By CASEY GLICKMAN
Khadijah Britton, a member of the Wailaki Round Valley Indian tribe in Covelo, California, disappeared in February 2019. Susan Fast Eagle went missing from Rapid City, South Dakota, in May 2021. Nyvelle Stone-Quick Bea was murdered in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, a year later.
These are just a few of the stories highlighted on University of Maryland (UMD) student Linaly Miyamoto’s interactive map, which pinpoints the locations where 500 or so indigenous women have gone missing or been murdered in the United States.
According to a 2016 National Institute of Justice report, four out of five Native American and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetimes, more than one in three in the past year.
“You don’t really know how big the issue is unless you see it on the map,” said Miyamoto, who is Vietnamese and Coast Salish Cowichan–a tribe of indigenous peoples from the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island in Canada.
A junior information science major who lives in College Park, Miyamoto took part in the Center for Native American Youth’s digital arts fellowship last year. The Remembering Our Sisters fellowship offers a platform for young indigenous women to advocate for change and honor those in their culture who have fallen victim to the missing and murdered indigenous peoples epidemic.
Miyamoto, who was raised in Washington by her father and grandparents, said she was taught the value of looking out for her community. Her grandmother is a medical assistant at the Seattle Indian Health Board, and many of her cousins work in the health industry, focusing on the well-being of the native community.
Miyamoto’s grandmother was an important figure in her life, but growing up under her wing was not always an enlightening experience, Miyamoto said. Miyamoto saw the struggles her native community faced, especially because her grandmother was not one to shy away from complaints or pessimism.
“I think seeing my grandma struggling with her indigenous identity … really was my reason for joining the fellowship,” Miyamoto said. “When you complain about something, but do nothing about it, then I don’t see a reason why you should not be doing anything.”
Miyamoto’s grandmother often mentioned the lack of data on missing and murdered indigenous women, so Miyamoto used this to fuel her project, creating a map to centralize countless information onto one platform.
“There is not a lot of data that is accessible,” said Samantha Hintz, a program coordinator for Remembering Our Sisters, “especially done by indigenous people for indigenous people.”
Miyamoto’s data search began on Facebook, looking through pictures people had posted of their missing relatives. The project culminated in a map highlighting each of these women’s names, any information that is known about their stories, and where they went missing or were murdered.
“I have seen some of my indigenous relatives being either missing or murdered,” Miyamoto said. “My goal is to show how big this issue is towards our people.”
By creating a visual that shows the magnitude of this issue, Miyamoto said she not only hopes to increase public awareness of the issue, but to inspire viewers to take action. For her, addressing the epidemic begins with one thing: better resources for native reservations.
“It’s exhausting to see that my community doesn’t have the resources to build up their wealth, to build up their mindset,” Miyamoto said.
Miyamoto said she hopes that after people see her map they consider visiting nearby native reservations to see how they can help support the community and offer health-focused resources.
Miyamoto’s map could be the first step to inspiring this change, Hintz said. “You’re not going to be able to find another map like this out there,” she said.
To view the map, visit https://tinyurl.com/5e55655v.