TRUDY: You know in Alaska, among the Native people it's -- a very hard thing to do is to become an officer of that organization. It doesn't matter what Indian organization it is. But it's very hard.

They're very fluent about everything. They need to know this, they need to know that. They want you to do this, they want you to do that.

So, it's very hard to be Indian. I don't know how other people are. I just know how hard it is to be an Indian, because I'm Indian. It was hard getting into different offices.

But with the School Board it was the Superintendents and the people that were delegates for the School Board that voted me in, so I got in. I didn't want to. Same thing with the Grand President. Though, I traveled quite a bit. That's where my kids came in, my husband came in.

KAREN: So, if you were traveling there was nobody in Hoonah to be the health aide while you were gone?

TRUDY: No, that's what I said. My kids and my husband were the ones. I never traveled before I had any help. It was after I had help.

KAREN: Once there was a second health aide?

TRUDY: Yeah, Bea Brown became a health aide.

KAREN: Did you ever feel -- you were talking about that, it's hard being Indian some times. Did you feel that with the work you did with the health aide and dealing with the hospital and the doctors or trainers or anything?

TRUDY: No, I never felt that way with the people. I did kind of feel that way with some of the people at the hospital because it didn't seem to bother them -- it seemed like that some people felt like you shouldn't have been Native. I always felt that way. I don't know if you know what I'm talking about --

KAREN: No, I don't --

TRUDY: -- but you're white. So, they would be happy if you were the health aide rather than a Tlingit. Tlingit woman. That's the way I felt. But -- but we became very close to the people that we worked with. They began to see the different view of, I guess, of Tlingit people.

KAREN: So, they did trust you.

TRUDY: They probably did, after the fact.

KAREN: It's interesting, and the thought just occurred to me that in a way you were ambassadors.

TRUDY: Yeah. I thought a lot of that. I thought a very lot of that. I always thought, well if it wasn't for us, our people wouldn't be able to do this. I felt that way about different organizations like the ANS and School Board.

KAREN: 'Cause yeah. There are people out there who didn't believe Native people could do things and you proved them wrong.

TRUDY: I just felt like that. It may have been just my own feelings that I felt like people didn't believe in us -- enough. I felt like they didn't believe in us enough to do anything.

KAREN: Well, that time period you probably were right.

TRUDY: But I worked very hard to make sure I tried to do everything right. I think everybody else did. After two or three years it would seem so minor when we went to training.

I'd tell Barbara: “You know, three years ago it seemed like we were under somebody's thumb, but now we don't feel that way.”

And she said: “Yeah, come to think of it.” We did what we pleased, we cooked anytime we pleased. We stayed at the housing that they had across the hospital, and we had our own kitchen we could cook there. That's why we had so much fun.