The Western half of the United States has always been a tromping ground for me and my family on various road trips and summer vacations. And on several outings, we have come into contact with the Native American culture and the customs that are familiar to my parents but were quite foreign to me. The way of the Indians is a blend of historical tradition crossed with seemingly infinite poverty. We often stopped at pueblos throughout the Southwest which encompassed the Navajo, Hopi, Acoma, as well as several other reservations. The pueblos were constructed of sun baked adobe, the screen doors crooked in the jam, the window panes hazed over. The plumbing on some of the mesa top pueblos was as sophisticated as an out-house that was delicately suspended over the mesa's edge. The children played with toys made from scraps of wood or household items. It seemed sad that as a child of five or six I cast these images off as someone else's life, not pertinent to my own.

But, nevertheless, there exited a problem as it does today. Like in any faction of society, jobs are what provide food, clothing, and shelter for the family. Within the boundaries of the reservations there is a severe lack of economic development. This problem produces a trickle down effect on the overall standard of living. But with economic development comes employment which in turn raises the standard of living. Housing, health and education among the various other aspects of life all improve.

Yet despite the poverty, I witnessed a tribal culture that radiated through the pueblos and reservations in the art that the Native Americans displayed and the dances that were performed in the tradition of decades past. Many Indians sold their artifacts that were created according to custom, like the kachina dolls that served as models for the children to understand Indian lore and the fables of creation.

In recent times there has been a re-birth in the portrayal of the Native American struggle. Movies such as "Dances with Wolves," "The Last of the Mohicans," Robert Redford's documentary on the Leonard Pelteir story as well as other films have brought to light a more credible portrayal of the Native American struggle and the various injustices committed prior and during the reservation period. The rapid increase in the value of antiquities from the mid to late 1800's, the popularity of films dealing with Native Americans, and the number of people who are proud to claim Indian heritage gives a clue to the growing interest in Native Americans and their culture. But in order to preserve this diverse culture that encompasses 200 separate languages (Archambault, 491) and many hundreds of traditions, there must be a national campaign to pull the Indians of the reservation away from poverty and provide the jobs to upgrade the standard of living.

The plight of the Native Americans obviously stems from the time of Columbus's founding of the New World. Yet the great injustices done to the America Indian were concentrated in the years of the Westward expansion. The Native Americans soon saw the land that was their familiar home and provider of life being encroached upon by greater numbers of white settlers. The Indians, who have always been associated with a deep reverence for the land and the sacred values it holds, began to ask if "the white man could buy and sell the sky in the same manner that he bought and sold the land." This quote draws reference to how the white man rapidly took over the land. The attitude of the whites toward the Indians was that of "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." The Federal Government in its history of dealing with the Native Americans have drafted 800 treaties, half of which were ratified by the Senate, all of which were empty promises of peace (Archambault, 492). The United States in the years of the mid 1800's began an aggressive campaign to establish the reservations. Such instances as the Wounded Knee Massacre and the Cherokee "Trail of Tears," where one quarter of the Indians in route to present day Oklahoma perished, are instances of the Federal Government's action to establish and maintain the reservations.

All throughout history the whites have tried to eliminate the Indian heritage. Establishing Christian ideals among the tribes was one method of assimilating the Indians into the Anglo culture. In the 1950's an even more aggressive attempt was made at wiping out the Native American culture. Government established boarding schools were created to pull Indian children into the culture and customs of America and away from their Indian ancestry (Archambault, 492).