Story by Nathan Goodman; art by Caroline Li

After my first triumphant week of summer research, I started to freak out as I pulled up to the parking lot of the event site. As part of my research on the “Impacts of Public Lands Management on Indigenous Peoples of the Pikes Peak Region,” I was attending the tenth annual “One Nation Walking Together Intertribal Powwow.” It was my first stab at fieldwork. Naturally, I was terrified. What was I—some white, privileged, wannabe social justice warrior—supposed to do at an Indigenous community event?