On one side they cure us, on the other they try to kill us. We were oppressed by the government. They took everything away and now they are giving us money to get it back. First they took us out of our homes and put us in boarding schools where we were forbidden to speak our language. Now they are giving us money to bring the language back in our schools.
Elders express a desire to have governmental policies which support tribal self-determination.
Mike explains, Indian land is being managed by the state. Indians need to have control over their natural resources to be able to control anything. It is almost as if all the tools tribes had were stripped by the U.S. government. Many would like the U.S. government to return tribal resources and power needed for self-determination. Tribal governmental systems and some of the people working within them are a challenge for many American Indian people.