Читать книгу Living on the Edge - Celine-Marie Pascale - Страница 18

When I land in Rapid City, South Dakota, on September 12, 2017, more than forty-eight wildfires are burning in Montana; they would go on to consume more than 1,295,000 acres before being contained a few weeks later.⁸ Hundreds of miles from Montana, the fires were turning the South Dakota sky to ash. On my way to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the northeast, I pass mile after mile of sunflowers – most of them damaged or destroyed by drought. For most of the drive, the car radio picks up only two stations: one playing country music and another broadcasting a Christian preacher. As I pass the enclave of Timber Lake on the Cheyenne River Reservation, the radio picks up Standing Rock’s station, which plays a mix of community news, pop, rock, and traditional tribal music. And for the first time in hundreds of miles, my phone picks up a Wi-Fi signal, also coming from Standing Rock.

Although American Indian tribes are sovereign nations, the status of Native peoples in the US remains both unclear and precarious because a great deal of US policy rests on foundations of genocide, treaty abrogation, racism, and repression of tribal histories.⁹ The US reservation system was initially established along the lines of concentration camps under a colonial occupation. Today, the far-reaching occupation includes geographical displacement, ongoing disregard for Native rights, appropriation of tribal land and resources, destruction of natural resources, contamination of Native land and water, prohibitions against religious practices, as well as geographic and political isolation.

The entire Midwest region was shaped by war and broken treaties that continually forced Plains Nations into smaller, more desolate areas, often separating cultures from their most sacred sites.¹⁰ The Great Sioux Nation is composed of Seven Council Fires: Oglala, Brule, Sans Arcs, Blackfeet, Minnekonjou, Two Kettle, and Hunkpapa.¹¹ Today, members of the Great Sioux Nation live on five reservations across the Midwest: Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Lower Brule, Cheyenne River, and Standing Rock.

The Standing Rock Sioux Reservation was established by the federal government in 1889. Agricultural land that was owned by whites at the time was grandfathered into the reservation. In 2018, there were 454 farms on Standing Rock, only ninety-one of which were Native owned.¹² Today, the Standing Rock Reservation is home to Dakota and Lakota nations and spans 3,572 square miles across Corson County, South Dakota and Sioux County, North Dakota.¹³

The US government has consistently intervened in the lives of Native citizens in ways that are unprecedented elsewhere in the country. For example, in 1823, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall articulated a broad interpretation of existing law that unilaterally removed from Native people the right to sell their land. Tribal governments have no rights regarding the occupation of their land, unless the federal government agrees to those rights.¹⁴ And, tribal health, law, and government remain contingent on federal bureaucracies and laws imposed upon them. Native people were not granted full citizenship, including the right to vote, until the Snyder Act was passed in 1924 – four years after the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote and fifty-four years after the 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to vote.

Even today, the federal government retains the right to decide who is and who is not Native American and it continues to issue identity cards to Native people that certify the degree of “Indian Blood” they have.¹⁵ Native people must prove the legitimacy of their identity through a federally set blood quantum – and many do not qualify. As a result of this racist imposition, Native people have been denied the rights of tribal membership, even when it is clear that they belong to the culture and community. This shocking practice calls to mind the race-identity cards South Africans were required to carry during apartheid.

When I arrive in Standing Rock, the reservation is home to 8,616 people with a nearly equal number of tribal members living off the reservation. The population at Standing Rock is young; 46% of residents are below the age of twenty-four.¹⁶ While the national unemployment rate hovers at 3.1%, at Standing Rock that number is closer to 79%.¹⁷ And the poverty rate is 43.2%, nearly triple the national average. The scarcity of jobs and economic opportunities creates high unemployment and overcrowded housing. Most low-income residents live with family members, which can lead to overcrowded and unsafe conditions.¹⁸

On reservations, tribal and federal governments are the largest employers. At Standing Rock, the tribe owns and operates two casinos that employ almost 600 people, and several smaller businesses including restaurants, campgrounds, a convenience store, and a marina.¹⁹ This level of development is impressive, considering that all Indian lands are held in trust and managed by the federal government. Nearly every aspect of economic development on Indian land is controlled by federal agencies. For example, companies must go through four federal agencies and forty-nine steps to get a permit that would take only four steps off of the reservation.²⁰ The occupation of Native peoples has been bureaucratized to devastating effect. The so-called guardian–ward relationship between the federal and tribal governments is not a trustee–beneficiary relationship, as is often claimed. Tribal governments are reduced to domestic dependent nation status and forced to rely on federal government agencies that are underfunded and difficult to access.²¹ The federal management of Native resources and economies has created levels of poverty on reservations on a par with undeveloped nations.

Standing Rock is a sprawling community organized by Districts, eight in all, each with their own governance structure and many with substantial populations.²² Many people at Standing Rock do not live in formally organized towns – even the two casinos/hotels are not part of towns. There are just three towns on the reservation, all about thirty miles apart: McLaughlin in South Dakota (population 679), and two towns in North Dakota: Fort Yates (population 200) and Cannon Ball (population 875).²³

Fort Yates is home to Sitting Bull College and to the Standing Rock Tribal government. The beautiful college campus stands as a promise to the future in a community that prizes its children. The tribal government works hard to support youth, and just down the road from the college is a modern public school campus that contains buildings for elementary, junior high and high schools. Fort Yates itself is a crossroads with a grocery store, gas station, post office and bank. Just north from Fort Yates is the town of Cannon Ball. Half of the families in Cannon Ball have incomes below the federal poverty line; and, nearly half of the residents are children under eighteen.²⁴

By morning on my second day at Standing Rock, a cloud of smoke from the Montana fires settles like a thick fog over the entire area. I can no longer see the rolling meadows stretching to the Missouri River, much less the expansive bridge that spans it. Beads of headlights travel on a slim thread of road moving across the reservation. I join the line of cars leaving the reservation and heading into Mobridge – a town that was built on land taken from the Lakota Sioux in 1906 for the construction of a railroad.

In Mobridge I find a gas station – and things quickly become confusing. The pump has a range of five options, all with various grades of ethanol. I have no idea which one the rental car needs and no way to make sense of all of the choices. I wait as an older white man washes the windshield on a woman’s truck; as he works, he calls out to everyone entering the station by name. The white woman behind the wheel of a very tired-looking Ford engages him in easy banter. It was a banter that I came to recognize as both a kind of community and a kind of wall. The banter isn’t open to everyone. I would bump up against it many times when dealing with white people in the area. After some time, I signal and make it clear that I’m waiting for help. In return they both look away, making it equally clear that they would finish their conversation without hurry. When the woman finally starts her engine and pulls away, I still seem to be invisible to the attendant and so I ask for help. Without a word, and without looking at me, the man picks up the nozzle for the 87 octane and begins to fill my gas tank. Then, with a sweeping gesture toward the gas pumps, says: “These are a gift from your Black president. Or I should say your former Black president.” I wonder how this older, white man sees me.

When I want to convey a sense of ease that I really don’t feel, as I did in this moment, I imagine someone I love before speaking. I smiled and shifted my weight to a relaxed posture. But then out of my mouth comes:

“What gifts are we getting from your white president?”

“Oh, so you’re going to be like that.” He takes a step back. Obviously, my smile isn’t always enough. But the exercise is helpful, and I don’t give up easily on the strategy.

“No, no,” I laugh. “I asked because of how you said it. Are you a Trump fan?”

“Definitely not. That election didn’t give us any choices. I know some think she would have saved the world. That woman is just … well, let’s just say neither one of them are looking out for us. They keep getting richer and you and I keep getting poorer. Nothin’ going to change that.” Maybe my strategy has worked. I seem to be on his side of the fence now. I don’t know how this happened but I’m grateful. I take care not to mention the name of “that woman” (Hillary Clinton) in our conversation about politics.

There are two main roads in Mobridge, one that is a throughway for traffic heading in and out and another that resembles the sleepy main streets of business districts in many midwestern towns. It’s about 10:30 in the morning when I drive down the main street in Mobridge. It’s a few blocks long and mostly empty, except for a string of pickup trucks parked in front of a local bar.

In my phone calls home, my family complain about the photos I send them: “Why don’t you take photos of places that have people in them?” The truth is that in struggling communities a lack of disposable income can make a town feel completely empty. This is certainly the case in Mobridge. Although noticeably larger and wealthier than the towns on the reservation, it is also clearly a struggling community. Most of the businesses are shuttered. The storefronts that are open do double duty: a single storefront serves as a craft shop, a florist, and a café. There are no bookstores, department stores, movie theaters or bowling alleys. As is typical among the Midwest towns I visited, the Ace Hardware store is the largest and most well-kept building in town.

Downtown Mobridge, South Dakota.

Mobridge is remarkable in that it has a restaurant and two full-size grocery stores. I shop in both on weekday afternoons and find that I am the only woman unaccompanied by a man as I wander the aisles. All of the women appear to be shopping with their husbands. In a town where everybody seems to know everybody else, I stand out – perhaps for more reasons than I can imagine. In the dairy section, I stand for a moment staring at an ordinary pound of butter that sells for $6.50. I can’t help but wonder why, after all of these years, I still expect groceries to be less expensive in poor communities. It has never been the case. The butter here is more expensive than in Whole Foods in Washington, DC. In this rural South Dakota community produce is more limited and less robust than in the DC area, and there are fewer options on the shelves. Add to these difficulties the fact that people on Standing Rock have to travel thirty or forty miles one way for a weekly shop. I wonder what that trip would be like in a South Dakota winter.

The next day I drive out to McLaughlin. Routes 12 and 9 intersect in McLaughlin and the intersection has the bustle of an agricultural hub – grain silos and massive trucks sit just off the crossroads. The town’s main street is a couple of blocks long, and is home to a small café, a gas station, and a senior center. McLaughlin has a population of about 670. In the 2010 census, white people were almost one-third of the population; by 2019 that number had fallen to 25%. Although a lot of Native people live there, there is an overwhelming presence of white people that makes McLaughlin feel like a white enclave on the reservation. Unfriendly doesn’t begin to capture the feeling I get from other white people in the town. White people consistently dismiss my interest in the place, interrupt my conversations with Native people, and question me intently. I am too far outside of local culture to understand any of this with confidence, but it surely stands out in my experience.

At the local senior center, I am greeted by an older white woman who sits at a Formica table. All four walls of the faux wood paneling have been covered with lacquered jigsaw puzzles completed by people who attend the center. As I quickly survey the room, I notice that the clock is one hour behind the time on my phone. When I ask her about this the woman explains: “No it’s not behind. We use Mountain time here.” A simple enough statement but said with such intensity that it seems to have a pointed significance that I don’t understand. Later, in Fort Yates, Two Lance Woman explains: “Only white people use Mountain time,” she tells me. “Indians do not recognize the Mountain time zone – everyone on the Cheyenne and Standing Rock reservations uses Central time.” This was the point the woman in the senior center was making. White-people time. It’s a very intentional assault on Native sovereignty even from within the borders of the reservation.

Ellison Thompson is a Lakota woman who lives in McLaughlin. She and her husband were both unemployed when she got pregnant. That’s when they made a deal that whoever got a job first would take it – the other, by necessity, would be the stay-at-home parent when the baby came. Ellison got the first job; her husband is now a stay-at-home dad caring for their ten-month-old baby. With a second child on the way this arrangement is unlikely to change. Ellison would like to go to back to school to complete a degree but there’s never enough time for everything that needs to get done as it is.

Ellison works full-time as a clerk in the hospitality industry to support her family. “I’m really thankful for my employer because they do provide really good health insurance and a steady paycheck, and that’s what I need. It’s hard for a lot of people to find a job around here.” In 2016, 16.4% of the Standing Rock population earned less than $10,000 a year.²⁵ As on other reservations, life expectancy and quality of life rates are among the lowest in the Western Hemisphere; Native children face premature death rates that are three to four times higher than the national average.²⁶

Ellison’s pre-tax income of $14,000 a year means she brings home just about $1,000 a month. She is well below the 2017 federal poverty line for a family of three set at $20,420. For comparison, the EPI self-sufficiency budget for a family of three living in Corson County, South Dakota is $62,502.

How does Ellison manage given the gap between $14,000 and $62,502? She depends on help from her family. Her salary covers the phone bill, half the electricity bill, heat, food, clothing and household items, the car payment, and baby expenses. In addition to having a husband who provides childcare, Ellison’s mom provides critical economic support: “My mom, even though she doesn’t live at our house, she still splits the bills with me and pays the rent.”

The arrival of her baby has had a big economic impact. Ellison tells me with some surprise: “Babies are really expensive!” The cost of raising children surprises a lot of people but no one more than new parents. They can count on spending about $200 a month on diapers, formula, and baby food alone.²⁷ On top of basic expenses are the costs of clothing, furniture, a car seat, a stroller, childcare, and medical care. And the costs keep rising as children age. Ellison relies a lot on her family. “There’s a lot of single mothers here. I’m thankful that I have my husband, because he helps me so much. I don’t think I’d be able to do it as a single mom. We are just trying to get by, and that’s all we’re all really doing is getting by.”

When Ellison’s second child arrives, they will be a family of four, and in the best case her husband will continue to provide childcare, she will keep her job, and her mother will continue to help with family expenses. The best case means keeping already limited resources stable. The best case also means hoping that Ellison’s child will be born in good health and at a normal birth weight.²⁸ Even if everything is the best case, life will become harder. This unexpected but very much wanted pregnancy will further strain already inadequate resources. The federal poverty line for a family of four in 2019 was $25,750. The EPI self-sufficiency budget for a family of four in Corson County, South Dakota was $74,098.

Ellison remains hopeful, pragmatic, and diligent. “A lot of the stuff I get is from rummage sales and [store] sales. I’ll wait until something goes on clearance before I get it, or I’ll wait so far along the line until it goes on sale vs. buying it at a high price, or I’ll order on Amazon, so I don’t have to waste gas. Because I live in a small town, I don’t have a whole lot of shopping options.” Without Amazon deliveries, Ellison would have to make the 160-mile round trip to Bismarck, North Dakota, to buy clothing and household items. It’s impossible to get anywhere without driving a considerable distance and this becomes an even bigger problem in the long and snowy North Dakota winters.²⁹ The internet service that makes it possible for Ellison to buy goods online is provided by the reservation and is itself evidence of visionary leadership. Across the country nearly 15 million people live in sparsely populated rural communities with no access to a broadband internet service.³⁰

Like many people in struggling families, Ellison does not have a savings account. She tells me “I don’t even know how to save. I can’t save for my life, because we always need something. I always need something, whether it be an oil change, diapers, wipes, food. There’s always something.” It’s a daily struggle for her to sort out what they can and can’t afford, but even so, Ellison is quick to say that she has more privilege than others in her community. Not only does she have the support of her husband and mother – she also has a car. While you might be able to hitch a ride with a neighbor or friend to a grocery store, owning a vehicle is essential to holding a job. The distance between home and work can easily be thirty to forty miles one way.

Yet for low-wage workers owning a vehicle is a catch-22. “I have a vehicle that I’m paying off, so I have car payments that come out of my check,” explains Ellison. “The car is just really another baby. It’s equally as expensive to take care of.” The Dakota weather and the long-distance driving take their toll on vehicles. While Ellison is among the wealthier people on the reservation because she owns a vehicle, she can’t really afford to have something go wrong with her car. On Ellison’s budget there is no such thing as a small car repair. Even a small problem could start a cascade of events that will threaten both her budget and her livelihood. Worse yet, a mechanical breakdown would require a tow to a repair shop and leave Ellison with no way to get to work. With reduced work hours, it may take a while for her to be able to pay for the repairs – assuming she doesn’t get fired for missing work. “Even though some of us have more than others,” says Ellison, “we’re still struggling.” This is clearly true and, as Ellison points out, not everyone struggles in the same way.

Erika Brooks identifies herself as a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; she holds an associate degree and has worked her way up in Head Start from an initial position as an aide, to becoming a teacher, and then to her last position as a supervisor of several centers. She has traveled more widely than most people I meet. As a member of a religious organization, she traveled to Germany, Romania, and Russia doing service work. But when we met, a lot had already gone wrong in Erika’s life. When her siblings struggled with substance abuse issues,³¹ Erika came home to South Dakota to help with their children. For the last ten years she has been caring in some way for nine children, four of whom live with her. She arrived to meet me in a restaurant with the two youngest. Without romanticizing the challenges, she says the children give her life both meaning and satisfaction.

Now at age fifty, Erika is unemployed and filled with worry for the children. While she supports herself and four children on an income of less than $16,000, Erika never described herself as poor. “It’s pretty stressful, because we’re on a really limited income, but I make sure that, you know, we do everything on a tight budget so that we have enough.” In 2017, the federal poverty line for a family of five was $28,780. Like all federal calculations of poverty this number is completely unrealistic. In the same year, the EPI self-sufficiency budget for a family of five living in Corson County, South Dakota, was $82,524.

As seems obvious, Erika cannot afford childcare – actually, she can’t afford most of what is on the EPI self-sufficiency list. Several years back Erika was working full-time and living in an apartment in Mobridge. Things were good and she was able to help care for her family. “I was pretty involved with buying groceries for them and paying bills for them, along with my own bills, just doing that.” One day her sister brought her daughter to Erika’s apartment and said, “‘You can have her.’ And I said, ‘For the weekend?’ and she said, ‘No, you can have her,’ and I said, ‘You mean permanently she’s mine?’ She said, ‘Yeah, take her,’ and she had her clothes packed in a wagon. So, I kept her. I raised her.” That was eight years ago. Since then, three more nieces have come to live with her. It wasn’t easy, but Erika stretched to work full-time and care for the four girls. Then one day the new building manager asked her for paperwork that would prove she had legal custody of the girls. On the reservation, that would never happen. But she lived in Mobridge and now she was being asked by a non-Native building manager for custody papers.

Erika went to the tribal courts to apply for custody of the girls, a process which requires a six-month waiting period. She had lived in the building without incident for years, but the new manager began threatening her and citing her for building violations. Erika tells me she watched him treat other residents with kindness but with her he was always rude. She has one word to describe what happened: prejudice. “I tried to explain my side of things. I had been a good tenant for five years, and how could this, all of a sudden, be such a problem? It was traumatizing for me. He didn’t just come and knock on the door or give me papers. He would bang on the door hard and say, ‘Open up,’ and scream and yell and be hysterical about it every time he came. It just scared the crap out of me. I don’t know why, but I was so intimidated by him.” Within months, Erika and the girls were evicted. She had four kids and no place to live. And soon no job. The story gets worse. The manager claimed they had left the apartment in a mess and charged them $4,000. “We had washed walls and cleaned carpets,” explained Erika. “I took pictures of it to prove that we had left it in really good condition, and they still charged me.”

“I’ve lived pretty much an isolated life with going to school and working. I’ve been bringing the girls into my home one by one and raising them in a really quiet, stable environment. I’ve done everything to protect that way of life, and now we’re thrust into this whole other dynamic. You have to be really cautious and careful and watchful, because the children are the ones that suffer the most.” After being evicted, Erika’s best option was to take the girls to a shelter. “We ended up staying there for five months, and then we were asked to leave, because they couldn’t help us anymore.”

Erika and the four girls have been living in the basement of a two-bedroom house. Her sister, her sister’s boyfriend and his brother live on the main floor. “They drink a lot,” says Erika. “Like five days out of the week they’re drunk.” And when they drink, Erika and the kids become targets for abuse. “We basically live downstairs and have our meals and stuff in the basement and just kind of keep to ourselves, or we go for drives or go to the park a lot. So, we kind of, you know, keep a low profile in the home, and we’ve been living like that for about two-and-a-half years.”

Their possessions had been stored in an empty house in the country that was recently rented out. Erika didn’t have gas money to get to the house and pleaded for time to get her things out – it was a lot of memorabilia. But her pleas went unheeded and she lost everything. It’s a huge emotional loss for Erika but, at the moment, she sees it as the least of her troubles. Her thirteen-year-old was recently raped by a trusted family member. (More on this in Chapter 7.) Erika decided to let go of her possessions and focus on the future.

Erika has applied for housing on the reservation. Standing Rock housing policies prohibit drug use and she is hoping that the fact that she doesn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs will help her. But even so, the waiting time for affordable housing on the reservation is years long. Erika is working with the tribal leadership to get their case expedited to stabilize life for the children. She is afraid to rent an apartment off of the reservation, even if she could afford it. “I’m still so frightened by confrontations with landlords. I mean, I’m amazed at myself, because I’ve been a really strong person all my life, very independent, very straightforward, and now I cower. I just shiver every time I think about dealing with a landlord. I’m scared they’re going to kick me out, or something’s going to happen, and I’ll be on the street with four girls again and a very limited income. So, it’s really frightening. I know that I’m at the disadvantage, because I’m Native. They think automatically that I’m stupid or I’m uneducated, that I’m not an equal, and don’t deserve the same respect that someone else might. I see that everywhere I go.”

The sense of Erika as a capable, professional person is palpable to me as we talk, as is her paralyzing sense of vulnerability. “My life is like a yellow caution sign, because I’m just always so concerned with the girls’ safety and their well-being from the time we wake up.” The daily routine for Erika and the girls starts early. The school bus arrives at 7 a.m. for the older girls in junior high and Erika is there to meet the driver every day, to make sure the driver knows her, as she sends the girls off for the ten-mile trip to the nearest school. In South Dakota, thirty-four school districts have opted for a four-day week to save money on transportation. This means that Erika’s two older girls are picked up for junior high at 7 a.m. and returned home at 4:30 or 5 p.m.

Her youngest child has just started at a local kindergarten and Erika hopes this will enable her to get back to work and so be able to provide a better living situation for the children. For now, while the girls are in school, Erika runs an informal taxi service. “Someone might hire me to drive to McLaughlin. That’s how I get my gas money. It’s $10 a ride to McLaughlin and back.” She also acts as an informal taxi for neighbors when she makes the sixty-mile round trip to Mobridge for groceries and household goods. The thought of car trouble is too distressing to even talk about. So much depends on having a vehicle that runs – even if it is held together with Bondo and duct tape.

This is what it means to be part of the struggling class: to work consistently in a breathtakingly vulnerable situation, with few resources, and with an unfounded hope that you can build a better life. If the isolation of the rural landscape suggests some similarities between Appalachia and Standing Rock, few places could be more different from this reservation than Oakland, California. And yet, even here, the daily lives of the struggling class bear remarkable similarities.