[Agnes Heep]

Since I'm a Native American I'm sure no one will object if I set up a "free enterprise" zone on my "reservation."

[Mears]

Education plays a big part in this,doesn't it?

[cyborg]

Building an economy on vice is like building on sand. Look at Thailand. Unless US indigenous peoples want the same problems as many Africans and Australian indigenous people, they should examine their leadership and where the leadership's priorities are (esp. the BIA!).

[narby]

I work with several farmers on the res just east of Scottsdale AZ. Pima res, I think it is.

All their workers are "mexican" (legal or not, I haven't asked). They have no local indian workers, despite the fact the farmers lease land from the res, and indians live all around, right next to the fields.

Somehow, I doubt its because of discrimination.

[narby]

I work with several farmers on the res just east of Scottsdale AZ. Pima res, I think it is.

All their workers are "mexican" (legal or not, I haven't asked). They have no local indian workers, despite the fact the farmers lease land from the res, and indians live all around, right next to the fields.

Somehow, I doubt its because of discrimination.

[geedee]

What? Granted I only know a couple of American Indian families from Ruidoso, New Mexico but based on that and the casinos, ski digs, real estate, and investment portfolio their tribes own . . . their per capita income must equal those of the Caucasian Devils of the Hamptons. I don't think many of them would "stoop" to accepting out-sourced jobs.

[tracer]

That, in all seriousness, is an absolutely brilliant idea.

Give the jobs to the "real" Indians. It's a small step towards this Nation's righteous atonement for its large scale murder and pillaging of those who preceded us here.

My dear departed dad by his words and deeds inculcated in me a love and respect for "Native Americans."

Although he never took me on his yearly fishing trips with his buddies (I hope to understand why someday), said buddies always bitched at him (but were forced by him to "chip in") for hooking an enclosed U-Haul trailer to his station wagon; filling it to the top with blankets, quilts (mattress tops rejected by his employer on the basis of stitching mishaps in production), food, and other things of importance to the sustenance of human life to those in year-around dire straits; then unloading it every year on the same "Indian" reservation, and dropping it off in Eagle River, Wisconsin or thereabouts before proceeding to their week of fishing.

This all had a lot to do with his association during WWII with the Navajo Code Talkers that made it possible for the USMC to do its job.

I still remember his stories about his perennial friends up North -- especially the children -- and his admonishment to always look for ways to help those whom he called "the Indians."

What a great guy, albeit one who was haunted and hard-to-understand. I still miss him and a few years too late ("thanks," Mom), am arranging for his burial in Arlington National Cemetery where I can visit his hero's grave on a frequent basis while awaiting the resurrection of us all someday......

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Be very careful. I still remember what happened in Shiprock, NM in 1974 when the American Indian Movement radicals took over the Fairchild(?) Plant there after layoffs were announced for some people.

Ov course, the murder of three Indian men north of Farmington at that time didn't help the situation either.