John Yellow Bird Steele
Terry Rambler
William Mendoza
RAPID CITY, SOUTH DAKOTA -- Treaty rights, desecration of sacred sites and improving and increasing access to education were burning topics of discussion during the opening session of a recent symposium of Native American tribal leaders from throughout the region. In conjunction with the Lakota Nation Invitational, the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association held its year-in-review meeting on Dec. 16 at various locations throughout Rapid City. The introduction to the all-day meeting was held at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center. According to agenda distributed at the introductory session, the explicit purpose of the entire GPTCA-sponsored event was to “receive reports on various issues affecting the Great Plains tribes including important information from our representatives to the Tribal/Interior Budget Council (of) the interior budget and programs. Other reports will be on the White House (Tribal Nations) Conference, the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board, the Affordable Care Act case, transportation and protecting sacred sites.” Oglala Sioux Tribe President John Yellow Bird Steele chaired the symposium. Steele serves as vice chairman of GPTCA, which is headquartered in Rapid City. Noted guest speakers included Terry Rambler, chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe of southeastern Arizona, and William Mendoza, Oglala and Sicangu Lakota, recently appointed director of the White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education. Mendoza was appointed to the post by President Barack Obama and had previously served as deputy director of the similarly-purposed White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges and Universities. Rambler spoke about the desecration of venerated tribal lands throughout America through, among other things, the ill-regulated mining practices of large corporations and probable future reduction of human involvement. “This mining they’re not going to start reducing until the year 2020 and when that happens, with technology, we believe it’s going to be more automation than the lunch-pail-and-hardhat worker,” Rambler said. “But what’s important to remember is that this whole thing is going to harm who we are – our identity of who we are as Apaches and our belief and our prayer,” he said. Rambler also spoke to the assemblage about the introduction into the U.S. Congress of HR 1904 – the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2011. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and would allow the federal government to swap land with a mining company near the San Carlos Reservation for the purpose of mining ancestral Apache homelands. “Every time the natural environment – the waters and the lands – are reduced, it reduces our ability, our connection, our prayer. It really further reduces that because we’re tied to that natural environment. That’s who we are, that’s how we were made. We’ve been taught by our elders. I’m here today on behalf of our elders and tribal council,” said Rambler. If approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the legislation would set a precedent for the exchange, as well as outright seizure, of tribal lands by the federal government as it deems necessary for or advantageous to its purposes. Land would be taken with little to no regard for tribes, tribal sovereignty and treaty rights. The federal government’s ulterior motives in creating HR 1904 are the provision of jobs primarily for non-Native Americans, deficit reduction and balancing the budget, according to Rambler. Rambler said he was at the meeting to ask for the support of GPTCA in defeating the legislation as the association is well-known and well-respected throughout Indian country. “It’s time the Indian tribes united and it’s time we created some sort of law to protect our sacred sites,” said Rambler. “It’s time we went back and revisited the National Historic Preservation Act … we can make it work for us, not against us,” he said. Steele spoke about the toxicity and unreliability of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and its likely effects on Native American lands, particularly the Pine Ridge Reservation, using one of TransCanada’s already existent pipelines as an example. “Harsh tar sands with noxious chemicals are used to transport oil,” said Steele. “And (TransCanada) has a pipeline already in southeastern South Dakota,” he said. “Their plan is, they say they can expect one accident, or pipeline burst, during the first year – they had 14 accidents during their first year of operation in southeastern South Dakota so we don’t think they’re very reliable.” “The integrity of their company is not there,” Steele said. Steele also spoke on the topic of treaty rights and the historically ongoing and oftentimes rampant lack of acknowledgement of such rights by the U.S. government. “Treaty rights, which are the supreme law of the land, are often not there,” he said. “If you ask the federal government, they say, ‘Yes, we recognize treaty rights,’ but they don’t act upon them so we’re fighting a very difficult battle.” Mendoza greeted the attendees in his native Lakota tongue and spoke about the significance of the newly created White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education and his personal connection to the initiative as an American Indian. “We’re going to be working to improve American Indian and Alaska Native education opportunities through our tribal colleges and universities,” said Mendoza. “There are critical components to this executive order and how we begin to address what many of you know all too well is the educational crisis that is facing our nations and nationhood – and I stress that element of nationhood,” he said. “Many of us who have come from Indian country know the value and importance of tribal colleges and universities for our youth.” “My being here is the very epitome of the youth we advocate for,” he said. “When we speak about the factors that impact our students, those are the very same factors that have impacted me.” Mendoza said he has a deeply vested interest in striving to increase access to education for American Indian and Alaska Native youth throughout the nation. “This initiative ties at the hip, figuratively speaking, the Bureau of Indian Education, the Office of Indian Education and myself,” he said. The White House Initiative on American Indian and Alaska Native Education will allow for greater collaboration and interconnectivity between the White House, the Bureau of Indian Education and the Office of Indian Education, said Mendoza. Native Americans as the subjects of widespread – and oftentimes ethically questionable – research and the lack of strong ties that frequently exists between tribal schools and the entities appointed to support and govern them are also addressed by the initiative. “We know all too well that we are the most studied people on the face of this planet so in being aware of the impact that we have on research, there will be provisions in the initiative for establishing tribal institutional review boards” and for Indian education research studies and the effectiveness of those studies, as well, Mendoza said. “We know the disconnect between the Bureau of Indian Education, tribal grant schools and tribal councils and we want to help in that area,” he said. Mendoza said he will be working hard to manage all of the aspects and relationships created by the initiative. “As Native Americans, we are not a minority (and) we are not a special interest group, according to the doctrine of the United Nations on indigenous rights,” said Steele. “As such, we have a unique relationship with the federal government that must be honored.” (Contact Jesse Abernathy at staffwriter@nsweekly.com)
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