I am a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe on my father’s side and am Yaqui on my mother’s. I’ve had a blessed life, but like many Indigenous youth, it was not without hardship. My parents worked hard and fostered a loving family, but we lived paycheck to paycheck. My school and neighborhood struggled with drugs, alcohol, violence, and gang life. Many of my friends ended up in prison or jail.

What kept me strong was intergenerational resilience. It was the stories I heard about my ancestors, and the ceremonies passed down thousands of years. These experiences, among others, inspired me to become a healer and pursue medicine in order to give back to my community.

Now, I am a first-year student at Harvard Medical School and a cochair of the U.N. Global Indigenous Youth Caucus. Through this work, I’ve come to know that our rights are integral to our health, and Indigenous Peoples who work to defend these rights live in persistent danger of rampant resource extraction, politically sanctioned violence, assassination, and criminalization.

That is why I’m so deeply concerned about the recent violence toward Indigenous Peoples in Bolivia.

In October, Evo Morales, an Aymara man and the first Indigenous president of Bolivia, was reelected for a fourth term, sparking accusations of voter fraud and violating constitutional term limits. This led to civil protests and a military-backed ousting of the man better known as Evo. In response to the growing violence, Evo resigned along with his top-ranking cabinet members, and was granted asylum in Mexico.

Soon after, Jeanine Añez, a conservative and vocally anti-Indigenous politician who ranked fifth in line for the presidency, declared herself interim president. Since Añez took power, numerous Indigenous Bolivians have been detained and several have been killed. Among those targeted was the president of the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Tribunal, Maria Eugenia Choque, an Aymara woman, who was arrested on charges relating to the presidential election.

Listening to the stories of Indigenous Peoples from other countries has helped me understand that governments across the globe use similar tactics to break down our communities. Our Indigenous leaders, such as Choque and famed Lakota activist Leonard Peltier, who has served more than 40 years in prison in the U.S., have been criminalized or targeted under falsified pretenses.

According to a statement from Anne Nuorgam, chair of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Choque and her family have received threats of physical harm and she has not been guaranteed basic human rights or necessities in jail. When Choque was arrested, I heard from Latin American Indigenous youth leaders that Bolivian Indigenous youth protesting on the ground were in danger. These are my friends, my larger community.

In an interview, one Indigenous youth who wished to remain anonymous for safety told me: “We received messages that our colleagues remain [detained] in undisclosed locations without the ability to be contacted. We worry for their safety.”

Saul Vicente Vazquez, director of international relations at the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, a federal agency within the government of Mexico, helped facilitate Evo’s asylum. In a phone interview, Vicente told me: “We helped with the asylum, but know the situation is dangerous for those still in Bolivia. For Maria [Choque], it’s still quite bad.”

In an email to Teen Vogue, Representative Raúl Grijalva, a high-ranking U.S. Congressman who works closely with Native American tribes and serves as chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, stated, “In the wake of Morales’ resignation, there has been ascending chaos and violence. We are witnessing some of the worst human rights violations at the hands of the military and police. No less disturbing is the increasing repression and acts of violence specifically towards Indigenous Peoples, who make up about a third of the country’s population. These actions are a result of extremist views that reverse decades of improvements in ethnic and cultural inclusion in Bolivia.”