In the morning, before sunrise, I pray with corn pollen in my right hand. The corn was harvested from red clay soil in the fields of the Zuni Mountains, where my Pueblo relatives live and pray in the same way. At an early age, I was taught that a corn-pollen prayer centers the belief that a person is exactly where they’re supposed to be at any given time and place, creating a presence with all existence that is determined by the prayer itself. Land-based belief systems exist across the world, and this one, which is practiced in my Southwestern home, respects the notion that life is a constant path forward, and therefore you must set your path. Facing east toward the Sandia Mountains, I speak my gratitude for the morning and offer peaceful intentions for my day. I thank my grandparents and acknowledge their ancestors and the younger ancestors I knew and loved who are no longer in this moment to breathe the morning air with me. I toss the corn pollen at my feet, just as my relatives have done before me and like everyone who comes after me will do. We have done this since, well, forever.
Along the corn pollen trail, I met Deb Haaland, a Laguna and Jemez Pueblo relative who starts her days in a similar way. “I wake up every morning, and I recommit myself to the things that I was taught by my grandparents,” Haaland told me in April outside an energy summit in Santa Fe. Her grandparents were contemporaries of my great-grandparents, all of them Pueblo people who shared the knowledge and lifeways that have led us to this moment today. Haaland, who made history during the Biden administration as the first Indigenous secretary of the Interior, has been on the road since 2025, zigzagging between rural New Mexican towns like Gallup and Shiprock and then back to politicking in Santa Fe before returning home to Albuquerque for the night. She credits her ancestors’ resilience for where she is now: frontrunner in the gubernatorial race and leading the path for the United States through post-Trump reconstruction.
If Haaland wins, she will be New Mexico’s third consecutive female governor and the first Native American to hold the office there. Many saw the Democratic primary as her biggest hurdle, but she won by 45 percentage points. She has championed a platform that expands public health care, strengthens state environmental regulations, increases the state minimum wage, leverages energy profits for progressive policies and advances tribal sovereignty.
“I wake up every morning, and I recommit myself to the things that I was taught by my grandparents.”
In many ways, a Native American governor is a contradiction: The position owes its power to a tribal self-determination movement that is against racist state violence, and yet an Indigenous person in that role becomes a part of the very system that perfected that state violence. If she’s elected, it will be Haaland’s responsibility to manage relationships with the 23 tribal nations in the state, using tools like the New Mexico State-Tribal Collaboration Act of 2009 to work with state and tribal leaders on government policy.
The legislation requires state agencies to form working partnerships to negotiate their practices and policies with tribes in New Mexico. It’s a bit like a state version of the trust and treaty obligations the federal government has with tribes, something Haaland knows intimately, first as a Pueblo woman and then as Interior secretary, where she demonstrated how someone with land-based beliefs could lead on federal land management.
This has put her exactly where she needs to be to advance tribal sovereignty within the United States. As the first Native American woman to be elected governor, Haaland would be continuing Pueblo leadership that pre-dates multiple colonial governments.
Along the trail, we met up several times to discuss her vision and plans for New Mexico. Our conversations below have been edited for length and clarity.
High Country News: You’ve been on the campaign trail for more than a year now and have talked with voters about how pivotal this election is given what’s going on nationally. What’s it like to be here at this moment?
Deb Haaland: It’s always exciting. … Donald Trump took 3% of our voters in the last election, and I’m going to get those back. Donald Trump promised to lower costs for people. He’s not focused on that at all. He’s making things more expensive, and at the same time, he’s focused on terrorizing our neighborhoods and creating chaos all over, not just New Mexico but all over the country. So people want us to pay attention to the issues that affect them.
HCN: What do you have to consider when beginning conversations on tribal sovereignty with populations who are beginning to learn about it, or who are non-Native?
DH: Pueblo Indians have been in the Rio Grande Valley since the late 1200s, sometimes migrating from other places in New Mexico. Their ancestral homeland is vast. Their tribal boundaries may not be vast, and in many instances, tribes have bought back land to add to their land base. Any corporation, project developer or emerging leader needs to know and understand that history.
(Tribes in New Mexico) have been taken advantage of through the many decades. And so, they’re skeptical. It’s up to (outsiders) to develop that relationship, make sure they are being transparent and upfront about all of the information, so that a relationship of trust can develop, and perhaps tribes will get on board with those opportunities and move forward with them.
HCN: Is it possible to build a relationship of trust with people who may be completely opposed to tribal sovereignty principles?
DH: Tribes deserve respect, first of all, and they deserve to be a part of something that is affecting their ancestral homeland. Maybe there’s a transmission line or whatever it is that’s going through, maybe it doesn’t even touch their land, but if they can see it from their land, they need to be brought into the project.
“(Tribes) have been taken advantage of through the many decades. And so, they’re skeptical. It’s up to (outsiders) to develop that relationship.”
HCN: Are you noticing now that in rooms with large business leaders or small local business leaders that they understand the pronouncement of tribal capital?
DH: Yes, I do. Talking to industry leaders on the campaign trail, one of the first things they talk about with me is that they have somebody who is reaching out to tribes, somebody who is collaborating with tribes. In New Mexico, we have a State-Tribal Collaboration Act. We recognize the value that tribes bring to our state, and we also recognize the responsibility of our state to ensure that we are respecting tribes — their sovereignty, their land base, what they bring to our economy, all of those things.
HCN: I’m curious how you consider water use and management in a state that has to perpetually consider drought conditions, but needs more people?
DH: If industry wants to move to New Mexico, (it) needs to be sustainable. Water should be prioritized for people.
HCN: There’s been a federal destruction of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA). Is this an opportunity for states like New Mexico to fill that gap?
DH: We absolutely have to fill the gap. We don’t have a choice. The federal government is firing people, they’re cutting all these programs, but (it) still has an obligation to our state, and I’m going to do everything I can to make (it) live up to that. We can’t just let our environment go by the wayside because Donald Trump has decided that he wants to pocket a bunch of money.
HCN: How would you as governor work with state agencies, the attorney general, or even the Legislature, to sue major companies, or to work toward settlements for claims on behalf of New Mexicans who were harmed?
DH: We have to hire more lawyers so that we can sue the federal government when (it) needs to be sued for encroaching on our state sovereignty, or ruining our environment. We need to sue the federal government when (it’s) taking funds away from people who are promised benefits. I think that we really need to build that out, because New Mexico has to press these issues with the federal government in a big way. I think that’s how we do it, through the courts.
“We need to sue the federal government when it’s taking funds away from people who are promised benefits.”
HCN: What could you do as governor to ensure that the history curriculum about the federal Indian Boarding School era is taught in New Mexico public schools?
DH: Native American History is American history. Every single American in this country owns that history — that terrible, violent, horrible federal Indian Boarding School history. Let’s see how we can make sure that this is something that all children know and understand, because boarding schools happened right here in New Mexico.
My grandparents were put on a train and sent to St. Catherine’s here in Santa Fe. My great-grandfather was only able to visit my grandmother twice in the five years she was separated from her family, because all he had was a horse and a wagon to travel. This is New Mexico history. Fort Union, which is north of Las Vegas, was a way station, and they would take Native children to that place and shave their heads, burn their clothes, put them in uniforms, and send them on a train to whatever boarding school they felt they needed to go to. New Mexico has a deep history when it comes to federal Indian boarding schools. We have an important state; we have an important history. It’s a history that every New Mexican should know about. We all have an obligation to that.
Charles Montoya (Tamaya/Walatowa Pueblos) is a New Mexico-based analog film photographer. Montoya documents everyday life, community and cultural identity. His work has been featured in both local and national publications.
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This article appeared in the August 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “On the corn pollen trail with Deb Haaland.”
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