All right.
[GREETS AUDIENCE IN O'ODHAM] And pretty much
what that means is my name is Amber Ortega.
My mother is Geneva Juan.
My father is the late Melvin Ortega.
And I come from the village of Coldfield.
And I'll be sharing three pieces I wrote
and it's a little different than what I'm used to sharing.
I do a lot of spoken word poetry and my themes
were influenced by my struggle with religion and also
my struggle to identify myself as an O'odham.
But I can say that I identify as an O'odham.
I'm O'odham.
I'm Tohono O'odham.
I'm Hia C-ed O'odham.
I'm Akimel O'odham.
I'm O'odham.
And so this work is not just inspired by being O'odham
but also being connected and being in those places
that we've been removed from.
If a lot of you are unaware of this, so Hia C-ed O'odham,
So the reason I acknowledged myself
as being a descendant of Hia C-ed O'odham
is because currently, we are not federally recognized.
Tohono O'odham Nation is federally recognized.
Therefore, there's the nation and the registration
and the acknowledgment of my enrollment
as a tribal member under the Tohono O'odham Nation.
But I mention that because Hia C-ed O'odham,
we're considered extinct.
Hia C-ed O'odham have a history of being forcibly removed
and displaced from our lands and those lands--
those lands are missed by us.
Those lands, we have connection with,
legal battles for acknowledgment for access to sacred sites.
And being with these sites, being with my relatives,
I can say I can feel the loss, a much greater loss,
but it now reflects into this new work.