America's Third World

This story on the Navajo nation losing their internet service is another sad reminder about just how awful conditions are on many of the nation's reservations.

Indian reservations have mostly chosen one of two paths in the last 20 years--gaming or not. For those who have taken up gaming, they are bringing in serious money for the first time ever. But it is often at the cost of radically changing their culture. You don't see nations giving up gaming after embracing it, so these are changes that as a whole, many peoples are willing to make. But the success of the casinos tends to rely on two things--population and geography. Smaller tribes have done better than the larger nations. The money is split up among far fewer people for one thing. But the smaller peoples, who were mostly more sedentary to being with, tend to live in places near large American cities. So the New England and Puget Sound tribes have become incredibly rich. There aren't that many people to begin with and an insatiable demand for gambling among millions of local whites. Within New Mexico, Sandia and Isleta Pueblos have done outstanding because they are right outside of Albuquerque. The Jicarilla Apache reservation, in northwestern New Mexico, not so much. They have a casino, but it is so far out of the way that almost no one goes there.

For those who have not embraced gambling, like the Navajo or Lakota, poverty remains deeply entrenched, though with the positive consequence of isolating the many problems with gambling from those peoples. While I believe the Navajo are building a casino on the edge of the reservation, it is unlikely to bring untold riches due to its location. Meanwhile, tribal government is as corrupt as ever, as seen in the bidding for the internet contract. Driving on the Navajo or Pine Ridge reservations is pretty amazing. Not only do you not feel you are in the United States, you don't even feel like you're in Mexico. It feels far poorer than that.

This begs a question--what responsibility do we as a people have to Native Americans? Is giving them the opportunity to open casinos enough? Or should we as a nation provide basic services to these people? For instance, over 1/3 of Navajo homes do not have electricity. Shouldn't the U.S. government simply provide this at no cost. This fact is especially galling considering that a huge amount of electricity is creating on the reservation itself. Shouldn't we also provide them with decent schools, clean water, and internet service?

These questions may not be as easy to answer as you think. We can't overemphasize the problem with corruption. I'm not sure that tribal elites would want all these services provided unless they could control the distribution and profits. I'm not sure how to handle this problem.

But I am convinced that we as a society do owe native peoples some serious recompense for the suffering they received at our hands. This can be done in a smart way too. Think about it as a GI Bill for Native Americans. The GI Bill was transformative because it gave veterans services rather than cash pensions. It changed the structure of society. Providing Native Americans services like the internet seems the least we can do.