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Guest writer
Darrell Hillaire; photo by Mel Ponder
Ecotrust is honored to present a 2024 Indigenous Leadership Award to Darrell Hillaire, the founder of Children of the Setting Sun Productions and a former chairman of Lummi Nation. The award recognizes his leadership in enhancing opportunities for Native education in the Northwest and ongoing commitment to sharing the stories of Native peoples.
The rich salt waters of Salish Sea, stretching from Puget Sound to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, surround the traditional homelands of Lummi Nation. When Lummi people were removed from the San Juan Islands to a reservation, the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott promised them payment for their lands. No compensation was ever made.
In the 1920s, Lummi Nation sued for payment, and the federal government agreed: payments had been promised. But the “cost of relocation” exceeded the money owed to Lummi Nation and, in fact, the Nation owed the United States money. The Nation sued again in the 1950s. Finally, in 1974, more than a century later, Lummi Nation was offered a $54,000 settlement. They refused.
Since then, for the past 50 years, Lummi Tribal Council receives an annual check from the federal government. And every year, the Council drafts a resolution and returns the money, describing the payment as “insulting.”
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I got pretty interested in telling the story of our people.
—Darrell Hillaire, Lummi
This story was a history that needed explaining, said Darrell Hillaire, 70, who was a member of Lummi Tribal Council at the time. He wrote and produced a play, What About Those Promises? and staged it at a high school in Bellingham. To his astonishment, all 900 seats sold out. After that, he said, “I got pretty interested in telling the story of our people.”
What About Those Promises? was the genesis of Children of the Setting Sun Productions, a production group that Hillaire created in 2015 to tell stories about Lummi Nation—from the importance of salmon and the opioid crisis to simply “sharing who we are” for Indian and non-Indian people.
Darrell Hillaire is honored for his leadership in enhancing opportunities for Native education in the Northwest and his ongoing commitment to share the stories of Native peoples.
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There is a legacy, a feeling of responsibility knowing that through our history, our family stood up.
—Darrell Hillaire, Lummi
Hillaire served more than 15 years on Tribal Council, beginning as one of the youngest elected members. He had been on Council for 12 years until “one fateful day,” as he described it, his aunt pulled him aside and told him that Lummi kids were not getting the love and life skills they needed to make it. A dormitory needed to be built for tribal children.
“I had to stop and listen. I started attending foster care meetings, court hearings,” he said. “Sure enough, a lot of our youth were living in high-risk conditions.”
He stepped away from Tribal Council and, for the next three years, researched, coordinated, and raised money to build Lummi Youth Academy, a boarding school that opened in 2008.
“That experience made me the wealthiest guy in the world, richer than Elon Musk, Bill Gates, all those guys,” he said. “I have these friendships and relationships from children who needed a chance, which really means they just needed a place to live so they could go to school. There are probably 200 children who are now adults that I’m really proud to have known and to know that they are making it in this world.”
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Hillaire was raised on Lummi reservation with a clear understanding of the importance of serving the Nation.
Once the Academy was up and running, he returned to serve on Tribal Council, this time as an elder.
“[Leadership] is thought of as a responsibility, a privilege, a calling, if you will, from my parents and my grandparents, all the way back to my great grandfather who was at treaty-signing at 9 years old. There is a legacy, a feeling of responsibility knowing that through our history, our family stood up,” he said.
Hillaire was raised on Lummi reservation with a clear understanding of the importance of serving the Nation. His mother was a practical visionary who had earned a respected national reputation as an advocate for mothers and healthy families. His father served as Tribal Chair and was a “steady hand at the table.” As a young man, Hillaire was a competitive war canoe paddler for Setting Suns Canoe Club.
“In those efforts to be a champion, if you will, it taught me a lot of life lessons around respect for the water, respect for the canoe, respect for the paddle, and respect for each other. I still carry the teachings of war canoe racing in my work today.”
At 62, he began building Children of the Setting Sun, named for his great grandfather’s traditional song and dance troupe. The production group would provide basic services for Lummi Nation and other tribes and local agencies that wanted to know more about Lummi people including explanations of land acknowledgements and treaty rights.
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You can feel the loss, how our spirit is affected by no salmon.
—Darrell Hillaire, Lummi
Children of the Setting Sun expanded to produce other media including a book of elder interviews, Jesintel: Living Wisdom from Coast Salish Elders and The Story Pole, a video that describes the tradition and culture of carving. In 2021, the Setting Sun Institute was created, a think tank and digital library of Indigenous knowledge and history for researchers and scholars that derives from the stories collected from the last 10 years.
In November, Children of the Setting Sun will debut and air on PBS nationwide “Salmon People: Preserving a Way of Life,” a one-hour documentary that looks at the gravity and impact of climate change on salmon populations to ask the question: Who are Salmon People without salmon?
“You can feel the loss, how our spirit is affected by no salmon,” he said. And conversely, “You can feel the vibrancy and the electricity in the air when the salmon come home. Everything is connected to salmon—the reservation, the trees, we are—all the nutrients that are in every part of the ecosystem.”
While Children of the Setting Sun tells stories about Indigenous people, traditional knowledge, and cultural perspectives, “It’s really about all of us and the environment and the climate crisis we’re in,” he said. “Science ain’t going to fix it. People are going to, with a shift in values. It’s really about a transformation of us as a people. That’s what we’re working on. We’re trying to teach people to be more grateful and more generous. If we can do that, I think we have a shot.”
Darrell Hillaire’s acceptance speech at the 2024 Indigenous Leadership Awards. Video by Really BIG Video
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Children of the Setting Sun’s responsibility is to create and share Indigenous stories of gratitude, generosity, and respect. We empower the minds and hearts of future generations.
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Wednesday October 16th, 2024 • 5:30pm
The Redd on Salmon Street | Portland, Oregon
The Indigenous Leadership Awards is a celebration of the determination, wisdom, and continuum of Indigenous leadership across the region.
Press release
Group of six leaders will be honored at a ceremony on October 16
Portland, Ore. – September 4, 2024 – Ecotrust is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Indigenous Leadership Awards. …
