March 24, 2021
Debra Anne Haaland was born December 2, 1960, to an Indigenous American woman who served in the United States Navy and a Norwegian Minnesotan father who was a Major in the United States Marine Corps. Haaland and her three sisters and one brother, like any military family, frequently moved as children. Haaland attended more than a dozen public schools across the country before the family settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Haaland graduated from high school in Albuquerque and later attended the University of New Mexico, working to earn her Bachelor of Arts in English in 1994. Haaland gave birth to her daughter, Somáh, days after receiving her undergraduate degree. As a single mom, Haaland struggled and often found herself struggling between paychecks, relying on food stamps, and leaning on friends and family for support.
In 2006, Haaland graduated from the University of New Mexico Law School with her Juris Doctorate in Indian Law. She is not a member of the New Mexico State Bar. Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, became the first chairwoman elected to the Laguna Development Corporation Board of Directors, a business created to strengthen the community and its economy. Haaland oversaw the second largest tribal gaming enterprise in New Mexico, and she advocated creating earth-friendly business practices.
In 2015 she was elected to chair the New Mexico Democratic Party, and in her two years terms, she covered millions in deficit left by past chairs and won seats for Democrats at all levels of New Mexico politics. She was one of the first two Indigenous women elected to the United States Congress in 2018, which she won again in 2020 but resigned shortly afterward. In 2021, Haaland was nominated and later confirmed to become the first female and the Indigenous Secretary of the Interior. She is only the second-ever Indigenous person to hold a presidential cabinet-level position.
Interior Secretary Haaland is now the earth-friendly advocate for one-fifth of the land in the United States and the liaison for all tribal nations and the United States government. According to NPR, one-quarter of U.S. carbon emissions is sourced from fossil fuels from federal lands falling under the interior secretary’s purview. While Haaland said the climate-crisis was the challenge of our lifetime, she also promised the senate she would promote the presidential agenda, not her own, as interior secretary. Deb Haaland has been and will continue to be an engine for positive change for our planet and its people.
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Internal