This interview appears in full at Ms. magazine. Tune in to Looking Back, Moving Forward for more.

Angel Charley spent much of the past decade advocating for women as the executive director of both the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women and Illuminative and a member of New Mexico’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives Task Force, the Alliance of Tribal Coalitions to End Violence, the Albuquerque Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Commission, and the Laguna Federation of Democratic Women. Then she decided to run for office. Charley joined the New Mexico state Senate at a historic moment for women in the state — and she brought her feminist agenda with her.

As part of the first episode of the new Ms. Studios podcast Looking Back, Moving Forward, Charley talked to me about the urgency of diversity in political representation, her journey from activism to politics, and how she plans to hold the line against regressive policies in her state. 

I’m a mom. I’m a daughter of parents that are getting older. I’m a wife and a partner, but I’m also an Indigenous woman. I’m a Native woman before I’m anything else in this world, and that is how I’ve been approaching this. And for as inclusive as New Mexico is for Native people in policy, there are still things that we can do better here. I’m constantly asking: How is this going to affect tribes, nations and pueblos? Have we consulted with them?

We just worked on this huge game and fish wildlife management commission package that changed, and one of the amendments that I offered was to have a Native person on that commission. We’ve never had one before and for that understanding of land and resources and animals there needs to be a Native person on this commission. The amendment passed, and it’s going over to the House side now. It’s those little things that others aren’t thinking about where I’ve realized it’s so important to be in these spaces. 

There’s a handful of us here. There’s more Native folks over the House side. There’s three of us on the Senate side, and the three of us can’t be everywhere at once. But where we are, I think we’re making some meaningful change.

I have really come to believe that we have to expect things for ourselves that we expect for others. It is giving such meaning to the urgency that I’m constantly in. In this role, what that means is if I’m fighting for paid family medical leave or if I’m fighting for a paid legislature, I deserve that too — right here and right now. It doesn’t always have to be for the ones who are coming, we are deserving of the things that we’re fighting for too. That has kept me from spinning out of control. 

—Angel Charley

Read the full interview and tune in to the podcast at Ms. magazine.