Eric Reed
Eric Reid was born John Eric Reid at Baylor Hospital in downtown Dallas in 1965. His parents, Frances and Gene Reid, both grew up in the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era, his mother of English and Choctaw heritage in Oklahoma and his father in the Texas Panhandle and Roger Mills County, Oklahoma. His mother, a schoolteacher, was brought to Dallas through a federal relocation program aimed at assimilating Native American people, while his father came in the mid-1950s to be near his sister and to start a dental laboratory. Eric's heritage includes Southern Cheyenne, Comanche, Osage, Choctaw, and Scotch-Irish roots, and as a child he learned Choctaw and attended traditional ceremonies with his grandfather.
The family lived first in the segregated Hamilton Park community, where his mother taught, then in Farmers Branch, and around 1977 moved to the Hillcrest and LBJ area near Temple Shalom. As a child Eric experienced discrimination as a Native American, including a cross burned in his family's yard after his father hired a Black dental technician, Murray Daniels. Living in a largely Jewish community, Eric attended Northwood Junior High and Richardson High School, walked with friends to shul, and joined in Passovers, Shabbat dinners, and celebrations with neighbors such as the Ginsburg family. His family sponsored single Soviet Jewish mothers and their children through Jewish Family Service, including a woman named Mira and her son Igor, who remained close to the Reids.
Eric served as a Shabbat boy, checking on elderly widows and assisting Rabbi Jacobsen, a Holocaust survivor whose testimony left a lasting impression. He studied economics, finance, and anthropology at SMU, served briefly in the military through Officer Candidate School, and earned his law degree at the University of Iowa, where he studied federal Indian law and international indigenous rights. He married Teresa, whom he met in law school, and the couple settled in Dallas with two children, Jack and Helen, who attend Greenhill School. Eric practices business law and advocates for Native American and indigenous communities, including sustainable and renewable energy projects, drawing on the shared experience of marginalization he learned to recognize through both his Native heritage and the Jewish community that helped raise him.
Full Transcript
okay we are rolling today is October 17 2018 and today I'm interviewing Eric Reid my name is Liz stay there this is Eric Reid and you go ahead and set your full name and where you're from and when you were born this my name is John Eric Reid and I go by Eric I was actually born here in Dallas Texas at the Baylor Hospital downtown in 1965 I grew up in the Richardson North Dallas area here in doubt in the DFW Metroplex I have lived in other parts of the United States and some parts of other parts of the world of my life and and
and I live in Dallas now and I'm a practicing attorney in in the Dallas area what were you born I was born in 1965 um if you go inside what your parents names are as well and when they were born as well my parents are Francis and gene and Reid my mom was an English and a Choctaw Oklahoma they they were born in 1935 and 1936 grew up depression-era my mother in Oklahoma and my father both in the panhandle of Texas in Weber County and in the Panhandle area in Roger Mills County Oklahoma City I think is probably the biggest city in that area and
then he came to Dallas in the 50s they both grew up depression-era what you call the Great Depression era of the Dust Bowl of that era in the United States and the night late 1920s food until after World War Two and your father's name was Francis how did you feel like him to live yes my father came down here his sister he his father his biological biological grandfather died when my father was about 15 and he worked in a dental laboratory in Elk City for a while and then came to Dallas because his sister had come down here in Dallas and to begin looking for
work 1954-55 right in that area that my mother came to Dallas because my father's mother was living in Duncan Oklahoma and she had gone to the University of Oklahoma with her twin sister and was a schoolteacher was there was a relocation program for Native American people in the 1950s basically the government was trying to terminate Indian tribes completely and wanted to assimilate all people into society so they wanted to move them out of traditional Native American communities and traditional Native American reservations in their reservation land and they wanted to bring them to metropolis like Oakland Cleveland San Francisco Los Angeles Dallas was one of those
relocation areas and then sell the land and do away with the Indian tribes completely and that was part of that program they met my father's mother was a laundress he ran a laundry and Duncan and my mother was a schoolteacher in Duncan and she had met my mother because she was getting her dresses dry-cleaned do you know that she had to wear is it schoolteacher and so she introduced my father to her and there in Oklahoma and he was starting a dental lab here in Dallas and had been drag racing he also had a drag mr. Shah in Dallas and had gotten drafted into the Army and just gotten out of the army when he met my mother there in Duncan if you can explain maybe like how where you grew up around Dallas with your family there were kind of three little different areas that we grew up in Dallas or I grew up in Dallas my brother and I my family the first area was Hamilton Park Hamilton Park my mother was relocated and she was a schoolteacher in Hamilton Park Hamilton Park in Dallas was a segregated bike community at the time the schools were still segregated they didn't desegregate until 1975 when
she began teaching there she and my dad had gotten married they had me about a year later and and she continued teaching until my brother was born in 1970 and then did substitute teaching so she could focus on both myself and brother raising a family and she they desegregated the schools in 1975 half of the school in Hamilton Park then went to force meadow and Lake Highlands and the other half went to North with junior high and Richardson high school we moved into that when they desegregated they moved her into teaching in Stoltz Road Elementary which was not segregated at the time it only took
white kids and then when they desegregated they moved her into that school we then moved from that area into Farmers Branch for a little while because my father bought a building were fixed the building up turned it into the dental laboratory and then for after three years in Farmers Branch we moved into the Hillcrest LBJ area near the roof and then we moved into you know a predominantly Jewish community our home was rocked by Temple Shalom which was the reformed synagogue or shul at the time in probably the furthest north and in Dallas at that time when we moved into right by Temple Shalom it
was about 1977 and so the the synagogue I believe had been built brought about 1973 and I you know I was a kid so I don't thats the kind of I don't know remember and so at that time you know I didn't even know what being Jewish Maina form or you know other than watching Charlton Heston on TV you know for the you know right yeah I mean and so we moved into the community and I knew from being Native American there was discrimination and I experienced that as a child and and through listening to my mother and father on my father's side of our
southern Cheyenne and you know as well as Comanche Osage and scotch-irish and cowboys and Indians going together and the living in the segregated community my father had hired a black man to run his dental lab who was a very very talented dental technician very artistic and very good and they moved from Longview Murray Daniels and Cora Daniels and so as a result of that I know a lot of dentists quit his dental lab because he hired a black man and the Ku Klux Klan came and burned across in our yard I was very young all I know is I saw a fire I told my
mother about it and she screamed killed like a relish tray with some celery and radishes pimento cheese and dropped it because people were gonna come over it's like a Sunday evening and I didn't understand it at that time because I just saw that some men set a fire in the yard and I said fire mama she strained and and and I know that we were turned away for service when we would go together as families to restaurants here in Dallas and this was in the late 60s and early 70s they wouldn't wouldn't service his family at that time when we were still living in Hamilton
Park and over by Stokes road Evelyn elementary and then when when when he hired Murray you know I didn't understand is it because I was a young kid I didn't completely understand why the restaurants wouldn't serve us as families I know as an Indian in Oklahoma when I would go with my grandfather they were very secretive about ceremony that he would take me to special ceremonies Green Corn woman the green corn to stomp dance and other sweat-lodge and things it's a matrilineal Society but as I got older I understood the reason why they were so secretive about the our traditions in our culture it was
a crime in the United States to worship or even speak here on one and you could be imprisoned in federal prison for up to two years yes and that was called a court of Indian offenses in Oklahoma and they could put you in jail for up to two years now they did away with that in 1978 although those courts and those laws are still on the books but you know as a kid you don't really know why if I would speak Choctaw because I learned it from my grandfather they would say nish nish don't don't do that you know because they wouldn't didn't want anyone
to know that we were Indians in public and one of the things was I asked for my my grandmother one time I said grandma granddad the sweet we Indians and she says no we're black Dutch I said what the hell is like that's you know you know I had no idea so having that you know experience coming into the area with a roof and the Jewish community and then learning about Judaism learning it's not just a religion it's a culture it's a life it's a community is very similar to being in a Native American tribe in the women the women you know were in my
opinion the backbone of the community in many senses so moving into the community in the 70s there were a lot of people that immigrated our family sponsored women with their children single mothers from Soviet Union coming here and excuse me in the late 70s with a religious reason that they got out of the Soviet Union the United States and the synagogue at that point in time the reformed synagogue was more of a community center it would be more what you viewed as a traditional shul served in communities in Europe during the direct diaspora and what a synagogue man in a community you know throughout Europe
during the day the women they'd have book club they would talk about health they would discuss issues a lot of the old men most of them look like they came out of a Mel Brooks casting said you know there were curmudgeons and older and and very interesting and they had their hats and coats and they would talk you know with us as kids you know and as kids you just think well that's kind of an interesting old man you know and so you know my mother and the other mothers in the community came together and the other interesting thing about the 70s was the women's
lib movement was also going on and so women were playing new roles particularly not in a religious sense but at least in a family sense and things were changing you know the view of women only being in the home and cooking and doing all this stuff was changing and so I remember one of the things you know they they were very traditional and conservative at the same time but one of the things that women did was they left us kids with the dads for a week so that the men would understand this is what this is what it this is what we deal with every
day so it was almost a unique way in a realistic way of saying this is you know you men this is what you have to do - it's a team effort you know and so I think that the synagogue other than a religious side of course on Shabbat played a very important role not only for the community but us as kids because we would you know play games play basketball play soccer come here to JCC play soccer put back there was a sense of community there on shul what I remember mostly as a kid is that my friends their families even if they were reformed
often they lived really close to the shul and they would walk not they wouldn't drive to show you know they would walk even though it was a reform and I would walk with them and go to shul food just because they were my friends and I would spend time with them [Music] my I didn't go to a religious school entered the public Richardson High School in Northwood junior high because then in their word it was a you know very mixed community one of the things that kind of broke the ice with some of the neighbors the neighbors the Jewish neighbors when we moved in the
community at first you know there's some apprehension or whatever but one kid was getting picked on at school I'll leave his name out by a bullet a redneck bully and so I may be an indian and i guess i rich martires gypsy - i got tired of my friend getting picked on so the kid came he's much bigger older than we were he started picking on him and I said come on you want to get some of it so we fought and he whooped me but I gave him a I gave him everything I got and he left that kid alone and he left me
lonely no he didn't one thing was with me in it any of my friends my buddies he's gonna have to fight me if he wanted to pick on you know the bullying back then there wasn't whole lot of intervention but you know sort of Lord of the Flies yeah but when I stood up for that kid that other reason that I got in five at the school is that one of the kids was calling the Jewish kids derogatory names he was calling the boy a I didn't even know what the word meant I didn't know it was derogatory I just knew the way that he
was saying it was he inappropriate and so the one room my parents had was they didn't want me fighting in school you know if I got a fight school I was gonna get a whuppin when I got home that was sort of the Depression era parenting and so the teacher got involved and said you could either do detention or you can get some blasts and I wanted to get it over with so I said give me the blast you know and he said well I gotta call your parents I said please don't call my parents cuz I'll give him bigger trouble when I get home
you know not supposed to fight at school and so he asked me what happened and I told him and he said you know what I said I think I'm gonna let it slide but I only have to call you friends about to find us an understanding so we did and I was scared to death when I got home told my dad why I fought in the reason and he said well son I think I think okay what'd you find at school and so after that the community the families they knew that I would stand up for my friends you know and right next to us
was the Ginsburg's you know Karl and Jacob Ginsburg's major Ginsburg their father Scarlett Ginsburg their father they had actually grown up in Paris Texas so during the 40s when he was a kid they had to drive to Dallas to ferret you know to go to shul you know from from bomb Paris in Dakota Texas and they lived in Dallas and so the Shawn runs the Schlotzsky's the cats the Falls you know doctor Thal was one of the doctors that attended to John F Kennedy when Kennedy was shot and and so there was no apprehension and so those families had me involved in their their lives
is wet and so I learned from their mothers and the fathers and the kids about respect you know and then I think then that helped me understand what it was like to be Jewish except not not being Jewish so you think you're your father your mother's you're about their background regards to you know everything was going on at that time and the reason they wanted to sponsor Russian Jews do you think that's because of just they didn't want to see a repeat of history so to speak went from put side because it's like you said there's a lot of prejudice going on in that time
oh absolutely I mean you know if you look at World War two and the horrifying stuff that occurred in world war two Stalin who isn't really discussed did as much or worse to Jewish farmers and in peasants in Russia and at that time in the 70s you know you get the Cold War and everybody was horrified at what Jewish people or even anyone with a religious belief in that country might be experiencing with a group but in particularly Jewish people and so we my father knew that they were coming here completely disadvantaged most of them could barely speak English let alone you know I have
a job or anything else so that's why dude Family Services was there and we got involved in the one of the first lady's we sponsored she came with her son no no for what I don't understand why but there were the men there were issues with alcoholism and and you know much like a reservation marginalization and so she came all of her belongings smashed up the Russian soldier smash everything what little heirlooms she was allowed to bring and so Mira you know to this day she's our family Mira convinced ki yeah and she is in her son Igor is our is our family and and
so they grew up on the shul he went to Richardson as well and I'll tell you one thing that's the funnest thing I've ever done is if you've you ever been to a Russian Jewish wedding oh my god the food the courses of food 12-core and it's not really a good Russian Jewish wedding until there's at least one fight okay and the old man has to break it up but the things I remember most with sponsoring those families was learning diversity not just Judaism but the Russian component that's how it played into Jewish religious belief and culture and the traditions that they brought down you
know I tell my friends I learned as much it'sh as I did Choctaw because the old men would speak the it assure the women the old widowed in it and so as Shabbat boys we would go and check on these widow women you know make lists turn on the lights it was community service yes there was a religious component but at the same time it was checking on elders in our community yep yes Frank leopard myself Vinny schonbrunn the Ginsberg brothers 13 I was also in boys this is why you are a lot of those guys were doing it because it was part of the
community service further bar mitzvahs yes and I did it because there were my friends and the synagogue needed extra people to go out and check on these folks in the community in touch with these friends I do one of my best friends Brad Reverend he's a doctor here in Dallas he was one of the guys on the team that separated the Egyptian twins he's a pediatric neurosurgeon you know he got picked on in only said why are they picking us at Brad don't worry about it when you're a brain surgeon and they're selling shoes at the mall it's not gonna mean anything well not only
is he a brain surgeon my god he was so brilliant he's a pediatric mind surgeon you know college I went to SMU yes why did you decide to pursue a career mom that's an interesting thing after SMU there weren't any jobs with the military briefly or briefly but for a while yeah and because the warning jobs as an officer marine just saw many things a lot of disparity also my roots is in native and unfortunately if you're Native American we're still under assault by the government I mean right now the Indian Child Welfare Act there it's a six billion dollar industry in trafficking and native
children they're looking at trying to terminate our tribes again they're sending out notices saying they're no longer federal governments no longer gonna enroll any of our newborn children as natives to have the treaty right benefits that the government owes the tribe and the indigenous peoples okay and how many years were you in that school I was there for I got it in the economics finance degree in an anthropology degree in a business minor and this was SMU was before or after you and me on earth I was before that I went to school and then and then went to Officer Candidate School and there was
no more gangs why did you try and why did you want to try and pursue that after you graduate isn't you cuz there were no jobs the real estate market crash the financial banks were failing and I had a finance degree they were letting people go that had MBAs and not you know not just bachelor degrees yeah and so after the military I got I saw a lot of horrifying human rights problems and being native got involved by going to law school because I saw the struggles of my grandfather had with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and just the marginalization and that also was part
of the reason that I think I understood more in the about the Jewish the relationship that I had with the Jewish community and being part of the community because it was a very shared cultural experience of marginalization around the world you know indigenous people around the world and and we're still having to deal with those issues even today in our own country the professes to be full circle it does in that is one of the circle is the representation of what we as native to believe the circle never stops and it never ends and always this thing it's like your parents helped help people you
saw how well that affected you and you have people at school you defended them and I think what I learned as a child is you stand up for people even if it means that you you might lose out you stand up to do the right thing if you see somebody being picked on you stand up and do the right thing and and always being in a position where you do what is right rather than what is convenient does that make sense and it's I think a cultural thing to show at least natives in the matrilineal way to show compassion to others always and help be
if you got something extra you shared that and that's something in the community as a kid that women would check you know if there was an older family or like one of these Russian immigrants they didn't have enough to eat we took the food you know and and when they had more they would cook up a pot of borscht you know they're the soup and bring it to the house you know even though you know we didn't need the food but that's another thing even if you don't need it you show that family respect and you take the food and enjoy the food some of
the problems some of the most interesting moments was spent you know at the synagogue you know running around seeing the women talk or cook or do that watching them play cards or talk about issues you know that was kind of fascinating for us even though we were born you know I mean we knew our mothers were up doing something they were involved and the fathers were always there to support us and give us advice you know I don't think I ever saw any at least of our generation disrespect their wives the meaning and that was uh something else than I thought this was interesting the
one thing that I think that I kind of been disappointed that I don't see anymore in the show because the demographics has changed is that involvement involving kids where there was a sense of community where they were reaching out to the community I think I don't know if it's the times I don't know if it's technology we didn't have certain but it's Monteux seem as engaged together as they were then and I'm not saying that something utopia thing there were there were problems and issues and and but I just you know like being a Shabbat boy you know that was fun one of the things
that I had to do is a Shabbat boy was go with the kosher rabbi rabbi Jacobsen you know interestingly enough guess who his best friend the Imam of the mosque because halal and kosher are under the Old Testament yeah so the two of them would go and they would drink this god-awful coffee you know like a Turkish coffee is on you might as well take a shot of schnapps or do you know they would drink the coffee and they would visit in a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic okay the language and so then they would go the man would bring the meat and they would
go look at the meat and the two of them would always yeah you know they would say yes it looked right it looked right you look every time it looked right then the one time was the two of them did their ritual and they looked at the meat and both of them looked as though they had seen a monster or something because they both jumped back and we're both shaking their head now and they knew immediately when they saw the cut did it was wrong and so you know I was sort of an odd thing and an experience but it's also kind of cultural it's
also religious and and that to me was very fascinating as a young kid and so they had to to take the meat out and bring some back bring another back and they inspected it went from there but that was something kind of interesting but it was the rabbi in the Imam and so probably the most profound moment in junior high in that period of time was there was some anti-semitism at the school I was having the fight to protect my friends North 77 78 79 and this was public school it was different then you know assessment introduced to find out where kid needed to be
in the schooling process not to try and force them to pass a test to say that they're literate hmm they actually learned and if there were the assessment tests that they needed something extra they went into a class to get remedial math or English so that they would be able to function not not simply pass a test and say oh you've met these minimum requirements know when there was an issue at that school they brought in rabbi Jacobsen what is remarkable about that is that he had the hat that he wore in Auschwitz showed us a bar soap that was made from other human beings
what was remarkable about that was how humble that man was what was remarkable about that is what a one human being would do to another human being just because of their religious belief in culture and the most profound moment was when he turned up his sleeve and showed us the number of tattooed on his arm I think it was epithets you know using names derogatory names toward Jewish people as well as Africans because the african-american community coming from Hamilton Park but I think more profound was that was I think the fight that I had when they when they were picking on the Jewish kid and
they were targeting the kid because he was Jewish and the school principal George Daley he's still a friend of mine he's still alive had the acumen to know how to deal with that he didn't put people in detentions and throw him in you know alternative schools no he engaged people together even those that were saying bad things out of it comes from fear ignorance and that fear and that ignorance coupled together gets bigotry what he was trying to do is show that there's other things and so a lot of kids became very engaged and I'm not gonna say then because some people are racist no
matter what you do but it brought awareness and it brought an interest in understanding more about World War two and understanding more about how not even the world but a lot of people turn their backs on Jewish people in the Slavic people and gypsies and and anyone else that were marginalized by the Nazis in that period of time anyone or anyone yes because that then also that burned into my mind that we can't ever let this happen again not only is a Native American and as the stories I learned as a child as a Native American and seeing how the government treats us even today
that burn didn't by memory two different ways one that's horrifying that something like that could happen in the world no matter what era were you but it also reminded me that that's where I've come from that's where my ancestors came from fighting you know and I'm a mix of cultures and that's a beautiful thing too it's good bad so there's you have to under if you have to temper it and that we're still fighting that fight now you know they're not you know wholesale killing us but at the same time they want to take our land away Native women are the most missing and murdered
in metropolis around the United States per capita children native children are still trafficked in adoptions that have less than stellar protections and the Indian Child Welfare Act while it was a law to protect against that is trying to be done away you try these issues are going on now with Native American woman and you just what do you try and tackle hello yes yeah if your mind as you can realize um one is advocacy you know trying to talk with others about these issues and that they still are important they're not just important for natives they're important for other minorities in this area in the
United States for example Jewish family comes to me they say Eric can you help us the rabbi sent us to you you know the he said trust this going and I said okay so I talked with them I found out what the deal is kid goes over on an overnight sleep with his buddies they live in playmon okay and they have a giant Church shopping mall for Christ I call it a bin play no kid goes over first sleepover slumber party where they lock up in a GM and eat a pizza and play games the youth minister baptizes the boy and has him renounced Judaism
this is a twelve thirteen year old kid in the process of trying to get a Bar Mitzvah you know I also understand kids this is all kids in that preteen years where he wants to be defined up towards his parents and you know you know try to stand up for himself he acts a little defiant well what are you gonna do about it mom you know kind of a smart aleck key response that come to me they're horrified I say I told the kid you you you're nothing then okay you your community is only as strong as you are that's what I learned growing up
in a Jewish community if you they're depending on you to be a part of this community do you even know what it meant to get baptized well no so I send a letter to the church I said you're gonna apologize you're gonna take care of this family and you're gonna donate $1,000 to the Holocaust Museum because this is completely inappropriate the kid I finally talked to the kid and I had to do a little bit of shaming with the kid because the kid was kind of in that sort of preteen defiant so I had to let the kid understand what it meant not just to
his mother and father but how he let his the whole community down because other kids in the community are depending on him to become a man and becoming a man through Bar Mitzvah is learning about your faith your culture and then being a part of it the kids started crying and then that's when we went got the rabbi back involved and in 2000 and this is in like 2004 in 2013 why am i having to go through this with this family and a child when I went and spent the night at the shul I wouldn't spent the night with their families and not once did
they convert me or even you know I learned I did Passover's Shabbat dinners other celebrations and they would come and stay with my family in vice versa so I you know that is one of the reasons that I got engaged as a lawyer and yes I make money too in business law as well advising companies I also work with tribes trying to do sustainable development and low cost energy you know green and renewable like solar wind in marginalized communities in rural communities where they're not getting they don't have access to the to the resources and so that they can have and maintain local economies about
your family like God you do have a wiser choice yeah where do you want her I met my wife Teresa at the University of Iowa law school okay and she is from Iowa also he was young the University of Iowa law school after got Oscars I got a scholarship actually before that I went to I applied because I wanted to see about law school I wasn't completely sure so I applied for this thing called pre-law summer Institute for American Indians at the American Indian Law Center run by a fella by the name of Sam Deloria his brother is a renowned rider find DeLorean an educator
Sam is the same fine is passed and Sam was retired but the American Indian Law Center had been around since 1968 and it was because the Indian Native people not only represent a percent of one percent of the entire population and a percent of one percent of the legal community they won't and in most of the educational experiences that native kids have is not in the top notch schools and they're not lucky enough to have a mother who's a schoolteacher that enforces that as the just as Jewish families and education is more valuable than a boat or a condominium you know those things are really
those are those can vanish and they're not their material things they're not of substance like in education and so that school was to prepare a native Native students to go to law school it was like going doing a pre semester just to prepare you so when you got to a law school that you would be able to understand what how to briefcase and be on the same almost the same level as some of the other students entering the law school just to prepare you for that and to make sure that's really what you want to do you know as a career so it did that
and then I went to Iowa several years in I worked with I was a fellow for professor Robert in Clinton who was a he's a renowned Native American lifer Jew as well and and he had the same inclinations towards native people based on his own experiences growing up in Cleveland as a Jewish kid in the 30s 40s and 50s you know and so the other professor I worked with the professor s James Anaya Jim and ayah and he's now the Dean of the Colorado law school and he was UN Special Rapporteur to indigenous people so I got involved with them and that's how I got
interested in the international indigenous rights as well as federal domestic Indian law and that's why I chose I well because both of those professors were there and they were very top-notch and I wanted to learn about the human rights law as well as how it relates to native people um then I met my wife Teresa and she came to Dallas kicking and screaming you know she was an Iowa girl so she was corn-fed and hand spanked you know enjoying meeting her in Iowa and her father and mother are educators too so school and education were a primary important thing in their family life as well
we got married in 1996 in her home town Church the Catholic she was Catholic Catholic Church in Ames Iowa at Iowa State where her father was a professor and her mother a schoolteacher and they were family large family nine kids and so the main thing in their lives was learning how to get an education not you know material things yeah and so she was more interested were both feminists too and so she was more interested in kind of staying in an area other than Dallas yeah Dallas is an interesting area for people that aren't from Dallas and she came here because I got a job
at the district attorney's office in organized crime division and so from and I saw it came from the reservation the show remember what had been a tribal attorney for three years came down here to event position we ended up staying we have two children Jack and Helen a little boy and a little girl and our children on him our interest is not what most expensive thing we can own in life but we have both of our children at Greenville school and they're in the middle school there the interesting thing about it is most people think Green Hill School is a Jewish school because a lot
of Jewish kids go to school again I say no it's not a Jewish school it is a school where the focus of the attention is on a diverse and creative thought education as well as logical thought and Jewish families value and education or Heather than most material things although there are some very wealthy families that send their kids to school there too but by and large I would say most of the families whether they're Jewish or non-jewish focus on the educational opportunity the kids get I'm involved with a boy scout troop and the Girl Scout troop one of my closest friends at the school is
completely politically divergent is the david bach and robin bach the bach family from to ferret Israel my boy scout true because some of the synagogue's had dropt Boy Scout programs at the time there was some discrimination when I started our Cub Scout group as well as that that's gone away there's no discrimination now but even during the discrimination I made it very clear that no parent was going to be discriminated against in our group for any reason whatsoever and greenhill allowed us to continue that we formed a Jewish and Christian true the kids get to interact with both I asked questions we volunteered to kosher
chili cook-off as well as other community service that the shul might need or initial for for for Boy Scouts or whatever that we can do to help out the community Jewish community I've made it a point that all of my boys get to see and understand how a Jewish service is conducted some we've even been to the Orthodox one it was if we went through the whole book of Exodus and in Hebrew and I never expected to do that in my life but the kids enjoyed it they thought it was different they got to interact with the elders you know and talk with them and
understand you know the shawl and while you pray a certain way and I have encouraged all of the Jewish kids in my troop to engage with the rabbi in suffered never forget that they did survive and that they that what you can learn from them is invaluable is a treasure so young people talk with your elders talk to the curmudgeon wearing the hat in the cage it's not so wonderful to be around and may not smell great spend some time talking to the old guy because you'll learn a lot you know don't despair talk to them they'll talk to you and once that you get
their trust then you'll really get the good information and you might even get a trip there on the walls cafeteria or walls walls catering or oil and get some good kugel or something of that nature that was the other thing when the old guys when you got to know the old guys that sit around them and even if they complained there was something to learn and when you did it when you did a when you were a mensch in their eyes or you did a mitzvah for them they would take you out to lunch and so there's good but be strong that's really the key
don't be afraid don't let fear don't let them create fear in you and destroy the hope that you have to change yes this is what you call a tribal medallion the a tribal medallion is a medallion that generally represents somebody's tribe there it can be a number of different things this one is for the Choctaw Nation made by a lady named Jennifer Davis who's a nurse and a bead she does be work what you call traditional items that natives wear is called regalia or even referred to sometimes as an outfit and the beadwork is done in the traditional way and this has got a Choctaw
emblem in it which is to designate that my mother or matrilineal society that I'm enrolled as a Choctaw I'm also my great-grandma I'm named after Erik Oklahoma on the Black Kettle Indian Reservation of the southern Cheyenne and Erik Oklahoma and they there are Plains Indians there were the people that were shot down and killed at massacre at Sand Creek chief Black Kettle was among them and this was made for me to even wear to a traditional event or a powwow kinda like wearing a yarmulke on Saturday except when you go it just designates what tribe EURion and I'm in a Choctaw tribe one of the
other one of the other brooches that was made for me is this one from that it's got the directions of the the the the four directions the white black red and yellow the white represents the north also part of the White Buffalo Calf maiden angel story the black represents the South which where dark and warm rain come the yellow is where the east where the Sun rises in the red is the west where the Sun sets there are also a variation on the circle in the four directions this one is the plains it also has those Lakota for directions colors the star is part of
the Comanche part of the family because chief quarter Parker had star house in cash Oklahoma which is a historic house and it should be on the National Historic Register rather than privately owned and rotting in star house that was his representation he was he also founded the Native American church which is a religious organization in the United States is a native based Christian organization but the star is from his star house and so a lady made this for me when we rescued a white buffalo here in Dallas from a liquor store in downtown and she was preserved and taken to the Fort Worth Nature Center
to live with the buffalo herd there and I'm honored to have it and we're often when I'm involved in something in that nature you