Reznet

In Annual Address, Garcia Puts Focus on Children

By Kevin Abourezk

As Senate leaders fought over an economic stimulus package Thursday, the nation's highest profile Indian leader reminded the nation's leaders that Native people also are in need of economic stimulus.

"As you know, the President and Congress are now debating an economic stimulus package to help prevent recession," said Joe Garcia, president of the National Congress of American Indians, giving his annual State of the Indian Nations Address. "But with unemployment at 49 percent, Indian Country is in perpetual recession."

It was a healthy reminder that Indian Country's problems are too often placed on the backburner in national politics.

That Indian needs are too often seen by this nation's leaders as less immediate.

It was symbolic that as Garcia offered his address Thursday in Washington, D.C., the Senate still had not acted on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

"Indian health care services have not been updated for 16 years, 16 years," he said, his voice rising in frustration. "That's just a shame."

Native students continue to lag behind, despite President Bush's assurance only three days before Garcia's speech that test scores for students were on the rise across the nation as a result of No Child Left Behind.

Not so, Garcia said.

Fourth- and eighth-grade Native students continue to score lower than all of their peers in reading and math, he said.

In other words, Indian students are being left behind.

Garcia spent much of his address Thursday focusing on Indian youth and the need for programs that will improve the lives of Indian people's future generations.

He shared tales of tragedy: Two homeless sixth-graders from the Flathead Reservation of Montana who died from alcohol-related causes. A Native youth suicide rate spiraling out of control at three times the national average.

He also offered stories of hope: A 4-year-old Alaskan boy whose family got a home with the help of a tribal housing authority.

He shared the especially poignant tale of a chocolate company started by 25 Navajo and Ute children - the Lickety Split Chocolate Company.

"(T)hese young people are gaining the financial skills that will change their lives and the lives of those around them," he said.

Garcia ended his address by promising to continue to fight for Indian children.

"Through the eyes of a child, we see too much hurt, and regret, and loss," he said. "But through our own eyes, we can see opportunity, find answers, and make lives better."

Certainly, much progress has been made in the past year regarding Native issues.

Garcia said so much Thursday, touting Congress' passage of the Indian Child and Family Violence Protection Act in 2007 and successful effort to gain anti-terrorism funds for tribes.

But it was hard to listen to Garcia's speech Thursday and not wonder why the truly important issues facing Indian Country - inadequate health care and economic development - continue to be placed on the backburner.

In a first for NCAI, a U.S. senator offered her response to Garcia's speech Thursday.

Echoing Garcia, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, shared her frustration with those in attendance for the lack of action by the Senate on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

"This legislation has been delayed far, far too long," said Murkowski, a co-sponsor of the Indian health bill. "It needs to be passed now."

But it was in her introduction that Murkowski offered a truly insightful glimpse into one of Indian people's greatest strength and the light that might guide them out of the darkness.

Murkowski contrasted Garcia's address to Bush's three days earlier. Where the State of the Union address was marked by partisanship, the line between political parties was an invisible one during the State of Indian Nations Address.

"We are not Republicans and Democrats, and Indian and non-Indian," she said. "We are here united to work together as one nation, one people under God."

Kevin Abourezk, Oglala Lakota, is a reporter and editor at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. He is a reznet assignment editor and teaches reporting at the Freedom Forum's American Indian Journalism Institute.

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