Happy New Year! Our first Community Spotlight of 2022 features Jaclyn Roessel, a writer, curator, coach, cultural equity, and justice consultant, president of Grownup Navajo, and a member of the 2017-2018 Creative Community Fellows cohort. Jaclyn’s work is motivated by the matriarchs in her ancestry, theories of futurism & healing transformation. In this spotlight she opened up about her proudest accomplishments, recent struggles, and opportunities for folks in the NAS community to both assist her and find assistance themselves!

What are you most proud of in your work life right now?

I am most proud of being a mother who runs their business from home. I left the museum world in 2016 due to severe burnout. As I recuperated and sought balance, I decided that I would continue to work in service of my Native community as a cultural justice and equity consultant. So, in 2017 I elevated my then blog to LLC status and now provide services as president of my company Grownup Navajo. This has ensured my fortune of prioritizing breaks, loved ones and especially asking for my worth. Five years laters, I am still at it and working with partners across the country out of my home, while breastfeeding two beautiful beings! I have been grateful for the many facets of my work which imbed the belief that Indigenous cultures and ways of knowing can be a catalyst for change in our world.

What are you most struggling with?

Many Indigenous reservations have maintained checkpoints at their borders as a way to hold off outside visitors, in effort to mitigate the impact of the Covid within the community. I live in my partner’s community which has been closed to non-residents since March 2020. This has encouraged feelings of isolation and has exacerbated child care needs and our ability to have in-person support from my loved ones who are not residents on the reservation we live.

Is there anything this community can do to support you?

Like everyone, I continue to adjust to life in the pandemic but a huge gift that I’m grateful for is the continued support of the medicine of the Pueblo lands where I live. As I often say in my acknowledgment of the land, these lands continue to mother me while I have been separated from my mom and homelands (Dinetah), in northeastern Arizona.

I share this as a way to relate the importance of understanding Indigenous Sovereignty and the importance of Indigenous perspectives and knowledge in the work we’re all doing in the arts and culture space. As we all know, we are at a critical point in our relationship to Earth Mom and we need Indigenous perspectives and wisdom at all tables and every event to help us determine solutions that will help us steward a collective path forward. My ask of this community is to deepen your knowledge of Indigenous cultures and specific calls to action by the homeland communities whose lands you live on. Seek out learnings about Native peoples and amplify Indigenous voices and solutions.

Is there anything you want to offer to this community?

In an effort of solidarity, I extend a couple of resources…I write about Navajo and Indigenous culture on my blog at Grownup Navajo. I am also an organizing team member at the U.S. Department of Arts & Culture. We have a stellar Honor Native Land Toolkit available for download and will be rolling out new calls to actions this spring. So sign-up at https://usdac.us/nativeland.