All These Names I Carry
It is one year since I learned of Nex Benedict’s death and I am thinking about these names I carry.
Fred “F.C.” Martinez. John T. Williams. Mani Lucas. Kelly Little. Mah-hi-vist Goodblanket. Loreal Tsingine. Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow. Jakelin Caal. Aubrey Dameron. Jonathon Tubby. Nex Benedict.
These are some of the names I carry inside of me. They are the names of Native men, women, and Two-Spirit people we call Missing And Murdered Indigenous Relatives. Some of them were killed by police. Some of them were killed for being Two-Spirit or disabled or a woman. Some were children.
It is one year since I learned of Nex Benedict’s death and I am thinking about these names I carry. I did not know any of these people personally, but when I think of their names, moments come back to me:
watching footage of Fred Martinez twirl in the documentary Two Spirits as a newly-out 17 year old, hoping my parents don’t hear me crying
seeing Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow’s name on the Trans Day of Remembrance list and the sinking feeling in my stomach, knowing she must be Native
writing about Mah-hi-vist Goodblanket in an essay on my experience as a mentally ill Native, and my friend telling me he knew Mah-hi-vist’s mom
my former classmate and coworker posting on facebook that her cousin Jonathon Tubby had been killed by police in my hometown, all while Green Bay pretended police violence was a big city problem
Nex Nex Nex Nex Nex.
My life is shaped by these names, the stories they carried, the stories I carry. Their names, which mean so much to me, which few people seem to remember. They are just random names to them. Native names, trans names, men and women’s names. Names I want to scream, to paste on every lamppost on every streetcorner of America, so that they will be drummed into the psyche of everyone who ever ignored Native people’s continued existence on our lands.
I can measure my life in these names, when I learned them, how long have I been whispering them to the night sky. I can paint a portrait of genocide in the Americas with these names and their stories—if only someone would look at it.
Reader, do you know these names? Could you find the time to pick one up and hold its story tenderly within your heart? Will you speak these names with me into the silence?
In the meantime, I will continue to carry them with me. I will voice them with the vitality they had, and the joy they deserved.