DJ, Comedian, and Community Healer Howie Echo-Hawk Joins Deante Damper on We Live In Color
Photos by Jordan Somers
This week on We Live In Color, host Deaunte Damper returns with an episode you won't want to miss! Damper sat down with the multifaceted Howie Echo-Hawk, an Indigenous DJ, comedian, and community healer based out of Seattle. In this engaging segment, Echo-Hawk discussed their background, time in Seattle, and plans for the future.
Born and raised in rural Alaska, Howie Echo-Hawk has deep roots in both Pawnee and Athabaskan cultures. Pawnee on their father's side, Echo-Hawk's family is enrolled as members of the tribe. Growing up near the village of Mentasta, their family was embraced and adopted by the Athabaskan tribe, profoundly shaping their cultural upbringing.
"Alaska is interesting because it remains a very Native place," Echo-Hawk remarked, emphasizing the enduring sense that it was never fully occupied. Despite this, they also highlighted the pervasive racism toward Native people in the state, particularly in cities and surrounding areas.
"Teachers would constantly make racist native jokes, and everybody had a racist native accent and talk about drunk, alcoholic natives," Echo-Hawk said.
They described this behavior as "commonplace," creating a dichotomy in their life. One world was village life with fellow Indigenous people, while the other was the predominantly white town of Delta Junction, where they grew up and attended school. This split experience highlighted the stark contrast between their cultural roots and the broader societal environment. Echo-Hawk highlights that while racism towards them rarely happened, partly due to a combination of sports and music as their way of fitting in, they saw it often with their father.
"He'd go to the bank, and they just ignore him," Echo-Hawk said. "He's a big, tall native guy. A lot of Native people there had just come out of being in boarding schools and dealing with this very recent trauma of colonization."
Echo-Hawk emphasizes that their father was pivotal in instilling a strong determination for success.
"He was very adamant in teaching us we had to be better," Echo-Hawk said, highlighting the need to work twice as hard to succeed. "It worked that we had to be better, that you had to learn how to make eye contact, learn how to shake a hand, and learn all these things that he learned how to do to be like a successful man in the white man's world."
Echo-Hawk left Alaska at 17, moving to Seattle for a fresh start.
"The city was really exciting and really overwhelming in a lot of ways, and just very different," Echo-Hawk said, noting that the city's reputation as a hub for the LGBTQ+ community was a subconscious draw.
"I didn't really consciously know it at the time; I was closeted. I grew up very, very conservative Christian, and that was very frowned upon," Echo-Hawk said. "I didn't know at the time, but it was much more accepted in the village than I had thought, and it's just something that wasn't really necessarily spoken about."
Since moving to Seattle, Echo-Hawk has become a prominent figure in the city's entertainment scene, establishing themselves as an influential Indigenous musician and comedian.
"Music is a part of our life, and it's also part of our protest," Echo-Hawk said. "It's a part of everything."
Highlighting the scarcity of Native DJs in the city, Echo-Hawk explained that there was only one at the time. Motivated to fill this gap, they dove into DJing, learning the craft in just seven days, practicing twice, and then launching their DJ career.
Regarding the name of their showcase, Indigiqueer, Echo-Hawk explained that it harks back to the term Two-Spirit. This term was coined in the 1990s by a group of queer Native people who sought a universal term for those within the Native community who do not conform to traditional gender roles.
"Folks invented this term Two-Spirit to encompass a very broad idea of queerness and gender identities as well for Native people, specifically," Echo-Hawk said.
Despite the term for their performance, Echo-Hawk highlights that they are not adamant about putting a label on themselves.
"I feel like the journey that I am on as a queer person is trying to remember," Echo-Hawk said. "I think about it as remembering, trying to remember who I am, who I might have been prior to colonization, prior to anybody's outside eyes on who I am, who would I have been in my just like natural state and knowing that I'm not like that identity exists. It's in the land, it's in the sky, it's in the spirit, whatever you want to call it. It exists in me."
Regarding Indigenous representation in Washington, Echo-Hawk highlights that it has partly improved due to collectives like their own, Indigenize Productions.
"I never really thought of it as making a queer space," Echo-Hawk said. "I just want to bring native people together."
Now, the collective has done both.
"There is an Indigiqueer festival that happens in June. I throw the Indigenous parties and have spaces, but there are other native performers in the city who do things, and then there are more Indigenous than there were in 2017," Echo-Hawk said. "There's a lot more, and I'm really humbled to be like a part of that legacy."
As for their We Live In Color tribute, Echo-Hawk cites Boom Boom L'Roux, a performer, producer, and staple in Seattle's burlesque scene.
"I would not be doing anything in this city if it were not for Boom Boom," Echo-Hawk said. "She gathered all these people and put us together in this POC-only show, which, at the time, was absurd. Nobody was doing that. She's changed the course of this city. If you think that the performances that exist in the city are not directly impacted by Boom Boom L'Roux and Boom Boom L'Roux Productions, you're wrong. She changed the city."
As for the future, Echo-Hawk will be taking their talents to the road.
"After living in Seattle since 2009 basically, and making as much space for Native people as I can and people of color and anybody who wants to be around me, I found that I think I can leave now," Echo-Hawk said. "I can take this on the road because I've seen a need. I've taken what I've done back home to Alaska and found that there is a need for what I do, making spaces for Indigiqueer people and all of our relatives."
As Echo-Hawk embarks on the second leg of their Indigiqueer tour, you can learn more and find out how to support them by following their social media accounts here.
"Because Indigiqueer, what I do makes the impossible possible," Echo-Hawk said. "I have a queer elder who comes to my events, who is a boarding school survivor. He told me he never thought that he could be in a room of queer native people. It wasn't possible, and I get to do that every time, so if you can support me, you can make that possible, too. It's a great gift that I get to do this, and it's necessary."
Join Deaunte every Thursday on all Converge Media platforms for more engaging conversations with guests like Echo-Hawk, highlighting advocacy work, inclusivity, diversity, and living life in color!
