"With traditions, I've gotten to where it's got to make sense. It has to make me feel something; I have to enjoy it. If It's a huge inconvenience to me and my family, I'm not doing it anymore. You have life experiences, like the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in 2018, that change mindsets and you learn what's really important. You go through the motions of 'traditional things', but for what? I'm not doing it just because.

With all that being said, we do still participate in our annual powwow we have every year in October for our tribe: for the Waccamaw Siouan. That's tradition. How tribes are run now, there's a chief, but it's run by the board of directors. And my dad is one of the board members. So when I say I participate, it really means us volunteering to work, to do something to help the event, not just going and having a good time. It's our tribe's tradition, but we put it on for other people because we want them to come and experience the culture and see it and do all the things.

I'm sure that's not how it originated, but today, we do a huge school day on Friday, the first day of the powwow. We have 900+ children, kids from as far away as they can drive a bus in a day. All our neighboring counties' elementary schools participate. It has been unreal. And it's very organized. You may be thinking, 'that's gotta be chaos' because we are outside. But we have workshops and stations set up for them. It's very strategic and scheduled: you're here at this time, you're there at that time, you eat at that time, you're back on the bus. School day is awesome; it's super fun. And the tribe, we are only in Bladen and Columbus Counties, so we are right here!"