"United States history classes may teach the injustices brought upon Native Americans by Europeans hundreds of years ago, but most do not take the initiative to find out how those acts are still largely affecting Native Americans today.

Native Americans living on American Indian reservations experience some of the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, disease, teen pregnancy and the worst housing conditions in our nation. Poverty is a recurring problem for Native Americans, but especially for those living on Native American lands.

An Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. Although the federal government recognizes more than 550 tribes in the country, there are only 326 Indian reservations.

Federal officials said violent crime rates on reservations are more than twice the national rate and epidemics of domestic and sexual violence exist, along with high instances of child abuse, teen suicide and substance abuse. There is also a proliferation of gang activity on reservations, yet law enforcement recruitment and retention across reservations lag far behind the rest of the nation."

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Alexandra Waite: Ignoring the epidemic (The Accent Advocate 8/31)