Transcripts For CSPAN2 The New Trail Of Tears 20161210

10 year system, so we had a good time debating that entire set of questions. Im confident i won but i have to contest that it worked very well. The most recent book deals with the topic most of us dont know much about and that is the utterly shameful condition of americas indian reservations and the utterly shameful treatment that native americans receive from the federal government. Naomi has very properly entitled the book the new trail of tears how washington is destroying American Indians and when she tells the story you will see why this is such a fitting title and why the story she has to tell is so important. [applause] thank you for coming out today. It appears been won the argument when he was still teaching here. I usually offer a warning before i give a talk about this subject, not the kind you may be used to but a warning you might want to get something stiffer to drink because it is a depressing topic and i dont have good news for you today. I will begin. 3000 people live in south dakota. It is in the middle of the Pine Ridge Reservation which makes up most of the second poorest county in the United States. In 2013 the five Police Officers assigned to patrol the area received 16,500 calls for Emergency Assistance. I want to take a moment for all of you to do the math. 3000 people, 16,500 calls, five Police Officers. As of 2009 there were 35 games on the Pineridge Reservation including 5000 young men. The average Life Expectancy is 48. Pineridge is one of the worst reservations but the nationwide statistics are not much better. American indians have the highest poverty rate of any racial group in the nation. High School Graduation is around 50 and fallen in recent years. Suicide is the leading cause of death for native american males age 10 to 14. Alcohol use disorders are more likely than those belonging to any other racial group. Involvement in gang activities more prevalent among native americans than latinos and africanamericans. Native american women report being raped at two times the National Average. The rate of child abuse among native americans is twice as high as the National Average. Estimated one of every four girls and one of every six boys is molested before the age of 18. If you want to understand what is behind these statistics you have to visit indian territory. A couple years ago that is what i did. I spent time visiting the Elementary School called wounded knee and it has received 600,000 turnaround from the federal government. It is clean, freshly painted and mostly quiet hall. They install the computer room to award kids for Good Behavior and laundry machines so local parents have an incentive to meet with teachers. Academically it is pretty appalling that as i stood there, the principal offered to help a secondgrade student with two math problems, gave the boy incorrect answers to both of them. Recently fired the entire staff of the school and rehired teachers who had not come from teach for america. Despite some had math degrees from the best colleges in the country, they were not the right fist. Other tribal leaders were more explicit. They me the tfa folks were too white but it must be said schools for his job is to keep children safe and occasionally called the police when students got violent but mostly their problems are not serious enough to merit an officers response so the school learned to handle matters on its own. One weekend a month we have walk in. I wondered what the students had done to deserve such a punishment. It is not punishment, she assured me. It is when children stay at school all weekend for their safety. The weekend is billed as a Cultural Enrichment event for the children, they sing songs and play Traditional Games in the school gym. It is timed to coincide with when the government checks go out. These are the times when parents are most likely to drink and become abusive. The rhythm of life at wounded knee on pineridge and over 1 million American Indians living on reservations is surprisingly dependent on the federal government. To know just how much the economy on the reservation depend on public funds, only look at the effect the federal Government Shutdown has in the fall of 2013 on the reservation. Take the crow try. Some 364 crow members, more than a third of the tribes workforce were furloughed. The only way some crows are able to travel across their 2. 3 million acre reservation was shuttered. A Home Healthcare aid for six tribal members was suspended. The tribe in northern carolina rely solely on federal financing to operate. Its reservation has an Unemployment Rate of 80 . When i wrote recently on our bed editor wrote me back saying you must mean the employment rate is 80 and i assured her i meant the Unemployment Rate. As a result of the shutdown, 60 of 310 employees close to the Child Care Center and halted Emergency Assistance to low income and older members. Financing for a program that ensures clean Drinking Water on the reservation ran low as tribes are so dependent on the federal government that without money from the bureau of Indian Affairs their Economic Activity comes to a complete halt and their members dont have access to clean Drinking Water. This is a third world country that exists in the middle of the wealthiest nation on earth. The question is how did we get here . Reservations, most people know, were formed as a way to get indians out of the way to push natives onto infertile or undesirable land so that americans could pursue westward expansion. Today a surprising number of people see a way of using reservations to protect native americans and ensure nobody can take anything away from them. Reservation land is held, quote, in trust for indians by the federal government. The only other people who legally hold things in trust for my children or the mentally incompetent. The goal of this policy originally was to keep indians contained but now it has shifted to preserving these lands for Indigenous People but the effect is the same. Indians cant own reservation land. No one on the reservation can get a mortgage because the property on the reservation is held in trust by the federal government. Most of it is also, quote, owned communally by the tribe. Banks could never foreclose on the property because this bank cannot own reservation land. And theres a severe housing shortage. More families crowd into small trailer homes, a Tribal College on one of these reservations and talking about possibility of expansion and they said we have to build up. I looked out the window at acres upon acres of empty space and they could never get a loan to build on that because that is land they dont already have in their, quote, possession. They are thinking about building the way they do it in new york city as opposed to montana. This is only part of the problem. More than a quarter of Small Business owners use home equity loans to start a business or finance an existing one but American Indians do not have access to the capital which and those use their homes as equity, indians have long suffered from what is called dead capital. They may possess a certain amount of land on paper but cant put it to use by selling it, buying more to take care of economies of scale or borrowing again. Indian reservations may have been thought to be useless land once but that is no longer the case. In fact they contain almost 30 of the nations coal reserves the west of the mississippi, 50 of uranium reserves in 20 of known oil and gas reserves. These resources are worth nearly 1. 5 trillion or 290,000 per tribal member. Tragically, 86 of indian lands with energy or mineral remain undeveloped because of the federal control on the reservation. In order to tap those reserves indians must follow a 49 step process as a prolegislator explained to me. These steps involve the bureau of land management, debarment of the interior, the permit of justice and the commerce department. It can take months if not years for each step to be approved. Just to dig a hole requires a 6500 upfront payment for application for permit to drill. Compared to the process just off the reservation which requires 125. 05. The bureaucracy that oversees reservations is mindboggling. The bureau of Indian Affairs has a total of 9000 employees, that is one employee for every 111 indians on a reservation. As with all bureaucrats they need to find something. One in man i spoke to was trying to purchase land from his neighbor, another indian on which to grade, two men agreed on a price but a representative of the bureau of Indian Affairs told them the deal could not go through because the price they agreed on was not, quote, fair market value. In the real world fair market value is what someone would actually pay you for the land but not in the world of the bureau of Indian Affairs was the agency, it turned out, recently commissioned an appraisal of the land on a reservation and apparently told the appraiser to overvalue the land so as, quote, not to screw the indians, which is exactly what happened. No wonder indians say it stands for bossing indians around what about the casino. I am regularly asked cant indians make enough money from gambling to claw their way out of poverty you most indian casinos, those in the northeast dont see, our in isolated communities and their customers are other indians but successful casinos dont bring the kind of prosperity you might expect seneca place in upstate new york have made 1 billion in gaming operation. Those are distributed in the form of annuities. According to lucille brooks who runs the Seneca Economic Development company, quote, the annuities created an entitlement attitude and that is the downfall. The annuities have enabled people not to work. Now that more and more states are opening gambling to nonindians, tribes are facing increased competition. The seneca nation increased low or no interest to anyone who wants to start some other business but there are almost no takers. Michael don, the manager of the Small Business Incubator Program said his group conducted a survey to find out which businesses residents should open, tells people there are too many pizza places around and recommend outdoor recreation, maintenance, landscaping and professional massage. You dont have to go to beijing to see Central Planning at work. The Economic Outlook on the reservation is bleak. Indians have no Real Property, no access to capital for building businesses, little ability to develop their own Natural Resources and no incentive to work. We give them regulatory and Tax Advantages and things like gaming, alcohol, tobacco and marijuana coming Industries None of us would want in our backyard but those dont help them because the industries are all collectively owned by the tribe and the profits are distributed like lottery winning and welfare checks depending on your perspective. More money is not the answer. Washington since 20 billion a year to reservations. The Indian Health service has a budget in 2015 of 4 . 6 billion. It is the last place you would want to see a doctor. The bureau of Indian Education spends 20,000 per pupil compared to National Average of 12,400. Not only do the schools educate students but even their roofs are caving in. The pie has gone through 33 directors in 36 years. More cultural sensitivity is unlikely to do the trick either. After the media launched a National Campaign to get the owner of the Washington Redskins to change its name the Washington Post did a survey and found 9 of 10 indians couldnt care less about the name of the team which is not surprising. If your community is facing an epidemic of adolescent suicide, what nfl nafta be at the top of your list of concerns . The tragedy of American Indian policies demand immediate examination, not only because they make the lives of millions of american citizens harder and more dangerous but because they are a microcosm of anything that has gone wrong with modern liberalism. A result of decades of politicians and bureaucrats showering victimized people with money and sensitivity instead of what they truly need, the autonomy, education and Legal Protection to improve their own situation was American Indians like all americans must be able to avail themselves of the economic and legal freedom this country guarantees. Until then it will remain mired in poverty, social policy and the kind of anger that comes from knowing your fate is controlled by an ineffective and illinformed bureaucracy. The solutions are not easy but they could start with education. The states that have the largest indian populations are the only ones that have no charter law. These children have no alternative to places like wounded knee because no one is allowed to offer one. We could start to scale back the regulation in washington allowing indians to develop Natural Resources without having to tap everything through the bia and some legislators are working to curb the power of that agency but ultimately it will be hard to undo this Economic Disaster without Real Property rights. A number of tribes in canada are pushing legislation, the first nation Property Ownership act which would create the Legal Framework for individual numbers of first nation to Access Capital through Care Property rights, they see reserve land which is treated similar to reservations here as becoming more like city even if the land were sold, it would remain part of the city, no one can sell a part of new york city to newark. Individuals of any race buy and sell among themselves without the oversight of tribal or federal officials, this would allow a true freemarket. First nation members who want to lease their land to Natural Resources to do so without seeking permission from the Natural National government and those who want to select the highest bidder, and put it to use for themselves and their families. Finally those who want to keep their land would be able to borrow against it or start a business. As one indian from North Carolina told me, quote, the only solution i see is divide everything up and give it to the native American Families and let them disperse it, keep it, whatever. I dont need a government taking care of me. This kind of freedom is why the pilgrims left here. Thank you very much. Take questions . Okay. Be change i assume you interviewed bia officials, what do they say . I did not interview a lot of them because most of the research was on the ground that the reservation. The bia, 75 of native americans. A lot of people misunderstand it as some sort of white paternalist bureaucracy imposing its will. They see their job has essentially the way a lot of people see reservations which is the last best hope for protecting the rights of American Indians, just as i think many bureaucrats in washington see regulation as a way of protecting people at the heart of them so it is not much different with the bia but when you talk to people on the ground about the way these regulations are interfering with their daytoday lives and even small form of commerce they engage in the results are much different. I am a little curious to know what the advantages are to native americans living on the reservation versus integrating with other urban societies and also what are the differences between American Indians what would be the advantage . One question i get a lot is why dont they leave . That is at the heart of this question. There are several reasons behind that and the first is we naturally grow up in a place and it is home. We know it is home. That may be more the case on some of these reservations because there is such an extreme sense of isolation. Fly in rapid city south dakota and drive 100 miles. Theres nothing around, gps doesnt work, cell phone might not work and unlike, this is one of the things i was noticing because i have done a lot of research on families who live in inner cities, one of the differences between rural and urban poverty is in an urban setting in the south bronx chances are if you are a child you see people in the middle class who get on the subway to get a job, if you are living on pine ridge you may not have anyone in the family with any kind of employment, may not have anyone in your immediate family, and a problem with drug or alcohol use, anybody who has high school education, all these aspects of life, middleclass americans would seem like almost like life on another planet to some of the People Living in these communities so the isolation is one part of it. In terms of the advantages, it is not as if People Living on these reservations would immediately say moved to rapid city and find themselves rolling in dough. There would be even if you had the wherewithal to leave the reservation you would still be for instance coming at it with an inferior education so you would be trying to get yourself into a workforce and there would be more opportunities for employment but you may not be very qualified for any of those opportunities because of disadvantages you had until that point. In terms Many Americans dont realize American Indians are american citizens. That is a fundamental thing when i go around talking to audiences, what you hear about, tribal sovereignty has this impact on its audience, are you a citizen of another country or part of the United States . American indians are american citizens, they should have all these rights. When you look at it, it is about the economics, the book gets into these questions about what the actual rights are that are being denied. Freedom of the press on some of these reservations is severely restricted. Of the tribe does not like what a local newspaper has written about some tribal law that has been passed or something they set about tribal legislators, they will battle could ban the newspaper from being sold anywhere on the reservation. There was a Supreme Court case this year about the rights of people in tribal court and there is a question about whether you have been granted due process in tribal court, the association for defense lawyers in the United States has written several letters to congress complaining that people who have been accused in certain cases have not been granted the right to a lawyer or granted the right to a speedy trial, all these things we take for granted in the rest of the courts of the United States as a resident of indian territory, you might be denied. The biggest thing, one of the biggest questions about the rights being denied to the Child Welfare act you may be familiar with, and custodial battle, in cases of divorce or cases where an indian woman might get pregnant and might and to give her child up for adoption to another family, a tribe could come in and say if you are a child who has a drop of indian blood in you the tribe could say we dont you should be raised by white family members or a pregnant mother should give up her child for adoption to a white family so a lot of these decisions are being made differently for indian children than they are for children of any other race. They are not being the cases are not being decided in the best interest of the child which is the standard for any other case. They are being decided in the best interests of the tribe. Those are the rights that are really, aside from economic rights and economic freedoms, the rights that american citizens have and American Indians do not. Beaches have you noticed directors and officials, lived or resided in reservation in the office, they to find out how policies or regulations are paying out on the reserve land versus those that remain or might try to be involved . I have not studied that. I do not know. There are officials who have contact with people on the reservation or who live on the reservation. The other thing you get aside from this answer about how these policies are offered with the best intentions how these regulations are promulgated in the best interests of indians is the question about money. The line you hear from leadership of the tribe is they are underfunded. If only we had another grant program, another federal allocation whether it is for housing or school or Health Programs then we would be able to fix all of this. Increasingly, what was interesting, as i talk to American Indians on reservations particularly those who are older, they had heard this line a lot over the years and always felt like the next program around the bend was going to be the one that saved them and they had become quite cynical about that possibility because they had seen the money come and either there is a great deal of corruption on the reservation, the money has not gone where it was promised or the money had gone where it was promised but hadnt spurred the kind of educational quality, the kinds of things that were promised and i think overall, especially the other reservation felt that line had been played out which age the ideological perceptions, much more multicultural, children in public schools, the impression of native americans and you mentioned the mascot names and things like that. Do they have a perception about the teach for america workers that there is a white they will not be welcomed if they seek to assimilate other than economic independence, is there a perception we are not a Multicultural Society . These reservations are multicultural themselves. There is plenty of intermarriage going on with people outside the reservation, very rare to find somebody who doesnt have what they would call mixed blood. My father was white, my mother was indian, it is not an uncommon story. I dont think they believe america is a fast white universe where they would not be welcomed. But certainly i think the message on the reservation, the one they are getting tribal present in many cases from school, is one of victimization, one where the problems we are experiencing here can be blamed on prejudice, can be blamed on things that are outside our control and some of these policies certainly are outside their control and i was torn when trying to figure out whos the audience for this book, in some ways you want to go to washington and change these policies but these are people you want to give more autonomy, more control, the point of changing these policies would to get more freedom back and to help them see themselves less as victims because more of this power would reside there. Even on the tribal level, the question of teach for america folks being too white. It is shocking how often this is thrown around by tribal officials. I was at the red grout indian school, a Catholic School on pine bridge and another one called the school in between the northern cheyenne and crowe reservation in montana. You get nothing but insults about the schools. Theyre creaming the best of our students. Oh, this is just a legacy of the boarding school. And certainly the boarding school question is something you hear a lot about. Almost all problems, i think, on the reservations, youll hear at some point someone talk about the boarding school, whether its alcoholism or the sexual abuse that goes on, economic problems, and i think that what is interesting the lengths to which, especially these two schools, certainly, i visited, have gone to, to try to make up for the legacy. Both schools are completely run by American Indians. Theres not a white person in the administration of these schools. So theres at the person who runs the is half pro half cheyenne almost all the teachers are native americans and will bring in people from the jesuit volunteer corps to come help out, and because theyre not a lot of qualified teachers on the reservation. This whom who went and fired half her staff her whole staff at her Elementary School. She hired teachers from another local Elementary School, which now has a teaching shortage. Any fault on the pine ridge, theyre typically classroom 40 or 50 classrooms with no teachers. So the idea that you can say, i like you, youre white, youre too white, i wont have you, these kids need some kind of quality. They need some kind of educated adults at the front of the room, offering them some tools for the future, and the kinds of objections you hear, i think, are would be deeply worrisome to parents who are on the reservation, who want Something Better for their kids. In canada, i was just wondering oh, does the situation in the indians in canada differ . As far as i understand they face some other problems but a with different policies in place. Sure. The reserves system is very similar to ours in they dont have Property Rights. What is different is that Indigenous People in canada have more political power because they make up a slightly greater portion of the population, and actually how the population is concentrated, particularly in areas like British Columbia where they have a great deal of say over provincial policies. The might mike up a similar proportion of the population in montana or south dakota, but those are only one of 50 state wiz have. So theyre not going to have the same degree of influence. That its interesting because that policy certainly got a lot theyve hat a lot of pushback from other First Nations leaders on that proposal. But i think what is so attractive to me and to many indians about that proposal is it actually is an optin law. So, if you are a tribe that really wants Property Rights, that its ready for this, that feels like you dont have enough autonomy, you can opt into this First Nations Property Ownership act. If you feel like youre being protected but safe and feels like the last thing standing between you and white people taking over your land tomorrow, is the reserve system, you can keep it. Thats if you like your land and you can keep it. So i think that they have actually managed to reassure a lot of first nation leaders bu by saying, this is an option, and i think a lot of First Nations leaders have really signed on because they have been experiencing this frustration for so many years. This have similar Natural Resource questions, especially in British Columbia, which is rich with Natural Resources. One of the places i visited is called kamloop. And the dark contrast from one side of the river to the other. Its the north koreasouth korea difference because if you look at it at night you see almost no lights on the reserve side of the river because theres no development. There are he homes there are almost all temporary, again, because of the land question you. Cant get a mortgage to build a house. You can just get a trailer home that you can stuff more and more of your family members into. So despite the fact that this area is not only rich with Natural Resources but its gorgeous and tourists are flocking in and out all the time, and the side of the river that is not reserve land is flourishing. While you go to the other side and see everything is fall eight part and its really, i think, just an amazing lesson in what ownership means. The average life span for even a real house on the reserve side of the river is Something Like 15 years. Thats the point at which someone will need to tear it down and build a new house because it has been so badly taken care of. One of the things that one more point on the canadian question, theyve tried to get around this mortgage question by having the tribe back the mortgages. So, theyll say if you fail to pay the bank, we promise me bank as the try pay. Millions of dollars of year in arrears that the tribes are having to pay because their members say, oh, you know, this is your problem. You owe this to us. We dont have to pay that money, and with the way this happened in the United States, too by the way, if you make us try to pay the money well vote you out of office. You can see how all of the incentives are so pervert. Nobody has a pride of ownership. Nobody has a sense this is a longterm asset they can keep. Everybody has the sense that his somebody elses responsibility. You mention ted beginning, the Sexual Violence happening in tribes. If you could expand on the problem and talk about the Tribal Court System and if you think that impacts those rates. I think the explanation about boarding schools is at getting to the root cause. You have schools run by the Catholic Church and other churchings where there was widespread sexual abuse and then you have kids coming back to the reservations as adults who were clearly had huge emotional problems and not didnt understand the sexuality, didnt understand the role in the family, and the result was i think they sort of ended perpetrating this on their own children. What about now . Thats the question i keep coming back to. This is not a problem now. This is the sexual abuse on reservations are a problem. The boarding schools are not the issue. The question us how to move forward. Unfortunately, we have had a situation where we are not properly protecting the rights of women who are victims of Sexual Violence and children who are victims of sexual abuse. The United States federal government. This is one cases i think theres an enormous role for the federal government to be overseeing this because these are american citizens who need to be protected, and so, for instance, you have cases where the Tribal Court System theyre not collecting rape kits properly or not doing it at all. You have cases where judges are presiding over cases in which their own family members are parties to them. You have cases, again, even where the descendents are not probably being given rights. Rules of evidence are different. So on a court level theres a huge problem. Then beyond that we have had a couple of cases where whistleblowers, people who have said who worked for the United States federal government who said, a lot of this is being swept under the carpet. You have the cased a spirit lake, for instance, the one that has made the news most, where its just widespread, what is going on, and one of the people who said, we cant we have to make this public, have to do Something Else about this, was fired from his job for saying that out loud. So sometimes the impulse for being sensitive you know, nobody wants to say, theres widespread sexual abuse on indian reservations, especially if you feel like, the real problem with the boarding schools and that was the original sin, but we have to say it, and its not on every reservation. But i think we have to think about the children who are the victims here, and its not a question of who we can blame 50 years ago. Its a question of how we can move forward, and the only way to do so, i think, is really by holding the perpetrators accountable, and making sure that not only are they subject to tribal court, whatever kind of justice theyre meeting out, but making sure subject to the same laws other americans are subject to. I have a question about how to move forward. You have described [inaudible] sounds like a contracts between a brokendown welfare state and the gulag. What is to prevent the adoption of new policy, who is it the agency, the tribal government . Who defends what we have now is most people i think the system we have in place right now is a kind of partnership, perverse partnership, that exists between the tribal leadership and representatives in washington, and the tribal leadership says to the People Living on the reservation, you go vote for x, y and z representative. They will bring home more money to us, and we promise to fixure problems, with that more money. And i think the only the people in washington who represent the congressmen who are from these districts have no incentive to say, we have to put a stop to this, theres too much corruption, too many problems, theyre not protecting peoples rights, because they want to be reelected. And then theres the rest of congress, and what do they care . Im not saying that flippantly. If your a representative in washington from rhode island or from connecticut, you know, what is your incentive to launch a crusade about the corruption on indian reservations . Or about getting indians more Property Rights in you dont see that as your job. So i think that, again, the incentives are wrong here. The things that could be done, like i said sort of the end, from my perspective, the lowes hanging fruit here are problems that could be fixed on the state level. I think that honestly with enough with enough push you could see the adoption of educational alternatives in states like south dakota or montana. When i interviewed some parents on pine ridge and a few of them had recently gone on a plane trip, care of an outphilanthropyist, to see Charter Schools in denver, and the parents who are hon the plane came back and they were blown away. They saw these schools that were actually their highperforming Charter Schools. The father i was talking to said the kids there didnt even speak english at first. Were ahead of them. But it was a little bit of what i was saying before, exposing them to what other options are, because, again, this kind of isolation gives you the sense that this is all there is; that anything else is beyond your reach. And so to give them a sense of, no, if you did push for Charter School legislation in south dakota you could get a kit to open just off the reservation. You could get educational alternatives to exist on the northern cheyenne reservation in montana, and it wouldnt be everything. Certainly wouldnt solve Property Rights but at least it would give your kind of knowledge they need to take the next step on behalf of your people. And right now they just dont have those tools, and with each succeeding generation, as i said, the graduation rate, high School Graduation rate has been falling. We are spend are more sending billions upon billions of dollars to happen Indian Education expats and its doing nothing. You see with each succeeding generation, the failure is compounding. So to start with i think that would be the lowest hanging fruit. The problems with changing these policies are so deeply engrained in our i mean in constitutional law at this point. Its very hard town tangle the Property Rights issue. I dont see any way around it. Youre getting this question right now many have you have been following the north dakota pipeline issue. Federal law currently says that those treaties that people keep mentioning are not valid. We can like that or we dont have to like that, but thats the bottom line. We have sort of the federal government has said, with these there have been Supreme Court cases that have said indian treed treaties signed in the 189th century are meaningless. They dont have the they arent our current policy today but were still having this argument over something a treaty signed in 1858 and we cant move beyond that. Instead of having an argument about taking land that is reservation land, giveing it to people so they can start lifting themselves up and start having the same economic freedoms and tubbed his rest of opportunities the rest of us have. Instead of doing that were still arguing about things that happened 150 years ago, and i just dont see thats not going anywhere. Its not helping anyone, and so i understand why its not people dont want to hear that and it does seem deeply unfair. Seems unfair that we have taken this land, but this where is our federal policy stands right now. I see it the same way i see the boarding school question. What are we going to do next . Because what we are doing has not been working and its been making the lives of American Indians worse and worse with each succeeding generation. Its not getting better. Who are the champions in congress . You mentioned i thought you were saying there was some traction for Property Rights. There are some folks in the utah delegation, which utah has some American Indians and have been trying for instance, to pass legislation that would curb the bias powers particularly when it comes to Natural Resources. Utah is right now engaged in the fight over some land that the Obama Administration wants to designate as National Monument, which would halt in many ways Economic Activity that is happening there in order to preserve some cultural act facts but indians on the ground who are engaged in the Economic Activity and have gone to their legislators and said we dont want you should figure out a way to protect the cultural artifacts without designating it as a National Monument because youre interfering with our ability to earn a livelihood. The think representatives in utah have gone to some lengths to figure out how to do this a different way, and also how can we give make indians as partners in managing these Natural Resources in a much better way than we have. The policies that we are enacting and that we are that washington is defending are so deeply paternalistic. They excuse me they simply assume that nabs are not capable of doing this for themselves and i think the Research Shows otherwise. There have been papers that looked at when indians have been put in charge of Natural Resources, on or nearby their land, done in partnership with the federal government, the result environmentally, the results for the people, the results economically turn out much better than when you just have some guy from the bia saying this is how were going to do things. It sounds obviously a very complex issue, and situation. But every time the policies are looked at, its not a just looking at the next generation to come and take take a multigenerational response. Its respect how each individual peoples living on reserve land sees what they want the future to be, and not taking a blanket policy, because i also know you have land in Northern California that theyre thriving in some industries, and where you have the then you have on the plains in montana and south dakota, where theyre struggling with these rights issues and what they can do even surrounding it on the reservation. So, even when you doc about education, not just the current generation that is there in the schools done that defendant enoughly needs to be address but how to educate the parents and giving them opportunities and seeing what opportunities they have. And ultimately respect of the culture that has been completely disrespected, raped, and oppressed. I think this question comes with a lot which is how do you its actually a question that faces every Racial Ethnic Group in america. A question of how much are we americans and how much are we chinese and how much are we jews and how much are we africanamericans . This is the ultimate assimilation question in america, and i think American Indians face it in the same way. One response has to be that the people who are most able to protect and secure their Cultural Heritage are those who have some kind of economic resource. If you are a korean family who moved here and you want your children to be able to speak korean, going forward, you will send them to korean schools, and they will learn their Cultural Heritage, and you will send them go to a Korean Church and have you will devote some of your resources you earned from your job to preserving that Cultural Heritage. Unfortunately some of the people were talking about are just dealing with basic subsistence, so sometimes when people ask the me,ened around you concerned about the preservation of language. I am and i think that the best way to do that is to give American Indians the tools, the resources, to do this themselves. One of the best programs that you see out there and preserving tribal language is actually at this red cloud indian Catholic School. Theyre partnering with University Resources to record the way people speak in traditional languages so they can have all of this preserved for the future. They are teaching children theres whole curriculum of teaching the lakota language to students at the school, and also to try to involve the community as much as possible. Fortunately the school is dismissed as too white so it doesnt count. But i think that when youre trying to figure out the best way to, again, give American Indians their autonomy this is what youre getting at, think, with your question about how different tribes have different needs. If you gave each one of them their autonomy who is to say the folks the tris youre talking about in the Pacific Northwest wouldnt be doing even better if they had more autonomy to make these decisions on their own, because even though theyre doing relatively well theyre still faced with the same kind regulatory obstacles that indians on the plains are faced with. Even look to go senecas, a billion dollars in gaming refer knewor. Would think this place would look like manhattan. And it doesnt because in that time, the big refer news, the biggest revenues, the standard of living that improven a little bit, health care has gotten marginally better, they still go to some of the worst schools in new york state, and i said to the leaders of the tribe, have you thought about opening your own school, or trying to at one point they had talked about a partnership with a school in buffalo, which is one of the top prep schools in the area, and the parents said, too hard for our kids. Were not interested. There is a local Catholic School that was doing a marginally better job of educating kids and parents said it wasnt worth it to side our kids to the other side of the education for that. I said have you given in the resources to getting your kids better education, we said we funded a few more Security Officers at the local school. To me theres this is not a community that has been lifted up by this money. This is a community that is its as if someone dropped a planeload of dollar bills on the community and no one has picked it up and taken the initiative to make their lives better, and thats the difference between Economic Development that comes from organic cli grown businesses with people who have an incentive to make their livers metsker dropping a planeload of dollar bills. I want to compare other cultures that come from another country by choice, that come to his land to live and make what they want and preserve their elements of their culture to a people that do not choose to be in this situation they are in. Why not . Because the big the perception, the depression that comes with having your land stolen from you, that comes from trying to negotiate with the government that could care less about your being and your people, and that you basically lost, and are continuously reed of losing reminded of losing whether its treaties, policies, negotiations, pleading, is continuous retraumatization of the government and the people. So there are differences because even when a a listen to trying to find ways, which is why i went back to you they have to be respected in such a way, what do they want . Because the way that a typical american or White American i understand there are statements that its too white. They dont need to be told, this is how you need to be living. This is what it take toads be successful because some of the ways its not culturally sound to what they want. Maybe somebody want what theyre learning but i think apparently patronizing because when i went to reservations, what i found was that people really wanted their christian to get a high school education, and they really didnt like the level of poverty they were living in and really wanted material good goods. A lot 0 of this devolves to what you culturally value is different from wham i culturally value, and i dont think thats the case here. I think youre underestimating how much they week woo like to see the kind of success that other americans have. Not underestimating and what im saying the how and way differs and needs to be respect. Im not saying what they have what difference people on reservations have is what they are happy about. My opinion is the change they want to see and how they want to see it often need to be respected and it is key awe toni autonomy. Partnering with schools i wish i had the name of the tribe theyre up to allowing in the surrounding communities and they are bringing in ways to preserve their cultural and educate their youth so they can increase the education status of their people and of the surrounding communities. But theyre doing it their way, some its theyre being success. At it, not trying to take, say, kit model which, no, some reservations are saying its too white, they feel that way. Because its very different to say, i can only succeed if the quoteunquote white man is telling me how to succeed and this is the only way to do it, versus i have skills that can be cultivated and i have ideas to share. I guess we agree in some ways. I think there are all sorts of different educational models that would allow American Indians to succeed. Think that the reason that i keep harping on the tribal leadership who tell mets its too white its its only the tribal leadership. Its not any parents of the kidses. They didnt say the schools are too white. They said, wow, can i get that, too . The answer should be, yes, if thats what you want, absolutely. Lets bring it tomorrow. And im not suggesting that there ir im in favor of all kinds of educational choice and whether were talking about American Indians or not. But i think that their leadership sometimes is standing in the way of that. Theyre trying to act as a kind of cultural guard keeper, saying, no, this is what fits in our culture and you, even 0 though youre a full blooded member of the tribe cannot say what is in our culture because you dont know. Im going to tell you what you should be preserving and what fits here, and i think that the parents who want Something Better for their children should have a much bigger say in how that turns out. Thank you. [applause] this has been wonderful presentation, and resonates with other areas as well. Jim and i write about federal bureaucracy and i think the bureaucrats [inaudible] where they can tell us what to do. I think its a very a piece of work that goes beyond indian nations but its very important that you focus on the by indianss because we are all responsible for it