Heather Brace, senior vice president and chief people officer
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday and the end of November, I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to learn more about Native American heritage this month. Learning from each other is fundamental to growing our compassion, our understanding, and our capacity to provide care. Every culture has so much to offer and can change the way we think about the world.
Arwin Lansing and Trisha Martinez, who are members of Intermountain’s Multicultural Caregiver Resource Group, created opportunities this month for caregivers to learn about Native culture. Arwin, who’s a member of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, and Trisha, who’s a member of Laguna Pueblo, pulled together resources on the Multicultural CRG page about Native history, Native Americans in the military, traditional recipes, and more. They also introduced us to Jacob Crane, a member of Tsuut’ina Nation, who’s the executive director of the SLC Air Protectors and a board member of the Urban Indian Center of Salt Lake. Jacob joined us this week during a Facebook Live interview to discuss Native culture and provide a Native perspective on the pandemic.
After watching the interview with Jacob, I thought about land and our connection to it. Intermountain facilities sit on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Ute (Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱), Southern Paiute, Goshute, Shoshone-Bannock, Pueblo, and Eastern Shoshone nations. Today, it’s the site of our united effort to battle the pandemic and help people live the healthiest lives possible. My hope is that it will be the home for future generations of kind, happy, healthy, prosperous people. Our mission honors the efforts of the past and supports the future as much as it serves the people who live around us today.
I encourage you to take a moment to read about Native culture and history on the Multicultural CRG page, watch the interview with Jacob Crane on Facebook or YouTube, and be inspired to think about the world in a different way.