Indian opportunity office relocates to Downtown

"Relationship is what defines who you really are, who you turn out to be and who you are remembered to be."

That's a homespun, yet key, part of the Americans for Indian Opportunity's strategy for success, homespun from founder LaDonna Harris. She gets it from her Comanche side.

"The way I was taught was that there is nothing else besides relationship," says Harris, who started AIO in 1970 after observing a leadership vacuum for Native people in the U.S. decision making process. "We are dependent upon the relationships that we have. Indian people understand that. It's not important for us to be too individualistic."

Moving to new quarters

After spending the last 12 years in its offices on Santa Ana Pueblo lands, just north of the golf course and south of the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa, AIO celebrated an open house at its new office at 10th and Marquette NW in Albuquerque on March 11, a move that single-handedly moved the city's Indian employment statistics up a notch because all five full-time staff are tribal members.

"It was time to move on," says Laura Harris, LaDonna's younger of two daughters who took over the reins from her mother as executive director two years ago. "We just outgrew our space with new staff, and new projects. We had a great relationship with the Pueblo, but we're excited to be Downtown, close to the action, and we have a great opportunity to build our network. We're celebrating 35 years. It's a new era and a new beginning."

"In the Comanche way, my grandmother would take me to social events where she had responsibilities," LaDonna Harris explained. "It was an old way of cultivating children to replace you. Because our culture is always evolving and because it is always in transition, you need that. With Laura, we had tried other people to groom to replace me, but it just came very natural for her."

Leadership philosophy

A vital part of the philosophy of AIO is to build new leadership within indigenous peoples of the U.S. and abroad.

It instituted an American Indian Ambassadors program in 1993, designed to strengthen emerging leaders from tribal communities through awareness and implementation of the 4 R's - relationship, responsibility, reciprocity and redistribution.

These core values are the cornerstone of the organization:

According to AIO, "Relationship (is your) kinship obligation ... and ... our relationships to others dictate our role in society. Responsibility (is your) community obligation. Our roles determine our responsibilities to others. Reciprocity (is your) cyclical obligation. Our relationships and responsibilities are reciprocal. All things are circular in nature and all things are connected. Redistribution (is your) sharing obligation. Our obligation is to share resources and information."

"We don't want to be the victims of globalization like we were with colonization," says Laura Harris. "So we're building an international facet through our Ambassadors program and reaching out to other indigenous communities in an effort to share and learn from one another. There are multi-lateral unions and multi-national corporations, and we want to be in the game."

At last count, 150 people had graduated from the program, through eight different classes, with the recent class of 2003-2004 finishing up last September in Seattle.

Eight separate groups have gone through the training and most of the funding has come from the Kellogg Foundation.

The program consists of four, one-week sessions, with the initial gathering always being held at Santa Ana Pueblo.

Traveling for knowledge

The other three trips are a visit to a U.S. reservation (such as Mississippi Choctaw, Menominee in Wisconsin or Makah in Washington state); a trip to Washington, D.C., (to get the Ambassadors to better understand the tribe's unique relationship with the U.S. government); and an international trip to meet with other indigenous people of the western hemisphere.

In July, the third class of Maori Ambassadors from New Zealand will be returning to Albuquerque.

The Maori have started a sister organization, through inspiration from AIO, called Advancement of Maori Opportunity. The first class visited Santa Ana in 2003 as part of an international exchange. Future plans for AIO include starting an ambassadors program in Bolivia.

AIO is working to help bolster the local economy by bringing in outside resources to fund a majority of its programs.

The annual budget for this national nonprofit organization is, according to the executive director, approximately $600,000, with nearly $500,000 coming from beyond New Mexico's borders. Laura Harris says the staff is in constant fundraising mode and, like all nonprofits, raising money is always a critical concern.

It's been a long run for Americans for Indian Opportunity, but the future seems brighter than ever. Its relationship with the Native American world, and at the international level, seems to have found a niche in downtown Albuquerque.