RAPID CITY, S.D. – More than 600 youths, from as far away as Lac du Flambeau in Wisconsin and the Denver American Indian community, gathered here early this month for the largest ever American Indian Youth Conference, 2001 edition.
They said they will return home with new friendships and ideas to prepare them for the future after jam-packed workshops on a variety of topics from gangs to adolescent diabetes.
Third graders from language immersion classes excelled in the Lakota Language Bowl and in most workshops where language was discussed, the young people agreed that language is important to learn.
The theme of the conference was “Learning Today, Leading Tomorrow.” In keeping with that theme, Terry Star of the Todd County schools told students in a racism workshop that they can teach the adults of their communities how to change racist attitudes.
“Todd County had the lowest test scores of any school in the state. But the non-Indian students were included in those scores. Both Indian and non-Indian students get free meals and some families are on welfare. The students get along together. The only way students are divided into groups is by the music they listen to, not their race,” Star said.
“I want you to show the adult community we are getting along.”
Star said prejudice is a human thing, but it is how the person deals with it that determines whether or not that person would become a racist.
“Stereotypes are part of racism. I went to Alaska and, while hiking, I got lost. Indians are not supposed to get lost. That’s another stereotype.”
To avoid the stereotypes, Star recommended that people travel out from their local area and learn something of the rest of the world.
In reference to trying to be more open minded about people, a student asked the group what to do when she meets a person who looks at her through the stereotype. Another student said to turn away if a person doesn’t like you. And yet another said to tell the other person that if he or she doesn’t like you because you are American Indian, that it would be their loss.
Star’s recommendation was to educate themselves to other people and cultures.
A Crow student reminded workshop participants that historically the Crow, Cheyenne and Lakota people were said to not be friends, yet there was a mixture of people from those tribes in the classroom.
Prejudice occurs within tribes because some people are lighter skinned than others, students said. Why some of the southern tribes were removing people of African American heritage, or the freemen, from the tribal rolls, when in the north, the student there were “white Indians?” a student asked. There was no clear answer.
From racism to alcohol programs to diabetes education to the life of a gang member, the students crowded into classrooms, many to hear Kelli “Pookie” Swanson from the Crow Creek tribe, a former gang member from California.
She pulled no punches telling her story. She said up front, in a sort of disclaimer, that she was not going to gloss over her life as a gang member, but tell her story in its raw form, which she did.
Life as a gang member was no picnic, it was violent, drug laden and scary, Swanson said. And in language that was at times raw in itself, Swanson laid out her life as a 13-year-old gang member who stole, sold and did drugs and led a life of sex with a much older man as part of trying to become accepted by someone.
Her life was changed with the death of her father when she was 12. She told the youth her mother was an alcoholic and later a drug addict so she was left alone to take care of her younger brother. She was a straight A student, excelled in athletics and yet when she needed comfort and relief, only the gang members were there.
“Before the gang I had a good life. The gang cost me four years of my life,” she said.
“I needed a sense of security. I was left to fend for myself and my younger brother and the gang provided that sense of family.”
She said she hooked up with the older man in the gang who helped her out and taught her how to deal drugs. “I used the money to buy clothes.”
“The man was raping me. There were big consequences for me.”
She told the group she wasn’t getting the relief from the gang that she needed. “There was not one good thing about my life in the gang.”
Swanson said part of the price she pays is that she can’t sleep many nights, thinking about the past. “It’s a heavy price to pay, the consequences are hard.”
Some students in the workshop said there were no gangs on their reservations, except for a few young wannabes who pretended they were “cool.” Students in one group said they had no reason to need a gang as explained by Swanson.
From the gloomy picture of gang membership they moved to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe alcohol treatment program workshop that went to the fun side of things with a tension breaking game of musical chairs.
Students competed in a question and answer period over alcohol and drug information. It appeared they were well versed in the chemical effects and statistics of drugs and alcohol, because no questions asked stumped the crowd.
Learning and communicating with students from throughout the region is the purpose of the conference.
Star passed along to his group what Black Elk said about the future – that things would begin to get better in the seventh generation.
He reminded students it is up to them to make things change, because changes wouldn’t just occur because of the time, adding he thought this group of young people may represent the fifth generation.