Tribal Groups and Communities

Indigenous Anthropology ANTH 2301 Tribal Groups and Communities Due to centuries of colonisation, settlement, and exploitation, the majority of Indigenous tribes are extremely poor and confront several difficulties. Indigenous peoples were forced to migrate to reservations in the US, Canada, and Australia. These reserves were sometimes marginal grounds that were "set aside" for Native Americans after European immigrants and colonists took their ancestral territories. Numerous tribal settlements in North America have been maintained in a state of continuous poverty and still are. In general, reservations have low employment possibilities, high rates of alcoholism and drug addiction, and high rates of sickness brought on by chronic, long-term poverty. Through their achievements in developing casinos and managing federal education subsidies well, certain tribes have been able to provide young people with high-quality education; yet, there is a notable discrepancy in the completion rates of all educational levels. Approximately 17% of Native students enrolled in four-year degree programmes completed the programme within four years, according to a 2011 report by the Higher Education Research Institute. This compares to 45 percent of Asian students, 43 percent of White students, 26 percent of Latinx/Latina/Latino students, and 21 percent of Black students (DeAngelo et al. 2011, 10; see also Al-Asfour and Abraham 2016). The Nonintercourse Act provisions of the Trade and Intercourse Acts have historically prohibited tribal reservations in the United States from establishing their own businesses. This act, which treated reservation boundaries as though they were state borders, outlawed the sale of goods outside of them. Tribes have the ability to petition Congress to allow an industry centred on reservations, although it may take several years for the petition to be granted. For two centuries, Native Americans have had limited or no employment possibilities on many reserves (Miller 2012). Seldom do people who leave reservations for employment come back as permanent inhabitants. However, compared to cities predominately populated by White people, Native Americans living on reservations in the United States enjoy the comforts of living within their own traditions and experience less prejudice there. In order to "pass" as White, people of mixed Indigenous ancestry have frequently chosen to do so, renunciating their Indigenous history. Many seized the chance to relocate to urban areas and work as "White" persons, taking advantage of the income and social advantages that came with these occupations and social identities. Many Native Americans in the United States started along this route in the later part of the 1800s. After the United States terminated the status of 109 tribes, there was a surge in the 1950s and 1960s to the migration to the city. The term "termination" describes a 1953 US federal policy that nullified the treaty agreements between the federal government and Native American tribes. The US government then went through a procedure known as liquidation to take back and sell reservation property. Tribal peoples who had been eliminated were liberated from lifeways on reservations without any money or resources. They lost their status as Native Americans recognised by the federal government and were unable to request aid or services from it. Starting in the 1970s, the majority of the tribes that had been eliminated were reinstated. Numerous individuals who experienced termination relocated to metropolitan areas in pursuit of employment, leading to the emergence of "urban Indian" groups. Many Native Americans, many of them were women, who had left their area reservations in search of employment, worked at Portland's Keiser Shipyards during World War II. There are sizable groups of "urban Indians" as a result of the twentieth-century trend of Native Americans migrating to metropolitan areas. Most Native Americans now reside in metropolitan areas in the United States. Within Indigenous communities, tensions have been brought forth by this movement. In certain Indigenous situations, the term "urban Indian" has come to mean something bad. Urban Natives are accused by some "reservation Indians" of voluntarily renunciating their culture, land, and position. Many urban Native Americans stay linked to their reservation communities by travelling there on weekends and holidays and attending special events like tribal government meetings, even if some of them suffer with feeling cut off from their tribal identities. Organisations that support Native Americans, such as business associations with a civic mindset and educational and cultural focus, are commonly found in urban Native communities. People from different tribes get together in many of these groups to organise spiritual events for the community, such powwows, to promote Indigenous food systems in urban areas, or to serve on committees that are focused on culture. Urban areas are frequently home to tribal nations' offices, which provide services to the local populace and act as hubs for the tribe's sovereign operations. Indigenous language study groups are increasingly widely available in metropolitan areas, particularly at tribal offices and colleges. Universities serve as cultural hubs for urban Indigenous people in a variety of ways, including by providing Native centres, hiring Indigenous researchers, and providing money for cultural events and activities. With an estimated 40,000 persons of Native heritage, Portland, Oregon, has one of the highest concentrations of réserve Native people in the country, home to many tribal offices. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde's Portland office is located on the west side of town. This office offers free weekly lifeways cultural education programmes to members of the tribal community. It also offers workshops in storytelling, wood carving, sketching, and the Chinuk Wawa language. Tribal people residing in the Portland metro region are also provided with employment programmes, food handouts, and a spacious boardroom that can accommodate formal gatherings. The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, the Oregon Native American Chamber of Commerce, the Native American Youth and Family Centre, and the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission have offices in Portland as well. Community groups like the Bow and Arrow Culture Club, which holds yearly cultural events including the sizable intertribal Delta Park Powwow, are based in Portland. Native programming is a regular staple on KBOO (90.7) radio. Portland's Native population is made up of a diverse range of enrolled tribe members and unenrolled descendants from all around the country. In addition, there are sizable populations of Indigenous peoples from other nations, particularly Pacific Islander and Latina/Latino populations. Furthermore, the Hawaiian population has a long history in the area because Hawaiian labour was used in the Pacific Northwest's fur trade in the 1800s.