A Tug of War Relationship with Dyan Fox

Oh yes that government-to-government relationships you know being citizens of two nations that was kind of look at me puzzled and wonder what do you mean you know so I asked him well if you’re an enrolled tribal member that means you’re a part of that nation because of that sovereignty you now remember that’s rules that we make for ourselves so everything that’s on the reservation is ways what we got to follow but you got to take in consideration we are also United States citizens and I that’s one of the years that I really push inside them so I said what year were we United deemed United States citizens that was 1924 in 1924 and that’s a very important year to remember and so we do have to follow this way and we do have to follow that way to my younger ones I was kind of explained if you have gotten stopped by a tribal cop or if you’ve gotten stopped by a city cop what happens there and some of them kind of know that and someone I have to explain to him so if you’re an enrolled member and you got stopped by a police officer that is from Newtown can they arrest you and I kind of throw them off a little bit they’re like well they’re cops I think they can arrest you and I said but you got to listen to what I’m saying because they’ll ask you are you an enrolled member or not and so I kind of explained it in that way I try to use layman terms as far as the kids are you know in this generation and I think I have a little plus because I got teenage kids too and younger ones so try to use kind of those scenarios a little bit and then I talked to them about the reservation lines you know when we passed my Cody there and we’re going to Minot with their family do you ever look at the signs where it says I’m leaving for Bristol Indian Reservation are you renting for Bristol Indian Reservation those are our reservation lines and so some of them some of them do kind of throw me off a little bit and one of my young students asked me well how come non-indians live on our reservation so then I got to go back to that well there is the Homestead Act this is what happened once they put us on here and said this is land reserved for Indians which is reservation later on they developed another act and they were able to come on our reservation and live there maybe like but why a Miss Fox that’s where they want us to be yet and I take a deep breath and you know well that’s just the laws of the United States government they put us here and then how I describe it’s a tug of war relationship you know they take some from us they give some back they take some from us that gives them back and it’s a trust relationship with them all so now we have to trust our tribal nation and we have to trust our United States nation because we are two citizens of it and I tell them we have to follow rules all our life the time you’re born from the time where you’re gone you will have to follow rules no matter what and even my younger ones I got a new group every nine weeks and I was telling them that oh we have to do this again miss Fox and I’m like yes like remember I talked to you about rules yes we all have rules you know you fight to get in the world you know I mean it you’re gonna have rules throughout it even within yourself or within your home within school within government within law you’re always gonna have rules so we kind of talked a lot about that and I implement that a lot of my government class and I really like last year I had a senior and she cannot change she was like you know miss Fox I never really realized what I want to do she said because I talked to my seniors you know I have them kind of they come in my class freshmen sophomore year but without come back senior year and I got a really big tribal culture class and I told them I said you know you guys are gonna be in the real world and they’re gonna ask you because they’re gonna think you’re Mexican what you’re gonna have to tell them I’m Native American and if you have an Indian name you’re gonna tell your Indian name you got to know yourself you got to know your identity you got to tell them who you are you know a lot of people think we live in teepees think we live in these earth lodges they still believe that they were not educated in it so you have to know your identity so you can share that with them and so anyway she came and she said you know I never really realized what I wanted to do she said by now I do she said I want to be a lawyer for Indian country and that made my heart soar I was almost made me cry and I said what made you do that she said you did she said talking about the differences you know when she said sometimes it really made me mad she said sometimes it made me sad she said but it made me feel good that I can do something for not only my people here but for people all over Indian people all over the United States so that was a good thing I really like