From a single mother struggling to make ends meet to the first Native American woman elected governor of an American state, Deb Haaland’s journey is a reminder that sometimes the people who change history are the ones who know exactly what it feels like to struggle.
There is something about a woman who has had to figure it out.
Not the polished version of figuring it out, either. Not the inspirational quote on a pretty background. We’re talking about the real business of making rent, raising a child, starting over, asking for help and getting up the next morning to try again.
And if there is one thing Deb Haaland’s story tells us, it is that a difficult beginning does not get to dictate the ending.
On November 3, New Mexico voters elected Haaland governor, making her the first Native American woman elected to lead a U.S. state. A member of the Pueblo of Laguna, she has now added another extraordinary first to a career that has repeatedly placed her in rooms where Native American women had rarely been represented.
But this is not a story that begins in a campaign office.
It begins with a military family, a childhood spent moving from place to place and a young woman who would eventually have to build a life on her own terms.
Haaland’s father was a career Marine who served in Vietnam. Her mother served in the Navy and later worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Growing up in a military household meant attending 13 public schools before graduating from high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Imagine being the new girl thirteen times. New classrooms, new faces, new routines. Perhaps that early experience of constantly adapting helped prepare her for a career that would require her to navigate institutions that were not always designed with people like her in mind.
But the most defining chapter of her life may have come when she became a mother.
Haaland raised her daughter, Somah, as a single parent while trying to build a career and continue her education. Money was tight. She relied on food assistance, struggled with housing and found creative ways to make ends meet. She even started a small salsa business, producing and selling her own product while raising her daughter.
Yes, salsa.
Before the Cabinet meetings and congressional hearings, there was a mother making a business out of what she could create, trying to keep the lights on and make sure her child had what she needed.
And then there was law school.
Haaland earned her undergraduate degree from the University of New Mexico and later returned to earn her law degree, graduating in her forties. She did not follow the traditional timeline that society often assigns to success. She built her education around the life she was already living.
There is something rather refreshing about that. We spend so much time asking people where they should be by a certain age that we forget life does not always follow the calendar.
Haaland’s road was not without personal struggles. She has spoken publicly about her history with alcohol, including two arrests for driving under the influence. She has also discussed her sobriety and the work it takes to maintain it. Her openness about addiction has become part of her public story, particularly as New Mexico continues to confront substance use and public health challenges.
It is not a small thing to tell the public about a chapter of your life that many people would prefer to keep hidden. And it is certainly not something that should be reduced to a campaign talking point. Her experience gives her a personal understanding of the challenges families face, but it does not remove the responsibility to deliver solutions.
Then came politics.
Haaland became involved in tribal administration and community leadership before entering electoral politics. In 2015, she became the first Native American woman to chair a state Democratic Party, leading the Democratic Party of New Mexico.
In 2018, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming one of the first two Native American women to serve in Congress. Her election was historic, but her work focused on issues affecting real communities: public lands, Indigenous rights, environmental protection, economic opportunity and the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
In 2021, President Joe Biden nominated her to serve as secretary of the Interior. Her confirmation made her the first Native American person to serve as a Cabinet secretary in the history of the United States.
Think about that for a moment.
The Department of the Interior oversees federal public lands, natural resources and the government’s relationships and responsibilities involving federally recognized tribes. For the first time, a Native American person was leading that department.
It was a moment that carried generations of history into a federal office.
Now, Haaland has made history again.
Her election as governor is significant not simply because she is the first Native American woman to hold the office, but because of the communities and history she represents. Indigenous people have been part of this land for generations, long before the borders and political institutions we recognize today. Yet Native American women have remained dramatically underrepresented in the highest levels of elected government.
Haaland’s victory does not erase that history. It does, however, change what the next generation can see.
A young Native girl in New Mexico can now look at the governor’s office and see someone whose identity and heritage are part of the story, not something that had to be left outside the door.
And perhaps that is what makes this particular first so meaningful.
Haaland has been the first in a state political party, among the first in Congress, the first Native American Cabinet secretary and now the first Native American woman elected governor of a state.
At some point, you have to wonder what it feels like to keep making history while everyone keeps calling you a trailblazer. Does anyone ever get to simply do the job?
That is the balance facing every historic first. The achievement deserves recognition, but the person also deserves the room to lead, make decisions, be challenged and be judged by the work.
New Mexico’s next chapter will not be written by symbolism alone. Residents will expect progress on affordability, healthcare, education, public safety, economic opportunity and the state’s many rural and Indigenous communities.
The historic election is the beginning of that responsibility, not the conclusion.
And for the rest of us, there is a lesson worth taking away. Sometimes the person who changes the room is the person who once struggled just to find a place in it.
Deb Haaland’s story reminds us that a first does not have to come from a perfect beginning. It can come from persistence, reinvention, community and the courage to keep moving when the path looks nothing like the one you imagined.
History has a way of making the destination look inevitable. It rarely shows you all the mornings it took to get there.
QUESTION OF THE DAY
Have you ever had to start over later in life, change direction or pursue a dream on a timeline that looked nothing like everyone else’s? What did that experience teach you about your own possibilities?
STAY IN THE MOOD
Your beginning is part of your story, but it does not have to be the ending. Keep learning, keep building and never let somebody else’s timeline convince you that your moment has passed.
