"Many people after watching the ABC 20/20 special, “Hidden America: Children of the Plains” may be asking, “What can be done to help?” The special depicted the daily lives of young people on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, home of one of the poorest counties in the United States. Like ABC reporter Diane Sawyer inquired at the end of the special, you may also be wondering why American Indians even stay on their reservations.

I am from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, neighbors by geography and tied by family and marriage to our relatives on the Pine Ridge Reservation. While my journey in higher education now finds me serving as president of Northwest Indian College at the Lummi Nation in Washington State, I regularly travel back to my homeland and my family.

The Lakota, Dakota and Nakota bands scattered throughout the Northern Plains and into Canada are bound together by our cultures, languages and our blood. We are one people, with shared languages, beliefs and relationships. We are unique in our understanding of how we came to be people. Inyan, the first creation, gives of its blood to create the sky and water and gives of itself to make the Earth, Maka. We emerge along with all of the other nations onto the Earth—to live with strength and generosity."

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Cheryl Crazy Bull: Education is Key to Prosperity (Indian Country Today 11/2)