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
Teresa Taylor is the Interim Director for Economic Policy at Lummi Nation. She is currently a Trustee at Whatcom Community College, and sits on the boards of State of Washington Tourism and the Whatcom Museum of Art. She served on the Ferndale City Council, where she was a liaison for Ferndale Schools, the Bellingham International Airport, and Whatcom Transportation Association; she lost her re-election bid in a tie-breaking flip of the coin.
We’re sitting here in your big, beautiful fireworks store (Washington Fireworks Superstore on Haxton). Can you share a big about how you got to be here in life?
I grew up in the fireworks business, with my grandma, and I keep her picture on the wall. She’s always watching over me. Families, generationally, they do what their parents did, or their grandparents did. This isn’t my primary work, but it’s a fun thing that I’ve been involved with for a long time, because of my Gram.
My mom and dad met in the Army. I was born in Chicago. My mom’s family was here at Lummi and my mom, her family cried for her. They wanted her home, and she was homesick. I mean, you know what Lummi is like, community-wise. My grandma and my great-grandma did not want my mom so far away, especially now that she had her own children. But we were all back in Chicago, and my mom pretty much told my dad, “I’m moving back to Washington.” And he said, “Well, I’m going with you.”
My mom ended up getting sick with multiple sclerosis when I was about 10 years old, so my grandma took me under her wing. I loved spending time with my grandma selling fireworks, pretty much from the time school got out all the way through the Fourth of July. After we were done selling fireworks, we would start gearing up to go stake fishing over on Portage Island, where she was born and raised. We would camp out over there on the island.
My grandma came from two big Lummi families, Solomon and Lane. Her mother was Edith Lane and she had my grandma Eva, a daughter Maxine, and two sons, Stan and Bill, who were both veterans. My great-grandma felt like there wasn’t anything to commemorate Lummi veterans, so she started the Stommish festival. Stommish means warrior in Lummi. Back in the day, they already had canoe races, and she just wanted to merge it all together. That’s how it came to be the Stommish Water Festival. It’s still going, and everybody loves it. In fact, we just got a State of Washington Tourism grant to help with the marketing of it. It feels good to be continuing my great-grandma’s work.
Is part of your mind always thinking about thinks like marketing and business and economics?
Yes, I’m passionate about this work. Right now, I’m the Interim Director for Economic Policy at Lummi Nation. We have a ton of projects that we’re working on. Some of the more recent projects are energy projects, where we’re trying to bring in fuel cells, which is a newer technology. Nobody else is doing it in Washington state, so we would be one of the first. One fuel cell could generate enough power for 400 homes! We’re looking at becoming economically self-sufficient with energy. We also brought in $15.9 million for broadband so tribal members have high-speed internet in their homes. We bring in grants for small businesses in the tribal community, and also for tribal home improvements like heat pumps. On top of all that, we manage the Lummi Te’Ti’Sen Center, the small business location, and all the tenants that occupy that space. We’re looking at building a 9000-square-foot facility adjacent to that, which we’re calling the Lummi Marketplace, for our tribal arts and crafters. This will be similar to the Bellingham Farmers Market, where people can walk in and buy from artists and crafters throughout the year. The artists will finally have their own place.
Is there a teaching or saying or story that you think about a lot?
My dad always felt like there were a few ways to get ahead in life: you either work for yourself or invent something. So he always tried to work for himself, which wasn’t always easy. One thing he’d say is, “Don’t be afraid to try and fail and try and fail, because every time you fail, you learn something. And one day you’re going to try and you’re not going to fail, you’re going to succeed.” He was able to retire at the age of 53 years old because he learned how to do the stock market, he did well for himself as a business owner. He tried and failed, tried and failed, and finally succeeded, right?
What would be your vision or hope for Lummi?
I want us all to be millionaires. And I think we can. I mean, we’re so rich in community, but I think we can be rich in other ways too.
Hy’shqe, Teresa!
Julie Trimingham is a mother, writer, and non-tribal member of the Sacred Lands Conservancy (SacredSea.org), a Lhaq’temish-led non-profit dedicated to protecting Native sovereignty, treaty rights, sacred sites, and the life and waters of Xw’ullemy (the Salish Sea bioregion). Her heart is filled by the work to protect and promote ancestral place-based knowledge so that we can all learn to live here, with one another, and with Mother Earth, in a good way.
