Junco Ito(伊藤淳子）

Seventy-eight years ago, Native Americans in New Mexico were still fighting for the right to vote. Last night, a Native American woman was elected to lead the entire state. Her name is Deb Haaland. And her journey to becoming the first Native American woman elected governor in United States history is extraordinary. She is 65 years old, a member of Laguna Pueblo, a mother, a grandmother, and a woman who knows what it means to struggle. Before Washington, before Congress, before making history, Haaland was a single mother trying to keep food on the table. She relied on food stamps. She lived paycheck to paycheck. At times, she and her child had no permanent home, staying with relatives or sleeping on friends' couches. She went back to college at 28, graduated while nine months pregnant, and later earned a law degree. She sold homemade salsa to support her family. And she kept going. In 2018, she became one of the first two Native American women elected to Congress. In 2021, she became the first Native American to serve as a United States Cabinet secretary. As Secretary of the Interior, she confronted one of America's darkest chapters: the government-run system of boarding schools that separated Indigenous children from their families, languages and cultures. This history was personal. Her own grandmother had been taken from home as a child and sent to one of those schools. Now consider what happened on November 3, 2026. During National Native American Heritage Month, voters in New Mexico elected Haaland as their next governor. For generations, Indigenous people had been denied political rights in a land their ancestors inhabited long before the United States existed. Haaland describes herself as a 35th-generation New Mexican. And last night, standing before a cheering crowd, she spoke about being a single mother, overcoming poverty and working toward a future she once could scarcely have imagined. “Here in New Mexico, we can do anything. And, I know this because I am living proof.” A woman who once struggled to afford groceries will now lead a state of more than two million people. Her name is Deb Haaland. And on November 3, 2026, she made American history.