John Echohawk
JE: If they want to remember that the Indian people were here first, they need to respect tribal treaties and tribal sovereignty.
AH: And you think that is the most important thing?
JE: Yeah, that's what we need.
AH: How would you suggest they go about doing that? Through political action… or?
JE: Yeah, that's about what it comes down to, both through political action and through contributions to organizations like ours and others that support Native American causes.
AH: OK, so the Native American Rights Fund and what other types of organizations?
JE: Well, we just have a wide variety… educational organizations, human rights organizations, health organizations, on and on.
AH: Do you have any of those specifically in mind, that you could suggest?
JE: No, there's really too many there…
AH: Because for The Handbook for the New West, we would like to have as much information as possible; concrete and specific suggested actions for people to take.
JE: I could have my staff send over a list of Native American charities.
AH: We would really appreciate that. So for you, the most beneficial thing that an interested non-native could do, would be to respect tribal treaties and actively work towards making sure that the federal government also respects that?
JE: Yeah, I think it's important to use the word 'sovereignty'. The reason I put those two terms together is that, hopefully then people can then connect the two and understand that basically, tribes are sovereign governments. As such, we are always in battles with the other sovereign governments, the state and federal governments, over an endless number of issues. And that's where we need the support. Basically, when you come down to it, they're trying to wipe us out, diminish us, take us over. That's what the fights are about.
AH: So the best way to help that would be through political support and monetary donations?
JE: And if we don't look out, even though we were here first were not going to be here anymore. Because they will have diminished us and put us under their control…
AH: Plenary power…
JE: …and all our authority to control our own tribal nations will be gone.AH: Is that something that is being actively attacked right now?
JE: That's what all the fights are about. Of course, official federal policy is respecting Indian self-determination and our right to govern ourselves, and our reservations, but in practice, that doesn't always reign true. And often times we're up against the federal government that's supposed to be helping us. And of course we're up against state governments that are supposed to be respecting these federal laws, and instead they're challenging them.
AH: So these monetary contributions would go towards legal cases?
JE: Yeah, legal and political and human rights, it's a broad variety of needs that we have. Let me just throw in one other thing that usually comes up, some people think that just because tribes, like states, generate revenues for their governments through gaming, that all the tribes are filthy rich; through casinos and gaming revenues. Of course that's far from the truth. There are only a handful of tribes that are generating a lot of tribal revenues through the casinos. Most of the tribes don't have any governmental revenues, don't have any casinos, and even the ones that do are only fairly marginal operations. It's only a handful that make a lot of money, but some people don't understand that and think that all the tribes are filthy rich and all the tribal members are filthy rich. Of course that's a long way from reality. We are still the poorest of the poor in this country, even though we make gains we are still at the bottom of the barrel, on average.