Column: Journalists travel to homeland of Oglala Sioux Tribe

On May 1-2, an inaugural regional conference focused on poverty gathered a group of journalists to train residents of South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on media literacy, multimedia skills and entrepreneurial journalism. In most cases, the reporters, who were members of the group UNITY: Journalists for Diversity, traveled to the homeland of the Oglala Sioux Tribe at their own expense and on their personal time.

If this community rings vaguely familiar, it may be because 57 children from Pine Ridge’s American Horse School made headlines in January after asking local police to investigate an incident in which they were harassed at a Rapid City minor league hockey game. They said a group of men sprayed beer and yelled racial slurs at the kids, some as young as 9.

More recently, the young adults of Pine Ridge made the front page of The New York Times because a shocking number of them have committed or attempted suicide.

In the midst of the solemn black-and-white images of Wounded Knee, the Oglala Lakota College Historical Center and children with fresh pens and sketch books, there was [Lalo] Alcaraz, creator of the comic strip “La Cucaracha,” editor-in-chief of Pocho.com and all-around Latino icon, sitting in a blue kindergarten chair in a newly built youth center with reservation dogs lapping at his feet.

“Oh my goodness, they ran the place,” said Alcaraz, laughing at my notice of several pictures that included free-roaming dogs. “The dogs would come in off the street. They just sauntered in, hung out, got some attention and split.”

Alcaraz had many reflections about his short time on the reservation that will inspire his social commentary just as the experience will improve the reporting of all the journalists in attendance.