After Donald Trump accepted the election results, Joe Biden began the process of recruiting for his cabinet. Among the rumors is the possible inclusion of a Native American female politician in the Interior Department. If confirmed, she would be the first Native American to hold such a position.
By Jose Diaz
After several days of vote counting and following Donald Trump's initial refusal to accept the election results, the forthcoming Democratic administration led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris started the process of assembling the future cabinet that will rule the United States from January 2021.
Amidst speculation and negotiations to recruit ministers, the indigenous population of the US has urged the future presidential duo to mark a historic milestone by including a person from a local native nation.
In fact, there is already a person whose name has been mentioned in recent days. She is New Mexico Representative Debra Haaland, a politician from the Pueblo of Laguna tribe, a small native population located on an officially recognized Indian reservation in New Mexico. The most interesting thing about these rumors is that if she is integrated into the cabinet she could lead the Interior Department.
Although her inclusion in the cabinet is still just speculation, Haaland stated these days: "It’s nice to know that a Native American is under consideration". For the indigenous sector, the appointment of a Native American to the cabinet would be a historical gesture to begin rebuilding the relationship between the original nations of the U.S. and the modern state apparatus.
Reassessing History
In the U.S., the history of native peoples has been marked by a legacy of segregationism. Over the past two centuries, many Native American tribes were displaced from their lands and confined to reservations assigned by the federal government. Most of these new locations constitute infertile lands that have been discarded for the development of the white North American population.
It is this type of marginalizing public policy that Biden's cabinet is expected to start re-evaluating. In that sense, the inclusion of a Native American woman could mean more than just a political gesture, since it would mean the development of public policies from a genuinely Native perspective.
The 2020 election showed that, despite being a minority, the vote of Native citizens was crucial in those states where Biden defeated Trump by a narrow margin. In states such as North Carolina, Arizona, and Wisconsin, the mobility of Native voters to support the Democratic Party was crucial. Will Biden compensate for the support given to him by Native Americans?
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