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Isabella Bourtin: Hello, my name is Isabella Bourtin, and I am a junior researcher on this project. Annesha Dey: Hi, my name's Annesha Dey and I'm also a junior on this project. Charles Bush: Hello, my name is Charles Bush and I will be the interviewee today on this topic. Also a staff member of Texas Tribal Buffalo Project. Isabella Bourtin: Okay, so first we're going to start with just a few demographic questions. So you already introduced yourself. So do you have a tribal affiliation and if so, what?

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Charles Bush: Yes, I am an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux tribe out of Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Isabella Bourtin: Okay. So next, would you mind telling us a little bit about where you were born, where you grew up, what you call home, and then some memories that stand out from your childhood? Charles Bush: Yes, where I grew up, so I grew up in a little town on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation called Porcupine, South Dakota spelled just like the animal. I grew up being raised by my unci, which is my grandmother in Lakota. And just being raised by her was very paramount and really laid the, she was one of the main pillars of my foundation. In the core of who I am as a Lakota man, I always say everything I learned about a man, I learned from a woman, my unci. And so she was the one who I decided to live with probably at seven, eight years old. She was just more of a sense of stability and security as opposed to my parents back then, and so it just made more sense to me to live with her. And where I call home, so that's funny. I always ask people this question because home means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Charles Bush: And for me, home is a notion, home is an idea, but also in another sense, home is also where I lay my head at night, and right now that's in San Antonio, Texas. And sometimes that changes too, depending where I'm at, but also geographic-wise, home is Porcupine, otherwise called pȟahíŋ siŋté, that's what we call it in Lakota. And yeah, I didn't have the best childhood, but I made the best of it that I could at that time. But yeah, childhood was, I spent with all my cousins being outside, playing out in the hills, jumping on horses, riding them bareback out in the hills, jumping in the creeks, falling in so many times I lost count. Home was just playing with my cousins out in the hills in the back of my grandma's house, just being gone all day, taking enough water, snacks, and just really being a kid and looking at the land.

00:03:27.000 - 00:06:47.000

Charles Bush: I believe those moments are definitely what helped shape me to who I am now as an Indigenous scientist. And that really has been one of the pillars of my foundation because like I said, being raised on the reservation had a lot of disadvantages, and so I had to make the best of those cards that I could at such a young age and figure a way out, a way out through education because my family doesn't have a formal education either. I think both my parents, they both graduated high school, but that was it. Yeah, so it was definitely a grounding and rooted because through all of that I was shown my culture, my identity, my language, the ceremonies, the songs. Also my Lakota name is Cangleska Ho Waste, and that means good circle voice. And growing up I always thought that meant I have to be a singer. And that's something that I fought with mentally all my life up until the last few years because it wasn't that I was supposed to be a singer, but it's just that when I'm in ceremony, those songs just come to me. Charles Bush: I can be gone from them this whole time, but the moment I'm back in ceremony, something just clicks on in my brain and I'm able to sing all the songs, know all the words, and just be in that vibration with all my family in that moment. And so for me, that was real, I guess you can say my own personal renaissance of discovering, rediscovering who I am in my formal adult years of just maturing and evolving out of old ways and versions of myself that suited me for those moments where it was either make it or break it. Isabella Bourtin: That's really beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that. It's really great to hear about your childhood in such detail and those great memories. And next, so after you grew up in South Dakota, when did you start moving to different places, different states? What does that movement throughout your life look like? Charles Bush: Yeah, so I believe my emotional intelligence peaked and heightened definitely around seven, eight years old. And I just knew that the education on the reservation was easy for me, a little too easy, and I was always deemed a smart one and I was always done with my work before everyone else. And I remember they used to, back in third grade, they wanted to move me up to fourth grade, but I didn't want to because I wanted to stay with my friends in that grade. But I went to fourth grade for reading and math. And so that's what worked for me. And as I matriculated and approached eighth grade and, you know, going into high school after that. At that time there was only three reservation, well, four reservation schools, now there's six or seven, — oh , high schools — at that time. And so it was a decision that was influenced by a family member of mine.

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Charles Bush: They were also a spiritual leader that my family used to go to at that time. Their daughter, my cousin, well, she's like my sister. She was at a school in Andover, New Hampshire called Proctor Academy. And that's how I learned about it. And she was out there. And so during my eighth grade year, I requested information from the school and I got an application sent, filled it all out and basically took the whole application to my father and was like, listen, I've been writing your signature for as long as I can remember. I could easily sign this application in all these places that I've highlighted for you. But I filled it all out, wrote all my essays, and all I need are your signature on this application. And at that moment, I don't know what it's like to be a father, but to have your 14-year-old son come to you and be like, look, I don't want to go school here on a reservation. Charles Bush: Will you allow me the chance to, I guess fly away? We'll leave the nest at 14 years old. And so he did, he filled out the application or he signed it and after I submitted that, they contacted us and they wanted to interview me. And so from that point on, they flew me, my dad's girlfriend at the time and then my little brother out to New Hampshire, and we spent a week out there and visited the school, toured the school, really got a little sense of what life was like in rural Andover, New Hampshire. And after that I came back to South Dakota and then waited for my admission or denial letter and I got in. So ever since then, I lived a good three to four years of my life out in New Hampshire. That was where I really helped shape into the other aspect of myself of discovering what my passion looked like through science. Charles Bush: That school was a private college prep school, and it allowed me to go to different countries every year from sophomore, junior and senior year back to back to back. And that's one of the reasons that school, I was attracted to that school. It had five different experiential learning programs that were in different countries around the world. And my sophomore year I went back and hit my dad with another loaded one and I was like, “Hey, I want to go to Costa Rica.” This is a program only for sophomores. And yeah, I want to go. And so now as an adult, I asked my dad what was going through your mind at that time? Like, all right, I'm already thousands of miles away now I want to go out of the country. Yeah, it's just crazy that he chose to really just let me go and go out into the world and really find my way and my niche and just my path of what a global Indigenous scientist looks like. Charles Bush: Because to me, by choosing to go the road less traveled and take part on places that immersed me in different cultures, that made me uncomfortable because I didn't speak the languages, that made me try a lot of new things in my palette and expose me to just a lot of different lifestyles and cultures, religions and languages all firsthand. And that's one of the things that really helped shape me into who I am today because it's really easy to come from my reservation and keep that mindset of the world owing you stuff and playing victim and not only to help yourself, but if there was one thing that I still remember my unci, she just turned 96 this year and she's in a nursing home. She's blind, but she's still here. Mentally, she's still there too. One of the things that she always told me was — she showed me, also, religion.

00:11:06.000 - 00:15:12.000

Charles Bush: So I was baptized Presbyterian and I was shown the church also as well as my culture and spirituality. My dad, nor my grandma ever told me, “this is what you have to do.” They just showed me that, showed me it's there. And I appreciate that, because my grandma would always say, “God helps those who help themselves.” And to me that, as an adult, that's what I always say too, because I am not going to fight other people's battles. I'm not going to take on the weight of other people's worlds like I used to. And so yeah, just knowing that. That's really what grounded me a lot in ways whenever I would leave and just help keep me, just help keep that connection established to who I am, no matter where I go, especially as I traveled when I went to New Hampshire and just going to them different countries and being uncomfortable really showed me that the world isn't so different from the world that I grew up, even though there's different languages spoken, different foods available. It just showed me the silver lining that exists within humanity and how I can do my approach to that and how I play my part in this world of making an impact on Indigenous scientists and pursuing my love for science and just having that relationship with the land and the plants and animals. Isabella Bourtin: That's really beautiful. And so how do you feel like moving around so much has influenced your perspective on your Indigeneity and just Indigeneity in general? Charles Bush: I think that moving around really showed me that Indigeneity looks different everywhere I go. And that's one thing that I want to emphasize that a lot of the systems that were designed for me not to be here really wanted to compartmentalize us and put us in a hodgepodge type box and say, all right, this is all what you all are. And so fighting that notion of institutionalization, that being drilled into me and as I went out and explored the world, really helped me unlearn and relearn what Indigeneity means through my own lens. Because for far too long and often the narrative for a person like me is often always written by someone who's white and someone who has a colonizer mindset. So for me to figure that out and know that my narrative is really paramount to who I am and by just existing, I'm showing others who are coming after me on what it means to bring their full authentic self into places that were definitely not designed for us to be there, but nonetheless, we still deserve to be in them spaces. Charles Bush: And that's just what a lot of that helped me through was the tenacity of being resilient. People always associate with people being resilient, but you know what? Excuse my language, but we just fucking want to stop being resilient because we want to be soft now. We want to nurture ourselves, we want to nourish our souls and those who we care for and just help plant them seeds of curiosity to help the next generation of Indigenous scientists that are, I know will definitely be following. And so I know that through the work that I do and just bringing my full authentic self into spaces is really important, and that's definitely what helps drive me, everything that I do. It 's the passion of the DNA that exists within myself of knowing that my ancestors fought really hard for me to be here and exist at this moment.

00:15:12.000 - 00:19:07.000

Charles Bush: So in times when life gets hard, that's what I always think about. And in those moments, it's like, I'm also very emotional, so I cry a lot. And whenever I have them real tender moments of self, I can always feel them. Just earlier, we were walking inside and I was about to come get on this meeting and there was a butterfly that just stopped and hovered right in the sunlight right at a plant outside the front door. And I told my girlfriend, I was like, look, that's probably our ancestors. I said, maybe one of our parents because she also doesn't have her mom and she lost her dad a couple years ago. So it's like in those moments, it just helps me know that I'm in the right place at the right time and doing what I'm supposed to do. Annesha Dey: That was all s o amazing. And yeah, just thank you so much for sharing all this with us. It's really great to hear how supportive your dad was of you wanting to find yourself on the global stage. And I was just curious if you had any maybe specific memories of your travels or something you learned that really impacted you or maybe changed how you view yourself or how you view Indigeneity or just something that you learned while you were abroad. Charles Bush: Yeah, so every program was so different that it tested me in different mental ways. For instance, growing up in South Dakota is a land box. We're definitely not by an ocean, but all my life I've wanted to be a marine biologist and I'm like, what would a marine biologist do in South Dakota? I'd have to live away from obviously on one of the coasts, go to school. And then I always wondered how I could tie that into where I live, where I used to live in South Dakota. And so when I went to Costa Rica, I was a sophomore in high school and I was taking a senior level AP Environmental Science course and it was so hard. I struggled with it and it was all these seniors, so I was intimidated. And one moment I remember we went snorkeling for class on a Friday all day. And we, during that moment, that's what really occurred to me. Charles Bush: I'm always going to be tested in some way whenever I choose to expose myself and be uncomfortable and allow myself room to grow, make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. And all while being supported by faculty, by advisors, by mentors, by peers, and really seeing how structure played a crucial part in my life, because I think that's also what I craved was structure. And I felt that I didn't have the structure I needed to help me grow. And I think that's also what led me and attracted me to go to Proctor and pursue the road less traveled. And another learning point was my junior year, I'd done this program as a junior in high school called Ocean Classroom where we sailed down the Eastern Seaboard into the Caribbean. We started in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and we went from Gloucester to Mystic Connecticut to Norfolk, Virginia to Charleston, South Carolina to Cumberland Island, Georgia, and then to Fernandino Beach, Florida.

00:19:07.000 - 00:23:41.000

Charles Bush: And then from there we went to The Bahamas and we went to an island called Eleuthera. And Eleuthera is really cool because it was where one of my really good friends from Proctor, that's the island she's from. So I actually got to see her homeland, I got to meet her mom. And on that boat that just tested me in so many ways. My friends were like, why do you want to go live on a boat? You don't even have the ocean in you. I'm like, exactly. That's all the more reason for me to test myself in ways that I never could have even imagined or dreamed of. And that was really hard because we had to get acquainted to being on four hour watches, cycling through from different A watch, B watch, to C watch, all while being an active crew member, all while balancing our homework, all while going to class. Charles Bush: And it was a different kind of structure that I endured on that and that in the beginning I really disliked it. I was complaining so much. It was cold. It was in the north Atlantic up near Boston as we were coming down south. And I was like, why in the hell did I sign up for this? Charles, you're crazy. What are you even doing on this boat? But that all paid off once we got into the Caribbean and we went to Eleuthera, and then we went to another Bahamian island called Rum Key. And then from there we went to the Dominican Republic. And this was where one of the most critical moments too of my life really, really helped figure out what it was I wanted to do down with colonization was when they took us to one of Christopher Columbus's first settlements in the DR. Charles Bush: And I just felt like the chills, I felt ugly. I just didn't have a good feeling being at this settlement that he first came and established there in Hispaniola. And I know that after we were about to leave, I went and I was like, hold on, I forgot my water bottle. And I left the group and I went back on his house. It's like a museum. I went and carved my initials in there, then I went and peed, and then I went and joined the group. But at that moment I was like, you know what? This is what I need to do. This is part of my calling. I need to help rewrite the narrative for people like me because of this fool here whose settlement that I'm at. And that was a part one. And part two was my senior year when I lived in Spain and I studied Spanish and I lived in a town called Segovia, which is an hour north of Madrid. Charles Bush: And also there, see what's funny was at that settlement in the DR, they said that's where he was buried too. And then when I went to Spain, I went to a town called Córdoba, and we went into a big cathedral that just quite some way up here on the platform and they're like, no, this is where he's buried. And then so in my mind I'm like, wait, somebody's lying here. Unless they cremated him, but nobody knows what really happened to him. So at that moment I was like, well, I've just been lied to about both these things, so why wouldn't they lie? Especially the people who used to write my narrative. That's when a lot of things started to be connected. And I started to see the bigger picture of why I was immersing myself in these programs and why I had a thirst for curiosity and why I wanted to just take the unbeaten path and just really live in those moments. Because that was the time before cell phones, so well actually smartphones just came out about that time. Yeah, about 2007. And so yeah, really being able to just be in the moments and really take part in what collective work looks like, not only in those programs that help me go abroad, but also seeing the bigger paradigm, the macro and the micro of the different levels of work and the layers of how they all are interwoven together.

00:23:41.000 - 00:27:30.000

Annesha Dey: That's great. It's so inspiring to hear the way you discuss all of your travels. And I was also just wondering how did all of that translate to your current work? So I know you developed your interest in science and environmental science and you grew a lot as a person and all of your trips, and at what point did you start to make those connections to genetic mapping for Indigenous families? And how did you transition over to all the work you do now? Charles Bush: Yeah, so after I graduated high school, I went and attended South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota, and that's an engineering school. And I thought I wanted to be a computer engineer, and I'd done one year of that and I was like, you know what? I don't think this is for me. And then I declared my major as an environmental, no, yes, environmental engineer. And then I've seen the path that I would've had to go for that and the backgrounds I would've had to learn about with metallurgical, chemical, and I think industrial. But going through that and struggling academically and really figuring out my place once again in undergrad, I just didn't see myself as an engineer, but I knew I wanted to continue on in science. And so I actually left that school after my first five semesters of college, Charles Bush: and I went to my tribal college and it was here where I also just had a lot of different hiatuses. I would be super successful for three, four semesters in a row and then just take a dump at the following year and just do horrible and drop out. And so it was a lot of ups and downs academically that really helped forge the way of what I really wanted to do in life. And at OLC, Oglala Lakota College, where I graduated from, the degree I chose and there wasn't a lot of people in my department. So my tribal college is so small, the department I'm in is called the math and science department. They just group them both together because how small we are, but we are one of the smallest departments. But the work that we do and the research that we do is really, it was inspiring to me because I never really knew of active scientists and active research that was happening on my reservation until I started getting more into the higher classes of my natural science degree, the conservation biology background. Charles Bush: The other path I could have went was earth science, and I was like, no, I like botany, I like plants, I like conservation. So I think that's it for me. And it was one of the classes that I took that really allowed me to be out on the land — this was right as the pandemic happened — was a botany class. Every class we were out looking at traditional plants, and one of the things I helped create was an infograph. And what it was was just, I drew, we call it čhaŋšáša but I think the English term for it is called dogwood. It grows right along the creeks. It has to go right next to water. The outside skin of it is red, and that's what, you've got to shave that off and then get to the layer right underneath that. And that's what we put in our chanunpa or our pipe when we pray.

00:27:30.000 - 00:32:24.000

Charles Bush: That's the natural tobacco that we smoke off of the land. And I drew that in the various forms of all the seasons. So I put the name of it in the middle of the paper, and then I wrote the Lakota word for it. I wrote the English word, common word for it, and then I wrote its scientific name, and then I wrote all of the uses that we used for it. And then I talked about mainstream uses for it, or if there were even any mainstream uses of it. And then I colored it. But I put in each corner, fall, winter, spring, summer. And I drew how it looks in each of those seasons around the paper. And that was something that I was like, these medicines are really important, especially to who we are as Indigenous people all over the world, not just where I grew up, but knowing that big pharma always derives any medicine from the rainforest, from the jungle. Charles Bush: And so that also helped me figure out that that's why Indigenous people and cultures in other countries are protected because their government knows that they do hold knowledge, they do hold pockets of information of that AI , the ancestral intelligence that each of us has to the land. And that's when everything really starts to click of like, wow, this is something that's worth pursuing. And also because my grandma, there was a story she used to tell me when I was a kid growing up that when she was like five or six years old, she doesn't remember, but she got really, really sick and they didn't take her to the hospital. They didn't even have a hospital back then, but her grandma was, she held a lot of information about plants. And my grandma always remembers that. She said, I was laying on this table and she made me eat all these different plants and she put them in a poultice or something. Charles Bush: She couldn't describe it, but in my mind, I knew exactly what her grandma was doing or how she was bringing them all together to make her a remedy or an ailment that literally saved her life. And so throughout my life, that always is in the back of my mind, these are so powerful. These medicines are so powerful. Somebody needs to protect them. Somebody needs to pass on this information. And to know that my grandma's grandma had that knowledge, was the knowledge keeper of that, and now nobody really has access to that. That's kind of what led me down this path of just wanting to preserve those medicines, to fight for the land and the water and the resources and to really be its voice. And that's also where I learned that good circle voice. I have a way that I talk with people, I can write real well. Charles Bush: And so it also helped me figure out my own voice in the process, where there were many moments in my life that I lost that voice. I lost sight of it because I was either addicted to drugs and alcohol and just addicted to other things. And so it definitely took me a lot of losing my voice and going through that personal renaissance where I found it again. And now since I've been here in San Antonio and doing the work that I do, and there was a song that came on that a friend of mine made. And I remember a couple years ago just being in my room on reservation and crying because I didn't want that life anymore, that I knew that there was so much out here in the world that I had to offer. And I remember crying and just dreaming of a life that I didn't know what it looked like, where it was, who I'd even be with. And then I heard that song again last week when I was doing laundry at my house, and I just started crying because I was like, wow, now I'm really living the life that I was dreaming about. And so it was just like a full circle moment of realizing how far I've come and how far yet I have to go. But knowing that every step is a step towards sovereignty, especially for myself and also to help others balance that Indigeneity and to code switch and walk in these two different worlds that are so different.

00:32:24.000 - 00:36:41.000

Isabella Bourtin: It's really great to hear how you've gone through so much, but it's really made you the person you are today and it's really taught you about yourself. And I think that's so beautiful, finding the good things that have come out of suffering, and that's just great and it's so inspiring to hear. So you talked a little bit about the practices that you had growing up. How have you made efforts to pass that on to the next generation? How do your family traditions work and how do you envision passing them on to your children if you decide to have them and the younger people in your community? Charles Bush: No, yeah, that's very important. I really don't have an idea for that right now, only because I'm not around my culture and my people. But how I do keep that connection is just through songs. I like singing and I'm slowly getting back into singing those songs. And that's something my girlfriend and I like doing because it's funny that she's from New York state, upstate New York, and she grew up going to my culture, the ceremonies that my people made up in North Dakota because I'm Lakota, and if you don't know, there's the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota. So she learned a lot of Dakota ways. And so that's kind of how her and I bonded wa . I was like, holy crap, you know that song? And that's something that her and I have now of just keeping that alive within both of us because we might not be in the place where these ceremonies and teachings take place, but it's important at least to us, that we still keep that part alive within us. Charles Bush: And eventually I will go back to the reservation where I grew up and make it better because that's something that my grandma always told me too, was the only way you can make this place better is by going out there, getting that education and coming back and bringing it back. But that's what you have to remember to do because if you don't come back, then that's an injustice to yourself and to your people. And so at a very young age, I was instilled about what giving back look like in the community. And I remember I used to struggle with that as a kid, like I don't want to give back. No, that's a lot. But now being an adult, that's really important to who I am. And I know a lot of the work that I do for Texas Travel Buffalo Project, for these different initiatives that I'm a part of, these conversations that are really intertwining spirituality, culture, Indigeneity, is going to help our people keep our culture alive all while maintaining that balance of what it means to walk in both these different worlds. Charles Bush: Because that's, once I do go back, how I envisioned what I want to do on my reservation is eventually I want to start my own nonprofit and I want to have a mobile testing lab for agricultural services, or even just partnering and having MOUs with institutions on my reservation to help them process drug tests to help them do just different things like that. But having product-based services of value - added products, value - added products to offer my people through the services of how I envision this nonprofit. And I know that that'll only be possible through land. And I do have land f rom my dad. And so that wouldn't be a problem. And that's usually everybody's hurdle on what their vision looks like is because they envision this whole property. And it's like, okay, well land and land usually takes a long process, but that's something that I already have.

00:36:41.000 - 00:40:47.000

Charles Bush: So that's already one thing off the checklist. So for me, that's definitely something I envision as I get older and how I want to weave that path of my future and laying the foundation now and eventually wanting kids to pass this all onto too, because that's really important because I feel like growing up on a reservation, it's really easy to be surrounded by richness and culture because of the poverty that exists there. And that's all you can sometimes focus on, and it's always right in your face. And so a lot of my own family members, we come from a place that's very culturally rich, probably one of the most richest in the world, but it's really easy to lose sight of yourself, especially if you don't have a firm foundation with that structure that I was talking about. And that's why a lot of the people my age and even younger lose sight, lose sight of themselves and get into addiction and stay in these cycles of that victim mindset. Charles Bush: And so for me, that's how I envision going back and battling that. But also one thing that I know that it's definitely going to help my people a lot, and it's not my battle, but having the, to help Indigenous people who are incarcerated come back into the society through culture, really rerouting them and regrounding them because a lot of my people suffer from drugs, alcohol, end up institutionalized, and if we don't have that existing on our reservation ran by my people, it's never going to do any good to any of them who want that help in that way. But that's something that I think about. And I have a lot of different family members in counseling and law enforcement and human services. So that's something that we always talk about what our people need. And so I am really glad to actually be able to be a part of those conversations now that I'm older and kind of have a better head on my shoulders. Isabella Bourtin: It's really great that you've identified what you love and you're going to use it to better the community that you love and give back to the community that you love. That's really awesome. Also, really great to hear as everything you're saying has been, so we talked a little bit about culture. What are some of your favorite parts about your culture? Charles Bush: So this is probably the biggest thing that I love about being Lakota is, I don't know if you all ever heard of the Battle of Little Big Horn? In our culture, we call it the Battle of Greasy Grass cause that was that area up in Montana where that fight occurred. So we were the only ones in all of United States history, history in a sense of tribal nations ever engaging in warfare against the United States government. So my nation was the only one to ever defeat them in that battle and capture that flag from them. No other nation in the world can say that they ever defeated the US in battle and taken their flag, but we can. And that's definitely made me very proud of who I am because its, like I said, it's really easy to not be proud of who you are when you're on the rez because it's like South Dakota, it might be 2024, but the mindset back in the Dakotas, especially in South Dakota is 1924.

00:40:47.000 - 00:45:11.000

Charles Bush: And so I always like to say that the cowboy and Indian wars are still going on. It's never stopped, and especially out in the Dakotas. And so just knowing that, it's really easy to not be proud of who you are when you actually live in a state. Like I said, it takes a firm foundation, a firm grasp of reality, a firm network of family and friends who have strong morals and values like you do to really exist in that state. And for me, I didn't want to be there because I was still too fresh out of my addiction, because last June was the last time I had done meth. And I'm not ashamed to say that because it's a part of my story, it's a message. I want others like me to know that they can accomplish whatever they want to, especially if we give up certain addictions that used to be a part of who we are and how we have to take that pain and alchemize it into something that we're passionate about. Charles Bush: Because that's all I know about my whole life was alchemizing that pain. And I remember being at such a young age that I didn't know what all that was because my emotional intelligence was just the beginning and I really didn't have anyone there to guide me. And so I struggled with my emotions, and I would be super sad and mad one day and then be really happy the next. And that was also kind of how just my mom was too, but I really credit her, even though she showed me a wild ride of what emotions looked like as she raised me before I started living with my grandma. If it weren't for that emotional roller coaster ride of that life trip, I definitely wouldn't understand my emotions as much as I do now. And being off of the res, and being out in places like Texas, it's really weird to me because people, when I first got down here, they're like, oh, you're a real one. Charles Bush: I'm like, a real what? And they're like, oh, you have a card? I'm like, so? At one point, this is always a hot topic right now. I think this is always going to be relevant, but blood quantum within Indigenous communities, especially where I come from. So, in order to be enrolled where I come from, your parents have had to have been enrolled too. And so I'm enrolled. And so if I choose to have kids, I could enroll them based off of I'm already enrolled, and so I'm enrolling my kids. And so just to give you a little bit more context about what that looks like, my dad is 4/4, my mom is 7/8, and that made my blood quantum 59 / 64. So I'm not full blood, but I'm almost, and if I were to have kids that 64 would double to 128, so my kids would probably be like, I don't know, a 100-120 out of 128. Charles Bush: So eventually that gap is going to get so far away that it's going to be irrelevant on you got to be half, you got to be a quarter. And so that's why I tell people out here, it doesn't matter if you're not enrolled. You know, right here, who you are and where your people come from, you shouldn't have to have external validation from these colonizers to make you know that this is who you are. Because that’s something that I feel is counterintuitive on the reservation. Like I said, you can grow up in ways where you're strong in identity, who you are, but you lack interpersonal skills. You lack the smarts of what it is to exist in education. And that's why people end up choosing either the way out on the rez is the military or sports. And so that's why I always tell people, you can use your brain too, but that takes a little bit more rigor and a little bit more structure, even though I know sports do the same, but it's definitely, it's all mental.

00:45:11.000 - 00:49:59.000

Charles Bush: And if you don't have a strong mental game to understand your emotions and not let those really take full control of you when you want to rage, and it's really easy to pop off and lose sight of who you are. And I think that as I matured, that's really helped me because this past week, sorry, side note, this past week, a couple days ago, I just woke up and I looked at my girlfriend was like, I just want to choose violence today. Don't ask me why, but I just want to fight someone. But yeah, old me would've acted on those and gave a reaction to any little thing that could have popped me off that day. But new me is learning how to channel all of that into something. When I get that now, I'm just like, okay, Charles, go and work on this project you're working on or just go free write. So I'm learning how to rewire myself and unlearn, relearn, and just always learning because I tell people, if you're not doing that, then you're doing yourself a huge disservice. Annesha Dey: Thank you for all that. We want to also now talk about, I think you're kind of touching upon all these things with your spirituality and the way that you view the world and how all of your experiences have complimented little things you've learned about yourself, and you've kind of incorporated that into your general worldview, which is so interesting to hear about. And just to put it a little more in the context of spirituality specifically, how do you think that's changed through your life? Where are you at now with your spirituality and how, I guess do you go about your day-to-day basis with it? How has it helped you? And I think you've kind of touched about all these things, but just wanted to hear a little more. Charles Bush: Yeah. Spirituality for me is waking up and starting the day with smudging, with burning sage, with burning seeding, with burning osha root or bear root. And really just being in that moment and being intentional with yourself, with the prayer that you're speaking out into the universe and knowing that your ancestors are all there with you whenever you get in those moments, because that's what's kept our connection strong even up until this day and really starting in that in a good way. So obviously I didn't smudge that day, that's why I wanted to rage. But yeah, spirituality has always been there in my life. It has never left. It's just been me who's left it. And that's something that I tell people that it's normal. You go through certain stages in your life where you leave things behind and sometimes you come back around to them because a lot of the things in my life, a lot of the paths that I've been down oftentimes had to go backwards just in order to go forward. Charles Bush: So that's one thing that I always tell people about too, is letting go. That's one of the things I'm here to teach people about through my own experiences of letting go, of knowing what that looks like, whether it's people, places or things. And that's an important part of who we are because that's basically death in other aspects, not just physical. That's spiritual death, that's mental death, that's emotional death, that's death in its rawest form. And most people can't grasp that because they're so fixated on the physical death. But I often always say, you got to die at least once. If you truly understand death to the physical death, you got to die more than once in spiritual, emotional ways in order to fully wrap your mind around what that physical death looks like. And I often always intertwined spirituality with death and life because that's letting go.

00:49:59.000 - 00:54:39.000

Charles Bush: That's endings, that's being born again, and that's an important cycle of who we are as humans and species. This is not just about Indigeneity, this is just about humans. And what I get to experience is a little more personalized experience of what it is to be a human through an Indigenous lens. And I think that's really special because I'm a firm believer that before I got here to earth side and being born, I really got to choose my family. I got to choose my struggle. I got to choose where I came to because I could have, it used to trip me out as a kid that my spirit, my soul — I could have been in China, I could have been in Africa, I could have been Australia, but I was on a reservation. And it's really interesting when you meet someone on a soul level, who you remember from lifetimes ago. That happened to me during New York City. Charles Bush: I was coming back real late one night from going out and partying and was kind of inebriated. Well, I wasn't kinda, I was. And we were almost to back to where we lived. And my friend recognized some people in this little part on the street. And so we stopped and she's talking to all them, and then she turns on and introduces me. One of the guys, it's his first time ever in the States. He came from South Africa, so his brother's teaching him the ropes of what not to do, what you can do, what you shouldn't do, what might get you arrested. It had me laughing because I'm like, man, this guy reminds me of someone from the red, one of my cousins or my brothers like, “Hey, this is what you can't do when you leave the res.” So it was just seeing the similarities of different cultures and knowing that we come geographically from different places and being in the hodgepodge in New York City, and as this guy was telling me about his brother, this other guy was standing right next to him and he was just looking at me and all of Charles Bush: a sudden he starts talking to me. And then I gave him an introduction in Lakota, what I usually do whenever I introduce myself. And he just stops and looks at me and he goes, where the fuck have you been? And I'm like, what? And then he says it again, and all of a sudden I come out of being inebriated. All of a sudden, I remember who this guy was. I met him lifetimes, like two lifetimes ago. And then for him to call me out in New York City, that was crazy because at that moment up here, I didn't remember him, but right here, I knew exactly who he was. And then he was like, where have you been? And yeah, it was just wild. All the synchronicities that existed during my tumultuous time in New York City really showed me that that stint there was something that I was meant to do. I wasn't meant to live there, but I was meant to go there and experience synchronicities, to test my spirituality, to really show myself that I can exist in the biggest city in this world and not be successful in ways that I went there for, but to be successful in the ways that prove to me who I am. Charles Bush: And in that sense, I mean advocation for self, self-advocacy was one of the biggest things I took from my grad school experience in New York City was because my needs changed as an undergrad, and those needs were not there in grad school. There were a whole new set of needs. And so that really showed me that through self-advocacy, that's the only way that you can really step up for yourself and speak for yourself, because how can you not speak for yourself if you want to speak on behalf of the community? You can't pour into the community if you yourself have an empty cup. And that's one of the lessons I learned too, of just going down and testing myself in these different avenues of spirituality, mental and emotional growth.

00:54:39.000 - 00:58:27.000

Isabella Bourtin: That's really great. And so you mentioned singing a little bit earlier in music, so how does your spirituality and all of your experiences that you've described here, how did those play into your singing and how does singing embody your spirituality? Charles Bush: Yeah, so anytime I sing my naǧí, my spirit right here inside me, it is that inner kid. It's the inner kid that you have to nurture, that you never can't ever let that flame go out, because I've had that flame extinguished many times in life, but I've had it reignited by a lot of the people whom I love and I admire, and that are my mentors and my advisors and my peers and my colleagues. I've had that reignited. And that's why I tell people sometimes life is hard and it puts out that inner flame in you, but it's up to you to reignite it because that's your inner kid that say you had a childhood that you were robbed of, and that's that inner kid coming out as an adult wanting to experience that childhood that you were robbed of in present day. And it's really important that you nourish that because that's how you stay passionate about what you do. Charles Bush: That's how you don't lose that spark of what it is to be weighed down by the weight of both the worlds that I walk in and singing for me just makes that inner kid do somersaults inside of me. It makes me feel really good knowing that I still have that connection, because sometimes that connection was the only thing I felt, or when I didn't feel, that's what really scared me. And so I knew that through my singing and through my culture that I'm always going to be rich in a sense of knowing who I am, knowing that my people fought for me to exist. And I won't ever take that in vain because so many of my people do, and it's just not fair. But that's also their journey, that if they want to reach out and ask for help and support, that's on them. I’ve had to learn that the hard way too. Charles Bush: And that's one thing that I value is my experiences and exercising my boundaries, because a lot of people that I used to know wanted to prey, prey, off of my experiences in a way that gives them a shortcut and bypasses all my experience so they can get to where they want to be, but it doesn't work like that. You cannot try to be intentional without having a mindset, wanting to prey and have the ulterior motive of wanting to screw people over because it just doesn't work like that. You can't be a good person with ulterior motives. You just won't get far. And so for me, that really helped me learn that because that was sometimes my own siblings, and that was one of the hardest parts for me to let go of was my own siblings and cutting them off and just allowing them to experience life on their own timeline and their own experiences. But knowing that me being the eldest sibling, I'll always be here, but I won't fight your battles for you anymore. And that's important because I don't want to taint anyone's experience, especially if they're just wanting a shortcut based off of what I've been through.

00:58:27.000 - 01:00:47.000

Annesha Dey: Wow. This is all, I kind of forgot we were doing the interview for a second, and I was just so invested in what you were telling us, because yeah, I don't know. I feel like a lot of this resonates really well with me, and I really appreciate the way that you phrase things because it just, I don't know. I feel like I'm learning so much from just this interview, so thank you. But Charles Bush: Of course. Annesha Dey: I have one question. I know this might be a little personal, but just the way that you've described your addiction, it's very inspiring how, I don't know, you've used your spirituality to fall back on and grow from, and I just wanted to, I guess, hear a little more into that thought process of how you really used your spirituality for that and how you were able to grow it as you were minimizing your addictions and letting go of all of that. Just if you have anything more to say on that. Charles Bush: Yeah. Yeah. Growing out of being addicted to meth was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to let go of because I had to let go of those versions of myself that if I chose to stay and engage in those experiences, which said people, with said places, I definitely wouldn't be here talking with y'all. I would probably still be utilizing my degree, but also lying to myself because during my last, I want to say four, semesters of my undergrad, I was using it on a daily. I was a full-time student. I was working, I was involved in all these committees. I was on the board of trustees in my college. I isolated myself and I let it overtake me. And I done a real good job of putting on a facade of, oh, this is what a extracurricular college student looks like. Being well-rounded, but also just killing myself and taking my spirit away from who I am as an Indigenous person.

01:00:47.000 - 01:05:06.000

Charles Bush: But I think for me, my spirituality really came in more as I moved away from the reservation, because on the reservation, I know ceremonies are right there, but I wouldn't go to ceremony all doped up. That's just not who I am. And I know people who have done that before, I seen all the repercussions that happen if they go into a sacred space under the influence like that. And yeah, just growing up there, I never had any role models as a kid, but I had a whole lot of people I didn't want to be like or end up like. And so by choosing to step away and choose to let go of that addiction, it allowed me to really know what letting go of past versions of myself looks like, the work I have to do to allow myself to conquer that version of myself, to get me to this version that I'm at now. Charles Bush: And knowing that each step that I take sometimes goes backwards in order to go forward. But knowing that's all a part of my process and really sticking to my true authentic self is what really helped me because a lot of people I've met in places that weren't designed for me, and even my own people have always had a hidden animosity towards me w hen all I want is for them to be successful too, but they have a hidden agenda and it always comes out . I always end up seeing it or feeling it, rather, because I'm so in tune with my emotions that I can understand people before they even know what understanding themselves looks like. And if I gauge that, I'll just not even want to be around them people, because they're just takers. They're leeches, they’re energy vampires, they, yeah, they just want to take take. Charles Bush: And so it took me a while to figure that out and to know that spirituality was the missing key that I needed to help me unlock that part of letting that version of myself go or not having the key and still holding onto that part of who I am and to have it taint everything that I do now. That's one of the biggest letting gos I've ever had to do too, was really move forward in a way that embodies everything I talk about because I can't talk a big game and not walk the big game too. That's important to me because I've seen a lot of people do a bunch of big talk but never take a walk. And so for me that spirituality was the key to helping me get out of that part of myself and unlocking new versions of myself to help me stay on the path of what success looks like for me, because success is certainly something that looks different for everyone. And so I just want to emphasize that people have different degrees of what success looks like, and so I just want to emphasize that as well. Annesha Dey: Thank you so much. That was just also beautiful, again, the way you phrase things and yeah, I can really see how much you've struggled and how much you've just thought about this throughout your life, and it's just very, all and very inspiring, so thank you. A question I had a little bit switching gears from spirituality into more of health and physical, mental and wellbeing. I know you mentioned a lot of herbs and stuff like that about Indigenous medical practices, and I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that. Any specific maybe medicines that you use yourself or you've seen or heard of other people using?

01:05:06.000 - 01:09:56.000

Charles Bush: Yeah. When it comes to that, I am also still learning. That's one version of myself that I know will be a lifelong learner because it would be really hard to understand that. But just knowing what traditional herbs that my people use is something that I carry with me even out here. And if I don't have it, my dad can get it for me and mail it to me, but I just have to ask in the right way. And also know that when you want access to that kind of information, there's always a price to pay no matter what. It might not be a physical price or a financial price, but there's levels of degrees of prices that we pay to access certain levels of information. And for me, I say that because when my mom was alive, I felt like after she passed away, I was shown this whole new level of information, but it took me to lose my mom. Charles Bush: And so that's what I mean by their certain prices to pay. When you have experiences in your life on what it is you want, and that's how I understand some people want them shortcuts because they want to keep all their loved ones. They want to hold onto things that other people will lose and take a shortcut, but also make a deal with, I guess you could say the devil and have that backfire. And I've seen that too before. But when it comes to traditional medicines, I am very fortunate that my girlfriend is well versed in that too. That's why it's really important to me that she has a real strong foundation of who she is. And she runs a nonprofit that deals with seed sovereignty, with keeping these medicines alive, because she grew up in upstate New York and she also is Taino. So it's really cool right now in this part of my life where we're both together and we're bringing our different cultures and our different remedies, our different access to levels of information that we come from. Charles Bush: And we're using it in a way to help each other learn, to help each other grow, to show each other just what that love looks like on a communal level, on the individual level, on a holistic level. And I am pretty sure that she is one of the people that I was missing because I never had anyone like her. And so I've been really doing a lot of growing with her in these ways of what you call it, we complement one another in the work that we do, and we're always there to uplift one another. And when we do that, we're learning. So this past week we went out to the ranch and I was out there to help with a tour and her and I, we just went off out into the field and we just start looking at plants and we were nerding off and like, oh, this looks like, and then we'll actually look it up. Charles Bush: And so in those kind of moments, because neither of us are from here, I feel like that's helping me nourish that part of getting back into that role of what it means to be a keeper of these medicines and what it means to have access to these herbs that helped my people and her people up until this point and how they're going to keep helping our people because that's really important to both of us that we pass on this information of what these remedies and ailments looks like when we bring together these cross-cultural learning experiences of different backgrounds and really adding to that collective wellness of what it means to elevate one another on a global level, what it means to have accessible resources in a shared communal space. And really writing that narrative of interweaving both of our identities, our cultures, and our levels of information that we both have because it's really nice. And I've never had anything like that. So that's why I have to talk about her right now because she's really helped me learn in a lot of those ways that I never would've learned if I hadn't met her.

01:09:56.000 - 01:13:02.000

Isabella Bourtin: I'm so glad you found somebody that you can talk about this with and learn from each other, and that's always super important. And I'm so glad that you found somebody that is that for you. Do you have any, you can totally say no if you want to keep it within your community. It's kind of like a community secret, but do you have any specific examples of plants that you use to heal for different things? Charles Bush: Yeah, so there's different, so one plant can have five different uses. You just have to know what use that is that you need in that instance. So for instance, I'll go with osha root or bear root. One of the things that we do is we burn it, we use it as an incense, or say you have a really bad toothache, you can chew it and then put it on your tooth and it acts as a, what you call it, it takes your pain away from that specific area, but you got to chew on it and then kind of target where it's at and just leave it there. Or if you're sick, you could also boil it and make a tea out of it. So there's just very different ways that you can use just one plant, and it just depends on whatever it is that you need it for and what you're going through and just knowing what you're sick with and kind of just narrowing down like, okay, it might be this one or it might be this one because sage too, we burn it, but you can also make tea out of it. Charles Bush: And also another plant that kind of acts as like a numbing agent is the echinacea, the root of it. Also, you just chew it and put it on the targeted part of your mouth and it'll take away your toothache. Or there's the primrose, the prairie primrose. And in the spring, in South Dakota, when that pink flower first emerges in the spring, that's when you know winter's over. So not only is it a natural remedy, but it's also a bioindicator of letting you know that certain cycles are now done for, and that this shift in transition is now moving from winter to spring. And when we would gather that flower, it mainly be used for women that would help alleviate them from their cramps, from their menstrual cycles. And so it just depends on what season it's in, what it is you might be sick with. So there's just different varying degrees of different inputs that you might need in order to get said output. I don't know if that answers your question, but I just gave three examples that I knew of off the top of my head. Isabella Bourtin: Yeah, that was really great. Thank you so much.

01:13:02.000 - 01:13:23.000

Charles Bush: You're welcome. Isabella Bourtin: I've never heard of any of those things being used for any of those reliefs, so that's really great that you're sharing that. Charles Bush: Of course. Isabella Bourtin: So when you go in for healthcare, do you usually kind of rely more on modern healthcare or more traditional healthcare, or do you balance the two?

01:13:23.000 - 01:17:06.000

Charles Bush: I would say right now is a balancing act because you want to be up to date with the technology and you want that opinion, but also there's certain remedies that might be the same naturally. So I think for me, it's just important to get a Western opinion. And it's also important to get an Indigenous opinion, like going to said healers, going to these knowledge keepers and kind of just telling them what's going on. But it's going to take that rapport of establishing that relationship and having a protocol. Because also, one thing I want to emphasize too is when you want information like that, you have to make an offering. It's just part of the protocol and process of what it is to be Indigenous and asking that in a good way. So for instance, if I wanted to go ask a spiritual leader about some advice or to ask me if they could help me, I would take them some tobacco and I would give them, if they're a smoker, I would usually go take them a pack of cigarettes or a pack of loose leaf tobacco if they like blowing their own cigarettes. Charles Bush: But there's always protocol and you always have to follow that because if you don't, then whatever information they might give you might backfire on you too because you skip that protocol t hat's really important. So yeah, that's just one of the things I wanted to emphasize as well is that protocol of asking for help because I guess you could say we ask for help in both worlds too, of that code switching, of just what it means to ask for help too. I used to be that person to be really stubborn and say, no, I don't need help. I can do this all by myself. And then just getting really sick, sick of myself and sick of the excuses I made for myself to have to be in that degree of being down and out and then, okay, well now I really need help. But it's taken me to understand that asking for help is totally normal, and that's something that needs to be demystified too. Charles Bush: And I know that just being a man too, that's something that we, that's expected of society, of us to just handle it ourselves and to just like, oh, you're the man, you're supposed to know this, or you're supposed to just go through it cause you’re dah, dah, dah. It's like, actually, no, that's the old paradigm, but thank you. I'm actually not like that. And so it's not only battling those instances of what it means to be Indigenous, but also an Indigenous man to help other men like myself to know that this is normal, to have these conversations and just fighting and shattering these stereotypes and glass ceilings or definitely what I agreed to do when I chose to come here. Isabella Bourtin: I feel like asking for help, like you said, is hard a lot of times. But when you finally break that barrier and you're like, I can ask for help, it really makes such a big difference. So how has asking for help within your community affected how you see your life affected how you see your culture? How has community played a role in your life basically?

01:17:06.000 - 01:21:45.000

Charles Bush: Yeah, so I don't know. You all probably have heard this saying, it's pretty cliche, but the saying of it takes a village to raise a child. I am a firm example of the many environments that I belong to and associate myself with. I am a product of all those environments. And so it's really important for me to acknowledge the support, to acknowledge this structure and the people that have helped me along this path and this journey of life, of navigating, walking in two worlds. Yeah, it's important to surround yourself with different circles of support. And for me that was, I used to belong to an organization called Young People Forward. And when my mom passed away, that was during Covid, they really came together and they held a virtual space for me to just grieve. And that was something that I've never had, and that's something that really played a huge role in my life, Charles Bush: whenever I had to go take the stand of the guy who went on trial for killing my mom because he was a drunk driver and I had to go testify and read my victim impact statement on how that death affected me. And when I read that letter, it felt like I was on trial and I was so scared and I almost didn't want to read it, but I went up there and read it anyway. And that really took that power away once I was done with it because the different levels of support that I had that I really wholeheartedly threw myself into and depended on, they really showed up in ways that I didn't expect them to, but them embodying that notion of it takes a village to raise a child, that's what ’s important for me. And I'm sure a lot of people that… one moment I'm going to let this dog inside. Charles Bush: It's really important to me to have them different layers of support, of different people and different programs that have impacted my life and just given me so much. And that's what makes me want to give back too is when different spaces provided me with so much growth and insight, it's really important for me to at least give back. It might not be in the same way that it was given to me, but that's just important for me to give back to spaces and make it more accessible and make it more suiting for individuals like me. Because whenever I first was in that space, I remember I was the only Indigenous person. But yeah, that's kind of just been a reoccurring theme in my life was being that one guy to have to speak on behalf of all people. And I didn't know that was tokenization back then. Charles Bush: But yeah, just having those spaces like that. And another example I can give is, it's called my AISES family. AISES is American Indian Science and Engineering Society. And through that I found my family within that society, I belong to a cohort called lighting the pathway and lighting the pathway is about Indigenous scholars within academia to ultimately be on track to become tenured professors that said institutions, that's what that's about. It's about creating Indigenous doctors who have their PhD and they in turn give back and mentor people like me to help get me through the gauntlet of what it means to exist as an Indigenous person in those institutional spaces. And just by being a part of that really showed me like-minded individuals that showed me that I'm what Indigenous scientists look like. That keeps helping me to write my narrative, to make my voice that much stronger and to let others know that help is necessary at every stage of your life. You just have to be comfortable about asking for it in the way you ask for it.

01:21:45.000 - 01:26:56.000

Isabella Bourtin: Thank you so much for sharing those really sensitive things in your life with us, and I really appreciate you being so vulnerable and honest with us. It really means a lot to hear how deeply you've been impacted by your community through these terrible things that have happened. And it's just really inspiring that you were so able to bounce back and to do the amazing things that you've done throughout these times and anytime in your life, has there ever been a specific practice or a specific ceremony or gathering? I know you mentioned smudging as a practice, but are there any specific cultural, community - focused practices that have really made a difference in your life through maybe your growth, your grieving, that have really just done something for you? Charles Bush: Yeah, usually whenever I go home to South Dakota, I usually try to hit up at least one Inípi or sweat lodge. Usually it's at one of my uncle's houses, my dad's Sundance brother, and we'll just go and pray and have a meal together after we're done praying. And that always revitalizes me. It always rejuvenates me, and it always re-energizes me. It's almost like what they call the med beds. It's almost like that for me. It's a spiritual med bed where when I'm in there I get recharged on so many levels other than just physical, that that really helps to keep my battery full when I'm existing out in spaces like Texas. But also what I've also been very careful about too is people appropriating the ceremonies that my people done in a way with their own. Because yes, I understand that sweat lodges happen in all different parts of Indigenous communities, but it's really scary when it's like someone in a foreign language trying to teach me Lakota values, singing Lakota songs, and it's like, nah, no, thank you. Charles Bush: You just sound like you're perpetuating Indigenous cultures and ceremonies. But thank you, but no thank you. And so for me, it's really made me cognizant and really helped me disseminate who's who in a way where I understand that each of our upbringings are different, but that's just not something I'd be comfortable with. So respectfully I'd have to decline. But yeah, I feel like anytime I go home and go to Inípis and lowanpi, and lowanpi is a ceremony in a house usually. And whenever I do go there, I receive the prayers, I feel the spirits there. I eat the traditional foods that we eat there. And I'm just there in that moment with my community keeping our prayers alive and helping to heal the next generation through these ways of life. And for me, that's been really vital to who I am because I was raised around that the very first sweat lodge I'd done was when I was three months old. Charles Bush: So I was very young whenever I first started knowing and was shown these ways of life. And I'm very thankful for that because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I'd still be lost. I'm pretty sure I'd still be drugging. I'm pretty sure I'd still be struggling and staying in these toxic cycles and toxic mindsets of what it looks like to be disconnected from culture because I have a lot of family who are currently like that. And that's why I'm very fortunate, and I know all the hard work that I've put in doesn't go unnoticed because a lot of people always ask me for help and I admire that, but it's like, you don't know what I had to go through to get here , a nd quite frankly, I don't have to explain to you either. That's something where if you were close to me, you would already know, but I'm not about to have an open book policy with you just because you want to know something. And so that's really helped me use discernment to be spiritual aware and be hyper aware of just how people might appropriate my culture and the ceremonies that my people have kept going. So yeah, it's definitely made me just be more aware and be hyper-vigilant about that, especially down here.

01:26:56.000 - 01:31:32.000

Annesha Dey: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I know that's been something that other people have also brought up in interviews about just how non-Natives and other Natives can just make you feel less than yourself because of the way that they are able to perpetuate culture. So I think that's a really important thing that you've brought up that we didn't even think to ask. But thank you so much for touching on that. I want to know a little bit more, so you were saying that you're not so surrounded by your culture right now, but how do you still manage to, besides through your spiritual thinking, but in any other ways, do you keep your culture alive and your day-to-day basis? I guess, how do you ground yourself in your Indigeneity? Charles Bush: So this is just something that I do in particular, but I'll try to use as many Lakota words as I can. And I'll be teaching my girlfriend what they mean. Sometimes I'll make something up and she's like, really? And I'm like, no, I'm just messing with you. But it's really important to me to balance life with humor. Humor has really gotten me through a lot of different hard times in my life because even in death we laugh because when someone passes away, especially a loved one, we all come together and we all come to just celebrate their life. And then you hear all the crazy stories that come out of what this person done when they were alive. And it's like we have humor that gets us to the darkest and roughest times, and that's something that's always a part of me. So even I probably, I'm really bad at saying things when I shouldn't say things and we could be somewhere and everyone, it's sad. Charles Bush: And I'll say something, I don't mean to say I think it stays in my head, but it comes out and then people just look. But yeah, for me, I find humor in just about anything that I do because you have to be able to laugh at yourself. And for me, humor is just as important as spirituality. To me. It's kind of just a pillar of Lakota culture too, because anytime we all gather, when I'm at home, there's always something humorous going on. Someone's always making someone laugh, someone's always making jokes. That humor is just as important as spirituality, and at least in my culture that I know of has always been there. And so for me, it's like I just have to remember to be myself because sometimes life makes you rigid. Sometimes life taints you, but when you get to those, if you're not laughing at yourself, then you're not really living because you always have to be able to laugh at yourself. Charles Bush: And that's when you realize just how irrational you might've been in that moment. And when you laugh at yourself, you're like, oh, and then at least for me, that's usually what happens. There's usually a revelation within whatever experience that I'm going through. And also just really the mindset of taking certain words and knowing the power of words because I don't like to say losses. I like to say lessons. And when people say kill two birds with one stone, I like to say I plant two flowers with one seed. So it's all just about changing the wording of certain things and making it fit for me. It might not work for my best friend, it might not work for my brother and my sister, but this is just what works for me and that's important. And so I can only just give what my opinion on how spirituality and humor has been really paramount to who I am and have gotten me through life so far. And I know that as I continue to get older and go through other parts of stages of my life and choose to eventually get back into grad school, I know that those are both going to definitely be there too, no matter what I endure and what path I choose to continue on down.

01:31:32.000 - 01:35:25.000

Isabella Bourtin: That's really great. It's great to hear you've learned so many lessons from having to adapt to your surroundings and keep your culture alive. I think that's just beautiful. So I just want to go back to the whole topic of art for a second. So other than singing, do you do any other forms of art? Do you like paint? Do you draw? Do you bead? Do you do any clay? Do you do any other types of art? Charles Bush: Oh, I do like doing all of that, but I just don't do it. What I really do a lot is I free write, I journal. To me, that's how I express myself. I told my girlfriend that I started this, I started manifesting this two summers ago whenever I first began going through what I like to call stage one in my spiritual awakening. And it was what I labeled the initiation back then two years ago. It was on a certain day where the energy was just a lot more intense and anything you wanted to manifest that day was literally yours. If you spoke it into existence, if you wrote it down and just put it out there. And one of the things that I want to do is I want to write a book. I want to write a book about a little rez boy who leaves the rez for the first time and takes on this journey of life. Charles Bush: And this little rez boy will have a science way of thinking, also enveloping philosophy and questioning every stage of life, but also having going through trials and tribulations of just experiences that life throws at you. And in a way, I want it to be … So in Lakota culture, there's stories about Iktómi , and Iktómi is a trickster. And so I want to put it in that lens of using these experiences to take what lessons I want, what I've learned out of these experiences, and putting it in a way that maps my journey all across Turtle Island and all while keeping my flame lit of my inner child and keeping that little rez boy going through all these stages of life through all my travels. And just want to put that in a way of really satirical humor stories all about intertwining culture and spirituality and the livelihood of just existing in worlds like this one, you're in Texas. Charles Bush: And just making it fun in a way that little kids can relate to these lessons that I've learned that I wish I would've learned a long time ago, but I've still learned from them. And so I just want to make a book of those life lessons that I've experienced through a little rez boy lens. And so for me, I really journal a lot. That’s just one… I have five to ten different notebooks that I'm always taking turns writing in. I'll get on one thought and I'll write something down and it's like a notebook scattered of all my different thoughts of what I'm feeling at this moment. So for me, that's something that I'm really passionate about and that's kind of what led me down this path of having writing come so easy for me. I remember I would even help out family members with just writing up a letter.

01:35:25.000 - 01:37:36.000

Charles Bush: It's surprising to me how many people just can't format a standard letter of their experience of what they need and how they need to advocate for themselves in a way to human services, to applying for a job. So it's really helped me raise up my writing skills because I just like to write. And creative writing is something I really like to do because I like to tell stories. My girlfriend tells me that too. She's like, you tell stories a lot. I said, well, back in high school, I said, when I was on that boat, there was — for an hour, I'd have to stand at the front of the boat and be on bow watch for an hour with another person and me and that one person, whoever was with me, they would just hear all kinds of stories about where I grew up, the different phenomena I see, just different things that mainstream society doesn't necessarily get to hear about. And so yeah, growing up and being high school, I was always told that I am a really good storyteller. So yeah, I do eventually want to write a book, and I do want to get back into beading because I used to bead back when I was like sixth grade, seventh grade, and my girlfriend does a lot of arts and crafts, so she's definitely teaching me how to express myself again in different ways that I just never made time for, I guess. Isabella Bourtin: Well, whenever you publish your book, please let us know because I will be the first person to buy a copy. Charles Bush: Thank you. I certainly will. Isabella Bourtin: Okay, so those are all the questions we have so far on those sections, but our last section is my favorite section. It's about food. So just kind of like a broad question, do you have any memories that really stand out about food or cooking from your childhood or throughout your life? Do you have a favorite meal that you loved growing up? Anything about food?

01:37:36.000 - 01:41:45.000

Charles Bush: Yeah, so being raised by my unci, realizing now, I took for granted all the times that she would make all different kinds of breads. As you may know, a fried bread was something that's a survival food that I feel if we as Indigenous people don't cut that out of our diets, that it's just going to help perpetuate the diabetes, the high blood pressure, the health disparities that exist in Indigenous countries because of the government taking away the bison, the salmon. And I just personally feel like fry bread's great and all, but it's definitely not a traditional food. And there will be some Indigenous people say, oh, well, it's traditional for me. It's like, okay, cool, that's awesome. That's something that the government wanted to kill us with, but it's cool that you want to keep that alive. Right on. That's your narrative, but that's definitely not a part of me. Charles Bush: And so for me, it was just growing up and seeing all the different kinds of breads that my grandma would make: skillet bread, oven bread, fried bread, and just all different kinds and pairing those with different soups. And one of the things that I remember most growing up at my grandma's was when it came time to harvest wastunkala, which is dried corn, she would make dishes that are specifically for ceremonial purposes. One of those dishes is called wasna. And what wasna is in English is it's pemmican, what is usually like dried corn with raisins in it. That's one of the most standard ones I grew up with, and it's instant energy. You would carry that, say you're out scouting for food and you're off for a few days, you can put that in a little pouch and that's instant energy that you could burn right through you. Charles Bush: It doesn't go and get stored in your body. Yeah, just watching her growing up and watching the way that she would cook certain things. Yeah, I guess you could say home for me is also a smell. I'm going back to one of the questions in the very beginning of talking about what home is, but for me, home is also a smell that I don't think I'll ever smell again because my grandma can't cook anymore. But it's just something that I will always cherish with me. And growing up at her house on Sunday mornings and having her sister come down and she'll be cooking up something and just hearing them converse at the table and Lakota and just being really just present in that moment and just taking for granted as an adult now and realizing the treasure that existed in those moments of my grandma and her sisters when they were both alive. Charles Bush: Because at my grandma's house, one lived above the hill. It was like a hundred yards away, the other one was about 80 yards away across the straight field. So when they were both alive, they would both come over to my grandma's house and I would remember all of them all just talking Lakota about just catching up, gossiping. It was definitely one of those moments that I didn't know that I would still have him planted in the back of my mind as a 30-year-old man. But yeah, just growing up and seeing all the different kinds of soups that she would make from bapa, which is dried meat, when we would get meat, she would hang it up all over in the house and she would dry it, and that's how we would make jerky. That's how we would put into soups later. And everything that we would harvest in the summertime would be saved for wintertime soup use.

01:41:45.000 - 01:46:06.000

Charles Bush: And so that was something that I really loved. It's wastunkala, it's usually like timpsula, which are turnips, wastunkala, bapa. it's usually those four things all in the soup. Oh, good. Yeah, that's probably one of the biggest soups that I miss, and I know I won't get that anywhere around here. I got to go home for that. But yeah, food definitely is a huge part of any Lakota gathering, especially when we do ceremonies. We always pray and there's always a meal after. It's just part of the protocol that exists within my culture. Isabella Bourtin: That's really great to hear that you have such good memories associated with your childhood and your family and big family gatherings, your family speaking your language. I feel like that's really rare. So I think that's really beautiful. So this is kind of just a different question, and I think it goes back to Texas Tribal Buffalo's aim. Have you ever had, or has your family ever had difficulties in sourcing the ingredients for y'all's traditional recipes? Do you think any of the meats that you used used to be buffalo that is no longer buffalo, is now a different kind of meat you use? Yeah, have you ever encountered any issues like sourcing ingredients basically? Charles Bush: I don't think so, to be honest. And if it ever came down to that, it's usually because I didn't have access to it being wherever I'm living at that moment, but knowing that everything I'm talking about is still alive and well and thriving on the reservation. One of the initiatives that I know my dad really helps with, with the community of Pine Ridge and the whole reservation right now, is my tribe received a few millions of dollars from the USDA that helps buffalo ranchers. So if my dad wants to take a bull down, he could, because he just recently did this within the last month, he took two bulls down that kept escaping the herd and causing more problems for him. So he shot them and he processed them, and he gets back about $ 10- 12,000 per bull because all of that meat gets processed on the reservation and it gets distributed in the food commodity program that exists on the reservation. So my people get a locally sourced bison from my dad's herd, and then they get to eat it on the res. Charles Bush: I would say that, no, I don't think I've ever encountered that because I know that there's just a lot of different avenues, and if we might be experiencing a problem, we would reach out to other tribes in the area who if we ran out, they might have it. And just getting back to the whole bartering system of, okay, well this is what community looks like. This is what raising a village looks like. A village that eats together stays together too. So just really leveraging each other's food that we grow and bartering. I don't think that we'll ever, I don't want to say ever or never, but I don't foresee that anytime soon of running out of them vital ingredients of what it takes to eat them, what it takes, or the significance they hold in our ceremonies. And yeah, I just don't, because if you were to say that we had trouble with that, then we might be having trouble with our cultures too. So I just don't see that happening because if that were to happen, then what would that mean for my culture too, for the ceremonies? But that's a valid question, and I think that my tribe has done a pretty good job of keeping that alive, whereas other tribes might not have been as successful as us too. So that's why I can only just speak on my experience and where I grew up and my own people.

01:46:06.000 - 01:47:10.000

Isabella Bourtin: Well, that's really great. I'm really glad that you guys have never had that problem. I know a lot of people we've talked to have said that's been a big issue for them. They've had to really modify their recipes. So I'm really glad that you guys have never had to deal with that. It gives me some hope for a lot of things. Annesha Dey: So that brings us to the end of the interview, but we just want to ask if there's any last maybe message that you want to leave us with to kind of encompass everything you've shared with us throughout this from kind of like a closing note? Charles Bush: Yeah, it's just a saying that one of our, my leaders, the Lakota people, Tasunke Witco, once said, also known as Crazy Horse. We did not inherit the earth from our ancestors, but rather we borrowed it from our children. Isabella Bourtin: That's fantastic. I just got goosebumps.

01:47:10.000 - 01:48:20.000

Charles Bush: That's what drives me. When things get tough, I know that my people will be okay because I'm part of that seven generation. And when my people were struggling, they were thinking seven generations ahead, and that thinking never left. So I know that my people will be alive and thriving, and they might have their own experiences and own trials and tribulations of their times, but right now I know that seven generations from now this way of life will still be going because that's just who we are as people. Isabella Bourtin: That's so beautiful. Thank you so much. Charles Bush: You're welcome. Okay, well, we'll do the official wrap up, but then I'll stop the recording and then if you have any more questions or we have any random questions, we'll just ask you. But thank you so much. This has been absolutely fantastic. This will be so amazing for people to listen to and learn more about your culture and how they can respect it. And this has just been beautiful, so thank you so much.

01:48:20.000 - 01:49:39.000

Charles Bush: Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad it was informational. I'm glad you're able to resonate. And ultimately thank you for just allowing me to have this time and to just express all of this too. Y'all are doing an amazing job and wonderful project, and I'm super proud to be a part of it. Isabella Bourtin: Well, we wouldn't be able to do it without you and people like you. So thank you so much for being so willing to share so much, because I know it can be hard to put yourself out there and tell your story. And so doing this really, it really means so, so, so much to us. So thank you. Annesha Dey: I know it's going to mean a lot to other people who hear this and can also learn something and maybe help them with something that they're going through that might be similar to what you've been saying, maybe looking at it in a different way. So I think it's something that everyone can learn from and yeah, I'm just really proud of this interview and thank you so much. Charles Bush: Of course. Thank you for making the space where I can share my vulnerabilities, because that's honestly where we learn the most, and it's really important to me to be able to express that and let other people know that I am vulnerable too, just like them. We're all human and we're all in this together, and hell, we ain't getting out alive.

01:49:39.000 - 01:49:52.000

Isabella Bourtin: We've been to that one.