The night before Thanksgiving, my bestie, Sam Escobar and I are usually on our way to Alcatraz Island, taking turns with driver and passenger duties through the 7.5-hour drive up the I-5 from the Los Angeles area.
While he’s been going since 2018, this would be my third time coming up with the Southern California chapter of the American Indian Movement. Every year, dozens of AIM members gather at Alcatraz to commemorate the 19-month occupation of the Rock, which started on Nov. 20, 1969. Our “Thanksgiving meal” is usually to the tune of gas station roller hotdogs and chips, supplemented with caffeine and cigarettes. Then it’s George Michael car karaoke for dessert.
During the 1969 occupation, people were bringing in food past Coast Guard blockades via canoes and other watercraft, including private ferries and a boat donated by Creedence Clearwater Revival. According to the Treaty of Fort Laramie, unused federal land is supposed to go back to Natives, but there was tension for some reason? Even when AIM offered $24 in glass beads and red cloth, the same amount colonizers allegedly “paid” for Manhattan Island in the first place. If anything, they were still turning a profit? But anyways.
These days, folks gather annually as the sun rises to commemorate and celebrate the occupation. Attention and prayer is brought to long-standing Indigenous issues: poverty, police brutality, and being over-represented in the carceral system, to name a few. AIM veterans who originally occupied the island make the pilgrimage back to share wisdom and prayer. In the last few years, we’ve had a Palestinian dabke in the arbor. It’s always been about community. When I go, I’m reminded of the Third World Liberation Front and the possibilities of cross-cultural organizing.
Ceremony is where we share stories, break bread, and take care of each other. Not “Thanksgiving” — a fiction that covers up the fact that colonizers used to feast after scalping us and destroying our villages. Ironically, that’s what contemporary white history books say we did. (It’s giving Israel, but OK!)
In the year of our lord Doechii, 2025, things are different. The ceremony ends at about 10am Thanksgiving Day, but Sam won’t be there this time. Instead, he’ll be sitting in a jail cell eating expired Chick-o-Sticks and moldy bologna while the country has a feast celebrating the genocide of our people. He should be on the Island taking care of the elders — helping them find a comfy seat, hearing their wisdom, and chain-smoking cigarettes together.
So yeah. This year is different. I hope this is the last ceremony Sam has to miss.
Left: Sam Escobar is an Indigenous activist who is currently incarcerated; Right: Escobar and the author. (Courtesy of Lydia Grijalva)
Natives face unique barriers with collateral: To many other families, the cost of bailing someone out would have been handled in a day, but we’re still fundraising seven months later. We had raised the 1% down payment that we were initially quoted, but since we can’t secure it with a home as collateral, the down payment is much higher. Houses on a reservation are not eligible to be used as collateral, as they’re technically government land (per the 1934 Reorganization Act).
Plus, there's the whole systemic manufactured poverty thing, so home-ownership isn’t super common in our community. According to the 2020 census, 54% of Natives are home owners as opposed to 72% of white Americans. (We learned so much about the minutiae of bail, we wrote a comic about it so it’s easier to digest.)
The moving goalposts of shifting down payment requirements left our community confused and upset when Sam wasn’t released after the first fundraiser. Fortunately, Sam and I are nerds. We looked through the muddy waters of policy and history leading to the inconsistencies we were facing. We learned about how predatory bail bond loan companies invest in legal frameworks to keep themselves as the only option.
Once we were in this deep, we started a nonprofit: Building Essential Advocacy Resources, or BEAR. (Yes, while Sam has been in jail. We are JUST that stubborn.)
So after we bring Sam home, we’re using 2026 to create a revolving “Dignity of Bail” fund. With the increase of arrests and police violence after the SCOTUS decision that racial profiling is justifiable, as well as deportations of Black and brown people (including enrolled Natives), we know we need a bail solution to give an alternative to low-income, racially targeted communities. In 2026, we’ll be moving from providing grants to system-impacted families towards building and launching this fund.
We have just about $12k left to hit our goal to bring Sam home, so if you need to talk to your trying-to-be-down auntie about how a land acknowledgement at dinner isn’t enough, please do let her know she can simply text FREESAM to 53-555 and make a tax-deductible donation to actually change the material conditions of Natives.
I’ll end with this classic winter tale: One year, a man and his sons were watching the evening news. As the weather report came on, the forecaster mentioned that there would start to be a chill in the air soon, as winter was coming. “We better get some firewood,” Pa told his sons. They got up early, went out to the forest, and gathered wood for a few hours.
They were satisfied with their work, came home, and settled into their TV dinners.
The evening news came on, and then did the weatherman: “It’s gonna be a bit of a cold winter this year,” he warned.
Pa thought about how much wood he had gathered for his house, his mom’s, and his sister's house. “We better get a little more then, if it’s gonna be cold. Let’s go out tomorrow, we'll bring your cousins.”
The next day, after gathering the wood, they came home and settled into their evening routine.
The weatherman was back on the screen, looking more concerned than yesterday. The news anchor asked, “How’s the weather looking?”
“Well,” the weatherman replied nervously, “it’s gonna be MUCH colder than I thought. Everyone should weatherproof their houses. Be ready. It may be the worst we’ve seen.”
“Aww shit,” Pa mumbled. “Call your cousins back! We better go up there early tomorrow. We need to be ready, because we can’t get more later if we’re gonna be snowed in.”
A whole day of chopping, arms like spaghetti, eating a home cooked meal by Ma after a long days work.
The news.
A quiet.
The weatherman: “It’s looking like it’s gonna be the worst winter we’ve seen yet.”
The anchorman exclaimed, “It’s not even cold yet! How do you know this?!”
“Well,” said the weatherman, “I just look at how much wood the Natives are gathering.”
Lydz aka lydia grijalva is a 2-Spirit Yaqui descendent who has found a home in Bear Clan and the American Indian Movement. They are a
West Coast artist and activist with a deep fear of the power of poetry who refuses to pick a genre.
