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Indian Reservations

November 2, 2005 07:17 PM

The New England Journal of Medicine contains a brief article, The Crisis in Indian Health Care by a doctor who practiced on a reservation for three years. I have in the past been in touch with another doctor who practiced on a reservation. Their stories are the same. My own trip through Navajo country some years ago, summarized in my post Chinle Dialysis Center, was a similar experience.

Things are bad in the reservations and for the indians who live there. But, why are things so bad?

1. Look at the housing and how the land is cared for. Why is the land littered and devoid of plants and gardens? Why aren't there any simple clean homes with lawns or plants of some kind?

Nobody owns anything. You see the same problem in the Ejidos of Mexico (I wrote two papers on this in the 1970s), where land reform put campesinos on land they can neither own nor could sell. It isn't theirs and they treat it as such.

You see the same problem in the Fundamentalist Mormon communities south of where I live that have been in the news lately in Colorado City, AZ and Hilldale, UT. There, the church (read elder males) own everything. The homes look trashy. The Indian Reservation, Piute I think, near where I live has the same Reservation Look---undermaintained homes and trash everywhere.

In the reservation, the land is held by all and owned by no one. No indian is permitted to sell his/her land or to protect the investments they put into it. You will find no fruit trees in Ejidos or Reservations, these long investments are not made unless one has assurance of reaping the returns. If you don't own the land, there is none of this assurance and investments are not made.

I saw the same thing in the squatter residences in Jamaica Bay, New York...

when I did research on a proposed JFK Airport expansion. The residences were run down, but valued for their great location on the bay. The City was set to reclaim the land and the squatters had that in mind when they considered investing in maintenance.

2. Of course, there is high unemployment. There are no jobs that far out into the reservation lands, unless an Interstate goes through and they put up a casino. This is a location problem, not something endemic to indian ways of life or culture. If they stuck all Ph.D.s that far out into the desert, they would be unemployed too unless a research facility were built near by (Los Alamos?).

Why don't the indian reservation residents migrate where there are jobs? It means giving up free rent and welfare for higher rent, low wages and a requirement to manage one's affairs in a way nobody is taught to do on the reservation.

3. The rampant diabetes on the reservation is only partly genetic. Genes are not destiny. But, lousy white man's flour and free agricultural surplus foods shipped to the reservations are devoid of what indians or anyone needs for good nutrition. Imagine Navajos eating the now-well know Navajo Tacos. White flour with some sauce and not much else. Pure junk food. Based on the free agricultural surplus wheat flour sent to the reservations. It isn't free, it is poison to an Indian, evolved to hunt and fish and live off the land.

Did you know that some reservations are Coca Cola reservations and some are Pepsi Cola reservations? This is troubling, but true. Both drinks, and any other sugary drinks, are a serious problem for the Indians, struggling with diabetes as they are.

My solution? Grant ownership to each reservation to those who live there. Carve up the land and vest it in the hands of the residents as fee-simple property rights. Let them rent, lease, or sell the land. But, let them own it in the way you and I own our homes. The resident/owners of the reservation would be free to develop the land (I would love to have a condo in New Mexico on Indian land, just as I had one in Palm Springs on leased Indian land long ago). Or they could continue with the reservation way should they choose to.

I bet in those areas where they can be grown, that vegetable and other gardens would flourish. The homes would not look like government-issue, instant slums.

Nobody could thrive under these conditions. The reservations, and East Germany prior to its reintegration with the West, are what socialism looks like. It isn't pretty. The land is devasted in Dresden or Chinle Reservation. Life on the reservation or places like it where ownership is non-existent and people are not valued is deadly to the spirit and to life.

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Posted by: Flower Online [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 11, 2006 2:21 PM

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