This story is part of Underscore Native News’ reporting that explores and amplifies Indigenous climate solutions, through the Indigenous Climate Solutions Cohort. Underscore is part of a five-newsroom grant supported cohort with the Indigenous Journalists Association (IJA) and Solutions Journalism Network’s Climate Beacon Newsroom Initiative.

To many Indigenous people and Twilight Saga super fans, it’s no secret the Quileute Tribe was not consulted by either the author or filmmakers during the creation of the popular fantasy books and subsequent films.

The Quileute people’s likeness is used throughout the franchise even as their traditional lore is misrepresented. In both the novels and movies, Quileute tribal members are portrayed as shape-shifting werewolves, often referred to as “dogs,” who are forced to cut their hair despite it being culturally significant to remain intact. The stories have been criticized for perpetuating harmful stereotypes of Indigenous people.

The tribe has found itself in an unusual spotlight: receiving global attention for a pop-culture phenomenon that amassed over $3.3 billion at the global box office without being given any input or compensation.

“Many supporters and scholars have raised conversations about cultural representation and compensation. The Quileute Tribe did not receive royalties from the Twilight franchise despite the use of elements inspired by Quileute culture and identity,” the tribal council told Underscore Native News in an email. “Conversations about this issue have helped spark broader discussions about Indigenous representation, cultural respect, and ethical storytelling.”

Now, Twilight fans are trying to rectify the lack of financial compensation by raising funds for the Quileute Tribe’s Move to Higher Ground Project through varied creative means. From raffles, to a personal donation from the CEO of a large makeup company, to creating social media videos about the project, fans are trying to find any way they can to make a difference.

The urgent need to move

Located along the western edge of the Olympic Peninsula, the Quileute Tribe’s coastal town La Push sits at the mouth of the Quillayute River. Home to fewer than 400 people, the quaint town is just one small section of the former 800,000 acres the tribe inhabited pre-colonization.

But after signing over their land in exchange for health, education and job training as well as reserving hunting, fishing and gathering rights in their “usual and accustomed places,” the Quileute Tribe was left with a tiny parcel of land in a tsunami zone. That land has been slowly withering away due to coastal erosion, exacerbated by climate change.

“Living in a tsunami zone at the edge of the Pacific Ocean, a catastrophic earthquake can wipe out our community in less than 10 minutes — an entire generation of the Quileute people will cease to exist,” state tribal officials said on the tribe’s Move to Higher Ground Project website.

In a 2023 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), scientists stated rising sea levels are a direct result of the planet’s rising temperatures melting snow glaciers and ice sheets, which add water to the ocean. Additionally, as water temperatures continue to warm, the volume of the ocean increases due to thermal expansion. Over time, the changing waters, intense storms and winds have led to the erosion of La Push’s shores, leaving hardly any barrier between the ocean and their land if a tsunami were to occur.

After years of lobbying the federal government for acreage, in 2012 President Barack Obama signed legislation that returned around 280 acres of Olympic National Park land to the tribe. The returned land is being used for the Quileute’s Move to Higher Ground Project, a multi-year development of an upper village located outside of flood and tsunami zones.

In 2022, phase one of the development was completed when the Quileute Tribal school was built some 250 feet above sea level. Eventually, the upper village will hold homes, an elder center, cultural facilities, tribal government offices, emergency services, parks and open spaces.

But the Move to High Ground Project is just one of many in the Pacific Northwest, including the Quinault Nation, which estimates it will cost $450 million to move its entire lower village, Taholah, a half-mile away. Similar to Quinault, the Quileute are looking for ways to continue the funding to move their citizens to safety.

“The Move to Higher Ground initiative is a multi-phase, long-term relocation effort, meaning funding needs evolve as each stage progresses,” the Quileute tribal council told Underscore. “Because development occurs in stages and depends on grants, infrastructure costs and construction timelines, the total remaining fundraising goal is ongoing rather than a single fixed number.”

The power of fandom

Twilight carries a complicated legacy when it comes to representation of Indigenous people, an issue not lost on some longtime fans like Kayla Parker. Like many preteens of the era, her obsession started in the sixth grade, when she began reading the first Twilight young adult novel.

Enraptured by the drama, edginess and whimsy of the vampire-werewolf-romance saga, she became obsessed with the franchise.

“I read the first book, bawled my eyes out, because I was like, ‘Why will a hot, rich vampire not make me immortal and give me superpowers? This is so rude. Edward Cullen should be in love with me,’” Parker said. “I was miserable.”

In 2007 she picked up the second book in the series and immediately lost interest in the plot.

“I picked up ‘New Moon’, and it’s not even about Edward, it’s about Jacob. I was sickened, I was disgusted. I was like, ‘never mind. I’m not reading this, I can’t do it.’ So then I put it aside. I did not continue reading and I did not continue watching the series.”

But in 2015 she binged the films and devoured the four books in the series, reigniting the brief obsession that had consumed her preteen brain.

But something didn’t sit right with her, particularly the parts involving the Quileute tribe. As she grew up, Parker felt uneasy about the use of the Quileute tribe’s likeness without permission and compensation. As an avid reader and consumer of the Twilight books and films, she wanted to help right the wrongdoing of the Quileute people in her own way — through social media.

Parker now serves as a moderator for a Facebook group called “Twilight Shitposting,” created in 2020 for and by fans of the book and film series to engage with each other through jokes, memes and general conversation around the topic. Six years later, the group has amassed more than 820,000 followers and is responsible for raising $117,000, according to group moderators, for the Quileute’s Move to Higher Ground Project.

Parker said the moment the group started to gain a large following she thought she could use the group’s platform to raise funds for the tribe.

“I do believe in the power of social media. I do believe in the power of collective action. I do believe in the power of reading and media, and in the things that we read and consume,” Parker said.

Starting in September 2021, the Facebook group moderators organized an online fundraiser event, encouraging members to donate at least $1 to the Move to Higher Ground Project. That first year, $6,000 was raised, with many donating more than just the dollar. Those who donated were entered into a raffle for prizes such as book covers, getting an admin to approve a post in the group, and a copy of “The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide.”

In the years that followed, Parker said fans have offered illustrations, merchandise, art pieces and more to be part of the prize pool for future raffles.

By 2025, the annual fundraiser had gained so much popularity that the moderators gave the first 600 donors a spot on a raffle wheel to win one of 112 prizes and raised $37,000.

“I feel like, in reality, we’re doing something very small. We didn’t start anything, we didn’t originate anything,” Parker said. “We’re really just trying to shine a light on things that have already existed.”

Reflecting on fandom culture, Parker said connection from stories is inherently human.

“I think that human beings are naturally hardwired to find community and to find connection,” she said. “The power of storytelling has been as pervasive as it has been because stories are really what connect people… Twilight is what it is — it is a story.”

Parker hopes people who were associated with the Twilight franchise see the fundraiser and use it as an opportunity to make reparations to the Quileute people.

“We would love it if we could get the attention of people like Stephanie Meyer that would kind of be like, ‘Oh, you know what, maybe I should have done that. Maybe I should use my money to put it back to some people that I should have consulted with, I should have talked with,’” Parker said.

Underscore Native News reached out Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight Saga for comment. She did not respond to the request.

The makeup mogul

Twilight fans can choose from a vast array of licensed merchandise: socks, backpacks, bedsets, jewelry, clothing and much more. A popular trend in recent years has been makeup collaborations with brands such as ColourPop Cosmetics and Glamlite Cosmetics.

However, many fans boycott officially licensed materials because of the franchise’s history with the Quileute Tribe. When Gisselle Hernandez, CEO and founder of Glamlite Cosmetics, announced the release of her Twilight collection on Valentine’s Day in 2025, she was shocked to see so many fans talking about the Quileute Tribe and their history.

“When I started my partnership with Twilight through Paramount, I wasn’t aware that the movies and the books had been based on real people,” she told Underscore Native News.

When fans asked her if she was going to donate to the tribes, Hernandez, who had little knowledge of the Quileute people, began looking into the tribe and their Move to Higher Ground Project.

“Anything that is important to my audience is important to me,” she said. “And so I took it upon myself to begin the research.”

After learning about the history of the Quileute people and their tense history with the franchise, Hernandez reached out to the tribal council to ask for a meeting to learn more and make a personal donation. When she heard back, she immediately canceled everything she had lined up for the week and made the seven hour journey to La Push.

“I became really involved. I really wanted to be able to meet the tribe in person because I wanted to hear firsthand from them, from tribal leaders, exactly what is happening,” she said. “Why do they need these funds? And so they could share their story with the world.”

Hernandez said she was awe-struck by the beauty of La Push and the warmth of the tribe, a place and people she didn’t know were real just months prior. In her time with the Quileute Tribal Council, she took a tour with Chairman Rio Jaime and heard about the need for funds to Move to Higher Ground.

She was moved when Jaime said as a kid he used to have to do evacuation drills in case a tsunami hit. As she toured the reservation, Hernandez filmed a TikTok to help amplify the tribe’s efforts, reaching 1.3 million followers on Instagram, Tiktok and Facebook once it was posted.

“One thing about me is when I make a donation it’s never just writing a check and handing it over to people,” she said.

Hernandez also brought attention to the tribe’s rich tourism history that existed before Twilight, encouraging people to stay at the resort on Quileute lands. But after she personally donated an undisclosed five-figure sum to the tribe and released her video, Hernandez says she faced harsh backlash from the licensor of Twilight.

“By choosing to make a personal donation to the Quileute tribe, I lost certain partnerships because it was frowned upon,” she said. “Before I made the donation, I knew of the consequences and what the retaliation would be moving forward, and I still decided to do it. I believe in doing good. I believe in doing what’s right, even if it means losing opportunities and losing certain partnerships.”

Underscore Native News reached out to Paramount Pictures for comment and they did not respond to the request.

While Hernandez had plans to live out her Twilight-fantasy through releasing a makeup collection for each book, her licensing partnership quietly ended, with an announcement about the collection leaving, and after March 31, 2026, Hernandez said Glamlite Cosmetics is no longer allowed to sell anything Twilight related.

Hernandez said companies who have entered into similar licensing agreements have been offered the same choice, though she did not name those companies.

“There’s plenty of other brands that received the same restrictions and they had the same opportunity to make the donations,” she told Underscore Native News. “And instead they chose to just follow protocol, look the other way and use the story of the Quileute Tribe to make [a] profit and completely ignore an entire population of people and benefit off their name, off their story, without making that donation, just because it means it was going to be frowned upon.”

Creative fundraising to make every dollar count

In January 2026, romance author Kelsey McKnight hosted a unique fundraiser for the Move to Higher Ground Project, raising over $1,000 by raffling off a character based on the winner to be featured in the second book of her vampire romance trilogy, “Bound by Blood.” The raffle was posted on her Instagram and TikTok, as well the “Twilight Shitposting” Facebook page.

A fan of Twilight for over two decades, McKnight said her love for the franchise didn’t mean she couldn’t critique the way the Quileute people were portrayed in the books and films.

“I didn’t have the cultural knowledge that I could have or that I should have when I was younger, and I just enjoyed the books and the movies and went on with my day,” she said.

McKnight was moved by the Quileute Tribe’s Move to Higher Ground effort. And, as an avid fan of the Twilight franchise, she felt like she could help right the wrongs of consuming media without a second thought by bringing funds and awareness to the initiative.

“I’m a very small fish,” she said. “If I was a big fish, like ColourPop Cosmetics, I would funnel some of that money into the group of people that [were] fetishized.”

For a little over a week, fans donated in increments of $5 per entry. McKnight hand wrote onto raffle tickets the 600 names of eager vampire-loving fans hoping to become a character in her trilogy.

After she drew a name from her Nosferatu popcorn bucket, McKnight reached out to the winner, sent her the first book, “These Immortal Vows,” and began crafting the character of the winner for her second book. With so much enthusiasm over the raffle, McKnight added a couple of small bonus winners and featured them in the second book as well.

As she begins preparations to write the third book in her trilogy, McKnight plans to do a similar raffle but on a larger scale to support the Move to Higher Ground Project.

“It happened very quickly, and it was over very quickly, but I’m hoping that at some point I can figure out a way to do something that’s a little bit bigger,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised that there was so much interest in that particular form of fundraising. So it is something that I think would be really helpful to do for me in the future, as far as using my work to raise awareness in a creative way.”

Phases and the future

Although the legacy of the Twilight franchise is complex, Quileute tribal officials told Underscore Native News they’re thankful for fans supporting them and their movement.

“Twilight fans from around the world have shown up in meaningful ways,” the tribal council wrote in an email. “Many have turned awareness into action through donations, advocacy, and helping spread the word about the Move to Higher Ground initiative. Many fans’ donations reflect a broader desire to acknowledge Indigenous communities and support real-world needs connected to popular culture narratives.”

As an ambitious long‑term relocation effort, the project’s timeline is expected to last many years and will constantly be evolving. Development will occur in stages and depend on grants, infrastructure costs and construction timelines. Throughout the process, donations from fans will be essential for housing, community facilities and safety infrastructure.

“For all of us involved with the Move to Higher Ground initiative, the support from fans has been a powerful example of how pop culture can inspire real-world compassion and action,” the tribal council wrote. “We want everyone to know that we see you and we truly appreciate you. We see and hear your genuine desire to learn about who we are and how you can support our real life challenges.”

“Whether a donation is large or small, every single one matters,” the council continued. “What means the most to us is knowing that fans are giving what they can from the heart, and that kind of support is something we will never take for granted.”

This republished story is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit opb.org/partnerships.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/09/05/twilight-fandom-helps-fund-quileute-tribe-move-higher-ground-tsunami/