PRI: Mohawk First Nation evicts non-Natives from land

First Nations

Monday, March 8, 2010

"A Mohawk community near Montreal, Canada, is divided over the basic question of who is allowed to live in their community. Last month, Mohawk leaders of the Kahnawake Reservation issued eviction notices to 25 non-native residents.

The move is based on a tribal law that is meant to protect the community’s Mohawk culture and identity. It says only people who are at least 50 percent Mohawk can live in the 20-square-mile reservation.

But some of the people who received the order to move out are fighting back. They say the eviction is unfair and amounts to racism.

That’s not the way Joe Delaronde sees it. He’s a spokesman for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake.

"We’re on 13,000 acres here and that’s all we have left, our little corner of the world," said Delaronde. "So we kind of protect it like a pit bull. So it seems more dramatic than it is, but if you live around here and you see the amount of non-native people who interact with us and work here and visit here all the time, you’ll see it’s not that dramatic at all. The only thing that we’re saying here is that, if you’re a non-native person, you’re expected to not live here.""

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Mohawk tribe evicts non-natives (Public Radio International 3/8)