LIVING AND DYING IN PRYOR, MONTANA

In Pryor, Montana, life moves at the pace of a subtle breeze grazing atop blades of grass in a field. Out of all reservations in the United States of America, Crow Reservation is the sixth poorest, with a 30% poverty rate, along with a 27% poverty rate in Pryor specifically.

Homes with no running water or electricity, broken down cars lining the streets, and boarded up homes due to drug raids of old meth labs tell the story of trauma and systemic hardship passed down from generations before. But what most people don’t see is an epidemic of kidnapping and murder that plagues indigenous women on native land, often unseen and unreported in the national media. Indigenous women face the highest rates of violence per capita out of any other race, by being sexually assaulted, stalked, and preyed upon by non-Natives.

Nearly 84% of all indigenous women experience violence in their lifetime, and are 4 times more likely to be sexually assaulted, and on some reservations are 10 times more likely to be murdered.

Sadly, families are frequently left wondering about their missing loved ones for years, often without acknowledgment from law enforcement or national data reporting.

All of these photos were taken in Pryor, Montana in August 2019, on a 10-day stay where I focused on getting to know the Crow people, talking and listening to their stories, and hoping to shed light on the truths of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) that most of America knowingly or unknowingly turns a blind eye toward.