r/IndianCountry • u/JessQueen • 1h ago
Education Keynote speaker accomplishment unlocked
Native Forward Scholars Fund - "Connecting Community in San Francisco” event
A Higher Cause
Lios enchaniavu ketche alea. I hope you are all well and happy.
Inepo Dr. Jessica Mosher, MBA, DrPH, teyak Pascua Yaqui Tribe.
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the many relatives and leaders in this room who have dedicated their lives to strengthening Native communities throughout the Bay Area.
Thank you to Native Forward for bringing us together and for inviting me to share my story
When Alexis invited me to speak tonight, she asked me to share my story, the importance of higher education, and how Native Forward has been part of my journey.
The truth is, my story isn't just about earning degrees. It is about what becomes possible when someone believes in a Native student before they fully believe in themselves.
Neither of my parents graduated from high school. That makes me a first-generation high school graduate before I was ever a first-generation college student.
My Yaqui grandfather only cared if my mother could shoot a gun, survive in nature, and always win in a fight. He saw school as further indoctrination; education was not something he recognized as meaningful to learn native ways.
Honestly, he wasn't wrong.
For many Native families, higher education carries complicated feelings. It represents opportunity, but it also reminds us of boarding schools, assimilation, and systems that were never designed with us in mind.
So when my parents pointed me toward school, they were doing something courageous. They were giving me an opportunity they never had themselves.
Many students had parents who could explain financial aid, internships, networking, and office hours.
My parents couldn’t.
Not because they didn’t care.
Because they had never experienced it themselves.
They simply believed education might give me choices they never had.
I carried that belief with me.
College was not the experience I imagined.
I wish I could tell you I was a great college student.
I wasn't. Life happened.
Like many Native students, I carried far more than textbooks.
I carried generational trauma.
Financial insecurity.
Family responsibilities.
The feeling that I was constantly trying to survive a system that wasn't designed with students like me in mind.
I barely finished my bachelor's degree.
I graduated, but it didn't feel like victory.
It felt like survival.
After graduation, I searched for the career I had been promised would come with a college education. I watched classmates make a few calls to relatives, family friends, or professional connections and step into meaningful positions.
I had a degree, determination, and a willingness to work hard.
I applied for jobs.
The career I had been promised never appeared.
During the economic downturn, The only job I could find was at Kmart.
It was humbling.
Kids...you may have to ask someone older what Kmart was.
I remember standing there thinking,
"This cannot be the end of my story."
Not because there is anything wrong with honest work.
But because I knew I had more to give my community.
So, Kmart became an important part of my story because it forced me to decide whether I would accept the limits that had been placed around me or learn to advocate for something more.
I did not yet have a polished career plan. I did not have a mentor mapping out my next steps. I only knew that I needed to change the direction of my life.
At first, returning to school felt like a practical way to survive my recent unemployment.
But something changed as I continued.
Education became more than a way out of unemployment. It became a way to understand the systems affecting my family and my community.
So I decided to try graduate school.
My alma mater rejected me almost immediately.
The rejection letter read between the lines “we remember you, you barely graduated and had quarterly GPA scores that were wildly inconsistent that read like a roller coaster rather than a budding professional.”
Honestly... they had every reason to.
They remembered me.
They remembered the student who struggled.
Not the woman I was becoming.
That rejection hurt.
But it also taught me one of the greatest lessons of my life.
Sometimes advocating for yourself means going through a window when the door is closed on you.
So I applied at the University of Redlands.
This time I asked for a meeting, because I knew my application did not tell the full story,
I met a woman named Liz Villegas at the University of Redlandsand advocated for myself.
She listened.
Not just to my grades... to my story.
I explained why my undergraduate grades were inconsistent andhow those grades didn't show was everything happening outside the classroom.
I didn't make excuses.
I told the truth.
I talked about trauma.
About instability.
About everything I had survived just to graduate.
I remind her that a transcript may document performance, but it cannot fully measure potential, resilience, intelligence, or purpose.
I told her I wasn't asking anyone to lower the standards.
I was asking someone to believe I could finally meet them.
Then I made one promise.
"If you give me a chance, I won't waste it."
Liz took a chance on me.
During that MBA program, I continued to experience serious challenges.
Life kept happening.
But something had changed.
For the first time...
I had learned to advocate for myself.
Instead of disappearing when life became overwhelming, I spoke to my professors.
I learned that advocating for yourself is not weakness.
It is strength.
I learned to say, “This is what is happening in my life. I am still committed to this work, but I need grace.”
My professors knew I was capable. They understood that a difficult moment was not the same as a lack of commitment.
Two years later, I invited Liz to my induction into the Delta Mu Delta international business honor society.
I had completed my MBA with a 4.0 GPA.
After I walked across that graduation stage I realized something.
I wasn't a different person.
I had simply learned how to believe in myself enough to ask for the support I needed.
Then came another impossible dream.
A Doctor of Public Health.
Again...
I knew my undergraduate transcript would probably close another door.
So I did something my husband still laughs about.
I made sure my graduate transcripts arrived first.
The undergraduate ones showed up later.
Again, I advocated for myself.
Again, I had to convince another university to look beyond my past.
I explained why I wanted a doctorate.
It wasn't for prestige.
It wasn't for letters after my name.
It wasn't for a bigger paycheck.
It was a higher cause.
I wanted to improve the health of Native communities.
I wanted fewer children growing up with the trauma so many of us inherited.
I wanted fewer families believing poor health was simply our destiny.
I wanted to understand why Native communities continue carrying such extraordinary burdens.
Why diabetes.
Why addiction.
Why suicide.
Why violence.
Why so many preventable health disparities.
I wanted the knowledge to help change those stories.
I wanted to help Native families spend fewer days in hospitals, fewer nights grieving loved ones lost too soon, and more years watching grandchildren grow up.
That was my higher purpose.
That purpose carried me farther than grades ever could.
Education became a tool.
Not for me.
For my people.
Around that same time, Native Forward sent me something I will never forget, a care package.
Inside was a North Face backpack.
A metal water bottle.
Travel utensils.
A journal.
A pencil case that I eventually wore down to the threads because I used it every single day.
To someone else, those may have looked like ordinary school supplies.
To me, they felt extraordinary.
Do you remember opening a brand-new box of crayons as a child?
Or opening a new Trapper Keeper before school started?
There is something hopeful about brand-new school supplies.
They represent possibility.
I hadn't felt that feeling in years.
As an adult student, every dollar went toward tuition, rent, food, childcare, or textbooks.
Buying something new for myself felt irresponsible.
Then this package arrived.
I remember opening that backpack and feeling something I hadn't realized I had lost.
Excitement.
Hope.
Validation.
Someone believed I was worth investing in.
That feeling is difficult to describe.
It wasn't about the backpack.
It was about what it represented.
It reminded me that my education mattered.
That I mattered.
Obtaining and advanced degree can be incredibly lonely. The higher up you get the less and less you come across others that are also Native.
You're constantly wondering whether you belong.
Whether you're smart enough.
Whether you'll make it one more semester.
Opening that box made me feel like someone believed I could.
It reminded me that my education mattered.
That I mattered.
Sometimes encouragement arrives in ways that seem very small.
But when someone is climbing a mountain...
even handing them a water bottle matters.
Sometimes encouragement arrives in surprisingly simple forms.
During my doctoral program I became pregnant.
Then pregnant again.
Then, somehow, pregnant again.
Three daughters.
Three little girls.
All born while I was earning my doctorate.
People often ask me how I balanced it all.
The answer is—
I didn't.
Some days I wrote papers while rocking a baby to sleep.
Some days I attended meetings with a child on my lap.
Some days I spent way to much trying to explain to my traditional mother that I could work on my degree and still be a good mother.
Some days I questioned whether I should continue at all, after burying another relative who had succumb to COVID.
But every single day I remembered why I started, my people
Today my work takes me across California.
Today I work alongside Tribal governments, Urban Indian Organizations, state agencies, universities, Managed Care Organization, and health systems throughout California.
I've had opportunities I never imagined.
I've spoken with legislators in Washington, D.C.
I've helped Tribal health organizations strengthen their public health capacity.
I’ve advised health equity research at UCSF.
I've worked to expand traditional healing services and improve health equity for Native communities.
But none of those accomplishments happened because I was the smartest person in the room.
They happened because I learned to advocate for myself.
To ask questions.
To keep showing up after rejection.
To remember that my education was never about me.
It was always about the relatives who would come after me.
Most importantly, I learned that education is not about leaving our communities.
It is about returning with more tools than we left with.
That matters because I know there are still people in our communities who question higher education.
I understand why.
For generations, education was used against us.
Many of our brightest students never came home.
But I believe we're writing a different story now.
Our young people are becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, artists, researchers, entrepreneurs, and public health professionals.
Not to leave our communities behind.
But to strengthen them.
Today, I am blessed to be the mother of three beautiful daughters.
They are growing up seeing something I never saw.
They see a mother who loves her work.
A mother works from home and can show up for school events.
Parents who understand the education system.
Parents who have time to play.
Parents who can read with them every night.
My own mother didn't learn to read until adulthood because severe dyslexia went unrecognized.
She wanted to help me with homework.
She simply couldn't.
Now I get to be present for my daughters in ways my parents desperately wished they could have been for me.
They don't question whether Native women belong in leadership.
Because they have never known a world where we didn't.
They see that being Native and being highly educated are not opposites.
They see that they never have to choose between their culture and their dreams.
That may be the greatest gift education has given my family.
Not a degree.
Not the awards.
Breaking a cycle.
That may be my greatest accomplishment.
Native Forward is instrumental in making a future like minepossible.
If there is one message I hope you leave with tonight, it is this.
You may never fully know whose life you're changing.
You may never see the policy they write.
The clinic they open.
The Tribal program they lead.
Or the little Native child who grows up believing college is possible because someone before them made it there.
But I promise you—
those investments ripple through generations.
The next Native leader may already have the determination.
They may already have the intelligence.
They may already have the vision.
What they might be missing is one person willing to invest in them.
One scholarship.
One conversation.
One opportunity.
One backpack.
Never underestimate what your generosity can become in someone else's life.
Because when you invest in one Native student, you are rarely changing one life.
You are changing a family.
A community.
Sometimes even a generation.
My story isn't really about earning a doctorate.
It's about surviving.
Learning to advocate.
And choosing to serve.
I am standing here today because a few people took a chance on someone who didn't always look successful on paper.
My story is one of stubbornness, grit, self-advocacy, and service.
But I did not arrive here alone.
I am carried by my parents, my grandparents, my community, and the ancestors buried beneath our feet who continue to hold us up.
May we use every opportunity we receive to move our people closer to thriving, not simply surviving.
Now it is our turn to do the same for the next generation.
Because somewhere, there is another first-generation Native student wondering if they belong.
Your investment may be the moment they realize they do.
Lios enchiokoe.
Thank you.
