Native American politics remain divided over different issues such as assimilation, environmental policy, healthcare, education, and economic factors that affect reservations. As a multitude of nations living within the United States, the Native American peoples face conflicting opinions within their tribes, essentially those living on federally approved reservations. Interactions with the federal government and the overall American culture surrounding them influence day-to-day tribal life. Native American culture as a whole rests between the divide of the traditionalists and those who wish to trade the old ways for improved conditions.
Poverty and culture
"Approximately 14 percent of all American Indians in 1980 lived on large reservations with reservation poverty of 40 percent or higher."Sandefur, Gary D. American Indian reservations: The first underclass areas? Despite the conditions, Natives continue to live on the reservations because they see it as a cultural center for their particular tribe, value the implied sense of community, and receive government-funded benefits that they wouldn't gain otherwise. As a cultural center, the reservations serve as a holding place for the old ways of Native American customs. "In the southeastern or Woodland tradition, those old ways are most often connected to myths, stories, music, and dance."Gregory, H.F. "Pete". The Stories of the Old People. http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Art icles_Essays/creole_art_stories_old_peo.html There are some unwilling to share the "old ways" with outsiders because they feel it is sacred knowledge not easily given away to someone not of Native lineage.
Organizations such as Native American Community Development Institute have been created "as an alliance of the major Indian nonprofits and several Indian businesses in the metropolitan area committed to community-building through sector economic development and large-scale development".About - Native American Community Development Institute. https://www.nacdi.org/about They are devoted to the increase in economic innovation, and accomplish their mission by focusing on the growing number of Native youths and not placing a priority on traditional ways.
Native Americans suffer not only the highest poverty rates of all ethnic groups in America, but also the highest unemployment and disease rates.Carlson, Peter. In the year of 'Dances with Wolves,' everybody wanted to be on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Nearly a decade later, it can hardly get a quorum The Washington Post. February 23, 1997. Substance use is common among the youth as well as teenage pregnancy and suicide.
Indigenous land management and environmental concerns
Hazardous waste facilities Structural violence plays a significant role in many hazardous waste facilities being located on tribal lands. With Native American peoples being among the lowest socioeconomic class, they are vulnerable to exploitation by these waste facilities and other private sectors. Tribal Lands are subject to different environmental policies than non-native lands, and hazardous waste and nuclear waste facilities have taken to offering generous stipends to tribes and Native Americans to build waste or nuclear facilities on their land. Some of these stipends can go into the millions which can be extremely tempting to tribes considering their socioeconomic status and lack of economic improvement. Because of this, hazardous waste management and disposal disproportionately affects Native American groups by nearly 1.8%. This has been referred to as something called a “Toxic Trade” and is comparable to bribery or blackmail. Many tribes are torn by these facilities - some encourage it because of the economic opportunities it would bring, others adamantly refuse it due to health and environmental degradation.
Environmental genocide Environmental Genocide has existed for hundreds of years, appearing as settlers burning a harvest or slaughtering livestock owned by Native Americans. However, “environmental genocide” looks different now. Corporations are able to release these toxins into Native communities, groundwater, and soil under the guise of safely disposing harmful waste. The proposition of hosting hazardous waste management facilities or nuclear plants on native lands can be tempting to some tribal governments. Not only do they see economic growth opportunities or financial subsidies or returns, they also see opportunities for dealing with their own waste management practices, or employing their land. Bayley Lopez, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation member, says “In the quest to dispose of nuclear waste, the government and private companies have disregarded and broken treaties, blurred the definition of Native American sovereignty, and directly engaged in a form of economic racism akin to bribery."
Resource mining With the combination of these private waste corporations looking for cheap and easy land combined with some tribes being desperate for financial and economic growth eventually leads to a textbook exploitation ring. Native exploitation is not a new concept or phenomenon. Various treaties developed by collaboration of the US Government and Native Tribes were created to protect Native Americans, their land, their culture, and their health. However, these treaties were blatantly abolished after the discovery of valuable minerals and uranium on Native lands. In consequence, mining began to flourish. Once resources began depleting, mining slowed to a halt and mines effectively became abandoned. Despite mines being abandoned, many chemicals that were required for ore extraction stayed behind and continued to contaminate the soil and groundwater that Native Americans relied on. Some of these chemicals can contain toxins that increase risk of kidney and cardiovascular damage, as well as certain cancers and neurocognitive disorders. With this exploitation, comes activism. In 2007, the Skull Valley Band of Utah's Goshute Tribe was considering granting a permit to the U.S. government to build a nuclear waste storage facility. This specific band and their land was already home to several hazardous waste management facilities. Two years after the proposed permit, the US Department of Energy decided to scale back on their facility plans after Native advocates, public pressure, and the National Congress of American Indians adamantly condemned and protested the construction of the facility. This activism looks a little different when compared to typical activism where the oppressed groups are fighting directly against the perpetrators of the injustice. However, in this specific issue, the protesting often comes from outside sources (i.e. public pressure) versus the directly oppressed group - Native Americans.
Water rights
The water rights of tribes in regards to the quantity and quality of usable water is another subject of discussion, both on tribal lands and in the sphere of federal politics. While Native American reservations are entitled to a quantifiable water supply that is, at minimum, sufficient to sustain people on the reservation and in perpetuity, standards for the quality of drinking water remain ambiguous and undefined. The federal government position on Native American reservation water rights is based upon the policies laid out by the Supreme Court in the 1908 Winters Doctrine, which ensures that tribes have sufficient water for farming, fishing, and other needs. Tribes are entitled to ownership of sufficient water supply in the interest of irrigating Practically Irrigable Acreage (PIA), an allowance that emerged due to the original intention of reservations, as land for Native Americans to work to grow crops. In the context of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, federally-recognized tribes are viewed as states and are entitled to unlimited access to their water supply, but there is no oversight available to ensure the quality of the drinking water.
Due to the effects of hazardous waste facilities and the environmental degradation that has occurred as a result of resource mining, the water sources available on reservations are often polluted. As an example, the drinking water in the Navajo Nation is polluted with toxic uranium levels, and consuming such toxins often leads to illness. Further, the severe poverty levels on many reservations means that many reservation homes lack running water or may even lack sanitation amenities such as toilets, sinks, and showers altogether. For tribes without running water or limited access to sanitation amenities, disease and illness can spread easily.
Discussion of water rights on reservations often return to questions of sovereignty, tribal recognition, and basic human rights. Further, ownership of water can be seen as a cultural symbol for Native Americans, with their ownership of water becoming synonymous with the question of land ownership, and thus the loss of their water rights becoming synonymous with the loss of their homelands. While some tribes are able to profit economically from their water ownership, such as through leasing their water rights to other tribes or to surrounding areas, the issues regarding water quality remain a concern.
Healthcare: improvements vs. shortcomings One aspect of reservation life that discourages tribal members is healthcare, a service provided by the United States government for approximately 800,000 Natives. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Native Americans receive lower quality healthcare than other minorities such as Hispanics.
With the addition of the HR3200 healthcare bill comes the promise of better services provided for the Native people. There will be an approximate 13% increase in funding for the Indian Health Service. Dr. Roubideaux, the head of the IHS, praises this addition saying, "There is not a Native American alive today who has not witnessed the many shortcomings of the Indian Health Service", but as Dr. Roubideaux has said, "most of the failures were due to an extreme shortage of funds."
Cultural barriers According to Elaine Watson Jordan, Ph.D., the Native American education system is severely flawed with respect to cultural barriers. In Breaking Barriers, Jordan notes that "it is important to describe the complexities of culture and language to illuminate how limited standardized practices and measures might be to summarize the skills of many children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds".Jordan, Elaine Watson Ph.D. Breaking the Barriers: Educational Empowerment in an Era of Standardization. (2007) She states that total "indoctrination to a new culture" is not the answer to a healthy education. Jordan argues that barriers must be identified to be overcome and uses the compulsory attendance law of 1898 as an example of overlooking cultural boundaries. "Guided by the belief that American Indians should be assimilated into mainstream society", Congress put into effect this law which would give the federal government the power to place American Indian children in boarding schools, "by force" if necessary.
Family values In March 1974, the Department of Labor issued the results of their research concerning Native youth integrating American culture into their lives after leaving the reservation for educational and occupational pursuits.Belding, Nancye, Miles, H. Guy, Sparks, L. Tamara. Perspective of Adjustment: Rural Navajo and Papago Youth. (1974) Print. Research was done to determine the "occupational adjustment" of American Indian youth coming from reservations and seeking education away from home.
The study found that "the family is perhaps the most important aspect of the traditional Indian's life". Cultural values of Native American individuals are described as, "The traditional Indian's view of the world and his own place in it is one of living in harmony with nature".