Congress deals setbacks to Native Americans, lobbyist says
9/29/1998 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. NOTE: A head-and-shoulders photograph of Alvin Deer is available with this story. By Ray Buckley* SYRACUSE, N.Y. (UMNS) - Native Americans have suffered setbacks at the hands of Congress during the past two years, a lobbyist told a United Methodist caucus on Indian concerns.
"The 105th Congress has been an exercise in damage control by tribes," said Aura Kanegis, legislative associate for Native American affairs with the Friends Committee on National Legislation in Washington, D.C.
"Every piece of legislation that comes through has become a potential vehicle for riders which can be damaging to Indian people," she said. "We see certain lawmakers with hidden agendas toward Native people repeatedly placing covert legislation as riders onto existing legislation. You literally have to read every line in pending legislation to discover damaging riders. Often, in the end, the riders carry because the legislation itself is too significant to veto."
Kanegis spoke about the 104th and 105th sessions of Congress at the annual meeting of the Native American International Caucus (NAIC), which serves the United Methodist Church as an advocate for Native people. At the Sept. 10-12 gathering, caucus representatives also heard a report from the organization's director, reaffirmed the value of Native American Awareness Sunday, offered input to a team studying a possible churchwide restructuring, and began preparing for the 2000 General Conference.
Kanegis outlined several examples of how legislation that could be damaging to Native Americans has been placed in the form of riders on other bills. One such rider would put jurisdiction over tribal liability suits into federal district courts, bypassing the tribal courts. That rider, attached to an appropriations bills for the Department of the Interior, would erode the authority of the tribes in handling their own legal cases.
Each year in the appropriations process, Native people are asked to make compromises to avoid getting something worse, Kanegis continued. The result is continual compromise resulting in an avalanche of decaying rights.
"While a small minority of tribes are becoming wealthy, the dollars spent on individual Native people is significantly less than on non-Indians," she said.
Native Americans also must deal in Congress with perceptions about tribal involvement in gaming. Lawmakers often confuse the issue of gambling with Native American issues, and as a result, opposition is directed toward Indians instead of gambling, Kanegis said.
"The Indian Tribal Gaming Law does not allow Indian gaming in states that don't allow gambling in other venues," she said. "If you are opposed to gambling on issues of principle, work to oppose gambling on the state level."
Inez Talamantez, a Mescalero-Apache and professor of Native American Religious Studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara, addressed the roles of Christian and traditional Native people.
"It's very painful for young Indians to live in a household where parents are afraid to teach culture because it might conflict with Christianity," she said. "While Western tradition compartmentalizes knowledge, Native people practice integrated knowledge. To us, there is a link between culture, religion, and economy. Human systems and natural systems are integrated. That is living 'in a sacred manner.' We have to get back to living in a sacred manner."
Talamantez emphasized the importance of language in Native culture.
"Where language has been lost," she said, cultures have been interpreted by non-Indians. "Our language is sacred and speaks from the heart. Our oral tradition speaks to our inter-relatedness. The ancients left no personal history, only tribal and communal understanding."
In his report, the Rev. Alvin Deer, executive director of the NAIC, listed the caucus' accomplishments for 1997-98.
· A new World Wide Web site for the NAIC was launched. It allows browsers access not only to the caucus but to links to Congress, key Native American Web sites, and the official and unofficial United Methodist sites.
· The 1998 United Methodist Native American Family Camp was one of the most successful ever. The Eagle Project, led by Stuart Tonemah, brought a series of workshops with a strong Native emphasis, designed to open lines of communication and strengthen the family unit. Additional workshops dealt with Bible studies, youth and adult writing, United Methodist resourcing, lay speaking and Native culture events.
· The United Methodist Native American Family Camp Endowment was developed.
· The National Endowment for the Advocacy of Native American Children, Youth and Families was established.
· Echo of the Four Winds, a publication for the advocacy of Native American issues, was produced on a bimonthly basis.
Discussion also centered on proposed changes to the United Methodist Church's Special Sundays. The denomination is considering combining Native American Awareness Sunday with other observances into a Peace and Inter-Group Relations Sunday.
"Combining three Special Sundays into one results not in an increase of dollars but a decrease, and forces other ethnic groups to compete with each other for U.M. dollars," Deer said.
The caucus voted to support the continuation of Native American Awareness Sunday.
In other business, the caucus voted to:
· increase awareness and support of the NAIC, the National United Methodist Native American Center and the Native American Comprehensive Plan;
· support of all Native American candidates for election to the office of bishop; and
· develop legislation for the 2000 General Conference through the NAIC Legislation Committee.
The caucus also met with the Rev. Ernest Swiggett, a member of the Connectional Process Team (CPT). The team was mandated by the 1996 General Conference to develop a "transformational direction" for the United Methodist Church beyond the year 2000, a direction that could include restructuring the denomination. Swiggett gave the caucus members an update on the CPT's work and sought input from the Native American community.
The caucus also proposed holding the United Methodist Native American Family Camp 1999 at Redwood Christian Center in Boulevard Creek, Calif., Aug. 8-12.
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*Buckley is director of the Native American Communications Office at United Methodist Communications in Nashville, Tenn.
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