Deborah Parker

Deborah Parker is a member of the Tulalip Tribes of Washington and is of Tulalip, Lummi, Yaqui, and Apache descent; her native name, cicayalc̓aʔ, extends back multiple generations on her mother's side. Born in 1970 she graduated from the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in American ethnic studies and sociology. Since graduating, Parker has been involved in numerous groups and organizations. During her time at UW, she appeared as in extra in the movie, Singles. Prior to working for the Tulalip Tribes, Parker served as the director of the residential healing school of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation and participated in the Treaty Taskforce Office of the Lummi Nation, wherein she was mentored by indigenous leaders such as Billy Frank Jr., Joe DeLaCruz, Henry Cagey, and Jewell James. Parker served as the Legislative Policy Analyst in the Office of Governmental Affairs for the Tulalip Tribes; she began serving as vice-chairwoman of the Tulalip Tribes, becoming its only woman board member and its youngest member. While serving the Tulalip Tribes, Parker continued to involve herself in improving education and political engagement among Native Americans in Washington. In January 2005, she was elected as the treasurer for Choice & Consequence, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes healthy practices among Washington youth. She later was promoted to its board of directors as the president. In 2006, she participated in the development of Native Vote Washington, a 501(c)(4) organization that sought to encourage greater political participation among Native Americans. in Shadow of the Salmon, a docudrama about the significance of salmon among the Northwest Native peoples that was nominated for multiple awards. Later, in September 2010, she was appointed by the University of Washington's Friends of the Educational Opportunity Program as a member of its board of trustees, In the same year as her 2013 efforts in support of passing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, Parker joined Mother Nation, then called Native Women in Need, as an honorary board member after eight months of supporting the group. In October 2017, Parker was selected by Marysville School District to serve as its director of Equity, Diversity, and Indian Education and continues to do so Parker lives in Tulalip, Washington, where she is a mother to three children and two stepchildren she is a board member for Our Revolution a lawfirm specializing in representing Native American interests; and the volunteer policy analyst for Mother Nation, a nonprofit organization supporting Native American women. ==Activism==

Parker describes her activism and resilience to resist despite hardships as "warrior status". Potlatch Fund's 2013 Pearl Capoeman-Baller Civic Participation Award, the Snohomish County Human Rights Commission's 2016 Human Rights Award, and KSER's 2017 Voice of the Community Award for Community Impact by an Individual. Parker was also the keynote speaker at the second annual Faith and Action Climate Team (FACT) Conference in October 2017. 2012–13 Violence Against Women Act reauthorization signed the reauthorization act with Deborah Parker (left, with hat) by his side. During the political battle leading up to the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), Parker was "vital" in the campaigning that pushed for reauthorization and her public testimony to Congress in particular was influential. Parker visited the staff of Washington senator Patty Murray to discuss salmon and natural resource issues. During the visit, she learned about the efforts to pass the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2012 and the struggle that Murray's team were having with keeping support for a provision on tribal jurisdiction. According to the team, the reauthorization would likely fail, especially with the tribal provision, because the legislation "lacked a face." For Murray, the VAWA reauthorization "would have never happened if Parker had not gone public with her story on Capitol Hill" and she "made the absolute difference at the absolute critical time" by "making her personal story become the face of what this was about". Around the same time, playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle released Sliver of a Full Moon, a play about the events surrounding the VAWA reauthorization that tells the stories of five Native American women and two Native men. Among the five women is Deborah Parker, played by Jennifer Bobiwash. A year afterward, in October 2016, Parker was featured in the second campaign advertisement of Patty Murray's re-election in the 2016 United States Senate election in Washington. As a platform committee member, Parker "helped to ensure that Native policy initiatives were ultimately rolled into the party's larger platform." In June 2016, on the first day of the platform drafting hearing in St. Louis, Parker proposed a substitution amendment that replaced and strengthened the language in the section on honoring tribal nations. Elijah Cummings, the chairman presiding over the hearing, allotted Parker additional time and gave her the floor. While reading the amendment text, she was overwhelmed by the moment and began to cry. and further expanded to strengthen language for Native Hawaiians by the time the official platform was released on July 21. Shortly after Our Revolution formed in August 2016, Parker joined it as a member of its board of directors. Protests Throughout the years, Parker has opposed and protested multiple pipeline projects out of concern for their environmental impact and effects on tribal lands. In September 2016, Parker and other Tulalip tribal members joined Standing Rock in protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline. A month later, on November 15, 2016, Parker joined Eryn Wise, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, and Judith LeBlanc for the protests' "National Day of Action", during which the four staged a sit-in at the Army Corps of Engineers headquarters and led a crowd of approximately 1,000 protestors around Washington, D.C. Parker joined other indigenous leaders and groups in January 2017 for the 2017 Women's March and marched in the Women's March on Washington. During the protest, a new group was formed called Indigenous Women Rise, of which she became a co-founder. Our Revolution released a statement doing likewise on the same day. ==Views==

During a 2016 interview, Parker described a national restriction on gun possession for those previously charged with domestic violence as a "necessity" for protecting women. She also emphasizes the importance of viewing indigenous knowledge from an indigenous perspective, which may differ from "the Western-science approach" to these issues. ==See also==