Rosalie Fish Spreads Awareness For Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women 1 Race at a Time
Trigger warning: The following article mentions experiences with depression, suicide, and violence.
Rosalie Fish was called to action when runner Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel raced the 2019 Boston Marathon with a deep-red handprint covering her mouth. Daniel’s display of solidarity and advocacy signified the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) epidemic and the systemic erasure Indigenous women face. “To see her being unapologetically Native in her career as a runner, and to even be uplifting and bringing awareness to an issue that greatly impacts our communities . . . it made me feel like I could be powerful the way that she was,” Fish told POPSUGAR.
Fish, a member of Washington’s Cowlitz tribe who grew up on the Muckleshoot reservation in Auburn, reached out to Daniel — of Kul Wicasa Oyate, the Lower Brule Sioux tribe — asking permission to do a similar demonstration at her 2019 high school state championship meet. A senior at Muckleshoot Tribal School at the time and the only student on its track team when she started, Fish remembers needing to walk out of the bathroom with her sister ahead of the competition because of how “heavy” wearing this paint seemed. She already felt out of place during meets, she said, so to take the track adorning the red handprint was intimidating.
At the meet, Fish dedicated each race to a missing or murdered Indigenous woman in her community, one of whom was her aunt: Alice Ida Looney, who went missing in 2004. Looney’s remains were found the following year.
Over time, Fish says racing for missing and murdered Indigenous women became a form of empowerment — and she feels more comfortable and confident running with the red handprint now — but that the burden of bringing attention to such a dire epidemic that directly impacts her, was a shock in the beginning. She herself is a survivor of violence, and she was diagnosed with PTSD upon starting therapy this past fall. By age 14, Fish also experienced severe depression and attempted to take her own life, which she discusses in a summer feature for The Ringer.