Profile: Sarah Adams-Cornell, Motherhood and Activism
The term ‘activist’ took Sarah Adams-Cornell a long time to use — it was a title she wasn’t comfortable with at first.
“You think of ‘activist,’ and you think of somebody running around lighting fires. Someone who’s kind of out of touch. An extremist,” Adams-Cornell said.
She sits in her living room, which is decorated heavily with Native American art; most of it depicting her two daughters in regalia, all varying in style, some with explosive colors, others without. Adams-Cornell gazes at the art in only a way a proud mother could.
Her daughters, Bella, 15, and Gabby, 10, are upstairs laughing, running across the wooden floors as her husband, Dustin, clangs dishes together as he cleans them in the kitchen. It’s a Saturday around noon, and the tornado test sirens sound off and resonate throughout Oklahoma City.
Adams-Cornell didn’t expect to take the role of an activist when she was younger, she said. It wasn’t until she gave birth to Bella — then motherhood became her activism.
She began making changes at Oklahoma City public schools for her children, and became more involved with her Choctaw heritage.
“It just became more important to me. It had to do with land run reenactments in schools; the fact that my kids were being made to celebrate the genocide of their people,” Adams-Cornell said.
She said her daughters sometimes ask her not to talk to the schools about correcting offensive content.
“They want normal sometimes. They want it to be simple and easy, and I cannot blame them for that,” Adams-Cornell said.
There are times where I have issues, and I don’t go talk to the school about it, because it’s hard being kid,” she said.
Adams-Cornell said she realizes it can be hard to have an activist as a mother.
“I know they say they’re proud of me and that they love me and I don’t doubt that for a second, but I also know some of the work I do makes it difficult for them,” Adams-Cornell said.
Bella and Gabby’s childhood might not look like other childhoods — they’re well informed about their Native background, and are empowered by their knowledge, she said.
“The idea that you have to be a certain age to make change, or that you have to be a certain age for your voice to matter … That is complete bullshit,” Adams-Cornell said.
Gabby, nicknamed ‘Tiny Raptor,’ comes stomping downstairs wearing a Darth Vader t-shirt, and hands off a purple business card with a rainbow arched over her name. She is going to be the president one day, she said, and an activist filmmaker, and generally wants to swim with otters.
“I would like to focus on what she’s focusing on,” Gabby said about her mother. “Changing mascots, and focusing on changing Columbus Day. And maybe, like, not throwing plastic in the ocean,” she said.
Fighting for Change
Changing Columbus Day has been a big project for Adams-Cornell and her team, Live Indigenous OK. Her and other group member’s names have appeared in local news articles over her fight for Indigenous Peoples’ Day to be recognized in Oklahoma City.
Her team walked into Oklahoma City’s City Council on a Tuesday morning in late September to fight for the proposal, but walked away without success. The proposal was also rejected the year before.
But she wasn’t there — Adams-Cornell was in Washington D.C. with Bella at the White House Tribal Nations Conference and Youth Gathering, where Bella was selected as a delegate.
“That morning, I was just on pins and needles. I had been doing work from D.C. to try to get people to the meeting. I was messaging the other members who were there. Then there was a lull, and I knew things were happening,” Adams-Cornell said.
“I had this overwhelming feeling of ‘if not today, it’s going to happen at some point,’ but it takes so much time for change because people don’t like change,” she said with tears in her eyes.
Adams-Cornell said she was crushed when hearing about the rejection.
“What will it take to have our elected officials treat us as people?” she said.
“Every time, it feels like a punch in the stomach. And I wish it didn’t. I wish I was more composed … but every time, it’s another reminder that we are not valued. And that is nothing but hurtful,” Adams-Cornell said.
Live Indigenous OK is comprised of mostly women, which is the norm for Native American activist groups, Adams-Cornell said.
“We value, so much, life-givers,” she said. “That leadership role is ours. It was that way for a long time until colonization,” Adams-Cornell said.
She is a co-founder of another group called Matriarch, which is made to empower inter-tribal Native women through education and community. Adams-Cornell said Indigenous movements are innately very feminine.
“Not to discount the role of men within these movements, they’re incredibly important. But so much of the time, you see these ideas coming from women, you see organization coming from women, and we see a great support from our men to put this into place and to get it done,” she said.
Dealing with Defeat
It was a tearful day in D.C. after hearing about the rejection, Adams-Cornell said.
“Where all the Smithsonians are, there is a perfect view of the Capital, and there is this green field kind of in the middle — I actually took a picture of it,” she said laughing, holding back tears in her eyes.
“I sat down, and I just prayed and I meditated. I did what I do, and I started forming another strategy,” she said.
“That is what we do. We are Indigenous women, we are strong, resilient and we come back,” Adams-Cornell said.
She said since the defeat, Live Indigenous OK has brainstormed over seven ideas on how to handle it next year, and are now in the process of sifting through them to find the best plan.
“I’m not concerned with how this impacts me; I’m concerned with how this impacts my children’s children,” she said.
Adams-Cornell wasn’t raised in her Native culture, she said, and that’s what she wants to give to her children.
“What I want to give to my children is something that I always wanted. To grow up knowing our traditions, knowing our language, having regalia, being able to participate, knowing our stories, our world tradition,” she said.
“That is an incredible foundation to have as a child — to know where you come from, to know about your people, and to be able to carry on those traditions,” Adams-Cornell said.
She said she feels that Oklahoma does not take Indigenous people seriously, and do not take the proposal seriously.
“Will it solve all of the problems? Absolutely not, but is it low-hanging fruit that we can take an advantage of to build a bridge and do something better? Yes,” Adams-Cornell said.
Bella said her mother gave her confidence in using her voice, and now uses it on her online radio show called ‘Indigenous Aiukli,’ which is a word meaning ‘beauty,’ and is Bella’s middle name. The radio show is aimed at Indigenous youth, Bella said.
“I used to be super, super introverted and I could not speak in front of crowds at all.
But over the past few years, I’ve built up so much skills because of her being such a good role model,” she said.
Adams-Cornell said that Bella would be participating in Native American activism regardless of her influence on her, and Bella agreed.
“Once I kind of settled into activism and the activism I actually know, and the kind of people who are doing this work, it just turned around for me,” Adams-Cornell said.
“An activist is somebody who really cares an incredible amount and isn’t afraid to do the work and do it out loud, and to do it for free usually,” she said.