I didn’t register to vote until I was in my 50s
Daryl and Lorraine, Hopi Organizers (Bacavi).
We wrap up Native American Heritage Month on Giving Tuesday by highlighting Lorraine Coin, one powerful Hopi organizer.
Lorraine Coin, Field Organizer, shares the direct impact of getting out the vote on Hopi sovereign lands. It is crucial that we continue to fund Native organizers like Lorraine and her team.
Hopi, Navajo, and White Mountain Apache voters are key to keeping the Senate and House majorities. Native voters delivered Arizona in 2020, now we must turnout the vote again in 2022. Please contribute today!
(Commentary by Lorraine Coin)
I didn’t register to vote until I was in my 50s
Now I am passionate about this fundamental right
Hi my name is Lorraine Coin, I'm a resident of Bacavi Village here on Third Mesa-Hopi reservation (located within Navajo County). I lived there all my life except to go away to school. After I graduated, got my education, I came back here to Hopi and I've been here since.
I wasn't even registered to vote until I was in my fifties. All these years I've been really hesitant about it. I would sit and complain like everybody else and finally I told myself, why am I sitting here complaining when my vote could have counted. And, you know, maybe my one vote would have helped that person get elected. So I decided to do something about it and it wasn't until 10 years ago that I finally registered to vote and I registered as a Democrat. I went to work organizing to elect more Arizona Democrats and I've enjoyed it. I like visiting communities and talking to them about what’s going on while also stressing the importance of voting and elections. Plus I get to encourage younger Hopis to think about running for office. We need to build up more leaders, especially at the state and federal levels and I think Hopis in those seats will make Arizona better.
Our team of Hopi organizers continue to inspire me to this day because I have seen what we are capable of. We got out the vote even at the height of the pandemic. COVID did not stop us. We were careful and followed all the safety measures, and still got the work done. Our organizers were so important because without them I don’t think we would have reached as many people as we did, especially when all our communities went into lock down. If you weren’t from a certain village you were not allowed in. Having colleagues working in their own village really was an asset. Our team was able to register more than a thousand Hopis to vote, more than ever before and they showed up at the polls. This made me feel really good because I knew that we had done our job. So this year, when I was able to get hired again, I looked around at the people who did a real good job and we’re keeping them engaged because we’ll need them again next year.
Hopi organizers delivering supplies and registering community members to vote.
Training the next generation of organizers like Daryl Lomatewama and Danise Gomez is important to me and I was so happy when Daryl and Danise started working with us. Daryl was so excited. I mean, I've never seen a person so excited to go out and register voters. We didn't have hot dogs or food this year, but you could see Daryl out there with his sign, chasing people, "Hey, come register to vote," and not being real forceful about it, but just being really happy and encouraging people to vote. He had a good presence. Then of course, Danise knew everybody, I mean everybody on the Hopi Rez (reservation). She was out there encouraging everybody to get registered to vote, mail in their ballots, or get to the polls. We also had little Cordy who made all our events fun. Such a great sense of humor. The other person we had was Raelene who was shy, but still got the paperwork done for us. She made sure all the forms were filled out correctly and got the data in. We also have Everett who really helped with the heavy lifting. We had some really terrific people on our team who traveled many, many miles to distribute PPE, water, and other supplies to our communities, created homemade signs, hauled countless supplies, disinfected everything and made sure that everybody was masked up and gloved up. We weren’t taking any chances and did all we could to protect ourselves and our communities. We are still doing it now and getting ready for 2022. Now we have more young people that are interested in voting and elections because they see what’s going on and they see Native leaders like Deb Haaland and state Sen. Jamescita Peshlakai leading.
Another highlight that I think helped motivate a lot of people was seeing and meeting our elected leaders like Congressman Tom O'Halleran. Tom came out here and got to meet people, individuals, and the tribal council. When we were doing our rallies, he was there visiting with us. So a lot of our people were able to talk to him and express their concerns about what they wanted to see and how they wanted our senators and other congressional leaders to think about Native people when they are voting on policies, laws, or advocating for funding and how this impacts us.
Like me, there were a lot of people that were really hesitant to register to vote, and some of this has to do with our complicated history with the U.S. And I tell them that in order to get the things we need done for our community we need to register to vote and have our voices heard.
I am hopeful and encourage my community members to keep an open-mind, to be kind, and to look to the future because that’s where we need to be. I do this work because of my kids and grandkids and to make Hopi better. So we really need to be out there and be heard, not just to be seen, but be heard. People in Arizona, even outside of our state, noticed what we as Native voters did and what we are capable of. This energized many, while others got scared of us and doubled down on pushing more voter suppression bills to make it harder for us to vote. Some are now even targeting redistricting efforts to try and break up our Native voting power. This is where our work as local grassroots organizers is so important. We have to stay ahead and keep voters informed and engaged year around. We are a powerful voting bloc, and we have to protect it. Yes, we helped turn the state blue and now we make sure to keep it blue.
I want to encourage everybody to register to vote. It’s never too late to make a difference, Your vote really does count. Thank you Daily Kos community for continuing to support our work on Hopi and across northeast Arizona.
Askwali (Thank you),
Lorraine Coin, Hopi Tribe
Field Organizer
Navajo County Democrats - Northeast Arizona Native Democrats
Lorraine, Danise, and Daryl.
www.navajocountydemocrats.org
neaznativedemocrats.org (project of Navajo County Democrats)
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Checks may also be mailed to: Navajo County Democrats — Native Organizing Fund PO Box 144, Lakeside, AZ 85929 · (928) 224-8021
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