Since Time Immemorial is a recurring series featuring community members whose families have been here since time immemorial. The ancestral knowledge carried by Lhaq’temish, Nooksack, and other Coast Salish peoples is knowledge about how to live in our shared home in a good, life-sustaining way. We live in a time when we need to restore our relationship with Mother Earth and with one another. We are grateful for these stories, told in the words of each featured individual.
Photograph by Julie Trimingham
Takwiltsa Cheryl Kinley Sanders is a nurse who has served as a Council member of the Lummi Indian Business Council and on a number of Lummi governmental commissions. She currently serves on the Housing and Law & Justice Commissions and on the Grandparents Committee.
I had a great childhood, lots of brothers and sisters and family. We came from humble beginnings in Marietta, then moved up to a big homestead on Lummi Shore Road. My dad was a very tough guy, a strong fisherman. He actually was one of the boats that got shot up at Xwe’chi’eXen, fighting for Treaty rights during the Fish Wars. Then the Boldt Decision come down in ’74. We had a better childhood because of it, but it also caused a lot of racism. Going to school, it was violent sometimes for some of us.
We weren’t rich, but my dad had a purse seiner. He and my brothers all had boats, and they shared with many families. People think purse seiners are all about money, but it’s really about sharing everything we have with our community. That’s what I was taught.
I was never a fisherwoman. So my job was to get the groceries and also thread the needles on the dock while they mended the seine (net). We all had a part, did what we could, so people could go out on the water, fishing.
When my mom got breast cancer, I dropped out of school. It was a tough, tough time for her and for all of us. We took care of her at home; I think that’s where it started, my work in healthcare. I became a CHR (community health representative) and worked with some great matriarchs. I just loved what they did: diabetes education, transportation for our people to dialysis, Seattle appointments, working with our new moms and babies.
Back then, fishing was going great. Our community was buzzing. There’s always a buzz in our community when we’re fishing, when it’s harvest time. My husband Karl was a fisherman on my brother’s boat. But then the fishing started to plummet. I think that’s what really pushed me to go to nursing school, and the tribe helped with my schooling.
After I got licensed, I worked at nursing homes, then Saint Joe’s, and then the clinic reached out. In our old building, there was no room for me, so they actually put me in the closet. My first office was a storage closet! To see what we have now in our new clinic is just awesome.
My brothers Randy and Larry were always at the highest level in policy. My sister Sandy was also a tribal leader. We all grew up going house to house, to our aunties’ or uncles’, or people were at our house talking about tribal leadership, self-governance. The phone calls, on landlines, is what the matriarchs did, always checking in on each other. These are things that were taught at home.
I first got active in government when Auntie Violet Hillaire seen me dropping my daughter and son off at the tribal school. She says, Come with me. She takes me down to the school board meeting. She goes, Now it’s time for you to get involved. Later, I had the privilege to sit on Council with Uncle Willie and so many other prestigious elders. They’d take us to task, they held us accountable, you know. We agreed to disagree, we debated, but we never come out mad.
We settled stuff. They were visionaries; they looked so far ahead. Both our new clinic and also the secure withdrawal facility we’re building to stabilize our people who are struggling with opioids and alcohol, these were visions our leaders had long ago.
For a while on Council, I served as Secretary, which was the best opportunity I had because I could read the history—I had access to all the records. History is important because there’s always a threat to our rights and self-determination. Treaty rights isn’t just about fishing, it’s about everything we have, including our children. You hear tribal leaders from across Indian country, not just here at Lummi, they’re all saying that something’s different, they’re concerned about our future as self-governing Native nations. Latest example is Indian Child Welfare. One of our leaders said that this fight is piece-mealing away our sovereignty. They’re using words, lawyering. If we’re not careful, one of those words is going to take us down.
We’ve also got the opioid epidemic. We’ve lost so much to it. Part of it started when we started to lose the battle with our social determinants of health: fishing was declining, the economy was tanking. My brother Randy, his policy work and his life story was always about getting enough fish, because he believed—and we all believe—if the fish are healthy, our people are healthy.
My brother Larry, he would always say, You need to know who you are and where you come from. Our inherent and inherited rights, these are your connections to each other, to the land, whatever makes you whole. I believe health is the wealth of our people. Our children, LGBTQ, two-spirit, whatever they are is who they are. They have the same rights as anybody else, and we must protect them. Health and wholeness. That’s one of my big personal things, watching to make sure our community is safe for everyone.
