"When you go home, please tell our story." | Indigenous Peoples' Day

During the summer of 2018, I worked on a Native American* reservation. It was an experience that completely flipped my life upside-down (or rightside-up). In short, it was eye-opening, gut-wrenching, amazing, and beautiful. In the midst of the immense economic devastation present in the places I went, the expressed need of the people was jarring. When I asked what I could do for them when I returned home, each person said the same thing: "When you go home, please tell our story. We feel so forgotten. Just please tell our story."

Across the reservations I visited, I kept hearing the same request. Tell our story. So on this Indigenous Peoples' Day, that is what I will do.

Here are a few facts to start. I encourage you to sit with each one.

• There was talk by Jeffery Amherst and William Trent in the 1700's about giving smallpox-infected blankets to the Natives in hopes of exterminating them
• There is plenty of documentation and policy that demonstrates and intent to wipe out the Native American population. Much of these efforts were done by professing Christians in the name of Christianity. They wanted to Christianize these people by wiping out any resemblance of their culture, even if it meant killing them.
• During a speech in 1892 in Colorado, Captain R.H. Pratt said, "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." These remarks influenced the intent of Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania and others like it across the country.
• This ideology is still alive today. A few years ago, I was in a class where a pastor said he believed God sent the Europeans to America to "deal with the natives."
• Natives believe that land is sacred and not to be owned. The early settlers broke treaties (which are also considered sacred) and straight up stole land from the natives—1.5 billion acres of it
• The land Natives were forced onto was unwanted by the colonizers for a reason. It wasn't great for farming or livestock, and water access was also an issue. Not to mention, many of the regions now segmented as Native land endure extreme weather and temperature conditions.
• Natives were forced to send their children to boarding schools where they were not allowed to speak their language or practice anything related to their culture, and were punished if they did.
• These boarding schools wiped out their culture, life skills, and parenting skills. We are still seeing the generational effects of children being raised by parents who were never taught how to raise children. I met several people who were in these boarding schools. People still alive today attended these boarding schools. This is not ancient history.
• The generational effects of these boarding schools are overwhelming. Think about it like this: all children were removed from their homes and sent to boarding schools where they were forced to assimilate to the way of the white man. 
• In the process, many of them died — much could be said about this alone but a couple points: they had no immunity to the diseases brought over by the Europeans, and that, combined with the general neglect they endured, led to their deaths. Accidents and death by exposure (due to running away) were other leading causes of death. Additionally, families were not generally notified of their child's death. 
• Most of the survivors suffered horrendous abuse on top of watching their friends pass away. I could write a whole other post on the effects of trauma on a person's well-being, but for now let's just say that carrying the effects of trauma is a massive load all on its own. So for those that survived and went back to their communities, they found themselves to be completely different from the culture they were stolen from. They did not know how to interact with their families if they were even alive when they returned. Many of them had to figure out how to make it on their own, turning to substances and ways of numbing the pain. The life practices of their culture — hunting, growing crops, spirituality — were long forgotten. The US government ripped these children away from their homes, stripped them of every skill they had, and sent them back years later to devastated communities. With no context or community to gain these skills back, they are still experiencing the effects many years later.
• A bit of light: On the reservation where I worked, there were efforts by the local youth organization to teach local kids cultural practices that had been fading such as traditional meals, gardening, and medical practices. There was also some talk by one local about offering cooking classes to adults in the community. The situation the government left these people in was bleak but they are still fighting today to bring their culture back to life. I would never want to paint these people has helpless, so in sharing their story of devastation, I also want to include their perseverance. 
• Native American parents had no say in whether or not to send their children to boarding schools until 1978
• Again, this is not ancient history. Although the war against these people began several hundred years ago, we still see its effects today and only very recently have we begun to undo these harmful laws.
• Even though the US was founded on the principle of religious freedom, Natives were not allowed to practice their religion until 1978
• Many in the Christian community have called Native religious practices witchcraft. I beg to differ, but at any rate, even the practice of witchcraft was legalized in 1962. So by 1978, it was well passed time for these people to have religious freedom.
• It wasn't until 1990 that the Native American Languages Act was passed, allowing Native languages to be taught in school
• Native Americans were not allowed to learn their own languages in school until 33 years ago. This is not ancient history.
• According to the CDC, suicide among native youth is 2.5x the rate of the national average
• Think about the youth mental health crisis in the US right now. Most of us can probably think of at least one youth in our community that has tragically lost their life to suicide. We can probably think of several actually. Now imagine that, but 2.5x worse with little to no accessible mental health treatment.
• An estimated 13% of Native homes lack running water, compared to 1% nationwide
• Consider the food deserts many of these people live in. Where I spent most of the summer, there was one grocery store. That grocery store jacked up the prices around the time people would receive the food assistance. But that was their only option. So those that do not have running water have to buy it. Factor in lack of transportation, disabling health conditions that prevented them from walking, and lack of funds to even buy the water in the first place, and you've got a massive issue. It was such a problem that I knew a local resident that made runs every day to drop off gallons of clean water to people who couldn't get it themselves.
• Added to this mess is the fact that the land these people were forced onto by the US government presents many difficulties, including a crisis of water. The water tower present on the reservation was not enough to sustain the people that lived there, but there seemed to be no reasonable solution. There was talk of another tower, but with what money?
• The Pine Ridge Reservation (I spent some time here) has the lowest life expectancy in the western hemisphere—second only to Haiti
• I'm often asked why this is the case. For starters, health is a major concern. Lack of safe, running water is a contributor. So is lack of access to adequate healthcare (due to transportation, location, etc. The same things we discussed with food). And not just lack of adequate healthcare, but also lack of in-home or residential care for those that cannot care for themselves. Then there is the lack of nutritious foods, and also lack of knowledge on diet and nutrition in general. The boarding schools wiped out parenting and life skills, so that knowledge was not passed on.
• There's also the crisis of addiction, with many layers that I won't unpack here. But in short, lack of connectedness fuels addiction, and when you are living in a place with little to no recovery support, most of these people don't get the help they need in time.

Perhaps what angers me most about all of this is that so much of it was done in the name of Christianity.

We haven't even touched on the missing and murdered indigenous women, forced sterilization, or any of the battles against these people. The list of atrocities is long.

The stereotypes are louder than the facts.

There were many stereotypes I heard and, unfortunately, partially believed prior to living on the reservation. An often repeated line I had heard was, "Natives get free college, and yet they're so lazy they don't even leave and make a life for themselves!" There are other beliefs like it, but let's break this one down. It will give more context to why other claims like these are false.

1. Natives simply do not get to go to college for free. They have opportunities for scholarships and grants for free tuition just like everyone else, and may also qualify for specific scholarships based on ethnicity. But just like everyone else, only a select few are chosen for these scholarships. Recently, there have been some states moving toward tuition-free college for Natives, but only for tribes that are federally recognized.

2. Even if they are granted scholarship money or free tuition, they might not be to follow through on attending college for several reasons. Transportation and travel is a huge one. Colleges are often far away from reservations with no public transportation or practical means of getting there. On the reservations I visited, it was not uncommon for a household to not have a car. Add to this needing to pay for textbooks, room and board, and other expenses, free tuition just doesn't seem to cut it. 

3. Even if funding for school is somehow not an issue, many young Natives feel the obligation to stay at home and take care of their sick parents and/or younger siblings, nieces/nephews, etc. 

4. Despite all of these reasons, if they choose to not go to college, that still doesn't make them lazy. The reservation is the closest thing they have to maintaining their culture and being around their people. We're talking about a people that were forced into boarding schools, forced to assimilate, forced to give up their culture, and forced to give up their language. Now people feel the need to call them lazy for not wanting to leave the place where they can now freely live, among people with a shared history? College is a subjective value depending on culture, and not one by which we should judge a group of people.

But what about the tribes that aren't economically disadvantaged?

It's true — there are some tribes that are well-off financially and whose youth receive money each month from their Tribal government. However, you will find that many of these communities still encounter great difficulty. Receiving money each month doesn't solve all of life's problems, especially if you don't know how to manage it. The generational issues still exist here, they just look different.

How to honor these people.

After hearing about all of these things, some people will ask the same question I kept asking, "What can I do?" So I will repeat: tell their story.

Here's the thing I've learned about stories: they are the only thing powerful enough to shift a person's heart. It's not magic — the person has to be open to receiving it. But sometimes, even when they aren't open at the time of hearing the story, it remains a nagging thing in the back of their mind.

Tell their story, because change needs to happen.

Here's another thing I've learned: we're not saviors. We want so badly to fix things for other people, but in doing so, we often make it worse. So if we are going to help, we need to listen. We can't go in with an attitude of "I know what to do and this is how I'm going to do it," but with an open mind and the question, "What can I do? How can I help?" We need to understand that the answers might not look like our solutions. We might think we know better, but I don't know a person that knows their situation better than those that are actually in it. We need to support and empower people already living in these communities and we need to do that on their terms. We need to understand that in responding to these expressed needs, we'll probably feel uncomfortable. No one is shaming you for that, but try to search that discomfort and figure out why it's there rather than run from it.

No one alive today is responsible for what happened hundreds of years ago. But we do have a responsibility to not repeat history.

Tell their story.

I became aware of the history indigenous people have experienced thanks to the Blanket Exercise by KAIROS. Many of the statistics I mentioned are highlighted in that activity they created. They are doing incredible work! You can read more about it here.

*Many use the terms "indigenous reservation" or "indigenous people." These are appropriate terms to use! I typically default to "Native American" and "Native people" because that is the terminology the tribes with which I interacted used.