GrandElementScorpion29
Please summary the paragraph. Include what the purpose of the…
Please summary the paragraph. Include what the purpose of the author is and what the author’s point in writing this text is.
Artifacts and DNA evidence prove that Native people have occupied North America for upwards of 20,000 years, but many eldersmy grandmother includedinsist that we have always been here. My people, the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation) share stories, passed down over generations, that recall how our ancestors witnessed the Crab Nebula supernova, whose light reached Earth in the 11th century. It is now marked by an empty center within our astronomical map located in our sacred Black Hills, where we have an ancient circle of sacred sites that mirror constellations and stars in the night sky overhead. Every site is marked with a star, except the one mentioned, because the Crab Nebula supernova is long-gone from visibility.
Today, there are 573 federally recognized tribes of Indigenous peoples in the United States and about 5 million American citizens who claim to possess Native heritage. Though our ancient civilizations predate the 13 colonies that would become part of the United States of America, Natives were subject to centuries of genocide, land theft, and colonization, then denied citizenship until June 2, 1924a full 136 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
The United States was built on the backs of African slaves over the bodies of the Indigenous killed by genocide, on stolen land. After Black people were freed from slavery, they became citizens in 1868 under the 14th Amendment. But when making that decision, lawmakers specifically excluded Natives from the law.
“I am not yet prepared to pass a sweeping act of naturalization by which all the Indian savages, wild or tame, belonging to a tribal relation, are to become my fellow-citizens,” Michigan Senator Jacob Howard said to Congress at the time.
When this decision was made, Natives living in America were actively discriminated against and brutalized. The government struck treatiesthe supreme law of the land, according to the Constitutionwith tribes, who they tricked into making peace before breaking them. Tribes were being forcibly removed from their homelands and placed in prisoner-of-war camps, like Pine Ridge in southwestern South Dakota, and moved to reservations, where they needed permission from government agents to leave. Massacres like Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, wherein the U.S. military and government killed hundreds of innocent Natives, mostly women and children, were occurringand we, the descendants of these horrors, still live with the historical trauma stemming from these events.
Native children were taken from their families and placed in boarding schools to be assimilated. In those institutions, their hair was shorn, they were punished for speaking their own languages, and abuse was rampant. After having their lands and resources stolen, Natives lived in extreme poverty. Many more died of disease and starvation, others at the hands of racist colonial settlers. Many tribes have never recovered economically and are based in some of the poorest counties in the country.
And even after citizenship was granted, in 1924, Natives still did not receive the rights of all others with the same designation
One becomes a citizen of the United States, rights include the freedom to express yourself and to worship as you wish; the right to a prompt, fair trial by jury; the right to vote in elections for public officials and to apply for certain federal employment; the right to run for elected office; and the freedom to pursue “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Natives did not receive the right to worship as they wished. We were persecuted for practicing our religion, ceremonies, and rites in this country until the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, and Natives could be jailed for practicing their ancestral ways. (However, Native people could freely worship through Christian denominations.)
As the rights afforded with citizenship were bestowed, but not enforced, U.S. citizenship for Natives remained a contentious issue not just for white lawmakersit’s been an active discussion in our communities, too. There were Natives in 1924, and there are still Natives today who did not want U.S. citizenship. The granting of citizenship to a new country of invaders who committed genocide and stole land was and is seen as an attempt to fully assimilate Native peoples into mainstream society, one centered on patriarchy and white supremacy. Nearly a century ago, they were not asked whether they wanted to be U.S. citizensnor did Natives consent to the laws imposed over them by colonizing forces, the powerful governing bodies of America. They were already citizens of their individual tribal nations.
Others, however, saw that the government and laws of the country that surrounded their sovereign lands affected them and the lives of their people, and they wanted citizenship so they could have a voice in determining their future through voting in U.S. elections, or perhaps even running for office.
My grandfather was one of those people. He fought in World War I as an Oceti Sakowin man before he had U.S. citizenship. He wanted the designation for us, and he paid for it in blood.
Citizenship came just after he served. Yet, despite this federal mandate, Natives were often barred from voting, as the right is governed by state law. Much like how the Southern states passed Jim Crow laws to stop Black citizens from exercising their right to vote, individual states stood in the way of allowing Native Americans to participate in state and federal elections.
For half a century, Natives advocated for their right to vote, state by state. The last to pass laws granting these rights was New Mexico, in 1962, meaning that it was only 57 years ago that all states agreed Natives should be afforded full voting rights.
Additional protections came three years later, when President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which strengthened voting rights for every American, including Native people, by outlawing exclusionary practices that “deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.”
But the act wasn’t enough to ensure that citizenship rights were granted to Nativesbeyond voting, major injustice still persisted on other fronts. So, to combat, Native people successfully pushed for legislation that specifically ensured they would be afforded the protection of all constitutional rights promised to every other U.S. citizen, like freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peacefully assemble, to petition for redress of grievances, and to a trial by jury, of which they were still being denied. The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (ICRA) passed, helping to right these wrongs.
The battle for equality as citizens has continued ever since. Native people who are members of federally recognized tribes have dual citizenship, in their respective tribes and as U.S. citizens. They continue to face persecution for practicing their religion. Those who exercise their right to free speech and freedom of assembly by protesting the construction of environmentally harmful fossil fuel projects on their lands without their consent are now being targeted by state anti-protest laws in places like South Dakota and Texas.
Native voter suppression continues, even after poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation were outlawed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as the full power of the act to protect voters has been dampened. The Shelby v. Holder decision rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013 effectively removed a provision of the law that required states with histories of racial bias in voting to get permission before passing new voting-related laws, and mere weeks before the 2018 midterm elections, the Supreme Court allowed a new voter ID law to stand in North Dakota that prevented hundreds of Native residents from voting, swaying the election in favor of Republicans.
While we continue to face battles to see our rights fully realized, there have been successes too. There are now groups like the Native American Voting Rights Coalition (NAVRC), which was founded in 2015 with the goal of removing barriers to Native American registration and voting and to help voters be more active and informed. Representation in government is changing as well: The 2018 midterm elections saw the election of two Native women to Congress for the first time in historyRepresentative Deb Haaland and Representative Sharice Davids.
True equality for Native citizens has yet to occur, but we will continue to strive for it as individuals while expressing our collective rights as members of sovereign tribal nations. The history of Native citizenshipgranted less than 100 years agois important to remember in these times.
