Joe Biden keeps his word. The Democrat, himself a 78-year-old “white” man, had promised to put together the most inclusive and diverse cabinet in American history if he was elected President.
With him, the first female vice president, Kamala Harris, who is also black and of Asian descent, is moving into the White House. In addition, many of the well-known ministerial candidates are “the first” to take up their posts if they are confirmed by the Senate.
For example, Pete Buttigieg is said to be the first openly homosexual American to move into the cabinet as Minister of Transportation, Lloyd Austin to become the first black Pentagon boss and Alejandro Mayorkas to be the first Latino to head the Department of Homeland Security. With the nomination of Deb Haaland as future Secretary of the Interior, he adds another “first” to his government team: the first Native American woman in a US government.
The nomination of the 60-year-old New Mexico congressman, who belongs to the Laguna people, is a historic decision Biden, writes the Washington Post. This marks a “turning point in the US government’s relationship with the country’s indigenous peoples”.
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The Native Americans, one of the most marginalized minorities in the United States, have barely represented in parliaments in the more than 200 years since the United States was founded. It was not until 2018 that Haaland and Sharice Davids from Kansas became the first two indigenous women to be elected to the House of Representatives. There are still no indigenous people in the Senate.
Since her political voice has not been heard for so long, her interests have often been given secondary consideration. Under the Trump administration in particular, there were repeated conflicts with the indigenous people, for example about holy places for them.
Trump gave energy companies access rights to national parks
Trump granted the oil and gas industry access to national parks that his predecessor Barack Obama wanted to protect. In the corona crisis, too, “Native Americans” are among the minorities who have been particularly hard hit by the virus and the economic problems it has caused.
In her new role, Haaland would be responsible for the indigenous peoples and for deciding whether nature reserves should be designated or energy generation, for example through fracking, is permitted. In the USA, the Department of the Interior is primarily responsible for the administration of the federally owned land. Internal security, on the other hand, is the responsibility of the Ministry of Homeland Security.
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Through her work in Congress – Haaland sits on the Natural Resources Committee that oversees the Home Office – she is familiar with many issues that she would have to deal with in the future. She has already announced that she wants to promote the generation of renewable energies in the federal states in order to combat climate change – a focus of the future government.
There are almost two million indigenous people in America
Before starting her parliamentary work, she fought as an activist for the rights of indigenous peoples. Many of the nearly two million indigenous people now live in cities, but some still live in reservations where unemployment and poverty are high.
The daughter of a native woman who worked in the US Navy and an American Marine with Norwegian roots, knows about the needs and worries of many people in America. As a single mother of one daughter, she had at times been dependent on state food aid herself.
