Projects
American Indian Community Data Profile, 2002
Namadji Youth and Elders Project Report, 2001
Forum Reports
1997 Fall: Tribal Sovereignty and
American Indian Leadership
1996 Fall: Tribal Governments: What will they look like in the year 2010?
1996 Spring: The Threatened State of Tribal Sovereignty
Lack of services for elders highlighted
"When Indian Country suffers, it's our elder people who suffer the most. They're the least able to react to cuts in their housing and in the social programs that serve them," said David Baldridge, keynote speaker at the American Indian Research and Policy Institute's (AIRPI) elders forum. Baldridge is executive director of the National Indian Council on Aging (NICOA) based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1976, NICOA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advocacy and research on behalf of American Indian elders.
Baldridge urged forum participants to unite with a strong voice for elder concerns in light of the federal attack on Indian Country through budget cuts, program reductions and chronic funding shortages. "Somehow, I feel we've got to combine our elders and their traditional values and bring them together with our tribal leaders because Indian Country is under assault. Make no mistake about it," Baldridge said.
He quoted a September 26, 1995, Washington Post article by Coleman McCarthy, calling the recent appropriation bills, ".a Republican-led legislative assault equal in intensity to any of the U.S. Calvary attacks of a century ago."
Proposed cuts include:
- A 67 percent reduction in funds for federal housing programs for Indians.
- A 26 percent reduction in the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget.
- The elimination of higher education scholarships for Indians.
- A 50 percent reduction in funds for Indian education programs in the Department of Education.
- Decreases in Indian Health Service programs for hospitals and clinics, alcoholism treatment, dental health and immunization.
Some of the worst cuts for elderly Indians are contained in the Older Americans Act. Except for health care, the Older Americans Act authorizes most services for the nation's 52,577,000 seniors.
A subcommittee of the House of Representatives Economic and Educational Opportunities Committee has drafted a bill which would cut the OAA by approximately $100 million. The proposed bill contains the following cuts which could devastate American Indian elder programs.
Title VII, which sets aside $5 million for elder protective services in block grants to tribes, would be completely eliminated.
Title VI is the cornerstone for senior nutrition programs and provides funding for 227 Indian elder meal sites nationwide. Funding would be cut five percent, but more significantly Title VI would be eliminated and the services moved under Title III. This means the programs would be operated under the states instead of by tribes. Language defining an Indian elder is also removed, resulting in a situation where anyone who claims to be an Indian elder would be served.
"This is very clearly a step on sovereignty," Baldridge said. "We need that separate title in the OAA."
The purpose of Title VI, passed in 1978, was to give tribal governments more autonomy by bypassing the state governments. This would allow tribes to develop culturally sensitive aging programs for their elderly. The proposed changes take tribes in the opposite direction by increasing their dependence on state governments.
Title V and Title IV would also be eliminated. Title V provides employment training and up to 800 part-time positions for Indian elders. Title IV provides funding for Indian elder research grants. If eliminated, this would end most funding for advocates of Indian elders, including NICOA.
"Our need for our elders to have a voice is stronger than it's ever been," Baldridge said.
The cuts in funding come at a time when 38 percent of rural elders live below the poverty line. A survey conducted by NICOA in 1990, showed that substandard housing was the norm for a quarter of elders. Indoor plumbing was not available to 16.4 percent of elders, and 75 percent had no telephone. These numbers were not significantly changed from those taken in 1980.
But, Congress has been callously unresponsive to Indian elder needs. Randy Duke Cunningham, chair of the subcommittee hearing the OAA bill, said, "Why should we care about them (the older Indians)? They don't pay taxes."
"We have such a battle to fight," Baldridge said. "Not just for our elders, but for all of Indian Country." He encouraged people to make personal stands of courage for traditional values and for the services that Indian elderly desperately need. He challenged the audience, asking "How brave are we? Are we strong enough to confront a tribal council? The NCAI? A Newt Gingrich? We will have to make these tough stands to preserve desperately needed Indian services."
According to Baldridge, the need for strong leadership in Indian Country is greater than ever. Elders can and should play a key role in this leadership.
The best way for elders to make their voices heard now is to write their senators to protest the OAA cuts. He urged Minnesota elders to contact Senator Paul Wellstone, who sits on the right committees to be effective in making Indian concerns known.
Senators need two key messages. First, keep the Older Americans Act intact, and second, keep Title VI as a separate title for American Indians.
"These battles are so huge. I think it's a momentous time to be an Indian person. The challenges that face us as a race, that face our governing structures, our land base, our social structures, our spirituality are immense," Baldridge said.
In closing, Baldridge shared his favorite story by Fred Coyote, saying that if there was one message important for all, the story illustrated it best.
"There was an anthropologist who wanted to record some Hopi music. Hopi is a desert tribe down along the border of New Mexico and Arizona. Their centuries-old religious traditions prophecies say the world is ending, and they're trying to share this message and have been for a number of years.
"At any rate, there's a white anthropologist who wanted to record some Hopi songs. So he went to the Hopi village on the mesa and found an elderly man who was willing to sing these songs. And the elderly man said, 'Come with me, and we'll go sit on the edge of the mesa, and I'll sing.'
"So they went, and the anthro turned on his tape recorder, and the man sang his songs. 'What was this about?' he said. 'This was about when the thunder clouds gather over the San Francisco peaks, and then we pray. And those clouds spread out over the desert, and it rains. The rain waters our crops so we can feed our families and our children.
"OK, that was fine. He turns on his tape recorder. 'Please sing another song.' The Hopi man sings another song. 'What was this about?' 'This song was about the sacred stream that runs through the desert, and from it we take water to make medicine so we can keep our families and children healthy.'
"And so it went several more songs. And finally the anthropologist, in that way they have, got very frustrated and turned off the tape recorder and rather sharply said to the elder man, 'Listen, old man. Why is it that every song you sing to me is about the clouds, the rain, the water? Don't you ever sing about anything else?'
"And the Indian elder man said, 'Well, you know, my people have lived in this desert for a thousand years, and without that precious gift of water, long ago we would have ceased to exist here. So I sing, we sing, about that which is most precious to us. That which we have the least of. That's water.
"Then he kept talking. He said, 'Well, you know I listen to a lot of American songs too. I listen to your music, and I noticed that most of your songs are about love. Is that why? Because you don't have enough?'"
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