<\/a>The panel at the Native Issues Forum at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall on Monday. (Peter Segall | Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Zulkosky didn’t mention any legislators by name, but she like other Alaska Natives have expressed anger<\/a> at legislators who have said<\/a> living in rural Alaska is a choice. But many of those rural communities are ancestral homelands that have been occupied by Alaska Natives for thousands of years, Zulkosky said, and having to continually remind people of that can be stressful.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “While we’ve made progress, there continues to be somewhat of a gap in understanding the role that Alaska Native people have played in this place traditionally since time immemorial,” she said. “It’s really difficult work for tribes and Alaska Native people to continue to educate people, educate policy makers and who carry the burden to ensure that Alaskans as a state are taken care of.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Monday’s Native Issues Forum began with the screening of a film about Elizabeth Peratrovich and the passage of the 1945 law. The film, “For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crowe in Alaska” by Jeffry Silverman is part documentary, part dramatization, with actors re-creating the debate over the bill.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t After the film, Zulkosky was joined in a panel by Freda Kaagaantaan Westman, council member for Camp 70 of the Alaska Native Sisterhood and Dr. carolyn Brown of the League of Women voters.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Brown talked about her and the League’s efforts to get copies of the film, as well as copies of the book “Fighter in Velvet Gloves,” by author Annie Boochever into every Alaska high school. The film and Boochever’s book tell Peratrovich’s life story, which according to Brown, “we have to keep telling this story, we must, we must, we must, carry on.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t In her address to the crowd, Westman said the best way to honor Peratrovich’s legacy was by showing up. Taking part in political action was good she said, but also being active in the community such as local schools.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “One of the issues that is always present is racial discrimination in our communities, but we can make a difference,” she said. “We have to hold those people in leadership positions accountable to what will make our lives better.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Westman described the lack of ferry service in Southeast Alaska as something that demanded immediate attention. Westman even went so far as to call the situation surrounding the ferries “genocidal.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t