My name is Mary Marks. My Tlingit name is Nilkhaagugéi. I come from the Gao Hít house in Klukwan. My grandparents were Eli and Daisy Phillips. My mother was Pauline Case. I grew up on 9th Street in Juneau and in Anchorage, and I graduated high school in Anchorage in 1981. I have four kids. I became the first Tlingit woman to be elected to the Anchorage School Board. I’ve been teaching all my life: I had my own childcare business and have worked for Head Start and the Juneau School District.

“I’m finally able to really heal. You know that Band-Aid is really coming off. I noticed in myself that I’m a stronger speaker, a stronger mother, a grandmother, a stronger advocate. It took a while to face those ghosts.”