Alaskan
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
politician, writer and dramatist. She was the 2010 Democratic nominee for
lieutenant governor of Alaska
The lieutenant governor of Alaska is the deputy elected official to the governor of the U.S. state of Alaska. Unlike most lieutenant governors in the U.S., the office also maintains the duties of a secretary of state, and indeed was named such ...
, defeating three other opponents in the Democratic primary. Benson's running mate for governor was former state House minority leader
Ethan Berkowitz
Ethan Avram Berkowitz (born February 4, 1962) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician from Alaska. From 1997 to 2007 he was the Alaska State Representative for District 26, serving as the Democratic Party Minority Leader from 1999 t ...
; they lost in the general election to the Republican ticket of
Sean Parnell
Sean Randall Parnell (born November 19, 1962) is an American attorney and politician. He succeeded Sarah Palin in July 2009 to become the tenth governor of Alaska and served until 2014.Mead Treadwell by 22% of the vote.
Benson ran for Alaska governor as the
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...
candidate in 2002 and for the U.S. House against veteran incumbent
Don Young
Donald Edwin Young (June 9, 1933 – March 18, 2022) was an American politician from the state of Alaska. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving Republican in congressional history, having been the U.S. representative for for ...
as the Democratic nominee in 2006, attaining a historically good result of 40% with little support by the party. In her second House bid in 2008 she was defeated in the Democratic primary by Berkowitz, the person with whom she would run on the 2010 gubernatorial ticket and who was that year a "Red to Blue" candidate supported by the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is the United States Democratic Party, Democratic Hill committee for the United States House of Representatives, working to elect Democrats to that body. The DCCC recruits candidates, raises ...
.
Life and education
According to Benson's official biography from her website, unlike her older brothers, she was born outside of Alaska in Yakima, Washington in 1954, while her mother was being treated for tuberculosis. Of Norwegian ancestry on her father's side and Tlingit ancestry on her mother's side, her tribal identity is T'akdeintaan (Sea Tern crest of the Raven Moiety) and Tax' Hit (Snail House).
Benson grew up in southeastern Alaska in foster homes and boarding school as well as logging camps with her father and in
with her grandparents. She began volunteer work with senior citizens at Ketchikan Hospital at the age of 12, and although often homeless, worked a variety of social-service–oriented jobs with the underprivileged and the elderly until she took a position with the Fairbanks Native Association. At the age of 18 Benson was the youngest person ever to serve on the FNA Executive Board, and was invited by then-
U.S. Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
Mike Gravel to work in Washington, D.C. She was accepted to study at Stanford University but could not attend due to personal and family reasons. Benson acquired a job as one of the first female tractor-trailer truck drivers on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, in 1975.
In 1977, after working on a gill-netter (fishing boat) in
Bristol Bay
Bristol Bay ( esu, Iilgayaq, russian: Залив Бристольский) is the easternmost arm of the Bering Sea, at 57° to 59° North 157° to 162° West in Southwest Alaska. Bristol Bay is 400 km (250 mi) long and 290 km, ( ...
, and after completion of the pipeline, she worked numerous jobs including as a researcher for the Alaska Federation of Natives human resources department, layout artist and writer for the ''
Tundra Times
''The Tundra Times'' was a bi-weekly newspaper published in Fairbanks, Alaska from 1962 to 1997.
Background
The first edition of "The Eskimo-Indian All-Alaska Newspaper" was published on 1 October 1962, and was written by and for Alaska Natives a ...
'', researcher for North Pacific Rim, and other contracts. She paid for two years of college by driving trucks in the early 1980s as Alaska's first female union concrete-mixer driver. She did volunteer research work for the Berger Commission, and from 1986 until 1988 was a
paralegal
A paralegal, also known as a legal assistant, or paralegal specialist is a professional who performs tasks that require knowledge of legal concepts but not the full expertise of a lawyer with a license to practice law. The market for paralegals i ...
for Alaska Legal Services. Through the 1990s Benson ran the Northern Stars Talent Agency, promoting Alaska's talent in films and commercials nationally and internationally.
In 2001 Benson made local and national news when she objected to her master's degree advisor's use of her clan (Snail House) in a controversial sexual abuse poem, ''Indian Girls She filed a grievance regarding disparate classroom treatment but the U.S. Department of Education found in favor of the professor. Benson completed her master's in creative writing in 2002 at another campus and under the tutelage of Pulitzer Prize winner
N. Scott Momaday
Navarre Scott Momaday (born February 27, 1934) is a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. His novel ''House Made of Dawn'' was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969, and is considered the first major work of the Native ...
. She continues graduate studies, on a master's in public policy, at New England College.
Theatre and writing
Benson began performance work in 1980 and has worked with most major Alaskan theatre companies in such productions as ''Crimes of the Heart'', ''Wonderland'', and ''Keet Shagoon''. She taught stagecraft to inmates in Alaska prisons; led at-risk kids in summer theatre and video programs with Out North Contemporary Art House, created the first contemporary Alaska Native theatre in the state of Alaska in 1985; The Alaska Native Dance & Story Theatre; toured nationally with Naa Kahidi Theatre; directed in Canada for the Nakai Theatre Ensemble, was project coordinator for the Silamiut Greenlandic Theatre Project, several time Artist-in-Residence in rural Alaska, and wrote a number of plays including ''Sister Warrior'' and ''When My Spirit Raised Its Hands''. Her one-woman show centering on early civil rights leader Elizabeth Peratrovich has earned Benson acclaim from Native journals and writers' groups, and was performed in Washington D.C. in March 2006 as part of the
Smithsonian Institution's
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded o ...
contribution to Women's History Mont She moved into film production work and co-produced a video, ''Pathways to Hope: Healing Child Sexual Abuse''. Thereafter, she worked as researcher, writer and actor on the PBS documentary ''For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska''.
She has appeared in the television film ''Christmas with a Capital C'', Disney's ''White Fang'', the award-winning ''Box of Daylight'', television's ''Real Stories of the Highway Patrol'', and the International Animated Film Festival award-winning ''Sacajawea'' (1989) and the Alaska film ''Kusah Hakwaan'' as well as numerous industrials and commercials.
Benson has received recognition for her literary and public service work and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Poetry (2000), the Alpert Award in the Arts (2004), and a USA Fellowship (2005). She received a gold medal from the International Committee, the Mayor's Certificate, and an Alaska State Legislature Citation for outstanding work as the 1996 Arctic Winter Games Cultural Coordinator, received a Goldie Award (2005) for her work on the radio program ''Today in Alaska Native History'', received an Outstanding Service Award (2006) from the Anchorage Equal Rights Commission and a Trailblazer Award (2007) from
Delta Sigma Theta
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. () is a historically African American sorority. The organization was founded by college-educated women dedicated to public service with an emphasis on programs that assist the African American community. Delta ...
sorority. In 2012 Benson received a national Bonnie Heavy-Runner Victim Advocacy Award for outstanding service to victims of crime in Indian country.
Political career
Benson entered the world of politics a week after completing her master's degree in creative writing to run as a
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...
candidate (2002) with Desa Jacobson as the first two Native women to fill a ticket for governor and lieutenant governor, respectively. They received 1.26 percent of the vote.
In 2006, Benson returned to the Democratic Party and defeated former state representative Ray Metcalfe, among others, to win the nomination in Alaska's at-large congressional district, but lost in the general election to longtime Republican incumbent
Don Young
Donald Edwin Young (June 9, 1933 – March 18, 2022) was an American politician from the state of Alaska. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving Republican in congressional history, having been the U.S. representative for for ...
, finishing with just over 40 percent of the vote to Young's 57 percent.Alaska Division of Elections. (December 5, 2006) "State of Alaska - 2007 General Election: November 7, 2006 — Official Results." State of Alaska, Division of Elections. Benson ran a mostly volunteer campaign, with little support from the state or national Democratic parties until near the campaign's end. Her campaign spent about $200,000, about one-tenth of what the Young campaign spent. After her son sustained severe injuries while in service in Iraq, Benson focused her campaign on a call to end the Iraq War, and for improved outfitting of the troops. She criticized Young over his relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the Northern Mariana Islands business interests that Abramoff represented. Benson was Young's third opponent in 33 years to obtain a high percentage of the vote, and the first in 16 years. She made history when just before the election she was the first to debate the incumbent in a live televised debate on the local NBC station. Benson also succeeded in breaking a long-held policy omitting congressional challengers at the state's largest Alaskan conference, when she took the stage at the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention to speak as a congressional candidate at the insistence of the convention delegates.
In the August 2010 primary, Benson defeated multimillionaire Jack Powers and taxi driver Lynette Moreno-Hinz to become the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor. Ironically, Benson ran on the same ticket with the man who defeated her in 2008 for the congressional nomination, former state representative Ethan Berkowitz. The two made an uncomfortable pair and they lost the general election. Since that campaign, Benson continues to teach and advocate for veterans and victims of crime.
Personal life
Benson lives in
Chugiak, Alaska
Chugiak is an unincorporated community in the Municipality of Anchorage in the U.S. state of Alaska, situated approximately northeast of downtown Anchorage.
Geography
Chugiak is located between Eagle River to the south and Eklutna to the nor ...
, a community of
Anchorage
Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...
in American Indian Quarterly, 27.1&2 (2003) pp. 67–79, reproduced on line.
* ''Witness to the Stolen'', Raven's Word Press, 2002.
* ''Sister Warrior'', 2002. (play)
* ''When My Spirit Raised its Hands: The Story of Elizabeth Peratrovich and Alaska Civil Rights'', 2001. (one-act play, see article below)
* ''Spirit of Woman''
* ''Freight, Moon and Inconvenience'', 2000.
* ''When Raven Cries'' (with Kadashan and Bertrand J. Adams), 1997.
* ''Umyuugwagka: My Mind, My Consciousness. An Anthology of Poetry from the Arctic Regions'' .
* "Recovery" and "Potlatch Ducks", in Callaloo, 17:1 (Winter 1994) (Available via JSTOR, requires login.)