The Masculine Wilderness Podcast · Epik Project

Roots & Responsibility: A Conversation on Alaska, Identity, and Human Trafficking with Josie Heyano

·1 hr 8 min

Tom Perez frames the show as a conversation about how men can show up as the best version of themselves. He says that work is impossible without the company, wisdom, leadership, and insight of women. He introduces Josie Hayano, who he recently met in Orlando, Florida, and describes her as an accomplished leader with deep wisdom to offer. Out of respect for her culture and tradition, he asks her to begin with herself and her people. Josie answers by identifying as a Dagatan Athabascan woman from Alaska and by starting from the traditional way she was taught to introduce herself. The exchange keeps that opening centered instead of brushing past it. Tom returns to the respect he has for her culture and for the weight of her experience. The conversation then moves into how women’s wisdom intersects with masculinity and community responsibility. Josie tells a story about watching one Indigenous woman with every degree imaginable try to protect animals and wildlife against an extractive economy and lose to money and power. That scene becomes a wider point about ownership, privilege, and rights. She connects that struggle to sexual violence, domestic abuse, and the language people use when they claim control over other bodies. Tom follows by asking how men can hear women when they express anger without punishing them for it. The talk stays with the reality that women often have to manage anger carefully in order to stay safe, including the possibility of being harmed or fired. Josie and Tom also touch the current political climate in Alaska. They mention executive orders, including language about unleashing Alaska’s economic potential and the blunt command to drill. Josie says that kind of language hurts because it treats the land like something disposable. From there, the conversation turns toward colonial thinking and the expectation that trust or belonging can be assumed. The closing brings the focus back to recognition, acknowledgement, and the need to keep showing up in difficult work without losing sight of tenderness. Josie ends by naming the beauty of community and the small things people do to make the world better.

As heard by us

A searching conversation about land, power, and being heard.

This Alaska centered conversation ties land, identity, and ownership to a wider argument about power. Tom Perez opens with a respectful, guest first tone, and Josie Hayano gives the episode its depth by speaking plainly about culture, extractive economics, women’s anger, and…

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Why you'd press play

For the listener who wants Alaska, masculinity, and responsibility in one steady conversation.

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