For this week’s blog post, I would like to start out by talking about the relocation policy that was enacted in 1953. One thing that really bothered me about this relocation policy was the fact that the Government was encouraging the Natives into the cities rather than the reservations. This stuck with me because most of the history involving the relationship between the Natives and the Americans involved the Americans trying to keep the Natives in their reservations. Not too long ago the American government was all for keeping the Natives in their reservations separated from the rest of society only for that to now change. Another question I had about this was why were only certain tribes from certain states included in this. The House Concurrent Resolution 108 said; “Indian tribes and the individual members thereof located within the states of California, Florida, New York, and Texas, and all of the following named Indian tribes and individual members thereof, should be freed from federal supervision and control and from all disabilities and limitations especially applicable to Indians: the Flathead Tribe of Montana, the Klamath Tribe of Oregon, the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin, the Potawatomi Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, and those members of the Chippewa Tribe who are on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, North Dakota.” Why are only these specific tribes listed under this relocation policy? Is it because they are in highly populated areas with bigger cities? What about them makes them different from other groups of natives?
I would also like to talk about the issue of nuclear testing on Native Lands. As someone who has looked into and learned a lot about the Chernobyl disaster and its effects on both people and the environment years after the incident, this testing on Native lands sits very wrong with me. I had always known that nuclear testing was happening in the Southwest during this time but I had no idea that it was being done on Native lands and the severity of how much testing was done here. I have watched the documentary series about the Chernobyl disaster and have seen what all this radioactive fall has done to both the people and the environment. I also wonder if they chose to do this testing on the reservation because they would rather it affect the Natives living there than people in cities nearby. I also wonder if it would be so hard for them to find a more remote location to do this testing where fewer people would be hurt in the aftermath. Hearing about how much radioactive fallout these Natives will have to deal with for the rest of their lives makes me very sad.