Before heading to Whidbey, myself and a comrade stopped by the Duwamish Longhouse, in Seattle. We met Cecile Hansen, descendant of Chief Seattle and current tribal council chair. We met the young cultural director who helps organize the annual canoe delegations and is passionate about keeping Duwamish life alive…despite facing so much subjugation.

One of the initiatives by Duwamish and settler allies focuses on the layers of gentrification. This current wave that is creating such a panic is but another of the many that have crashed upon that land since the arrival of the Europeans in 1850.

Since the city of Seattle is Duwamish land (after the treaty of Port Elliott they were banned from living there, and sent to reservations) there is an invitation for Seattle residents to pay real rent, to the original “landlords.” They can include in their monthly budgets a token of reparation for their wealth generated on the suffering of others and Seattle’s biosphere.

Learn about this initiative here. If you don’t live in Seattle, find out to which tribal entity you can pay real rent to where you live.