Despite an improved standard of living on parts of some Indian reservations thanks in some measure to gaming revenues, there is one thing Arizona’s Native Americans want that money can’t buy — respect.

There are other issues as well, including housing, education, health care, transportation, tourism and crime. Not receiving the respect and recognition they feel they deserve rankles Native American leaders.

Derrick Watchman, former Navajo Nation chief of staff and an unsuccessful candidate for Congress in 2002, recalls the cool treatment he received when he appeared a few years ago to testify before a legislative committee at the state Capitol.

“The chairman said, ‘With all due respect, why are you here? You should be talking to the feds,’” Mr. Watchman says. “And I said, ‘With all due respect, we are citizens of Arizona. I have an Arizona driver’s license and Arizona license tags on my car.’”

Mr. Watchman says he eventually did testify. He was seeking funds for senior citizen centers on the reservation. The bill went nowhere.

“State government needs to develop a sensitivity and appreciation of Arizona’s tribes,” he says. “Telling us to deal with the feds is very short sighted. We are a great economic resource for the state.”

Mr. Watchman now serves on the National Environmental Policy Commission, a health and environmental group established by U.S. House Rep. James E. Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina.

Ron Lee, executive director of the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs, agrees with Mr. Watchman on the lack of respect, and says Indians weren’t very successful at the Legislature in the last session primarily because of the budget crunch. The Indian Affairs Commission, a state agency, tracked 60 measures, including 25 that were co-sponsored by Native American members of the Legislature. Of the 25, two passed — H2104 provides for a Navajo code talkers monument without state funding, and HCR 2036 was a memorial honoring Lori Piestewa, a Native American who was killed during the war with Iraq.

“Every year the tribes have to let the Legislature know we’re here,” says Mr. Lee, a Navajo. “We’d like to have some respect shown to tribal communities.”

Paul Nosie Jr., chairman of the commission board and a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, says key issues for all 22 tribes are economic development, health and education.

“We are pro-economic development,” he says. An issue hanging over the commission itself is its role and its future.

“I think the commission, like other state departments, was put in a position that we didn’t know if the commission would continue,” Mr. Nosie says. Mr. Lee says the commission’s budget has been reduced by about 19 per cent or roughly $30,000 in the past two years.

With Governor Napolitano having appointed a Native American liaison to her staff, Mr. Lee says the commission needs to redefine itself. The mission has been to focus on the administrative side of affairs, working on outreach programs. “Our message was, the commission is here for your benefit, to access information,” Mr. Lee says. “That was good.” Also good, says Mr. Lee, is the governor’s decision to have a Native American liaison on her staff. The liaison or policy adviser assumed some of the duties of the commission, he says.

For example, the Governor’s Office scheduled four tribal summits this year. The first was at the Grand Canyon and focused on water and education. The second, at the Hon-dah Casino on the White River Fort Apache reservation, dealt with health. The third, at Sells on the Tohono O’odham Nation, took up housing, and a fourth to explore tourism and economic development is planned for Yuma in December.

“A lot of good things are happening,” Mr. Lee says. “So how do we fit into the governor’s vision? Where can we be of help to the governor? With limited resources, we have to strategically look for the best place to use our resources.”

He plans to redefine the mission of the commission, based on ideas from the tribes. In any event, Mr. Lee says the passage of Proposition 202 in 2002, which enabled Indian casinos to expand, opened the door to more involvement by the tribes. He says the tribes are “becoming more proactive in dealing with the state, county and other local governments to formalize agreements.”

Mr. Lee says, “Revenue sharing [from gaming] with the state, counties and towns allows the tribes to put forth some recommendations on how they perhaps would like to see the money spent, to have positive spillover effects to tribal and local communities.”

First Quarterly Payment Was $4.1 Million

The first quarterly payment to the state, announced July 30, was $4.1 million, with distributions determined by a formula to the state, cities, towns, counties, schools, emergency and trauma centers, tourism promotion, wildlife conservation, gaming regulation and help for problem gamblers.

Eventually the state expects to receive $89 million to $102 million a year from gaming proceeds.

“We will need a couple of years to see how the compacts are working, but I have heard nothing negative,” Mr. Lee says.

Mr. Watchman, the former Navajo chief of staff, says gaming is slowly helping the tribes meet their economic development needs. He says the Navajo Nation is 20 to 40 years behind non-Indian parts of the state in terms of infrastructure.

“Overall I would say that conditions are marginally better than pre-gaming, but there are still a lot of services that need to be provided.”

Lawmaker Worries About Rural Indians

Rep. Sylvia Laughter, I-Dist. 2, an early opponent of gambling, says it’s too soon to tell whether the tribes are better off as a result of the casino revenue. Her concern was that urban tribes would benefit more than rural tribes, but Prop. 202 allows the transfer of slot machine rights from one tribe to another, a provision that helps rural and urban Indian communities.

“I hope I was wrong in my opinion,” she says.

Her Navajo tribe has yet to build a casino in Arizona, but she says ground was broken recently for a resort on the reservation a few miles from Page. Though she still opposes gambling, Ms. Laughter says if the tribe ever decides to build a casino in northern Arizona, that might be an ideal place for one.

Turning to the upcoming legislative session, Ms. Laughter says she’d like to see a bill that would enable the tribes to share county revenues, at the option of counties, as a means of improving economic development on Indian lands.

The purpose would be to improve the economic and education status of Native Americans, attract business to the reservations, and motivate young people to go to college, Ms. Laughter says. Prosperity on the reservations would generate more revenue for the state, she says.

Other than that, Ms. Laughter says she intends to work with 1st District GOP Congressman Rick Renzi to seek federal funding to name a highway in northern Arizona in honor of the World War II Navajo code talkers.

“Hopefully we can get some money to name a highway that runs from Shiprock to Tuba City and build a rest area,” Ms. Laughter says.

Also on the federal front, Ms. Laughter hopes to send a message to Congress regarding Indian health.

“The treaty of 1868 between the Navajo Nation and the United States provided that the federal government is responsible for the tribe’s health, education and welfare,” she says.

“The problem is the federal government has forwarded a lot of that responsibility to the states, but the states didn’t make the treaty with the tribe. I wa
nt to put that responsibility back with the federal government.”

Bill Would Establish Formal Relationship

Rep. Jack Jackson Jr., D-Dist. 2, mentions a bill introduced in the last session by his father, Sen. Jack Jackson Sr., D-Dist. 2, that would have established a 13-member joint legislative committee to develop a model for a formal relationship between the state and the tribes. S1202 zipped out of the Senate, 27-1, but never made it to the House floor, and most likely will be back next year.

Mr. Jackson Jr., a Navajo, applauds Ms. Napolitano for her efforts in trying to improve relationships between the state and tribes. He mentions the liaison in the Governor’s Office, the four tribal summits, and a list of Native American appointments made by the governor. A spokeswoman for the Arizona Commission of Indian Affairs says Ms. Napolitano has appointed at least 21 Native Americans to various boards and commissions.

The first liaison, Myra Parker, left in September to pursue a doctorate in public health at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her replacement, Ann Marie Downes, current president of Little Priest Tribal College in Nebraska and a member of the Winnebago Tribe, agreed to join Ms. Napolitano’s staff of advisers sometime this month.

“It’s encouraging,” Mr. Jackson Jr. says. He plans to draw ideas from the four tribal summits to decide on possible legislation in 2004.

Indians’ College Drop-Out Rate

Rep. Tom O’Halleran, R-Dist. 1, chairman of the Natural Resources, Agriculture, Water & Native American Affairs Committee, keeps up on issues of interest to the tribes at monthly work group meetings.

“We are looking at the retention rate of first year Native Americans at state universities,” Mr. O’Halleran says. “The drop-out rate now is more than 40 per cent.” The overall dropout rate for freshmen who don’t return for their second year is 23 per cent for Arizona State University; 33 per cent for Northern Arizona University and 24 per cent for University of Arizona, according to the Arizona Board of Regents.

Part of the problem, he says, is that a number of Native Americans apparently are not ready for college-level courses. “Perhaps we can get them up to speed through the community colleges,” Mr. O’Halleran says.

“If not, we do a disservice to those students and the taxpayers of the state. I don‘t know if there is a need for legislation or a more coordinated response from K-12.”

Mr. O’Halleran is concerned that the AIMS test doesn’t take into account the limited access to computers Native Americans have in remote areas of reservations. “That’s an obvious problem,” he says.

On the issue of health care, Mr. O’Halleran says the Bureau of Indian Affairs often runs out of money months before the end of the fiscal year, leaving the state, through the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, and private hospitals to provide care for the balance of the year.

Sen. Marsha Arzberger, D-Dist. 25, whose district includes reservation land, says she plans to follow up on a Senate memorial that was passed urging Congress to grant citizenship to all registered members of the Tohono O’odham tribe, especially elders who have no birth records. The issue has been tied up in Congress since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Ms. Arzberger says she has offered to work with the state’s office of vital records to try to find some documentation. Another issue, crime on Indian reservations drew headlines in October when a report issued by federal prosecutors stated that the murder rate on Indian lands is five times that of the rest of the country.

Mr. Watchman, questions the crime report’s findings.

“There is a lot of influence from off-reservation activities and society in general,” he says. “The elders and elected tribal officials suggest that we as Indians follow our culture. That’s who we are, but you have things like MTV. Everyone is inundated by the media.”

Crime is happening everywhere, he says, but on a per capita basis it is a little higher on reservations. Mr. Lee of the Indian Affairs Commission also questions the validity of the federal report. “It’s no different from what’s happening in the mainstream,” he says. The numbers are skewed, he says, because the comparison is between sparsely populated reservations and crowded metropolitan areas.

Tourism Development

A relatively untapped aspect of economic development on reservations is tourism. says Mr. Watchman, a vice president for Bank One’s Native American Banking Group. “It’s tough in Indian country because you have places like Monument Valley with few accommodations. Tourists have money to spend. They enjoy the sights, the esthetics, but they go to Gallup, Holbrook or Page for accommodations. How do you capture the dollar?”

Despite a lack of accommodations, Mr. Lee says tourism is a huge industry on most reservations, especially in the area of arts and crafts. “It’s their bread and butter,“ he says. But he says Indians want control over tourism programs and policies.

“Certain things are off limits to outside visitors,” he says. “We want to preserve sacred sites and burial grounds. We’d rather have visitors see scenic beauty and walk paths.”

Mr. Watchman says tribes are far behind the rest of the state in social and economic development.

“Where do tribes want to go?” he asks. After a pause, he says, “We don’t know the answer.” —