Chinook people have fought for federal status for close to two centuries. This portrait shows what federal recognition means for the nation’s land base, healthcare, education and legal protections. But, more than anything, tribal members want to be recognized for who they are, and who they have been for millennia.

In 1954, the Western Oregon Indian Termination Act removed federal recognition of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, and the tribe spent the next three decades fighting to restore it. Cheryle A. Kennedy, the tribe’s chairwoman, shares her personal experience, as told to Underscore News' Karina Brown, of losing federal status and her support for the Chinook Indian Nation.

The government bulldozed an Indigenous religious site along a busy Oregon highway, but tribal elders and their families still visit Ana Kwna Nchi Nchi Patat in order to satisfy their religious obligations. Now, the elders want the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their claim to restore the site.

For Indigenous families, the struggle to prosecute crimes committed by non-Natives on tribal land has created lasting trauma.

Coyote's story, told through hours of interviews and documents, reveals how years of trauma and systemic failures drove her to advocate for survivors like her.

Three Indigenous women in Oregon, all survivors of violence who have become advocates in the footsteps of Desireé Coyote, share their personal stories in an effort to inspire and help other survivors.