“November is Native American Heritage month, and a good time to honor the legacy of our ancestors, but every day we should stop to think about our country's beginning and that the United States would not exist if not for a great deal of sacrifice, blood, and tears by Indian Tribes across the country.”

American politician, governor-elect of New Mexico

Debra Anne Haaland is an American politician and enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo. She is the governor-elect of New Mexico and has served in national and state Democratic politics. Haaland served as the 54th United States secretary of the interior from 2021 to 2025. Before that, she represented New Mexico’s 1st congressional district in the U.S. House from 2019 to 2021 and led the New Mexico Democratic Party from 2015 to 2017. Her public work places her at the center of Indigenous representation and New Mexico politics.