Shippentower gives the closing speech at the Crime Victim Law Conference in Portland, OR.

Shippentower distributes a safety plan that entails all the information that police need in the first 48 hours of a person’s disappearance, including a daily schedule, times when family and friends should hear from their loved one, and even people the police should question if they were to go missing. 

The safety plan originally started as frequent check-ins with her mom and journaling exercises that Shippentower would do when a police officer from work was harassing her. Even after quitting her job, for weeks Shippentower was paranoid that he was stalking her. She frequently noticed a silver car that would pass her house and drive by while running errands, and even noticed a drone flying over her house at one point. The harassment became so intense, that even seeing her husband in his police uniform provoked an emotional reaction. At one point Shippentower contemplated suicide but in the moment, came to a simple realization — she couldn’t let him win. 

She first began training in MMA as an outlet to cope with alcoholism and recurring trauma from domestic violence. She quickly fell in love with martial arts and now teaches clients self-defense as they’re vital tools Indigenous women can use to keep each other safe. Shippentower explains how many of her clients come to her, simply wishing to be strong, but with time and training, share the traumatic experiences that made them want to learn martial arts in the first place. 

Nancy Donato first met Shippentower when they met at a jiu-jitsu gym in Tri-cities, and naturally gravitated toward each other and bonded over their love for martial arts. “Hey I saw you from across the mats, and I locked eyes with you and I gave you this Indigenous look.” Nancy is a long-term substitute teacher and teaches martial arts every Wednesday at White Swan High School located on the Yakama Indian Reservation. She strives to create an inclusive environment for her students but also frames the class around self-defense and personal safety.

Uplifting each other through personal connections is an important aspect of empowering Indigenous women. “What I hope is that we're able to look within our own communities and see that there are many, many women to look up to,” Donato said. 

Shippentower takes the time after every event and conference to connect with Indigenous women who want to share their stories or simply to say they want to be strong like her. She is taken aback when people compliment her for being strong because she built her platform when she felt weak. It’s also strange for people to describe her in the way she sees her own aunts and cousins, but she tries to embody them because those are the ones who inspired her. 

One of the many ways she honors her brother, who went missing, is through these interactions. By making people feel welcome in every space she walks into, she hopes to honor who he was and the good he brought into the world. “He made everybody feel comfortable and at home and like they were seen and like they were valuable,” Shippentower said. 

She has chosen to stop speaking about his disappearance because she doesn’t feel like memorializing his death is the best way to honor him — and is not a part of Indian culture. Many MMIW advocates want to tell the sad stories of their lost loved ones, and Shippentower recognizes that this is an important part of healing, but also wants to highlight their strengths whether it’s their traditional knowledge or if they speak their indigenous language. 

Issues that Indigenous communities face like missing and murdered Indigenous persons, domestic violence, and generational trauma are all interconnected. Engaging in MMIW can be difficult because many individuals like Shippentower are learning advocacy from “a generation of shut up and don’t talk about it” who lived through Indian boarding schools and persecution for speaking their language. 

Self-reflection and articulating how one will pass on information to the following generations is an essential aspect of breaking generational trauma, but more importantly, so is creating space to talk about these issues and opening conversations in a way that will encourage elders to share their experiences. “And where these issues lie, breaking down this intergenerational trauma and making it into intergenerational wealth,” Shippentower said.

Native women, like Shippentower, have a target on their backs. Oftentimes they’re sought out by predators for their position in society or they fall through the cracks of a system not meant to support them. She believes that part of the reason Native women experience more violence is because it takes a more extreme level of force to silence Native women because they fight until the very end.

“They always see us as a threat because they should see us as a threat. We are strong people. That's what we need to remind them.”