"The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts has revived the spectre of the Indian relocation policy by relocating artists from their booth spaces on the Santa Fe Plaza for Indian Market 2010. It is the second year of "relocation."

I am in absolute disagreement with SWAIA's artist relocation program. I feel that SWAIA has treated the artists, myself included, unjustly. I have no trust and faith in SWAIA.

In 1956, Public Law 959, the infamous Indian Relocation Act, changed Indian culture and lives forever.

In a similar way, SWAIA is now removing artists from their long-held Santa Fe Plaza booths and giving these spaces to retail vendors, in my case, to a non-Indian retail book booth.

This is not Book Market; this is Indian Market. The Santa Fe Plaza is the artists' finest showcase and stage of any show in the world. To me, it is sacred ground.

The relocation policy was another government act to rid the country of Indians. It involves a government policy called assimilation, to remove Indians from their homelands and into "civilization" to become a part of the American dream. It did not work! The Indians would lose their cultural identity, languages and religions, but more importantly, their homelands.

This is not the American dream; this is the Indian nightmare."

Get the Story:
Naávaasya: 'Relocation' policies still working against Indians (The Santa Fe New Mexican 8/15)