Pine Ridge Reservation

Day 19 (continued)

After our visit to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, we drove the long drive to the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation. I found out that the Badlands are not bad, but in fact very beautiful. We visited the Red Cloud Indian School’s Heritage Center and did not have nearly enough time to experience the beautiful art gallery. I liked that the art gallery not only displayed art in the traditional Native style or art that offered political commentary about reservation life, but all sorts of art made by Native American artists- it acknowledges that Native American artists don’t have to just create things that speak about their culture or past to be valued as artists.

However, some of the art that did have a political commentary was really powerful. Something that caught my eye was a collage of chat-room conversations talking about gangs on the reservation, which I think is a problem that is rarely discussed. It spoke about the hopelessness of reservation life, the prevalence of alcoholism and drug use, the feelings of being forgotten by the rest of America and a need for finding family among gang members when blood family members have been lost to tragedies like alcoholism, domestic violence and poverty. The conversations recorded on the collage also spoke about the true tragedy of how Lakota culture is dying with the elders of the tribe because of the many years that their stories were suppressed through American institutions, both in the way that we record “American” history and the way that Native American culture was treated as taboo in the boarding schools that Lakota children were required to attend.

The gallery had a classroom the museum had recreated to look like one of the boarding school rooms and they had a timeline explaining government policies that affected Native American children. One of the points on the timeline was in 1889, when the commissioner of Indian Affairs ordered all instructors of Indian children to inculcate patriotism in Indian students by emphasizing American heroes, duties and privileges of American citizens, reverence for the American flag, patriotic songs and observance of national holidays. I thought this was so interesting in understanding both how our own senses of patriotism are instilled from a very young age and how we use these tools of patriotism to stamp out traditional cultural pride of both immigrants and native peoples.

After our visit to the heritage center, we drove and drove and drove to find the site of Wounded Knee. The contrast of Pine Ridge to the Navajo reservation was stark. On the part of the Navajo reservation we saw, there were several small older houses grouped together in little communities in the middle of lots of land. It was poverty but not quite as lonely and desolate as the poverty we saw driving through Pine Ridge. Here we saw crumbling trailers often standing alone in the middle of fields decorated with the skeletons of old cars. Very few houses that even looked livable and even fewer communities of these houses. Honestly, I have been to impoverished neighborhoods across the United States and I have never seen anything like this in our country. Hopelessness felt like a tangible weight as I imagined growing up in such conditions, despite the incredibly beautiful landscape that played a backdrop to these sad homes.
Unfortunately, the story only gets worse. We got lost multiple times, never seeing any kind of sign pointing us to this important historic site. Finally, we stumbled across it. We saw a hand-painted sign with graffiti on it explaining the significance of the massacre and a small tent set up with two people sitting in lawn chairs behind a table labeled “Visitor Information.” No real visitor center, no gift shop, no anything, really. We proceeded to the gravesite where we saw a mass grave for 140 Native Americans killed at the massacre of Wounded Knee. A few other graves had been lovingly tended to, but for the most part, the entire graveyard was unkempt and overgrown. Headstones were crumbling and litter was everywhere. Especially comparing it to the stately Civil War-era graveyards I was familiar with, coming from the South, the state of this graveyard was heartbreaking and outrageous. How could the site of a historic massacre against a marginalized people be commemorated in such a way? Money talks, even after death.

Viewing this devastating poverty in light of the extravagance of the Crazy Horse Memorial turns my stomach a little. Think of all the money that is being spent to blow up a mountain to carve the world’s largest statue, when the descendants of Crazy Horse himself are living in such conditions, when his very culture is slowly dying out.

As my blog about the Navajos said, I believe that our responsibility as students who have witnessed things like this is to share our stories- their stories- with others and bring awareness to issues that most people simply are never exposed to. Read about Wounded Knee and about the people who died there. Read about the history of the Lakota Oglala people and what their lives are like today. To give you a brief glimpse, here are some current statistics from a brochure from the Red Cloud Indian School about life on the reservation at Pine Ridge:

Unemployment- 73-85%
Per capita income- $6,143
Children living in poverty- 69%
Life Expectancy- Males- 55, Females- 60 (U.S. average- Males 75, Female- 80)
Alcoholism- 4 million cans of beer a year are sold 1 mile from the borders of the DRY reservation
Infant mortality- 2.6 times higher than national average
Suicide rate- 72% higher than national average