Mohegan — For a self-described “shy girl from Uncasville,” being named the 45th treasurer of the United States — the first Native American so appointed — is pretty heady stuff to say the least.
On Friday, three days after the historic announcement, Lynn Malerba, chief of the Mohegan Tribe, was ebullient, using such words as “surreal,” “amazing” and “humbling” as she described her path to the sub-Cabinet-level post during an interview in her office at the Mohegan Community and Government Center.
First, she walked the center’s grounds, posing for pictures in front of a statue of her great-grandfather Burrill Fielding, who served the Mohegans as Chief Matahga from 1937 to 1952.
What might he have thought about a Mohegan woman’s signature on U.S. currency?
Malerba’s been pondering such things since she was first asked by a reporter about the signature she’ll provide, a treasurer’s prerogative since 1861. Thirty-four of the previous treasurers have lent their signatures to the nation’s bank notes, as have 32 Treasury secretaries and 17 “registers of the Treasury.”
Malerba’s thinking she might sign “Chief Lynn Malerba” or maybe “Chief Many Hearts Lynn Malerba,” depending, she said, on “what they will allow.” Her Mohegan name, “Mutawi Mutahash,” translates as “Many Hearts.”
Once Malerba’s appointment as treasurer becomes official with a yet-to-be-scheduled swearing in, it’ll be some time before the currency-printing Bureau of Engraving and Printing prepares new plates with the signatures of Malerba and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen. Though Yellen provided her official signature more than a year ago, the vacancy in the treasurer’s post — Malerba’s predecessor, Jovita Carranza, left in January 2020 — has held things up.
New currency bearing the signatures of Yellen and Malerba will be the first signed by two women in U.S. history.
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Malerba traveled Tuesday with Yellen to the Rosebud Indian Reservation in…
Bears Ears National Monument Inter-Governmental Cooperative Agreement signatories stand in front of a newly-unveiled sign, June 18, 2022. 
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