Dr. Yolandra Gomez Toya’s episode on COVID in the Native American community recently posted. As usual, we are posting Resources About Native American Allies as a supplement to the podcast episode. As Yolandra mentions, understanding Native American identity is a complex undertaking. In the first instance, there are over 500 tribal nations in the United States. Secondly, they live throughout the country and in varied living environments. Some folks live on reservations in rural areas, others live in urban centers and everywhere in between.
And while Native American communities face the same disparities that other communities of color experience, they have their own unique issues as well. Native Americans have a different political relationship with the U.S. government because they are sovereign nations. Our educational systems do a poor job of teaching about Native Americans and consequently people don’t know much about contemporary Native Americans. Unfortunately, our website can’t cure that deficit, but we will try to give some basic links for you to begin the process of educating yourself.
Healthcare in Indian Country
The U.S. government has an obligation to provide healthcare to Native Americans, including Alaskan indigenous people. This obligation comes from the unique relationship between the U.S. government and Native Americans. Which is based on treaty agreements and trust law*. Indian Health Services (IHS) is the government agency responsible for funding for healthcare. But, from the very beginning of IHS, the agency routinely underfunds the programs that provide health care. We may think this is only a reservation problem, however underfunding also hurts urban Indian healthcare, under the Urban Indian Health Programs. Underfunding and poverty create a health crisis for American Indians.
COVID -19 Arrives!
As if the regular health crisis wasn’t bad enough, COVID arrived in Native country. Not surprisingly, the pandemic had a devastating impact on Native communities. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic the CDC studied COVID’s impact in twenty-three states with Native American populations. Both the University of Minnesota and Johns Hopkins University published studies in 2021 with data showing the disparate impact the disease had on Native communities. Interestingly, even though the former president and many white Americans downplayed the dangers of COVID, Native communities recognized the danger right away. All communities can learn from the pro-active steps tribes took to protect themselves. Nonetheless, as Yolandra suggested we are years away from understanding the real impact of COVID on Native communities.
Education and Related Infrastructure
Yolandra mentioned the school on the reservation where she grew up is ranked the worst in the state of New Mexico. The issue of underfunding education on Native reservations is long-standing. This underfunding leads to a myriad of issues on reservations such as lack of teachers, inadequate curriculum, and an issue other communities of color know – punitive discipline.
The National Congress of American Indians also tracks the education issue and has some links to help understand the complexity of the problem on their website. The Red Road is a nonprofit organization seeking to empower Native voices on the education issue. In a post called Education of The First People, they publish some damning information about the failure of the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) to competently provide for education on the reservations. The report also highlights the challenges tribes face when they try to tackle improving education. To learn more about the data, please check out their link.
We must also mention Indian Boarding Schools. The history of the schools is shocking. Thousands of Native American children suffered abuse and torture. As a result, tribes are dealing with inter-generational trauma of having their families disrupted. Our current Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna, is taking an active role is investigating the schools. Her presence in the Interior Department shows how important it is to hear Native American voices.
Racism Against Native Americans
As we see from the links above, Native Americans have many unique problems, but on other levels they share common experiences with other marginalized Black and Brown communities. Poverty, inadequate educational opportunities are factors we all share. Our relationships with the U.S. were formed by racism and white supremacy. However, racism against Native Americans is not just historical. It still exists. And, Natives also experience the entire spectrum of racial assaults including stereotyping and microaggressions. If African Americans are rarely represented in the media, Native Americans are not mentioned at all. As our guest stated: “We are here, we exist!”
If we want to be effective allies with Native Americans, we have much to learn about them, and they must learn about us as well. Hopefully, Resources about Native American Allies will be enough to get our readers started on the journey of learning.