I think it has more to do with the fact that they didn't consent to the contest in the first place. I have lived on the Navajo reservation for an extended period of time and gotten to know a great many natives there. We might not like to admit it, but they have a strong case. Most of their population killed in wars they did not start, their land stolen in the name of manifest destiny, marched to internment camps like Fort Sumner, and finally herded into worthless pieces of land we call reservations. They absolutely have the right to be bitter.
They aso do a great job of keeping their own down. Yes, they are on worthless land. Yes, there ancestors were herded there. Yes, it sucked.
Why are they so hostile to the ones that leave, then?
My father’s grandparents were kicked off the reservation for the crime of “acting white”. Their crime? My great grandfather had set up a business just outside the reservation and did business with white men. It’s probably the best thing my great great grandfather ever did for me.
A friend I met in the Army confided in me that she had to make the army work for her. First she had gotten past her eighteenth birthday without getting knocked up by one of the boys on the reservation. Then she had the gall to leave the reservation and join the Army, which took money away from the reservation. She told me that she could never return.
Too bad.
Sucks to be them, but they needed to just assimilate.
That’s the way its been throughout history.