How Young Native Americans Are Using The Census To Make Their Communities Heard

For Austin Weahkee, a member of the Cochiti and Zuni tribes and Navajo Nation, his activism began "basically from the day I was born." When he was a child, his family was part of a campaign to prevent the construction of a road through Petroglyph National Monument, a sacred Native American site in New Mexico, where he grew up. They ended up losing that particular battle in 2004, but the experience far from discouraged Weahkee, who comes from a long line of activists involved in protecting sacred sites.

"It inspired us to get into politics, to move away from more traditional activism to getting people registered to vote, to make sure that we actually had good policymakers and good decision-makers," he tells MTV News. So in the lead-up to 2020 - both the presidential election and the United States census - Weahkee, now 22, is following through on that early inspiration. He is one of a handful of young Native Americans stepping up to tackle some of the challenges that these events have long brought to their communities by raising awareness, advocating for more accessibility, and convincing their peers to fight with them.

http://www.mtv.com/news/3131109/native-americans-census-voting-2020/