"The sense that you are leaving someplace familiar and entering a different world is apparent when you pass the Red Lake Indian Reservation sign on Hwy. 89.

It's all familiar to me. I grew up on the White Earth Reservation, 70 miles south. The small-town feel, the endless mishmash of cheap HUD houses, jumbles of kids' toys and cars in the front yard, roaming dogs, reservation license plates with names like HONEY and LUCYB, familiar faces. Olive skin and dark hair. The young people with wide-set and round faces, the older folks with a darker complexion. They could all be from White Earth.

The faces on the front page this past week could be my relatives. But this isn't the 1960s and 1970s, when I grew up. This is a grittier time, more intense. My childhood was painful and frightening, but this bare-knuckles, hip-hop, full-throttle world is not mine.

By comparison, my childhood on White Earth was practically idyllic. That's a ridiculous thought, after the violence, death and corruption that I witnessed growing up, that anything could be worse. But here it is, right in front of me."

Get the Story:
Mark Boswell: Looking like a local, but being an outsider (The Minneapolis Star Tribune 3/27)
pwlat

Relevant Links:
Red Lake Net News - http://www.rlnn.com
Red Lake Nation - http://www.redlakenation.org
Red Lake High School - http://www.paulbunyan.net/rlschools/hs.htm

Related Stories:
Surviving victims talk about Red Lake tragedy (3/25)
Opinion: A dark day in the history of all tribes (3/25)
Column: Red Lake members in Twin Cities head home (3/25)
Opinion: Everyone to blame for Red Lake tragedy (3/25)
Deadly tragedy puts focus on Native youth problems (3/24)
Response continues to tragedy at Red Lake Reservation (3/24)
Yellow Bird: Red Lake community in deep pain (3/24)
Ojibwe Leader: Answers needed to help youth (3/24)
Opinion: Violence not uncommon at Red Lake (3/24)
Column: Has media underplayed Red Lake? (3/24)
Opinion: Media circus won't get to heart of matter (3/24)
Letters: Star Trib readers respond to tragedy (3/24)
Indian Country sends support to community in shock (3/23)
Details emerge on tragedy at Red Lake Reservation (3/23)
Tribal Member: My reservation will never be the same (3/23)
Opinion: Above all, this is a tribal nation tragedy (3/23)
Editorial: Tragedy at Red Lake unites all in grief (3/23)
Editorial: Solidarity with the people of Red Lake (3/23)
Column: Sacred pipe ceremony begins the healing (3/23)
Column: Media gets crash course in sovereignty (3/23)
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