What if you woke up one morning and your mother was missing? You called her phone to find that you got sent to her voicemail. You text your family. No one has heard from her either. Your eyes get blurry as your heart races. You desperately reach out to the police for any kind of help. They tell you to wait, that she probably left on her own. They do not search. They refuse to act.
This isn’t a hypothetical for many indigenous families in the United States. This is their reality.
May 5 is Red Dress Day, also known as the National Day of Action for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women (MMIW). Across North America, native people wear red and hang empty red dresses to honor those who are missing or have been taken. In many Indigenous cultures, red is believed to be the only color spirits can see. It is used to call them home, guide them back to their families, even if only in spirit.
These dresses are left empty for a reason.
Walking around the Mercy campus, the lack of indigenous acknowledgment was very apparent. There are no visible land acknowledgments, no installations, no reminders that this land has a history long before the institution existed. In casual conversations with students and staff, it became clear that this absence was not just physical; it extended into people’s understanding. Many did not know much about Indigenous peoples at all.
To better understand the gaps, I surveyed 80 Mercy University students and staff. The results were alarming to me. A total of 72 percent of people did not believe there were more than 100 federally recognized tribes, the majority assuming fewer than 20. There are 575 federally recognized tribes. When I shared this number, many participants were visibly shocked. Some attempted to explain their answers by referencing distrust in government systems or the belief that the government does not recognize Indigenous people. This revealed not only a lack of knowledge but confusion about how recognition actually works in the United States,
The geography awareness was just as limited. The majority of respondents did not know where these tribes were located either. Only one person at Mercy knew that the majority of United States tribes are located in Alaska, 220 tribes. Most people guessed Arizona, California, and Wyoming. While those states do have significant native populations, the overwhelming assumption that Indigenous people exist primarily in the western United States reinforces the idea that native communities are distant, removed from everyday life in places like New York.
That assumption showed up very directly as well. A Mercy student asked, “What is there even to do in Alaska? Do people genuinely live there?”
I also found that few Mercy students or staff could name any tribe at all when I asked whose land Mercy’s Dobbs Ferry campus resides on.
“I didn’t even know we were on native land,” a Mercy student said.
Only four people could identify that our campus resides on the land of the Lenape. The disconnect between the land on which so many go to school and the original inhabitants was stark.
The Lenape, or the Delaware Indians, were pushed out of Dobbs Ferry, the Hudson Valley, and the greater New York City Metropolitan region due to colonialism. With only three federally recognized Lenape tribes, two in Oklahoma and one in Wisconsin, it seems the erasure and colonialism of the Lenape people is still ongoing. However, there are various state-recognized tribes, such as the Ramapough Lenape of North Jersey, residing in the region. The erasure that began with displacement has continued in quieter ways: through education gaps, lack of acknowledgment, and public misunderstanding.
This pattern of misunderstanding points to a deeper issue: Indigenous peoples are often treated as a historical footnote rather than as modern communities. When people are unaware of how many tribes exist or where they are located, it becomes easier to overlook ongoing issues, contributions, and sovereignty. The lack of awareness I observed on campus is not just about missing facts. It reflects an educational and cultural gap that continues to marginalize Indigenous voices.
In 2024, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that 10,248 missing indigenous people, consisting of 5,614 women and 4,626 men. Most women reported missing are identified as under the age of 18. The National Indigenous Women Resource Center reports that homicide is the third leading cause of death in native women aged 10-24. This isn’t an isolated issue; it is an ongoing epidemic that is often silent.
Nearly 95 percent of missing indigenous cases do not make it to mainstream media.
When people do not know Indigenous communities exist in the present, they are less likely to notice when those communities are in crisis. When there is no awareness, there is no urgency. And when there is no urgency, there is no action.
The knowledge gap I observed at Mercy helps explain why this crisis continues. Even among college-educated students and staff, there was little understanding of Indigenous realities in the United States today. However, in conversations after the survey, many people expressed something important: they wanted to know more. They acknowledged that their education had failed them in this area and expressed interest in learning about Indigenous history and culture.
Awareness alone will not solve the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women crisis, but without it, nothing changes.
We cannot address a crisis that people do not see. We cannot advocate for communities that people do not know exist.
Indigenous people are still here. They are not relics of the past, nor are they confined to distant places. They are present in cities, in rural communities, and on the very land Mercy University occupies.
Recognizing that is the bare minimum.
