Courtesy Photo | LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (1985) - Lisa Savoy, currently a Defense...... read more read more
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Lisa Savoy is walking in two worlds and that has been the case for as long as she can remember.
The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) Field Office Chief of the Alexandria 1 Office – scheduled to retire in January 2022 – looked back fondly over her military and government career while recounting her activities and service as a member of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe.
“I call it the civilian world and what I do in my native life,” said Savoy. She is an expert in various arts and crafts, producing beadwork for her tribe since she was in elementary school. “We would have our tribal school on the weekends to learn about our heritage as well as bead work, dance, arts and crafts. I traveled up and down the east coast with my tribal family to pow wows where we would see other kids like us.”
The transition to military service was natural for Savoy and her three tribal cousins who joined different branches of the military. After a year of business school, Savoy’s desire for travel inspired her enlistment in the Air Force as a Morse code systems operator in 1985. Before transitioning into the civilian world four years later, she travelled throughout Europe while based in Italy and still keeps in touch with her former Air Force colleagues.
“At times, people ask why I don’t have a tribal tag on my personal vehicle,” said Savoy who displays a military license plate. “I tell them that I was born a Native American but chose to serve in the military. It was something I needed to do to better myself and help other people, especially native kids, see that there are so many things we can do in the world to make a contribution to the whole, not just as an individual.”
Once back in the states, she began her federal career at the Naval Research Lab before moving to the former Defense Security Service for more opportunities in the security field. Savoy immediately reengaged with her tribe as an active member, eventually serving as a commissioner on the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs from 2014-2020, to include a leadership role as commission chair for five years.
“As the commissioner, I would inform the tribe of what we were doing at the state level,” Savoy recounted. “Our request for a secondary tribe, which is located on Maryland’s eastern shore, was recognized by the state in 2017. Our commission’s work with the museums in Baltimore and Annapolis included a partnership with a Baltimore children’s museum in recognition of American Indian Heritage Day.”
As a member and chair of the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs, Savoy served the interests of Native American communities in Maryland by aiding in the process of obtaining state and federal recognition in addition to promoting awareness and better understanding of the historic and contemporary contributions of Native Americans. She led efforts to assist state, local, and private agencies provide resources to address the educational, social, and economic needs of the state’s Native American communities.
In February, Savoy is planning to work on an oral compilation of tribal history with her aunt and former tribal chair, Mervin Savoy. “I will sit down with her for a couple of days and go through our tribe as far back as she can go for both sides of our family.”
The oral history to obtain the facts and her aunt’s perspective on the tribe’s history will be documented for the family. “I’m sure we’ll have a discussion on making it publicly releasable,” said Savoy. “A publicly released version will be good information, especially for the millennial Native Americans, and we’ll take out the personal part. It will have an overview of the tribal aesthetic. I’m sure it will cover the Lord Calvert history as well as different tribal activities and festivals – when we do them and why.”
As keynote speaker for an agency Native American History Month Observance at the Russell-Knox Building in November 2018, Savoy told her audience that the Piscataway Conoy Tribe helped Maryland’s first governor, Leonard Calvert, and his crew survive in 1634 upon their arrival after 90 days at sea. Calvert colonized the tribe’s ancestral homelands and a Jesuit priest, Father Andrew White, converted the tribe to Catholicism.
At that time, the Piscataway Conoy confederacy of tribes’ territory extended between the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay to the watershed of the Potomac River in Virginia, and all land from the southern tip of St. Mary’s County, Md., north to include Baltimore and Washington D.C. “We have always been in the area walking, talking and living amongst everyone although we have not been acknowledged in many ways over the decades and centuries,” said Savoy.
Moreover, Savoy recounted that in certain areas of the country, Native Americans were not allowed to own property.
“We would have to say it belonged to someone else although we paid for it, lived and worked on it,” she said. “My Dad’s family who were tobacco farmers, owned a lot of land but they could not say, ‘hey, this is my land.’ They would have to say they were working it for someone else or the state would come and declare that the land cannot belong to them as Native Americans.”
Savoy encourages everyone to support or find out more about their local native communities throughout the year – not just during Native American Heritage Month.
“You will learn the most about a tribe’s history by attending and supporting their pow wows or gatherings,” she said. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to purchase the bead work, arts and crafts, and you can learn the dancing. You’ll learn the meaning of why we do what we do.”
| Date Taken: | 11.09.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 11.09.2021 18:26 |
| Story ID: | 409064 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 467 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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