Interview · South Dakota · Nadine Eastman · Sherry Johnson · OSEU 7
Themes: Kinship & family, Identity & belonging, Education & learning, Treaties & sovereignty, Values & generosity, Culture & continuity, Racism & representation, Community & responsibility, Economy & livelihoods, Listening & observation, Children & young people
Learn About questions
What did the migration of Native people look like from a historical perspective?
Where do the “myths” of things such as Native people receiving money from the government come from? How might the truth be shared better?
What counties in South Dakota have the highest level of poverty?
How were tribal schools created?
What services are offered through Indian Health Services, and how did they get started?
What are “treaty tribes?” Which tribes are considered “treaty tribes” and why?
Learn From questions
What do I know about the migration of my own family? How did I get where I am today from where the first members of my family that I know of lived?
Are there certain characteristics or “myths” that are told about the people from my cultural background? What are some positive and negative examples and how have they impacted me?
What are my experiences with poverty?
How might growing in understanding of the services provided to people in my state help me understand my neighbors better?
Transcripts
Addressing Misconceptions - Dr. Sherry Johnson & Dr. Nadine Eastman - OSEU #7
Watch this interview on YouTubeHow we ended up all where we are at, how some of our initial tribal members ended up in Canada, how some people ended up in Pearl Creek, and just the push from the federal side, how all of that occurred. So that's our real history and where we ended up migrating and being pushed.
And it also, I think if people in, all the students in the state had an understanding, a better understanding, they wouldn't think, first of all, that we get free money, because all of us went to school, and I'm telling you, some non-native students would say, you get money every month from the government. Well, we all wished we got money every month. We wouldn't have been so poor, had we. But it wasn't true, and you couldn't even argue that away, because so many people believed it then, and so many people believe it now, still today, in this year.
And there are a few tribes that have small memberships, and they have big casinos, and their tribal members get money. Well, you know, that's a very few tribes. It's not ours, unfortunately. We're not one of those. And there aren't very many, so then they think, well, all the native people get lots of money from tribes, so they feel like it's unfair, and so then they have these myths that they believe about native youth that are so untrue. There is a lot more poverty in native communities than there are in non-native communities.
If you go up the road towards Cheyenne River, that's the lowest youth community in the whole United States, in the whole United States. If you take every city and every state, we have the most youth in poverty right in our state. And so, for sure, they're not getting money every month from the government. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of misconceptions from that, and we have a couple things that we did.
So, we get from those treaties, and because education was a piece of it, that's where federally funded tribal schools come from, and hardly anyone understands that. You know, even public school administrators have a hard time understanding that. So that would be something that would be good for people to understand. And we get some
low-level health from our Indian Health Service, and, you know, that's not always a great thing either. It's kind of like that, sometimes it's like the clinics, the free clinics in the cities.
You know, it's kind of that level of health. So, we got a few things through the treaties, but people need to see what it looks like today and what it brought us. And not all tribes are treaty tribes, you know, so there's those differences right there.
Resource text
OSEU 7: INTERVIEW WITH DRS. JOHNSON & EASTMAN
WoLakota Project
From the current WoLakota source page:
Addressing Misconceptions
Sherry Johnson & Nadine Eastman
Transcript
(deep listening, information)
(deep listening, transformation)
Some indexed text was extracted from scanned material. Check the original source for exact wording and spelling.
Source materials
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Additional source transcripts
Addressing Misconceptions
Addressing Misconceptions - Dr. Sherry Johnson &
Dr. Nadine Eastman - OSEU #7
How we ended up all where we are at, how some of our initial tribal members ended up
in Canada, how some people ended up in Pearl Creek, and just the push from the
federal side, how all of that occurred. So that's our real history and where we ended up
migrating and being pushed.
And it also, I think if people in, all the students in the state had an understanding, a
better understanding, they wouldn't think, first of all, that we get free money, because all
of us went to school, and I'm telling you, some non-native students would say, you get
money every month from the government. Well, we all wished we got money every
month. We wouldn't have been so poor, had we. But it wasn't true, and you couldn't
even argue that away, because so many people believed it then, and so many people
believe it now, still today, in this year.
And there are a few tribes that have small memberships, and they have big casinos,
and their tribal members get money. Well, you know, that's a very few tribes. It's not
ours, unfortunately. We're not one of those. And there aren't very many, so then they
think, well, all the native people get lots of money from tribes, so they feel like it's unfair,
and so then they have these myths that they believe about native youth that are so
untrue. There is a lot more poverty in native communities than there are in non-native
communities.
If you go up the road towards Cheyenne River, that's the lowest youth community in the
whole United States, in the whole United States. If you take every city and every state,
we have the most youth in poverty right in our state. And so, for sure, they're not getting
money every month from the government. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of
misconceptions from that, and we have a couple things that we did.
So, we get from those treaties, and because education was a piece of it, that's where
federally funded tribal schools come from, and hardly anyone understands that. You
know, even public school administrators have a hard time understanding that. So that
would be something that would be good for people to understand. And we get some
low-level health from our Indian Health Service, and, you know, that's not always a great
thing either. It's kind of like that, sometimes it's like the clinics, the free clinics in the
cities.
You know, it's kind of that level of health. So, we got a few things through the treaties,
but people need to see what it looks like today and what it brought us. And not all tribes
are treaty tribes, you know, so there's those differences right there.