Ann Luster Robichaux
Theriot, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition Use of garfish scales in traditional jewelry Being UHN “It’s almost like it’s a dying art, as I find as the generations go on, a lot of the kids, the younger generation aren’t keeping it up. So, I find it’s important as far as being a tribal member to keep it alive because once all that’s gone you have no tribe.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “It’s awesome and it’s still awesome. I told my mom when I was 18, I’m moving and getting away from here but then I bought a house 2 miles up the road from her. It’s amazing on the bayou.” Listen
Lora Ann Chaisson
Pointe-aux-Chênes, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition Cooking and basket weaving Being UHN “Knowing there’s only 17,000 of us in the world and there’s only one of me and the fact that I am one of 17,000 is so special to me. “It’s not like you can go across the country and get an Houma Indian, so that is special to me. “Some tribes get all these extra benefits, while we don’t get any benefits. We work hard for everything we have.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “I feel blessed even with all of the prejudice growing up to be a part of my community “Everything I’ve been through has made me who I am today, and now I am a strong Houma woman.” Listen
John Rodrigue
Pointe-aux-Chênes, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition Fishing Being UHN “ A good thing about it is that tribes can get together and teach their children their heritage.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “We fished a lot, shrimp, a lot of commercial fishing. As far as playtime, you made your own playtime.” Listen
Clyde Billiot
Golden Meadow, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition “We loved swimming, playing in the bayou, climbing my aunt and uncles trees. Can’t go wrong. We used play sticks, where you take a stick and throw it and see wherever it lands. We used to play that a lot.” Being UHN “ It means when you get together you are a group. You stand for one. It sounds like a whole bunch of different people, but you stand for one.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “There is no place like home. I’ve been all over the United States and even outside of the United States and there’s nothing like coming home to Louisiana. I don’t know if it’s smelling the muddy water and seeing those oak trees and knowing that you’re home.” Listen
Bette Billiot
Dulac, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Tradition “Outside of family coming together at powwows, it would be getting together with my aunts and cooking and learning their cooking.” Being UHN “I am very prideful of who I am and where I come from. I think it was meant for me to be a part of this tribe and family. “To be brought up to have learned both sides of the tribe, my father was a council member in the 90s and I learned a lot of the behind the scenes and the politics of the tribe at a very young age and I had an aunt that taught me the traditional and dancing and meaning side of the tribe. “I was very blessed to be able to grow up, you know, with that in me and that played a major part in me when I became an adult and being able to pass that on to my boys.” Growing Up in South Louisiana “There is no place like home. I’ve been all over the United States and even outside of the United States and there’s nothing like coming home to Louisiana. I don’t know if it’s smelling the muddy water and seeing those oak trees and knowing that you’re home.” 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
Janie Verret Luster
Dularge, Louisiana United Houma Nation Favorite Traditions “I’m a traditional Houma Indian basket weaver and traditional artist using the alligator gar fish. I still practice some of our old traditional medicines that were passed down to me by my parents and grandparents and great aunts – very proud of that.” Being UHN “Sharing our culture is one of my loves. It’s so important that our people know their history and know who they are and where they come from.” Listen