Rachel Mangels
Module 3 – Blog Post
The source that I reviewed was http://www.bia.gov/index.htm which is the official website for the U.S. Department of the Interior Indian Affairs (IA).
Rather than address a particular aspect of their page or a topic that is presented- I’ve decided to give an overview of the source. The website consists of several pages including Home, Who We Are, What We Do, News, Calendar, Document Library, Consultations, How Do I…, FAQS and Jobs.
Basic Facts:
-The IA has been in existence for almost 200 years (established in 1824)
-“IA currently provides services (directly or through contracts, grants, or compacts) to approximately 1.9 million American Indians and Alaska Natives.”
-Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) takes care of administrating and managing the millions of acres of “subsurface minerals estates” that are held in trust by the US for natives.
-“Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) provides education services to approximately 42,000 Indian students.”
-The website provides up-to-date news on their homepage and News page so that natives and others who are interested can easily stay informed on important topics. As I’m writing this the news feature is that under President Obama’s Climate Action Plan nearly $10 million has been dedicated this year to help tribes prepare for climate change through adaptation and mitigation.
-Their document page offers links to source such as “Guide to Tracing Your American Indian Ancestry” and notices on things such as the “Indian Child Welfare Act”.
-The Frequently Asked Questions page is an excellent source for individuals and groups to begin to understand their rights as natives and how the IA is/can be part of their lives.
I believe that this web resource was selected and put into this course because it is an official legitimate source and the information on it ties in well with our discussions and the point that we are approaching in our Reflexive Scholarly Project. I personally selected it because I am addressing the topic of poverty and substance abuse on reservations for my scholarly project and part of that is investigating what tribal and federal governments are doing to help natives on reservations. I felt that Interior Indian Affairs was a great place to start.
This source, along with so much from this course, has helped me to realize that the lives of natives (or really any people group) are not simple. They are not living a simplistic smooth life on a reservation or acclimating perfectly into the life of the non-natives around them. There are REAL struggles that are unique to them due to their heritage on top of the everyday struggles that we all have.
The views on corruption and dislike of the BIA is rampant amongst MANY tribes. There is a great amount of distrust in this particular organization due to the years of abuse.
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to read my post! After doing the additional reading that was assigned for the Module, I can see where there would be distrust of the BIA as it appears that things are often not "managed" fairly.
ReplyDeleteOne fact that I quoted from my source was that the "Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) takes care of administrating and managing the millions of acres of 'subsurface minerals estates' that are held in trust by the US for natives." The reading and outside sources that I've reviewed show that large portions of reservations are not even truly the natives because they are shared properties such as bodies of water that are not under their control. In addition the book references how in the past under the Dawes Act only 50 million of the 155 million acres in a trust for the natives were actually given to them- the rest were sold off as "surplus". <<Hopefully some of this helps other readers to make connections between my post, your comment, and the reading!<<
Greetings Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI am interested in your scholarly project topic of poverty and substance abuse on Native American Reservations. I too, have a history of substance abuse in my family (both of my parents were alcoholics) and my life growing up was very difficult as a consequence. Today, I realize that much of what occurred while I was growing up was the result of unhealed trauma on the part of my father - as he was also abused as a child. I am by no means condoning any of his inappropriate actions, yet I am acknowledging that people sometimes 'act in' and/or 'act out' in destructive ways as a response to traumagenic experiences. One very common way to both 'act in' and 'act out' is through the abuse of alcohol and other mind altering substances.
For certain, Native Americans have experienced many types of traumagenic experiences (those which may result in trauma to some but not necessarily all people) over hundreds of years (e.g. the effects of disease, genocide, forced migrations, forced assimilation attempts, and situations of poverty). One important part of healing such historical harm is by the use of storytelling. I am attaching a link to a website concerning healing historical harms, thinking that perhaps you may be interested: http://www.sharingculture.info
Hi Nancy!
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely an interesting topic to discuss and in the second portion of it I analyzed resources to see what elements in history might have contributed to this negative cycle that Native Americans on reservations seem to be in. These issues include poverty, high rates of unemployment, child abuse, etc... Identifying factors I identified (because as you said traumatic events or a history of behavior influence modern day actions) include a history of violence with natives placing a lot of pride on warfare and a loss of resources and identity as a result of forced moves and assimilation. In addition to identifying contributing factors - I will also be researching what is being done to address these issues by both tribal and federal governments. **On a side note- I am incredibly sorry to hear about your difficult family life. It can really go either way with parents wither continuing on in the negative behavior they were exposed to or pushing themselves to be completely different.** <3