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Former UFC flyweight champion Nicco Montano speaks about the struggles of indigenous peoples.
Nicco Montano is a proud of her Navajo, Chickasaw and Hispanic routes, but she says the U.S. President and a portion of his supporters are completely misinformed about indigenous peoples.
Montano (4-3) spoke candidly about the clashes between U.S. governments and indigenous nations before pulling out of her fight with Macy Chiasson (5-1) at UFC Rio Rancho.
“It’s hard to get political without being emotional, especially coming from growing up on a res and understanding the idealism of poverty when really you’re just simply living. You’re not taking more than you need,” Montano told Bloody Elbow. “Our own President doesn’t even know where we are far. Indigenous people. He thinks we’re from Mexico… Like all of us are from Mexico so he’s just getting rid of all of us and putting up the wall. There are a lot of obstacles for us to jump over at this point cause that’s the normal. That’s what a lot of society thinks. A lot of society will just go and follow what he [Trump] says. A lot of it is not true. Not any facts, just what he thinks and what his bias propaganda is. A lot people follow it and it’s hard to go face these people on the daily because you have to have a thick skin.”
“I’ve experienced some racial comments. Just lately, in the last month, just walking through Walmart. You gotta have a tough skin and understand not to take everything personally. You know that what you’re doing and how you grew up is kind of the way of life and putting in a communal effort to grow the morale of the community. That is where a lot of indigenous peoples come from when they speak of their value. There value isn’t just of money. It’s a lot do with family and supporting each other and loving each other. A lot of that is looked at as sort of a lower class kind of mentality because we’re not out there hustling and pushing and making money, money, money,” she continued. “I think indigenous peoples have that value to heart and understand that with humbleness. They’ll help each other out. They’ll take the shirt off their back and give it to whoever needs it without even questioning it.”
She urged those interested in supporting indigenous peoples to do their research.
“I think they have to do a lot of research. There are a lot of people who want to help but don’t have a full grasp or concept of how a sovereign nation should be held. Each of these reservations are sovereign, right? They’re supposed to be their own entity but typically we still have to abide by government laws. When it comes to schools we still have to use Western philosophies with their education,” Montano said. “A lot of that means getting rid of our traditional sides. We’re oral people. We speak our language. We share our stories. We’re physical. When that gets taken out of our education then we start to lose who we are. Our kids have to be in the education system if they want to be a contributing member of society, but losing that is pretty detrimental. I think the research shows that in 20 years if Navajos don’t share their stories and keep sharing their language that our traditions and our lanuage is going to be deceased. “
“You can’t just be like, ‘I’m going to donate to Navajo nation’ or ‘I’m going to donate to Chikasaw nation,’” she explained. “You gotta get in there and figure out what programs you want to donate to and how those programs are going to be influential in the future to our youth and our elders.”
Prior to pulling out of a bantamweight scrap at UFC Rio Rancho with a knee injury, Montano had ambitions to regain her flyweight title.
“In the next 12 months I want to just keep fighting. In theory, if I could do what I want to do. I would drop down to 125, but it’s got to be healthy and I want to get that belt back for sure,” she revealed. “It’s always in the back of my head. We’re taking it step by step, day-by-day. I’m working with a dietitian and the PI is offering a lot of help.”
UFC Rio Rancho is headlined by light-heavyweight contenders Corey Anderson and Jan Blachowicz.