Raul Fernandez, BRJE Executive Director, remarks at the Brookline Community Foundation: Understanding Brookline event, November, 2023:

“We know what it looks like to be fully behind something because we’ve done it on climate in Brookline. We know what it looks like to say, ‘I know that’s expensive, but we need geothermal buildings.’ We know what it’s like to make those kinds of investments and commitments because we know what’s at stake. We know it when it comes to climate. We just need to keep that same energy when it comes to racial and economic justice. That’s all I’m saying.”

Raul Fernandez speech from the first Brookline Indigenous Peoples Day celebration, 2019:

Greetings on behalf of the Brookline Select Board and, for anyone visiting, welcome to the Town of Brookline. 

My name is Raul Fernandez and I’m a Brookline Select Board Member. I’m also a Boricua – or, as you may know it, Puerto Rican – and my parents instilled in me a connection to my Taino roots – those are the people who first inhabited Boriken, the island that, once colonized, became known as Puerto Rico. 

In fact, for a time, we lived in the Taino Towers on 123rd Street in New York. It was through my family, through El Museo del Barrio and through my Latino fraternity that I learned about these people – my people. And, I’ve been thinking about them a lot during the lead up to this event.

But, back to Brookline. I was a Town Meeting Member when we voted to eliminate Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous People’s Day, and I’m happy to see that the result is more than a mere name change. 

What you see here, humble as it is, is the start of something bigger – an opportunity to do something even more meaningful in the years to come.

Moments like these have to be about more than just food and fabric. For us, Indigenous People’s Day must be a call for remembrance and responsibility.

So, first, a word on remembrance. 

We hear the American National Anthem at every sporting event and, here in Brookline, before Town Meeting, but it tells an incomplete story of the founding of this nation. 

So, too, do our celebrations during the 4th of July, Presidents’ Day, and, until recently, Columbus Day. 

Those celebrations ignore the genocide, the broken treaties, the trail of tears that took place on these lands. 

They ignore the role of educational institutions in stripping indigenous people of their names, their language, their customs, and their culture – all in the name of assimilation. 

And they ignore the unwillingness of governments to uphold deals struck and promises made.

It’s important that we remember these injustices, lest we repeat them. And sadly, quite often, we have. 

Through enslavement and internment, through segregation and discrimination, through gentrification and displacement, through violence – all as the anthem plays.

The time has come for us to take responsibility, for while none of you in the room may be at fault for these atrocities, we as a community are all responsible. 

Responsible for making amends, for making reparations. 

We can do that through our schools by teaching curricula that tell the full story of this nation. And we can do that through our government by instituting policies and funding programs that address historic and ongoing injustices and which result in equitable outcomes.  

It’s been said that there is nothing we can do about the past. That’s so completely wrong. 

We can remind ourselves of its lessons and we can take steps to remedy its failures. 

So, let today be a day of remembrance and also responsibility. 

Let it be a day of solidarity with those indigenous people who still fight to preserve our planet and their own way of life. 

And, let it be more than a day. Let this be part of our everyday struggle for justice, for equity, for inclusion. 

And, today, thanks to you and to our guests, the struggle is beautiful. 

Thank you for being here. Thanks for being part of this.