Podcast on National Parks and the Land Back Movement

Transcript

Caley: Hello and welcome back to another episode of my podcast where I, Caley Mitchell, talk to you guys, Notre students about political issues that do not get enough news coverage. Today, our topic is national parks; more specifically, who should manage them? Obviously, right now, the national parks are run by the National Park Service, which is run by the government.

But there's a movement out there to transfer the control of these lands to Native Americans. After all, it was their land that the government took to create these parks. So the question we will be delving into today is: should Native Americans be given a role in managing the national parks?

And if so, to what extent?

Caley: The movement to return national park land to Native Americans is in correlation to the Landback Movement. The Landback Movement, according to their website is, "a movement that has existed for generations with a long legacy of organizing and sacrifice to get indigenous lands back into indigenous hands." While this movement focuses on a larger spectrum across the United States, some native American activists like David Treuer are focused specifically on national park land being given back to Native Americans. Treuer is quite outspoken on his beliefs, publishing articles and appearing on well known news outlets such as NPR and PBS to publicize his ideas. In an article he published in the Atlantic, Treuer states, "For Native Americans, there can be no better remedy for the theft of land than land. And for us, no lands are spiritually significant as the national parks. They should be returned to us. Indians should tend and protect and preserve these favored gardens again." The movement to give Native Americans a role in managing national parks is based on two central ideas. Firstly, which Treuer touched on, is, obviously it was their land. It was taken from them. It should be given back to them. Secondly, many Native American tribes see land as spiritual, making the natural beauty and conservancy of national park land really important to them. Of course, with this idea to invite Native Americans into a managing role in the national parks, it would present a whole new web of obstacles. To dive into some of these potential problems, let's talk with our very own Notre Dame librarian Miss Tara Kenjockety about her experience as a member of Ho Chunk and Seneca Nation. We will also touch on the significance of land to Native American culture, the treatment of Native Americans by the United States government in the past and how it pertains to the current national park debate, and how we, as Notre Dame students, can think about this issue.

Caley: Hello, Ms. Kenjockety. Thank you for joining me today. Um, may you please tell me a little bit about your background as a part of Ho Chunk and Seneca Nation.

Ms. Kenjockety: Yes, My native background is on my mother's side. She is half Ho Chunk and half Seneca. My maternal grandfather was from New York and my maternal grandmother was from Wisconsin. They met in a vocational school for Native Americans and later married. We are matrilineal, so I am enrolled as a Ho Chunk nation member and am bear clan from my mother and my grandmother. Uh, my grandfather passed away when my mom and her sisters were young, so I did not know him. We also grew up in the Midwest, so I am closer to my family, and, uh, on the Ho Chunk Nation side from Wisconsin. And on my Seneca side, um, actually, my last name Kenjockety is from my Seneca side. I am the only sibling in my family with the last name Kenjockety because I was the oldest and it's my mom's maiden name. And I passed that down to both of my children as well. And now they're the last Kenjocketys left.

Caley: Thank you so much. Your perspective is obviously very valuable to this issue. Um, so that sort of leads into my next question: in your experience has land held a spiritual significance to Native American culture?

Ms. Kenjockety: Very much land holds a spiritual significance. And in my life just specifically, I was taught to, um, to be very cognizant of our balance with the land from my mom and her family. We recognize the partnership we must have with the land and the balance that should be maintained. There are times this is done through ceremonies or just in recognition of and giving thanks to the land for what it provides us. There is a deep understanding that we all come from the land and will return to it one day and that balance and cycle should be honored. I think there is confusion about the difference between ownership and belonging. Uh, across the United States. we have hundreds of native nations that have been here for thousands of years. What I take away from what I have been taught is that we belong to the land. Many nations, like my own, have creation stories that revolve around us and every other living plant and creature coming into existence directly from the land. The nations may have territories that they may defend, um, but they also don't have that sense of individual ownership of land. It is that we belong to the land and should honor and take care of it and defend it for both bringing about our existence and sustaining us.

Caley: Thank you. That was really beautiful actually. Um, so in, um how do you think that Native Americans haven't treated by the government both in the past and the present?

Ms. Kenjockety: Um, it's been an ugly history for sure, to be sure. The land was full of natives when colonists arrived. Fighting over land occurred at the beginning. Part of the Declaration of Independence that the newly formed nation sent England basically stated as one of the reasons for desiring independence, "we want to take more of the native land and you won't let us move farther west." So this government forms and a major agenda items that remained on the books and some aspects up to this point has been dealing with "Indian problem" and I'm gonna put that in quotes because that's how they addressed it. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was created to do this. Uh, it hasn't been until Deb Haaland became Secretary of the Interior under Biden that we have even had an American Indian in charge of it. So a lot of manipulation, murder, and underhanded dealings occurred so that not only were natives pushed off the land, but it was the winners, which was the government in this situation, providing the narrative for our own history. So you have people who lived in balance with their ancestral lands pushed off the land farther and farther west, sometimes warring tribes replaced next to each other intentionally. Land that was provided was often non not deemed fit for United States citizens to live on, and Native Americans were not considered United States citizens until 1924. Even then, it was at the state's discretion as to whether they could even vote until 1957. But as far West as the government was pushing natives, it was never enough. The government would not be happy until it would consume all of the current United States territory, and even now, it's still is insatiable and tries for more. So the government was constantly finding ways of making life impossible for Native Americans. If they were surviving off the land through hunting, the goal was to destroy their game and later create hunting laws. So initially moving west, people like Buffalo Bill and cowboys were paid to just destroy Buffalo and, you know, they were paid to hunt and bring in Indian scalps. And they were paid for all of these mass quantities of destruction, which led to starvation and ruin in their wake. And truly so many accepted that this was the goal, to get rid of native Americans and take the land. You can even see this in Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House on the Prairie. She describes her family illegally squatting on Osage Nation Land, and her father even describes that Washington will, Washington D. C, will eventually, uh, give the Indian territory and open it up to settlement to all of the people who are already squatting there. So, it was kind of an idea of squatters on native land and push the natives out and the squatters would have first dibs on that land.

Caley: And it's sort of interesting because, bringing it back to the national park debate, it's like the national parks are currently painted as uninhabited lands, but they were inhabited by Native Americans before they were kicked off.

Ms. Kenjockety: Absolutely, and some of those areas that are, that weren't even lived upon were held sacred for, like ceremony for other purposes as well.

Caley: Um, So if the Native Americans and the government were to enter into discussion on ways of co-managing the national parks, obviously there would be a new load of obstacles to deal with. Um, one of the main obstacles would be ensuring proper communication, both between tribes in terms of tribal disputes and power dynamics between them, um, as well as between the government and the tribes. So do you think that there are any important factors to keep in mind to help ensure clear communication between either of these groups?

Ms. Kenjockety: Absolutely. I think it really has to become a priority for the government. It is never quite a priority, a lot of these efforts, and so they don't make public policy about it, or they kind of halfway make it. And I can kind of talk to at least a couple of different times when this has happened. Um you have the Repatriation Act. Ideas of, uh, stolen artifacts, stolen bones, you know of our ancestors, um, are out there in the world and the government has made policies to say, "Okay, we're going to, anything that was acquired from I believe it's 1990 on, has to go through a process of getting inventory, looked at, and then assessed for which tribe it goes to, which nation it goes to, and send it back. Well, those kind of things have been stalled because there isn't really, uh, follow through on how that actually actually ends up happening. So people can kind of keep keep putting it in the court of the museum's who have piles and piles and piles of these things, and they say they don't have the time to inventory it. But, um, some of the museums that you see that have coordinated efforts directly with the tribes and directly with the nations have found ways to do it effectively. And it's really through that partnership of resources and building trust again, you know, they still both want to preserve this stuff, but it's just different ways that have to be handled. You got to kind of create that partnership, I think.

Caley: Yeah, it seems like trust and genuine collaboration would obviously be incredibly important if this were to become a reality.

Ms. Kenjockety: Absolutely.

Caley: So our audience today is current Notre Dame students. So keeping this in mind, is there anything else you would like to touch on or expand that we did not cover?

Ms. Kenjockety: When we gain education, when we gain expertise, we have to pass that on to others as well. And so if you are working with a group, work with the group, not talking at that group, not telling them how it should be done, but asking from their perspective, How would they handle certain situations, and educate them on what you could provide in that situation, and let them educate you as well. There's a whole I think balance that comes with that. And we've always understood that our elders are our knowledge keepers in the Native American culture, and what they try to do is pass that knowledge on, but it's organic. It's always changing, given, you know the environment that's going on and whatever problems are coming up, so just keep an open mind. Keep your ears open. Actively listen to those that you work with. And I think that you can be far more productive.

Caley: Thank you. And thank you for joining us today.

Ms. Kenjockety: You're welcome. Thank you so much for addressing issues like this because not a lot of people talk about it.

Caley: Yes, mmhmm.

Caley: And now moving on to the more detailed aspects of this issue.

Caley: When considering how Native Americans would be integrated into managing the national parks, it is important to realize that the government would still be a very necessary power holder in the relationship. This is for logistical reasons, as well as political reasons. I mean, logistically preserving hundreds of miles of land is a burden probably best suited for a national government and its plentiful resources. And then politically, having the national government remain the governing body of the park's ensures that the parks will be conserved properly, and no one will take advantage of the land. In some national parks, co-management systems already exist. These projects include the co management between the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla, as well as the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument being co-managed with the Cochiti Pueblo. While these are shining examples of the success that can come out of healthy collaboration, this is not always the case. Some attempts at co-management, such as the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Badlands National Park have failed due to lack of communication, failure for the government to hold up their end of the deal, or tension between the two groups. These failures highlight the importance of establishing and maintaining healthy conversation between the government and the tribes and as touched on in the interview, maintaining a very important aspect of trust between the two parties. But this does beg the question, how much power should the Native Americans be given in their managerial role? Should they have a more active role in the day to day operations of the national parks? Should they just be given special access to the lands? While these questions are important to think about, they don't really have a clear answer. It seems that the more pressing issue right now is getting this debate to be talked about, and then delving into the more exact details of how it would work. So I encourage you, as Notre Dame students when you walk around campus, which by the way, is land stolen from Potawatomi Nation, take a minute to think about the unique intricacies of this issue and how you can help spread awareness of debates like this. Until next time, and go Irish!