I recently returned from a trip to the American Southwest, an area with a relatively high Native American population. What I expected to see on this trip were a thriving, traditional people who lived on reservations allotted to them by the government. In part I was not wrong in my expectations: the people were indeed culturally thriving, and still practice their traditions on the reservations. However, I did not expect to see the level of poverty that they are forced into.
Many of the reservations that we saw were quite literally in the middle of nowhere. While these lands are steeped in spirituality and very important to the various tribes that inhabit them, it should not go unnoticed that there is very little access to basic things such as higher education, job opportunity, and even a simple supermarket. Sometimes we would drive hours through Navajo Nation and only see one grocery store. This is absolutely nothing against the Navajo people, who I respect deeply; it is against the Anglo-Americans who have thrust the people who were on this continent first into below average living conditions through years of subjugation and institutional racism.
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One of the biggest problem faced by Native American communities today is diabetes. You may already know this. But do you know why?
It is because many reservations exist in food deserts. A food desert is an area where fresh or healthy food is either scarce or extremely expensive, leaving little to no option other than processed junk food or canned goods.
Take the Havasupai tribe, who live in the Havasu Canyon, for example. Their population is a little bit over 600, and there is only one grocery store in their small town, which (from what I saw) sold mostly chips, Gatorade, sodas, canned food, and some bread and condiments. There are two ways in and out of the canyon: helicopter or horseback, and most people opt for the helicopter. The problem with this is that there is extremely limited access to higher education, which then in turn (paired with their location) limits job opportunity, forcing the Havasupai to live primarily on tourism. While the tribe rakes in roughly $4.5 million annually, it comes out to less than $7,000 per capita, which is much lower than the national average. Hence, the inability to create more efficient ways to transport food into the canyon, which then leads to outbreaks of diabetes and unhealthy lifestyles (that are no fault of the Havasupai).
So why should we care? After all, it doesn't affect us white people!
Think again. These are populations whose homes we have stolen, whose burial sites we have decimated, whose traditions we have outlawed. These are populations who practice healing, spirituality, mental health care, and make beautiful artwork. And they are American citizens just as much as I am. So why has our entire nation decided to turn a blind eye and allow this kind of poverty? Why must these people resort to selling the beauties of their land to tourism just to survive?
It is our ancestor's fault that the Native American communities in this country live in poverty. Even if your ancestors "weren't here back then" or "totally had nothing to do with it," white people still benefit from the subjugation and abuse of the Native Americans that once lived here, and Native Americans are still suffering. That is why we need to care. We need to realize that we have done nothing to deserve what we took, and we need to repair the damages as best we can.
