12 August 2009
American Indians Revive Tribal Identity to Raise Economic Status
American Indian Business Leaders group encourages setting bigger goals
Washington — Many American Indians, members of the poorest ethnic minority in the United States, are working to reaffirm their sense of tribal identity in order to succeed in school and develop skills needed to prosper in the U.S. economy.
The plight of the American Indians in modern American society is often forgotten in the welter of news and information churned out by the media. Nevertheless, data collected in the 2000 census shows that these Americans suffered the highest rates of unemployment, 7.5 percent, the lowest rate of high school graduation, 70.9 percent, and the lowest level of family income, $33,144 per year.
A study published by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in 2003, entitled “A Quiet Crisis: Federal Funding and Unmet Needs in Indian Country,” states that American Indians “still suffer higher rates of poverty, poor educational achievement, substandard housing and higher rates of disease and illness.” The study further states that American Indians “continue to rank at or near the bottom of nearly every social, health and economic indicator,” with the lowest life expectancy of all ethnic groups and with higher rates of diabetes, tuberculosis, alcoholism and suicide than other segments of the U.S. population.
President of the National Indian Education Association Robert Cook said: “It’s absolutely important to preserve our cultural identity. Children who are well grounded in their culture do better academically.” Cook said that such grounding among American Indian children means they cause fewer classroom problems, fewer of them drop out of school, and more of them graduate. “In my Lakota tribe, it is important for me and my wife to raise our two sons to be proud of who they are as Lakotas, their history, their culture, their tribal identity. It has really helped them in school.”
After the American Indians had been subjugated militarily and relocated on reservations, Cook said, a process that was completed early in the 20th century, the U.S. government began a brutal campaign of cultural assimilation that involved removing children from their families and placing them in boarding schools off reservations.
“In the early stages, the history of education for American Indians was assimilation and the philosophy of ‘kill the Indian, save the man,’” Cook said. “[The federal government] made our children move away from their families and their cultural roots, forbade them to speak their languages, gave them English first and surnames. Today that is one of the struggles that we face with our children, trying to re-identify with our American Indian culture.”
TRIBAL GROUNDING HELPS AMERICAN INDIANS SUCCEED IN BUSINESS
Some American Indians who have succeeded in the U.S. business world founded the American Indian Business Leaders (AIBL) group in 1995, headquartered on the campus of the University of Montana in Missoula, Montana. In its mission statement, AIBL says it aims to foster a stronger tribal infrastructure and cultural pride in order to help American Indians improve their economic fortunes.
AIBL Executive Director Tina Begay said that about 2,000 American Indian youths, primarily at two-year and four-year colleges, have received AIBL mentoring since the organization’s founding. She said AIBL is gaining in membership, with about 500 people signed on this year. AIBL helps American Indian youths deal with conflicts between tribal values and the social and business norms prevalent in mainstream American society.
Begay said training American Indians to succeed in business is like teaching them to “walk in two worlds.” American Indians often have difficulties in job interviews because their tribal teachings train them not to promote themselves, but rather to display “modesty, humility and not to look people in the eye,” she said.
AIBL works to reverse that sort of cultural training when necessary. “We teach our students to elaborate on their skills in job interviews, tell the interviewers how good you are and why they should hire you,” she said. “We teach them that, when you’re in a business meeting, it’s okay to interrupt, to be loud and aggressive and assertive. If you don’t behave that way, you may be perceived to be shy, uninterested and sometimes not very educated,” she said.
Begay said the legacy of boarding school education persists today. “Younger kids are being raised by parents and grandparents who went through that boarding school experience. They are taught [by their parents or grandparents] not to trust people, to be very leery of non-Indians and not to speak unless you are spoken to,” she said.
Despite progress, Begay said, getting American Indians to integrate economically is a slow process. In the 11 years that she has been involved with AIBL, most of the students the organization has mentored have not shown interest in working for large corporations, although corporations have shown interest in hiring them.
“We have partnerships with IBM, Nike and Hewlett-Packard. But I can find only a handful of students who want to go work there. It’s because they don’t want to go far from their homes or reservations,” she said. “I’d say that … about 5 percent go on and work in the mainstream.”
One of the few who did go into corporate America is Vina Little Owl, who went to work for Nike in 2006 as a financial auditor. Since then, she has moved on to work for an accounting firm that works with tribal-based organizations. She said AIBL coaching helped her reach her professional goals while remaining grounded in her tribal culture.
“AIBL created opportunities for me and paved the way for my entry into the corporate world. Now I try to help others by leading by example and sharing my experience and stories with them,” she said.
