Charlene O'Rourke's Fundraiser

Image Credit: Charlene O'Rourke singer in 2012 production of the play "New Fire" at Brava Theater, San Francisco, CA.

My name is Celia Herrera Rodríguez.  I am Xicana Odami, an artist and educator,  and I speak to you as a founding member of La Red Xicana Indígena.  As a network of native women, we see it as our task to support political campaigns for indigenous rights, but also to support the personal needs of our extended community members, especially elders.  For this latter reason, I have come with this request.

It is a simple one:  to raise $15,000 to buy a car as an act of ‘reciprocity’ to Charlene O’Rourke, an Oglala Lakota tribal member; activist and artist; a two-spirit woman, and my friend for over 30 years.  

Charlene was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation. She grew up and has lived most her life in Arizona, where she has raised several children and grandchildren.  Charlene’s mother, Beatrice McLaughlin, raised Charlene, her youngest daughter, to honor the Lakota traditional ways and supported and encouraged her work in urban and rural traditional Native communities, as well as her leadership in two-spirit ceremonial circles.  She frequently said that Charlene’s example taught her how to love and receive love into her own life, accepting her daughter’s two-spirit friends with open arms and mind.

For more than a generation, Charlene (now almost 60) has worked as a substance and domestic abuse counselor, in women’s half-way houses and in treatment centers on and off the rez in Arizona.

In 2007, La Red invited her to come to the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations in New York City and to speak before the Assembly about the impact of the production of meth in rural Native communities.  She did so with moving clarity and a living understanding of the drug’s devastation, especially in terms of its effects on the lives of women, elders, and children.

It was during that long week in New York that Charlene suffered her first heart attack, without fully recognizing it.  But within 24 hours, after flying home to Arizona, she was hospitalized with 2 blocked arteries.  Charlene already struggled with diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis, doing her best with little money and limited health insurance to take care of her self and her family. As Charlene’s ability to work diminished so did the few resources she had available.

But it does not stop there, since the death of her daughter-in-law two years ago, due to diabetes she has been helping her son raise her granddaughter, now 4 years old.   They have one older model vehicle that her son uses to get to work which sometimes takes him out of town. Meanwhile Charlene is on foot to get the child to school, and to get herself to medical appointments, do grocery shopping, etc.  The transportation system on the rez has a poor schedule and the midday Arizona heat can be debilitating.  Currently she has to use a walker to move around for any length of time – all this causing additional stress on her heart. 

Reciprocity.   

My sister Charlene O’Rourke should not have to struggle alone.  She has always been of service to our Native communities, pouring water for Lodges, leading talking and prayer circles; sponsoring and conducting traditional ceremonies.  She is an artist and a powerful singer.  Many can sing, but the “old ways” come through in the voice  of Charlene.   There is no performance in it.  No ego. 

Charlene, above all else, is a real human being -- who says yes more often than not to our requests for help.  She has never stopped working, and is currently involved in the Native Skywatchers Project, with Annette Lee out of St Cloud MN. 

The true teachers are few and far between, as the elders in our communities continue to be robbed of an extended life.  Your contribution to Charlene O’Rourke’s campaign is one.  concrete.  action  you can take to support the longevity of our elders, especially rare in two-spirit communities. 

We need Charlene’s voice, her prayers, her good counsel. 

Let’s help make her ‘ride’ just a bit easier.   

With 15,000 dollars Charlene can buy a previously owned late model car, reliable with low mileage, and efficient on gas.  It is a basic request, with long-term promise for Charlene.

I reach out to those of you whom Charlene has personally befriended and helped, and to any one ever touched by her laughter and song.

I ask my own students – past and present --  and also appeal to the students and readers of La Red founding member, the writer Cherríe Moraga . . .

If you have learned from either of us in any way that has had a moment’s meaning in your life, know that Charlene is our spiritual sister in this practice.   

I urge you to give generously -- just a bit beyond your ability -- to support an integral and necessary elder member of our communities, Charlene O’Rourke .   

Gracias.