An indigenous "art-ivist" from the Suquamish Nation, Calina Lawrence infuses her powerful music with hip-hop, soul, and spoken word poetry. With her self-produced single "“ʔəshəliʔ ti txʷəlšucid [Lushootseed is Alive]", she pays tribute to her heritage by singing in the Coast Salish language of Lushootseed. On social media, she declared, "I can only sing this song in Lushootseed because of every grandchild who spoke it out loud to assure that the laws of these lands’ languages precede any colonial law that exists here through religious warfare, coercion, forced migration, slavery, greed, and violence.”
In an interview with the El Tecolote newspaper, she continues: "There’s this interesting irony of people in this country, people who are demanding immigrants specifically native to the Americas to learn English, but the counter to that is actually no. What are people doing to learn the languages of each particular landscape that they live within, languages that have existed long before the United States? It’s there and it’s accessible… Where do people sit in that discomfort of not knowing what I say in my lyrics?”
