'They know me:' How domestic violence survivors find support in their language, culture
Lorrie knew she should feel happy.
She had left an abusive relationship. She had moved into her own place. She had time to do as she pleased.
Still, she was starting over by herself.
She gazed around her sparse apartment.
It was as empty as she felt.
She called Carrie Scott-Haney, an advocate at the Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center in Milwaukee, to talk about the situation.
“Let’s change that,” Scott-Haney replied.
Together, they picked out furniture to fill the new apartment.
It’s just one example of the support Scott-Haney and the health center have provided to the 52-year-old woman as she sought to find peace and safety.
Lorrie, who asked only to be identified by her first name for privacy reasons, said the center’s staff have been so effective because they understand her Menominee background. The Journal Sentinel typically does not identify domestic violence victims without their permission.
“This is the first time I trusted anybody because being in this community, in the Native community, they know me,” she said.
It’s the kind of culturally-specific support needed in Milwaukee, where domestic abuse has emerged as one driver of violence in the city, accounting for 18% of the city’s homicides this year. Across the U.S., Indigenous women are murdered at disproportionately high rates compared with other ethnic groups.
The Indian Health Center is part of We Are Here MKE, an effort to highlight organizations serving victims of domestic abuse and sexual violence from Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous and LGBTQ communities. Those options are critical for reaching people who might run into language or cultural barriers at other agencies.
“Something that was embedded in us, through all the tribes, was that lack of trust,” Scott-Haney said. “Having to build trust and for anyone to open up and speak to you, they have to know that it’s real.”
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Fear and distrust are barriers to ending an abusive relationship
As a child, Lorrie often was afraid to come home.
Her father beat her mother repeatedly, she said.
“This is our business,” she recalled being told. “This is nobody else’s business. What stays in the family stays in the family all the time.”
When she was 12, she moved from the Menominee reservation to live with her grandparents in Milwaukee. The Indian Health Center was a constant in her life from that point on. It was where she grew up going for check-ups and where she later took her own children for medical care.
She had no interest in telling anyone about the violence she experienced in her relationship. She worried about losing her children if she did.
“They find out what you’re scared of the most or what you’re worried about the most and they’ll use it against you,” she said.
The removal of children is a common fear for domestic violence victims, one of many reasons it is difficult for them to leave the relationship, but it has particular resonance for Indigenous communities, whose children often were forcibly removed. Many Native children were sent to boarding schools in the U.S. as part of a federal policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to assimilate Native youths into white society.
“All of that is reflected down,” Scott-Haney said.
It took Lorrie many years, until after her children were grown, to seek help. One day she stopped on a bridge in Milwaukee. She thought about ending her life, a thought that scared her.
“So I started talking,” she said.
She spoke to her therapist at the Indian Health Center who suggested she connect with Scott-Haney and a group of women at the center who had similar experiences. She listened quietly during the first sessions.
“The Native community is a tight-knit community,” she said. “Everybody knows everybody, so I didn’t really want to share, but then I thought, I don’t even care because I have to deal with it. … I’m going to help myself.”
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On a Wednesday afternoon earlier this month, Lorrie and another woman tied tiny tobacco pouches to wreaths inside the Indian Health Center.
“The tobacco and cedar, when you light it, the smoke takes the prayers up to the Creator,” Lorrie said.
The fabric holding the tobacco had significance, too. It was purple, the color of domestic violence awareness.
Lorrie and others in the survivor support group often craft. It keeps their hands busy and makes it easier to talk. Some days only two or three women will show up. A recent “ladies' night” dinner event brought more than 20 of them together.
The tobacco wreaths were displayed the next day during an outdoor ceremony remembering lives lost to domestic violence. Teresita Torres arrived early to help set up. She wore a handmade T-shirt displaying her daughter’s photo and name — Sesalie Soliel — in purple glitter.
“She had a kind heart and a beautiful soul,” Torres said of her daughter. “She had a college education, she had everything going for her and she was 27 years old when I lost her.”
Her daughter was fatally shot in 2016 by her boyfriend, who then hid her body in a truck in Fox Lake.
Torres knew Scott-Haney then. A year later, their bond grew stronger after Scott-Haney’s daughter, Audrey "TuTu" Scott, was killed by an ex-boyfriend.
“When I lost my daughter, I guess it’s cliche that hurt people want to heal people, fix people, fix situations,” Scott-Haney said.
She had spent a career in the skilled trades, but after her daughter’s murder, Scott-Haney went back to school for social work. She was drawn to the Indian Health Center because of her Ojibwe heritage.
“Within our culture, it’s be quiet, stay unnoticed and they’ll leave you alone,” Scott-Haney said. “So that’s how this tragedy continues to happen to them and somebody needs to be their voice.”
Torres said she herself had been in an abusive relationship before but never discussed it.
“I should have talked to my daughters about it,” Torres said. “I should have, but I kept them from it. I wanted to protect them.”
She paused.
“You have to speak on it,” she said. “You have to let people know.”
The Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center offers culturally sensitive, trauma-informed services for those who have experienced domestic or sexual violence and can be reached at 414-640-1062.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233.
Contact Ashley Luthern at ashley.luthern@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @aluthern.