So last week I talked about the freedom of choice which I see as a huge divide between the haves and the have nots in America. Don’t get me wrong there are many countries in the Western World who are struggling with out of control rents which in turn are leading to even working people being forced into homelessness. However the other countries aren’t proclaiming to the rest of the world that they are the “Land of the Free!”
How can America be the land of the free if people are losing key choices in life such as living in affordable housing?
So this week, the week where a 20 year old lad, armed with a gun, attempted to kill Trump I’d like to move on to a second insight gained whilst touring this vast country.
As part of our trip we drove Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles driving the 2400+ miles across America from East to West tracing our way along the route that hundreds of adventurers since the mid 1920’s had done before.
Then having taken a week off in Fort Lauderdale we drove the Eastern seaboard up through Florida into Georgia, through South Carolina and North Carolina including the Outer Banks. Heading inland to Williamsburg and Richmond we left our rental car behind and joined the train network to visit Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
We didn’t use an interstate or freeway unless we basically had no choice. Instead we drove mainly on what in the UK we would refer to as “A” roads. This gave us such an incredible experience. We were able to communicate with so many different people. Chatting to everyday folk gave us such a better insight into their way of life, the different cuisines that grew up across the ages, the political divides and cultural differences from state to state.
When researching Route 66 beforehand utilising books, dvd’s and Youtube I do not recall learning that during its lifetime, Route 66 guided travellers through the lands of more than 25 tribal nations.
I have had an interest in the culture and demise of Native Americans ever since I was a child sitting in front of Western movies which I have more recently discovered lie about the interaction between the folk heading west to discover new land and the Native Indians who were already resident here.
(See my previous post “The Western Movies Lied To Me”)
.https://amidlifeadventure.org/2023/06/27/the-western-movies-lied-to-me/
During our trip we visited many museums which highlighted the culture of these nations and factually retold the devastation that was forced upon them as their lands were in effect stolen from beneath their feet.
The reason I raise this piece of American history is because despite time moving on these people are still fighting for their rights. Rights that other American citizens take for granted.
A lot of these people still live on the reservations. The lands on which reservations are located are disproportionately low in natural resources and quality soil conducive to fostering economic prosperity. Federal policy, including the Indian Removal Act of 1830, was designed to displace Native Americans from coveted land and to relocate them to areas seen as relatively “valueless by nineteenth century standards.” As a result they often live in very remote areas on poor land with limited natural resources.
We took a detour off Route 66 to spend time in Monument Valley. What an eye opener this was. Not purely for its fantastic authentic scenery but the time we were blessed to spend with a young Navajo guide -Sean.
Monument Valley is ancestral Navajo land. Today the Navajo Reservation stretches over 26,000 square miles, a portion of which we had passed through travelling here from Flagstaff, 180 miles away. A desert style landscape with scattered homesteads, scrubland and virtually no signs of working life or schools.
Up to 100 Navajo still reside in the Valley, depending upon the season, most without electricity or running water! This in itself beggars belief. The country that defines itself as the centre of the Western World still does not provide basic utilities to all it’s citizens.
You could argue that this is the fault of the people that live there, that they choose to live so far from civilisation but in many cases it is the Europeans and Americans who forced them off their lands who put the Native Americans on the reservations on land that was of no monetary value and no one else wanted.
Keen to understand what life was like here on a reservation I spoke to Sean about the vast emptiness of the region and how hard it must be to gain employment.
Over 400,000 people from around the world visit here each year thus tourism is a high income generator for the Navajo who live in the area.
However outside of the tourist industry he explained how many fathers, including his own, had been forced to leave the reservations to go away to work to earn money for their families. They worked in the oil and mining industry or took work trucking.
Unlike many tribes, the Navajo have succeeded in keeping their cultural heritage alive. Over 97% of adults still speak the Navajo language, and many tribal members continue to practice the ancient religious and ceremonial ways.
But how do they manage so far from civilisation? I was intrigued to know where his Mum shopped for food in the wilderness that surrounds his home or where he went to school.
“My Mum shops every 2-4 weeks. She drives to the nearest large Costco in Flagstaff” he explains. That’s a 5 hour round trip! The roads may be straight and easy to navigate but 5 hours to buy food!
In America children from kindergarten through grade 12 in high school can go to public school for free. The city, state, or federal government fund public schools so you do not have to pay. Education law says everyone has a right to free education. Progressive educators viewed buses as a step toward modernising rural education. By 1932, there were 63,000 school buses on the road.
But how did that work in areas such as this where there were vast expanses of seemingly endless wilderness? Sean described to us the rigours of a 2 hr bus journey to school because at that time there weren’t any schools nearby to educate him or fellow Navajo students. He tells us about the new school that has opened in Monument Valley funded not by the Government or the State but by donations! Why?
Why are the Native American children deprived of the basics such as schooling. I would question how many white American children make a 4 hour round trip to school each day? Even now when there is a school in Monument Valley it only teaches the younger children. Older children still get on that bus every day!
Education may be free in America but when the state and federal government are not funding public schools for all children in America, how is that fair?
What I learnt in Monument Valley is not unique to this reservation. America is embarking on another Presidential election this year. Priding itself on being a democratic country, everyone apparently has the right to vote.
To participate in the U.S. political system, Native Americans have to contend with limited mail delivery and internet service combined with travelling vast distances to voting registration and polling centers.
Despite these natural barriers already being in place in 2021, less than a year into the new Biden Administration, the state of Montana passed two new laws that made it even harder for Native voters to register and vote.The first ended same day registration whereby citizens were able to register for their vote and then cast their vote on the same day. People such as the Native Americans would now have to make two separate trips to achieve the same result?
The second law blocked organised ballot collection on rural reservations.
Meanwhile, at the national level, around the time that the two Montana laws went into effect, 13 other states had also introduced over 100 bills that would disenfranchise Native voters.
The Native American Rights Fund (NARF) fights every day to protect the rights of these indigenous people.
How can America be the land of the free when states are still being allowed to discriminate against their Native American citizens, taking away civil rights and bringing the whole concept of democracy into question?
Discrimination and lack of equality for all are not unique to America. Many Western countries battle with this on a regular basis but in my humble opinion you cannot call yourself the land of the free if everyone does not have equal rights. Inequality by definition means some citizens have more freedom than others!
During our trip we were fortunate to visit The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum where amongst other amazing exhibits the Prix De West 2023, Invitational Art Exhibition was taking place. The illustrations in this post were all photographs taken of some of the wonderful Native American paintings on display.
A Midlife Adventure 