RJ Molinere
Grand Bois, Louisiana United Houma Nation RJ, along with his son Jay Paul, is featured in the History Channel’s Swamp People, a reality series about alligator hunting. About Swamp People “I have a son that’s been with me fishing alligators since he’s three years old. Because his mama came to this school here, this college here. And she wanted to get her education. And he was like three years old when she was doing her clinicals and she said ‘RJ, I know alligator season just started and you know, I’ma need a sitter.’ I said, that’s no problem baby, I said I have a seat and I have a life vest he can come fishing with me. No problem because she knew what I’d done. “I turned them down like three times and eventually the third time. So what like, Well, where is your partner? I said My partner’s Jay Paul, my son. So, they interviewed Jay Paul and they told me it was going to be a no because they didn’t want my partner. By nine o’clock the next morning they freaking out. Because they showed the boss and the boss said, ‘What more can you ask for father and son really, and y’all don’t want Jay Paul?’ He said ‘you call RJ now.’ And they called me that day, and let me tell y’all, that was a blessing, you know?” Favorite Tradition “My kids when they were growing up, if they had something on their mind, and it was bothering them, they couldn’t sleep at night, they was having bad dreams and stuff like that. The next morning, they would come find me and they will tell me ‘dad could you come smudge my room?’ I’m like ‘what’s up brother or sister?’ whatever. I call them my kids, brother and sister. Anyway, I said no problem. I would, but I wouldn’t only smudge their room. I would do the whole house you know, walk around and that’s where this comes into place, my eagle feathers. And as I’m burning my Sage, I’m also praying to my whole house especially in the bedroom that my son or my daughter sleeping in, and it just makes you feel good when you’re your son or your daughter will come back to you and say ‘thanks dad.’” Being UHN “First thing they teach you is how to pray. They teach you your prayers right away the minute you can talk and they know you old enough, that’s one thing we taught our prayers, you know, so that’s just one thing. To me, that’s a blessing.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “Growing up as a kid, I mean, I’m talking about as far as I can remember. You know, my people always lived off the land. And, and you know, when you’re growing up as a kid, your growing up and doing things with your grandparents and your parents and stuff like that. You don’t realize that you’re there and you just living a normal life and you think everything is normal, you know, so, not realizing that I was learning the way the Houma. In other words, the way that Native Americans from the Houma Tribe that I’m from. I didn’t even know that I was even a Native American actually. “I don’t want to make this sound crazy, but we live like in a disputed area. And it was like Lafourche Parish on one side and Terrebonne Parish on the other side. So, you either had a choice to go five minutes to school, or you had to go 10-12 miles to school. So that was kind of hard, you know, because you didn’t have a choice. “As I got older, I just started living off the land in other words, trapping, hunting for our food, shrimping, fishing alligators, on and on and on everything that my people did, I did, you know, and that was just part of life, the way we live, you know, and it was normal. It was good. It was a good life, you know. But, again, today, I regret my education, I wish I would have had to get the chance to get my education.” Listen
Joshua Pitre
Cut Off, Louisiana currently in Washington DC United Houma Nation Pitre is the director of government relations at Clause Law in Washington DC. He has worked on behalf of tribal nations for more than a decade. See his full professional bio. Favorite Tradition “One of the most important traditions that I’ve been able to learn about, and really want to learn more and pass on to my daughter, is our traditions related to medicinal plants.” Being UHN “It means everything. My whole life has kind of been centered around the fact that I am a member of the tribe. I mentioned my great grandfather who was a traitor at the community. He spent his whole life off of the land in a traditional way. My grandma was a tribal council for several years and she also worked at our tribal center for decades. My mom served for over a decade as principal chief of the tribe and so I just grew up in that environment. “It was part of my everyday life, just being a member of the tribe and seeing what I can do to be helpful and carrying on those traditions and our recognition efforts.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “I loved growing up in south Louisiana. As I mentioned, I am in Washington D.C now so as I mentioned, I am able to come home fairly often. I spent nearly ten months here in Louisiana during the pandemic and I haven’t spent that much time home in probably over a decade. So, it was great to be back despite the circumstances. “People say oh you lost your down the bayou accent. Being home for a while… The fact that I grew up in southern Louisiana around a lot of great people, great food, great music, you know the French language that we speak down here, so yeah, I wouldn’t want to grow up anywhere else. “In D.C I work for a small law firm that represents Indian tribes across the country.” Listen
Ryan Anthony Williams
Houma, LOuisiana United Houma Nation Williams is an actor, model and director known for his roles in: Genius The Devil All the Time Queen Sugar
Councilman Janzen Verdin
The United Houma Nation Leadership Listen Dulac, Louisiana United Houma Nation, District #3 By Loyrn Monceaux, Staff WRiter For a tribe of over 19,000, proper communication channels are essential to keeping everyone well informed and active. However, these channels need to be properly developed and maintained by someone with experience. Janzen Verdin joined the United Houma Nation tribal council in 2020, representing District 3 of the tribe which includes the lower Dulac and Dularge areas. With his experience in mass communication, Verdin plans on creating a media committee and reviving the tribal radio station. Verdin says by creating this committee, they will be able to develop strategies to connect with their tribal members and get them more involved. “That’s really my motivation… and the same thing with the radio station… I want to give people a reason to be proud to be Houma again, you know,” says Verdin. Verdin looks to restore the tribe’s radio station, KUHN 88.9 FM, located in Golden Meadow. KUHN is a non-commercial radio station that is currently off-air. The station used to air Cajun, Zydeco and Swamp Pop music with local news programs Monday through Friday. Verdin says that the United Houma Nation is in the process of getting an ordinance so they can put together a PR and media committee. Once the committee is set up, he will be able to work more on getting KUHN running again. “We’ve had that station for a while now,” says Verdin. “We haven’t really been able to really use it like it should be used… at least in my opinion with a mass [communication] background… I want to try to use it to really be like a source of information not just for the area that it’s in, but for pretty much Indian country throughout at least the state of Louisiana.” Verdin says that he is hoping to have at least two paid staff members and a few interns working for KUHN. “We currently don’t have any staff working on it right now as far as I know,” he says, “but once we get this committee set up, I plan on being a lot more involved with the radio station, and I would like to ideally set up a partnership with Nicholls’ Mass [Communication] department to do like an internship-type deal at the station for students.” Verdin is a 2014 graduate of Nicholls State University with a Bachelors in Mass Communications. After college, he joined the Inter-Tribal Council of Louisiana (ITC), where he worked as a work-force development specialist and then as a multimedia specialist until 2019. According to the Inter-Tribal Council of Louisiana’s website, ITC is a non-profit workforce development organization that helps Native Americans in Louisiana with their academic and occupational needs. Verdin traveled around the southern United States making testimonial videos about ITC’s grant program they offer to tribal citizens. He also developed a couple of websites along with managing ITC’s social media. Verdin decided to run for the United Houma Nation’s tribal council after he left ITC. “Before I started working for ITC, I didn’t realize how many Native American people were actually in Louisiana, and there’s a lot,” says Verdin. “Our tribe alone is 20,000 members and there are several other tribes in the state that aren’t federally recognized or even state recognized. There’s a lot of us here so after being able to experience that and seeing how things work in other tribes… I guess to kind of bring the strategies that I witnessed in these other tribes and apply it for us to help us get ahead.”
Kasha Lacoban Clay
Houma, LOuisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Traditions “I would say community in general. There’s many assets of our community so I have and it all kind of links together at some point or another, but I have elders that I speak with, and even communicate with, and it’s on different levels. But sometimes I’ll be speaking with fishermen and sometimes I’ll be talking with youth within educational areas of interest and sometimes I’ll be working with artisans, bead workers, basket weavers, so just the type of place I am even a dancer. “So, I think overall, my favorite part is just the community and the wide range of different talents that people have and different lifestyles that we have within our tribe.” Being UHN “I hold my culture very close to my heart. It is something that I can tie back to my ancestry, where my people are from and learn from the struggles they’ve had throughout generations as well as see our growth in the future and the present. “So, it is not always the prettiest, you know, stories, but by owning up and knowing that’s my heritage, I can teach my kids and move forward from not the prettiest memories.” South Louisiana “I am really connected with the water, just the livelihood of living along the water is huge for me. “My dad has always been a fisherman of some sorts, he’s always been the provider of our home shrimping as well as hunting. He would be a seasonal worker. He would work on the shrimp boats during the shrimping season and he would be away from home hunting during hunting season. “Even when I was like a baby, he would work for skinning alligators at some point, and he also did oystering and he worked offshore shrimping as well, so I’ve always been really connected with our land here, but especially our water systems and that way of life.” Protecting UHN Land “I think that our biggest fear to protect and to continue the traditions is just that, to continue traditions and to show the younger generations the importance of our land and our water here. I know as time passes different occupations become more scarce. Like our people are not just normally fishermen anymore because it is not sustainable for their living anymore. “But at the same time, I think it is important to keep our heritage of being, living off of the land living off of the water, just being connected because I don’t want to lose that part of culture. “Losing that part of culture is also going to lose a lot of work towards sustaining the land and sustaining the water, because there is so many opportunities especially today for our youth and even those coming up right now into college to be able to work in coastal restoration, but I don’t feel like there is as much of a connection culturally that can really push the importance of it as it would have been back in the day.” Listen