Wealth means different things depending on who you ask. To one person it might mean their investment portfolio. To another, maybe it means their home. To a third, it may mean that they have food on the table, loved ones surrounding them, and they know someone will help them out if they’re struggling. Wealth is all of these things and more, and the ways we define and relate to wealth often depend on our cultural background.
We know that when it comes to certain definitions of wealth (income, net worth, home ownership, etc.), some groups of people are wealthier than others. In our region and across the U.S., race is a large determinant of access and barriers to wealth. That’s why, in 2022, the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods kicked off the Generational Wealth Initiative, which was an effort to find community-centered solutions to the racial wealth gap.
As a part of this effort, the Department of Neighborhoods funded three community-led organizations to conduct participatory research. One of these was sləp̓iləbəxʷ (Rising Tides) Indigenous Planning Group, which published the Native Neighborhood Community Study. In October 2022, sləp̓iləbəxʷ conducted three talking circles online with small business owners and community leaders. They described wealth in the following ways:
- Potlatch culture: a traditional reciprocal economy
- Intangible wealth, consisting of relationships and cultural knowledge
- Tangible wealth, including a healthy homeland that provides food and shelter and meets other needs
- Community care: working together to care for land and relatives
- True equity: every community member deserves to have their needs met and live a healthy and stable life, without the red tape of proving we need it
Native community members who attended the talking circles expressed a desire to restore traditional definitions of wealth and revitalize cultural knowledge to care for the land and waterways. Reciprocal economies are better for people and better for the environment, because traditional reciprocal economies encourage people not to harvest too much and not to take more than their community needs.
Talking circle participants also expressed a strong desire to build intergenerational wealth through homeownership.
Now, a couple years after the Native Neighborhood Community Study, the Seattle Indian Services Commission (SISC) is using these findings to inform a new development project. Demarus Tevuk (Inupiaq), who was the lead researcher for the Community Study and now works at SISC, is working on plans for an Economic Empowerment Center in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Seattle.
SISC wants to redevelop the Pearl Warren Building to serve as a center for the Native community. This would include six floors of affordable housing, as well as a gathering hall, affordable culturally relevant childcare, resident services, and the aforementioned Economic Empowerment Center. Demarus imagines this space as a place to heal, a place to revitalize Indigenous cultures, to remind Indigenous community members that their worldview is intact and their way of taking care of each other is intact. It will provide services for people along the continuum of their lives, from children, to youth, to adults, to elders. And while those services might take practical forms like marketing support for small businesses or tax preparation, Demarus emphasizes that community outreach should lead with the heart and with taking care of people emotionally.
Donate today to support the Seattle Indian Services Commission’s efforts to build an accessible and culturally relevant Economic Empowerment Center for Seattle’s urban Native & Indigenous community members.
