Honoring Nations

Rebuilding the Tigua Nation

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

The Tigua Indians of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo in Ysleta, Texas produced this 16-minute film in 2013 to demonstrate how a Native American tribe can work hard with business skills and tribal customs to shape a prosperous future through education for all levels of the Tigua Nation.

Native Nations
Citation

Riggs, Patricia. "Rebuilding The Tigua Nation." Honoring Nations, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Capstone Productions Inc. El Paso, Texas. February 27, 2013. Film.

Rebuilding the Tigua Nation

June 13, 2011

[Sirens/gunshots]

Narrator:

“We are the People of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. We came from the open lands of what became Central New Mexico and now we live in West Texas and our lands are surrounded by El Paso, Texas.”

Saint Anthony
Feast Day

[Gunshots]

Ysleta Mission

Narrator:

“In 1680 the Spaniards forced our ancestors to move here. They built this mission church in 1682.”

Javier Loera:

“In this display we have photographs and images of our mission, of our church, which we helped build. The oldest image, it’s actually a drawing, that we have of our mission is this one in the year 1881. It was a very simple structure without the added bell tower which was added a couple years later.”

Narrator:

“For more than 300 years our people have performed corn dances on June 13th at the Feast of St. Anthony.”

[Singing/bell ringing]

Carlos Hisa:

“It’s the way of life, it’s who we are, we’ve been doing this for hundreds of years and we just continue to do it. It’s who we are as a people.”

[Singing/bell ringing]

Narrator:

“The Tigua People honor our ancestors who kept the ceremonies and traditions, also the traditions of the elaborate feast preparations, which takes weeks to prepare for. Our people come together to share in the responsibilities to prepare for the feast, which is served after the rituals and blessings at the mission. These activities show that our tribe keeps the customs and practices that we have always valued. We now live in a modern world and must balance traditions with the present day needs. The Ysleta del Sur Pueblo has proven strong willed and has persevered over the changes of time.

Tiguas have been faithful to our traditions, sometimes hiding our ceremonies to avoid punishments from non-Indians. Our people have proven to be resilient time and again in our extraordinary struggle for cultural preservation.

Our struggle continued into the 1960s when a lawyer named Tom Diamond helped us get federal and state recognition as a Native American tribe.

As a declaration of tribal sovereignty and economic development efforts, the Pueblo decided to enter into casino gaming in 1993 and our financial future brightened. The State of Texas fought our right to have gaming in Texas and through a federal lawsuit managed to shut the Pueblo’s Speaking Rock Casino in 2002. The casino was profitable while in operation and provided for better healthcare, housing and education of tribal members. The Pueblo still runs Speaking Rock, but now it operates as an entertainment center.”

Trini Gonzalez:

“Speaking Rock has kept us afloat during this economic struggle, both money wise and also creating jobs for our tribal members. The success would have to be free concerts. We’ve used the concerts to draw people in to actually show people that Speaking Rock isn’t closed. A lot of people were saying, ‘Oh, it’s closed. It’s not a casino no more.’ Which it isn’t, it’s an entertainment center and we do provide quality entertainment for free to customers who come in here.”

Joseph P. Kalt:

“Well, when we look across Indian Country we see a consistent pattern of the tribes who get their act together and really worked successfully to improve the economic and social and political and even cultural conditions in their communities and Isleta del Sur Pueblo stands out as one of these examples. They show first what all these successful tribes have is a sovereignty attitude. Their idea is, ‘We’re going to do things ourselves. We are a sovereign nation and we can govern ourselves. We’re going to take those reins and we are going to put ourselves in control of absolutely everything we can.’

Secondly, and you see this at Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, they recognize that you can talk the talk of sovereignty and nation building, but you’ve got to walk the walk and what that means is you’ve got to be able to govern yourselves and govern yourselves well. And Ysleta del Sur Pueblo is an Honoring Nations award winner because it has invested very systematically in building its governmental capacity, its laws, its ordinances, its regulations, its accounting systems, its personnel policies, its judicial system in a systematic way to say, ‘We’re going to put ourselves in position so we’re not dependent on any other governments.’”

Narrator:

“Ysleta del Sur Pueblo has been building the capacity for economic growth. It has established structure and policy such as a highly capable economic development department, a small business development program and tribal ordinances dealing with corporation establishment and tax laws. The Pueblo was restored as a federally recognized tribe in 1987. Our goals are to preserve our culture, sustain our community and raise the standards of living for tribal members. We have built capacity over the years and recently established our long term economic development and nation building goals. Our entire Pueblo had input on the process.”

Patricia Riggs:

“We started this process to change and transform our community and through economic development, through education and through services and infrastructure so it was a whole comprehensive strategy that took place at Ysleta del Sur Pueblo.”

Joseph P. Kalt:

“Ysleta del Sur, what you see is another thing we see across Indian Country more and more and that’s an attention to culture, making what we call cultural match. The way they govern themselves here at Ysleta del Sur Pueblo is under a traditional structure with no written constitution. There is no contradiction for the Tiguas between having their traditional cacique system, no written constitution and running a very good day-to-day government because it’s founded in that traditional system. And having that cultural foundation underneath your government is absolutely critical. If it isn’t there, you’re not legitimate in the eyes of your own people and Ysleta del Sur stands out for recognizing that in everything they do they’re doing it based on and flowing from their traditions, their culture, their traditional governance systems. And then lastly, Ysleta del Sur also shows a fourth thing that stands out with tribes that are successful—leadership. Leaders not only as decision makers, but leaders as educators and the leadership at Ysleta del Sur has systematically invested in everything from the broad community to the youth with education on what it means to be a self governing Tigua nation. And so Ysleta del Sur Pueblo stands out for that sovereignty attitude, for strong capable tribal government founded on the tribe’s culture with a leadership that understands it needs to educate the people as to what this sovereignty game is all about.”

Narrator:

“In order to become effective in the modern world, the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo is striving to become a self determined and self sufficient Pueblo while preserving our cultural foundation. With our economic development plans now in motion, we have taken the first steps in forging a prosperous and strong Tigua nation and we have established Tigua, Inc. that operates tribal businesses.”

John Baily:

“We are the business arm for the Pueblo itself. We manage and operate all the business functions that contribute to the success of the Pueblo. We’re able to focus on a long term strategy and build that for five, 10 years out and really start implementing plans as we go down. So our goal is to develop the long term stream of profit and revenue that is repeatable regardless of the environment we’re in. We’re for real. We’re going to be a force to be reckoned with.”

Patient:

“Is it going to hurt?”

Dentist:

“No, you’ll be fine.”

Narrator:

“We have increased our administrative abilities and have created a grants management and program development branch of the Economic Development Department resulting in programs that provide health and other services.”

Al Joseph:

“And we’ve managed to build 63 new housing units last year after a big infrastructure project the year before so we’ve got a lot of projects going on to the total of about $20 million worth right now. The quality of life for the average Pueblo resident I think has been greatly enhanced by the combination of construction of new housing, very affordable housing and the rehabilitation of 160 houses on the reservation has definitely improved the quality of life for the residents that have been living in those houses, some of them for as long as 35 years. They now have modern, up-to-date housing that everything works and it’s a much nicer place to live.”

Narrator:

“One part of the economic development of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo is the attention our tribe gives to educating tribal members on various subjects in order to improve individual quality of life and skills for all age groups.”

Christopher Gomez:

“Things are different now because we’ve gotten on the nation building path now where we’re doing a lot of long term visioning, we’re thinking beyond what’s coming ahead the next month, the next year and we’re thinking 20, 30, 40, even 100 years down the line. What do we want Tigua culture to be in a hundred years? Where do we want to see our community? That visioning has really put things into a different perspective.”

[Singing]

Narrator:

“With our Tigua youth, we stress tribal traditions and working together.”

Christopher Gomez: [to students]

“Here we have language, social dances, Pueblo arts, Tigua history, nation building, tutoring, traditional culture, Native American games, environmental issues…”

Christopher Gomez:

“We’re thinking about the next generations now. Just like we were left a legacy from the generations that came before us who established the Pueblo, we want to make sure that we’re continuing that legacy and that our people are able to in a changing world adapt and utilize new skills to be able to carry forward the Tigua legacy and really define what that Tigua legacy is.”

Narrator:

“Our younger children learn about computers and nature from tribal program experts. We have established new programs such as pre-K and modern care facilities where children are taught general education and tribal traditions through tribal arts and crafts. At the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo education for our people goes hand in hand with our economic development because as we increase our understanding of Native American heritage and strengthen the businesses of our tribe, we multiply the return to our people many times. It is a great time to be a Tigua as we graduate more members from college and create higher paying jobs. Outcomes include increased revenues and more programs and better tribal member services.”

Joseph P. Kalt:

“One of the things that Ysleta del Sur has done in its nation building efforts is it’s bootstrapped itself into this little engine that could, is it’s invested in communication and you can…any of us can go to their website and in their economic development section you’ll find a systematic laying out of the many steps that they’ve taken from community education, youth programs, the development of their strategic plans, the development of their laws and ordinances, the development of their new institutions, even their financial development. So Ysleta del Sur is doing a service to all tribes by providing this information in an easily accessible way and I encourage anyone who’s interested in how Ysleta del Sur has bootstrapped itself in this way, it’s on their website and it’s just a tremendous resource for anyone engaging in this challenge of building native nations.”

Trini Gonzalez:

“Recently we just got accepted by our brothers up north into the AIPC, the All Indian Pueblo Council and a lot of the Pueblos up there model themselves after us. They see that we’ve been a…I guess a big hitter here in our economy and the way we go after grants and the way our money is utilized, the housing that we do, the entertainment center the way it’s operated, our smoke shop. Everything that we do, it’s being looked at and dissected and I think that’s a huge feather in our cap to say that they’re looking at us to try to correct some things on their reservations.

The powwow enlightens a lot of people on the culture, the dance, the regalia, everything that has to do with a powwow let’s people know there is a tribe here in Texas and it’s Ysleta del Sur Pueblo.”

Narrator:

“In May 2012 our Economic Development Department opened the Tigua Business Center on tribal land in a renovated building.”

[Cheering]

Frank Paiz:

“The Tigua Business Center demonstrates the will and spirit of the Tigua people to grow and prosper. The tribal journey began at the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, which resulted in our migration to an establishment of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo 1682. Since, we have been determined to preserve and continue Tigua way of life and flourish as a community."

Narrator:

“As our Tigua nation becomes stronger, we will continue our traditions and our success in this modern world.”

Carlos Hisa:

“We are Ysleta del Sur Pueblo. We are a community strong with tradition and culture. We have survived in the area for over 300 years and with economic development behind us, I can very easily say that we will continue to be here for hundreds of years.”

[Singing]

Rebuilding the Tigua Nation

2012 Tribal Council
Cacique Frank Holguin
Governor Frank Paiz
Lt. Governor Carlos Hisa
War Captain Javier Loera
Aguacil Bernando Gonzales

Councilmen
Chris Gomez
David Gomez
Francisco Gomez
Trini Gonzalez

Saint Anthony Dancers
Feast Preparation
Trini Gonzales Tribal Councilmen
Adult Tribal Social Dancers
Joe Kalt Harvard University
Youth Nation Building
Youth Financial Literacy Class

Pat Riggs, Economic Development Director
John Baily, CEO of Tigua Inc.

Tigua Inc. Board
Ana Perez, chair
Chris Gomez
Rudy Cruz
George Candelaria
Al Joseph

Housing Director Al Joseph
Empowerment Director Christopher Gomez
Cultural Center Dance Group
Tuy Pathu Daycare children
Pre-School Dance Group
Pow Wow Dancers

Producer
Patricia Riggs

Director
Jackson Polk

Camera
Aaron Barnes
Fernie Apodaca
Jackson Polk

TV Facilities
Capstone Productions Inc.

Funding provided by Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development Honoring Nations

Rebuilding the Tigua Nation © 2013 Yselta del Sur Pueblo

Kake Circle Peacemaking - Overview Video

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

This video -- produced by the Organized Village of Kake -- depicts the restoration of traditional methods of dispute resolution the Organized Village of Kake adopted Circle Peacemaking as its tribal court in 1999. Circle Peacemaking brings together victims, wrongdoers, families, religious leaders, and social service providers in a forum that restores relationships and community harmony. With a recidivism rate of nearly zero, it is especially effective in addressing substance abuse-associated crimes.

Resource Type
Citation

The Organized Village of Kake. "Kake Circle Peacemaking." Kellogg Video Production. Kake, Alaska. 2003. Film.

This Honoring Nations "Lessons in Nation Building" video is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

[Singing]

Mike Jackson:

“Circle peacemaking is from traditional ways was called in the Tlingit language [Tlingit language], that meant that they were the 'People of the Deer.”

Kake Circle Peacemaking

[Singing]

Mike Jackson:

“Traditionally, there’s the two moieties that are part of our Tlingit heritage and it’s Eagle and the Raven moiety and under that there’s a clan system under each one. And when you look at the [Tlingit language], no one claims the Deer because the Deer Clan is a sacred clan because it means they’re the peacemakers. Okay, my name is Mike Jackson. I’m the Kake, local Kake magistrate and also Keeper of the Circle.

Our circle peacemaking we began and brought out from our traditional way of living here in Kake five years ago and it’s been five years that we’ve been having the circle peacemaking at Kake where we’re finding it really helps people in terms of remedial restorative justice where we have set up a plan for people who are referred to the circle and they’re referred either by friends, family, themselves or the court.

And the court, the way they do it is that the defendant would propose it to their attorney, the attorney would propose it to the state DA [district attorney] and the DA and the attorney would take it to the judge and come up with what’s called a Rule 11 agreement. And that they would ask the judge to defer the state case and send the case over for circle sentencing. The judge will tell the defendant to, that he’s bound and when the defendant agrees that’s what he wants to do, he’s bound by what’s called the consensus agreement where we come up with a sentence that everybody agrees on that are participants in the community circle sentencing.

So that has been going fairly well because we work with the Superior Court judge and the District Court judges that over the years have referred cases to the circle. And sometimes the DA will put out in front of the defendant if they follow everything that is in the circle sentence, after the probationary period is done that they might dismiss the case, but if the defendant does not follow through with circle sentence, then we will have another hearing to see if that’s what his intention is or if he just forgot to do something within the agreement we’ll give him another chance, but if he blows that chance then he is referred back to the District Attorney and the judge will do a sentencing on him. That has happened with two cases.

So probably out of 70 cases in adult circles, only two did not agree to follow up on the circle sentencing. But that is a real high rate of success. That’s around about 98 percent, just a roundabout figure, whereas in the state way there is a high rate of recidivism. I’m not going to put a percentage on it, but it’s pretty low compared to our rate of success.”

Justin McDonald:

“We formed this group and they’re pretty much the core group for the circle. We try to get, we have reps from the different entities in the community, from the city council, tribal government, corporation, local corporations, the school, law enforcement and then elders and just anyone who’s concerned about wellness in the community.”

Mike Jackson:

“When you look at the state archives, you don’t see any record of Kake criminal history until the state sets up a magistrate business here in the 1960s, but there’s nothing really until the ‘70s. And all felonies were dealt with, there’s some felonies that does show up, but it’s rare that you see a misdemeanor because all the problems were solved by the people themselves by talking it out and talking it out in a circle setting where you talk from the heart.

And by talking from the heart, I mean you bring up things that have happened to you similar to what was done by say a wrongdoer that was there, the state calls them offenders, and then there’s the victim. And in circle peacemaking, the victim is the most important component of the circle because they have to understand that they did not do anything to deserve what they ended up being victims of. And by victims through the circle process they come out survivors at the end of it. The important part of circles is the process. It’s not about the wrongdoer, the offender -- it’s about the process when people start talking from the heart to support the victim, but also to support the wrongdoer.”

Justin McDonald:

“We don’t just handle criminal cases either. We also handle interventions, interventions of family members, a family’s concerned about a family member and they’ll refer them to the circle. We get more so of that, that happening more so with the youth and it’s just been very, very powerful.”

Lakrista Ekis:

“It’s kind of like a big counseling group. I like it. You can talk about your problems and you don’t, they find a punishment for you that suits your crime.”

Justin McDonald:

“Whenever there’s a youth who gets in trouble, we try to, we make it a point to invite anyone directly involved with the youth, in their life -- teachers, friends, parents, grandparents, people who know them, places they hang out. Just basically it’s open to anybody.”

Mike Jackson:

“For years it has really calmed down that revolving door that I’ve almost started to see...because I’ve been the magistrate for the last 14 years now and I’ve seen kids grow up from kindergarten, Head Start, all the way to graduation and ended up in the chair there. We knew that their behavior was something that they should have been addressed.”

Lakrista Ekis:

“Life moves by so fast that we don’t really realize what’s going on around us. So I think that when you come into a circle and you sit down and you actually listen to what is really going on I think it gets pretty interesting. You get interested in it and what’s really going on, you finally get to see it.”

Justin McDonald:

“When an incident happens, the incident happens, then they go to an arraignment in the district court and right there, that’s when they have that opportunity to choose, take an alternative. Either if they want to plead not guilty and fight it then they can take it all the way to court, but if they’re obviously guilty then they can plead guilty or no contest and that’s where they have a choice is to either go to the alternative, which is the circle peacemaking or go to the regular system. So from there we try to, if they go to the regular court system, then their court hearing could be delayed a couple months and nothing happens. A lot of things can happen within two months and we feel it’s very important to act on it immediately, respond to the incident immediately. So after they have the arraignment we’ll either try to do it that night or the next day.”

Lakrista Ekis:

“If someone is having trouble, I think a lot of people actually show up for it. They really do care. I never realized how much people cared until we had a real circle and I seen all these people. I was like, ‘Whoa! These people really do care.’ So it’s pretty cool.”

[Singing]

Guidelines of Peacemaking

Mike Jackson:

“The ‘guidelines of peacemaking’ is that everyone is equal, like I come in as the magistrate, but when I sit down I’m part of the community, that’s all I am. Same way as the police, they’ll take their hat off and they’re part of the circle because every heart is at the same level. One person talks at a time, we respect each other, we do not point the blame and we take timely breaks. Everyone is inclusive, there’s a prayer at the beginning and at the end.

Now this is where spirituality comes into it. We find out a lot of people find themselves and their greater power when they go through the process of healing or counseling and it comes up to be, they come up to be a better person for it. They kind of gain their soul back because they say when you’re out of control, your spirit leaves you because it sits there waiting for you if you get too involved in say drugs and alcohol or other addictions. But everyone in the room is part of the circle. Everything that is said in the circle is confidential.”

[Singing]

The Circle Process

Mike Jackson:

Stage I: Opening

“Stage one, the opening of the circle, there’s the welcoming by the Keeper of the Circle. There’s an opening prayer that is asked for, usually elders would say that. There are circle guidelines where we explain, just like we did here, the guidelines of the circle. There’s introductions, it’s a real quick introduction of who you are sitting there and what you’ve come there for like support of the victim or the offender or just for support of the community and the circle by itself."

Stage II: Legal Facts

"Then the legal facts are said. Usually it’s the judge or police or somebody volunteers to do that. The police might be there. If they’re not, that’s all right. There’s a defense opening, which is usually, a lot of times they aren’t there, the public defender. And if there was something like a probation, there was a broken probation then there’s a probation report either by police or one of the local circle keepers. And what the legal facts are, the legal summary, what could have been sentenced if they went to court."

Stage III: Clarifying Information

“But the Stage Three, the clarifying of information is by the support groups. A lot of times they will just wait to say their part when it comes their time to speak. But the last persons to speak in every round, especially after, except for the introductions, is going to be the, the last person really to speak would be the wrongdoer."

Stage IIII: Finding Common Ground

"But Stage Four is really searching for common ground where we use our talking stick and it could be anything, the talking circle, a stone, the spirituality of it like our elders have said this diamond willow that was given to us for the process, it represents our elders that have passed on, by them looking at us with the diamond eyes, and then it also represents today’s issues of what we’re sitting there talking about, but it also represents a support of the people that do get up to talk. Sometimes people get up in respect of one another, but it also talks about, and they talk about the future of things."

Stage V: Exploring Options

"So people are looking for common ground, they start speaking from the heart on what they might have experienced and how they might be able to help the victim or the wrongdoer to get past the incident."

Stage VI: Developing Consensus

"Then after it all goes around, it comes back to looking at developing a consensus where usually there’s a support group or counselor that will say, ‘Well, the offender would like to say this, that they were going to go to alcohol counseling or anger management or they’re going to write a letter of apology to the victim, their family and the community,’ and it starts the process of looking at a consensus or coming up with a circle sentence where it brings all the community’s concern, it brings and develops a remedial part of the circle where there’s a plan laid out where the offender is going to learn from it and how the healing is going to start for the victim and for the offender, their families and the community."

Stage VII: Closing of Circle

Now we go over, and it closes with a prayer and usually on all of ours that we do there are shaking of hands, a lot of times more in closely there’s hugging, there’s tears. A lot of times it gets very emotional and like the old people say, ‘Tears are starting the process of healing to get the poison out of you and it starts the healing.’ And it says, ‘Anybody can shed a tear.”

Justin McDonald:

“It’s all about the encouragement, the ongoing support, and when we know they’re doing good we get together, people bring the food and it’s a little potluck afterwards. It’s just small, just munchies and everything. That’s the only money we spent, too.”

Mike Jackson:

“We cannot afford to wait any longer to have somebody come in to cure us. We have to do that within ourselves. It would be way too more, too expensive to try to do that with today’s modern way of approaching curing people.”

Justin McDonald:

“We started out with no money at all ‘cause this really doesn’t take money, just concerned people.”

Mike Jackson:

“I would say we’ve saved the State of Alaska hundreds of thousands of dollars in the future from people sobering up; the State of Alaska and the different say non-profit organizations, health organizations. People are now doing things that are relevant in their lives. The costs, we have no budget. We run on zero, because who else is going to do it?”

Justin McDonald:

“This is a situation where we’re seeing results immediately, the next day, within the next week. It’s nothing we have to wait a few months down the road or to a year to see if we had an impact at all.”

Mike Jackson:

“A lot of times in a macho male world they say we’ve been brought up to say that it’s not good for men to cry, but we know in a circle and we tell them, ‘Once you find safety in a circle, a lot of times you talk from the heart and from the heart there’s that emotion that comes out, the expression of it and we do not try to hold those things back. We try to say that’s just part of the process of how people heal.”

[Singing]

Principles Common To All Circles

Mike Jackson:

“But the principles common to all circles is their process. The consensus approach where everyone is agreeing, even if they disagree, they’re agreeing to go along with it because it’ll benefit the whole circle but it will also benefit the whole community. There’s interest based, it’s really subject to what really happened. It’s self designed because every circle is different, we’re finding out. The flexibility of circles is one of the best parts of it because we can have that any time, anywhere, anyplace and that people are always invited, anyone that’s invited to come and that is willing to come to volunteer. The spirituality part, you noticed that we’ve had prayers in the openings and prayers at the end, to open it and start it in a good way because circles are sacred when people come together to talk about a healing process. There’s, like I said, the holistic healing. There’s a plan laid out and if it’s not followed, then there’s another circle done as a follow up circle. We just don’t give up on people. On some people we’ve had three, four circles because in a way they start changing. We meet with them over and over again and then they’ll start seeing the change and starting to get their soul back and that is really something to watch people grow.

There’s the participants, there’s anybody that’s inclusive that would like to volunteer. There’s a direct participation by everyone with an equal opportunity to talk, to give their heart, sharing their heart and their perspective and the respect of one another. The people that have come voluntarily, every time that are inclusive come back saying that it’s also good for them. The whole process is that they’re becoming better people in the community. I know it has been a calming effect on me, on my perspective of different religions and to me, I didn’t know what '12 Steps' were until people that were in the '12-Step' program started really telling me what it was about. So I’ve learned a lot about addictions from people that are right in it.

There’s the principles derived from circles, there’s the peacemaking people that go through, they learn it and as we have in our community there are the youth circles, that’s what we call youth courts. There’s the mediation, people start learning how to compromise and give and take. Then there’s consensus building in our community. People start learning how to give up oneself and say, ‘Well, I can give up that much of myself because it’s good for the victim, it’s good for the wrongdoer, it’s good for the community.’ They start learning, to me, it’s a personal observation, we start learning to be Tlingits again. Tlingit’s not just about like some elders mentioned that I read somewhere, it’s not about just language, it’s not about just dance or the oral part of it, but it’s about listening, it’s about participation, it’s about caring for the community, it’s about practicing being Tlingit, about sharing oneself for the betterment of the community and the children.”

[Singing]

Benefits of Integrating the Court System with the Community Circle

Mike Jackson:

“‘It’s important for communities to be involved in the process that directly affects the community,’ Judge Barry Stuart says. ‘It’s also essential that the community members establish a working relationship and partnership with the formal system,’ in our sense it’s Alaska court system, ‘and the circle peacemaking and acknowledge that our experiences shows that when this is done, it develops a much stronger community.’ It just helps our whole community out. There’s not so much money being spent on wrongdoers anymore. The changes from courts to community circle peacemaking is really radical. We’re not saying that one process is better than the other, but we’re knowing that when we get together and work together it becomes a better community.

The court system, community circles, who’s involved in the circles is local people, who’s involved in the court is lawyers and non-residents. Just like today, we had a hearing. The judge and the lawyers were from out of town and the local residents were sitting here listening telephonically. Who knows better what to do with local people than ourselves? The consensus agreement of the process is community versus the problem. The process in the court system is adversarial, state versus offender. It’s very different. The legal issues in the court are laws are broken. Here in our circles, relationships are broken and it’s really dramatic when you look at things like assault fourth degree, domestic violence. It affects everybody. The focus in the court is about guilt and offender. So over here in the community circles, it’s about holistic view, the needs of the victim, the community, the source of the problem, the wrongdoer, the resources for the solutions. In Kake, we’re real fortunate to have counselors and social workers to help us out to come up with resolutions and trying to make people work on their healing path.

The tools of the court system is punishment and control, but we’re finding out that it always goes and it’s always proven, assault for domestic violence, you punish the wrongdoer or offender and you put them in jail, that’s what he expects and you notice and they all kind of stick together in jail because they all know that they can blame somebody else for their wrongdoing. So it gives, it empowers them and it gives them still control in their own minds. Whereas you look over here in the community circles, it’s about healing and support. When you start supporting those wrongdoers, you’ll never see anybody change so radically because maybe it’s a first time somebody, ‘I love you, I care for you,’ rather than putting them down. Like I said, words could be clubs and maybe that’s all they’ve ever heard all their lives. Even in our small community, we’re really surprised that so few people ever heard the words, ‘We’re here just because we care about you.”

Justin McDonald:

“Then we also have follow-up circles. We check on these people: a month, three months and then six months down the road and if they, and this is just to see how they’re doing, check on them. Everyone in the circle, it’s very, it’s confidential. That’s a very important aspect of the circle also. It’s confidential, but anyone in the circle, they can talk amongst themselves about the circle hearing and they’re all the eyes and ears out there in the community. Like I was saying, we all see each other so we know what the person, the offender or the youth in question, what’s going on with them, what to watch for now. And everyone makes a commitment to check on this person, at least stop and say hi if they see them. If they see they’re feeling bummed out, they’re feeling a little bad, depressed or what have you or may be acting out, they’ll make a commitment to stop and talk to them or let the group know and we’ll call another circle, call them in and ask them, just do a follow-up.”

Mike Jackson:

“As a small individual group in Kake, we’re starting to be called all over to see if we can come and talk about what we’re doing here. To me that’s remarkable in a five-year period because all we’re doing is what’s called self-determination and practicing autonomy. Who is going to come in to change us? All our lives we’ve been up against change but who, are we going to make ourselves better? It depends upon ourselves. We cannot wait for the government or someone to come and save us. We have to do it ourselves because we would like to have our children have a better day.”

Justin McDonald:

“We’re starting to do more trainings, getting calls to come out and train. We’ve, our kids have gone to Mount Edgecumbe Boarding School, Mount Edgecumbe High School, and worked with the kids over there. We’ve gone to Ketchikan to work with their youth court over there. Our adult circle’s getting called out now to do trainings in different communities. It’s just really taking off. That’s why we talk about the spirit it has of it’s own. It’s just branching out.”

Mike Jackson:

“In other communities like Haines where they started this a year and a half ago, that it works up in an all non-native, really a non-native community, but it works there. It’s working in mid Anchorage where the juvenile homes are using it for talking circles and to start talking about juvenile probation issues. So it works anywhere.”

Justin McDonald:

“Wanted to build this relationship again within the community, it’s all about restoring a relationship and balance within the people and the community and we’ve found that the circle is just the perfect way to do this because when you attend a circle, you’re there to support one person, but everyone in there is sharing from their heart. It’s all about compassion and encouragement and support.”

Mike Jackson:

“And to us this stick has supported a lot of people on their way to healing. It has become very shiny and kind of a sacred stick to us and it’s just the diamond willow and it might be called an ugly stick, but it sure is a beauty stick to people who have changed their lives. [Tlingit language]. Good luck.”

[Singing]

For More Information Contact

Mike A. Jackson
(907) 785-3651 or 6471

Organized Village of Kake
Post Office Box 316
Kake, Alaska 90830

Kellogg Video Productions 2003
Edited by Brian Kellogg
907 351 6439

Property of OVK

Migizi Business Camp

Year

This video -- produced by the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians -- depicts the Band's efforts to implement a work readiness and job training program for teenagers and young adults. Five years ago, the Band’s planning and education departments joined forces to create the Migizi Business Camp for tribal youth. For six days, students are taken off the reservation to learn business development concepts and build entrepreneurial skills. They complete business plans and present their ideas to a panel of judges. The Camp represents a conscious effort by the tribal government to involve its younger citizens in the effort to build an economic future for the nation.

Citation

Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. "Migizi Business Camp." Lessons in Nation Building, Honoring Nations, Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. Manistee, Michigan. 2005. Film.

This Honoring Nations "Lessons in Nation Building" video is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

[Music]

The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians presents

The Migizi Business Camp 2005

Interviewer:

“Just say, put Dr. Stickney.”

Florence Stickney:

“Will you stop it, just Florence Stickney. I mean, come on, I was Florence Stickney before I could give anybody an aspirin.”

Florence Stickney:

“These are high-energy kids. They’re very bright, very high energy. This year it was unbelievable, it was phenomenal. I think that there was the beauty of the setting itself, the fact that they had archery, they had an opportunity to see a rodeo, there was horseback riding, there were so many activities along with the water slide and the swimming.”

Amber Shepherd:

“My name is Amber Shepherd and I’m from Ludington, Michigan. This year we are staying at Double J Resort in Rothbury, Michigan.”

Student:

“Horseback riding was a lot of fun. I thought I was going to get bucked off, but I stayed on pretty good.”

Daisy Walters:

“My name is Daisy Walters and I’m from Sparta, Michigan. I’ve had a lot of fun on the first couple days of camp and I’m glad I decided to come here.”

Mark Sagi:

“My name is Mark Sagi. The resort is beautiful. They’ve got pools and horseback riding. The rodeo was fun yesterday.”

Florence Stickney:

“Because we were dealing with such young children where they need activities all the time,you know, some sort of a diversion. And I think the kids really had a wonderful time and they,they really paid better attention in that environment.”

Amber Shepherd:

“If you’re a newcomer to the business camp, have your mind open to new ideas that you haven’t been introduced to yet.”

Ann Harrison:

“I am Ann Harrison and I’m from Sturgeonville, Wisconsin. A good business person, like they have to have a good attitude because if they have a bad attitude then their business won’t make it. They can’t say like, ‘I’m going to fail, nobody’s going to buy my product,’ because with that attitude, then nobody will. The most difficult subject was the like math, the COGS [cost of goods sold], the profit you make, because it’s very confusing.”

Student:

“The cost of goods sold is what all the supplies, the price of all the supplies added together and that took to make that item and you subtract that and you come to your profit.”

Raquel Cole:

“Raquel Cole, Scottville, Michigan. You go to class usually from early in the morning around 8:30-ish until probably 8:00 at night, 9:30. It’s kind of hard and you kind of start to get irritated, but then it’s like you get to hang out with people and meet new people.”

Zachary Split:

“I’m from Massey, Michigan and my name is Zachary Split. Right off the bat you need to crack down, you need to write some notes because if you don’t, then you’ll be left behind and when you’re left behind with notes from yesterday and trying to catch up today, it’s really hard. You can stay up like until 1:00 in the morning if you don’t have a business plan, rewriting your rough draft and your final draft like I did last year.”

George Lawrence:

“I’m George Lawrence and I’m from Free Soil. I get up about 6:00 in the morning and go to bed at about 1:00 or 12:00.”

Interviewer:

“What do you think of your first couple days of camp?”

Ann Harrison:

“It was hard at first, but as it went on, it got more fun and not as hard.”

Gabe Santos:

“My name is Gabe Santos and I’m from Muskegon, Michigan.”

Interviewer:

“If you had advice for other campers in the next,in the future, what would it be?”

Gabe Santos:

“Don’t slack off because you always have to catch up really, really quick at the end if you slack off. Just do your work when you’re told and listen to Bridget.”

Interviewer:

“That one we should play over and over.”

Gabe Santos:

“Listen to Bridget. Listen to Bridget. Listen to Bridget.”

Raquel Cole:

“And you have different abbreviations for a bunch of things.”

Gabe Santos:

“Yeah, USAIR,utilities, salaries, advertisement, interest and rent. Rent’s the most important. Rent’s the most important one, because it’s a constant thing and it goes up and down all the time.”

Florence Stickney:

“And the quality of the kids because we have a number of repeat performers, they get better and better. They know the material, we see them growing up before our eyes, they’re more focused, they sort of know what they want and I can see them building bigger dreams for themselves.”

Mark Sagi:

“My financial statements are doing good so far, but the business plan, like Zach said, he stayed up until 3:00 in the morning doing his and I don’t want to do that, so I’m going to get done.”

Elise Moore:

“My name’s Elise Moore and currently I’m living in Ravenna, Michigan. Yeah, today was Saturday. It was the only day and the first day we get to go shopping. We got $78 to spend on our supplies that we needed.”

Zachary Split:

“What we do is that we go to a store like three, four days before the trade show, buy whatever we need, goods, cards, anything, flowers, you can make beads, homemade stuff, food.”

Florence Stickney:

“When they go to college, they will know a lot more about business and entrepreneurship than most incoming freshmen do on any major campus.”

Raquel Cole:

“It helps you in school actually like in economics and stuff it does help you if you know what you’re doing more and it makes you sound smart too. The fixed cost, the variable cost and the different costs that you have while you’re in business, you talk about your target customer and who that you want to buy your stuff.”

Florence Stickney:

“When I first developed this program, I called it the Eagle Camp, eagle being that that symbol in Native American culture, it soars, it’s strong, it’s powerful, it’s free. When I talked with the economic developer at the time, he said, ‘Well, the word in Ottawa is 'Migizi'.’”

 

Cherokee National Youth Choir - Video

Producer
Cherokee Nation Education Department
Year

This video -- produced by the Cherokee Nation Education Department -- is a sample reel of the Cherokee National Youth Choir, an innovative approach to promoting and encouraging the use of the endangered Cherokee language among its youth while also instilling Cherokee cultural pride. The award-winning choir -— comprised of 40 young Cherokee ambassadors —- has performed in venues across the US, including the Native American Music Awards, Ground Zero, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Cherokee Nation Education Department. "Cherokee National Youth Choir." Cimarron Sound Lab. Tahlequah, Oklahoma. 2002. Film.

This Honoring Nations "Lessons in Nation Building" video is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

Cherokee National Youth Choir
Sample Reel

5th Annual Native American Music Awards
Milwaukee, WI. Sept. 2002

Announcer:

"We have a very special performance in store for you next. This group of 5th through 8th grade children, under the artistic direction of Jamie Geneva and choral direction of Janice Blue, has already performed for many special events including the State of the Nation address. Reflecting the richness of Cherokee pride through music performed in their native language we proudly present to you the Cherokee National Children's Choir."

[Applause/Cheering]

[Performance]

[Applause/Cheering]

Ground Zero
New York City, May 2002

[Performance]

[Applause]

[Performance: U.S. National Anthem]

[Applause/cheering]

Audience member:

"Thank you very much."

Audience member:

"Thank you."

Dept. of the Interior & The National Mall
Washington D.C. May 2002

[Performance: U.S. National Anthem]

[Performance]

[Credits]

Cherokee National Youth Choir. Video Sample Reel

Cherokee Nation Education Dept. Cherokee Nation. Tahlequah, OK

Video & Audio Production. Cimarron Sound Lab. Tahlequah, OK

Honoring Nations: Manley Begay: So You Have a Great Program...Now What?!

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

"Forward-thinking" is often used to describe innovative programs. In remarks designed to frame the symposium session "So You Have a Great Program...Now What?!", Manley A. Begay, Jr. talks about strategic orientation, planning, and implementation as critical to sustaining the success of tribal programs, including how they stay financially healthy, how they deal with changing missions and needs, and how they maintain their effectiveness.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Begay, Jr., Manley A. "So You Have a Great Program...Now What?!" Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 11, 2004. Presentation.

Amy Besaw Medford:

"To start the session off we'll have Manley Begay come up again, the co-director of the Harvard Project and also the director of the Native Nations Institute. Manley is a great friend and I hope that you learn a lot from his words."

Manley Begay:

"This is the second-to-the-last session and the session is called "So You Have a Great Program, Now What?" [Laughter] And my wife would say, 'whatever.' [Laughter] I wanted to just once again say hello to each of you and also just acknowledge Amy Besaw and Andrew Lee and Carmen Lopez and the staff, Liz Hill outside and also Liza Bemis, and am I forgetting anybody? And the fine work that they're doing, so we should give them a round of applause. [Applause] They're wonderful people and in the past 16 years or so that I've been working with the Harvard Project, I've come across many wonderful people and each time we connected with these individuals we held onto them pretty tightly.

Originally back around 1987, Joe Kalt was actually wrestling with an economics question and Joe was puzzled by the fact that as he was studying the U.S. Forest Service land in central and eastern Arizona he was puzzled by the fact that right next door was the White Mountain Apache tribal forest area and as all good economists, you know, he's running numbers and trying to figure things out sort of numerically and so forth and what he was trying to figure out was why is it that all of a sudden in this work he ran across the fact that White Mountain Apache Tribe was managing their forest land better than the U.S. Forest Service was managing theirs. So he was faced with this question and he couldn't figure it out. And Joe began to think well, 'I guess economists really don't rule the world' [Laughter], or they like to think they do and he said, 'I've got to find something else about what's going on here.' He said, 'There's got to be somebody here at Harvard that knows something about Indians.'

So he starts looking through the phone book and asking people questions, 'Who here at Harvard knows about Indians, besides the anthropologists?' [Laughter] And lo and behold he runs across Steve Cornell. Steve was in the Sociology Department at that time and lo and behold Steve was working on a book and I think just finished a book called The Return of the Native. So the two of them have lunch and Joe poses his question and lo and behold, the Harvard Project was born. A short time later, a year or so later, I arrived here at Harvard to work on a doctorate at the Graduate School of Education and I answered a work study ad, it was on the bulletin board at the Harvard [University] Native American Program office and so I went to go see Joe Kalt at the Kennedy School. So I sat down with him and we talk for, gee, it seemed like two, three hours, so I figured I was hired, you know? [Laughter] And became one of the first research assistants for the Harvard Project. And there was another guy that was working there at that time with Joe and Steve, a gentleman named Karl Eschbach. Carl has a wide range of interests from baseball to English tea. Interesting fellow, Carl, wonderful guy, was there working with Joe and Steve. And then Carl and I shared an office and had many good conversations and fast got to know Carl as a wonderful human being. And a short time later, Steve actually was here for maybe another year or two and then went off to University of California-San Diego and then I was fast promoted to the executive director position, which is what Andrew holds at the current time, and began to work with the Harvard Project. So for the next 15 years or so, I was here. Finished my doctorate, received a position at the Graduate School of Education, and became one of the [Harvard Project] co-directors along with Joe and Steve.

And in the course of the 15 years or so that the Harvard Project has been around and working in Indian Country, many wonderful individuals came our way and I think many of them stayed with us. And they've formed their own careers and formed their own interests about the work of nation building in Indian Country. Among these individuals are Jonathan Taylor, Kenny Grant, Eric Henson, Miriam Jorgenson, Elise Adams, and Harry Nelson. Harry is currently at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and I was thinking about this today and those individuals I just mentioned were all students here at Harvard. Many of them were at the Kennedy School of Government. And we've not only become fast colleagues in this work, but have become good friends and individuals that you know you can trust and respect. So this is sort of the team that has formed the Harvard Project.

And a short time later, after Andrew graduated from the Kennedy School of Government and was working at the Ford Foundation, Andrew called and wanted to return back to Harvard and see about finding a place within the Harvard Project. So he brought along with him this idea of the Honoring Nations program, which I believe he and Michael Lipsky had talked about for quite some time. So Andrew came and joined the Harvard Project again and Andrew for the longest time single-handedly put the Honoring Nations program together and I think if there's anybody to be touted as the father of the Honoring Nations program, it is Andrew Lee. [Applause]

And it's wonderful to see that Carmen Lopez is doing a great job with the Harvard University Native American Program. And Carmen has a little known distinction probably among all of us -- except for me--  that she's a fantastic volleyball player. And she and my daughter played volleyball at Dartmouth College and I always admired Carmen when she played high school volleyball. That's when I first noticed her, and Carmen is doing a wonderful job here at Harvard and it's good to see her once again.

I wanted to just make a brief statement about 'So You Have a Great Program Now, Whatever.' [LAUGHTER] But what I want to talk about is sort of forward thinking. I want to talk about strategic orientation, long-term planning and thinking, about sort of setting the context for my brother Lenny Foster and also, who else is speaking? I forget who else is speaking. I know it's not Don Sampson. Rick George will come up after me. But I want to talk about, 'Okay, so now what? Where do we go with all of this? What do we do? How do we begin to think about the future?'

And I think strategic orientation really is a shift from reactive thinking to proactive thinking. It's not just responding to crisis but trying to gain some control over the future. Trying to gain some control over the future, try to figure out where are we headed, what are we all about. And it's about a shift from short-term thinking to long-term thinking. Twenty-five years, 50 years from now, what kind of society do you want? What kind of society do you want to create? It's a shift from opportunistic thinking to systemic thinking, focusing not on what can be funded, but how each option fits the society you're trying to build. It's a shift from a narrow, problem focus to a broader focus on the community. Fixing not just the problems, but societies. Very much like what is going on throughout the world.

I think Joe at his opening address talked about our trip to Poland, and while in Poland you can tell they're working on trying to fix the society after colonization had occurred, first with Germany and then with the Russians. And in some of my trips abroad to places like Australia and New Zealand and South Africa you know that these countries are facing some tremendous problems and issues, not unlike Indian Country. South Africa faces problems with law enforcement. Russia is facing problems with law enforcement. And you go to places like Australia, where Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are essentially commonwealth countries and still wrestling with some basic issues that we've somewhat resolved here in the U.S., like land, human rights, justice. Not that we don't continue to fight for those things, but the issues in many of these countries are some 50, maybe even 100 years back, from what we're dealing with here in the U.S. And in Indian Country today, we're faced with some key strategic questions. You know, what kind of society are we trying to build, what kind of society are you trying to build? What do you hope will be different 25, 50 years from now? What do you hope will be the same? What do you wish to protect? What are you willing to change? What assets do you have to work with and what makes sense to the community at large? And this is all in the context of a hard-nosed look at the reality requirements of your situation.

So essentially it's our job as leaders and you as leaders from your respective nations to begin to think about, how do you want your kids to live or their kids to live 100 years from now? What kind of clothes will they be wearing, what language will they be speaking, where will they be living, what kind of home will they have, how will they worship, where will they go to school, how much education will they have, what about cultural education? And these are all very tough and, I think, thought-provoking set of questions. And it's really about determining nationhood, determining what shall we look like 100 years from now. And then how will we be remembered as leaders? What sort of legacy are we going to leave? Those -- and I talked a bit about this the other day -- those that are yet unborn, what are they going to be saying about us? 'Oh, that guy, that person, did this and to this day we live in this fashion and this manner.' What kind of legacy are you going to leave? I think it's a question we must all wrestle with because life is short. Life is very short and we don't have much time to waste because there's a lot of work to be done.

And I think answering those questions requires a tremendous amount of leadership, and I'm just deeply honored to be in your presence because you're working hard, you're doing things that need to be done, and as leaders we have a tremendous amount of responsibility because leaders create or destroy a climate in which success can occur. They set a vision or not of where the nation is headed. They create or undermine institutions capable of effectively implementing a national vision. They create or abuse the rules of the game. They send signals that decisions will or will not be made by the rules and their fair interpretation. So in short, leaders make choices and their choices matter. And as all of us are leaders in one form or fashion. The choices we make matter and effective nation building depends on those good choices that we make. Thanks. [Applause]"

Joseph P. Kalt: The Practical Issues of Business Development - Some Things to Consider: Dealing with Growth

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development Co-Director Joseph P. Kalt offers some points that Native nations should consider as they work to manage the growth of their nation-owned enterprises.

Resource Type
Citation

Kalt, Joseph P. "The Practical Issues of Business Development - Some Things to Consider: Dealing with Growth." Building and Sustaining Tribal Enterprises seminar. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 29, 2007. Presentation.

"Ian [Record] asked me to talk about how to handle growth and manage growth. And I thought, 'What a cool question?' Actually sit at a conference on economic development in Indian Country and the problem now is growth. How do you handle the problem that everyone's growing so fast? It's a wonderful problem to have. And it's a sign of the times that tribes are now facing the reality of dealing with the fact that their enterprises are stable and sustained and they are growing and so forth. I tried to think about what I see out on the ground in terms of dealing with growth and let me phrase it this way. I think the growth that's being experienced,  as tribes succeed in sustaining enterprises and succeed in building the environment for their own members and their own businesses -- in other words, both private and tribally-owned enterprises -- much of what is going on, and when I see it on the ground, it's like being forced through a transition. There's a little hole and a big something being forced through it and what are the transitions? Many of the transitions of growth that tribes experience in their enterprises is those enterprises really get going are really the transition issues for any business that grows rapidly. How do you keep your management up to speed, how do you keep the enthusiasm among the employees, how do you keep everybody on the same team? And so forth. But let me talk about what I see that seems sort of, if you will, new and special in Indian Country. And these are transitions that I see tribes struggling with and getting, most of them are getting through.

The first is learning what it means to do capital budgeting. For many, many tribes as tribal enterprises get going; they've started with sort of a hope. Wouldn't it be cool if this business actually survived? But the source of survival, in fact as my Hopi friend has taught me, this year's profits are next year's seed corn and the notion of doing capital budgeting for a business as opposed to a tribal program is a new arena for many tribal, the shareholders, the tribal councils, for example. It's a new arena. What does it mean to do capital budgeting? And here, I won't go into detail, but it is developing some of the things that Joan [Timeche] touched on, expecting the board to come in every October 1st or whatever date you want to pick. Here is my capital budgeting plan for the next year or the next three years. 'I need your approval and after I get your approval, you're not going to pull it back for political reasons,' and so forth. So there's a whole transition that goes on as you get particularly tribal leaders to understand that capital budgeting for an enterprise is different than just budgeting for a program. And there's the sense of course in that process in which the notion of the retention or reinvestment of capital becomes a critical aspect. Many tribal governments have run off the tribal programs where the program never makes any money, so there's never any of its own capital to reinvest in next year. But if you have a sustained enterprise, hopefully a substantial portion of the funds that enterprise has generated can in fact serve as the seed corn for going forward in the reinvestment in buying next year's round of equipment or hire the next group of laborers that you need to hire. So this transition to a notion of capital budgeting as opposed to program budgeting is a critical change that I see tribes going through.

Next I wrote down from attorneys to professional management. Many of you are probably attorneys and at least the responsible ones that I meet confess that 'we know we're in trouble when I, the attorney, am running the enterprises.' I see many, many tribes where the attorneys are, some of them don't want to give up the power, but the smart ones say, 'Thank god, we now have professional business managers,' who after their name have words like Joan's MBA as opposed to JD. It's not that attorneys are evil in the world. In fact, at the launching stages, bring an attorney with you. But that transition and getting used to this business enterprise is something we've got to take seriously. It's not just a set of legal fights, but real serious management.

Next in the transition is a transition around the issue of salaries. We deal a lot with former Harvard student Lance Morgan, CEO of Ho-Chunk Industries, which has gotten so famous for its business success. He was lecturing to my class recently and he was telling the story of salaries. When Ho Chunk, Inc. started to take off, they adopted as a board resolution of Ho-Chunk Inc. that there would be no more than a factor of three in their salaries meaning the highest-paid person wouldn't be paid more than three times the lowest-paid person. And what he said is we had to move, now I believe they're at 12-to-1, and there's a tension there and it's a real tension actually for every society. You sort of feel like, gosh, these U.S. CEOs that are making a billion dollars a year doesn't feel right. Tribes struggle with the same thing, and there's a tension there. There's just a balance point that each culture and each society has to find. Once you're running Ho-Chunk Industries from $150 million worth of private businesses essentially, they need very serious managers if they're going to be competitive in the world, both their tribal and non-members. It turns out that it's just reality that that CEO or that senior VP is going to make more money than the person who's restocking the soda machines in the hallways. And it's a tension you wish didn't exist in the world, but it's a reality that many tribes are having to deal with. I found it clever that the way Ho-Chunk handled it wasn't ad hoc. The next time we have to hire a good MBA she comes in and wants 15...they actually tried to set up policies, and they're aware that they have to modify them over time, but at least it made them focus on it as a conscious decision, so that it didn't just become ad hoc, that we're going to pay Joan 15 times more than we pay someone else. So I think the issue on salaries is important. It's just a sign of the times that these businesses are getting more successful, more professional management.

Two more categories real quickly of this transition: a very interesting one and I've seen this now occur at three or four different tribal enterprises that I've been familiar with, working with, and that's the rise of racism. This is an uncomfortable issue. Increasingly, as the tribes have gotten more powerful and successful, a number of these CEOs, tribal members have come and told me privately, 'Joe, we've got a problem with racism.' It's racism of our own tribal members against the non-Indians, and I know at least two tribal corporations that have had to have the kind of retreat and get our heads around this and start talking about the reality that we all need to be able to work together and so forth and so on. And so it's a very interesting time. It's really a sign of this increasing success and sustained professionalism, that you now have these kinds of issues arising. But it's something... and that's only one tip of a very large iceberg, because we're all aware of the racism that historically has gone the other direction. You hire the white senior manager and he doesn't trust the young Indian intern that he's supposed to be training to take his job. We know those stories, but it is a sign that one of the transitions that tribes have to be serious now that they're managing real enterprises. They've got to keep everybody happy and many of them are so large now, and many tribes as you know, all the tribal members have jobs. You have to go outside and hire non-Indians.

Two more transitions: one is the transition -- and Diane Enos said it beautifully today -- the transition to the reality that you're going to have to turn these enterprises loose to manage to one target, which is profits. It's not that profits are the end. My colleague Steve Cornell says a great line. The goal here of economic development really isn't to sort of make everybody filthy rich and drive around in Mercedes. It's actually freedom. It's to generate the revenue so the tribe as an entity has the ability to make its own decisions. We can rebuild that sewer system and not wait for the federal dollars. We can rebuild that high school tutoring system and not wait for the federal dollars. And the way you do it in a very competitive world out there is you manage for profit. That's a tough thing of course because it's very natural to say, 'But wait a minute, why do we have to manage for profit? We have different values.' But more and more tribes are saying to us, 'It's because we have those values, we need this money to get the freedom to pursue our own objectives in this society.'

Last transition and a fascinating one to me: We run -- and Mike Taylor touched on -- as you know, some of you may know we run this program called Honoring Nations recognizing best practices among tribal governments. And I was out this summer at Citizen Potawatomi in Oklahoma. And they're this great success story. In 1976, they had 2.5 acres and $550 and now they basically own Shawnee, Oklahoma. And there's no question about their sovereignty; they run everything. All Potawatomis who want a job have a job. They're hiring thousands of black and white workers from Oklahoma in both private enterprises, tribal enterprises, tribal government. And we were working there with the head of their community development corporation, a very nice blonde, white woman, obviously not Potawatomi. And I listened to her talk and the whole time I'm talking, she's talking about 'us,' and what you're watching is as tribes sustain not only the economic development, the economic development that allows them to rebuild the ball fields, to rebuild the sewer system, to rebuild the schools, you start to change the definition of citizens. And it's an interesting transition that, I see it at Mississippi Choctaw as well, everybody at Mississippi Choctaw and they're not even aware of, the non-Indians are running around with this button that says 'Mississippi Choctaw, Sovereign and Proud of It,' and they're not even aware what they're doing. It's just like, oh, yeah. And if they go to a high school basketball game and it's Mississippi Choctaw High School versus Jackson, Mississippi, all the non-Indians go sit on the Choctaw side and it's because you're watching us as humans redefine what team we're on. And for all of us, no matter what race or ethnicity we're from, somewhere in our histories we sort of got an identity as Hopi or American or Navajo or Apache, whatever it is. And what's interesting, with the growth in Indian Country and the strength is starting to redefine the word 'we,' and I know of a couple tribes now who are beginning to start to think about the reality, problem of growth, we may have to start giving people who are not Indian certain levels of citizenship rights partly because we're a good team, our schools are better than the Shawnee, Oklahoma schools, and now the non-Indian kids of our non-Indian employees want to go to our school instead of the State of Oklahoma school. And so it's a very interesting transition that's tough -- I'm not being a Pollyanna here -- but it's one of the signs of growth that like other successful nations in the world Indian nations are starting to have immigrants, immigrants who want certain rights to citizenship. And it's a sign of success, it's a healthy sign of success that you're building places where people can and want to live." 

Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) Public Transit Program

Producer
Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
Year

This video, produced by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, explains the process by which a public transit program was implemented for the benefit of tribal members and, eventually, non-tribal members in neighboring communities.

Resource Type
Citation

CTUIR Tribal Planning Office. "Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Tribal Planning Office Public Transit Program." Dir. Alfred Diaz. Ad Video Production. Pendleton, Oregon. October 2011. Film.

This Honoring Nations "Lessons in Nation Building" video is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development

[Harmonica]

Narrator:

“There was a time when the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla Indians roamed an area as large as 6.4 million acres. Their territories ranged roughly from the communities of Joseph, Oregon to the east and The Dalles, Oregon and Yakima, Washington 200 miles to the west. Today, in comparison, the reservation lands of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are a mere fraction of the area once traveled by tribal members, a total of 175,000 acres. Since the creation of the reservation system, inter-regional travel for subsistence, jobs and cultural enrichment has been fraught with struggle for tribal members that live both here and in the nearby communities. Within the last decade, the Confederated Tribes have made great advancements to bring mobility back to their people and to non-Natives living in neighboring communities, so that once again the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla Indian nation are greatly embarking on interregional journeys through their ancestral lands.”

Jim Beard:

“CTUIR Public Transit is an integral part of the tribe’s overall economic development program. It’s not only a recruitment tool, but it also optimizes their investment in job creation by improving access to the workplace. Public transportation connecting rural northeastern Oregon and southeastern Washington would not be here today or 20 years from now if not for the Umatilla Tribes. For thousands of years, the tribes have travelled the routes and stayed at the places in their homeland that now make up the tribe’s regional transit service area. But most importantly, because of sovereignty and self-governance, the tribes have transcended political and jurisdictional boundaries to provide essential services where state and local governments have neither the sense of responsibility, understand the value to regional economic development, or possess the authority to serve in this regional context.”

Narrator:

“In the early history of reservation life, inter-regional travel was not only uncommon, but required permission from the federal government. Civil rights advancements would later establish full citizenship for Native Americans, thus allowing them the right to move about freely. The latter half of the 21st century saw other advancements in civil rights and self-governance. But up until the turn of the century, tribal members for the most part were still economically constrained to the reservation because many lacked the one vehicle that most Americans had come to rely upon for their inter-regional travel.”

Susie Calhoun:

“Transportation has always been either you walk or you have a car in this area. So the issues of transportation were just that. You either knew someone that had a car, you had a car, or you walked everywhere you went.”

Narrator:

“Post-World War II America saw a boom in modernization and along with it a growing dependence on the automobile and the network of highways and interstates. Without the economic ability to purchase and maintain vehicles or even a driver’s license, tribal members were literally left stranded on the roadside usually having to walk the five miles into town along the dangerous shoulders of the highway.”

Susan Johnson:

“They didn’t have any transportation at all. You would see people walking on the road continually between Pendleton and Mission.”

Narrator:

“In the nearby town of Pendleton five miles away, public transportation was almost nonexistent and limited to city boundaries so that by the end of the 21st century the city of Pendleton’s transit service had failed to reach the population of 3,000 living five miles away on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.”

Susie Calhoun:

“People would walk to town to get groceries, they’d walk to town to drink. Alcoholism is big. You’d see people just passed out on the road or on the side of the road and it was dangerous.”

Narrator:

“As the rights of self-governance increased, so did the ability for tribal leaders to implement programs and develop solutions to the socio-economic challenges their people faced. Better health care, better schools, and eventually stable employment, but access to these facilities was still difficult because of lack of transportation to meet all needs. It was a drive to increase employment on the reservation that would eventually lead to improvements in transportation. In 1994, construction of the first phase of the Wild Horse Resort and Casino was completed, instantly creating not just a steady workforce on the reservation but a growing workforce.”

Lorena Thompson:

“We’ve gone through four expansions from the initial 80 that we hired just with our temporary facility and it was more training until when we opened the resort where it is now where we employed 300. Then we went through another expansion adding all of the administrative. Then we did a consolidation with the hotel, the RV, golf course and Tamástslikt Cultural Institute.”

Narrator:

“Over the next few years, the workforce at the resort would grow three times what it was in 1994. Today, the reservation’s combined employers made up of the Wildhorse Resort, Tamástslikt Museum, Tribal Governance Center, Arrowhead Travel Plaza and Cayuse Technologies have made the Umatilla Indian Reservation the largest employer in eastern Oregon. Tribal government employs close to 600, Cayuse Technologies another 200, combined with Wildhorse Resort employee base for a total of 1,500 tribal and non-tribal employees. But workers require transportation, especially the service-sector workers who cannot often afford personal vehicles to travel the great distances common in rural areas.”

Lorena Thompson:

“We did find that being on schedules 24/7, having different schedules we had difficulties with employees getting here.”

Narrator:

“With a growing demand for a stable employee base, the Board of Trustees understood that it would benefit the tribes to have transportation service to the entire region. As a sovereign nation, the tribe’s recognized the value of extending their interest by providing transit services to lands beyond their reservation boundaries and this transit service would be free to all people living within their original homelands. In October of 2001, a passenger bus was borrowed from the city of Pendleton to begin a free bus service between both communities.”

Jim Beard:

“After a while, we were putting so many miles on it that they said, 'Ah, you better get your own bus.' So we went out in 2002 and bought our first bus and we ran that for several years just between Pendleton and Mission, the five miles between the two communities here. And then we began to see that there were a number of people who are employees here that live in these surrounding little communities and so we decided the next thing to do would be to go out to these areas.”

Narrator:

“Private taxis also provided services during odd hours when the transit wasn’t running or for tribal members who preferred a less public mode of transportation. The initial fee for senior tribal members to travel between the reservation and Pendleton was $1 each way. Taxi vouchers are still provided for tribal members, with the Tribes paying the remainder of the cost. As for the Confederated Tribes Transit Service, it was and still is free to all people using it to travel their ancestral lands.”

Jim Beard:

“Collecting fees won’t make or break this system. It’s a nuisance to collect the money, it’s just one more administrative function that we would have that we’d just as soon not, and besides it provides a lot of good will to the communities around here and to the people that the tribes are willing to provide this service to them for free.”

Narrator:

“Since the initiation of the bus and taxi programs in 2001, both have seen tremendous growth, with the free transit line experiencing the greatest increase with just under 5,000 riders in its first year of operation to nearly 60,000 riders in 2010. With such growing demand, the Board of Trustees recognized the value of expanding the transit system beyond the scope of getting workers to a job site. Over the next several years additional city runs would be added to increase services to all people with a variety of destinations and purposes. The communities of La Grande, Stanfield, Echo, Hermiston, Athena, Milton Freewater, Pilot Rock, and Walla Walla and Tri Cities in Washington were added, once again available to both tribal and non-tribal members with no rider fee to help people achieve inter-regional travel on their ancestral land.

Today, the Umatilla Reservation funds and operates seven free transit lines that help riders travel to facilities on and off the reservation as well as helping travelers connect with other communities and other transportation in the Northwest. On the reservation, regular stops are made at governance centers, medical facilities and the Wildhorse Resort and Casino. Additional stops are made along the way when requested. Off the reservation, transit buses will stop at city centers, airports, bus stations and other key locations that will provide the greatest accessibility for the rural residents of Umatilla County. The Mission run to Pendleton is still the most widely ridden but other runs are growing in significance such as the Walla Walla Whistler run, which connects to the nationally acclaimed Wine Country 40 minutes to the north which has a regional population of 45,000.

While many rural transit systems target senior and disabled populations tribal planners recognized the primary focus of its services needed to be centered on getting employees of tribal enterprises to the job site and enhancing the tribe’s economic development initiatives. By far the most common destination for riders has been traveling to and from work. According to a recent study of the 1460 people employed by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, 55 percent were non-Indian while 33 percent were tribal members, and another 12 percent were members of other sovereign nations.”

Susie Calhoun:

“So it’s made people very, very self sufficient. They can go to work, they can get there, they can get back, it’s all on their own and it’s really a positive piece in people’s lives.”

Lorena Thompson:

“Making it easier on our employees to take care of their personal needs, to get to work which is their personal responsibility, but having that transportation opportunity is just great, it’s a great advantage for them and for us as the employer 'cause we know they will be there.”

Narrator:

“It is a system open to all, free to all and in some cases the benefactors go beyond people to the very creatures of this land of whom we are charged to be their stewards.”

Lynn Tompkins:

“Usually, the bus drivers in fact are just kind of excited about the birds on the bus and what do you have today and kind of thing, so we’re very appreciative of the tribe’s willingness to transport. Blue Mountain Wildlife is a wildlife rehabilitation center. The tribal bus service helps us hugely with transportation cost and time. When we’re really busy, we will often meet two buses a day. Being able to release a bird is always the best part. So when we get to release a bird, it’s just a really great feeling and if that means saying goodbye on the bus, that’s okay.”

Narrator:

“So as it was more than 150 years ago when the Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Wallas roamed their vast ancestral lands, once again the first people of this land are able to roam and travel using a network of public transportation systems that follow their traditional routes.”

[Singing]

Ya’ll come with us and ride the bus, we’ve made it easy, there ain’t no fuss. Catch a ride into town, stop and shop and you’re homeward bound. If your wheels are down and you’ve got no ride, we’ll get you to work even on time and the price is right if you like it free, four trips a day, six days a week."

Susan Johnson:

“That was Harpman Beard for the Confederated Tribes Bus Service and I am Susan Johnson, Bus System Manager. So get your schedule at the planning office and take advantage of this wonderful offer.”

Tohono O'odham Nursing Care Authority - Our Story

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

This video -- produced by the Tohono O'odham Nursing Care Authority using its monetary award from the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development's Honoring Nations awards program -- explains the history and development of the Archie Hendricks, Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility and the Tohono O'odham Hospice, which are located on the Tohono O'odham Nation in Arizona.

Native Nations
Citation

Tohono O'odham Nursing Care Authority. "Tohono O'odham Nursing Care Authority - Our Story." Rock Steady Productions. Sells, Arizona. 2009. Film.

This Honoring Nations "Lessons in Nation Building" video is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development.

[Singing]

Frances Stout:

“I was on what they call an advisory committee and the group was very passionate about what they did. They were determined to build a facility in spite of the cost. They were very determined to bring their people home. This past year we were honored by Harvard University and their project, which is called Honoring Nations, with an award. It gave us an opportunity to share our story and we feel that the information that we have given will help others perhaps be as successful as we are. This facility opened in November of 2003 and it’s located on sort of in the middle of the reservation close to the Mexican border on Indian Route 15.

[Singing]

When we share our story about success, we always mention passion, that we feel that if someone doesn’t champion the idea that probably it just won’t go. In our case, it was a group of ladies who just kept approaching the nation asking, ‘Do we have money now to start the program?’ And then it moved to an advisory group, which actually by that time, we had money. And we also need a government that listens to the people and who honors the elder because I think we’ve seen a lot of times when someone said, ‘Yes, we do honor our elders,’ but there was no action taken to care for them. In our case, we have executives who followed through with the money, appropriated the money and this gave us the ability to move forward with the building, staffing and the programs that we have here.

Funding for the facility comes from gaming, but not all of it. One third is from our, we’re reimbursed by ALTCS which is the Arizona Long-Term Care System, which is Medicaid. Then there are a few that are on Medicare. We also are licensed to take veterans so if we do the Veterans Administration would pay for their care here. There are very few private pay. The rest, anything that’s not paid for by any of these entities, then our tribe then pays for it.

As far as jobs go, we have, especially all our managers, they are all O’odham except one and they’ve all had special training. We’ve been able to have consultants come in and work directly with them, help them with policy making for their specific department, help them even if need be, be certified. So this has been a very outstanding thing for the people here on the reservation.”

Caroldene Garcia:

“After a couple of months of being here and having the board, dealing with the board, working with the board, I happened to have the opportunity with the administrator -- who also runs another facility, who has their own HR [human resources] department -- and was willing to provide that training for me. So the board allowed me to do that, set up a contract where she would monitor me and give me some advice and help me upgrade my skills that I already had in place.”

Frances Stout:

“We truly bend over backwards to bring our staff in and to keep them. We have bonuses for our nurses. The benefits for the, that the nation provides for all their employees are very, very good. This includes medical care, dental care and a 401k. We do have housing and we have housing also that takes care of the shifts. For instance, if we have person on 12-hour shift and they want to spend a couple of nights here, we have facilities for them.

[Singing]

In the area of communication, we do try to communicate quarterly with the districts, with our oversight committee, with the executive. And we do feel that any plan that we have, we try to maintain transparency with everyone so that there are no surprises to anyone and then we also get their input. We find now that planning is very important and we try to be very sure that we implement. It’s not just a plan that’s put on the shelf. We do work at implementing every goal.”

Charlene Conde:

“In addition to the Archie Hendricks Skilled Nursing Facility, we also have the hospice program. The hospice program is taking care of O’odham people that are reaching their life’s end. Before we had a hospice here on the nation, our people had to go out to the city and the hospitals, Tucson, wherever they’re sent to get hospice care there, so this is a good thing for our people. I worked as a CNE on the nursing unit before I transferred over to the hospice care. I wanted to work for my people.”

[Singing]

Frances Stout:

“We have a mission. This mission has not been changed since I’ve been because it’s such a strong mission. It sets up the reason for our existence and we feel very passionate about it. It talks about continuum of care and that’s one of the new passions that we have is hoping to put together a model of continuum of care for our aging population we do have, beginning with the nursing care facility here.

[Music]

We also have started an organization or a consortium. It’s called the Elder Care Consortium and we realized that there were many issues and this group alone could not solve the problems. So we, this is how the consortium came into being and we, it consists of the tribal Health and Human Services, the Indian Health Service, and the community college, and of course us. So the four entities meet monthly, we talk about the issues of aging and we have put together a white paper for the new administration so that they see what we see and we also have a few recommendations for them. We will continue to update that white paper as time goes on.”

Priscilla Ortiz:

“I work with children. I worked at a school and then from school I went to elders and I enjoy doing what I do. I love it. I like being a clown, I like letting the residents know that we’re here for them. And we did wonderful. I didn’t understand their language. Now they’re teaching me how to say certain words. I’ll say it, they laugh at me, but they correct me, which is okay. It’s been a rewarding thing for me to learn their language.”

[O'odham language]

Frances Stout:

“I think right in the beginning that was the main thing we wanted to do was to deliver care in accordance with what we call Himdag. Himdag is our way of life and that includes foods that we eat, some of the traditions that we do and the medicine person, having the medicine person come and always be I would say almost on call.”

Lisa Folson:

“We made this healing room, one of the nurses Richard Hix made this, painted this area and it was requested on behalf of the staff, O’odham here mainly to bring the medicine people in and to have healing here. It’s really good that we have this because there’s a lot of people that don’t recognize our culture, don’t recognize our tradition, but because we’re at home, they see this as something that we need and it’s just, it’s like you going to the doctor, or it's somewhere where you can pray. So it would be something like your church or your temple.”

Frances Stout:

“There were many obstacles. I think the first one was staffing the place. We do not have very many professional people here on the reservation so it was, we needed to go out and look. And I mean we went all over the country looking for a DON, an administrator. The administrator has to be licensed and we went through three administrators, the third one being our present administrator, and he’s done a fantastic job. So that was the biggest obstacle. The other was finding a Director of Nursing Services and we went through several before we found our present one who was willing to stay and I think she’s doing a very good job. That obstacle is the fact that we are out in the middle of the desert and we are, people, our professional people have to commute and that gets old after awhile. I think we pretty much accomplished what we set out and that’s get the building up, to bring most of our people home. There are a few who cannot come home because of the level of care. However, we do keep in touch with those people. Perhaps at some time in their life they may be able to come home.”

[Singing] 

Frances Stout: Archie Hendricks, Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility and Tohono O'odham Hospice

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

In this interview with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development's Joseph P. Kalt, Frances Stout of the Tohono O'odham Nursing Care Authority discusses what led the Tohono O'odham Nation to establish the Archie Hendricks, Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility and Tohono O'odham Hospice, and the positive differences the facilities have made for the nation and its citizens.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Stout, Frances. "Archie Hendricks, Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility and Tohono O'odham Hospice." Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. March 18, 2011. Interview.

Joseph Kalt:

Hi. I’m here with Frances Stout. Frances is chair of the board of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s Nursing Care Authority, which governs an award-winning program, a nursing home called the Archie Hendricks, Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility. And Frances, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Let me first ask you just to describe this...I’ve been there, I’ve seen your nursing home operations. It’s state of the art; it’s truly fascinating what you’ve accomplished. Describe what the Archie Hendricks Sr. Nursing Care Facility does, the kind of services you provide, and what you’re trying to do with it.

Frances Stout:

Well, Archie started because of our elders were far away from their home and we really needed to bring them back. They were lonely, they were...it was just painful for everybody, families. And so when Archie opened, we immediately had many elders come in and mainly because they were frail and families couldn’t take care of them. So one of the things I think we did right in the beginning was to provide comfort and food that they could eat, plus they had people who spoke to them in their own language. And they also had family visiting. This was a biggie. But I think the main thing that really, I would say, made a difference was in the ability of the elder to relax or to feel the comfort. And that took a while. As you know, when you move elders from one facility to another, it’s very painful and it’s a big adjustment. So when they came from the Tucson homes into our facility, there was an adjustment and you really could see it, and it took a while for them to say, ‘Am I really here?’ So the hospice program is new and right now we have...and it’s actually a new concept for our people, too. We don’t normally talk about death, we don’t normally talk about, ‘When I get to that point, do this for me.’ Those are things you never talk about. So it’s been new and we’ve...although we have a program where they...it’s called 'Pathways.' We have a program now where our people go into the home and talk with them about medications they’re taking, the type of treatment they’re getting and maybe getting them to the point where they feel or they can comfortably say, ‘I don’t think I want to go back for any more treatment. I don’t want any more procedures done on me. I would like to just pass comfortably.’ So this is what Pathways does and they may either stay in their home or they may come to the facility.

Joseph Kalt:

When we go around Indian Country, tribe after tribe is struggling with the same issue you faced of the elderly essentially having to leave home at a critical time in their lives when they’d like to be with their families. And tribe after tribe asks us, ‘How did Tohono O’odham do that?’ How did you do it? This is a world-class facility at Tohono O’odham Nation. What was the impetus and what was the drive behind this that allowed it to happen and now to be sustained is this premier operation in the United States?

Frances Stout:

Well, as you know, most Natives have always cared for their people from birth to death, but with all the lifestyle changes and all the things that have entered into our lives, we no longer can do that. And there are families that still make an effort. In fact, we’ve had people say, ‘I have to quit work now because I’m going to start taking care of my grandmother.’ But that’s a small number, very small number who can do that. The majority of them just finally say, ‘It’s too much. We have to take you away or put you somewhere.’ So the people...I think there was a small group who really felt badly and felt like we really needed to work towards getting a home on our reservation and that little task force -- which was I believe all women at first -- would come to the administrator’s office or our chair, the chair of our nation’s office and ask were there monies? And no, there weren’t any monies. But they were persistent and after a while, when money was available, the chair did call them and say, ‘Here’s the money. Now who’s going to stand up and work towards bringing the home here?’ And then there was silence in the council and finally two of the women stood up and said, ‘We’ll do it.’

So they again set up what they called an advisory group and this is when I came in. And they worked very hard. They...and I think they spent their money wisely. They got an excellent consulting service who had done nursing homes in the past and they were wonderful. They helped us put together a plan, a business plan, a fantastic business plan. In fact, every once in awhile even now we look at it because whoever wrote it was very future-oriented and that’s what you need. We are not...most Natives are not future-oriented. We live...we’ve had to live from day to day, so it’s difficult to plan sometimes.

But I think the board, when they finally got to the point where the board members were appointed, that was when I think we decided, ‘How are we going to do this? We’ve got the money, we’ve got the architect, we’ve got the plans and we’re ready for construction.’ And as soon as construction started, it was difficult to really realize this was happening. But the board I think was very...I wasn’t on the first board. It was the second...a position opened up and then I joined the board and I’ve been on it ever since. The board that I work with now is fantastic. They are very passionate. They’re very, as I said, strategic in their thinking and every once in a while...in the past...the past board I think, every once in a while somebody got a wild hair and off they went in a different direction. So we try to stay focused and it has worked for us.

Joseph Kalt:

The facility and the programs are simply world-class because you have world-class care being provided to people as you say in their own language, with their own families around and you keep winning awards and rightly so. I know that the Archie Hendricks Sr. Nursing Facility has won one of the Honoring Nations awards from the Harvard Project. Our role of course is to take your wonderful stories and try to document them so other tribes can learn from them. From your perspective, things like the Honoring Nations award, have you found that that helps you? Have other tribes sought information from you directly? What role has it played in your work?

Frances Stout:

I think the main thing it did for us, at least for the board, was it validated the fact that we were going in the right direction. It really made a difference. After we won that award, we thought, ‘We are...we must be doing something right.’ And I think that just motivated us to work even harder. Yes, we’ve had some tribes come down, take a look, and one of the biggies that seems to be a big obstacle is money. The nation has to buy into it and then they have to get the money somewhere. We’re very fortunate to have gaming and we’re very fortunate that they have it set aside and...

Joseph Kalt:

For the facility?

Frances Stout:

And they are willing to, as I said, give us subsidy. We just went for our second, oh no, our...is it our third or our second request and we got that without...

Joseph Kalt:

From the council?

Frances Stout:

From the council. Well, we first have to go to the districts and let them know that we...and have their approval. That’s always I think a good way to find out what the people are thinking about your facility, what’s going on there.

Joseph Kalt:

Well, I can say you certainly are on the right track and we thank you for participating with us and allowing us to tell your story across Indian Country 'cause as I said earlier, tribe after tribe is struggling with this issue and your leadership has really been phenomenally important to all of Indian Country so thank you very much. Thank you.

Frances Stout:

Thank you for letting me tell the story.

Joseph Kalt:

Great.

Honoring Nations: David Gipp: Sovereignty, Education and United Tribes Technical College

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

United Tribes Technical College President David Gipp discusses the impetus behind the establishment of United Tribes Technical College (UTTC) and the emergence of the tribal college movement, the growth of UTTC over the past four decades, and the critical roles tribal colleges and universities play in Native nations' efforts to rebuild their nations. 

People
Resource Type
Citation

Gipp, David. "Sovereignty, Education and United Tribes Technical College." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 18, 2009. Presentation.

"Thank you, Megan. It's great to be here. I don't often miss these sessions as a member of the Board [of Governors], and I apologize for not being here the last two days. Unfortunately, my schedule was such that it was difficult to get here, but I finally made it. I'm always late but I usually get there, as they say. So it's great to be here and I look forward to the presentations yet that are to come for this morning. I want to thank you for the prayer this morning and especially, the prayer where we talk about those who are in our communities -- and we use the word [Lakota Language] ones -- the ones that are kind of out there and we don't always see, the ones that are what we call pitiful and are in need sometimes, and don't get the privileges we have of being at this table here today at especially such a prestigious place. Those are the people that I serve, and I'm sure that many of you serve back in your home communities, especially if you're either in an elected position or have been in one. You know those people and who they are, and you know that these are the people that we really stand for back in our communities. Many of them are traditional people, many of them hang onto their culture in very closed and close ways, and some of them suffer because of the issues of poverty. In fact, many of them do -- at least in my part of the country in North and South Dakota and Montana and in other parts as well. So I think of these people when we're here and when I'm having a good breakfast, or whatever it is, and I appreciate that. And I've had my share of life from those days as well, having come up in that respect. So I appreciate that prayer and we think of these people. I want to extend my condolences to the Hill family -- and to all of you for your losses in your family as well -- and our prayers and good wishes for you and all of those who are dear to you. We have those kinds of things that happen to us, in all of our families again, because we're human beings and we come from the good earth here. So I think of those kinds of things.

I listen to Chief [Oren] Lyons and his speech about what happened back at Wounded Knee and I think of December 15, 1890 when Sitting Bull was killed. And two weeks later, the first Wounded Knee happened and quite a number of our people were killed -- Lakota people who were, Minneconjou who were, Hunkpapa, some Oglalas, Blackfeet Sioux and many others that were within that band -- that were on their way in, by the way, to give up, if you will, coming off the prairie. And [they were] some of the very last to be brought into what was to become reservation life, to the kind of confinement that we have lived with for many, many now centuries. And we were giving up a way of life, our freedom, if you will, giving up our constitution, if you will -- our constitution as we knew it and understood it. And many of our tribal nations have historically gone through that from the time that Columbus landed -- mistakenly landed -- on the shores of North America and stole the first Indian, kidnapped and took him back before Queen Isabella, and those kinds of things. Today, those would be considered crimes against humanity and inhumane acts. Although sometimes our own government continues to justify those things, as Chief Lyons pointed out, at the highest levels of government.

And so we need to be sure that what we do -- and this is one of the things that I think Honoring Nations does -- is brings the very best of Indian Country forward of what we're doing, that we're human beings, that we're not 'savages,' that we're not 'uncivilized,' that in fact we have our own civilizations and we have our own way of doing things and we have our own methodologies, all of these things that you know better than I do. And those are the presentations that we give to America -- and we have given freely and openly -- but we need to share them among ourselves so that those people that I talked about, the [Lakota language] ones, can benefit and can learn and talk about that. I talked to one of my students the other day, who has dreams of coming to Harvard. I don't know if he'll ever get here, hopefully he will, if that's what his dream is -- there are other places I told him he can go to school too, but we'll deal with that one later. Those are the kinds of things we look at when we talk about opportunity, because it's opportunity that -- as an educator --that we want to make. We want to be sure that our people are on a level playing ground and that they have that adequate and highly capable opportunity to bring themselves forward to be a part of life; and mostly, to do some good things for themselves and for their families and again for their community, as they so choose. And that's what United Tribes [Technical College] was about. We did officially, on September 6th, celebrate our 40th anniversary as an institution, as a school, as a training place that began in September of 1969. But the beginning of that goes back some years, back into the '60s, when a lot of us were ensconced with doing some fundamentals -- by us, I meant tribal leadership and tribal councils and other people.

I was just coming out of high school back in the mid-60s, but I remember listening to the TV at the boarding school that I was in South Dakota and watching TV. And the people of South Dakota had voted that day -- in I believe it was '65 or so -- and they voted that the tribes of South Dakota would continue to have their own civil and criminal jurisdiction. In North Dakota, something similar was happening. The tribes of North Dakota came together and they became United Tribes of North Dakota. In South Dakota, it was United Sioux Tribes of South Dakota and they were the remnants of the great Sioux Nation, by the way. But my point being is the tribes in many states, in many communities, were fighting for the fundamentals of civil and criminal jurisdiction. Jurisdictions that, yes, we continue to fight about even today -- in the courts and with all kinds of people and with the states and cities and counties and those kinds of governments versus our tribes and tribal governments, so that fight certainly isn't over -- but they laid the groundwork for those that were successful in retaining that civil and criminal jurisdiction in the mid-60s by having rejected Public Law 280 as a methodology for having the state to assume those jurisdictions; and that's what happened in North and South Dakota. And obviously, I capsulized this in a few brief statements because this was something that went on for years and years, and you know the origins of Public Law 280. My point being is they were at least successful in saving that fundamental of jurisdiction of the tribes, otherwise we would not have this -- and many of our tribes that went under 280 know the difficulties of being a 280 tribe -- because that was not our choice. It was put upon us by the U.S. government and then by the states themselves -- states that certainly didn't exist when we were long, long around, let's put it that way. We know that we predate all of these governments, including the U.S. Constitution.

So those were the formative years for places like United Tribes of North Dakota, but one of the lessons learned out of that success was, if we come together -- and in our region we have Arikara, we have Mandan, we have Hidatsa, we have Lakota and Dakota, and we have Chippewa, Ojibwe or Prairie Chippewa -- as sometimes they're referred to on the Northern Plains -- and all of those tribes had historic differences at various times, but you know all of those tribes also got along, long before the non-Native ever came around. And those are the stories that are not told. Those are the stories that are not told. And that's also an element of Honoring Nations: ways in which we come together in good ways, ways that we share and that we trade, and that's what Honoring Nations is about.

Sitting Bull is often portrayed as a great hostile -- a guy who hated everyone. That's not true. I'm a Hunkpapa, and our family and all of our people knew him as a humble, as a generous, and as an open man. One of the children he adopted, in fact, and raised was an Arikara -- a supposed enemy, by the way, archenemy of the Lakota or Sioux. So we knew and we knew how to get along in our own good ways when we needed to and when we wanted to. And so we didn't need the lessons of the non-Native, even today. And the lessons of Honoring Nations, I think, is an excellent way in which we begin to share effectively, effective ways in which we continue in rebuilding the renaissance of rebuilding tribal nations.

And that's in effect what United Tribes [Technical College] was about, because when they came together in those mid 60s -- saved, if you will, or preserved that civil and criminal jurisdiction -- one of the things they said, our tribal leaders said is, ‘We can produce other kinds of success by coming together in unity and in spirit.' And one of those results was United Tribe's educational technical center. They spotted an old fort in Bismarck, North Dakota called Fort Abraham Lincoln -- the second Fort Abraham Lincoln, by the way. The first Abraham Lincoln is to the west of us, just across the Missouri River in Bismarck, North Dakota. And that first Abraham Lincoln is in ruins and that's where Custer left for his final ride, I'll put it politely. So I'm over at the second Abraham Lincoln that was built between 1900 and 1910. And you'll see the parade grounds, the circular parade grounds, and the brick buildings and that sort of thing. For some people, it reminds them of old boarding schools, but it was a military fort. And they're what I call the cookie-cutter forts of the turn of the century, built from 1900-1910 or so, and that's when this one was built. And it produced soldiers for World War I. It went on and was used by the North Dakota Army Guard, by the way, up until 1939-1940, when INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] took it over and housed Japanese and German aliens there for five years. And then it was returned again to the North Dakota government. And in 1965, it was decommissioned completely and by 1968, we took it over. And that was again that lesson learned by United Tribes, by the United Tribes leaders and they said, ‘If we come together on issues, then why not do training?' We predate most of the tribal colleges, with the exception of Navajo Community College in 1968, but we actually were chartered in 1968, officially. And they said, ‘Let's get that fort,' one of our tribal leaders said and they did. And again, I simplify the story, but the point being is it was a good example of the Indians taking over the fort, but this time for peaceful and educational purposes and for our own wellbeing and on our own terms and conditions. So those are things that we keep in mind as we build and rebuild and we put things back together -- that our critical purpose is not only to preserve and protect, but to build. And again, I go back to what Honoring Nations stands for and what the kinds of lessons are that you provide for all of us throughout Indian Country, for those people back there at home.

And I look at my own Standing Rock area -- in North and South Dakota, which is where I'm from -- and I look at the issues of poverty, I look at the issues of the high suicide rate, some of the highest suicide rates in the nation, by the way. And I think of the story, of what Chief Lyons talked about at Wounded Knee in 1973 and going into that area at that time, about that same period of time. And what we were committed to was building and rebuilding our own educational systems, and we're still doing that. In 1973, there were six tribal colleges; today there are 37. In 1973, we were serving about 1,500, maybe 1,700 students nationally among those six schools, today we serve close to 30,000 students. Today 51 percent of our population or better across Indian Country is under the age of 25. And in many communities that 51 percent or better is under the age of 18 where you come from; we have a growing population. And so the challenge for us is to provide that quality education. The challenge for us is to provide even more, because our young people are hungry for the knowledge of who they are and what they're about. Yes, they need the skills. Yes, they need to be able to participate and actively compete, if you will, in areas of science, math and technology. I was just at a congressional panel yesterday in which we are beginning to develop our own engineering degrees on our own terms and conditions. [President] Joe McDonald out at Salish Kootenai [College] produced the first four-year engineering graduate this past May and we will do more. It starts in small ways.

But I remember in 1973 when a lot of people in D.C. -- where the Chief was -- said, ‘Why are you guys doing this? You can send your kids over to the local university, or whatever.' Well, local for us is anywhere from 50 to 150 miles away in our area of the country. The second thing is that mainstreams, only about 4 percent yet -- and this is a 30-year old statistic, by the way, that still stands -- only about 4 percent of our kids, our children that go through mainstream institutions, make it through with a four-year degree. That's a dismal shame upon America and upon American higher education, ladies and gentlemen. That's a shame. That's immoral that we have so few coming through the system getting and accomplishing degrees. So when I see an American Indian graduate with a two-year or a four-year degree, I tell you, I give them high commendations, I give them high commendations. And yes, there are great issues that they have to face even at that, but the point is we need more of these people. We need all of our trained and educated people back in our communities. And we face the risk of losing them every day to mainstream America because there are so many opportunities out there for them. And that is what nation building is all about, assuring that we have ways for these people to come back into the system. Too often, I hear young people say, ‘There's not a place for me to go back to,' either because the job doesn't exist or because there are certain kinds of politics back home. We need to teach our own tribal leaders -- and as leaders yourselves -- ways in which we welcome these people back, and ways in which we can have them come back into our communities, or ways in which they can continue to contribute -- whether they're in a national post, a regional post at even a mainstream institution -- because we are together and that is the way we continue and rebuild tribal America as I look at it.

And that's part of what really United Tribes [Technical College] is all about, that's part of what the tribal colleges are all about. But I mentioned in 1973 going into Pine Ridge -- myself with a crew of my staff, to do training among faculty, with Gerald One Feather, who had just completed his chairmanship, and Dick Wilson, of course, was chairman of the Oglalas at that time -- but going through roadblocks. On one end were -- Dick Wilson says, they often described them -- the GOONs [Guardians of the Oglala Nation]. So we turned around and went clear down the other way and went back into Nebraska and came back to the east side of that particular reserve. And then we ran into the AIM-ers [American Indian Movement]. So then we had to go back, come back through this way, double track and then go back through another road to get to what was then, the college. And the Oglala Lakota College -- which is now pretty much centrally located out of Kyle, but also has the rest of its centers, satellites, and all of the various communities throughout the Oglala Lakota area up there -- was pretty much in just what I would call broken down trailers and that's where they were teaching classes. But we went in and we talked to some of the staff and faculty and the president and did some work there. And then Gerald invited us out to his place just northwest of Pine Ridge. We managed to get over there late that afternoon into the evening and we had dinner with him. And we sat there and he was talking to us about what they were doing with the college and how things were going to go with it. We looked out of his windows there, his front windows, and they were all, there was no windows. We said, ‘What happened to your windows?' He said, ‘Well, they got shot out last night.'

But I guess my point is, we've had our war and this has happened in other communities as well, disparities. But what we have learned is we go on -- I'm not saying we aren't afflicted by them in negative ways -- but nevertheless we go on, because we're a strong people. We're a very strong, resilient people. We're a people that can accept and take change and incorporate it and do it in proactive ways. Otherwise we wouldn't be here, our children wouldn't be here, our grandchildren wouldn't be here -- given the size and makeup and complexity of our population, given the different languages that we have, the different customs that we have, from one nation to the other. As small and tiny as we are in this huge nation of 270, or more, million of the United States of America, we're still here and we will continue to be here. But the important thing is that we continue to build, as best as we can, and on our own terms and conditions. That's what tribal colleges are about: our own terms and conditions. They are the fundamental rights that go even before and beyond treaties.

Sitting Bull never signed a treaty, from where I'm from. He was a Hunkpapa Lakota, but as he said when he picked up that piece of earth and dropped it back to the ground, he said, ‘I never gave up or sold an ounce,' to be interpreted, by the way, of the earth, ‘because I am part of it. I've never given it up. No matter what they say. No matter what kind of piece of paper they put in front of me.' And yes, we have to adhere to things like treaties. And yes, it's important to assure that they're enforced, if you will. But he never signed a treaty. He fought his whole life and he gave his life telling people, ‘If you sign that, you sign your life away.' For him, that was what destiny was about and that was the loss of freedom. We're in a different era now, and even he recognized, though, that we had to make changes that were significant among ourselves, because he had gone on the Wild West Show with Buffalo Bill Cody and went clear across to Europe and been in D.C. One of the things -- he came back and he visited in a little school on Standing Rock, when it was settled, after he had been brought in, brought back from Canada and had been held in prison at Fort Randall for two years, brought back to Standing Rock and some of my own people followed him back up. They brought him back by riverboat up the Missouri and the rest of the people that were with him walked; they didn't ride on that boat. One of them was my grandmother, who was a little infant and brought up from that area of the country -- Fort Randall back up to Standing Rock. But he later visited that school where my grandmother was at, and it was called the Kennel Industrial School. It's not there anymore. In fact that whole community was inundated, flooded by the great dams that were put upon the Missouri River Basin from Montana clear down into Nebraska. But he walked in that school and he said -- and he talked to the children and he looked at all of them -- and he said, ‘You need to learn, you need to learn what the wasicus are doing and you need to learn how they write and what they do.' He said, ‘I can't read or write.' He could write his name, but he said, ‘You need to do these things and learn what they are about, because that is the only way you're going to protect yourself, it's the only way you're going to keep who you are.' He said, ‘I've seen them,' he said. He said, ‘They're going to come in such great numbers.' He said, ‘When you see the ant pile,' he said, ‘there are even more than that coming. They're not here yet, but they're coming. You see them around us right now.' He meant wasicus, the white man. He said, ‘They're bringing things that you can't see or understand all the time, but you must learn about them and you must learn their way, because otherwise you won't be able to take care of yourself.' He said, ‘I've seen them,' and he said, ‘there's more than you can ever imagine or think that are coming.' And he said, ‘It's something we cannot stop.' So even he knew at the end, just before the end, that there was a complete change in life. And he had his own school that was established in his community, just shortly before he was shot. So he was making changes himself.

But for other reasons, I won't get into the whole story about his killing, and how he was murdered, unfortunately, by other Native people. And these are the things -- and that is one of the first lessons we must always remember -- that the United States government has used effectively the Roman rule of ‘divide and conquer' very effectively among us. And we must always be cautious that we, as Native people, don't become continued victims of that, and that we don't use those non-Indian ways to take advantage of each other or to harm or hurt each other. Those are the realities. That was one of the lessons we should have learned out of the last Wounded Knee that Oren Lyons talked about a little bit ago. Because when we create those kinds of conflicts among ourselves, it also creates very harsh, bad realities, for generations to come, among ourselves. And then I can go back to the good lessons I hear and I listen to about what you are doing out in those communities -- of dealing with issues of disparity, turning them around and creating whole new kinds of opportunities, whole new kinds of wonderful hope and giving hope to others -- so that that student I talked to the other day may indeed be here at Harvard, but will continue on in a good way, carrying with him some good kinds of new proactive, if you will, weapons, but also ways that we continue to create peace and humanity among ourselves. Because that's where our hearts are, that's where our hearts are. They are good hearts. [Lakota Language]. Thank you very much."