MESSAGE

Victimization of American Indian and Native woman is 1.2 times higher than white women.

On a mission

Johnson and her family moved to Winnebago when she was ve and she was raised as a tribal member of the Nebraska Ho-Chunk tribe, and given the name Rainbow Woman. She left home when she was in her preteens and has kept moving.

“I don’t know if God would bless me to go further in my trucking industry or this is the end of my travels but when I see family I want to make an apple pie,” Johnson said.

Nebraska is always her home, she said, but Brighton, where her son and my grandchildren live, is her second home. She spends half her time with them.

Johnson started her mission because she was a victim of abuse herself. It was a two-way abusive situation, she said: He was abusive to her, but she fought back. “He would put me on his lap with a knife at my throat. It was a toxic relationship; I left, and I was done. As soon that door closed, God, or wherever you want to believe, started to open other doors for me,” Johnson said.

She had worked as a construction driver in the summer and fall. She was laid o in the winter but guaranteed to return in the summer. Even so, she said she needed a more consistent job and she needed reliable transportation to do that. She found a pick-up truck she liked and approached a bank looking for a loan.

“ ey never wanted to give me a loan but I told them if you don’t give me a loan, I’m going to go somewhere else,” she said. “ is is income that comes to your bank and comes back out. ey gave me the loan and I purchased a brandnew Silverado. When I purchased the truck, that was when I left the man. I thought I was going to die leaving him and was heartbroken, but I left.”

Johnson said she drove the Silverado for a while and although it was nice to drive a cute truck, she was still broke.

“I went back to the bank and asked for a loan to trade o the Silverado for a used semi to make