and when George left and they left within, I mean, pretty, pretty close, but they, they all, when they both left, there was a huge exodus from the native community. A lot of the natives also left the church once they found out George left. And then once they found out my dad left because he was a huge pillar in the native community and, you know, had held leadership positions in the church. And, and so actually even my in laws in Canada, they had heard about my dad leaving the church. They kind of questioned when George left and said, oh, should we, should we leave? And then they heard my dad left the church and that really shook them and they said, well, if, if he's leaving, who, you know, this person who's such a strong person in the native community, maybe we should leave too. And a lot of people, they didn't end up leaving, but a lot of other people did. So when my, when my dad did go back to church, they. My dad had this guilt complex and felt like it was his fault that his son died, that maybe if he never left the Mormon church, his son would still be alive, which is a really terrible thing because, you know, bad things just happen. And the church uses these bad things to, as a way to control people out of fear. If you leave the church, something bad is going to happen. And we've all kind of felt that and we, you know, we've all kind of experienced that. I feel like people just kind of wait for something bad to happen to you to say, oh, see, you shouldn't have left the church. Now they're going to come back because they were compelled to be humbled.

John Dehlin [00:28:52] Mm. It's called blame reversal. And it's, it's a very unpleasant part of being in a high demand religion.

Monica Crowfoot [00:29:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:29:01] And abusive. What was your dad's name? What's your dad's name? Just so that people can. Just for history's sake.

Monica Crowfoot [00:29:08] Well, I'm probably not. He's he's still in the church.

John Dehlin [00:29:13] Okay.

Guest [00:29:14] Okay.

Monica Crowfoot [00:29:14] Yeah. So I'd rather not.

John Dehlin [00:29:18] I respect that. Okay.

Guest [00:29:19] Well.

John Dehlin [00:29:20] So, Monica, were you raised lds, kind of traditional, orthodox LDS then?

Monica Crowfoot [00:29:26] I was. I was raised lds. We were very hardcore Mormon. Went to church every Sunday. My parents were married in the temple. When they left the church, they had to wait a year to get baptized. And then they went to see Richard. What's his face?

Ann [00:29:46] I don't know.

Monica Crowfoot [00:29:46] One of the Richard Scott apostles. Yeah, him. And so we went up to his office. He performed the restoration of blessings there for their temple marriage and, you know, priesthood blessings. So

John Dehlin [00:30:01] all I can say is I'm sure the church was super thrilled to get your parents back in the church.

Monica Crowfoot [00:30:07] Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately.

Personal Stories of Growing Up Native and Mormon

John Dehlin [00:30:14] All right. And should we bring you in now to tell a bit about your early Mormon story? Thank you, Monica. That's.

Sarah Newcomb [00:30:22] Yeah, thank you, Monica.

John Dehlin [00:30:23] Really, such important history. Thank you for being willing to share so far.

Monica Crowfoot [00:30:28] Yeah, you're welcome.

Ann [00:30:29] Yeah. That was beautiful, Monica.

Sarah Newcomb [00:30:31] Beautiful.

Ann [00:30:33] So my story starts. Starts. I was born in Shiprock, New Mexico, right there on the Navajo reservation. However, when I was just a few days old, I was adopted. I was adopted by parents in Orem, Utah. Now, this was a time in the 70s, you can imagine Orem, Utah, was very, very white. And. And so I was being adopted by white parents. I had an older brother and sister that are also white. And here I am, this little brown girl amongst all the white. And so in the 70s, it was very difficult being raised in pretty much an all white society. Like, I was the only little brown girl in school. I was the only little brown girl in primary. I was. It was just me. And so. And there's a whole other discussion about adoption and cross cultural race adoption. But because I was raised by white parents in Orem, Utah, you know, I didn't know any of my culture. I didn't know any of my heritage. I love my parents a lot, and they did their best to try and expose me to different things about my culture and heritage. So we'd go see the Lamanite generation every year.

John Dehlin [00:32:15] Tell us what that was, because that's important.

Ann [00:32:19] So it was kind of like almost like Lamanite BYU Young Ambassadors. So they would get dressed in traditional dress and perform and they would sing. And they'd always end their performance by singing I'm a child of God. And at the time, it was supposed to help Lamanite people be proud of who they were and their heritage. You look back on it now, and it was super cringey because it was yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:52] Why was it cringy? Tell us why. Tell us why that's cringy.

Ann [00:32:55] Well, because it was put on by white people that, you know, wrote the script, did the whole entire thing, and it was just almost like capitalizing on. We're holding up these little laymanite poster kids, you know, and look at them. And it's cool to be a Lamanite. And, yeah, they sold the worst kinds of little trinkets after the show, like little headbands, feathers.

Guest [00:33:30] Just.

Ann [00:33:32] It was so cringy.

Sarah Newcomb [00:33:33] So an. When you were learning about culture, you weren't learning about your Navajo culture. You were being taught Lamanite. So is that so?

Being Taught the Lamanite Identity as a Child

Ann [00:33:48] My parents did try to expose me to as many Lamanite slash Navajo people that they could. But, you know, my parents are white, so I learned my ancestry and learned about their family, you know, and their families were pioneers that came across the plains. And so it was this really weird juxtaposition position to be. To be in. I mean, there was no hiding that I was brown, and there was no hiding that I was different than my parents. And it was always spoken that I was adopted. But it was really difficult because in the 70s, there were not a lot of cultural opportunities available. If anything happened like a powwow, my parents would take me Lamanite generation. But I was taught straight from the Book of Mormon. My parents were very orthodox, and we read the Book of Mormon my whole entire life. I don't know how many times we've read it as a family. We'd get up every morning and read the scriptures. So I was taught that I was a Lamanite. But I remember. I'm not even sure how old I was, but I remember learning about the Lamanites having cursed dark skin. And even as, like, a little child, I was mortified. And I was like, mom, why? Like, this is cursed. And my mom was like, ann, you're beautiful. You've got beautiful brown skin.

Monica Crowfoot [00:35:33] Skin.

Ann [00:35:34] We don't know why the scriptures say it, and we don't know exactly what that means. We'll find out someday. But you're beautiful and perfect just as you are, and I love you. I'm proud that you're Navajo. But from that point on, I remember hating my skin color. I wanted to be just like my mom, just like my dad, just like my older brother and sister and. And just like all my peers. And I remember once I learned that story, singing Lamanite, our Book of Mormon stories in primary. And I was so mad at that scripture of having cursed Skin that I was rebellious. I was like a probably 7 years old, and I'm like, I'm not going to sing the words to that song ever again. So I would mouth the words in Primary, but I was not going to sing it because that was terrible, that my skin was cursed. And because I was the token Lamanite, I was pointed out all the time.

Sarah Newcomb [00:36:44] Look at Ann.

Ann [00:36:44] She's a Lamanite. Look, she has brown skin. Ann's a Lamanite. Do you want to come up and do the actions for us in Primary? It was terrible. And I remember thinking, I don't have feathers in my hair, and I don't cross my arms and go like that. Like, this is so wrong. And so seriously, from that point in time, I never sang it. And I play the piano. So quite often I was called as a primary pianist or a primary chorister, and I absolutely refused to sing that song.

Guest 2 [00:37:21] Good for you.

Ann [00:37:23] I'm not gonna sing it. And actually, one of our friends, we were in a ward in Springville, and a great guy, film professor at byu, but he was a pianist, and he was subbing for Primary that day, and one of the kids wanted to sing Book of Mormon stories, and he said, no, absolutely not. This white guy stands up and he gives the. Kill the kids this lesson about why it is culturally insensitive and it's so wrong and it's not appropriate. And he's like, I won't play it. And I thought, okay, if Dean can do that, I'm gonna do it, too. So from then on, I refuse to play that song or sing that song in Primary. So I just kind of had this really different view of being a layman. I just. Because I hated the skin curse and I wanted to look and be like everybody else. I was such a shy child that being pointed out as the different one, it was. It was mortifying for me. I hated it.

Sarah Newcomb [00:38:38] That happened to me, too, Ann. Like, you're talking. I almost started crying, like, just picturing you, picturing you go through all that. It's. Yeah, I'm a bit emotional still.

John Dehlin [00:38:51] Do you want to tell your own story, Sarah? Do you want to share your own story?

Sarah Newcomb [00:38:54] Because I just wanted Ann to know she's not alone. Like, yeah, I. I wasn't raised around other Native American members. You know, I had my siblings, but I was a lot younger than them. And so I was always alone in primary. I was alone in school. And the same thing happened to me where they'd be like, and Sarah is a Lamanite, and that song was also hard for me because I, you know, when you, when you sing the words for those that don't remember Book of Mormon stories that my teacher tells to me all about the Lamanites in ancient history. Long ago, their fathers came from far across the sea, given the land, if they lived righteously and so like that, if I understood what it meant, I understood that my ancestors supposedly, you know, this mythical Lamanite story, but it was real to me at the time, was my ancestors didn't live righteously. And so that's why we lost our promised land. Like the Book of Mormon warns, you know, people. But so when I was in primary, I had the same problem with singing that song. And, you know, you're the only Native American in the room, and I just, you know, doing all the motions and everybody around you doesn't understand how it affects you. And when you're pointed out, I remember freezing. And like, my tendency when I'm really uncomfortable is to smile. And I remember being, yeah, seven, eight years old, you know, long dark hair down to my waist and just freezing when they were like. And Sarah's a laymanite and they're talking about the skin curse, you know, issues and like, teaching about the Lamanites and where they came from. And I just remember freezing. And that happened in. All through. All through my experience, you know, whether it was seminary or Sunday school or. Yeah, so you're not alone, Ann. I get it.

Ann [00:40:57] Thank you.

Monica Crowfoot [00:40:58] It was interesting, you know, listening to your perspectives, because I grew up all natives, and so you have this whole room of brown kids singing that song. The brown tennis teacher, the brown chorister, you know, the brown teacher, the brown primary teacher, all natives. And we're all. We've all just kind of accepted. Accepted this fact that we are cursed. And we've accepted this fact that we need to be redeemed to change our skin to whiteness and delightsomeness. And we all did the motions, all of these little brown kids who. And Navajos don't wear feathers, and Navajos also don't do any of the motions in the song, but we did the motions in the song. And I feel like, you know, it still had this effect of teaching us self loathing, but also self discrimination in this way that, well, we're partaking of the gospel, so we're better than everybody else on the reservation who isn't Mormon. We're going to be redeemed. We're going to be lightened. We know the truth of the gospel. We're going to the celestial kingdom, and they aren't. So it almost, it was this, it created this prejudice against our own people because of that. And it was more this, I think, event that was going to happen because I remember our young women's teacher said we were, we were on our way to the temple and we had this picnic and she was like, rubbing her arms and she's like, isn't it so sad that we're going to lose our beautiful brown skin? And, you know, I think that was the first time it really hit me that, wait, this is actually going to happen. We're, we're not going to be, you know, we're not going to have our brown skin, and our brown skin is really bad. And this is, this is an event that we're looking forward to.

Sarah Newcomb [00:43:13] Yeah, I had some of that, like, prejudice too, like where, you know, I'm, I'm around just white kids like Ann was. And, you know, I had friends. I loved my, you know, the people around me, but I definitely had that, that awareness and self loathing with, with how I was taught as a kid. I was like, always told, stay out of the sun, you're getting too dark. And then of course, the don't Joan in the dancing when you go home. And so I was very aware that the cultural aspect of, like, silencing and shaming me was there. But then I'd go home and I'd be like, I'm the one that's in the right church. I'm going to be redeemed. And there is that aspect of. That's why you can't be both. You can't be Tsimshian and Lamanite. I had to choose because culturally you're not allowed to be Tsimshian. You know, you're not allowed to be whatever tribe you're from. But there was that, Yeah, I hate, I hate the word prejudice. But that was. What was so hard after I left is I was like, oh, my gosh. I was taught to hate my own people or not hate, but at least be ashamed and think less of, of who I was and where I came from. So I had, I had a little bit of that too, Monica, because it's just, it's kind of hard to escape when you're being taught that culturally your people's religious traditions were wrong, they were bad, they were evil, and as a result, they were marked with dark skin. So everybody knew that they'd spiritually turned away from God and then they lost the land. And like, all of that, on some level, you're just aware of it because that's like the core of your identity. You can't say this is your, the history of your people and not expect us to like react as if it's real history. Like I was taught I'd be white. At least in the resurrection, you know, I'd be resurrected white. So I don't know. And I, I loved my skin, but then I also like was so ashamed of it. You know, it's just this weird clash of feelings and as a child, you don't, you don't know what to do with that.

Ann [00:45:31] Exactly. When I was probably about 8 years old, 7, 8, I remember this primary teacher, sweetest lady, but we were going doing the Book of Mormon, second Nephi, talking about the scriptures, white and delights of loathsome skin, curse, etc. And of course she points me out, so, so Ann is a Lamanite, boys and girls. Can you see her brown skin? That means that she's a Lamanite. But here in this scripture, it tells us, Ann, that if you're righteous and if you keep the commandments, your skin can become white like ours. I was so excited because I had never really picked up on that in reading as a family. It was always early morning and I was always half asleep, sleep. So I was so excited and I'm like, sister primary teacher has told me this, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna be so righteous. So I went home and I tried really hard to be nice to my siblings. And that night when I said my prayers, I'm like, heavenly Father, I chose the right all day long, you please make my skin white. And I went to bed with all the faith of a seven year old child, thinking that in the morning my skin would be white. And I woke up, looked at my arm and it was brown. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna double down today. I'm really going to do amazing things. I'm gonna play with my sister, I'm gonna help my mom do, you know, whatever. And I just made this extra effort, like I'm gonna be so, so good. I'm going to keep every commandment today. And I said my prayers, I said, heavenly Father, I've been really, really good today. Will you please, please make my skin white? I want to look like my mom, I want to look like my dad, I want to look like my friends, I want to look like my older brother and sister, please. And I went to bed and I woke up the next morning and sure enough, I had brown skin. So we Were getting ready for school and I just started crying. And my mom said, ann, what's wrong? What's wrong? And I told her about, you know, the primary teacher and the primary lesson and how she said that if I kept the commandments, my skin could become white like yours. I want to look like you. I want to have white skin. Skin like you. It says in the scriptures I can be white and delightsome. And my mom was shocked at first and then she just put her arms around me and again just reassured me. And you're Navajo. You're beautiful. You've got beautiful skin. Your primary teacher was not correct when she said that we, again, we don't know when this person promise will happen, but you're perfect and beautiful just as you are. And needless to say, she had words with that primary teacher. She got really, really mad. But that self loathing, that self hatred is so damaging to the psyche of a child. And growing up around all white people, it. It just was really, really hard. And it wasn't until I, I became an adult that I actually came to accept that I was Navajo, that I was a Lamanite. Because this was back when I was a believing Mormon, I was a Lamanite, and I needed to be proud of my heritage. And when I was a little girl, I really, really, really always wanted to marry a brown boy. But there were no brown boys. And luckily in my early 20s, I found a brown boy, a Navajo brown boy. And I married him. So he has been my teacher and he has taught me. And I'm so grateful that I got to marry my brown boy. But yes, teaching children that their skin is cursed is so damaging.

Teaching Children Their Skin Is Cursed

Sarah Newcomb [00:50:13] That's. I am trying not to cry again, but. That's why I speak out. It's hard not to like, just want to hug you and picturing you as a little seven year old and having to go through that.

Ann [00:50:42] Thank you. Thank you.

Sarah Newcomb [00:50:47] And like, as a mom having children, It's like I kind of buried it all. Like, you know, at, in my teens, I'd been faced with having to choose. I was, I don't know, I was 11, 12 maybe. Might not have been a teenager yet, but I was visiting in, in Metlakahtla and I, I was so excited because I was wanting to join in the dancing. I was old enough. But then I knew I wasn't supposed to. And I remember just sneaking into the lodge and watching the dancers and I was like, okay, I have to choose. That's when I realized I had to choose between my Tsuncian heritage and being Lamanite. And I was like, I have to. You know, my people need redeemed. And there's, like, all that pressure to make sure that you're doing what God wants. And I remember actively choosing Mormonism and being Lamanite, letting go of everything. And it's like, at that point, I just kind of stuffed. Stuffed it all down. And, you know, you internalize a lot. Just like, as a female, you internalize a lot of the sexism in church, and you just, oh, this is. This is all okay. Everything's okay. It does. You know, you just kind of internalize and stuff down anything that's uncomfortable. And I did that with the Lamanite racism and cultural shaming and skin shaming. I just stuffed it down and I just ignored it. But the thing is, is once women have children, like, things totally shifted, and suddenly everything mattered to me. And I was like, how am I going to help my kids navigate all of these things without them feeling as much pain as I did? And, you know, and that was some of my leaving journey, too, was how can I teach all these children things that are whitewashed or untrue? And I was trying to make it work because I didn't want to leave because, like, you know, all my family, they're still all in. And there's just this. It's just kind of heartbreaking to have your whole world fall apart. Yet it's also so healing. Like, I'm glad I took the path I did because there's been so much healing with my. My Native American family, my Tsuncian family, and with my children. But as a mom, before I get sidetracked, going back to you, Ann, like, kids are still being taught this. People think it's in the past. And I'm like, the. The seminary manual specifies skin color, like the teacher's manual when it says. And it's trying to give the teachers, like, how to, you know, handle. You know, here's this conversation. If this comes up, this is your answer. And it specifies skin. So no matter what apologist or people want to say, oh, we don't know if it's skin or not. It's skin. And Native Americans are still being identified as Lamanites in official, like, church doctrine. Like, you can't say Christopher Columbus came to them and identify the person in the Book of Mormon as that came to the. To this land as Christopher Columbus without also identifying the people he came to and killed and slaughtered as also Lamanites. Because the person in the Book of Mormon that came to this land, came to Lamanites. And so the church actively has, you know, in their current come follow me manuals, Christopher Columbus is identified as the Man. And there's also like the current manuals with the first Lamanite mission. And so when missionaries and seminary teachers and primary teachers, when everybody's teaching this stuff still is fact. I'm like, it's, it's still current indoctrinate. It's still current in lesson manuals. Of course everyone still thinks this. And I just, it's hard not to be frustrated and, and kind of hurt that Native children don't matter.

Monica Crowfoot [00:55:14] Yeah. Growing up on the Res, you know, you have so much disconnect from your culture. And so I found that, you know, our, it was a very small ward and we had maybe, maybe 20 kids in primary, but we were all taught

Sarah Newcomb [00:55:40] to

Monica Crowfoot [00:55:43] have this slogan of like, I'm a laymanite and be proud of that. Be proud of your Lamanite pride. You know, it was like, well, it was this laymanite pride kind of movement. And so everybody was excited to take on this label. And I found even when I got into college at byu, they would identify themselves as Lamanite because by that time you're so. You're so disconnected from your culture. You have to either choose your tribe or Mormonism. And because being Navajo or being Apache or being any kind of Native is savage and wrong and wicked, you don't want to associate yourself with that, with your culture, with your people, because you are ashamed at that by that time. And you start identifying yourself as this fictitious label that you've been taught your whole life in Mormonism, it's just been ingrained in you.

Sarah Newcomb [00:56:55] Was it like that for your kids, Monica or Ann, either of you, were they also identified as like Lamanite and they claimed to laymanite?

Ann [00:57:07] Yes, very much so. I have a 23 year old and I was talking to her last night about her challenges in the church and she said she hated it just like I did. And she would always try and fake being sick so she didn't have to go to Sunday school or seminary to hear those lessons. And just like me, she was stood up because we were usually the only Brown family in the congregation. She was stood up and, you know, made to do the same actions in Book of Mormon stories that I did. And same with my 13 year old. She just has really struggled with a lot of this. Now I have a husband that's full blooded Navajo and he was raised very traditionally. So together we've been able to squash that and say, no, you're Navajo. You are Navajo. You are beautiful, and be proud that you're Navajo. But I think that that's crazy that a lot of Monica, you said that students at BYU were dropping, you know, the Navajo part and just embracing the Lamanite. That's how Navajos greet each other. They greet each other and then immediately exchange clan information. And not to not do that. That's kind of. It's just crazy. I mean, growing up, of course, I didn't know my clan information because it was passed through your mother. I didn't know my biological parents. And once I learned the traditions, and that's what you do when you meet other Navajo people, I just felt so left out. In fact, clan information is so, so important. When my husband and I were dating and he asked me, you know, what clan are you? I don't know. And he seriously was considering not marrying me because you cannot marry within your same clan. It's considered incestuous. And so he went down to the reservation, went to the medicine man, and they. He asked him to look into the crystals to see if it was okay for him to marry me. And I asked him the other night,

Guest 2 [00:59:44] like, what would you have done if

Ann [00:59:45] he had said no? And he said, I wouldn't have married you because it's that important to have that clan information. So a few years ago, I did find my biological family. And I am towering house and I am born, for the water flows together, people. And I say that with pride.

A Native Woman Adopted Into a White Mormon Family

John Dehlin [01:00:09] So when you were raised, Ann, you didn't know. You didn't know much about your actual heritage prior to being raised in Orem?

Ann [01:00:18] I knew nothing. All I knew was that I was born in Shiprock and that my parents adopted me through Utah State Social Services. So it wasn't through LDS Social services at all. And just a couple years ago is when I finally found my biological family. I don't know what the story is. They didn't know what the story was with their parents. The parents are now deceased. And surprisingly, they had five children, six, including me. And I was the only child that was given up for adoption. And they didn't know why. I have no idea why it was just me, but they were married at the time when I was born, so I wasn't like an out of wedlock baby. I look just like my biological brother and sister. So I don't know, maybe they were having marital issues at the problem and. Or at the time. And my biological mother was. Her family was in Shiprock, so maybe that's why I was born in Shiprock, but they lived in Richfield, Utah, and I was adopted through Utah State Social Services.

John Dehlin [01:01:39] Thank you. How would you guys feel? We've talked a little bit about marriage and children. Is it okay if we went back and talked a bit about dating in a Mormon context as someone that's considered to be a Lamanite woman? Is that a topic worth even. Even discussing? And if so, who wants to go first?

Monica Crowfoot [01:02:06] I can.

John Dehlin [01:02:06] Okay.

Monica Crowfoot [01:02:07] So my parents leave the church, I'm 15 years old, and we start having all these missionary discussions because they need missionary discussions before they get. Get baptized. So we have missionaries over constantly. And I don't know if this is normal anywhere else, but there was this, this culture with missionaries. You know, they're in the army of God and they're on this pedestal. And at least on the reservation, people were encouraging the relationships with missionaries. They were hoping that their brown daughters would marry these white men and I guess in turn accelerate this process of flushing out native features and their grandkids would have light skin. I don't know. It was this. It was definitely a white savior complex going on.

Ann [01:03:15] So.

Monica Crowfoot [01:03:16] But I got involved in these missionary relationships. I was 15. My brother just died. This missionary comes up and says, well, you know, start calling me and you're supposed to be my wife. And I was not attracted to him at all. And he was very manipulative. You know, as a 15 year old, you don't know these words. You know, you don't know what manipulation is. You don't, you don't know what red flags are to look for. And. And, you know, I was in this really vulnerable state of mind as well. I had just lost my brother, my best friend.

Guest [01:03:57] And

Monica Crowfoot [01:03:59] so I'm all. I'm almost feeling. I wrote in my journal, and I was an avid journal writer. And I remember writing like I feel so trapped, and I feel like there's this weight on my leg chaining me to him. And I, you know, I just was really sad and I don't know, I felt disgusted with myself too, because I knew kind of what the missionary rules were. Not entirely, because we had been out of the church for three years, but I felt like I was doing something wrong. But I also was guilted into continuing to call or pass notes or things like that. And then. But he was also having relationships with other girls in the area. Then another missionary comes in. He's supposed to stop this whole thing going on. But we start writing and then we start forming this relation, like this friendship over the two years of his mission, or actually, like, I think it was just one year. It was just one year because he was 20 at the time. So he had one more year left. And I was 15, 16. And, you know, it was funny because I thought wholeheartedly that this was it, that I had found this, you know, knight in shining armor, this white guy who was. Who is righteous and, you know, I mean, he had all the right features. Right? So you mean physical features.

John Dehlin [01:05:45] Is that right?

Monica Crowfoot [01:05:45] Physical features, yeah. White skin, you know, and that's basically all you needed was white skin and a missionary tag. And because there were so many parents inviting the missionaries over, hoping that

Sarah Newcomb [01:06:03] there

Monica Crowfoot [01:06:03] would be a love match between their daughter and these missionaries.

Sarah Newcomb [01:06:06] So.

Monica Crowfoot [01:06:07] So it was very common for these missionaries who were serving on the reservation to take home these souvenirs of soon to be wives. And, you know, it was this exotic thing. And so many of my friends later on I had, from byu, had they had met on their mission and gotten married and a lot of them had divorced and the. The dad is nowhere to be found anymore, you know, you. I just felt like it was this.

Ann [01:06:40] This.

Monica Crowfoot [01:06:42] They just got tired of it. They didn't. They didn't understand what they were getting into, I guess. I don't know a lot of. So I'll back up before I get too far ahead. So, you know, we were writing.

Guest [01:06:58] He.

Monica Crowfoot [01:06:58] He invites me to his homecoming and. And his mom is furious that I'm a laymanite. Why can't you find a nice, white, beautiful girl? And that just, like, devastated me because, you know, I'm growing up on the reservation and I did have some run ins with racism at the border towns in Gallup, but, you know, whenever we would go off the reservation and travel, but I wasn't looking for it. And so I. I think a lot of times I just kind of ignored whatever subtle racism there was, or I would laugh along with it and just smile and take it. I thought that was a Christ like thing to do. But this, like, really cut me that, you know, I'm not good enough to be anybody's wife because I'm brown, because I'm. Because I'm Navajo. And so that kind of ended. But there were still. There were like five missionaries still. I mean, even after that, I mean, I'm just, you know, a senior in high school at this time. By this time. And, you know, I had broken up with that guy after, you know, I had found out, like, what his mom said. And it was just kind of. I think it was Just really devastating to know that I wasn't good enough and I wasn't ever going to be good enough because my skin up to this point had never changed white, you know, had never turned white. So you were hope.

Colorism and Identity on the Reservation

John Dehlin [01:08:44] You were hoping it would.

Monica Crowfoot [01:08:46] I think so. I think so. But I had, you know, also growing up on the reservation, I had, I had not seen anybody else's skin turning white. My mom was a light skin Navajo, but she also stayed out of the sun all the time. She rubbed lemon juice all over her body. She. She told me to rub lemon juice all over my body and stay out of the sun.

John Dehlin [01:09:07] And with the thinking that the lemon

Monica Crowfoot [01:09:09] juice would do what, lighten our skin faster. So it really was this mentality on the reservation that, you know, this whole colorism idea, light skins were better than dark skinned Navajos or natives, which is just really sad, you know, as an adult now looking back. But there were, you know, once I had broken it up with this guy, there were still like three or four other missionaries who came back after the mission, said that I was supposed to be their wife and marry them, and they, you know, received revelation.

Ann [01:09:56] More than one.

Monica Crowfoot [01:09:58] Yeah, I think there were five in total.

Guest [01:10:00] So.

Monica Crowfoot [01:10:01] But like, by that time I was just like, I don't want to be anybody's souvenir and I don't want this to happen again. And you don't know me. You don't. You like, you know, I didn't know these people coming back. I hadn't talked to these missionaries coming back. And so I just felt it was so I luckily I sensed this disingenuity, you know, like, it was just so disingenuous that I just, I didn't want to go on any more dates with anybody. And I was, you know, I had just graduated high school, I was going off to byu. I shut everybody down and I just, I just kind of was like, I guess turned into this man haters. So I get to byu. You know, everybody in freshman year is talking about how they need to get married freshman year, and that's their goal. And as soon as they get married, then they drop out. And I was like, nope, that's not happening to me. So.

Guest 2 [01:11:11] And.

Monica Crowfoot [01:11:11] And it didn't. I, I really, I really tried to. I really immersed myself in, in the Tribe of Many Feathers Club, the Multicultural Clubs, because I felt most at home there. And Anna's right. Like, we, you know, growing up living on the reservation, going to the reservation schools, we were always taught to introduce ourselves with our clans. So we had to know Four clans back, sometimes six clans, clans back. You know, it was almost this genial genealogy type thing, but that's how you knew what families you were from. So. And, and the joke is that you can't ever find another Navajo person to date because your clans are the same, everybody's a cousin. And so I didn't really have that problem at byu, I guess, you know, everybody was saying they're Laymanites, but you also knew who the Navajo people were. You also knew who the Apache people were. You, you knew if they weren't Navajo. At least. At least I did. But it was still very popular to call yourself a laminate. And, you know, the. It was popular to get in with the Lamanite generation. It wasn't Lamanite generation when I went. I can't remember what it's called now.

Ann [01:12:50] I think it's Living Traditions now, really.

Monica Crowfoot [01:12:54] Living Legends.

Sarah Newcomb [01:12:54] It's Living Living Legends.

John Dehlin [01:12:57] That's the name for the layman I generation.

Monica Crowfoot [01:13:00] Yeah. So my brother in law actually was in Living Legends, and I was. I ran for Miss Indian BYU and, and became Miss Indian byu. I had tried out for Living Legends, was denied to be in Living Legends. And so. But, you know, as I kind of saw this, this program going on, it was really, it was really interesting growing up on the reservation and seeing some of the dances, at least I wasn't like we, I would see them at the fairs that we would have. But not like it wasn't this goal to go to the fairs, but they were in parades and, and the carnivals growing up. So I did see them. I did see dances. I just couldn't be part of them. But seeing Living Legends, it was so choreographed that I remember thinking, wait, this isn't how these dances go. I might not know how to do them. But, you know, this isn't what I remember seeing growing up. And actually in one of the, in one of the shows very recently, in 2018, I think we went. Our family went to a show and because my husband's cousin was in there and the director, you know, it's all run by white people, like I think Sarah had said, or Ann. So the director comes up and says, please, no photography and no recording because these dances are copyrighted. And my husband and I look at each other and we're like, what does she just say? Because these dances aren't your dances to copyright. You're making money off of these dances and you're culturally appropriating these dances. And how dare you tell us, a whole audience of natives on the reservation, or coming on the reservation saying, sorry, no, you can't take any pictures of these dances that belong to you, because we need to make money off of them. And they're copyrighted. So that was believable. Yeah, that was huge. But I did so at byu. I did. I. Because I was. I immersed myself in these multicultural communities. I. I did end up meeting my husband, who's Blackfoot, and. And I think after, you know, after coming to BYU and after feeling more comfortable within these communities, I just knew that I did need someone like me, because I remember in high school, I thought, I need to marry somebody white so our kids turn out lighter so our kids don't have Native features. And it just. It almost taught you to not want to have that legacy of your hair to live on. You wanted to wash it all out, you know, And I remember on one of the Mormon stories, I remember one of the guests on the Native. On one of the Native podcasts, he said, I didn't want to marry a Native. And that is so common. And he's like, I didn't want to marry Native women. And hearing that in 2018, I just. My heart hurt, you know, because that was the mentality that we were taught. We didn't want to marry. We didn't want to have a Native partner. We didn't want to have kids with Native features. And, you know, as an adult leaving the church in 2018 to hear that, it was really sad because we are so demonized, and we are like, we demonize our own people, and we are prejudiced against our own people, people. We stereotype our own people. And we feel like just because we were Mormon, we were Christian, we're somehow better than everybody else. But when I met my husband, I think everything changed because he was so well versed in history, and he loved history, and he ended up going into law, and Indian law, more specifically, and working for all these tribes. And I don't know that I would have been even interested in my own history if it weren't for him. I don't know that I would have sought out and researched my own history, my own Navajo history, not to mention all the history of all the other tribes. I knew that there was some genocide. I knew that we had been put on reservations. I knew about the Long Walk. I knew about the Trail of Tears, but I never researched them. I never had any desire to really get into it and really study everything that had happened. And if it wasn't for him, I don't think I would have. I think I would have just glued on to whatever this husband thought, their conservative ideas, their racist ideas. And I would have said, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I'm better than them. Yeah, they, you know, they're gross, they're dirty, they're whatever, you know, whatever you're. Whatever you're taught concerning natives. And I've. I've met so many, which is really sad. I've met so many native people and South American people and Mexican people who have that idea. Once they have their non native partners, they do tend to look down on other people, and they do so swallow that racism so much more easily. But

Ann [01:19:55] he.

Monica Crowfoot [01:19:56] He grew up very similarly to me, and we ended up getting married in. In the temple. We had four kids. But he always kind of questioned things. And I think he questioned things because he did know the history and he did know all of the problematic doctrine. He served his mission in Las Vegas, and he wasn't at all, like. He likes to tease me because he wasn't at all like the bad missionaries that were on the reservation. He was ap. He, you know, had all these baptisms and tracted and. And knew his scriptures inside and out. And I think it was that knowledge of knowing your scriptures inside and out that he was like, wait, here's a problem. Here's a problem. Here's a problem. And I don't feel right about this, and I don't feel right about that. And I'm the one thinking, well, my family left the church. I don't want that to happen to us, to leave the church. What if somebody dies? What if God curses us? What if God punishes us if we leave? We can't leave. We have to keep going. And so we. We were actually. We stayed in Utah for a while, and we went to the Lamanite ward, and everybody's fine, you know, still fine, being called Lamanites. And I think that Lamanite ward was dissolved after a while because the stake president really didn't want natives and the. Pacific Islanders, like, convening together. He really didn't think that was appropriate. And he wouldn't give out any temple recommends to people with long hair. He wouldn't give temple recommends to people practicing any of their cultural traditions. And this is a program. Utah.

John Dehlin [01:22:00] What?

Guest [01:22:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:22:01] What year is this?

Monica Crowfoot [01:22:02] Yeah, this is 2003. 2003. That's when we were part of the Lennonite ward.

John Dehlin [01:22:11] Did they say why? Did they say why they would.

Monica Crowfoot [01:22:14] Because the culture is bad. Native culture is bad tradition. So it's, you know, they're bad, but

Guest 2 [01:22:24] you don't know they're that bad. I'm sorry.

Monica Crowfoot [01:22:26] That's shocking.

Sarah Newcomb [01:22:27] You have traditions.

Monica Crowfoot [01:22:29] Missionary haircut. You know, you have to be clean shaven. And so many natives still have their long hair because hair is sacred in native tradition, especially, especially for men and women, you know, both. Both genders. And so for him to be telling Native members that he's not going to give them temple recommended unless they cut their hair, there were, there were. There was a lot of backlash to that. And they got really upset. And I think because of that, there ended up to be this forgery of the First Presidency. And he came back to stake president and said, the Lamanite ward is dissolved. You can't convene together as, you know, this Lamanite ward anymore. You have to go to your own home wards. So everybody was devastated because we had such kinship there.

Guest [01:23:31] Everybody.

Monica Crowfoot [01:23:31] The native community in the Mormon Church is so small. Everybody knows everybody's parents, and it was so. It was devastating. We go back to our wards, our home wards, and it's. It's this petting zoo because you get there and these old ladies come and pet you and say, oh, I'm so glad to see Lamanites here. I'm so happy to see righteous Lamanites coming to church. Oh, we had a laymanite when we were, you know, parents. We used to have a laymanite. And it was almost like this pet. How they would speak of, you know, these, the foster children who came to their homes, they. During the Indian placement program. So it just got so tiring. We kind of stopped going for a little bit until the Lamanite ward came back. But even then, my husband had a lot of issues with the doctrine and we moved around. We moved to Wisconsin. The Madison Ward was very progressive, so I don't ever remember being called the Lamanite. And then we moved to Hopi, the Hopi reservation, after law school. And I remember it was my first real experience because the Hopi reservation is within the Navajo reservation. It's a smaller reservation within the Navajo reservation. And I remember passing through there as a child, but I never. I didn't know very much about the Hopi people. But when we moved there, I was really surprised that they were very traditional people and they loved their traditions and they were so proud of their culture and their heritage. And they had all of these dances and it was this really beautiful thing. I didn't ever want to go back to the reservation. I was actually really upset when my husband got a job in Hopi because I didn't want to go back to the reservation. And I thought that I was above that. And that makes me really sad because. I didn't have, like, I wasn't proud of who I was. So seeing these beautiful people proud of their culture and their heritage, I was so envious of that. And that is something I really wanted for myself and for my family. And I remember just before we moved to Hopi, my husband took us to this powwow in Wisconsin. And I remember seeing these little children dressed up in the regalia, learning these dances as Toddlers, as like 2 year, 1 year old, 2 year old, 3 year old, you know, and these teenagers with their long hair, and they. They were so, so proud of their culture, and they knew these dances and they were learning their language. And that was the one thing I remember. After that pow, powwow, I talked to Sam, my husband, and I said, okay, I'm ready to go to Hopi. I want my children to go back to where they're from because it was close to the Navajo reservation. I want my children to have a sense of self. I want them to be proud of who they are. I want them to learn about their culture and their. And their heritage and their traditions. I want that. And so going to Hopi, it was a really enlightening time, I think, for all of us. We still remembers. My husband was still, you know, he was always called to the young Men's presidency, but it was a very small branch, so not a lot of people were in the ward. And I remember one of the nights some missionaries came over for dinner, and they. One of them had said, well, it doesn't matter if they lose their culture, because their culture is going to die out anyway. You know, we're here to. We're here to, you know, get them on the right track, basically. And my husband overheard that and he said, what did you say? He said, sit down. You are not here to save anybody. You're here to learn to love the Hopi people. You are here to learn from them. You're not here to get anybody off of the mesas and. And kill off their culture. He said, that is absolutely wrong. He said, God doesn't need you here. You need God, and you need to learn how to love other people just the way they are. And I think, you know, all of these little. These little experiences that we've had like that moving from Hopi and to Gilbert. We moved to Gilbert after we were right next to the. To the Gilbert Temple. And my husband was just so disgusted by the gold plated ceilings, the marble floors, this multimillion dollar monstrosity when just four hours away. The Hopi reservation doesn't have clean water. They have arsenic in their water. And we had to supply water bottles for sacrament meeting. We would not even get any funding for that. And to see such stark contrast between this Warden Gilbert, you know, catered parties by restaurants and like, and, and this, this temple, this gaudy temple, he said, no, we're not paying our tithing anymore. We're done. I don't want to give any more money. If we're, if we're donating to anything, we're donating to the, to the women's shelter and the children's home. And so we did, we moved from Gilbert. We were only there for a year, and then we moved to Gallup, and that's a town just right outside of the Navajo Nation. And so we started donating to children's homes and women's shelters, just locally because he really wanted to see, he really wanted to make a difference. He wanted to see his money changing people's lives, not buying, you know, new carpet for chapels or gold plated ceilings for temples or big, huge flat screens for, you know, primary classes. So, yeah, I mean, we were talking about dating, so I think I went over a little bit, but. So you guys could jump in again.

Living on the Hopi Reservation and Church Policy

John Dehlin [01:31:29] Super beautiful, powerful. Can I just, I had one quick reflection. I just want to share. Remember when the church did the November 2015 policy and made it so that children of same sex married couples couldn't be members anymore? Of course, we were all horror struck by that. But the one silver lining that some people noticed is, hey, at least some people aren't, at least some kids aren't being raised in a homophobic church. There's a good element to that horrific policy. I'm thinking about how the church had these, you know, this Lamanite doctrine, dark skin policy that made all of you feel self loathing about your own skin. And then I'm also thinking about something we haven't quite mentioned, which I think is still somewhere in the manual. Sir, you can tell us about how bad interracial marriage has been looked upon and how it's been discouraged historically by Mormon church leaders, specifically with Native Americans. But then I'm thinking about the upside of that horrific, racist, anti kind of interracial marriage doctrine. It's Monica. That you got to marry somebody who at least was native and that allowed you guys to ultimately come to a celebration of your culture. I, I don't know if it's my place to share that. But it's just a thought that I had as I was hearing you share that. Like, thank goodness for Mormon racism, at least in that one aspect.

Guest [01:33:02] That's true.

Monica Crowfoot [01:33:03] I mean, I really. I. It's sad that what happened had led me to, you know. Well, I kind of feel safer just, you know, going. Finding somebody I'm comfortable with. But it really. I think I would have lost my identity completely if I hadn't. I think I was just. I prided myself on being so moldable and so obedient that I would have taken on anybody's political views, even though they hurt my own people.

Guest 2 [01:33:43] That's interesting.

John Dehlin [01:33:44] And, Sarah, as I say that, I know that, you know, I know that in your case, you did not marry a Native. And I don't mean to be saying that all marriages aren't equal and good in every way.

Sarah Newcomb [01:33:54] No, no. My experience has been similar and completely different. I did not pride myself on obedience. So that's a little different because I was always challenging. I challenged my. My parents growing up. I'm biracial. I identify as Tim Tian. But, yeah, my. My experience is a little different.

Ann [01:34:26] So.

Sarah Newcomb [01:34:26] So on one side, I have my Tsim Tian grandmother who fully embraced me and loved me, claimed me. And then on my other side, I was shamed by my other grandma if I got too dark. And she was always saying, cut your hair, and called me. Called me some names. And I don't talk about that too much because she's gone. And, you know, there's all my cousins that weren't treated that way, and, you know, family. Family relationships. But I had these experiences, and I was like, well, my Tsimshian family feels like home. But I loved my dad. You know, my dad was sweet and kind and. But there is that aspect. There's something that, Monica, you said where when someone marries interracially, they sometimes. Oh, I don't know how you said it, but that they almost internalize that. The racism more. And I could definitely see that in how my mom processed stuff. And she still is a believer. She's always been proud of being Lamanite. But a lot of the things that I was told growing up, yeah, definitely affected my identity because it was affecting hers. And, yeah, I. I also had a different experience dating with, like, I was very. I. I dated in many different cultures, and I moved so much. My. My dad moved us so much. I lived in 19 different states. Now, some of those are with my husband. So it was probably like 16 different states with my with my parents, and we moved every few years. And so I was always meeting new people, meeting, living in different cultural areas. And so I, I just dated everybody, you know, whoever asked me out. And so I, I dated out. I didn't just date white people. I didn't just date indigenous people or Native Americans. There was a Native American that was interested in me, but this was like later in my teen years, somebody from the island. And I like, I was like, oh, well, he can't be interested in me because he's not Mormon. You know, I can't show any interest back at least. And I dated a few Native Americans in college, too, but there weren't many. So I went to Rick's college way back in the day, before it was byu, Idaho. And so it was just a small school and there wasn't, you know, there wasn't many. And I dated the few that were there, but I just dated everybody. I had some rough experiences, though, where I would be dating someone and they'd bring me home to meet the parents, and they're like, oh, what's your heritage? And what are you? And so once it was understood that I was Lamanite, yeah, it would end, like, it was rough and I didn't know how to react to it, but I was just like, okay, well, guess that's not okay. And one thing you said, John, about, like, the manuals, I don't believe it's in there anymore. But when I first left the church, well, I hadn't left yet. I was going through my transition. I was reading everything and I was sourcing everything. And so I wouldn't read anything that was like, anti Mormon or not church produced. And so I, I sourced everything and everything went back to Journal of Discourse, which probably was the biggest of a lot of my shelf items. So many things in there, because I wanted to read quotes in context. But I also was like, okay, this is too much. Like, it was, it was heavy and it was making me lose my testimony instead of like, get stronger. So I was like, I'm not going to read Journal of Discourse anymore. I'm not going to source this thing that's been pretty much used in all the adult, you know, lesson manuals, Relief Society manual, Sunday school manuals. If there was a quote, it almost always led back to Journal of Discourse. And so I was like, I'm just going to look at, like, young men's and young women's manuals and look at Sunday school manuals. And I was reading the young men's manuals and I was like, oh, this isn't in the young women's manual. So it did talk about, like, choosing your wife and not dating outside of your race. And so it made more sense. When I looked back at my experience at Ricks College, I was like, okay, well, I knew that, you know, the whole Mark, dark skin Mark was so righteous people wouldn't date us. But now we're Mormon, so, like, we're part of the righteous people. We're supposed to be redeeming our people. And so I was confused why it was a big deal. And, yeah, meeting parents and having them tell their son, you can't date her anymore. She's Lamanite. Connecting that years later, when I'm, like, transitioning, it was like 2014, when I'm reading all these. All this church doctrine and lesson manuals and reading in the young men's manual about how when they're choosing their wife not to choose an interracial marriage, it just. It all connected. I'm like, oh, this is. This was actively taught to boys. It was actively taught in the young men's program. But I don't believe it's in there now. It's a little more gentle how. Like, they've obviously been trying to catch up with the times to some degree in how they present doctrine. So I don't know that it's no longer a belief or it's still active so much as they don't highlight it as much anymore. So, like, Native Americans are still called Lamanite, but it's not highlighted as much anymore. And the church can say, oh, we don't say who the Lamanites are. Well, you know, in the. There's a number of lessons that do identify, but when it came to the dating, yeah, I. My first love back in high school, we dated for years. And when I brought him home, you know, here I am with my Native American mom, and the first thing I learn is about the curse of Cain because he was black. And I was so mad. I was so angry. I'm like, he treated me like a princess. He was so kind to me. And to have that type of lesson when, you know, the Lamanite curse was on us and trying to say, oh, well, we're better than the curse of Cain. Like, there's so much separation in all these. It's just to separate and divide. And it's about power. It's not about unity. If it was, it wouldn't matter where someone's from or what color their skin was. And so, yeah, as I. As I left the church and looked back at my dating experiences. I was in some ways really proud of myself because I kept dating him and I dated people from. From many races and just didn't care. It was like I was very. I. I challenged. I challenged teachers, I challenged my parents. Yeah. Even from a young age when I was like, you know, where's. All the Native Americans were living in Virginia at the time. And I get that story of, well, there's, you know, there's so many people died with what happened in the Americas. And I'm told the Book of Mormon story and taught that, well, if our, you know, if our ancestors were righteous, we would have been able to protect our promised land. But we weren't. So this is what happened and this is why. So everything was viewed through this. And like, Monica, you mentioned the Trail of Tears. Like, during my research, Joseph Smith called the Trail of Tears the Gathering of Israel. And that just. That's just so offensive. Two, two, three years ago, I had missionaries tell me that the reason that. That God sent Columbus here. So this is missionaries using Columbus. And they're like, the reason he was sent here was because there was no religion. That's why there was, you know, or she said that my ancestors turned away from God and that's why there was no religious when religion. When Columbus came. So, like, Native Americans supposedly didn't have religion. And like, I just see all these things that are so offensive and boxed in, and it all kind of connects to dating because you're like, you're put in this box that's very small, that has a very small community of indigenous people, and it's more important that you marry in the temple than anything else. And being biracial, I didn't. I just. Yeah, I kind of dated all over the place. But having the experiences I did where I was broken up with at college because of being indigenous and, like, told, I can't date you anymore. Having someone close to me who I'm not going to say their name because they're active and believing and, yeah, have their own struggles, but they. They were getting engaged and they go to meet the parents and they knock on the door, right? The dad opens the door and immediately is like, wait, what? What's your ethnicity? Finds out he's Lamanite, and he says, you can't come in my house. And so I'm seeing these things happen to people around me and just. It did. It affected me. But, yeah, my husband, he's white, but he. It's funny because, like, I was always pushing down My heritage. And he. He would lift it up almost like he was like, hey. And when I bring him home to Alaska, like, he feels more at home there. So. And even, like, we had a beautiful dress that he made out of leather for my. My first child for, like, her blessing dress. So there was always these, like, respectful things that he did. So, yeah, dating's. Dating's tough. It's interesting. It's. I don't think there's any shame in interracial marriages. I don't think there's any shame in skin colors. And more than anything, I just keep wanting to push back and push away from what the church has said. The narrative of all these people are Lamanites. All your history is the Book of Mormon. I'm tired of listening to, like, missionaries say, this is your history. No, it's not. It's really not. Native Americans, indigenous people in the Pacific Islands and in the South America all have beautiful and amazing cultures that predate the Book of Mormon timeline. And if they want to choose to be, you know, Mormon or join whatever church, they shouldn't have to carry a label on top of that, especially one that the church has. You know, the. The DNA Book of Mormon and DNA essay admits that they don't know who the. Who the Lamanites are, that all these people are from a different area. But then they won't speak about that publicly, and they keep those same lessons in official manuals, you know, labeling certain people as Lamanite. So I think it's going to be an ongoing problem. But, yeah, I do. I did consider, like, my children as. As I started having kids, like, what's their experience going to be? Because having a Native American parent can still impact, like, how people treated them. If I wasn't accepted by the parents, you know, like, it. It was really weird. Some of the things that would happen, some of the wards we moved into being an interracial couple, things I watched my own parents go through and then my husband, I went through ourselves. It's hard to explain, like, what it's like to have people treat you different for being an interracial couple in. In Mormonism, because there was that teaching, and it was so core to the doctrine.

LDS Manuals, Interracial Marriage, and Racism

John Dehlin [01:47:49] Sarah, this is jumping back a tiny bit and everything. Just. Thank you. This is so beautiful. Thanks to all of you for being willing to help share your. Help us understand your experiences. Sarah, you mentioned just that discovery that Joseph Smith called the Trail of Tears the Gathering of Israel. I. I'm gonna just. I'm gonna guess that most of my Listeners don't even know what the Trail of Tears is. Are you comfortable just explaining, just really quickly, kind of putting feet on the ground, so to speak, to say what that was, and then why that sort of statement is so offensive? Do you mind?

The Trail of Tears Reframed as the Gathering of Israel

Sarah Newcomb [01:48:26] Yeah, yeah. The Trail of Tears is the forceful removal of Native Americans from their land. And so, like, there's this common idea that Native Americans all died off because of illnesses, yet what's not taught is the poisoning of their water, the killing off of all other food sources, and using blankets covered in measles as weapons. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Like, that's just the tip. And I don't want to get too into it because it's hard for me to talk about what happened to children, what happened to pregnant women, what happened to families, what happened to grandparents. But Native Americans were systematically killed for land. And so the Trail of Tears was the forceful removal of them, where they had to walk miles and miles and miles off their lands, and they kept getting pushed further and further west. And there was many lost. Like, it was starvation. It was cold. It was losing family members while you walked. And so, like, the Book of Mormon, you know, separating that out, like, just talking about the Book of Mormon for a second, there's this warning, you know, if you're not righteous, you're going to lose the promised land. And so it happens time and time again. And so, you know, even in the. I want to say it's second Nephi, when Lehi brings all his kids and he's warning Layman, and Lemuel, you know, if you're not righteous, if your posterity is not righteous, and, you know, it's all connected to the promised land, this is what's going to happen. And so as a Native American child growing up and. And learning these different histories, so on one side, I'm learning the Book of Mormon, and on the other side, I'm learning about. Well, especially my teen years, because they don't teach, really, Native American history in schools. They're not gonna. They're gonna say, oh, yeah, they. They had really sensitive immune systems and everybody died. But they're not explaining all these other things that happened. And there's very little talked about. So, like, as a Native American child, I didn't learn a lot of it, but I was learning the Book of Mormon and why there weren't a lot of Native Americans around. And then I was in high school when I started reading Native American history, like, real history books that I found. And, like, I couldn't finish them. I'd get maybe a third of the way in and break down in tears and just couldn't, couldn't do it anymore. And I'd do that with different books. I just like read little sections and put them away because it's so heartbreaking. And anybody that wants to take the time to read about the Trail of Tears, there's so much information out there. So it didn't surprise me finding out that Joseph Smith called the Trail of Tears the Gathering of Israel. But the problem with this is if I can compare it for a moment. Growing up, I, I was taught, I don't know if this is a Mormon thing or if this is just religious thing. I, I know a number of people that I've talked to were taught this, but that the genocide or the Holocaust of the Jews was because of what happened to Jesus. And so it's like it's blaming the Holocaust on the actions of Jewish ancestors and it's very similar. So the, the Trail of Tears, all these books that I'm reading of, of entire peoples and groups and children being just slaughtered and killed, I was reading those in my teen years while I'd been, after I'd been raised, you know, thinking, oh, it's because there's no, there's no Native Americans because we lost our promised land. And so having Joseph Smith say that this is the Gathering of Israel, it's doctrine of discovery, it's manifest destiny. Sing the Book of Mormon children song like it's right there. And there are plenty of talks, they don't talk about it anymore, but there are plenty of talks, plenty of lessons that state exactly this, that the whole reason like that the Americas were colonized were because Native American ancestors were unrighteous and lost the promised land. And so yeah, knowing, knowing my history the way I do now with, with the Trail of Tears, with Native American history, like, it's just heartbreaking to. Sure. Oh, great. You know, we are, we're, we're going to have redemption. We should be proud to be Lamanites. And there's all these beautiful things they don't tell you, all the ugly things like that's not talked about. So when my mom joined the church, she was taught the Book of Mormon was her history. And we're the promised generation. We're the promised people. And we're gonna, you know, lead the church and we're gonna be redeemed, find redemption for our people. And there's all these beautiful, supposedly beautiful promises of redemption which includes our skin, skin turning white and Delightsome and being resurrected white. But they don't say, oh, why are we cursed? Why do we need redemption? You know? And there's just this weight to it. So when you don't have that personal connection of reading what happens to children, reading what happens to. To the pregnant women, reading what happens to these families, these grandparents walking all these miles and then saying, oh, it was. It was God's will. It was the gathering of Israel. Native American people should not be forced to carry manifest destiny and doctrine of discovery on their backs just for the church to be true. Like, we don't. Like, I don't think that Lamanites should be identified at all, ever. If somebody indigenous wants to join the church, I don't want to infringe on their, like, religious freedom. I'll support them. And if they want to say, I believe I'm Lamanite, I'll make space for that. But they don't speak for their people. It needs to be like, a personal choice, a personal thing, like making space. And this is just my view, because I don't see the church as that important. So it's almost like this rebellious side of me where I'm like, it's not that important. Wherever somebody finds peace and joy, that's great. But for the church to actively put that kind of history on indigenous people and not come clean with it when they know, when they know now that we're not Jewish, we're not from Jerusalem. The fact that missionaries are still teaching it because the church isn't teaching them not to, like, it's still being put on indigenous people. I don't even know what to say about that because, like, in 2021, with all the knowledge we have that it shouldn't even matter. Indigenous people from the beginning were saying where they were from. They were saying they'd always been here. Being told that we. We just came, you know, X amount of years ago when history has proven otherwise. I don't understand why that narrative has to be put on anybody. Because it is offensive. Huh?

Monica Crowfoot [01:57:02] Yeah, it is.

Sarah Newcomb [01:57:02] I'm sorry.

Monica Crowfoot [01:57:04] It's an excuse, right? It's an excuse to take the land. It's an excuse to commit genocide. You use this excuse of Manifest Destiny. You use this excuse that natives are wicked. You know, black people were seen as property, and indigenous people were seen as animals who needed to be tamed, who were wild and savage. And so you use this excuse, you dehumanize everyone so you can take their land, you can take, you know, you can poison their water. You can. You can slaughter men, women and children, behead them and stick their. Their heads on these stakes and then build temples over them.

Guest [01:57:54] You.

Monica Crowfoot [01:57:54] You have an excuse because.

Sarah Newcomb [01:57:56] Yeah.

Monica Crowfoot [01:57:57] And people don't wanted it.

Sarah Newcomb [01:57:58] Too many people don't know what Monica's talking about happened in Utah. Like what she just said happened in Utah.

Monica Crowfoot [01:58:08] Well, and it's funny because it. So many members. Oh, I'm sorry.

Guest 2 [01:58:12] Go ahead.

Monica Crowfoot [01:58:13] And what are you saying? Okay.

Ann [01:58:14] Oh, I was just gonna. Oh, sorry.

Guest 2 [01:58:18] I'll go for it.

Ann [01:58:19] I was just going to come back a little bit to what Sarah was saying.

Sarah Newcomb [01:58:26] Why does it, the church have to

Ann [01:58:28] come clean about this? Why is it.

Guest [01:58:31] Okay.

Ann [01:58:32] Why are. Why is the membership accepting of them? Disavowing policies. And disavowing means you're not taking any responsibility. You don't espouse that belief anymore, but you don't take responsibility for that.

Sarah Newcomb [01:58:52] Yeah. Anybody that doesn't know disavow is not denounced. They do not denounce it. I've been saying this for years. I'm like, disavow means to deny responsibility, my responsibility. And they're not changing a thing.

Ann [01:59:06] Yeah. And there comes this idea of informed consent. There is no informed consent in the church when missionaries, like you said in 2021, are still teaching these lies. There is no informed consent when the church does not come clean. There is no informed consent when the church is still saying, you know, we disavow. My goodness. You expect your members to go through the steps of repentance. And one of those things is apologizing for what? For your wrongdoing. And we've been told by Elder Oaks, you know, the church is not going to apologize. We don't apologize. Why do you require the membership to apologize? Yeah, I'm like, you're above it. There is not informed consent because lies are still being taught. I'm in part of a group on Facebook and I recently asked, you know, are more Mormon missionaries still teaching that the Book of Mormon was translated from the plates, not Joseph Smith looking at a rock in a hat? And a lot of parents of missionaries, expo parents, but they have missionaries say, no, my son or daughter is still teaching that it was translated, you know, from the golden plates, that there was no hat or rock involved. There is not informed consent because when you were informed, you know, everything, it's all laid out and then you're consenting and agreeing to be a part of it.

Sarah Newcomb [02:00:58] Yeah. And coming back, like, sticking with that informed consent, which is what you're talking about is this is one of the things that ticks me off is that the church says, oh, these people are proud to be Lamanite, but the only reason they think they're Lamanite, like, oh, this person claims Lamanite. They really, like, embrace their heritage. I've read Ensign articles like Just Gone Back, and there's this way of wording things, as if the Native American or indigenous person is the one responsible for claiming Lamanite when we wouldn't have thought we were Lamanite if the church hadn't come in and said it all. And, like, using Native American bodies to further colonization without informed consent is an

Monica Crowfoot [02:01:49] issue, but why do they need consent for people who they think are animals? You know what I mean? And if they. If they took any responsibility and if they admitted that the Book of Mormon was true, there would cease to be a foundation for the church. There would cease to be tithe payers. And tithe payers is the most important thing that they're trying to keep.

Ann [02:02:17] It's, though.

Sarah Newcomb [02:02:19] Oh, go ahead, An.

Ann [02:02:20] It's interesting that you say animals, because it brings back this.

Sarah Newcomb [02:02:26] It's such a viv.

Ann [02:02:27] Vivid memory for me. So, in addition to me, I have a younger sister that was also Native American that was adopted, and I have a younger brother that's Korean that was adopted. And then I have a younger brother that my parents adopted, and he's part Polynesian, and he also has down syndrome. But my parents thought that the Lamanite placement program would be awesome for us to have another Lamanite student, a Lamanite foster sister in our family. And so my parents would serve as chaperones. So they'd go down on these big buses and pick up all these Navajo kids from the reservation, bring them back, and they'd come and drop them off at a Stake Center. And the families that were going to foster them were told to come gather at the Stake Center. And I remember getting off of one of these chaperoning trips with my parents and walking into the Stake center, and there were already kids that had been dropped off. They were opening everybody's luggage. They were going through their luggage piece by piece. There were some items that they were taking out. And I remember there was this little box of these disposable cheepy combs, and they were combing through the hair of every single student. Sorry, my dogs, but they were combing through their hair. And it's like they were examining them from head to toe like they were animals. And even as a little kid, I remember thinking, I felt so bad for these students. Because some of these kids, like you said, were like 5, 6, 7 years old and being combed over looking for bugs in their hair.

Sarah Newcomb [02:04:40] It was disgusting.

Ann [02:04:42] And it remains one of those memories that just sticks in my mind. These people, these children were treated like animals.

Monica Crowfoot [02:04:52] Yeah. When I was reading the letters from my uncles and aunts because they're, you know, I had just come upon this and they were just so heartbreaking because I think my uncle was even five years old, so he went as young as five years old on the Indian placement program. And they were so homesick and they missed each other so much and sometimes they couldn't see each other because their families wouldn't let them. They really wanted them to assimilate, they wanted them to make white friends, they wanted them to stay in the, the schools. And so these siblings are in tears in these letters. This little five year old boy, you know, who, who wanted to see his brothers, who wanted to see his sisters. And it just totally broke my heart because at the time I'm reading them, I have little kids, I have kids of my own. And I can't imagine how difficult it was for my grandmother to send her kids off to this program that she, you know, she thought might be better than the residential schools. Some of them were abused, some of them were sexually assaulted, some of them were treated very badly. Luckily, my mom had a fairly decent experience. But I think out of the nine siblings, there are only three or four of the siblings who stayed in the church and all the rest left. And I didn't understand that at the time why they turned from Mormonism and you know, started growing their hair out, started, started going to ceremonies and at the time I thought that they were turning to wickedness, you know, but reading those letters and even one of the letters saying, you know, I was dating this girl and we were, you know, I was really in love with her, but I just met her parents and they said, I'm a layman and I'm not good enough for her. So. And, and yeah, and he couldn't even step foot in their house. And Sarah, you were talking about how a lot of Euro Americans don't know this history. It was never taught to them especially, you know, you think you want to think as a native Mormon that regular non native Mormons feel this affection for natives, that we're welcomed, you know, into their circles because of the gospel, because we're in the Book of Mormon and we're promised these blessings and we're supposed to blossom as a rose and you're supposed to help us get there. You, you know, I had this naive idea that I would be welcomed. And so when I wasn't, I became very skeptical. But also, you know, in. In our all are moving around. We were in a lot of non Native communities, and our children were growing up in non Native communities. And luckily, you know, those. Those experiences were mostly very good. But when we. We had an encounter in Gallup, and Gallup was a very segregated ward, Gallup, you know, the natives didn't mix with the non Native group. People weren't invited to birthdays or play dates or whatever. But when we came into the ward, you know, Sam is a lawyer and, you know, we don't speak with accents. And, you know, people, non Natives, Euro Americans, think, oh, this is a safe couple. They're like us, and they start to befriend us. And at one of the dinners we had with some of the ward members, the. The husband made an interesting comment and he said, it's so nice to see such full Native Americans. It's so nice to finally see successful Native Americans. And Sam and I looked at each other, and by this time, you know, we've been together. We've been married for, like 16 years, and he's been immersed in Indian law, and he's very well read and well versed in Native history. We look at each other and we think, oh, we know what's coming. Because what comes next is the wife says, so why are Native communities, why is there so much poverty and so much alcoholism? And that's when we roll our eyes, because of course, we saw this coming. And Sam is like, well, I guess it's a history lesson now. So we go over genocide and starvation and rape and concentration camps, you know, and they didn't know any of these things. They didn't know how and why Natives were put on reservations. They didn't know that we were being killed off. They didn't know that we were suffering all of this generational trauma because our history for them is just the Book of Mormon history.

How Non-Native Mormons Engage With Native History

Sarah Newcomb [02:10:44] It's so frustrating. It's so frustrating. I had one of my dearest friends in college, like, she couldn't help herself and, like, I would get really stiff. And I should have, like, taught her, but I just stopped sharing with her. Instead, I just kind of backed away and withdrew. But she was always trying to. Embrace my heritage as, like, like a pet. Like, oh, Sarah, could you dance for me? Oh, Sarah, do this for me. And it was like trying to get me to act Indian for her for lack of a Better. And it's. She would talk about these, like, you know, the. The. What are they called? The big productions they put on outdoors. The church did. I can't think of the word.

John Dehlin [02:11:43] The pageants, like.

Sarah Newcomb [02:11:45] Like the outdoor pageants and stuff. She would talk about these and be like, and this and this. And so I was. I was seen as like, this. Yeah. Like this little spirit special, exotic pet to perform. And she didn't know the history, and she couldn't see that what she was doing was kind of like erasure or objectifying. And I. I had that happen a number of times with different people through the years. Kind of like in Primary, where they're like. And Sarah is a Lamanite. And like all my friends who two minutes before that I felt safe with, they're all sitting there staring at me and studying me. And. Yeah, there is that aspect of. They just don't know the history. And it's taught, like. Like the Book of Mormons, the history. And it's. It's not the history. It's not. It's not anything to do with people. And I don't know. I'm always curious to see what. What people want, like, what indigenous people that leave the church. I know how I feel. Like, what. I would like to see the church do what I want. Because I. During my transition, like, towards the end, I was in college at the time, and I added philosophy to my major, and I started studying Eastern philosophy. And it's weird because philosophy is not Eastern and Western for location. It's like, Western is white philosophy, and Eastern is everything else. So even Native American philosophy is in classified in Eastern. And so I'm like, studying all these Eastern religions and also studying, like, Native American spirituality. And I'm still a member, and I'm connecting so much with some of the things I'm learning. It reminded me of, like, my Tsimshian people, even though we weren't studying Tsimshian culture. But one of the things that I got from it is every single religion I studied had, like, messages of peace, messages of kindness, like, all these beautiful things at the core of every single one. And so as I'm, like, transitioning out, I'm like, humans are pretty beautiful. Like, we're insane. We're doing all these crazy things everywhere. But there's also this, like, beautiful unity all over the world of. Of just peace and love and family. And then there's all this chaos, and we all have to deal with it. And so, you know, there's. There was so much anger when I first left, but I was like, what am I going to do? You know, take down Mormonism? Am I going to stop there? Am I going to take down everything? And where do people find peace? And I was. I was learning about, like, how Native Americans didn't have religious freedom. And I'm like, do I want to be somebody that kind of pushes against religious freedom of any kind? And. And so, like, I was always analyzing it because I don't care about. I mean, I write about this stuff, but it's not the church I care about. It's indigenous people I care about. It's indigenous children I care about and families. And so I was like, you know, all my family, I'm the only one that left. So my siblings, all my nieces and nephews, my. My mom, they're all members. And of course, I have all these close friends that I love that, that identify as lame Knight. And they're, you know, they say they're happy where they're at. And so I was always like, even now, I always question myself, like, what do I want? What do I want? What would I like to see the church do? And the problem is it's not Native American history. And nothing can truly change until the church takes it out of the lesson. Manuals, takes Christopher Columbus out of the manual, takes the first Lamanite mission and changes that completely to say, you know, we don't know who the Lamanites are. They called this mission the Lamanites, but they shouldn't have. And I'd like to see the church actively teaching in the missionary programs that they are not to identify any people as Lamanites because the church doesn't know who the Lamanites are. Like, just own it. Native Americans should be allowed to join any religion without having their cultural identity, you know, pushed back on or appropriated. Their ancestry should not be appropriated. But at the same time, like, I. I know my mom's going to continue to identify as a Lamanite, so, like, it's just such an awkward place to be pushed into because there's this older generation that. That's hurting and, like, trying to deal with the changes. But there's also the church that's not coming out and being honest. Like, nobody can even deal with it or heal from it when it's still being hidden, when it's still being perpetuated, when it's still being pushed. It's like it's just another generation growing up that 10 years, 15 years from now is going to have to deal with the same thing. So I'm always in this, like, awkward spot and I always want to know what people think. Like, what can we do to change it? What do we want? What do we expect? And what I expect, I don't expect them to apologize because it's a. It's a church run by lawyers and it's. They're not going to look at it as repentance. They're going to look at it from a legal standpoint. What's going to cost us money. I just. But I do expect them to teach their missionaries. If you're going to have official representatives, those official representatives need to know. This is not Native American history. The Trail of Tears was not. Not the gathering of Israel, the promised land, you know, And Native American ancestors did not turn away from God. They were extremely spiritual. They were beautiful and had their own beautiful religions. Like, I want it all to stop, but I don't know where that leaves them. Like, it's. It's not a good place. So I'm probably wishing for some. I'm sure it'll happen, but it needs to happen.

Ann [02:18:24] I agree with you, Sarah. They have got to stop saying that we came from Jerusalem and to stop saying that. I mean, that changes the Book of Mormon. Last year, I did a DNA test and I, you know, it's been a lot of years that it's taken me to fully accept and embrace. I'm a laymanite. And so I was excited. I got this DNA test and I took it and. And of course I know it's going to say, you know, that I've got Israelite blood. Right, because my ancestor came across the boat from Jerusalem. I got my DNA back. And of course, it's not that it's Asian, but I shared on my Facebook page just telling how heartbroken I was because the DNA proved I'm not from Jerusalem. I'm. I don't have any of that Israelite blood in me. And I was kind of surprised because it's just little old me. I talk for like a few minutes. Like, I seriously ugly cry about it.

Sarah Newcomb [02:19:51] It's of kind.

Ann [02:19:51] Kind of an embarrassing video. But the other day I looked at it well, and at the time, people were just commenting left and right saying, I didn't ever think about this. Oh, and I'm so sorry. I'm so heartbroken that you grew up, you know, with this.

Guest 2 [02:20:10] But

Guest [02:20:13] that's one of the things that

Ann [02:20:14] the church has got to do is stop saying that we are from Jerusalem, because we're not. And my DNA proves it. And they've got to stop hurting people that way.

Monica Crowfoot [02:20:31] Yeah.

The Church's Disavowal of Racism and What It Means

Sarah Newcomb [02:20:31] If we could acknowledge the disavow versus denounce one time in reference to this. What are they defining racism as? Because right now we have somebody saying we disavow racism. They didn't say they denounce it and they also didn't define it. So I'm going to go ahead and say darkened skin in the Book of Mormon, Native Americans being marked with darker skin. And it's still being in the seminary manuals. I'm digging through other manuals sometimes, but I, yeah, it's racist. We're just going to call it for what it is. So they're disavowing because they can't denounce it because they still believe it, but they're also not defining it. So I'm just going to go ahead and put it out there. It's racist. It's also racist to say that Native American ancestors turned unrighteous and lost their promised land. It's racist to say the Trail of Tears was the gathering of Israel and that's what God wanted. No, it's human history. Humans fighting over resources, Humans demonizing, objectifying other people, cultures and religions over resources. Those ancestors did not turn away from God. They were not unrighteous. Ceremony is sacred. It's not unrighteous. Native American dancing is beautiful. It's sacred. It's not unrighteous. These things are racist. So they'll keep using disavow and they won't define racism. But I'm going to go ahead and define it and say they better denounce it. And if they're going to denounce it, they also need to address the, the missionary program and the manuals. Well, because until they're inclusive. Oh, go ahead, Monica.

Monica Crowfoot [02:22:19] I'm sorry.

Guest [02:22:20] I was just like getting so like

Monica Crowfoot [02:22:22] worked up in your talking. Sorry.

Guest [02:22:24] But I mean that was, that was the last straw for me was, you know, I was fine experiencing racism for myself. It was easy to brush off and brush aside and kind of not worry about it. But once I had kids, I was very outspoken. I became very outspoken about racism. But it seemed like the church still worked for me, especially in the Lamanite ward because we were all, you know, native or Polynesian. And so it worked. And then, you know, I had young kids who could, couldn't really think for themselves. And it wasn't until 2018 when my 15 year old son, no, 14 year old son, came to me and he said, mom. In Young men's. One of the classmates came up to me and said, you have a weak testimony because you have the curse of sin, curse of ham. And that, that is why you ask so many questions, and that's why your faith is weak. And, I mean, there were lots of problematic things happening in our Gallup Ward. He wasn't comfortable going to young men's because the, the young men's leader would call some of the boys faggots. And so he was, he just was like, I can't be. He could, he can't be part of

Monica Crowfoot [02:23:54] homophobic

Guest [02:23:59] community like this, this homophobic institution, you know, and he, he didn't want to be part of something that was ultimately racist against him. And it. I was fine pushing myself because I think I was the only person who was pushing my family to go to keep going to church despite everything. And I even remember, you know, being in the Relief Society presidency, teaching a lesson on apologetics and saying, well, God actually meant not a curse of skin, but a curse of, like a darkening of spirit, a disconnection from God. I was teaching that. But once my son came to me and said, mom, I can't be part of this. I can't believe this, what they teach. I can't believe in this doctrine. That was the last thing. And I was like, okay, we're not going. But my husband also had this experience, right? Like the week before when we baptized my, my daughter, he had stopped paying his tithing, you know, for a couple, couple years now. And we were giving to other local organizations and the bishopric had taken notice. And they said, well, you know, brother, you can't. Who's going to confer the gift of the Holy Ghost? And he's like, well, I'm going to do it. And they said, well, you can't do it because you're not a full tithe payer. And so my husband had said, well, you know, we're donating to these local charities. And they said, well, that doesn't count. It has to be to the LDS Church for it to count as tithing, and it has to be a full tithe. But if you cut us a check for $500, we'll let you do the blessing. And I can't remember what he said, but.

Monica Crowfoot [02:26:05] Because he knows the scriptures better than I do.

Guest [02:26:07] But he was like, oh, so Jesus is a bureaucrat, you know, oh, Jesus is running a business now. And they said, well, no, no, no, no. That's not what's going on. It's tithing. And he said, don't worry, I'll get my dad to do it because both of our parents are still attending full tithing paying members. So. So he ended up, my father in law ended up doing the blessing for my daughter. The Holy Ghost stuff. But yeah, I mean I think that was the last draw for him. I mean he had, he had kind of stopped going a long time before, but I think he was finally happy that I was on board once my son talked to me and you know, you have that mama bear instinct of protect your kids at all costs. And I finally realized this wasn't a healthy institution to raise my child in. This wasn't a healthy environment and this was actually very damaging. And I remembered how I grew up self loathing and being ashamed of my people and being ashamed of my culture and my traditions. I did not want my son to feel that way at all. And, and we left.

John Dehlin [02:27:30] I just remember being taught how evil the Catholic church was as a Mormon kid growing up. Because they sold indulgences, right? They sold access to rituals and forgiveness. Yeah, I'm just, that's so I'm. You were trying to give that money to legitimate charities when the church has several hundred billions of dollars in just reserves like. Monica, I'm dying to ask you, and I would love to hear Ann and Sarah answer this question as well. I remember the moment where, I mean, I remember the exact moment I sort of realized that the church wasn't what I thought it was. Monica, do you remember the moment when you realized you weren't a Lamanite? And if so, do you mind telling that story? And if you don't, that's fine too. I just wanted to ask.

Leaving the Church and Reclaiming Native Identity

Guest [02:28:14] Yeah, I think, I think it was, you know, it was a lot of little things snowballing and because of the manipulation around my brother's death, I, I felt like I had to keep going just like my parents. And you know, after having children of my own, I just can't imagine losing a child. And if I lost a child, I would want to do anything and everything I could to be able to see that child again. And so for them, for the church to hang that over my parents head saying, you know, you can't see your son unless you're in this religion. You can't see your son unless you're going, going to the temple and unless you're paying tithing, it was just extremely cruel. But I didn't realize that until I started. I actually started writing a memoir and I just finished it. I'm, you know, in the submission phase now. But over the course of five years of, of writing that and writing my experiences with my brother dying, writing my experiences with the missionaries, writing my experiences just as a child and seeing myself as a child. And really, like, remembering going through old journals, remembering how I felt about myself and about my people. I couldn't wait to get off the reservation.

Monica Crowfoot [02:29:47] I graduated.

Guest [02:29:49] You know, I was there for, you know, 18 years, my entire childhood, until

Monica Crowfoot [02:29:53] I went to BYU.

Guest [02:29:54] But I couldn't wait to get off. I couldn't wait to leave. I couldn't wait to separate myself from this shame that had been ingrained in me. And so writing that, writing my childhood out as an adult, I saw all of the manipulation and I saw all of the brainwashing and having, you know, researched history, Native history, indigenous history, I realized how wrong I had been. And I realized that, you know, after researching and reading history over the course of the last, you know, 16 years, I knew what my history actually was. And so it was a gradual process, but definitely in the last five years of writing, there was this click. And I think it was mainly this manipulation over my parents and my. My dead brother that just clicked it for me because I saw how ashamed they were. And they didn't want to teach us how to, you know, they didn't want to teach us how to speak Navajo. They didn't want to teach us about the culture and the dances and the songs, all of it, because they had had it beaten out of them in residential schools. They had had it assimilated out of them in the Indian placement program. I finally recognized their shame and their sadness surrounding who they were. And in writing this, I recognized it in my younger self. And I think that's the moment maybe, you know, I think it was 2018 when it kind of all came to a head. And my son talked to me. And, you know, it was just this kind of building up of,

Monica Crowfoot [02:32:10] I don't

Guest [02:32:11] know, flammable product, like, pressure and like, just this big explosion of, okay, I'm done. I'm out. And it didn't take me very long. I think I mourned my leaving.

Monica Crowfoot [02:32:22] I know a lot of people when

Guest [02:32:23] they leave, it's like the rug has been pulled out under them and their whole foundation is gone. And they're so lost, and they're so angry and sad, and, you know, there. It takes them a while to recover from that. And I think I had been doing that for the last five years.

Monica Crowfoot [02:32:43] In

Guest [02:32:45] telling this story of this teenage. This young child, you know, who rubbed herself with lemons, and then this teenage girl who was told that you'll Be pornography if you're not modest, that you know you're not good enough because you're a Lamanite. All of these things, it was just this building up of pressure. And I didn't mourn the fact. I think I was angry. But I started listening to a lot of podcasts, this one included. And, you know, for three weeks, I just devoured all this post Mormon information and post Mormon podcast. And I was like, but I'm done. You know, it wasn't. I wasn't sad about it. I think I was more upset, but it wasn't something I really mourned. And I think it was a little bit different for my husband just because he did serve a two year mission and he was trying to reconcile that. And, you know, all of these things that you're taught to feel shamed over and you're. You're brainwashed over, it was a harder process for him because he. He felt like he dedicated so much of his life and so much of his money to. To this church. And then realizing that, you know, they didn't even. They couldn't even take the time to care about the reservations.

Guest 2 [02:34:20] Water.

John Dehlin [02:34:27] Powerful. Thank you, Monica.

Monica Crowfoot [02:34:31] You're welcome.

John Dehlin [02:34:35] And let me unmute you really quick. Okay. And start. Start over. I just wanted to.

Sarah Newcomb [02:34:39] Okay. Sorry.

John Dehlin [02:34:40] Please.

Ann [02:34:40] No, I was muted. So for me, I grew up, you know, despising my skin and wanting so badly to be a white person. And so when I was. I went down to school at SUU in Cedar City, Utah, and I was so excited because there were Navajo students there. And I immediately joined the culture club because, like, oh, my gosh, Navajo people, brown people. I want to learn my culture. I want to learn all about my heritage. And they were very fun. They were very accepting of me. They did at the time tease me and called me a potato because I was brown on the outside, but really white on the inside. But they were very kind and very accepted, accepting of me. And then I took some time. I have an aunt and uncle that live in Farmington, New Mexico. So I took some time to just. Just I needed some time away. And so I went and lived with them. And I went to school at Navajo Community College in Shiprock and just tried to immerse myself in all the culture. So I was taking language classes and I was taking cultural class classes, and I was trying to just learn all my culture. And I was so excited about it and I loved it. And again, the people were very kind and very, very patient with me when they heard my story, heard I was Adopted. And then I met my husband and again I was so, just constantly learning, studying, reading. And it came to a point where I actually embraced being in Navajo. And I became proud of who I was. And I was so, so finally so proud of my skin and so proud to be a Navajo person. And I thought, you know, I'm going to teach my kids everything that I wasn't taught when I was being raised. And we've tried to do that. My husband has tried to teach Navajo to our daughters and we've, we've tried to embrace as much of, of the culture that we can. Whenever we're down on the reservation, at his grandparents house, we always participate in different ceremonies and I just love being down there. But the poverty always struck me. Always. And I used to say to my husband, why doesn't the church help out these people? His grandparents had no running water and no electricity. And this was like in 2005. And it just started to dawn on me. Wait, the church has a lot of money. The church is supposed to be helping people. These people have no running water. They have to go down to the water tower and fill up big huge like water tanks and, and haul it back to their, to their hogan on the res, on their, on the mesa that they lived on. This is like, I don't get this. The church is supposed to be helping people and there are a lot of really poor people out on our reservation. And, and then the DNA thing last year, that just sealed the deal for me. I mean, there have been a lot of things that I put on my shelf over the years. You know, polygamy always bothered me. The Lamanite cursing always bothered me. The earth being 6,000 years old, a lot of different things were on my shelf. But once I found out my DNA, I was like, okay, it's not true. They've lied to me my entire life. It's not true. And from there I started seeking out just information, started reading a lot of things and I thought, I wonder if there are other people that are like me that to are going, going through these same things. And so I thought, I wonder, I'm just going to Google Mormon stories and just see if there are some people out there that might be going through what I'm going through, going through a faith transition. And from there I started listening to the podcast and started doing research, started researching the history, started learning all kinds of things about Joseph Smith and his polygamy and marrying a 14 year old girl. Just, it just snowballed from there. But for me it was Just the DNA and realizing I had been told a lie my whole life and kind of going along with this. My daughter, 23 year old, she had an accident where she accidentally fell off of her balcony at her apartment and became paralyzed. And at the time I was working, so the only time I could spend with her up at the hospital endeavor were the weekends. And so I would go to work during the week, but then go spend time with her at Craig Hospital in Denver. And week after week after week because she was at the hospital a long time, she broke so many bones in her back and she was paralyzed. And so she was learning how to live life as a paralyzed person. But week after week after week, not being at church, being with my family, being with my kids, trying to help my daughter through this horrific time in her life, we were happy. We were very happy. And you know, even though it was a really hard time emotionally, we felt such peace and just all of these things building up. I thought, you know what, I'm going to take a break, I'm going to pull back from church. And I told my 11 year old daughter at the time, this is what we're going to do. I've learned these things and this is what we're going to do. And she just broke down in tears and I just thought, oh, and the worst parent ever. I've like ruined my child, child. And she just said, no, mom, these are tears of happiness. I hate church. The pressure of never being good enough. I have felt such pressure that I would ruin our family's chances to be in the celestial kingdom. I've hated being a Lamanite and I've hated always being the brown kid. And they'd always point me out. I, I don't like it, mom. And I'm so happy.

Guest [02:42:20] And

Ann [02:42:24] to hear your 11 year old child say, I feel horrible, I feel worthless. I feel like I'm never gonna be good enough and I'm never gonna make it. I hate being a Lamanite. It broke my heart and I thought, I can't be part of an organization that is damaging my child. And I'm happier not being at church. And we have such peace without being at church. And then in addition to all of the lies that was really hard for me, a hard pill to swallow is all of the lice. That was really, really difficult. So for me, it took a long time to accept being a Lamanite. But once I got the DNA, I was done being a Lamanite. Absolutely done.

Guest 2 [02:43:31] Over here.

John Dehlin [02:43:31] So powerful. I'm just like, that is so powerful. Your stories, both of you, Monica and Anne, just. I'm like, on the edge of my seat. This is just so amazing. And listeners and viewers are all just saying this is one of their favorite episodes of all time. And that's how I'm feeling. And I've done a few of these myself, so. Anne, Anne, Monica, thank you for what you just shared.

Guest 2 [02:43:56] Really, thank you.

Guest [02:43:58] You're welcome.

Ann [02:43:59] You're welcome.

John Dehlin [02:44:01] Sarah, do you want to add?

Sarah Newcomb [02:44:03] Yeah, I could add a little. Just. I've kind of shared my story before a little bit, but. I didn't leave the church over the Lamanite issues, actually. And I didn't research them. I didn't think about them. It was like I completely internalized it. I just accepted it, and I wouldn't think about it. I wouldn't address it. And so when I started, I was. I was on bed rest in 2013 with my fourth pregnancy. And it is. It's something about having kids that just changed me. And I was. You know, my. My other kids were getting older, and I was starting to worry about how am I going to help them deal with different things. And, like, polygamy was a big issue. And so while I was on bed rest, I was like, I'm not going to be a fence sitter, whatever terms we used while we were members. And so I started researching a ton and sourcing and when. That was probably the first time that I realized the church wasn't what it said it was because I. I came across stuff about lost boys and what happened to boys in polygamy. And I was like, it's weird. Like, I. I internalized the. The girl's experience so much that it didn't shock me. It was like, okay, how do I deal with this? How do I deal with this? And. But reading some of the stuff, like this kid that was castrated forcibly by Bishop that wanted to marry his. This kid's girlfriend as. And take her as like a fourth wife or something, this older man. And seeing how. How much like, nothing happened, that nothing happened as a result of what this bishop had done, like, wasn't even, like, a thing. It was the first time that I realized that the church was a little different than I. Than what I saw or what I believed. And so from 2013 through 2016, I'm, like, trying to get answers, trying to feel comfortable, trying to feel peace, trying to figure out how to help my kids deal with the things that caused me pain. But I'm also looking at it through a new perspective. And in. In 2015, my son was about to get baptized, and I didn't want him to be baptized. I saw the. I. I saw how religion was harmful to boys as well as girls, and I couldn't unsee it. And so I'm still, like, at this point, not even dealing with the Lamanite stuff. And so I just keep looking for answers. I'm, you know, I had this massive manual of things I printed out. Just every talk, every. Every source. I was like, there's got to be an answer. There's got to be an answer. And I was just so sure that it was all true. And. But I wouldn't tell my husband about any of it because I was scared of not uplifting my priesthood holder. So. So I didn't want to pull him down. So I'm not, you know, all these years, I'm not talking to him about the stuff I'm researching. I'm just sure that it's going to make sense because it's got to be true. And then I finally run across the essays in 2016, and yeah, for me, it was the book of Abraham, like, being raised and told, you know, this was written in Abraham's hand, and it was translated to finding out it's nothing to do with it. That's when I opened up to, like, other outside of the church sources because I was like, okay, I. I need to look at other stuff. Find the cs. CS letter, which I didn't even know existed. It would have saved me so many hours of obsessively pouring over the church websites, but I don't know that I would have believed it. I don't know that I would have looked at it, because it wasn't a church source. It was anti. To me. Yeah, my son got baptized, but I was really struggling. And then I think January of 2016, I told my husband stuff, and, like, he was done immediately. And I actually panicked. You know, like, here I am three years into, like, research, knowing that the church isn't what it says it is, and then I'm panicking, and I'll get to why in a minute, but so we end up deciding to leave the church, and I feel all this relief and just, you know, good. This is good. And about a month after leaving, I'm. Or deciding to leave at least, because now I'm starting to listen to podcasts and different things, finding sources that are not from church, and I'm pretty sure I was listening to Mormon stories. I don't know. I was listening to everything back then, but I could hear my Kids playing in another room, and I'm listening to the podcast, and it just. I'm like, I'm not Lamanite. And just hits me. It's like this one clear moment, and it just shocked me, that one. I could do all that research and not even consider, like, researching that. And to that, it just didn't hit me. But once it did, it was like. It was like hitting a brick wall. It was like shock, just complete shock that my entire identity was based on a racist myth. Like, it just blew my mind that I'd made decisions and lived my life and. And made just huge decisions that. That impacted me, you know, And I couldn't sit still. I was pacing all over my house. And, like, you know, Monica said that she didn't have, like, that. That, like, stages of mourning or that trauma after she left because she'd been doing it

Ann [02:50:35] well.

Sarah Newcomb [02:50:36] It was like this moment hit, and it's like, that's when my. That's when I just couldn't process it all. I had to. I started running, and I would run until I couldn't run anymore. Like, I know I gave myself shin splints. I was running so much, but it's like I couldn't sit still and I couldn't process at home with all the kids. So, like, anytime my husband's home, I was like, I'm going running. I'm going running. And while I was on these runs, I was just processing and thinking. But there's this moment when I was a kid that my Tsimtian grandmother tried to talk to me. Like, this one moment where she pulled me aside and. And tried to, like, talk to me about Mormonism. And I'm like, eight, nine, ten. I don't know. I'd have to look back at my journal and notes and stuff, but I snapped at her, and I defended the church. And then years later, here I am, you know, 2016, and she's gone. I can't apologize. I can't thank her for trying. I can't get back that time of going to family of, like, those relationships. There's people that have passed on. And, like, Mormonism was everything. And so there was just that clear moment of realizing I wasn't Lamanite and being so upset, but, like, I'd held on to Mormonism because as a child, another thing I don't talk about, and I won't go into details, but my story, it's anonymous, but it's in Sam Young's stuff, like, protect LDS children. I carry trauma. I carry complex ptsd. From stuff I went through. And so. And then we're moving all the time. So, like, my family moved so much that I didn't really have anywhere that was stable or home, except Alaska, except my family there. And then kind of being separated from it and choosing Mormonism is like, Mormonism became kind of what I coped with or how I didn't feel alone. And I think that's probably fairly common. Like, a lot of people carry trauma, and that's somewhere I give space for. I don't know what trauma people carry or why they need to belong to whatever group they belong to for. For spirituality, but I carried a lot of trauma. And so suddenly I didn't have, like, this box to process all my trauma through. And so I went through major stages of mourning. I ended up with high anxiety. And, like, so I just started running, and the running kind of saved me. And then traveling back and seeing my Tsimshian family and bringing my kids all home and my husband.

Guest 2 [02:53:32] And

Sarah Newcomb [02:53:35] in some ways, I feel lucky and just so blessed because I have family that never, like, lost contact with me, even though I was, like, so in this box, that they couldn't understand. They couldn't understand why I wasn't connecting more with them on the reservation. So, yeah, there's just that clear moment and then all that. Just years of just trying to find ways of handling trauma and actually facing things in a much healthier way. So, like, for me, it was traumatic, but it was also the best thing that ever happened to me, like, waking up and being more authentic and processing things more authentic and making decisions that were more authentically me. And I can't get my grandma back, but I can sure connect to everybody,

Guest [02:54:31] you know,

Sarah Newcomb [02:54:34] on the reservation that has tried to keep those connections. So it's. You wouldn't think that, you know, like, as a Mormon, I didn't realize how damaging the Lamanite myth is. And perhaps it's not damaging for everyone. You know, there's different experiences, but for me, getting on that outside perspective, I can't unsee, like, how damaging it is.

Guest [02:55:07] Sarah, I totally agree with you. I didn't realize how damaging and how many people I hurt through just being a Mormon. Because we moved around so often, we had so many non Mormon friends. I think we had more non Mormon friends than church friends who just, you know, felt more comfortable with non Mormons. But a lot of these friends were black friends and indigenous friends. And they often asked us, how can you be Mormon? You're an indigenous person.

Monica Crowfoot [02:55:48] How can you be Mormon?

Guest [02:55:50] And it was a really hard question to answer. And I didn't understand why it was such a big deal, I guess, until after I left and I realized how hurtful and damaging it was. We had very, very close black friends. And so when I decided to write this apology, because I had recognized this white supremacist construct that I had been a part of for so long, that I upheld, held for so long.

Monica Crowfoot [02:56:25] And not.

Guest [02:56:27] Not every indigenous person feels the same way, just like you said, and not every black person feels the same way. But I know there are lots of indigenous people and black people who do feel the need to speak up in Sunday school and feel. Feel like it's their calling to change things from within. And I totally get that. I used to be that person who tried to change things from within. But once I left, I wrote an

Monica Crowfoot [02:56:56] article,

Guest [02:56:58] my apology for my complicity. It was a Juneteenth article to honor. Because I thought, you know, being part of this institution had hurt so many people because every, every member is a missionary. And I went out actively trying to. To convert people, actively trying to take them away from their own beliefs, their own culture, and somehow feeling like I had the right one. And so I. I just kind of, you know, felt this huge guilt. And I thought, what can I do to rectify this? How can I make this better? Because we do have black friends. And I did feel that there was something like this invisible boundary between us.

Monica Crowfoot [02:58:03] And

Guest [02:58:05] I didn't see how threatening me being part of this white supremacist institution had hurt them. Like, you guys are such good people. Why would you be part of this? Why would you be part of something that oppresses us? And I finally realized that I had done damage myself. And so I wrote this apology saying publicly that we had left. And it was a huge risk because so, so many of our friends from

Monica Crowfoot [02:58:38] Utah, all our friends from Utah are

Guest [02:58:40] Mormon, you know, who were in the Lamanite ward. I was so afraid of losing those friends. I was so afraid of tearing my family apart. I was so afraid, you know, what would my in laws say? And it. It hasn't been easy. And I think my dad and my mom are pretty lenient with our choice just because they also made the same choice when they were younger. So they kind of get where. Where we're coming from with the racism and the stocks and the hundred billion dollars, you know, all of those things, I think they kind of understand. But when I wrote this article apologizing for my part upholding this oppressive white supremacist construct I thought that the risk of losing friends or the risk of tearing my family apart, my extended family, I thought that was worthy of apologizing to the people I had hurt. And it was. I would do it over again. And I received. Surprisingly, I was kind of bracing myself or, you know, all this backlash.

Monica Crowfoot [03:00:05] But

Guest [03:00:08] a lot of my black friends had messaged me and said, thank you so much for speaking out about this. Thank you so much.

Monica Crowfoot [03:00:14] We really appreciate it.

Guest [03:00:15] We see your effort. And I. I didn't realize, again, how much me opposing this. This institution had meant for them, opposing this, you know, not becoming. You know, not being part of this oppressive, oppressive thing, not being part of their oppression. And. And so many other people who I thought would say, okay, we can't be friends anymore. You know, it's just so interesting how many people are struggling with their belief in Mormonism, how many people who are on the edge or of leaving or people who have left who I had no idea about, and they said, yeah, we're in the same. Same boat. We just left. I can't stand, you know, the racism or this or that. So it's actually really comforting to have received that feedback.

John Dehlin [03:01:22] Beautiful.

Sarah Newcomb [03:01:26] Yeah, I. I wrote an essay to my grandmother, kind of. I. I understand kind of where you're coming from, where it's like this weight that you carry that you've got to do something about. And I was invited to be a part of a compilation of writers that put this book together, and. And mine was about my grandma. And I sent a copy to my. One. My. One of my uncles that has, like, really years before I left. He was always trying to stay in my life and actively trying to keep me connected to my grandma while she was still alive. And so I sent him a copy. And, yeah, there is that reaction from. From at least family there, that. That understanding and that relief. And they see the effort. But, yeah, on the flip side, I did the Lamanite Truth blog for the last few years, and I've lost. I've lost a lot of friendships and relationships because of it, but I still think it's worth it, as hard as it is.

Ann [03:02:42] And I appreciate you, Sarah, inviting me to be part of this and to add my voice to the conversation, because we need to speak out. As indigenous women, we need to speak out. And like Monica said, there are so many people that are struggling. There are so many people out there that are on the edges and that

John Dehlin [03:03:10] are

Ann [03:03:13] trying to make sense of it all. And so, like, I was so scared when I posted that video on my Facebook Page last year talking about my DNA. I was so scared. And I did lose friends. I did have people, you know, message me and say, you're making the wrong

Guest [03:03:39] decision,

Ann [03:03:43] You're falling away, and just basically wrote me off. But for all those people that are no longer a part of my life and no longer friends with me, I have a whole bunch of other friends that have reached out to say thank you for sharing, thank you for adding your voice, thank you for being brave. Thank you for feeling, you know, that you're strong enough to share your story. And I don't feel brave. I mean, this is super out of my comfort zone to do this. Posting that video last year was so out of my comfort zone. I mean, I. It's seriously. I ugly cry in it. But I looked at it the other day and There are like 6,600 views. My one little video. So I know it has relevance and I know that us sharing our stories, it's gonna help. It's gonna help someone. And if I can help just one person muddle their way through everything, then that's a great thing. So thank you, Sarah, and thank you, John and Sarah, for letting us.

Sarah Newcomb [03:05:04] Yeah, thanks.

Guest 2 [03:05:06] Well, we know it's obviously not any of your job to educate us, but I think all of our listeners have been just like, feel like this is history in the making for ex Mormon women and for Mormon stories that we're able to have this platform for all of you to share your experiences in your own words. So also between Lamanite Truth Blog. Right. And Monica, your article and then and your Facebook post, we're going to make sure that those are in our show notes on the YouTube video for this to make sure that people can check that out if they're watching this later or if they're in the live stream right now and they want to come back in a few hours. We'll make sure to have those. Did you ladies feel like you had. You said everything tonight that you felt was on your heart that you wanted to say?

Sarah Newcomb [03:05:51] Yeah, I think we covered quite a bit and I think we could probably talk for hours about experiences and kids and like, all of it. But yeah, there's. There's only so much we can cover in one night. One night.

Guest 2 [03:06:06] If we did a short Q and A of just these.

Sarah Newcomb [03:06:09] Yeah. Yeah.

Responding to Criticism and Reflecting on the Discussion

Guest 2 [03:06:12] So would you mind. I'm going to start with a criticism of this entire thing that I've heard before. And also somebody mentioned tonight. Would all of you identify now as like ex Mormons, I would assume, right?

Sarah Newcomb [03:06:28] I did. I did at first post Mormon.

Guest 2 [03:06:31] No longer.

Sarah Newcomb [03:06:32] I don't, I don't even identify as that anymore.

Guest 2 [03:06:35] Exactly.

Sarah Newcomb [03:06:36] Just like I'm Sarah, I'm Cynthia, I'm. Yeah, I don't use it anymore, but I did for years.

Guest 2 [03:06:42] So what would your response be to somebody who said that you are. Let's see, how am I going to phrase this, that what you're describing, this is going to. This is obviously not my question. I found this in the chat from somebody else who said that they are LDS and Native American, that what you're describing is US racism and not Mormon racism.

Sarah Newcomb [03:07:08] I have a response. Does anybody else.

Guest [03:07:11] It's very. I get that all the time. I make tiktoks and dealing with being a native and being a post Mormon, I get that all the time. And, you know, I've just found that it's people being in denial. They don't want to. They're. They're not ready to criticize a religion that they've built their whole life around. I felt the same way. But when you really dig deep into the history of indigenous genocide and assimilation in the Americas, all up and down North America, South America, Central America, you can't just claim it.

Guest 2 [03:08:08] Us.

Guest [03:08:10] Us racism. Especially when Brigham Young himself signed an extermination order against the tribes in the Utah Valley so they could have the land.

Monica Crowfoot [03:08:25] And when we told this to one of our extended family members who's very

Guest [03:08:29] hardcore Mormon, who's non native, he said, well, what did the natives do to deserve it? It's always like flipped around, you know, so it can't be, it can't ever be Mormons to take the blame. It has to be, well, what did the natives do? And in this instance, you know, I understand, you know, and I'm sure Ann and Sarah do too. You have. Because we've been in the same. The same bought at different points in our lives. You have been brainwashed and so ingrained to take on this label and this identity that has been given to you because you're promised something. You're promised that you are the promised people. You're promised that you're going to blossom as a rose. You're promised that you're going to be white and delightsome. And it's, it reminds me of the donkey and the carrot analogy where, you know, you're dangling this carrot in front of a donkey and you're told to keep going.

Monica Crowfoot [03:09:37] And I remember being in that, in

Guest [03:09:39] that mentality and, you know, there's no real, there's no real arguing with that because people who have suffered trauma and indoctrination. They're just trying to survive. They're suffering the same generational trauma that we're suffering. Every indigenous person, every black person on this continent is suffering generational trauma. And the way people deal with that

Monica Crowfoot [03:10:15] is so completely different.

Guest [03:10:19] So it's a common criticism and one that, You know, I'm not gonna say that they're wrong or right this, that is the way through Mormonism, that they're dealing with their own traumas.

Sarah Newcomb [03:10:44] Yeah, I'm. I view it kind of like Monica does. That's why I've moved so slow, slowly through the work. Like, I could have blown it up, but I wanted to move slow because it is generations of trauma. It is generations of not having religious freedom. And who am I to say where another indigenous person finds peace or comfort? And this is why I say many voices is what Monica said. You know, just calling it out for what it was. That's the kind of thing I need to hear. And so, like, I need people that I need to hear those kinds of things because it, it helps me process. But there's also, like the space that I once was and I can't forget, like, what it was like feeling that way or thinking that way. And who am I to say, you know, what's right or wrong for somebody?

Ann [03:11:42] So.

Sarah Newcomb [03:11:43] So that's why I'm always like, I want the, the actual corporation that is the church to back away from things that they know aren't factual. But I also want to make space for indigenous people to personally identify however they, they feel strongly about. So I'll make space for that, that individual that commented, if, if that's something they connect with and if they self identify as, as Lamanite, that's something that I'll support. Because indigenous people have had enough of being told what they can and cannot believe. But the corporation that is the church knows that it's teaching, you know, and having missionaries teach things that aren't factual. And it doesn't honor people that have been here for thousands and thousands of years, longer than the Book of Mormon timeline. Like, it's okay to back away from that teaching and be more inclusive to individual history. So I don't know if that makes sense how I would respond to somebody like that. How I have responded is I support them self identifying. But the church does need to grow.

Ann [03:13:11] And just my quick 2 cents. There is racism within the church, there is racism without the church. And like Sarah and Monica have so beautifully said, who am I to take away how that person is going to self identify and everybody's, you know, self identification, autonomy is different. And for me, with what I learned about my DNA, I just could no longer say that I was a laymanite. And eventually it has led me to leave the church. But I can't criticize or look down on anybody for the way that they want to self identify. And I would have to say that since leaving the church, I have become a much more accepting person of others. And the church, I think is really, really good at othering. We're putting people in categories or putting people as members, as non members, Lamanites, Nephites, terrestrial, celestial, you know, we're just trying to put people in places. And I don't want to put people in places. I just want to see people as people.

Sarah Newcomb [03:14:37] And to me there's, there's something so beautifully indigenous about that way of thinking. Like I was literally taught to think this way from my grandmother, from my uncle, from my, my aunts who I called after I left the church and I'm just in tears and they're teaching me to be accepting of Mormonism while Mormonism does not accept them. Like there is nothing more indigenous. And that is why when missionaries cross the plains, we're like, yeah, yeah, okay, that's your beliefs. We're not interested. We had to have it demonized and made illegal, you know, and even still my people, when I talk to them are accepting. And that's the space that, that I've always wanted to create is that space for indigenous people. It's not about Mormonism. Mormonism is not that important. It's about the people.

Guest 2 [03:15:32] If I can ask kind of a follow up question to that is one criticism I saw in the chat of this discussion and I think feel we'll probably get eventually is that we are two white ex Mormons podcast exploiting to three women for the ex Mormon, anti Mormon Lamanite angle.

Sarah Newcomb [03:15:55] I would take that one. I'm happy to take that one.

Guest 2 [03:15:58] Yeah. Do you feel like what do you have to say to that?

Sarah Newcomb [03:16:03] I don't feel exploited, but it is a risk and I'll explain why. Natives need to own their own stories. They need to have their own space. And that's some why I refuse to do anything but write my blog. So like, I think early on I had some offers to collaborate on on podcast type stuff and I turned it down because it wasn't indigenous and I focus purely on my blog. But when it came to working with Mormon Stories podcast, there's a group of us that chat now and then. And even Ann was in there and some of the other people, and we were talking about whether or not we wanted to do Mormon Stories podcast because of this. Like, we need to have a space for our own voices. And we're like, john is always willing to give us the platform, but he doesn't come chasing it. He doesn't come bugging us. Not once has John called me up and been like, sarah, come do the podcast and talk about Lamanite issues. I need you right now. Like, not a single time he puts feelers out the very first time. And people came to him. But I had been writing him. I don't know how many emails I sent you that first year I'd left the church, and I was like, hey, Mormon Stories, you should talk about the Lamanites, you know, and then you finally did. And even with this, you know, it was that couple years ago we had me and the three guys on. I can't remember what. What inspired that, but that was us organizing it and John saying, yeah, you can use my platform. I do have somebody that. He and I have talked a number of times about starting an indigenous ex Mormon podcast. I am all for it, but I do have complex ptsd, and I do have things that I juggle. And so I've moved slowly. I've also wanted to figure out how to make space for indigenous members. So I could have started it years ago, but I knew I wouldn't be coming from a balanced space where I, like, was there for everyone. So I don't feel used. But it could have turned into that. It's just. That's not the space that John had created for us, and that's not something people see behind the scenes. So I don't know if anybody knows Hiram Joe, he's an artist, and he. He did Losing the Lamanite series, but he was in on the conversation where we're talking, like, well, what do we want to do? Do we want to just start our own podcast? Ann was in on it. I don't think you made it, Monica, when we were chatting that night, but. And Hyrum is like, you know, if there's anything I can say, John gives us a space and then he sits back like, he is always willing to let us use his platform. And that's literally, like, we contact him and we're like, hey, John, can we use your platform? And it has saved me anxiety because, yeah, because of what I deal with personally, but I still keep speaking out. So, like, Ann, you talked about, like, not feeling brave. I Feel like that all the time. Like, I'm not brave. It just matters to me. But I definitely respect the fact that it can come across. Like, okay, here's these two white people, and they just want to be advocates, and they don't know how to advocate. And I talked to John a few weeks ago, and John's like, I didn't know any of this. Like, he's just digging into history, and he's like, I didn't know, Sarah. I'm sorry, I didn't know. And I have. I have so many white people that email me saying, how can we be advocates? I don't want to offend anybody. I don't know what to do. And I just say, just listen. You know, I do the work. See if there's anybody that has spoken and if there's people that have spoken, if there's people that have written books about stuff, if there's history is all over the place out there available. If you want to be an advocate, just listen and learn. Because there can be so many mistakes and so many people can mess up and make the wrong decision and be like, oh, no, I made it worse instead of better, because it is confusing. Like teaching my own children who. Who are mixed race, also like, how to navigate and be supportive of the black community, of the LGBT community. I'm every bit as awkward, but I know I need to listen. Like, if there's anything that I've learned, it's just listen. So that's pretty much what John has tried to do, is just give us a space to talk. But we have considered, like, creating our own space. And I've been, you know, just emotionally healing and dealing with life and kids and anything that comes at the cost of my own children, I'm not going to do so if it. I haven't been able to make those steps yet, but they're coming, maybe,

Guest [03:21:33] and

Ann [03:21:33] I. I totally second that. Sarah, before the show, John just simply said, I'm glad to welcome you to the platform.

Sarah Newcomb [03:21:45] What would you like to talk about?

Ann [03:21:47] What would you like to do? There was no agenda from his side. And like Sarah said, we meet up once a month to discuss indigenous issues. Just talk as indigenous people. Some of our friends are Mormons. Some of them are not. But we have talked about creating our own space. We have talked about creating something original from indigenous people. But come on, it's John Dehlin. It's Mormon stories.

Monica Crowfoot [03:22:24] Stories.

Ann [03:22:25] It's a. It's a very big platform, and I feel very honored and also humbled to share my story. Because I'm just little old me. I'm just Ann that lives in Colorado, that teaches preschool. You know, I'm nobody special, I'm nobody brave. But just being able to share my thoughts and my feelings about this, it's not exploitative at all. And the Lamanite story, the Lamanite myth is part of the Mormon story. And that's what this is. It's called Mormon stories. And our story is part of the Mormon story.

Sarah Newcomb [03:23:19] Yeah.

Guest [03:23:20] And just to go along with Sarah and Ann, there actually are a lot of indigenous spaces and indigenous people flock to those indigenous spaces. And so often you're already speaking to what they know. And so having a platform, especially a large platform that communicates to such a wide variety of people, especially non natives, I think it's really important for us

Monica Crowfoot [03:23:56] to

Guest [03:23:58] have that platform to be able to speak on our experiences. Because just like at the dinner table when you know those, the people were saying, well, we're so excited to finally see successful natives, we're so excited to like. And then on the flip side to say like, why is there poverty, why is there alcoholism? You know, all of the subtle racism that they, they that are, that's just so ingrained in how they grew up, They just don't know about the history, they don't know about our experiences. And I think it's very important for people to know, for people to know that this is part of the Mormon history. Our experiences are just as important as pioneer heritage and Pioneer Day and all of these things. They're still having trec and asking Natives native children to be part of trek when pioneers killed off our, our native children, our native mothers, our native fathers, our native grandparents. So like, how crazy is it that you know, so many people don't know the actual history because it's been erased, because it's been silenced. And so I think this is an especially important platform to have. So thank you so much for having us and Sarah, thank you so much for organizing and thank you so much

Monica Crowfoot [03:25:45] for sharing your own story.

Guest 2 [03:25:49] Thank you ladies all around. That might have been everything we talked about was obviously like really heart wrenching and stuff. And I feel like you guys have done such a beautiful job of collectively using this experience to further understanding and to make more healing within your own indigenous communities. So I'm, I feel really like mind blown by all of the, like, we sit down in these interviews a lot, don't we John? But like this definitely was the biggest honor to have all of you here. So I just had to get that off My chest. Another Q. A question I wanted to go to really quick was back when you guys were talking about the. Was it Sarah that you were talking about? I think maybe all of you touched on this. Not wanting to. Not being allowed to participate in like your native dances and that was being frowned upon as being sinful. My question to you is why do you think that the Polynesian cultures, which were also co opted to be Lamanites. Why does the Polynesian Cultural center get away with literally getting paid to do their dances that aren't sinful? Is it because it's profitable? What would your take beyond that?

Mormon History With Native and Polynesian Peoples

Sarah Newcomb [03:27:00] It started quite a ways back. Like we're talking old history here. Well, old 1920s. That's not that old. I want to say it was 1920 something that the current prophet wrote a letter to a New Zealand, not New Zealand, a Maori chief and basically explained that the people in the Pacific Islands were protected because they were, they were protected because they were the more righteous. They were protected from the, the more evil North American Native Americans. What happened to us? So the people in the Pacific Islands were separated because they were more righteous and they were protected. And it says this in a letter as, as old as that seems like. Oh, that was just, you know, one letter teaching that it was taught. I'll have to look in my notes. It's 2021. It was taught three years ago, maybe four. That letter specifically was used in a BYU devotional in Hawaii. And so that's not something Native Americans hear. We don't hear, oh, we were the more righteous and we were protected from what happened to somebody somewhere else. But they've kind of, it's like using this thing to make one group feel like special, which is really just manipulating them into getting them to do, you know, what they want is about their land and making profit. At least that's my opinion. Again, that's, you know, just my voice, my view. And I've talked to some of my Maori friends about this and it's just, it's offensive to them that they were told that they were more righteous than the more wicked. I think that's what the letter says. The more wicked Native Americans in North America, specifically on this continent. So I assume that has a little bit of an influence on, you know, how they were treated, like they were the more righteous. So their traditions perhaps weren't seen as. As bad. I don't, I don't know. And it, it does have some to do with the profit. Profit, you know, like making profit off of them. But that's Again, another one of my opinions. It's not like I have facts on that, but.

Guest 2 [03:29:46] Interesting. John, did you have anything else or anyone else want to add to that before I go on?

Sarah Newcomb [03:29:53] I could probably dig up the letter so that at least people have a source for that, but we can put

Guest 2 [03:29:58] it in the show notes. Yeah, yeah, I'll.

Sarah Newcomb [03:30:01] I'll have to see if I can find it. And I'll dig up the BYU devotional that talks about it because it's like they're at BYU Hawaii teaching the kids there that they're more righteous than the Native Americans. And it's just. Yeah, it's a surprising. It was, it surprised me because it's just dividing indigenous people. It was used to divide us. And it's not Pacific Islanders fault. None of that is.

Guest 2 [03:30:32] And in case we didn't mention before that the Polynesian Cultural center is owned by the LDS Church. Make sure to.

John Dehlin [03:30:38] And it's a super big money maker.

Ann [03:30:41] Yeah.

Guest 2 [03:30:42] And then finally I want to make sure that, yes, I'm going to put as much of this in the show notes as well. But do each of you have like a favorite charity or nonprofit that you want people to be aware of that if they want to help or become a better advocate? Where do they need to go?

Resources, Organizations, and Closing Reflections

Sarah Newcomb [03:31:01] If there's anything that I would say is right now there's a lot of places to donate for like residential school survivors and the residential schools of everything that's going on right now. I'll get you a link and you can post and share that. That's. That's a lot of, you know, trauma that the Native American communities are dealing with right now. And first nations communities up in Canada. Yeah.

Guest [03:31:31] So I have several organizations.

Monica Crowfoot [03:31:33] I'll give you, I'll provide you the link as well.

Guest [03:31:36] There is an organization on the Navajo reservation who delivers water to people who don't have access to water. There's also the children's homes there that do need donations and the women's shelters on reservations. If you look up women's shelters on reservations there, so many things pop up. And as well as foster systems for reservation children.

John Dehlin [03:32:09] Great.

Guest 2 [03:32:10] We'll include those links. Yeah.

Ann [03:32:12] And I'll provide links as well. But right now I'm really supportive of a cousin. He's started a program called Navajo Strong.org and it delivers just all sorts of supplies to people on the reservation because again, there are still people that are living without water and without electricity. And so navajo strong.org and then also there is a woman's shelter that I I can provide the link for as well.

Guest 2 [03:32:50] Good. Repurposed tithing dollars?

Monica Crowfoot [03:32:52] Yes, please.

Sarah Newcomb [03:32:54] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:32:57] So there's a comment Chris Go Bike says, is John just blown away into silence? Almost like he doesn't want to interject anything for fear of overshadowing their story? I mean, I am blown away by the grace and the power and the humanity of these women's stories. I. So that's true. I also am. You know, Kara, you know, some people earlier, like, why is Care even on there? You know, like, some people Care has been monitoring comments this whole time. And. And having Kara on to provide another woman's perspective is just something that I really appreciate and value. Also, having Kar being able to distill the comments that are most important and then to incorporate them into Q and A, that's just really valuable. So anyway, I. I'm not like, cowering in fear, but at the same time, I. I do just, you know, Kara and I were just commenting off screen just how awesome it is when you're interviewing some people and they can just go. And you could. You can just kind of learn and listen. Like, yeah, I'm not like, cowering in fear, but I am just like, why. Why interject yourself into something so powerful and so beautiful when you can just sit back and learn? That'd be my answer. That'd be my answer. And, yeah. So thank you so much to all of you and Sarah to you for organizing this and Monica and Ann for your participation. It's just so powerful. And I just love this whole. Our time together. I don't want it to end. And Sarah, I don't. I. I can just barely manage my life sometimes. But I definitely have never meant any disrespect when I haven't been as proactive in reaching out to you or as responsive. But I do offer my apologies for my many. You know, just where I.

Sarah Newcomb [03:35:00] Basically admitting he doesn't text me back all the time. You're fine, John. I. I've told you I wouldn't want to carry, you know, some of the stuff you do. And yeah, I. I don't always answer back right away either. So you're okay. And I'd also just like to thank Kara for being on here because those. Those questions do help and it helps people understand where we're coming from. So I'm really glad you were on.

Guest 2 [03:35:29] Thank you. I am, like, honored beyond belief. What is this job? What am I doing here?

Monica Crowfoot [03:35:35] Thank you, ladies.

Guest 2 [03:35:35] John, My God.

John Dehlin [03:35:37] Also, I do want to say, and I really want to. You guys can Keep me honest about this. If there's an episode or a topic you guys really want to cover, with or without us, I do want to say just tell us, because you're right. I mean, the Mormon story, the. The. The Native American story is the Mormon story, and the faux Lamanite story is the Mormon story in so many ways. So consider this an explicit, overt, open invitation where when you guys have a show you want to produce, reach out and we'll just provide the space for you guys to do it.

Sarah Newcomb [03:36:20] Thank you. I've appreciated that in the past. So, yeah, thank you.

John Dehlin [03:36:24] And. And we'll try and do our part to be more proactive. I never want to be like, oh, let's sing. I never want anyone to feel tokenized. Right. So. But. But I. I will always want to keep figuring out how to. How to have really solid representation on this show. So I'm glad. I'm glad we're doing it today. And let's keep doing it.

Sarah Newcomb [03:36:50] Yeah. Thank you. I'm really grateful because. Thank you, Monica and Anne, for jumping on here with me. It meant a lot that you were both willing to like, because I knew your story some and I knew who you were. And yeah, having voices that, you know, other indigenous people can see as they, you know, process all this, it's so important. So thank you.

John Dehlin [03:37:18] Amen.

Ann [03:37:19] You're welcome.

John Dehlin [03:37:21] And if any of you guys, Monica, if you and your husband or Ann or whatever, if you guys are ever in the area and you want to come to an in studio interview, we'd be down for that, too. And Sarah, we want to have you, when the time's right, come do an in studio interview as well.

Sarah Newcomb [03:37:37] Okay.

Guest [03:37:38] Yeah, absolutely.

Ann [03:37:40] We can do that.

John Dehlin [03:37:43] All right, big hugs.

Guest 2 [03:37:46] I need them in studio.

Sarah Newcomb [03:37:47] This is a new thing

Guest 2 [03:37:50] since I'm here.

Sarah Newcomb [03:37:51] No, that's the thing.

Guest 2 [03:37:52] Like, literally, like, we'll be able to find more diverse voices. And that's part of just me being part of Mormon stories is I have a different idea sometimes than John and I. We're just dying to do as many episodes as diverse as possible. So this was an amazing opportunity. So thank you, Sarah and Monica.

John Dehlin [03:38:11] Monica, what's your tick Tock handle?

Guest [03:38:14] Monica Crowfoot.

John Dehlin [03:38:16] M O N I K A C

Guest [03:38:18] R O W F O O T.

John Dehlin [03:38:20] Is that all one word or is

Monica Crowfoot [03:38:22] the hyphen or all one word?

John Dehlin [03:38:24] All right, I'm adding you to my

Guest 2 [03:38:25] TikTok show notes for the description.

John Dehlin [03:38:31] Okay. Well, yeah, we'll put all these links in the show notes and I just can't. Thank you, you all enough. So keep up the great work, Sarah. Keep up the great work. There's a dialogue article or two coming out. Is that right, Sarah?

Sarah Newcomb [03:38:48] There's. Yeah, there was one that I joined in with some other indigenous active believing members. So there's definitely voices that are believing that are trying to, like, work on, on changing issues or addressing issues. And. Yeah, that I have a lot of respect for. And yeah, I don't know when that's coming out exactly, but it's coming.

Guest [03:39:13] Yeah, I think I'm on. I think I'm on that indigenous issue with you.

Sarah Newcomb [03:39:19] Really.

Guest [03:39:19] Yeah.

Sarah Newcomb [03:39:21] We'll have to chat.

Monica Crowfoot [03:39:23] Yeah, we will.

John Dehlin [03:39:25] All right, well, thanks again, everyone. Thanks again, Kara, for being here. Thanks to our listeners and viewers for amazing comments. Check out Levitruth.com and. And just thanks to everyone for your support and we hope to see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories Podcast.

Monica Crowfoot [03:39:48] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:39:49] Thanks, everybody.

Sarah Newcomb [03:39:49] Thank you. Bye.

Monica Crowfoot [03:39:50] Thanks.

Guest 2 [03:39:51] Thank.

Monica Crowfoot [03:39:51] Bye.