This is its own kind of tradition: Scores of Americans, including many members of Congress, have little grasp on treaty responsibilities to tribes, let alone an understanding of tribal sovereignty. It’s difficult, then, for these same people to suddenly concern themselves with Native citizens who lack running water or broadband in the middle of a pandemic, because they don’t track that this is the direct result of colonization and institutional malice. The cyclical, systemic failures like those Indian Country has suffered are hard routines to break, especially when there are only four Native members of Congress, two of them freshmen representatives. “We need to think about the drastic underfunding that tribes have suffered for decades, decades, and decades,” Haaland told me. “And so when I think about what needs to happen, I think about why a lot of tribes are in the predicament they’re in right now. It’s because the U.S. government hasn’t lived up to its trust responsibilities.”

The government response is predictably inadequate, but Haaland said she has seen tribal communities once again rise up to protect and provide for one another. She told me about how her daughter, who lives in Brooklyn, delivers meals to older folks in her neighborhood. She said that on her own morning runs in Albuquerque, she’s been helping folks who need it take out their trash cans. Looking outside of the Haaland family, Oglala Sioux Tribe citizen Vernon Black Eyes started handing out free sanitizer and toilet paper to elders and others in need in Nebraska. The Cherokee Nation set up a hotline to provide updates to its Cherokee-language speakers. The Robinson Rancheria Pomo Indians closed their convenience store and sent all the perishable foods to their elders.

During this stressful time, I find myself returning to an essay written last October by Indian Country Today editor Jourdan Bennett-Begaye, a Diné citizen. In it, Bennett-Begaye writes about her grandmother and how much she now relishes the lost ability to just call her on the phone or watch Wheel of Fortune together. The details are mundane and lovely, an example of what our elders mean to us on a personal, everyday basis. My grandfather, a Sappony man and World War II vet, is 93 years old. A few years ago, I spent several months interviewing him and other older members of my tribe about what life was like before our people integrated into North Carolina and American society. I wanted those stories on record, a testament to our perseverance. And when the pandemic hit, I returned to them. Hearing these stories and keeping them alive for future generations is all we can do; it’s what we should do. But they aren’t what I’ll miss most whenever he’s gone. It’s the conversations in between. When we’ve talked on the phone over the last two weeks, it’s been about N.C. State basketball games that ESPN is replaying, or updates on the black bear that’s been making appearances on his farm. Mainly, it’s just reassuring to hear his voice on the other side of the line and to know he’s still there if I need him. He’s a calming presence. He’s a reminder of what our people can endure and what they can accomplish. But mostly, he’s my grandad. And more than almost anything in the world, I don’t want to lose him.

Survival is its own tradition among our communities, but it will be our elders who will again be forced to withstand the brunt of what this latest crisis has in store. It might be difficult for some people in Congress to trace the path from a random line item in a federal stimulus package all the way down to such a personal representation of what these dollars go to protect, but those are the stakes here. The numbers on the line mean more of the phone calls we make just to hear someone’s voice. They’re an investment in the day, somewhere down the line, when we’ll actually be able to see one another again. They are a future.