Already sizeable and growing, Seattle Indian Health Board’s workforce is filled not only with talent but also an array of lives, journeys, and wisdom. “Relative to Relative” is a conversation series, lowering barriers to connection through unscripted storytelling. Each installment is an invitation to weave new relationships and recognize the humans behind our healthcare.
When Christina Diego (Nimiipuu/ Diné) selects one pair of earrings from the 90 pairs she’s collected, she’s just choosing to wear something that complements her outfit. But she is aware her choice can also be interpreted as a statement. “I think earrings are definitely a way to decolonize the workplace, and [to] decolonize spaces when you’re outside in community,” she says.
One of the most consequential spaces which could be decolonized is the Washington state legislature. Christina speaks to lawmakers regularly in her role as the Policy Director of Seattle Indian Health Board. She advocates for changes in public policy so that SIHB can support Indigenous people more fully with accessible, culturally attuned medical care and social services.
Christina is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. She’s lived and worked in rainy, gray western Washington for some time, but home for her is the high desert of central Oregon. “When I go home, to me, home is dry,” she says. “It’s desert flowers, it’s tumbleweeds, it’s dirt.” It’s a landscape that’s more typical of Nimiipuu homelands, which once included parts of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
“We’re all showing up for our community, and being able to laugh with each other is the best medicine here.”
The policy director earned her Master’s degree in Social Work at the University of Washington, then a Master’s degree in Public Administration at the University of Colorado. Christina seemed headed for a career at a federal government agency. But a COVID-19 pandemic hiring freeze swept away those plans. Her next steps seemed uncertain – until a possible solution shook her out of bed.
“I woke up like at 6 a.m., and if you know me, I’m not a morning person,” Christina says. “But I woke up at 6 a.m. and like, ‘Oh my gosh, I need to apply to the Seattle Indian Health Board!’ “ She laughs again, remembering that she filled out the application online – and then promptly going back to bed.
Soon after that point, Christina landed an interview and then the job. But as much as she likes sleeping in, the thing that gets her out of bed these days is showing up for the Native community during the state legislative session. The policy director’s advocacy is a form of care, one that includes laughter and showing love for her team even as they advocate for serious, long-lasting change in Olympia.
The ongoing effort to decolonize workspaces, however, is only part of the work. At its essence, Christina says we decolonize a place by drawing strength from each other despite daily oppression, laughing with and holding up our peers. If her long leather earrings are considered a statement of intent, maybe that’s just an attractive bonus.