Indigenous, Sexual Violence Advocate, Rebecca Nagle Speaks at Purdue University

Rebecca Nagle spoke her truth on her indigenous culture at a Purdue University Diversity and Inclusion event Tuesday night.

Nagle spoke on the hard issues her nation faces everyday. These include the hard facts that eight in every ten indigenous women are sexually abused.

Of these hard statistics Nagle also added that one in every three indigenous women gets sexually abused every year.

This sexual abuse is not just happening to indigenous women, but also children. Nagle is very passionate about stopping this, as a survivor of sexual abuse herself.

“I believe in the power and voices of the people,” said Nagle.

As Nagle has dipped in many different sections of advocating from art, to teaching, to being a journalist and a writer, she says she wants to focus where her work can have the most impact.

After writing a piece in a Baltimore newspaper about sexual violence, she realized a lot of people read it and responded to it. This is when she learned the power of her narrative.

Nagle has done research on laws for the indigenous people, as well as being an advocate and trying to acquire new laws to be passed.

In Baltimore Nagle did law work, she talked about the amount of layers and work it took to just get something moving and it might not ever even get changed.

Nagle mentioned after witnessing organized people advocating, it is even more empowering to make a difference.

She is best known for being a founder of The FORCE project, and her podcast, “This Land.” In her podcast she is passionate about making complex law issues easier to understand.

In “This Land” she also wants to bring to light all of the troublesome things happening in the native tribe. She said a lot of her listeners come away saying, “I had no idea.”

Nagle challenged non-indigenous people to become more engaged with indigenous culture, like, following native media, connecting with indigenous people, and even just following indigenous people on social media.

The big challenge the indigenous people face is that they feel that they have been erased from culture. They are not taught about in schools, talked about in the court system, or even showing up in something as simple as a TV show, says Nagle.

Nagle says that she maintains hope for the indigenous people by looking at her tribe and seeing where it was and where it is now.

Dr. Stephanie Masta was the moderator of the event, she was able to relate to Nagle as she is an indigenous woman herself.