For some Native American tribes in Oklahoma that have dealt with numerous historical injustices and neglect, the COVID-19 pandemic was not going to be another example.
“It just came down to, if it was going to happen we had to do it ourselves,” said Dr. Adam Vascellaro, chief medical officer for the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, located in Shawnee.
“So a lot of us here just rolled up our sleeves and started working. Just chopping wood, carrying water every day and getting it done,” he said.
If the approximately 10,000 Oklahoma members of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation didn’t do it, they had learned the hard way it wasn’t going to get done.