Native American reservation inequality underlies a range of societal issues that affect the lives of Native American populations residing on reservations in the United States. About one third of the Native American population, about 700,000 people, lives on an Indian Reservation in the United States.Barclay, Eliza. "Navajos Fight Their Food Desert With Junk Food And Soda Taxes." NPR. NPR, April 1, 2015. Web. April 8, 2016. Reservation poverty and other discriminatory factors have led to persisting social inequality on Native American reservations. Disparities between many aspects of life at the national level and the reservation level, such as quality of education, quality of healthcare, substance use disorders, teenage pregnancy, violence, and suicide rates are significant in demonstrating the inequality of opportunities and situations between reservations and the rest of the country.
Historical discrimination Many contemporary disparities are rooted in the violence of colonialism. The reservation system was created following the expansion of the United States into tribal lands throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, during United States territorial acquisitions. This effort started with the Indian Appropriations Act of 1887, which created the first reservations. As they decided to take over rather of improving the territory they were contradicting the whole purpose of it showing the greed towards the land rather showing respect to the indigenous people.Tecun, Arcia. “A Wīnak Perspective on Cosmovisíon Maya and Eco-Justice Education.” Maya America 6, no. 2 (2024): 1–18. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48806279. This creates a constant idea "...refers to the moment a white man encountered, documented, and interpreted a place that becomes the point of reference for a 'pristine or pure' moment to restore land to..." Which defeated the whole meaning behind the land as if they founded it, losing its true meaning and the creators taking all the credit. This continues to highlight how their way of changing was nothing but harmful, "...approaches do not give room for adaptation, nor do they take into consideration diverse relationships with land and place by a variety of Indigenous peoples and their place-based practices over generations." Defeating the whole purpose to improve the land that was stolen. We see how indigenous people continue to struggle in the modernization that is put upon them "Indigeneity also expresses a planetary connection and solidarity with Indigenous peoples around the earth who share cultural values and struggles..." There is this constant struggle that put upon the indigenous people. They created a creation that was so easily taken from, they don't get enough credit for it. "These movements are alter-natives to the oversimplified, romanticised, and tokenising treatment of Indigenous peoples when they are mentioned in mainstream environmentalism." Their highlights and achievement are very under talked about which creates an image that the indigenous weren't as important.
Education
The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA) resulted from culminating civil rights movements and calls for increased attention on Native American Affairs. According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the act "gave authority to federally recognized tribes to contract with the BIA for the operation of Bureau-funded schools and to determine education programs suitable for their children.""BIA Website." Indian Affairs. N.p., n.d. Web. October 20, 2013. Later federal educational amendments furthered the capabilities of reservation schools and "provided funds directly to tribally operated schools, empowered Indian school boards, permitted local hiring of teachers and staff," and more.
Contemporary reservation school situations Schools on Native American reservations are disproportionately underachieving compared to other schools. According to a report made to the U.S. Department of Education "only 17% of tribally controlled schools made Annual [sic] Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind during the 2007-2008 school year." Much of the reasoning for this discrepancy is because of the widespread and disproportionate amount of reservation poverty. Consequently, "students from low socioeconomic families face unique academic challenges, as their families may lack access to the resources and socialization experiences necessary to adequately prepare and support student achievement in school." Furthermore, "the lack of academically successful role models and the need to provide additional financial support to the family contributed to the high number of dropouts among Native American students who live in poverty."
Both student and teacher attrition are major issues in reservation schools as well. Censuses have demonstrated the trend in reservation schools that, "despite a growth in population... enrollment in grades 1 through 12 has steadily declined..." The High School dropout rate for Native Americans is high, much higher than the national average, and as quoted in a UCLA Civil Rights project report, "Native students "...have a dropout rate twice the national average; the highest dropout rate of any United States ethnic or racial group. About three out of every ten Native students drop out of school before graduating from high school both on reservations and in cities (p. 1).""Faircloth, Susan C., and John W. Tippeconnic III. "The Dropout/Graduation Crisis among American Indian and Alaska Native Students: Failure to Respond Places the Future of Native Peoples at Risk." Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles (2010).
Teachers are also remarkably and especially difficult to retain at reservation schools, which creates problems with regularity in the classroom and many administrative difficulties as well.(Cotton, Kathleen. Reducing Teacher Turnover in Reservation Schools: A Guide for Administrators. Portland, Or.: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, 1987. Print.) There are many reasons for poor teacher retention, mainly problems in "poverty, hunger, ignorance, and disease", as Reyhner's Teaching American Indian Students book argues, that discourage teachers when students are unable or unwilling to perform or even come to school.Reyhner, Jon, ed. Teaching American Indian students. University of Oklahoma Press, 1994. One of the implications of high teacher turnover is the lack of administrative stability it causes. Administrative stability is very important to long-range planning and crucial to the success of the school and its students.
Healthcare Healthcare on Native American reservations faces many barriers to success. Genetic predisposition to many diseases as well as significant lack of government funding, lack of medical resources, and isolation from more populated areas with more medical resources, contribute to healthcare difficulties on reservations.
Genetic predisposition Native Americans have a biological genetic predisposition to be especially susceptible to several diseases and ailments. According to a 1997 study, "with the exception of cardiovascular diseases and cancer, the risk of death from most causes are higher among Native Americans than the total US population."
Diabetes mellitus is an especially large factor in Native American healthcare. Studies show that "rates of diabetes and its complications…are substantially higher among Native Americans than among the US general population, and the frequency of diabetes among Native Americans is increasing." This increase is proposed to be based upon, as the same study states, "several potentially modifiable factors, including obesity, dietary composition, and physical inactivity." It is estimated that diabetes afflicts 40%-50% of adults in Native American communities, compared with the national average of around 8%."Diabetes Basics." Diabetes Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. November 6, 2013. Multiple studies, including one presented in the American Journal of Epidemiology, describe the incidence of diabetes in the Pima Indians to be 19 times greater than a comparable white majority population.
However, more than genetic predisposition plays a significant role the afflictions of Native American populations. According to the 1997 study, "genetic susceptibility plays a significant role in some diseases, such as diabetes, while for others, the generally lower socioeconomic status, higher prevalence of certain health risk behaviors and lower utilization of preventative services in the Native American population are important determinants." Also, before WWII, diabetes in Native American Communities was essentially non-existent.
Because the traditional way of life had been taken away from the Native Americans, a domino effect of problems began to arise. During a normal day of hunting, gathering, and normal activities, the pre-reservation Indians expended approximately 4,000 calories a day, while eating a high fiber, low fat diet. After the reservation system went into effect, Indians were no longer able to hunt or gather food, but expected to farm in a community that at certain places had no water source, or there was no money to buy supplies for a farm in the first place, which led to more poverty. Poverty led to poor eating habits, which led to diseases such as diabetes mellitis.
After the Indian Removal Act of 1830, subsequent treaties arose, such as the Dawes Act of 1887, which broke up reservations into smaller pieces. In 1868, the Federal Government established the Indian Peace Commission which took thousands of acres of land promised to Indians in previous treaties. With the diminishing of their land, Indians had to deal with diminishing health as well.
Indian Health Service The Indian Health Service is a federal program whose purpose is to provide medical service and support to Native Americans. The service covers all members of federally recognized tribes, over 4 million people. While it receives significant federal funds in the billions of dollars, this is still several times less than what it should be, as estimated by tribal leaders.
Lack of support The lack of preventative medicine knowledge and resources, specifically, contributes to and exacerbates the medical predispositions of many Native Americans. The lack of research done on, and the lack of attention paid to Native Americans and reservation healthcare is part of the problem. A study done by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality found that "only 42% of measures of health care quality and access tracked in the National Healthcare Disparities Report could be used to assess disparities among American Indians and Alaska Natives." The same source also argued that "data from American Indians and Alaska Natives need to be improved to allow better targeting of interventions to reduce health care disparities and monitoring the success of these activities." A lack of healthcare providers in reservations also detrimentally effects quality and continuity of care.
Lack of healthcare providers