Native Nation Building TV

Native Nation Building TV: "Bonus Segment on Native Nation Building"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Joan Timeche, Stephen Cornell and Ian Record with the Native Nations Institute at The University of Arizona discuss the "Native Nation Building" television and radio series and the research findings at heart of the series in a televised interview in January 2007.

 

This video resource is featured on the Indigenous Governance Database with the permission of Fox Channel 11 in Tucson, Arizona.

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Bonus Segment on Native Nation Building" (Bonus Segment). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2007. Television program. 

Announcer: "This is Fox 11 Forum, a look at issues of concern to Tucson and Nogales, with your host Bob Lee."

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Bob Lee: "Good morning. I hope you're having a nice weekend. This morning, we'll be discussing a new broadcast series that looks at some of the challenging questions facing American Indian, Alaska Native and Canadian First Nation governments. Each program in the series looks at successful nation-building efforts and at the issues that had to be overcome. We'll learn more on this in a minute. Stay with us, we'll be right back."

[Music] [On screen: Native nations in the U.S. and Canada ae recognized as Indigenous nations with a measure of sovereignty. / The Native Nations Institute was founded by the Morris K. Udall Foundation and The University of Arizona.]  

Bob Lee: "Welcome back. Native Nation Building is the name of a new ten-part radio and TV series that's now being seen and heard across the U.S. and in Canada. It addresses a number of issues currently being addressed by contemporary Native Nations, and we're going to talk about that because it originates right here in Tucson. Let me introduce my guests. Dr. Ian Record is Curriculum Development Manager with the Native Nations Institute at the U of A. Dr. Joan Timeche is Assistant Director of the Native Nations Institute, and Dr. Stephen Cornell is Director of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy -- a co-founder of NNI, a U of A professor, and generally involved in a number of things. Before we talk about this really interesting series of programs, let's talk a little bit about NNI and remind people what that's all about. What is the Native Nations Institute? What led to its founding?"

Stephen Cornell: "I'll take a shot at that. The Native Nations Institute is a research and outreach unit within the University of Arizona that's designed to assist Indian nations in the U.S. and First Nations in Canada at dealing with governance and development issues. It's really an effort by the U of A to focus university resources, research results, practical lessons that we've learned about development and governance, focus those on Indigenous issues, provide a resource to Indigenous nations that are wrestling with governance challenges. It's now what, five years old -- 2001 -- and was founded by the University of Arizona and by the Morris K. Udall Foundation, which is a federal foundation located here in town."

Bob Lee: "I think it's important, too, that we note that this is not just focusing on local tribes, that as I mentioned in the beginning it's Alaska and Canadian, it's truly an international effort that's being spearheaded here. Is an overall goal of what the Institute is all about, is there something five years from now you'd like to have seen achieved?"

Stephen Cornell: "Well, I think if we looked five years down the road, we would find Indian nations in the U.S. and in Canada first of all in charge of their own affairs, making decisions for themselves about their lands, about how they organize their governments, about civil affairs, about their relations with other governments -- states and the United States government. We'd find those nations building economies that support their people, reducing the kind of dependence that has plagued many Indigenous nations for years. We'd find those nations fully engaged with other communities across the United States, yet finding ways to maintain and sustain their own ways of life and their own cultures. We don't see the Native Nations Institute as the sort of key to all of that, but simply as one of an array of organizations and resources working closely with tribes to try to enable that, to help make that happen."

Bob Lee: "How much sovereignty is there now? It sounds like there isn't a lot."

Joan Timeche: "There actually is quite a bit of...tribes have been exercising their sovereignty more recently with the passage of a number of public laws that allowed the tribes to take over more of the responsibilities that the federal government had been providing on their behalf, and increasingly we're finding tribes who are beginning to make their own decisions for their own future and they're testing, they're questioning and they're exercising."

Bob Lee: "Is it conceivable that one day instead of as we drive down the freeway and a sign says, 'Entering the Pascua Yaqui Reservation,' we might see the term 'reservation' disappear and this would be...we would be entering in effect another country or another political entity entirely?"

Joan Timeche: "I would imagine so. That would be fantastic if we could see that, and I think essentially that is already occurring today. I come from the Hopi Reservation and Hopi Nation, and so when you go out there, we don't have so much the signs that you might see in the metro reservation environment and you clearly are going into another country when you go out onto the Navajo Reservation, onto the Hopi Reservation, and I think the terminology, that 'reservation' may stay because it's written in a lot of government language, documents."

Stephen Cornell: "Even today we see -- there are places where you go -- I remember driving in Oklahoma just a year or two ago and passing a sign saying, 'Entering the Cherokee Nation.' These are really nations within a nation and they certainly view themselves as nations, they enjoy a very substantial degree of sovereignty as Joan said, and I think we're likely to see them increasingly using that sovereignty to shape their lands and their peoples in the way that they desire. And the idea of driving onto the Tohono O'odham Nation, for example, is likely I think to become more and more part of the language."

Bob Lee: "Let's talk about this broadcast series that is -- I believe, as I look at some of the topics of the individual shows -- calling attention to some of the goals and objectives of the NNI [Native Nations Institute] and helping acquaint the general public as to some of the issues as well as, it seems like, there's sort of a rallying effort underway here too among the Nations themselves. How did the series come to be?"

Ian Record: "The series really began with the realization that...a lot of what NNI does through its research efforts is collect stories, collect stories about what Native Nations are doing, what's working in Indian Country, and why it's working. And lots of times on reservations, Native communities, they get so wrapped up in their own situation, their own circumstances, the challenges that they face, that it's hard for them to bridge the gap to other Native Nations and learn what they're doing. So that's really what the series is all about is really bringing those stories, connecting those tribes and really flattening that learning curve about nation building."

Bob Lee: "When you set upon putting the series together, now does it rely on the resources within our local nations or does it encompass Canada, Alaska, etc.?"

Ian Record: "We have a number of guests from Native nations in Arizona. We also have guests from Native nations throughout the United States and some from Canada, and what you really see by watching the series is that the nation-building messages are really universal. The specific circumstances, the specific challenges that a particular Native Nation might face may be different from that of another, but at the same time the key components necessary for nation building -- there's five of them that NNI commonly cites and those are practical sovereignty or genuine self rule, effective governing institutions, cultural match -- and what we mean by cultural match is a match between a given nation's governing institutions and the way that the people in that community believe that authority should be organized and exercised. The fourth is strategic orientation -- thinking and planning long term -- and then the fifth is finally leadership. And we find that the messages that we see through this nation-building research are universal to all nations."

Stephen Cornell: "Bob, I might just add, Ian mentioned that it's a pretty diverse group of guests and it ranges in this series from Robert Yazzie, who's the retired Chief Justice of the Navajo Nation Supreme Court; Rob Williams, a professor of law here at the University of Arizona; so both of those are Arizona sources. But it also includes people like Sophie Pierre, who's the Chief of a First Nation in British Columbia; Elsie Meeks, who has been involved for a long time in economic development efforts on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota; a number of people drawn from nations across the United States. So it's a very...it's a national perspective and an international perspective when you bring in some of the Canadian First Nations that are dealing with very similar issues to what Indian nations here are dealing with."

Bob Lee: "What are some of those issues? We'll talk more about that in just a minute. Stay with us, we'll be right back."

[Music] [On screen: Between the U.S. and Canada, there are more than 1,100 Native-American tribes. Native peoples around the world are working to invent new development strategies and governance tools that match their unique needs and contribute to maintaining their cultures.] 

 

Bob Lee: "Native Nation Building is the name of a new broadcast series that debuted here in Tucson this past weekend. Where and how can people see or hear what we're discussing on the program this morning?"

Ian Record: "Well, the television version of this series is currently running on the U of A Channel, which is Channel 19 on Cox and Channel 76 on Comcast. It airs Friday evenings at 8:30 p.m. and Sundays at 1:30 p.m., and it will be running through March 26th. People who are interested in listening to the Native Nation Building series on radio, it's going to be distributed nationally by the AIROS Native Radio Network, and so if you're interested in getting that series here locally, it's the same old song and dance -- you've got to contact your local public radio station and let them know you want to hear the series."

Bob Lee: "And the tribal radio stations are also carrying it. Unfortunately, the stations here in southern Arizona are not carrying it. I'm going to show a website address in a little bit and I did discover that there's going to be a webcast available also."

Ian Record: "Yeah, you can webcast. You can podcast. You can listen to it online both live and whenever you wish."

Bob Lee: "So there is a way to get around the fact that the stations down here are not carrying it."

Ian Record: "We're hoping they'll come around, but not yet."

Bob Lee: "Well, they're independent. Let's talk about some of the subjects that are addressed on the program. I was particularly drawn to the sixth program, which looks specifically at tribal economic development and tribal entrepreneurship, and these are issues that everybody's interested in. Let's talk about that specifically. What are some of the aspects of economic development?"

Joan Timeche: "Aspects in general or...you're going to find that on most reservations, the tribal governments are the ones that own the enterprises. They are the ones that have the resources -- monetary, human, all of the additional resources -- that might be needed to get it off the ground. They have the know-how, they've had the perseverance, and so on. But increasingly what we're seeing is more citizens who are beginning to...who have expressed an interest in owning and developing their own businesses, and we often see tribes have a two-pronged approach to development. One where the tribes own the enterprises that usually require large intensive capital or maybe it's natural resource-based or something like that, but we're also seeing more of an approach moving towards helping their own tribal citizens start their own businesses. But it requires a lot of regulatory development that has to be done, creating that environment, so it's conducive for a member and they don't have to go through hundreds of steps to be able to get perhaps the land to lease to start the business. So we're seeing changes, very positive changes moving towards those directions."

Bob Lee: "So there's a regulatory aspect that has to be perhaps addressed and loosened up a little bit?"

Joan Timeche: "Yes, yes. In some cases, well, on all reservations they have the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] regulations for leasing of land have to be followed. They're very cumbersome. If you have traditional land holdings, like on Hopi and Navajo, the Tohono O'odham Nation, the land is controlled at the local level, so then you have to get permission from clans to districts to chapters to villages before you can even approach the formal tribal government. So the process can be very cumbersome, and then once you get to the tribal approval, then you've got to go back to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to get the final say-so on all of the lease agreements, so it can be very cumbersome."

Bob Lee: "Something I had mentioned earlier, and I guess it comes back to what we were saying, when you talk about the BIA, one of the things that probably would be a long-range goal would be to somehow not have to deal with the BIA and have true sovereignty."

Joan Timeche: "Yes, that would be good, and I think that there are some tribes who are trying to work that out in their leasing regulations and in some of the codes that they have adopted where they've been able to set up a process that still meets the needs that the Bureau of Indian Affairs' [has] in terms of its own documentation and its own processes, if they can accept and authorize, delegate in a sense to the tribes the authority to be able to sign off on those processes."

Bob Lee: "You wanted to say something and maybe it was what I was going to follow up on."

Stephen Cornell: "Well, I don't know. I was just going to add that I think one of the things that the session that you're talking about, that interview, does is discuss what tribal governments themselves can do to support citizen entrepreneurs, because the very complexity of the regulation that Joan has just described, the effect of that is often to take people who've got ideas and get up and go and they say to themselves, 'Gee, it's going to be too complicated to start a business here, I'll move to Tucson or Phoenix or L.A. and start it there.' And increasingly, we're seeing tribal governments saying, 'Okay, what steps do we need to take to keep our own citizens here, keep that talent here, keep that energy here and engage them in the economic development effort?' And we're seeing some very innovative work by some tribes that have really solved this problem. They've taken control of the regulatory environment and are creating an environment that encourages their citizens to stick around and invest at home. So there's some really interesting things happening out there, and a lot of that comes up in the interview."

Bob Lee: "So in a sense they're going through the same thing that many cities, Tucson included, are going through is how do we keep our talent here. Another question that came to mind, when we talk about the BIA, why don't they just...why does in a sense Uncle Sam want to keep his hand involved in this? Why not just walk away and let the tribal nations do their thing? It seems like there's a lot of talent and abilities to get that done without somebody hanging on there. 150 years ago I can understand that, but now..."

Stephen Cornell: "It's interesting, Bob. We've done some systematic and robust research over the last 20 years on some of these issues, and one of the things that comes out quite clearly is that as federal decision-makers relinquish that decision-making role and move into a resource role, tribal development tends to do better. When tribes are in the driver seat making decisions for themselves, development does better. So one of the...I think the core question here is how do you move the BIA or other external bodies out of decision-making into a resource or support role where they're needed and when you do that? Then Indian nations themselves begin to benefit from their own decisions, pay the price of mistakes they make, they tend to begin to create the world that they want, which is what should be happening out there anyway."

Bob Lee: "Good government -- we'll talk about that in just a minute. Stay with us, we'll be right back."

[Music] [On screen: NNI works with Native nations and organizations on strategic and organizational issues ranging from constitutionl reform to government design, intergovernmental relations, and economic and community development. / Native nations that have been willing and able to assert their self-governing power have significantly increased their chances of sustainable economic development.]

Bob Lee: "Welcome back. We're talking about Native Nation Building, a new 10-part radio and TV series that's now being seen and heard across North America actually and it originates right here in Tucson. We've got about six minutes left. I want to try to touch on two more issues that are a part of this radio and TV series. We're talking about developing a new sort of tribal government, nation government. What are some of the keys to making that happen and that is the topic of one of the programs."

Stephen Cornell: "A lot of governments in Indian Country were not really developed by Native people. A lot of them have their roots in federal legislation in the 1930s, a lot of them are modeled on mainstream U.S. organizations, they don't represent in many cases the ways Indigenous people would like to govern themselves. One of the most striking developments of the last 25 years or so in Indian Country has been an effort by a lot of Indian nations to reclaim the right to design governments that fit their ideas, their cultures, and in practical terms this is leading to a lot of constitutional reform. One of the interviews in this series focuses on tribal constitutions and on the efforts the tribes are making to rethink the constitutions they currently are working with. We think of it as sort of remaking the tools of governance, and a lot of tribes are engaged in doing that, trying to figure out, 'What is going to work in our situation, what will the people being governed believe in?' You've got to have governing institutions that those being governed think, 'Yeah, these are good, we believe in these, these are our institutions, not somebody else's imported.' So a lot of that is happening in Indian Country and a good chunk of the program is about that."

Bob Lee: "This all leads toward what is essentially the final episode in this first series, and there may be more I suppose, and that has to do with looking, moving toward nation building and very quickly explain again what we mean by nation building."

Stephen Cornell: "I think you can think of nation building as putting in place the foundational institutions and practices that can support long-term development, not just economic development, but development of the kinds of quality of life that Indigenous nations themselves want. It's trying to put the foundation in place that tribes can build on according to their own designs over the next 100 years, whatever it might be, whatever their thinking is about their long-term vision. So it's really about, 'What kinds of tools do we need to build the future we want? Have we got the right institutions in place? Have we got the right decision-making capabilities in place? Do we have the right relationships in place with other governments?' All of that is part of nation building, and that's what a lot of these nations are engaged in."

Bob Lee: "We should perhaps address very quickly, is there a commonality in terms of the Native nation culture from Hopi to Pascua Yaqui to Canadian Nations and so forth that would help facilitate this, or are there a lot of differences that also have to be overcome?"

Joan Timeche: "I think that you're going to find that every tribe is different from each other, they're all unique and although they may have, there may be bands that may be similarly, familially related or come from the same region or whatever, have the same barriers to overcome, their languages are different, their cultures are different, and therefore their governments are going to be different from each other. But there are some commonalities. Take New Mexico, there are 19 Pueblos there, and almost all of them operate on a theocracy, where it's a traditional form of government where their cacique, their chief comes in and he does an appointment of their elected leadership on an annual basis..."

Bob Lee: "So one of the challenges, then, is that one size isn't going to fit all?"

Joan Timeche: "Yes. But there are common elements of governments that do apply across the board."

Bob Lee: "That would be helpful in seeing this to its fruition. Ian, what do you hope is going to come out of this? When the series is, the first ten episodes are said and done, what do you hope for?"

Ian Record: "Well, we do view this as an ambitious series, but at the same time we view this as a modest starting point. We view this as a way to start a dialogue between nations, Native nations and other individuals, non-Native individuals, people in positions where they make decisions that affect Native communities -- to educate them as well, to really get a dialogue going about what's really going on, what are some of the phenomenal things that Native nations are doing, and really educating everyone about those efforts."

Bob Lee: "Terrific series from what I've seen and heard about it, and hopefully it won't end here. Thank you very much for being with us this morning to talk about this. And you can log onto American Indian Radio on Satellite, airos.org, and you can learn more about the success that many Native nations are having in restoring economic health, developing effective governments, shaping their own futures, and that website will give you lots of links, one of which can take you to the live streaming broadcast as well as archives of the programs that we talked about here today. Again it's airos.org, http://www.visionmakermedia.org/, and follow the links there and you can get a lot of information. Next week, we will be discussing prostate health here on this program. Until then, for Fox 11 I'm Bob Lee. Have a safe week ahead, we'll see you again next week."

Native Nation Building TV: "Introduction to Nation Building"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Manley Begay and Stephen Cornell present the key research findings of the Native Nations Institute and the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. They explain the five keys to successful community and economic development for Native nations (sovereignty or practical self-rule, effective institutions of self-governance, cultural match, strategic orientation, and leadership), and provide examples of Native nations that are rebuilding their nations. 

Mary Kim Titla: "Welcome to Native Nation Building. I'm your host Mary Kim Titla. Contemporary Native Nations face many daunting challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity and change. Native Nation Building explores these complex challenges and the ways Native nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

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Mary Kim Titla: "Today's program examines where, how and why nation building is currently taking place in Native communities throughout the United States and beyond, in particular the fundamental issues governing Native nations' efforts to restore their social sovereignty and economic vitality and shape their own futures. Here today to discuss these nation-building issues are Drs. Manley Begay and Stephen Cornell. Dr. Begay, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is Director of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona, where he also serves as Senior Lecturer in the American Indian Studies Programs. Dr. Cornell is the Director of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and a Professor of Sociology and Public Administration and Policy at the University of Arizona. For the past two decades, they both have worked extensively with Native Nations in a major research effort that seeks to identify the keys to solving the challenges to nation building. Welcome, gentleman, nice to have you here today."

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "Thanks for having us."

Mary Kim Titla: "First of all, what is nation building in practical terms?"

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "Nation building is really about how Indigenous nations in the U.S. and elsewhere can put together the tools they need to build the futures that they want. And by the tools they need, we really mean the tools of governance. These are nations in our experience with very ambitious goals, they face daunting challenges, they carry the legacies of colonialism, they are trying to overcome deficits in economic affairs, in health, in all kinds of areas. If they're going to do that, they need the governing tools that are adequate to that task and Nation building is about identifying those tools, putting them in place, being sure that they match Indigenous ideas and culture and putting them to work."

Mary Kim Titla: "Can you talk about some of the tools? Explain that."

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "Yeah. A lot of Indian nations here in the United States have governments that they did not design. That's not true of all of them, but a lot of tribal governments were designed basically by the U.S. Department of the Interior back in the 1930s. They aren't very sophisticated structures of government. Some of them have no provision for adequate court systems or ways to resolve disputes within the nation. Some of them have got unwieldy legislatures. Some of them don't have the kinds of procedures that you need if you're going to move vigorously and effectively to make good decisions, implement them, get things done. So we're talking about rethinking some of the those tools of government. What kinds of tribal courts or other dispute resolution mechanisms will serve Indigenous needs and interests? What kinds of governing structures will people believe in and support within the nation's own community? Are those structures adequate to what the nation is trying to do? So when we talk about tools, we're talking about the practical mechanisms that nation's use to organize how they go about trying to get stuff done."

Mary Kim Titla: "Dr. Begay, would you like to add to that?"

Dr. Manley Begay: "Sure. It seems from the work that we've been doing that nation building or nation rebuilding, as Steve mentioned, really began to occur with most Indian nations around 1975 when the Indian Self-Determination Act was ushered in, and since then a lot of Indian nations have begun to wrestle with rethinking their political systems, rethinking their economies and it's not unlike other nations that have gone through colonization and all of a sudden found themselves in the midst of freedom, if you will, very much like what occurred in Eastern Europe after the Soviet Union fell apart. Poland is wrestling with issues of constitutional reform, you had the European Union there, and Indian nations are in the same boat and a lot of other colonized society are wrestling with Nation building and rebuilding."

Mary Kim Titla: "Let's talk about the research. What prompted the Harvard Project and the Native Nations Institute to embark on the research?"

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "This kind of got us wondering what is it that makes some nations more successful than others, and in fact the data that we first looked at had to do in part with timber and with forestry. A lot of Indian nations have timber resources. Some of them seemed to be doing a better job of managing those resources than others and we got interested in why. And being professors, we thought maybe we knew the answers already -- typical of professors -- and so we thought, well, it'll be educational attainment or it'll be the Nations that have big natural resources will be doing well or the ones that have access to capital will be doing well. But we decided we'd better go look and we got a grant from the Ford Foundation to do some research. We spent a lot of time in the field getting stories of what was working, how did this enterprise succeed, how did this one fail, what else have you tried to do, what seems to be working here, what are the problems you're encountering. And the interesting sort of payoff to the research was it turned out that the critical elements were really political ones, that if you had your political house together, if you had some stability in the government, if you were successful in keeping political considerations out of enterprise management decisions or out of tribal court decisions -- if you could do some of those political things, then these sort of economic assets like good education or good natural resources or being close to a major market -- those would start to pay off. If you couldn't get the government house in order, then those assets tended to be wasted. So the result to the research was really to focus our attention on these political issues and the effect they were having on how these Nations did, whether or not they were able to achieve their goals."

Dr. Manley Begay: "And what was really interesting about the research findings initially was that we knew of no known cases of economic development, successful economic development, occurring without assertions of political sovereignty. And secondly, we also found that capable governing institutional development was a major piece of nation building. And thirdly, those institutions had to be culturally appropriate. And since then we've also found that Indian nations that are planning for the long haul if you will, a hundred years down the road -- what kind of society are we going to build, what do we perceive the society to look like 50 years from now --and those that have done that seem to be faring well or faring better than others that have not. Lastly, leadership is really critical. So these five components and research findings formed the basis for the work that we've been doing all along."

Mary Kim Titla: "Can you give us a snapshot of current Native nation-building efforts among indigenous peoples throughout the U.S. and Canada?"

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "Yeah, in fact there are a number of Nations across the U.S. right now that are engaged in constitutional processes. The Osage Nation in Oklahoma has just launched a major constitutional reform effort. The Crow Tribe of Montana, the Northern Cheyennes are involved in that. The San Carlos Apaches are engaged in governance reform or rethinking how they govern themselves. This is happening a good deal across the U.S. It's also happening in Canada where we see First Nations that are engaged in constitutional processes. Some of them are also engaged, especially in British Columbia, in treaty processes that involved working out new relationships with British Columbia and with Canada and that process also involves rethinking governance. So we see a lot of constitutional stuff happening there. We see some developments in tribal courts. The Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, which straddles the Ontario/New York boundary, are engaged right now in trying to rebuild their justice system. They of course face some interesting justice problems because of that boundary, because they're a nation that operates in two different jurisdictions and then they have their own jurisdiction. It's a complicated situation. They're trying to develop a court and justice system that's adequate to that set of challenges. We see a number of nations like the Ho-Chunk, the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, have started a corporation called Ho-Chunk Inc., which has been a very successful enterprise reducing unemployment there. They put a lot of thought into, how do you set up this enterprise so that it has a good chance of succeeding?"

Dr. Manley Begay: "And up in Canada there's the Membertou First Nation on the east side of Canada that's actually wrestled with figuring out how to develop a capable governing institution and they did that through what's called the ISO [International Organization for Standardization], sort of international standards set-up, and then also the Siksika Blackfoot Nation in Alberta have also really moved forward in thinking about nation building and is actually doing relatively well. Lac La Ronge as well. They're finding some success in promoting their wild rice not only in Canada and the United States but also overseas as well. So there are a number of stories of First Nations and bands up in Canada, tribes in the United States that have gone the extra effort to figure out how to build nations that work, and obviously one of the major success stories is the Mississippi Choctaw. And they did that without gaming. Initially they set up good governing institutions, they asserted sovereignty, really thought through how to develop a culturally appropriate political system and actually we refer to them as the Singapore of Indian Country. They did that without gaming. Only later on did they get into gaming and every day you'll see upwards of 7,000 black and white workers going on to Nation land to work. As a result, they've become the major political and economic powerhouse in the southeast and they've done that through nation building."

Mary Kim Titla: "And I've been there to Mississippi Choctaw and I've seen what they've done. It's really great with [Chief] Phillip Martin and other tribal leaders. I imagine that they must face many obstacles and of course those obstacles can get in the way of objectives. Can you talk about some of the obstacles that some of these Nations are facing?"

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "Boy, I think one of the obstacles that -- in fact I was just last week in Canada and talking with a First Nations leader and he said, 'You know, a lot of my people have been, we've learned over time to be dependent on Canada and to be dependent on federal agencies in Canada, and part of the work that we face as First Nations leaders,' he said, 'is trying to change that mind frame, trying to get into a mind frame that says, 'We can change this, we can take responsibility for what happens here.'' There's a -- Manley just mentioned the Siksika Nation of Blackfoot in Alberta. Chief Strater Crow Foot, whose the chief of that nation, he spoke at a session that Manley and I were both at not long ago and he said, 'We're trying to replace the victim attitude with a victor attitude.' He said, 'The victim attitude keeps you sitting still, the victor attitude gets you moving.' And he said, 'In my nation, that's one of our primary tasks as leaders is to change that attitude, a feeling that if we're really going to have an impact we've got to alter the way people look at the world around them, the way they think about what's possible.' So that's certainly one of the obstacles. Another obstacle, and Manley touched on this, is simply that sovereignty obstacle. It's getting the jurisdictional power to make decisions for yourself. That's something which Indian nations in the U.S., they've had a lot of jurisdictional power. It gets chipped away at by the U.S. Supreme Court, it's often under attack in the states and in Congress. Luckily, so far, much of it is surviving. In Canada, First Nations are struggling to achieve the level of sovereignty Indian Nations in the U.S. have, but that's an obstacle. If someone else is making the decisions for you, you're not likely to go much of anywhere. It's their decisions, the program represents their interests. Shifting real decision-making power into Indigenous hands is a critical piece of nation building. These nations have to be rebuilt by Indigenous people, not by decisions made in Washington or Ottawa or someplace like that. So I think the other big obstacle is that sovereignty piece. You've got to have the power to make things happen."

Mary Kim Titla: "We've talked about obstacles. Let's talk about assets. What are some of the greatest nation-building assets?"

Dr. Manley Begay: "Leadership is an asset. However, it's only an asset if you can couple that with developing good capable institutions, and if you set in place the rule of law and policies and codes and constitutions. That goes a long way. You can wait for a good leader to come around, and it takes 20 years to get a good leader, but you can't always be sure that the leader was going to be good. However, if you put in place policy, rules and regulations, you can always trust those rules, and enforcing those rules becomes part of nation building, and it seems to me that that's an asset that we see, the creativeness, the innovativeness of Indian people to really wrestle with figuring out how to do this, and to do it in a culturally appropriate fashion is an asset. And it's not something that's new."

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "The other thing we have to recognize as an asset is Indigenous cultures themselves, and sometimes people who think about how Indigenous culture is an asset think of it mainly in terms of stuff you can sell -- arts and crafts or something like that -- and that's an important way to think about it. We tend to think about it, though, in terms of what can we learn from Indigenous cultures about appropriate organization, so that the government that works at Navajo is not necessarily going to be the same as the government that works at Osage, because they are different nations with different heritages, different cultures, and part of the challenge of nation building is figuring out what set of institutions in fact resonate with what people here believe about how authority should be exercised, about how we should pursue goals. We've worked with some of the Pueblos in New Mexico where you have governing institutions that are very traditional. There are no elections, there are no legal codes, no written constitutions. The governing institutions are deeply rooted either in Pueblo tradition or in several hundred years of working under Pueblo influences, Spanish influences and other things. They've been borne out of Pueblo experience. You go up to the Flatheads in Montana, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation, and you'll see a tribal government that looks very different. It looks, as our colleague Joe Kalt likes to say, 'It looks like it came out of my high school civics textbook.' Well, you've got three nations on that reservation and those nations have had to find a way to govern themselves that they all can support so it doesn't look very traditional. There are three traditions there, they might be in conflict with each other. So they've had to find a set of institutions that work for them. But that link to Indigenous cultures, that ability to tap into the fact that these nations long ago solved tough human problems and maybe the ways they solved some of those problems still work today. Let's tap into that. At Navajo, their court system, their justice system today combines western jurisprudence with longstanding Navajo ways of dealing with disharmony or conflict and that makes them an extraordinarily effective court system that no outsider could have invented. It had to be generated by Navajo people."

Mary Kim Titla: "Can we talk about more of the research and the five major keys to successful community and economic development among Nations?"

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "The first finding that came out of this research really was the sovereignty finding, the fact that Indigenous nations themselves have to be in the driver's seat if things are going to happen. So there's a kind of a power issue there. Where is the power? And from a research point of view, it just underlined something that Manley touched on earlier, that we haven't been able to find a case across Indian Country of sustained, self-determined economic development where someone other than the Indigenous nation was calling the shots. So that turns out to be a necessary piece of the puzzle. The second piece that came in on the research findings was that, yeah, but that's not enough in and of itself. You've got to back it up with the kinds of governing institutions that Manley has been talking about. They've got to be capable of dealing with contemporary challenges. They've got to be stable. They've got to control, keep politics in its place. They've got to assure people that if I have a claim, a dispute with the nation, it'll be dealt with fairly. Part of the challenge for Indigenous leaders today is, how do we hang onto our talented, energetic young people with ideas? If I've got a family to support, will I pursue supporting that family at home on the rez or will I move to L.A. or Minneapolis or something like that? For tribal leaders, how do we create an environment that says, 'You can do it right here, we'll make it possible, we'll keep you'? That means a governing situation in which it doesn't matter who my family is, who I voted for, I'll get a fair shake. So that second finding was about capable governing institutions. The third was this thing we've just been talking a bit about of the cultural match piece of making sure those institutions really have the support of the people, that people believe this is our government, not an import from somebody else -- this is ours. And then these last two pieces that Manley talked about, the strategic thinking that gets people to make decisions on what's on our agenda today in terms of what matters in the long run and what does that mean for how we decide this today. And then that piece of leadership."

Dr. Manley Begay: "Yeah, to give you an example, back to Mississippi Choctaw. Initially a big portion of the population of the Choctaws were moved to Indian Territory in Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears, so you essentially had this society that was uprooted back in the 1830s and only small groups stayed in Mississippi. But they held onto the land, they held on to who they were as Choctaws. And as time went on they went through the termination period, they went through...and here comes the Indian Self-Determination Act and they essentially wrestled jurisdiction and power and control from the feds as well as state government and began to pursue a long-term plan, and Chief Phillip Martin was sort of the main impetus for assertions of sovereignty back then. And once they wrestled a significant amount of decision-making power from the federal government and also from the State [of Mississippi], they began to think through, how do we develop a capable governing institution? And they did that basically by necessity because before they could attract manufacturing companies to the nation, they had to think about a commercial code, they had to think about appropriate policy rules and regulations, laws being put in place, a good court system, separating business from politics, and so forth so that the investor could feel safe in investing on nation land. And then the cultural match piece came in. Historically, Mississippi Choctaws really had the strong chief executive-type of political structure, but they also had a strong court system. They had a separation of powers and checks and balances set up, which allowed for them to plan well. So a lot of this was planned out years and years ago. A lot of the success Mississippi Choctaws are having now was planned 50 years ago, and so today you essentially have a zero percent unemployment rate, you have to import labor and so forth, so the strategic thinking piece came into play. And then you have good leadership, you essentially have really good leadership. So all of the ingredients to successful nation building seems to be present at Mississippi Choctaw. But we've seen it at Fort McDowell, we've seen it at Siksika, we've seen it at all of these places that we've mentioned that have built nations that seem to be working well."

Mary Kim Titla: "We do want to talk about more of those positive stories, those models if you want to call them that. I like Mississippi Choctaw, so I'm glad that you touched on that. Are there some other examples out there that you'd like to add?"

Dr. Stephen Cornell: "Well, one that we're particularly fond of is the Citizen Potawatomi story from Oklahoma. The Citizen Potawatomi Nation back in the 1970s -- this today is a very large nation, I think its population is well over 20,000 people -- but in the 1970s they had very little land that they controlled, less than 100 acres, they had hardly any money in the bank, life was tough, [the] situation was grim. Today the Citizen Potawatomi Nation owns the First National Bank of Shawnee, Oklahoma. Today they own the supermarket in Shawnee, where they sell beef grown in their own cattle herd and vegetables grown on their own farm. They've basically got a vertically-integrated food business going. They own some of the media outlets in town. And when you talk to "Rocky" Barrett, who is the current chairman of the Nation, he says, 'Well, you know, it's really an institutions story.' And I remember the first time I heard him tell the story of the Citizen  Potawatomi Nation at a conference in Oklahoma, and afterwards I talked to him and I said, 'You know, you really tell a nation-building story about governing institutions.' And his response was, 'Oh, yeah, if you're not thinking about constitutional reform, you're not in the economic development ballgame, because what you've got to do is get that political house together and then you'll be able to create the kind of economic success.' So we look at Citizen  Potawatomi, a remarkable turnaround from the mid 1970s to the start of the 21st century in that nation's fortunes. Some nations, there are these success stories out there, and some of them are about pieces of nations and we've been fortunate -- in doing this work on nation building -- you come across nations that are doing extraordinary things that you don't hear about. I think often what we hear about are the problems in Indian Country. But some of the...we've talked about the Navajo Nation court system, which is one of these striking successes. The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, another example of nations coming together and solving a difficult problem creatively and effectively. At Fond du Lac, they've got a foster care program that has solved a major problem they had with the placement of tribal kids in non-Native homes. They've come up with a way to deal with that problem. It's effective, it works. These kinds of stories are all over the place out there and in one way or another they are nation-building stories."

Mary Kim Titla: "And then trying to train the young Native leaders, I think the Gila River Indian Community has done an excellent job of that with their youth council and really they're a model for a lot of tribes around the country. Anything you'd like to add?"

Dr. Manley Begay: "The Cochiti Pueblo is another Indian nation that sort of has built these very successful economic ventures. At one point in time, Cochiti, a significant part of Cochiti, was actually under water when a dam was built, and very little seemed to be in the works for how to get out of the situation that they were in. And lo and behold they essentially began to assert a certain amount of jurisdiction and a certain amount of power and authority, and today you find a tremendous amount of success at Cochiti. They've developed one of the top 100 public golf courses in the United States. They have a retirement community where Harry and Martha from Ohio go to retire. And it's a very interesting turnaround. Here a very traditional society is doing relatively well in pursuing certain economic development projects and they've done it with, as we said earlier, first pursuing jurisdiction and decision-making power and authority, and it really resonates to non-Indian society. Often non-Indian society [has] a hard time grasping political sovereignty. The thought is, 'Well, we've got to take political sovereignty away from Indian Country and then we need to tell them what to do essentially.' However, it seems as though that it's in the best interest of non-Indian society to support political sovereignty, because in the long run when economic development takes place in Indian Country, it affects nearby communities, it affects the region and in turn it affects the nation as a whole. So it has this domino effect. So it really is important for non-Indian communities, also governments, to support political sovereignty."

Mary Kim Titla: "Well, I want to thank the both of you. We've talked about a lot of things today, about some of the positive stories that are out there, some of the obstacles that Native tribes are facing and I must say that they've dealt with adversity very well and they have a history of dealing with that. I see a bright future, so thank you for what you're doing. We'd like to thank Dr. Begay and Dr. Cornell for appearing on today's edition of Native Nation Building, a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation Building and the issues discussed here today, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building."

Native Nation Building TV: "Why the Rule of Law and Tribal Justice Systems Matter"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Robert A. Williams, Jr. and Robert Yazzie discuss the importance of having sound rules of law and justice systems, and examine their implications for effective governance and sustainable economic development. They explore these issues and their role in creating a productive environment that encourages investment of all types from Native and non-Native citizens.

Native Nations
Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Why the Rule of Law and Tribal Justice Systems Matter" (Episode 3). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program.

Mark St. Pierre: "Mark St. Pierre. Hello, friends. I'm your host, Mark St. Pierre and welcome to Native Nation Building. Contemporary Native Nations face many challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies that fit their culture and circumstances, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity in change. Native Nation Building explores these often complex challenges in the ways Native Nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

[music]

 

Mark St. Pierre: "On today's program, we examine the critical role that tribal justice systems and the rule of law play in providing the necessary foundations for effective governance and sustainable development, and what happens when those systems and rules of law are poorly designed, implemented and understood. Here today to share their thoughts in this important topic are Robert Williams and Robert Yazzie. Mr. Yazzie, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is the Chief Justice Emeritus of the Navajo Nation Supreme Court. He is also a visiting professor at the University of New Mexico School of Law and has served as a Navajo English interpreter for the U.S. District Court. Mr. Williams, a citizen of the Lumbee Nation, is the E. Thomas Sullivan Professor of Law and American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona's James E. Rogers College of Law. He also serves as the Chief Justice of the Pascua Yaqui Tribal Court of Appeals and the Judge Pro Tem of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Welcome, Mr. Williams and Chief Justice Yazzie. Thanks for joining us."

 

Robert Williams:  "Thank you."

 

Robert Yazzie:  "Thank you."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "In your opinion, why is the rule of law so critical to Native nations?"

 

Robert Williams: “Well, there's two primary reasons that you want a court system that treats people fairly and issues decisions that people can make their own plans for the future on. The first is the internal aspect. The people of the nation have to have confidence in their court systems, they have to believe that if people are arrested for crimes that they'll be prosecuted, that they'll be treated fairly, that their rights will be recognized and then victims are protected. They have to understand that their contracts will be enforced in their courts. Externally, you also want the outside world to have confidence in the nation's justice system for business relationships, for people that might be invited on to the reservation, for a whole host of reasons -- relationships with governments -- and so those are the reasons that most tribes do invest in court systems and legal systems and tribal courts are working so hard on trying to enforce the rule of law."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "Robert, at [the] Navajo Nation, your approach is kind of blended with Navajo tradition and common law. How would you respond to that question of why is the rule of law so critical to the Navajo Nation?"

 

Robert Yazzie:  "My experience says that when Navajos go to court, they expect certain things to happen. One is to say shí­ né' en dool jool, mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;color:#222222;
background:white;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:
AR-SA">  color:#222222;background:white">means my mind will become at ease when this problem that I have is addressed and people look for a satisfied result. So when people feel confident with the court system, especially [the] establishment of relationship with the judge, knowing that the judge's role will be carried out to bring peace to the problems at hand."

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Mark St. Pierre:  "We're all away that politics creep into court systems or tend to creep into court systems in all societies, but what is the impact of politics creeping into tribal court systems?"

 

Robert Williams:  "It can be particularly insidious. One of the big problems today in Indian Country is that tribes are saddled with constitutions and systems of government that really were imposed upon them 60, 70 years ago. Yet, at the same time, when those systems were imposed, many of the checks and balances of these western-style systems of constitutional democracy weren't incorporated. One of the most important is an independent judiciary, and most tribes today do not have an independent judiciary under their constitutions, and so where judges don't have the confidence to make decisions without looking over their shoulder whether a tribal politician might be unhappy, whether they might lose their job, justice suffers in any system, and that's particularly so in Indian Country."

 

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;”Robert, what's your take on that?"

 

Robert Yazzie:  "I hear a lot of criticism. I think some of them have merit and some of are just pure assumption, because the outside world really doesn't understand exactly how a tribal court functions. If the outside world could really look at the details of how a tribal court functions, maybe people can appreciate what the tribal courts are going through. I've heard time and time again that there the politicians or the tribal council in any situation make decisions for tribal judges. I don't think that...that may have been true, but certainly today I think the politicians, the tribal politicians have really come to terms with their role. With the Navajo Nation, we had a case involving a pay raise and the public took issue on that and brought action before the court telling the Navajo Nation Council of 88, 'The process you followed to get what you want, to give yourselves a pay raise, is unlawful.' So the court was there to make the correction, and the correction it made is that they affirmed what the public stood for. Today, right now, the Navajo Nation Council have accepted that. I don't think they really liked the decision, but it's a decision that they choose to live with and I think they have taken...they take the courts very seriously. When it makes a decision, they want to give it support, to give it growth."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "Rob, you've worked with a number of different tribes across the country. Can you give us examples of what a politicized justice system has done to perhaps hamper or derail community development and economic development, nation-building efforts?"

 

Robert Williams:  "Yeah, and I think it's important to recognize in a number of tribes, the Navajo are an excellent example, have moved toward an independent judiciary separating the tribal courts from tribal politics, but there are still a number of tribes out there that it's common practice sometimes for tribal elected leadership -- you may have a situation where the elected leadership changes every two years and then the courts change because people like to bring in folks they're familiar with, and so the expertise and independence that you've built up is lost. There are other situations where the business community both on and off the reservation just doesn't have confidence in the judiciary and doesn't feel that their contracts will be enforced so they'll be treated fairly, and so they may go to the tribal government and say, 'We want to have you waive your sovereign immunity. We won't sign this contract unless it's going to be litigated in state courts.' Then what you begin to get is just a general undermining of the rule of law throughout the entire reservation, and so when tribal governments do think that they can interfere in tribal courts and tribal law, it has this cascading effect, it has implications throughout the entire reservation economy and society."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "How do you separate, what are good ways to create that true separation of the justice system from the rest of the tribal government?"

 

Robert Yazzie:  "I think in a smaller population-sized tribe it's much harder to deal with the separation of powers issue because everybody is related somehow. It's very hard to separate. But in a much bigger tribe like the Navajos or the Cherokees, I think they've pretty much come to accept what the functions of the different branches [of] government that is in place. The Navajo Nation doesn't have a constitution, so we don't have a constitution that says, there shall be an executive body, judicial body and legislative body. The way the code has been put together just gives that impression there is these separate branches, and I think that even though there are problems -- like in any other government there's problems trying to stay within your bounds and to carry out your functions. But I think the Navajo Nation has really gone through some trying times. As long as people understand that judicial independence means being able to make a decision independent of all forces -- government or political forces -- that is a decision that you can make in good conscience. 'A good decision made so you can sleep at night,' is what our boss used to always tell us when we were on the bench."

 

Robert Williams:  "And following up on that, there are specific steps that tribes can take. For example, I think the Chief Justice makes a great point that in smaller tribes, it's more difficult to achieve separation of powers cause everybody knows everyone and it may be that in that situation lifetime tenure for judges which is usually one of the ways that you achieve judicial independence might not be totally appropriate, but set terms, four years, five years. Make sure they're staggered so they don't necessarily coincide with the tribal government's election cycle. And then you have a really good system of review."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "So what you're suggesting is that the judges perhaps be elected by the tribal membership?"

 

Robert Williams:  "Or if they're going to be appointed, let's appoint them for set terms instead of oftentimes what happens it's a year-to-year contract, then that can really erode judicial independence. But you also need a system of professional education, you need to make sure your judges are out there getting the latest education they can, that they're getting certified, that you're reviewing. There's a process. The Navajo courts have a great process where judges are regularly reviewed by the chief justice and reports are issued, you can evaluate people fairly and then put them up before the council and see if they merit being reappointed again, and that's a good way to try and get politics separated out of that process."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "Let's take a look at recall. If, for instance, in a smaller tribe the people themselves are not satisfied with the performance of a judge and the pressure builds up consistently that this judge is not really working well within tribal tradition or within the beliefs or value system of the people, what are systems to recall judges?

 

Robert Yazzie:  "We follow a process that evaluates judges when they complete their two-year probation and at the end of their two-year probation, the probationary judges must go through a judicial performance evaluation where the public have their input or the staff of the judge has their input, where other practitioners who go before that judge has their input. This is a fairly new process, and through that process, some of the judges have been removed by the standing committee based on the process that's now set in place. So we don't really...we haven't had to do any recall. I think the appointment process has enough in it that it takes care of those problems."

 

Robert Williams: “Recall is one of those areas where I think you can really talk meaningfully about the difference between western systems of self-government and many Native systems. In western systems, the recall is a check of the popular democracy. A lot of legal scholars would argue that recall of judges is a bad thing because you want judges to make decisions whether or not they're against the popular will. In tribal systems, it may be a bit different, where you have traditions of consensus and traditions of equality and egalitarianism spread out across all members. So it may well be that recall could function as an effective check on what we might call judicial activism. Because these systems are so new, many times you're applying foreign systems of law and as a judge you might be a member of the tribe, you're trained in a white legal system, but that doesn't necessarily mean you understand what justice means for the people and whether or not it's culturally appropriate. So recall may well be one way that tribal communities can take back control over their legal systems."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "Could either of you talk for a little bit about what you think the training or education should be of tribal judges. It's obvious that every tribal judge is not going to have the opportunity to go to law school for instance."

 

Robert Williams:  "I think that what's most important is that the tribal judge, particularly at the trial level, understand the community he's working with and understand the norms and values. Native Nations Institute talks about this idea of cultural match that if the rules and the principles and the laws that are being applied on the reservation don't match the cultural expectations and what people in that community think is right, they're not going to be obeyed. And so I think there's a really good argument for making sure your trial judges particularly understand the communities. At the appellate level, there you're starting to get into issues of constitutional interpretation, statutory interpretation. Again, it may not necessarily be that an appellate judge has to be a lawyer, but this has to be a person that receives training in many of the excellent programs that are available in national judicial colleges, at law schools, at universities where tribal judges at the appellate as well as the trial level can go and get educated by professors and experts and understand what the really important issues are to perform that function well."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "How does Navajo handle the training of judges and people that work in the court system?"

 

Robert Yazzie:  "Earlier you asked a question about what should...that there is a great need for tribal courts to learn the basics of law, rules of law. But we don't stop there. I think what Rob was telling me, he talked about doing things pursuant to the cultural norms. To me what that means is for a judge who is well-trained, like say this is due process and under the constitution, as long as a person...a person gets due process and if the procedural requirements are met, minimal, that's good enough. But in the Navajo way we don't stop there. We take this concept of due process and take it over to the Navajo context and say, 'How meaningful is this due process when we apply it to this situation. What's the end result in applying this concept to this situation?' And that is what the thinking process goes through and that should be the way that judges are trained, is to have command of the western legal concepts. But if we stop there, then we're in big trouble. If we stop there period, then we're not doing anything to foster the growth of tribal courts."

 

Robert Williams:  "We do a lot of advising of tribes at the Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program and when they ask, 'Well, what can we do to stimulate economic development?' I tell them, 'Invest in your court systems, invest in the rule of law, invest in tribal judges.' What you'll see is, as the Harvard Project on Indian Economic Development showed, there's a direct correlation between tribes that have strong, effective judiciaries and the economic development environment, employment rates, education rates -- direct correlations. Tribes that invest in their court systems, to do the types of things that Justice Yazzie is talking about, are successful tribes."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "How would a Navajo citizen who wants to be a judge for instance get that training today?"

 

Robert Yazzie:  "I think right now we are trying to do as much as we can to provide that opportunity. There are Navajo -- the young people are really looking for legal training, and right now I'm teaching for the Crown Point Institute of Technology, teaching the basics of law and an introduction to law, what that means and then how to think like a lawyer, how to make lawyer noise, how to prepare for bar exam and also at the same time bring in the tradition. You have this rule of law under the American Anglo system and here's the result. Then go across the street and see how the Navajos would approach the same problem. This is the process that or emphasis...this should be the emphasis in learning about law in Indian Country."

 

Robert Williams:  "And the Chief Justice is really focused on why I think being a tribal judge is a much harder job than being a regular judge in the Anglo system, and it may well be the hardest job on the reservation because on the one hand, as he explained, your tribal judge has to know the western legal system. They have to know western requirements of due process. Every criminal case in a tribal court can be reviewed on habeas corpus by a federal district judge, so you have them looking down at you. On the other hand, you also have to know Navajo custom and tradition or O'odham custom and tradition, to make that law relevant to the people whose lives it's affecting and it's constraining. And so where do you -- it's easy, you can go to law school, you can go to a judicial training center to learn about western jurisprudence and civil procedure, but where do you go to learn how to be a Navajo, where do you go to learn how to be Lakota. That's a knowledge that has to come from the heart, has to come from tradition, has to come from a community that really works on keeping that knowledge alive and making it work for them, and I think the most successful tribal court systems you see are the ones that do both those tasks, that can run the court system in an efficient effective way so that people appreciate that it's there, it makes the decisions it needs to make, but it's also making culturally appropriate decisions and decisions that are helping to move the community forward, not backward, not getting it entrenched in politics and internecine fighting that we see too oftentimes. And that's why it's such a hard job."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "Let's take a look at that for a minute. The Navajo court system is well known for its incorporation of Navajo common law in its jurisprudence. How is that common law incorporated at Navajo just so our viewers can understand that alternative system?"

 

Robert Yazzie:  "There's two ways we use the Navajo common law in applying common law to situations. The grassroots people have their own process, the lifeway process, the peacemaking process, and they have their own facilitator who runs the process, and in that process people are able to find the problem at hand and be able to talk things out. Here's a problem and different people can say, 'This is the way I see the problem from my perspective.' And they're able to reach a solution. So in the talking things out is where they begin to talk about values and principles, and those principles and values are the underlying basis for what makes Navajo a common law. More recently there's been a move through our own rule of law to say in every case situation, the Navajo common law shall be the law of preference. So when practitioners come to court and that's what they're told, 'Yes, this may be the Anglo position, but what is the Navajo rule of law as a matter of custom?' So in terms of incorporating there may be an issue, an issue like, for example, a judge may hear a criminal case. There's a recent decision made by the Navajo Nation Supreme Court that dealt with this concept hozho. There was an issue how the police officer handled the defendant. He didn't really...there was a question about his reading of the rights to the defendant wasn't correctly done. So when the Supreme Court looked at those facts and they thought about hozho. color:#222222;background:white">Hozho  means do things cautiously. If you are going to explain, make sure that they understand what the process is about, cautiously and with respect."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "So it's not a minimal just reading of the rights and as quick as you can read them and then throw the handcuffs on the guy and throw him in the car."

 

Robert Yazzie:  "...And to be honest about what you're trying to accomplish with that defendant."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "So the defendant is treated with respect as a human being."

 

Robert Yazzie:  "Exactly."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "you've worked Rob with a wide variety of systems. What are some other examples of positive Native influence on judicial systems, cultural influences, cultural norms that you've experienced that you could share?"

 

Robert Williams:  "Yeah. I teach Indian law and one of the things that we make sure students learn about is the development of what we call tribal common law, the use of tribal customary law, not only by the Navajo but a number of tribes. We're seeing a number of tribal courts recognize the need to incorporate custom and tradition as the common law of the tribe. The Hopi, for example, their Supreme Court recently decided a case on the issue of standing. That's a technical legal term meaning basically who can bring a case, who has a right to sue the government. As we know, in the United States, it's very hard to get standing. Congress can pass a statute and you would like to go to court and sue about it, but it's very difficult, you have to show a real interest. The Hopi considered that issue of standing and who can bring a suit against the Hopi tribal government and they said, 'You know, the western concept is just way too narrow.' We are a people that believe that everyone has a say and that government is accountable. And so you saw the Hopi Supreme Court diverging from western jurisprudence and enacting a broad principle of standing which fits very well. It really is a burgeoning, a growing movement, this use of tribal customary law and it's really improving the administration of justice in Indian Country."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "Robert, what prompted Navajo to completely revise the way they do their court system and incorporate common law? When and how did that come about?"

 

Robert Yazzie:  "Well, we had so many laws that has been imposed on us since the western court systems came in 1892. But in 1950 the Navajo Nation said, 'Enough is enough. We are not...we're no longer going to put emphasis in applying federal law to solve our cases. We are going to do things the Navajo way.' The Navajo leaders back in 1982 said, 'Well, let's look at how business...law...decision-making was done 100 years ago,' and they found out that relations had a big role, that the idea of having relations in the dispute situation meant something, and also given the relations as we're talking about here, talking things out. Without control, without a judge, without lawyers, let the relations feel that they own the problem. Let them come up with solutions. Never mind how long it will take and how many days it will take. So when people are talking things out, they're able to make some connections. You can have a longstanding dispute like land. Land dispute is the hardest thing to solve in the adversarial system, and some of them never get resolved. But lo and behold, when you give the relations the opportunity to tackle that problem, they do go back in time and say, 'This is where the problem lies and then we need to come back to terms with one another, treat each other like relatives, treat each other with respect.' And treating each other with respect, [having] a system that addresses people as humans is very, very, very important, and I think...and I see that as the future of tribal courts. We've gone too far with the western way and I think the adversarial system had its days and it needs to change and I think, I hope in my lifetime that I will be able to see that this lifeway process merge with the western system and the tribal court center and I think that will show the world that Indian people have something, they have something to contribute to make a difference where people are always fighting one another."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "Just as kind of a wrap-up question: we've talked about court systems that function properly, when you live in a nation where the court system is working properly, what are the ramifications for the people of that nation in terms of their attitude towards their own nation and their own potential?"

 

Robert Williams:  "There's a sense of law and order, that you have personal security, you have security in your property, you have security in your investments. Indian people are entrepreneurial, too. I think anybody who spent time in an Indian community knows that Indian people have the ability to go out there and invest and work hard and create a life and create for their families. They want the same thing as everyone else does, so there's those positive benefits. There's a sense in which tribal sovereignty is strengthened, because every Indian tribe that can get its act together in this area and have effective legal systems shows the world, and as Justice Yazzie just said, that Indian people have something to contribute. And I think if tribal governments are really going to take their place in 21st-century American society that we need to really work hard in this area of creating effective tribal justice systems that make people feel not only safe and secure but proud of what it is their tribe is doing."

 

Mark St. Pierre:  "We want to give a heartfelt thank you to Robert Williams and Robert Yazzie for appearing on today's edition of Native Nation Building, a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation Building and the issues discussed here today, please visit the Native Nations Institute website at www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building."

 

Native Nation Building TV: "Building and Sustaining Tribal Enterprises"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Lance Morgan and Kenneth Grant explore corporate governance among Native nations, in particular the added challenge they face in turning a profit as well as governing effectively. It focuses on how tribes establish a regulatory and oversight environment that allows nation-owned enterprises to flourish, particularly the separation of day-to-day business operations from politics.

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Building and Sustaining Tribal Enterprises" (Episode 4). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program.

Mark St. Pierre: "Mark St. Pierre. Hello, friends. I'm your host, Mark St. Pierre and welcome to Native Nation Building. Contemporary Native Nations face many challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies that fit their culture and circumstances, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity in change. Native Nation Building explores these often complex challenges in the ways Native Nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

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[music]

Mark St. Pierre: "Today's show looks at enterprises owned by Native nations, how those enterprises are run, why many such enterprises fail, and what Native nation governments and elected officials can do to help ensure their success. With me today to discuss why some Native nation enterprises succeed and others fail are Lance Morgan and Kenneth Grant. Lance Morgan, a citizen of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, is the Chief Executive Officer of Ho-Chunk, Inc., the Winnebago Tribe's award-winning economic development corporation. Kenneth Grant is a research fellow with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development and a senior policy scholar at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona. I'd like to thank both of you gentlemen for being with us today. Kenny, I'll start with you. Give us a definition of tribal enterprise."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "I think most people think of a tribal enterprise as a company that's owned by the government, and that's not quite correct. It's a company, a business unit, that's owned by every single tribal member by virtue of the fact that they're a citizen of the tribe, and these business units typically have as their objective to earn financial returns and other social objectives that accrue to the entire community, so that all the citizens are owners and share in the benefits. So that's what I think of when we talk about a tribal enterprise."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Lance, you've developed one of the best models for tribal enterprise. What are some of the toughest challenges that tribes have to overcome?"

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "Well, you have to think about it terms of the situation that we have to function in, and we have a political system we didn't design, we have a system that doesn't allow capital to flow to reservations very easily, you have a poor educational system that doesn't necessarily deal with business development, you don't have a history of entrepreneurial and business success. And all of these things combine to create probably the toughest business environment in the United States."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Is one of the problems that you encounter, and this is for either one of you, separating business from tribal politics?"

Kenneth Grant: background:white">"There's a real difficulty in separating the roles. With government-owned or tribally-owned enterprises, people are wearing multiple hats at the same time, and so you're a citizen of the tribe and yet you're also a part owner of the enterprise. A council member has governing responsibilities, is also an owner, is also a citizen. That collapsing of the distance between government and business often creates a lot of role confusion for tribes that is difficult to overcome."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "I once went to a conference and gave a speech there, and before I spoke somebody said, 'There are 30 government entities to help you tribes get into business.' And it occurred to me that they're helping us set up these government-led economic models, kind of the communism or socialism things that we had spent billions of dollars or trillions of dollars probably in 30 years fighting it 'cause it's inherently evil. And that's the system they had in mind for us. And I'm not so sure, I'm not going to make a comment on...at the end of the speech I said, 'I think that...I can't believe Winnebago is Karl Marx's last hope.' But I think that you have to understand the situation we're in. If we need to develop businesses, the government is really the entity with the only access to capital to do that, and so you almost have to get into this, and if you don't then you have this kind of capital-starved entrepreneur sector you've got to hope for the best with. But if you don't have that tradition or those capabilities, the government really is the only answer, so if you're going to set it up, you have to figure out a way to set it up that takes away some of the negatives of having a political entity run the business and I think that's really the challenge. You really...the tribe doesn't have a choice."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "Right, exactly. And a lot of people say, 'Oh, it's separating politics from business and the fact is you can't separate the two. It's a question of how they meet and making that relationship as productive as possible."

Lance Morgan: background:white">"We're owned by government entities, so really politics plays into the decision-making to some extent. It always will. But you still have to figure out a way to balance those issues."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Those of us that have been around for awhile remember a lot of failed EDA [Economic Development Administration] attempts to create tribal enterprises. Is the climate different today than it was in the past?"

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "I think that there's a lot more success out in Indian Country in running tribal enterprises. So you can look from the Citizen Potawatami Nation to Mississippi Choctaw -- who have a plethora of successful tribally-owned enterprises -- to individual instances, whether it's Yukaana Development [Corporation] up in Alaska. You can look across the tribes, north to south, east to west, and there are examples of success, and I think Lance can speak to this better than I can, but they are becoming much more sophisticated in understanding sort of what the dangers are and how to promote business and run these operations."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "You referred to kind of the old grant-based economic development model, and I think that that's still an important part of it, but we need to...we've transitioned I think, or the challenge of transition is away, from the grant as our only development tool. What we did is we ran kicking and screaming from anything to do with the government for the first seven or eight years we were in business. And then it occurred to us when we wanted more capital that, hey, maybe we should go back and dust off the old grant model, and we've been able to raise grant money, but it's a supplement to what we're trying to do and it gives us some of the startup capital we need and we're not dependent upon it. And I think it's still a tool that you need to [use] but -- as you grow in sophistication -- that it really factors into your decision-making, it doesn't drive it."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Kenny, you've worked with a lot of tribes. Why do you think so many enterprises have failed?"

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "I think part of it is there are issues that are particular to each tribe. Let me put it this way. I think the most insidious problem that I've seen -- working with tribes and trying to run tribal enterprises -- is when the tribe and the citizens think it's an operational problem, when really it's an institutional problem. So I'll give you a quick example of working with one tribe where they had a plethora, I mean just a whole bunch of human capital, great natural resources, access to financial capital. These were very, very well-educated people, and yet the tribal enterprises kept falling. If you talk to the tribal citizens they'd say, 'Well, we just haven't been as civil as we used to be, or people aren't following the procedures book -- and there's this big procedures book.' Or the opposition would say, 'If I were in power all of this problem would go away.' In fact, what you saw is that there were really big disputes that had never been resolved because they had no tribal court system and these disputes were creating distrust and they would just bring an operation to a standstill. A council meeting would just come to an end. And so it wasn't really about civility, it was really about the foundation and the institutions. And that's the toughest problem is when you think it's just our accounting isn't in order, when in fact it's really about how the institutions are operating."

Lance Morgan: background:white">"Yeah, I'd like to add to that a little bit. I think that people tend to simplify the problems, and they focus on whatever bad thing happened at that time and they try to allocate blame, and some people try to do that for their own political gain and all these kinds of things, so you have a tough kind of local political environment. But if the people would take the time to say, 'All right, if we're having this problem over and over again, there's probably some reason for it.' And I always recommend, when tribes come to visit us, that they look at their government structure, they look at their corporate structure, and they figure out in advance what their challenges are going to be and try to plan for them in advance. If they do that, then their chances of success in avoiding these kinds of constant cycles of problems are much higher."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "To follow up, Lance, then what are some of the things that Native Nations need to look at to build success?"

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "Ho-Chunk, Inc. is really the second attempt. Winnebago Industries was our first attempt in the 1980s, and that pre-dated me a little bit, but when we got there and we decided that we wanted to set up a new corporation, we sat down and we said, 'What are all the reasons we failed before?' 'Cause we have a long history of failure in some of these businesses, and we listed them out and we tried to design a system that would allow us to actually deal with some of those things right up front, and I think that's probably a pretty important step."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "That statement reminded me of a speech that Chairman [John "Rocky"] Barrett gave at Native Nations Institute maybe four or five years ago now, and he was talking about his economic development plan. He's chair of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and he said, 'My constitution is my economic development plan,' meaning, 'I wanted to get the institutions right, I wanted to sort of be able to lay the foundation. That was my goa. Then let the economic activity flourish.'

Lance Morgan: background:white"> 'It's not even a difficult thing to really figure out how to address [that], because you can almost go to any -- ask a tribal leader and economic development person, 'What are your problems?' And they can list them out in detail, and they're almost the same as everybody. But why not take a little bit extra time and put your institutions in place to deal with some of those problems right up front?"

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "The one place I might have a little disagreement is the problems are often known, but when you're talking about changing systems, that can be a very difficult process, because people have gotten used to the system that they have, they know how it operates, and so trying to transform those institutions can be a real challenge."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "Oh, it's actually...it can actually not just be a challenge, it can be dangerous because I think you can do things -- I've seen some tribes do some things that are actually counterproductive, and they do it in the name of maybe some kind of ode to a traditional practice in the past, but it really doesn't make sense in a modern contex. And I've seen some tribes do some things, set up governmental structures that really sounded good and sounded like a great idea but in practice have been a real impediment towards their growth and development."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "And I think it's interesting that the first part of this conversation has really focused more on foundational issues about institutions -- and we can get into the operational issues of the tribal enterprise -- but clearly you can see where Lance and I are going about getting the environment right in which the enterprise can then begin to perform."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Well, that kind of leads to a logical question, I think, and that is that Lance listed at the beginning some of the obstacles that are very real that every tribe face, especially the larger tribes, larger populations. What are some of the factors that tribes can control?"

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "I sort of come at it from the economics and I look and I say, 'Okay, there's the market out there and there's much that the tribal enterprise can't control. They have to go out and compete against other companies that are providing the same services and then there's policy over here and tribal policy, maybe they've got some say in there but there's not too much control and then there's federal policy.' So I look at it from the economics and say, 'What they really can control is their operations. Are their operations running efficiently, the accounting and the reporting, the board structure?' That's really what they have within their own control."

Lance Morgan: background:white">"I think that's right, but I think what we've done is we've had a tendency to look for some advantage. I always joke that...all of a sudden we're all business experts because of gaming, but I think that it doesn't take a huge sophistication I think to make a lot of money in gaming if you're right next to a big city and you have a monopoly. But what we've had to do is find niches where we have not as huge an advantage as gaming but some advantage over our competition, and there's huge advantages being a tribe. You have your own governmental jurisdiction, you can make your own rules, you can get preferential treatment on some contracts, maybe you can get some start-up capital from various places. So we've tried to focus on areas where if we make a mistake learning, that it's not going to kill us, and that if we get our act together, we should be able to long term have a viable entity because we have some inherent niche or some inherent kind of advantage in that market."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "Mark, I'll just follow up. That's a great point and that's a lesson that's seen over and over and over again, is exploiting these small niches where there's a comparative advantage for the tribe and then growing that. You can see it in Yukaana Development Corporation, which is an environmental remediation group up in Galena, Alaska. Very focused on a few issues, they basically have their teams all over Alaska now. The Cherokee Tribal Sanitation Program run by the Eastern Band [of Cherokee], servicing first their own community, then got so good at it went out and signed contracts with neighboring jurisdictions so that they provide waste facilities, a transfer station for their neighboring communities, and they sort of grow off this seemingly little niche but they learn the game and then grow."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "I don't think it's a coincidence that tribes everywhere are involved in gaming, are involved in gasoline- or tobacco-type issues. Those are kind of the stereotype economic development issues. And what those really are, if you think about them, they're not inherent Indian businesses. What they really are are businesses that you can get into and take advantage of having a jurisdiction or a different tax base or making a decision on gaming, for example, that another place doesn't. And so I think the challenge is -- or I recognize that these are jurisdictional advantages and we're going to develop our businesses. The challenge for us has been, all right, these businesses are controversial, they create clashes with the state, they create competitive threats that people don't like, and our challenge has been to figure out how we take the money we've made and move to the second stage. How do we take that money and get into home manufacturing, get into construction, get into government contracting, those kinds of things, things that take full advantage of being a tribe but aren't nearly as controversial and aren't a stereotyped business. I think then that's been the challenge for us."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "This is for Lance, but Kenny if you want to jump in as well. A lot of folks, tribal people are very concerned about the job issues and the whole issue of jobs versus profits and the social impact of tribal enterprises and I'd like you to talk about that for a minute."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "When we started our company, we created two missions. We have two primary goals, and one is to create economic self-sufficiency and the other one is to create job opportunities. I think that we've had a lot...before we started we had a long history of kind of having businesses there and we kept them open even if they weren't necessarily profitable because of the jobs issue, and I always kind of thought that was kind of a bit of a cop-out for poor management or poor decision-making or poor governmental structure. I think that if you don't have the profits, you're not really going to have the jobs for a long-term, sustainable period of time, and so I think you really need to focus on developing a successful business. If you do that, the jobs will follow. If we would have, for example, made the decision early on to keep a business that was failing open, that capital would have...we would have had to supplement that business over a period of years and it would have prevented us from making other decisions further on that would have been very helpful for us. And so by focusing on the real economic development issues, we now have more jobs than working-age people in our community. So I think if you focus on success everything else will follow."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Kenny, would you like to respond?"

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "I agree. I think in some sense it's a false dichotomy, but I think Lance is absolutely right that you have to...if the goal is sustainable, ongoing economic activity, the tribal enterprise is going to be here for today, tomorrow, five years, then the focus has to be on profit and then the industry that you go into, the service you provide, or the product that you make will then dictate the number of jobs that are allowed, 'cause you can't force 20 jobs into a position where the market really only allows one job, but if you want that job to sustain itself, then it has to be the focus on profits."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "I think the key decision upfront is does your tribe need the jobs? Some tribes necessarily don't. If you do need the jobs, then you have to go into businesses that are labor intensive and then try to be successful there. So the real decision is up front in what type of industries do you want to go after or try to develop."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "I would think, too, that the grant mentality of the two- or three-year jobs based on a grant cycle versus long-term jobs created by real enterprise and real profits are kind of an adjustment that tribal citizens have to make, especially for those tribes that have been invested in that grant economy."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "I would agree. I think a lot of times what you're doing is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Those grants are coming from Washington. So you know the old EDA hotels. It just was the wrong enterprise, and that's not what should have been going, but the money was there, and so there's this sort of predilection to want to go get that money and do that enterprise even though the tribe may not have a regulatory advantage, it may not have a business or a competitive advantage, and they fail and that sort of begins a cycle of..."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "I think if you don't have a clearly defined strategy, that you're likely to make some mistakes on the grant side of things. These grants are written to say do certain things, but we have found that if you come forward with a very well-conceived plan and they have trust that you're going to do it, that the government entities on the grant side are very flexible. If they believe in what you're trying to do, they will modify their system to help you accomplish your goal. So I think the real key is to figure out exactly what you want to do and make sure that that makes sense and get other people to buy into [it]. Then you can spin the system to help you."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "Right. But notice in that case whose leading. Here's the tribe saying this is...or the enterprise saying, 'This is where we want to go. This is our goal and are there grants out there that will fit into this process,' as opposed to, 'the grant is out there so we'll do whatever the grant says we're going to do.'"

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "Yeah, you've got to flip the equation so that you're in the power position."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Lance, kind of on that same plane though, there's one of the fears out there that as tribes thrive rather than survive that the culture is going to be eroded, that as tribes move into a more professional business model that somehow cultures or tribal cultures are going to die."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "Yeah. That's really a major challenge that especially I think young Native American professionals are facing right now. I've always said that culture is really based on a lifestyle based on how you live, and that's based on economics and I think that tribes have a tendency to stereotype themselves based on a positive image that we had of ourselves 100 years ago. But those cultural things, some of those values carry forward, but some of the things that they did were based on a different economic reality, and so I think we need to figure out a way to do Native values like taking care of your family, sharing in your community, but figure out how to be successful in a modern context. I think too often somebody will stand up in a meeting, make a speech about culture and it'll kill a project, and I don't think that that's probably the...and I think then they pat themselves on the back for being pure and then nothing happens and people still aren't able to take care of their families. I also think it's used to make young Native professionals feel bad. You question yourself all the time: Am I doing the right thing? Who am I now? And I think we need to try to embrace success and really figure out what the context of what part of our culture do we want to take forward and reapply it in a modern context. And I think that's the core challenge we're facing."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "This came up once in a classroom with Chief Phillip Martin, Mississippi Choctaw, and I will never say it as eloquently as Chief Martin said, but basically his point was, through our success we actually have citizens returning to the reservation, and so the people are coming back and now they have the language programs and all the sort of benefits that are accruing from being financially successful through their tribal enterprises. So he's sort of saying, 'How's that destroying my culture when I have all my people coming back?'"

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "Our culture 20 years ago was one of poverty and all the 'isms' you could think of, all the negativisms, alcoholism and all these kinds of things, and our culture's changed. When we first started our corporation we had this discussion, 'Do we really want to be like corporate America?' And we didn't want to. Do we really want a change? But what's really happened is, as the economy has flowered, as people's lives have gotten better, cultures take on a renaissance. Things like the alcoholism and the drug abuse and some of the social issues have begun to die down and people are much more focused on getting back in touch with who they are and taking more pride in themselves and I think that's a pretty critical...that's something I guess I didn't think through, but that's something that's definitely happened in the last 10 years in our community."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "I'm going to change direction a little bit here now, and I think we're talking about exciting things. We're talking about thriving. But in order to get that to happen, you need to create some separation between tribal politics or tribal governmental structures and business enterprises. Could you address some ideal ways where that distance can be structured?"

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "I think I will start from the global view. I don't think there's one way. I don't think that there's a silver bullet here. I think it's particular to the situation. I have seen some tribes and some tribal enterprises that basically rely on a strong CEO and a good relationship with the council. I've seen other tribal enterprises such as the Yakama Nation Land Enterprise has a board that is essentially a subcommittee of the tribal council and that works for them. In other instances, there are formal boards of directors essentially that stand between the government and the enterprise, and so they're sort of making sure the enterprise is reporting to the council and they're helping the enterprise set strategy."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "I think the key for us, the real key is -- one of the main keys I think -- is having a political system that is very helpful, it's very stable. We have nine council members and three are elected every year and usually only one or two change over so we never have this huge kind of change in at-the-top strategy level, and the new people that come in, even if they're kind of curious or suspicious about what we're doing, kind of have a time to adjust and they learn, 'Okay, this isn't so bad.' And so that gives us a stable political environment to work in. Within that we have a board of directors -- we have a tribal corporation, we have a board of directors, the council appoints the board, they passed our long-term plan and they approve our annual plan. That's really their only job. They only have three roles. The board has all the other roles and then myself as CEO makes sure the business functions. And so we have clearly defined roles and we stick to them and we occasionally have to pull out the old long-term plan from '94 and dust it off and read it in a council meeting and that's been pretty helpful for us."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "Yeah, getting people to stick to their roles is the challenge, 'cause many times I've seen boards have really just become advisory boards and the CEO is reporting to the council because over time people have moved away from the agreement that they originally set down."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "What we did is -- I mentioned earlier that we had listed all the reasons for our failure and we added an additional part to it. We took an additional step and I think that's been the key. We developed something we now call -- then it was the long-term plan -- but we're a little more sophisticated now, we call it the 'principles governing the interaction between the tribe and the corporation,' and we have this list of rules based on the reasons we failed before. For example, we failed because we had to go to the council for every dollar we got. So we said, 'All right, the tribe is going to give us 20 percent of the casino profits in an account that the board controls so we don't have to go to the council so every investment decision isn't politicized. We failed once before because the tribe would suck out all the money from the corporation just because they had needs to...social needs to spend it on.' But the tribe said, 'All right, for the first five years, you get to keep all of your money, and then now we're giving 10 percent of our profits back gradually up to 20 percent. We have a system in place. We failed because of personnel issues. We created our own personnel system. We failed 'cause of the lack of accounting systems, accounting was in the tribe's. We have our own accounting system. So we figured out up front and established all these rules, and every once in awhile we have to read these things and remind the council of it and everyone gets back onboard and we move forward."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "That leads to another logical question I guess. The Harvard Project and the Native Nations Institute research says that dispute resolution and having a good organ to do that is important."

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "Well, it gets back to the politicization that we were talking about earlier and creating the unstable environment and what the dispute resolution does is it helps hold that in check. People have a place to go to resolve the dispute and if the mechanism is seen as fair, it helps hold the politics of spoils in check. That makes it easier for the tribal enterprise to attract the human capital and the financial capital that it needs to operate successfully."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "We don't have a lot of problems on the dispute-resolution side with our individual businesses. Our primary dispute is balancing the separation with the government and the business and we really, since we're owned by them, we really have to figure out ways to get along with them. And so our disputes are played out kind of through negotiation typically, and I think that if we ever really got into a fight with our owner we would probably lose. They could pass laws, they can make motions, they can change the board, so our challenge is to educate people and to get them onboard with our long-term concepts and make them a believer in what we're trying to do."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "And that's the follow up: How do you do that? How do you educate the tribal citizens who are also the tribal politicians eventually in this process?"

Kenneth Grant: background:white"> "I think it speaks to the issue of transparency, and that doesn't mean that every decision that Lance makes is open for review or put up to a vote by the citizens, but it is keeping people aware of what the mission of the operation is, how it's performing, what its financial returns are, what its goals are, and I do think that the political leadership has a role in helping to educate the tribal citizens and the owners of the enterprise."

Lance Morgan: background:white"> "One of the things we do is we have a mechanized system for putting information out to the people and to the government. We have to provide audited financials every year and an annual report and we even had a PR campaign, kind of a sophisticated thing which really was kind of a failure I think. I think what's really helped us is really going out and directly talking to our membership. One on one we've brought in our employees, we've kind of given them a fact sheet about what we do and given them information, they go home, talk to their families and we deal with kind of the little negative issues that emerge in a small community and I think our sophisticated PR strategy and press releases and all that stuff really didn't work until we started talking to our people."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Sadly, we're running out of time, but I'd like to do one final question for both of you. This is exciting stuff. Where do you see it headed?"

Kenneth Grant: " background:white">I think there's been a tremendous change in the last 20 years, and I think more and more examples of success are breeding more and more success within Indian Country on operating tribal enterprises. I think it's one of the biggest changes we've seen in the last 20 years, and I think the trend is very, very positive."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "Where is Ho-Chunk?"

Lance Morgan: "Our challenge is to continue to transition from these controversial businesses to these businesses that take advantage of being a tribe, and really make a lot of money hopefully and we can take that money and funnel it towards our community in a social kind of side of the equation. I think that what I don't want to get lost in this [is] it's not really, it's never really about the money. We're never going to be Microsoft. We're a company that is focused on making our community better, and I think the more we realize that ourselves, the better off we are. So I think the future for us, drive the business forward, be as great as we can, as competitive as we can, and figure out ways -- challenging and interesting ways -- to spread the wealth in our community so that everybody benefits from it. And I think that in the end is going to be the key to our longevity there, because that's what's going to engender I think good feelings towards the tribe."

Mark St. Pierre: color:#222222;background:white"> "I want to extend a heartfelt thanks to both you guys for traveling here. I'd like to thank Lance Morgan and Kenneth Grant for appearing on today's edition of Native Nation Building, a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation Building and the issues discussed here today, please visit the Native Nations Institute website at www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building."

Native Nation Building TV: "Promoting Tribal Citizen Entrepreneurs"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Joan Timeche and Elsie Meeks examine the pivotal role that citizen entrepreneurs can play in a Native nation's overarching effort to achieve sustainable community and economic development. It looks at the many different ways that Native nation governments actively and passively hinder citizen entrepreneurship, and the innovative approaches some Native nations are taking to cultivate citizen-owned businesses.

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Promoting Tribal Citizen Entrepreneurs" (Episode 5). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program.

Mary Kim Titla: "Welcome to Native Nation Building. I'm your host Mary Kim Titla. Contemporary Native nations face many daunting challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity and change. Native Nation Building explores these complex challenges and the ways Native nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

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[music]

Mary Kim Titla: "Often when the subject of economic development in Native communities comes up, people think first of businesses owned and operated by Native Nations themselves. But there is another important economic force at work on reservations: businesses owned and operated by Native entrepreneurs. Today's program examines the state of citizen entrepreneurship across Indian Country, including some common obstacles standing in the way of small businesses, as well as the importance of creating an environment for success. With me today to discuss small business development in Native communities are Elsie Meeks and Joan Timeche. Elsie Meeks, an enrolled citizen of the Oglala Lakota Tribe is Executive Director of First Nations Oweesta Corporation, a subsidiary of First Nations Development Institute. She also serves as Chair of the Lakota Fund, a small business development loan fund on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Joan Timeche, a citizen of the Hopi Tribe, is Assistant Director of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. She also serves as a board member with the Tohono O'odham Economic Development Authority and the Hopi Tribe's Economic Development Corporation. Welcome and thanks for being with us today. Can you first talk about citizen entrepreneurship and what that really means?"

Elsie Meeks: "Currently, a lot of tribes themselves, the tribal government actually starts a business and runs it whereas in this case individual members of the tribe start their own businesses."

Mary Kim Titla: "And can you give some examples of that?"

Joan Timeche: "They range from very small to very large types of businesses. They are often what we call the underground economy that exists, the tailgaters, the people who sell food. These are people who are selling firewood, making tamales, all the way to the storefronts where you actually have a building, you have...maybe it's a gas station, maybe a video store, which is very common in rural, small communities. To ones -- as we're seeing our tribal economies become a little bit more sophisticated -- we're seeing things like individual owners, individual citizens who are building hotels and the bigger kinds of businesses that you find common...that are common in more of the metro areas."

Mary Kim Titla: "Really, this term 'entrepreneur' is something that we talk about today, but it really existed even before there were reservations. Can you explain that?"

Elsie Meeks: "Yeah, 'entrepreneur' is, for me, a term that means survival, that people figure out ways to survive. And we were always survivors, and we always made use of opportunities that were at hand. And today, that means we start our own businesses to figure out how we become self-sufficient. And so I think that really the concept -- we always were entrepreneurial-spirited. We may not have understood the principles of a formal business, but that's just the next step."

Mary Kim Titla: "So it's part of our traditions. But Joan, you say that, when we were talking earlier, that really this idea isn't common in all tribes."

Joan Timeche: "Yeah, I think the culture pays a lot of attention to whether or not an individual can be successful and whether it's acceptable within communities. There are cultures where it's more common, more acceptable for a community, and an individual maybe can't perhaps rise and although they may be a contributing member to the overall survival of the Nation or of that community, maybe perhaps it's not acceptable for him to go off and become -- in today's modern terms -- to become that business owner and accumulate personal wealth. So I think that plays a big difference. I believe that Elsie and I both come from communities and cultures where individual success is celebrated, we're taught to be self-sustaining members of the community. Across my reservation on Hopi, you'll see a lot of artisans, we have a lot of people who if they don't have a storefront, they have a portion of their living room that's dedicated to selling arts and crafts or whatever it may be that they're making. It varies across, but I know that there are tribes where that's not often the case, where they look to the chief, to the chair, to the government to be able to provide that kind of assistance and the services back out into the community. So I think culture plays a big role in determining whether entrepreneurship might be acceptable within a community."

Elsie Meeks: "But I think also -- culture aside -- I think some tribes have thought that economic development meant that they started their own business, and a lot of them haven't been successful even, and what's happened then is individuals have to find some way to make a living, so of course they start doing things like making and selling arts and crafts or selling goods or providing services. And so there is sometimes a tension between the tribe doing their business and the entrepreneur, and I can think of a lot of examples of where both have been done."

Mary Kim Titla: "What about just how critical these businesses are to helping their own communities thrive economically?"

Joan Timeche: "Well, for one thing, they provide a service or they can provide a product that is in demand at the local level. Another thing that they do -- which I think is very critical along the lines that Elsie was talking about -- is that it's no longer just the tribe that's doing the development. It also involves a greater number of people, because if you live in large communities like from where we both come from on expansive reservations, you know numbers count from one end of the reservation to the other, so it does that -- helps to keep the money on the reservation because as we all know...I think here in Arizona 80 cents of every dollar goes off the reservation. And so it's helping to keep that dollar to stay within the community."

Elsie Meeks: "Well, in particular at Pine Ridge, because we're very remote, and in truth the tribe has not done a good job at managing businesses...Businesses in my experience can't be run from a political viewpoint. They have to be run as a business. And I think we found that out in the Soviet Union. The whole economy failed because of the government being the one that ran the businesses. And so at Pine Ridge, really not one single [tribally owned] business has succeeded except the casino, and so individuals are the ones that are starting this tire repair shop or grocery store. Instead, before we were running a hundred miles to Rapid City and so it was very not efficient, it really got into our pocketbooks having to go outside. And so as you create one business and then another then you're keeping that flow of dollars in the community."

Joan Timeche: "And I think one other thing that we should probably add is that when tribes get into economic development, they're looking at job creation, jobs and dollars staying within the community, and this is what small businesses are good at, even if it's just a mom-and-pop store that's employing the husband and the wife -- that's two more jobs that have been created outside of federal dollars coming into the tribal government, transfer dollars. So I think that's the biggest asset to having a private sector within a reservation is the jobs that it can create over the long term."

Elsie Meeks: "Yeah, but I think there's also one other issue there that when the tribe creates a business and their main objective is to provide employment, we always hear our tribe at least saying, 'We have to do something to get jobs going.' You can provide a low-income job to an individual, but what does that really teach them? It may teach them how to work or whatever, but when you allow someone to get into business and manage their own business and reap the consequences for good decisions and for bad decisions, it teaches something about management and leadership and decision-making that just providing a low income job, which is what most of these businesses the tribes start do, that it really allows...I've seen people change completely at Pine Ridge when they had this ability to manage their own business, and that to me is the real key and the real reason why I believe that individual entrepreneurship, citizen entrepreneurship is the most important development tool we have at Pine Ridge."

Mary Kim Titla: "It's part of the American dream, right? Be your own boss, work for yourself and work hard at it. And of course, there's this whole learning process involved, and what we're talking about what's going on at Pine Ridge, this whole, in recent years anyway, this hotbed of small businesses and the development of that. Can you talk about what's been happening there and what do you think the key to success there has been?"

Elsie Meeks: "Well, in the first place it isn't so recent. We've been at this for 20 years at the Lakota Fund, and we really started with micro loans that allowed people to expand their businesses a little, buy more material for arts and crafts or buy a chain saw so they can cut firewood and sell to the Energy Assistance Program. So things like that is where it started, but as time has gone on and people have become more sophisticated about businesses and have sometimes failed, had to pay back loans when their business didn't work so well, but now they're at this point where they really are understanding. There's a group of people, enough, getting to be enough mass of people that understand that the only way they're going to make a living at Pine Ridge is to start their own business and for it to be successful, and that it's okay. I think that's a key thing, too, is that because there hadn't been a lot of businesses owned by tribal members, people really didn't know whether this was culturally appropriate or not, and I think people see now that we're all entrepreneurs and that if we can be successful, our families are going to be supported, too. So as a result of these 20 years, I don't think that there is, on Pine Ridge, I don't believe that there's not one non-Indian contractor for example on Pine Ridge, because they [the Oglala people] have understood that they can do this themselves."

Mary Kim Titla: "And Joan, you've worked with a lot of small businesses. Can you tell me about some of your experiences and what the trends have been lately?"

Joan Timeche: "It really builds self-esteem and self-confidence. I think that's one of the best outcomes out of individuals owning and operating their own business. Not only do they gain the management skills, but I've just seen, worked with individuals...I happened to be visiting the Warm Springs Reservation recently and we were looking at their small business development program and visited with a couple of entrepreneurs who had started their business underneath the program, and this young lady was a single mother and she had entered in the program and she was running a thrift shop and the pride that this woman had. Her business wasn't making millions and not even hundreds of dollars, but that pride that she had, that here she is an individual mother who can then contribute to her own family situation, to the children, and was providing a service within her community. It was just tremendous, and that's I think one other thing that I've been able to see out there. But some of the trends that we've been seeing as we've talked about is -- and Elsie eluded to them already -- you've gone from those who are doing it on a part-time basis who then decide that, 'I can do this, I can really do this, and maybe I need to expand beyond my living room, beyond my garage. Maybe I can start moving out.' But there are risks that are taken in here and some people get burned and they pull back a little bit and then they try again."

Elsie Meeks: "But that's part of life."

Joan Timeche: "Yeah, it is all part of life. But they're moving forward. So we're seeing greater services, but there's still a lot of work to be done out there."

Mary Kim Titla: "So you learn from your mistakes."

Joan Timeche: "Yes."

Mary Kim Titla: "A lot of people who are entrepreneurs and are successful now had very humble beginnings at some point, right?"

Elsie Meeks: "The one thing that I think people...because I was with the Lakota Fund for so many years and they say, 'Well, how many people failed?' And to me, that was not really the cas. That no one failed. They talk about successful people across the nation. How many times were they in a failed business? I think it was something like three-and-a-half times or something on average, and so you learn from your mistakes and you keep moving. I can think of one man at Pine Ridge who -- his first loan with the Lakota Fund was to buy a belly dump gravel truck and he had the money somehow, he had already bought the semi tractor. And so he just started out hauling gravel for the housing authority or whoever and now, I think the last I heard he was...his gross revenue was like over $2 million, he'd become AA certified. So it's just a matter of process and a matter of learning and pursuing this."

Mary Kim Titla: "There are going to be people out there listening to this and watching this wondering, 'Okay, I want to become an entrepreneur.' What are some obstacles they're going to face? I know that the business plan is a very important part of that process and a lot of people maybe don't always think that through, but in your experiences what have you seen?"

Elsie Meeks: "Well, because I was a lender at the Lakota Fund and I think I learned a lot about what really does create a failure and that is, it's management. And so the better you can be prepared to be committed to that business and learn from your mistakes. The business plan is important, but I myself started a business and I can tell you that the business plan is just a guess and it's once you get in business, businesses are about a thousand details and every detail you don't attend to costs you money. And so you have to be prepared to make as small a mistake as possible and dig deep every time. It just requires so much commitment. We've learned at the Lakota Fund that we actually have to know how committed that person is before we'll even give them a loan. The business plan -- almost any business there will work because there aren't many businesses. It's really in whether someone manages it well enough to make it work."

Mary Kim Titla: "And if they have a passion for it. They have to believe in what they're doing. Otherwise how are you going to convince potential clients, right?"

Elsie Meeks: "Right. And I don't want to hog the conversation, but I know when we first started the Lakota Fund, because people hadn't even had a chance to work in a business let alone run one, is people's concept of business was really, 'Oh, I can work for myself so I can work whatever hours I want, yeah, I'll have cash in my pocket.'"

Mary Kim Titla: "Flexibility, yeah."

Elsie Meeks: "That's right, and there isn't any flexibility and there isn't a lot of money. In fact some people would get out of business saying, 'I have more free time at a job than I do at a business and I make more money,' and that's especially true in the first three to five years. So it's helping to teach people those concepts and those principles that business isn't easy, it's just something that, it can get you, it can help you be self-sufficient and some people really do like working for themselves."

Joan Timeche: "I worked for eight years or actually ten years at Northern Arizona University, and I ran the Center for American Indian Economic Development there and one of my jobs was to help tribal citizens who were thinking about starting a business go through that whole process of -- basically I was a technical assistance provider, helping them -- matching them up with potential loans or banks who might be able to lend to them. Well, what I found was that people, one, didn't fully understand what it was that they were getting into, so you have to do this education process about, 'Are you really, do you really understand what starting a business means?' But the other was understanding the tribal political environment and the tribal processes. Where do you go to start? And if you live in communities where it's decentralized and the power's at the local level -- like on Hopi, on Navajo, on Tohono O'odham, and I would imagine on Oglala Reservation as well -- you have local controls and approvals that you have to go through. If you have clan systems like in my community, we have clan holdings so now we have to get approval from our clan matriarchs and patriarchs, we've got to go to our village, before the tribal government even comes into play. So processes is one, understanding that and if you have...I know of one tribe in Arizona that has more than 100 steps to even start a business and it takes, it was taking my clients an average of two years. You could get through in one year but an average was about two years to even start a business and that just is outrageous. Then the other thing, the obstacle that they had to overcome was securing a land base, particularly if they were going to start a storefront [business]. And this is why people opt to go to doing the vending type of businesses where it's mobile and you don't have to worry about land base. Well, again, if you come from traditional families like I do, we have clans to go through first again. Navajo, it's chapters, on Tohono O'odham, it's district approvals and all of the land is tied up and very few communities have land-use plans in existence. They practiced it traditionally, but they don't have it on paper, which is now required for all of the right-of-ways that you have to get for electrical, infrastructure and all that. Then the next problem they had was, well, we're on raw land in many cases, so then you have the infrastructure issues to have to deal with, which can double the cost of starting a business. Those are just some of the basic obstacles that I think entrepreneurs have to face on the reservations. Then when they get to the loans, then they're on federal trust land and you can't encumber the loan, your area, you can't leverage it."

Elsie Meeks: "Which is, I think, almost on any reservation, land will be probably the number-one obstacle, but the next I think is financing because a lot of the people that we work with at Pine Ridge -- and First Nations Oweesta Corporation is now helping 70-plus tribes start organizations like the Lakota Fund to allow entrepreneurs to get financing. You can't finance someone if they don't have the experience in a business, and so that's where community development financial institutions like the Lakota Fund had come about, is that they're willing to take that risk. But financing is the second key issue for an entrepreneur and then these policy issues around land. So at Pine Ridge we actually, we've had 20 years at this now to kind of solve some problems or at least understand the process for solving them, is how do you build that capacity with the entrepreneur? And we started Wawokiye Business Institute, which is really client-centered. It just focuses completely on the entrepreneur and Oglala Lakota College has been a partner in that. And then they started the Pine Ridge Area Chamber of Commerce, which try to work with the tribe in dealing with some of these land issues and some other tribal policies and then the Lakota Fund for the financing. So it's, I think, looking at it in a sort of systematic way and that's what we've begun to do at Pine Ridge. After 20 years, I think we've finally figured this out a little bit. But the obstacles are hard to get through and it takes a lot of effort from a lot of people and I think entrepreneurship really is in the beginning stages."

Mary Kim Titla: "You really have to persevere. I guess you could look at it as an outsider. It's very unique in that there are a lot of similar situations to a non-Native trying to start a business, but you have also unique circumstances that you have to deal with. So I appreciate you sharing all of that. You talked about as long as a year to two years starting a business on a reservation. But really tribal governments want to see you succeed, right? So why don't we talk about that a little bit, what some tribal governments are doing to try to help private citizens become successful."

Joan Timeche: "What we're beginning to see and hear a lot more about are tribes who've taken this two-pronged approach to development. One, where it's not just a -- Elsie talked about this earlier -- where it's tribal enterprises that are owned and operated by the nation itself and then there's private sector development, citizen entrepreneurship. But it requires some things, things like making sure you have sensible regulation, even having a standard process, a basic process of, if you want to start a business on our reservation, here are the steps, here's where you start at, here are some forms you need to know about, here are the rules within which you have to learn. We have a code that addresses maybe signage. We have a code that addresses land use and the process and so on, codes there and making sure that they have a uniform commercial code in existence. There are very few nations across the country that have that, because then it levels that playing ground for outside investors to be able to come in to help finance. If you don't have your own local CDFI [community development financial institution], then you're going to look to outside investors. Things like making sure infrastructure is addressed as well. And again because that's an insurmountable cost that has to be borne by an individual, sometimes it's a whole lot easier if the nation itself can -- in its land use plan -- set aside pieces of property that can be designated for commercial development, and then it's easy for the government to go after those grants to then build the water, the wastewater, the electrical, all of those things, even to do the paving of it and so on, and so all they're doing is then leasing out space to individual entrepreneurs."

Elsie Meeks: "When the Lakota Fund was started, we weren't started by the tribe. We were started by a group of tribal members, tribal citizens. But now there are a number of tribes that have actually helped to form these community development financial institutions like Cheyenne River in South Dakota, Gila River is working on this in Arizona. At Cheyenne River, they funded that to get that started, they provided the funding, but then they spun it off as an independent entity, because financing entities really need to be independent from the tribal government so they can be free to make good loan decisions and all of that and bring in outside money. So there's a number of tribes that are now seeing entrepreneurship as an important tool in economic development, that they don't have to do it all, that individuals can play a role."

Joan Timeche: "There's one other thing, too, that I think is real critical as your tribes begin to get into development at the private sector and it's making sure that you have this efficient and effective dispute resolution mechanism in place, whether it's through traditional courts or through a formal court or whatever, because there are surely going to be more business types of court decisions that have to be made or disputes that have to be addressed and you don't want to always be in court all of the time. So there has to be a mechanism in place and that's something that the government can help set up and create, to create this conducive environment."

Elsie Meeks: "And many of the tribes' court systems really are not efficient and they're not separated from the executive board or whatever. And at Pine Ridge that's true. There are plenty of obstacles at Pine Ridge. Entrepreneurs find a way to deal with that usually but I do think -- through all the businesses that are getting started -- they see now that the tribal court system isn't adequate and so now they're really at this point where they're starting to address that and talk to the judicial committee about that. And it hasn't changed yet, but I absolutely think it will over time and it's because of these businesses and the effect that the current system has on their businesses. So I think it's had a real good practical outcome."

Mary Kim Titla: "And creating a business environment is really crucial I think to the success of entrepreneurship on Indian reservations. I know that at least on the San Carlos [Apache] Reservation, the tribe built a strip mall with the idea of private individuals coming in to lease these spaces, office spaces or retail spaces, which I thought was very smart because a lot of people...just starting up a business is hard enough and then to have to create and build your own building makes it, I think, even more challenging. So I think that with tribes trying to do that more helps that whole positive environment. Are you seeing that more?"

Elsie Meeks: "Yes, absolutely. And the businesses at Pine Ridge helped to start the Pine Ridge Area Chamber of Commerce as I said. To date when we start a business, we lease a piece of ground, we put the water and sewer on it and build the building, even though the tribe may own the piece of ground. So over the last few years, there's been a lot of businesses start on tribal ground and the tribe decided it was time to look at what their commercial rates were, which was fine except that they based it on something that was totally on a per-square[-foot] lease rate in Rapid City and it was totally...it would raise people's rates 1,500 percent or something, and because these businesses, through the Chamber of Commerce then went to work and lobbied their council members, when it came to the council floor, the council members got up and said, 'This is really anti-business.' And so that was just a wonderful outcome of the businesses themselves making, addressing some of those barriers."

Mary Kim Titla: "We really appreciate you joining us today. We've gone through some I think wonderful examples of what's out there and given a little bit of advice and some tips to people who might be wanting to start their own businesses. Thank you so much for being with us today, appreciate again your being here and your thoughts. I'm sure that it was helpful to a lot of people who are listening. Elsie Meeks and Joan Timeche, I'd like to thank you once again for appearing on today's edition of Native Nation Building. Native Nation Building is a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation Building and the issues discussed on today's program, please visit the Native Nation's Institute's website at www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building." 

Native Nation Building TV: "A Capable Bureaucracy: The Key to Good Government"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Urban Giff and Joan Timeche explain that good governance requires effective, transparent and accountable bureaucracies. The segment demonstrates how clearly defined organizational structures and roles and responsibilities help make things work and get things done, and how their absence actively hinders Native nation governance and development efforts.

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "A Capable Bureaucracy: The Key to Good Government" (Episode 6). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program. 

Mark St. Pierre: "Hello, friends. I'm your host, Mark St. Pierre and welcome to Native Nation Building. Contemporary Native Nations face many challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies that fit their culture and circumstances, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity in change. Native Nation Building explores these often complex challenges in the ways Native Nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

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[music]

Mark St. Pierre: "On today's program we examine a critical aspect of Native Nation governance -- bureaucracies. We'll look at how clear bureaucratic organization roles and responsibilities contribute to effective governance and how ineffective bureaucracies can stop Native Nations dead in their tracks. Here today to explore the importance of bureaucracies are Urban Giff and Joan Timeche. Urban Giff, a citizen of the Gila River Indian Community has served as Community Manager at Gila River since 1986. As one of his Nation's chief administrators, he's been directly involved with managing incredible growth his community has experienced over the past decade. Joan Timeche, a citizen of the Hopi tribe is Assistant Director of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. She also spent eight years serving as Director of the Hopi Tribe's Education Department. Joan, Urban, thank you for being with us today. Let's jump right in. What is bureaucracy's fundamental task, Urban?"

Urban Giff: "Well, I once equated that to and compared it to the older customs of tribes, my tribe included as well as other tribes, in which the villages of the tribe were safeguarded by sentries and warriors that were away from the villages and they sounded the alarm in case there was danger and they were effective in safeguarding the tribe, the people, their assets. I equated that and compared it to the modern-day tribes. We still need warriors and sentries, but in the field of accounting, in the field of law, in the field of human resources administration, in the field of management, all the functions that a government has to operate under, and that we need qualified warriors in those areas and that's what will benefit the tribes. As the ancient warriors did and benefited their tribes, we still need warriors today."

Joan Timeche: "And I think the only thing that I would add to that is it's basically just trying to get the job done, whatever the council, the government, the people decide or their long-term vision, it's the everyday task of just accomplishing that."

Mark St. Pierre: "This is for either one of you. Why is an effective, efficient bureaucracy so critical to Native Nation building?"

Joan Timeche: "In the early 1930s or so, many of us were forced to adopt modern forms of government. We traditionally had very effective forms of governments and bureaucracies in place prior to Europeans, but because if we were to receive and be recognized by the federal government we had to have a new modern form of government in place. And during those times, the federal government made a lot of decisions for us, the Bureau of Indian Affairs made those decisions for us. They basically set these councils in place and they, in many cases, often served as rubber stamps and the government made all the major decisions. But as time has evolved and over the years and particularly since the '70s and '80s, tribes have begun to take a major role in determining where it is that they want their societies to be moving towards and they've become the key decision-makers. And because they're the decision-makers, it's important for them to be the one to set that strategic, long-term vision of where it is that they want the tribe to be moving towards, and having in place this effective bureaucracy that gets the job done and helps them move towards accomplishing their goals." 

Mark St. Pierre: "Urban, would you want to comment on that?"

Urban Giff: "Just to the effect of that enables the tribe to really better understand its opportunities that [are] available and can be made available to the tribe -- not just the entire tribe as a whole, but to individuals of the tribe, the families of the tribe. That's the essence of the value of having bureaucracy in place that have the knowledge to bring these opportunities and not necessarily to do it for them, but to provide the opportunity that will enable the tribal members to move on."

Mark St. Pierre: "Well, we all know that some Native Nations, some First Nations, have ineffective, inefficient bureaucracies and that those tribes find it difficult to move forward. What are some of the key ways to set up an effective, efficient bureaucracy?"

Urban Giff: "I would say that probably the important thing that comes to mind right off is to have a better understanding among all the players, all the decision-makers as to who has the resources to do what, and that's where the bureaucracy comes in. The bureaucracy are there, the bureaucrats are there because they have qualifications in their respective areas. The politicians are there because they have rapport with the voters and they have the vision for the tribe. And if you put those two together, the politicians with their vision of what is to be done, what they're striving to get done, and the bureaucracy and the bureaucrats of how it's to be done, that can't help but win for the tribe. So no one segment can do it alone. They have to work together as best as they can."

Joan Timeche: "Well, I think one thing that I would add to that, it has to do with clear a clear separation of roles and responsibilities. I was very young when I started to work for my own tribe, and to have that role delineated of what the legislature is responsible for, to what program administration is responsible for -- 'cause we're the ones that get the job done -- was very important for me because I needed to know to what extent powers, what powers I had and what I didn't have. And of course it was a very political environment, so you had to get accustomed to understanding what the rules were internally, and I think that those are two key important points, having stable rules, consistent rules so that irregardless of who the administration is at that time, the elected leadership, that there's going to be some -- when turnover occurs -- there's going to still be the same rules in place that we might be able to understand how to still accomplish our jobs."

Mark St. Pierre: "In helping your...in looking at young people as they come up through the bureaucracy, are there things that you've done at your tribe or at Hopi to help these young administrators, these young bureaucrats achieve the skills that they need?"

Urban Giff: "What I would refer to is in the job descriptions, the written job description that delineate what that position calls for in terms of responsibilities and authorities that may be assumed by the person that's hired to handle that position, but it also identifies the qualification requirements for that position and it's really gauged against that person's educational level, experience level and what not, and the selection process would then pick the best-qualified candidate who has applied. And so it's not based on who they are related to, but really on their qualifications and what not. And it really does a lot to the ego and to the wellbeing of the individual to realize that they were chosen because of their qualifications and requirements and that they were expected and required to carry out those duties and responsibilities, however difficult they may appear. But that's where...I think it's a key thing to help the young people realize the opportunity that they could have."

Mark St. Pierre: "There's always the chance that a tribal employee, a program director for instance, might do something that would get them in trouble politically. How do you create a buffer between the bureaucracy, the people that actually run the tribal programs and the elected officials?"

Joan Timeche: "Well, I think that comes in the form of good rules and this clear delineation. I can give you one example from when I worked with my own tribe and it has to do with our scholarship program. Our education department was a K [kindergarten] through post-secondary ed programs and we...coming in as a young program administrator who'd recently completed my degree, I knew the weaknesses of our grants and scholarship program and how little they were able to support a person such as myself get their education. So because I had young staff, we decided that we would revamp the scholarship program but we had a process within which to do it. We had to go to our 12 communities within the...on the Hopi Reservation. We got their input, we prepared the rules which would govern the program, making different types of options available, setting out the rules, but we had to go back to them and get approval. And then our tribe has a standing committee, an oversight committee that then has to review and approve of it before it goes on to the council for adoption. Well, one time what happened to me and in regards to that was I got a call from the tribal chair and he asked me to report to his office. And when you get those calls, you're there pronto. They don't tell you why you're there, they just say please come to the chairman's office immediately. So you go scurrying. I went scurrying across to the other building and went in and found out that he had been approached by a family -- I'm sorry, a community member who had a son that was going to college and apparently the son had received the notice from our office that he was not going to get funded for his grant, he was not going to get a grant to go to school and she was really irate and she demanded that -- she had been a long time supporter of him, reminded him that she had a large family within the community, a large constituency which could impact his future as a politician and said, 'My son deserves this grant and I want you to get it.' And he basically told me to reinstate it, receive the grant right then. And I told him, I said, 'I can't do that. I have these rules that were recently adopted, we set them out. Let me go back and find out what the situation is about the student.' Well, I went back, came back later on that day and found out that within the rules, we have some basic criteria. You have to have a C average, you have to complete the required number of credit hours. He was a full-time student, so it was 12 credit hours per semester. He'd received funding from us before, but he didn't fulfill those criteria so we put him on probation, allowing him to receive another semester of funding to be able to meet it at the end of the two semesters. It still didn't work, so we told him, 'Go back to summer school, bring your grades up, meet our criteria again and we'll re-fund you.' But he did not comply with our rules so we had to say, 'Sorry, you're not eligible until you bring up your grade point average and complete your credit hours.' And I tried to explain this to the chairman and he said, 'Go out and do it or I'll fire you.' And I says, 'I'm sorry, I can't fund this student.' I says, 'I have too many students out there who are probably in the same boat and if I fund this student, it's just going to open the flood gate for everyone else and our rules will have no meaning at all to that. All they have to do is go to the tribal chair, complain a little bit, cry a little bit and get their funding reinstated and then out the door goes our rules.' Why have rules if you're not going to follow them?"

Mark St. Pierre: "So did you get fired?"

Joan Timeche: "No. Luckily I didn't, but I was forever on his black list for his term and he actually ended up getting re-elected for a second term, so it was very difficult years for me."

Mark St. Pierre: "Urban, at Gila River how do you create that, in a sense, protection for your bureaucrats that are doing their job?"

Urban Giff: "Well, one example comes to mind. This happened years ago, and we had a project that an old building had to be demolished and so we looked for somebody to do it and we had two community members that were interested and were willing and were able to do it and one of them was selected and the other one was not. The other one who was not went to our tribal lieutenant governor -- or vice chairman as other tribes call it -- and expressed concern about it as why that other person was selected. The other person, we happened to have gone to high school together, and I was the one that had to do that so I got called into the lieutenant governor's office with that complaint and I said, 'Well, yeah, I can understand that, but his quoted price was higher than the other one.' He said, 'Are you sure?' I said, 'Yes. I had them submit written quotes on what they were going to charge.' And he said, 'Do you have them?' I said, 'Yes, I do.' I went back to my office and brought it back. I think that was a big relief to the lieutenant governor because it was based on comparative prices on it and there was a considerable difference in the cost. And so he had the ability to be able to go back to him and tell him why, and the individual that went to the lieutenant governor knew that he had submitted a written price and he should have known that it probably was the outcome, but he complained and I think that reassured the lieutenant governor that these bureaucrats probably are worthwhile."

Mark St. Pierre: "You've been in the same position with your tribe since 1986 and we know that tribal governments turn over, that the politicians and the elected officials turn over sometimes in some tribes once a year and other tribes every two years and other tribes four years. Is there a role in administration providing continuity for tribes?"

Urban Giff: "At Gila River, what we have is we have staggered terms for the council. So of the 17 members, we have one-third up for re-election or their terms end every year, so at no time is the total tribal council going to change over. But that's kind of a little bit different situation with the other, the governor of the tribe and lieutenant governor because they're elected every three years. What that does though is that provides the opportunity for the staff, the bureaucrats to provide that continuity because all the staff are hired employees of the tribe and aren't subject to political appointments and they're hired and as long as they do their job and don't get fired because of cause -- that's the only way they can be fired. They can't be fired for personality difficulties or whatever else, so that's what provides us, our tribe, the stability that's there and I think that has worked for us. And also I think, well, Pimas just generally get along okay."

Mark St. Pierre: "Native Nation bureaucracies have grown in both scope and function over the past three decades as their Nations have moved to expand their development objectives. What are the implications of this fairly rapid growth?"

Urban Giff: "I think one of the things that comes to mind when you talk about rapid growth and development of the tribe is that it really has to be determined ahead of time before you start on that process of development as to how far the development is going to take. If it is not done, any new program or department that's established is going to identify other needs that before were not possible or were not visible because there was nobody there doing that work, and it's going to create and it's going to cause other things to grow. So there really needs to be a time where the decision-makers -- and I call the politicians the decision-makers -- that have the vision as to where they want the tribe to go, how far they want the tribe to go as far as the tribal government. But also as a part of that, there needs to be a place and a way in which the abilities [of] individual members and families need to be acknowledged and encouraged and fostered so that the individual members can start doing some of the things that is not being done because they didn't have the opportunity or whatever the case might be, or maybe they didn't have the knowledge of how to do it -- that is provided to them. So give them a hand up not a hand out. So that's something that I think the politicians really could be beneficial to their tribes by so doing and identifying the vision."

Joan Timeche: "I'd just like to add to that, too, because we work with a number of tribes across the nation and what we often see is as a result of this quick growth you see organizational charts that are flat, all of the departments end up reporting to one entity and it's usually, if they don't have a chief administrative officer like they do in Gila River's case, it ends up being the chief executive officer of the tribe and the growth is haphazard, everyone ends up having their own turf, they don't share, there's often a lack of communication, they don't connect. They may be serving the same client populations, the targets. Their services may be the same and oftentimes they don't communicate with each other. We were working recently with a tribe here in the southwest on strategic planning and we called like service programs to come together -- in this particular case it was their tribal enterprises -- to talk about what they would like to see happen within the nation. And as we were going through the meeting, there was an observation by one of the program directors there of the enterprise that that was the first time that they had met, ever assembled together all their ten tribal enterprises in one meeting place, and they were learning that they had common goals and they had common marketing strategies and yet had never talked to each other before. And that's one of the results of the fast growth, and if you don't plan it effectively and set up these clear roles, that's one of the things that can happen.

Mark St. Pierre: "In looking at bureaucracies, the type of bureaucracies that a tribe has -- whether it's effective or ineffective -- sends messages to the tribal members. Can you comment on that for a minute about how tribal people see their government in relationship to the bureaucracy?"

Urban Giff: "The tendency -- and I guess maybe it's human nature -- that occurs, the bureaucracy will start to looking at the procedures and the process and lose sight of the people that it's intended to serve, and you find that happen very quickly that if they're concerned about crossing this 'T' or filling in this block and what not, and it really just puts the community member to feel second place to that form or to that process or to that step-by step-procedure, and that's where the bureaucracies kind of hurt themselves by not relating to the people. And yet the people are the primary purpose of why bureaucracies exist. And so without constantly being reminded about that and being alert to those things, that can cause difficulties, and the community members can take it so much and then they start complaining and start...and cause a bigger problem. So that's part of what I would suggest that really needs to be considered."

Joan Timeche: "And that perception isn't just internal. It can go to the external markets and the people that you deal with as well. Let me just relate to you one story that I experienced. In our Head Start program, we ran five Head Start centers across our reservation and our reservation is very expansive. One time I had my program director for Head Start come to me and tell me, 'Joan, Joan, you've got to help me.' She said, 'Shamrock just called' -- and Shamrock delivers all of our milk and dairy products -- 'and they called me and they said they are not going to deliver any of the milk and we're down to our stock in all of our Head Start centers here. They're not going to deliver. I have to have a check in hand to be able to pay them. Otherwise they're not even going to send the truck out at all. I have to guarantee that they will get it.' And she said, 'I've been calling our finance office, I've called treasurer's office trying to find out where the check is, and it's buried in some stack of papers somewhere, and I can't get the check.' Well, what ended up happening is Shamrock wasn't going to come because they weren't going to get paid. I couldn't guarantee that they would get a check in hand at the time that they delivered, and we tried to call our local stores. We had two little markets on the reservation and in a very remote area, that's not a lot of milk when you're trying to serve hundreds of children. So what ended up happening is after that we had to go internally within the administrative departments and find out what the reason was, and Shamrock was going to go and tell everybody within the Flagstaff community, the Northern Arizona community, 'Do not do business with the Hopi tribe because you will not get paid for 60, 90, 120 days.' And we couldn't afford to have our vendors talking that way about us 'cause we were such a remote community. We had a reliance on those external vendors. So it's that perception of ineffective bureaucracies that also gets sent out there as well."

Mark St. Pierre: "Urban, would you want to comment on that?"

Urban Giff: "I guess just part of it -- we've had the same experience at Gila River from time to time, and a part of that I think is it's the bureaucracies sometimes get bogged down in procedures and processes and not the end result. The end result is the primary thing that should be the focus of everything and how you get to that end result of pay your bills on time and what not. So sometimes that creates problems on it I think."

Mark St. Pierre: "How in your experience does the culture of the people themselves reflect how a bureaucracy should operate?"

Joan Timeche: "In many communities, if the people don't believe in the system, whether it's the government or the rules set in place and how decisions are made, they're not going to have any respect for it at all and that's what it boils down to. They'll just totally disregard it. In many of the communities that I'm familiar with, particularly here within Arizona, a lot of the decisions are made at the local levels and if your bureaucracy, your tribal bureaucracy, doesn't account for decision-making at the local level that then transforms into what happens at the central government level, you're in a real bad situation if it doesn't account for that. My community is like that. Decisions are made at the village level and there are several large communities within Arizona -- Navajo is the same way with all of their chapter administration. So people have to believe in the system for it to be effective and for it to work."

Mark St. Pierre: "Well, that kind of leads to another question. What happens to tribal bureaucracies when you have outsiders dictating aspects of tribal administration and measuring outcomes, for instance a lot of grant programs that are designed in Washington by people who've never been to Gila River or have never been to Hopi?"

Joan Timeche: "Well, what happens there then, again, is the decisions are made external to the tribe and the end-recipient of the services doesn't get what they need or maybe they might get it, but maybe it'll be in a very different form than they had thought that it was going to be in or at a much later date and time. So I think it's very important that the tribe assume responsibilities. And a lot of times we, because there are federal strings that are attached to these federal dollars, we often don't think that we can change the regulations which we have to operate within, but that's an opportunity for a tribal government  there to exercise its sovereignty. It can set its own rules, it can create its own ordinances to be able to administer, and then it can then tell that funding source that, 'Here's our code, here's the way we believe it to be done, and we want you to take a look at it.' And you'll see that in many cases it often meets or exceeds what the federal government is doing. You see that a lot with environmental protection codes that tribes adopt. Many times they're much more stringent than what the federal government might have imposed upon the tribe."

Mark St. Pierre: "Urban, would you want to..."

Urban Giff: "Yes, I'd like to add and that is that like from the federal level, Congress passes a law, a bill, and it has certain statements in there and the intent of that law is very crucial. Then the appropriate agency then develops regulations on it and then that's applied to the Indian tribe. The tribes have become accustomed to going by, 'That's what they said, they want it done...' but yet have found that it not always meets the needs of that tribe, and now it's realized that if it's stated one way in the regulation, that can be changed and you don't have to go all the way to Congress to change it, because that can be changed at the department level and it's maybe just a matter of...and it doesn't change the intent of the original legislation. And so that's the area that really is important and the more recent trend is before the regulations are completed, there should be some consultation with the tribes to make sure that it captures what the tribes are in need of and how they can best fulfill the need. The difficult thing, of course, is that there are so many tribes and each one may have different approaches to the same regulations under the same statute. But that's a challenge that's worth pursuing, because otherwise it becomes a disservice to the tribe that may not have their needs met because the regulations have a certain process or certain statement of how it's to be done."

Mark St. Pierre: "When tribal bureaucracies grow and they reflect federal programs, grant programs, needs that are perceived and then one need begins to identify another, how does the tribal bureaucracy prevent becoming a dependency agency for tribal members? In other words, how do we know when a bureaucracy has assumed some of the responsibilities of an individual family or an individual tribal member and in fact increased dependency?"

Urban Giff: "That's part of the elected, the politicians, the politicians and their vision of how they want their tribe to prosper and whatnot. And what I... personally I'll use that term to describe, there's a lot of rhetoric and a lot of discussion by all of us about tribes, especially politicians, about self-sufficiency and about self-determination and that type, but yet there's very little actual applying that at the local level to provide each individual member or a family their abilities to be self-sufficient and to self-determine. And so that's kind of a difficult thing to do probably for the elected officials, because they're relying on their constituents for the elections is to put forward the ideas that they need to do for themselves and not expect the tribe, the tribal government to do everything for them. But I think that's the only way that the self-sufficiency and self-determination can really be realized."

Mark St. Pierre: "We want to thank Joan Timeche and Urban Giff for appearing on today's edition of Native Nation Building, a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation Building and the issues discussed here today, please visit the Native Nations Institute website at www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building."

Native Nation Building TV: "Tribal Service Delivery: Meeting Citizens' Needs"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Eddie Brown and Karen Diver discuss tribal program and service delivery across Indian Country. They examine the unproductive ways services and programs have been administered in many Native communities in the past, and the innovative mechanisms and approaches some Native nations are developing to maximize limited financial and human resources and improve the delivery of programs and services to their citizens.

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Tribal Service Delivery: Meeting Citizens' Needs" (Episode 7). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program. 

Mary Kim Titla: "Welcome to Native Nation Building. I'm your host Mary Kim Titla. Contemporary Native nations face many daunting challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity and change. Native Nation Building explores these complex challenges and the ways Native nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

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Mary Kim Titla: "Like so many aspects of Native life and policy, service delivery in Indian country is in a state of transformation. The era of self-determination, now moving into its fourth decade, has seen an increasing number of Native Natons taking control of programs and services once administered by federal agencies. Today's show looks at the changing state of service delivery in Native communities and the complex challenges Native Nations encounter as they work to ensure that the needs of their citizens are met. Here today to discuss the issue of service delivery in Indian Country are Karen Diver and Dr. Eddie Brown. Karen Diver, an enrolled citizen of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, is Director of Special Projects at Fond du Lac. She also was a founding member of the American Indian Community Housing Organization. Dr. Eddie Brown is an enrolled citizen of the Pasqua Yaqui Tribe and is affiliated with the Tohono O'odham Nation. He is the Director of American Indian Studies at Arizona State University. He previously served as Executive Director of the Tohono O'odham Nation's Department of Human Services and also worked in the U.S. Department of the Interior administering federal programs to Native communities. Thanks for being with us today. A primary role of Native Nations' governments is to deliver social services to their citizens. How has this role changed?"

Eddie Brown: "Mary Kim, over the last 30 years, I think you've seen a tremendous growth of tribal governments providing their services. Under the Indian Self-Determination Act, it allowed for the first time tribes to contract out the operation and administration of programs, and since that time you've seen everything from law enforcement to education, social services -- all of the basic kinds of services that the Bureau of Indian Affairs provides an opportunity then for tribes to take over and administer those. That has also occurred within the Indian Health Service as well. So you've seen programs like the CHR program, psychological services, alcohol and substance abuse, all of these now being offered by tribes where before they were all being administered and operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service."

Mary Kim Titla: "Karen, would you like to add to that? What have you seen?"

Karen Diver: "I've seen governments really focusing on the breadth of services that they have to provide as governments. First, of course, really looking at how do we meet the human day-to-day needs and provide a safety net for our members and over time really blossoming and growing into looking at a full range of government services, everything from resource management to zoning and land use, community development, workforce development efforts in really a broader spectrum of providing a continuum of care and good governmental services at all levels, much like county and local governments did before for their citizens."

Mary Kim Titla: "Now, really traditionally these services have been designed and administered by the federal government, many of them of course still are. How has this affected the quality and quantity of services in reservation communities?"

Dr. Eddie Brown: "I think from the data that we have thus far, it has shown that not only are tribes able to administer but they're able to develop programs that are more in tune with the individual tribal needs so that the tribe has developed its management information systems and its administration systems, but it also has put in place programs that directly respond to that community's needs and has tied in then the cultural element as well of how to provide services in the most appropriate cultural way."

Mary Kim Titla: "As we know, all of the tribes and Native communities are very unique. So one blanket program just doesn't work for everybody, and I think everyone's discovered that over the years. Karen, why don't you talk about what's happening in your community."

Karen Diver: "We are located about 20 miles from the closest urban area, which distinguishes us a little bit from other Anishnaabe tribes in Minnesota who are very, very rural. We have an urban population as well as a rural population, so our challenge is how do we meet a broad geographic area, but with needs that are much different? For example, housing issues are much more scarce, a scarcity of resources on reservation, we have access to more ancillary services and complimentary services in the surrounding metropolitan community, so to speak. So we've really seen our tribe looking at inter-agency agreements with local government entities, non-profit organizations to help complement what we do, and then on reservation, really looking at what is the infrastructure we need in service delivery and continuum of care that we need to develop to meet our citizens that are reservation residents."

Mary Kim Titla: "And you touched on something that really leads into my next question, and that is some of the challenges that Native communities experience trying to make these federal programs fit their community needs. Can you expand on that a little bit more, Eddie?"

Eddie Brown: "Yes, I think it's very difficult when you're trying to work with a policy -- that one policy fits all tribes -- knowing the diversity, and so tribes have had to struggle and be very creative of how they've been able to take the funding and assure that that funding is meeting the basic community needs, but at the same time are fulfilling the federal obligation and responsibility that is set out in the rules and regulations. So again, a real challenge, but one in which the tribes have proven themselves to be up to."

Mary Kim Titla: "Can you give an example of that?"

Eddie Brown: "Well, one of [them] has to do with social services, looking at not only federal but state social services as well. How do you coordinate those programs and make them work together? Under the TANF [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] situation, where tribes for the first time in history were responsible for or capable of administering their own TANF services, where before they were administered by the state. The tribes have taken those and developed those in a way that really met the need of the federal government but also tied in and allowed them the kind of flexibility that they needed to provide the service. So here is a situation where a federal program was given to the tribe but also with the flexibility to allow the tribe to develop and have perhaps even a little more flexibility than the states do in determining the eligibility as well as service delivery."

Mary Kim Titla: "Okay. Karen, how are you handling that? It sounds like you've done some really unique things in your community to really make these federal programs work."

Karen Diver: "Part of what's been successful at Fond du Lac is -- just as Eddie was saying -- really using our own people and other Native people who have been educated in those fields to deliver those services in a culturally competent manner. Social capital on Native communities is obviously a challenge and trying to get our kids graduated from high school through college so that we have access to those resources within our own community. Integrating outsiders into that in a way that is healthy for both sides makes non-Indian service deliverers feel a part of our community and welcome, building their cultural competency and welcoming them, and at the same time really providing opportunities for mentoring and growth opportunities for our own Band members. That being said, what we see happening in service delivery for us has been well regarded in surrounding governmental units. We have Treatment as a State designation for air and water quality -- the first tribe in the nation to get that designation -- and that required not only working with local law enforcement agencies, but the Department of Natural Resources, the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], for them to recognize that we had capacity within our tribe to have a regulatory function. We had to have everything from laboratory services and monitoring to permitting processes and the ability to comment in a really technical way on air- and water-quality issues. So building our infrastructure in that way not only through the systems of government, but also through the social capital, has taken my tribe 25 years and it's something that we're still striving for today to improve our own delivery and our own capability, but then also using resources wisely both in terms of employment and education."

Mary Kim Titla: "So you've touched on some of the challenges. What are some disadvantages or costs for tribal communities, Native communities when they rely heavily on these federally funded programs?"

Eddie Brown: "Well, I think as we mentioned before, when you've got federal regulations that you've got to respond to and they're saying, 'You can have these dollars, but here's what you've got to do and here's the limitations on how you use those dollars,' have always limited the tribes in their creativity and the ability to put the dollars where they need to be. I think that has been the major limitation so that when the Indian Self-Determination Act was passed and allowed tribes to take over that, even though that there were still some strong regulations, tribes had more flexibility than they have ever had before. Now over the last 30 years now the Indian Self Determination Act has been amended that allow tribes even greater flexibility. You have then your Indian Self-Governance that allows for block grants, types of funding to tribes that allows them even greater flexibility to match the kind of need with the kind of service. So again, very exciting and it's been a very exciting time, but as mentioned by Karen, it has taken a long time because we've had to start almost from ground zero and establish those systems in place in which states and counties have had at least a hundred years to do."

Mary Kim Titla: "The infrastructure and really building that infrastructure. Can you talk about more what's happening in your community? It sounds really interesting."

Karen Diver: "Actually, not just in my community. Some of the challenges I see for some of the northern tribes that are very rural is that they're really funding themselves and focusing areas of growth on those programs and service delivery options that are fundable, and so you see growth in those areas without some long-term stability, because it is chasing those dollars a little bit. One of the things that is trying to be highly promoted in some of these communities is, what is the strategic vision for this tribe? Where do they want to be in five, 10, 20 years? And letting that guide their funding option because they're funding a whole vision rather than just a program. And that's a challenge for my tribe as well as many others of saying, 'We're a baby government, what do we want to be when we're a grown-up government?' And how do we not rely on indirect cost allocations from grants to fund basic infrastructure, but how do we be real targeted and real thoughtful in where we want to go and sell that overall vision rather than just a program idea."

Mary Kim Titla: "You talked about vision and it appears to be that there's this movement really among Native communities to gain control of how they administer these programs and what do you think has fueled that movement?"

Eddie Brown: "Well, clearly the Indian Self-Determination Act, the idea that tribes are sovereign nations and that they do have the right to establish and run and determine their own destiny, and part of that destiny is to develop your own vision, as Karen mentioned. So you see that many of us, many of the tribes are moving from an idea of, 'Well, let's see what the government has to offer,' to the idea of, 'Let's determine what our vision should be.' The Yavapai Apache Nation, for instance, here in Arizona is clearly an example of a tribal community that has developed a 25-year vision, that has put together a strategic plan and that has a clear vision of where they want to go because of the strong leadership there within the council and I think are really reflective of many tribes today that have said, 'We are no longer just going to look at our problems, we're going to look at what we want to be. Then from that, we will determine how we need to get there.'"

Mary Kim Titla: "Karen, do you see significant innovations in service delivery out there? What are tribes doing that's different?"

Karen Diver: "I know for the Fond du Lac tribe, we've seen great success with our foster care-licensing system and a lot of our child welfare programs, where the tribe has become the primary driver of Indian child welfare cases and developed the infrastructure where local county social service agencies and child protection units really defer to our tribes to handle child welfare cases involving Native children. And with our foster care-licensing system as an additional part of that, we can assure a steady stream of families, Native families, culturally competent families, so that we're accomplishing both goals of maintaining identity and culture as well as child protection and the safety of the children. And that was one of our biggest innovations in our human services is really getting surrounding governmental units to say, 'They know better than we do on this issue and by working with them we'll provide a better service to their band members,' and it's been well-regarded in Indian Country and often duplicated."

Mary Kim Titla: "Any other examples that you can think of, Eddie?"

Eddie Brown: "Well, I think on the broader scale, tribes have been forced to re-look at the way they're structured and organized. Before, with all the different federal funding, you had many different small programs all running and operating independently. So you see tribes across the nation now re-examining the way they're structured, reorganizing it to fit the needs of their community. So it starts way up at the top of the administration, even re-evaluating their constitutions as to how they're organized and structured governmentally. So you see that works all the way down to the direct service delivery of services for children and working with families. So you see the impact has been from the very top to the very bottom within tribal communities."

Mary Kim Titla: "And what about this cultural aspect and tribes really going back to their very beginnings and integrating some of that into these delivery services?"

Karen Diver: "We see that very much so in northern Minnesota, language preservation being real key, total integration into birth-to-five-[year-old] services through Head Start and continuing through K-12 education and ending up with our tribal and community college, where we have a teacher cohort agreement with the University of Minnesota to graduate fluent Native speakers who also have teaching credentials. So that lifelong learning aspect in access to language to culture services for not only the children and the students but for their families really is a model that wouldn't have been found through federal government delivery [of] services, and it makes for families a much more comfortable environment for those families who are getting over boarding-school experiences. They now own their educational delivery system and it feels safe for them and their children and strengthens that bond of community."

Mary Kim Titla: "We're going to stick with what Fond du Lac is doing in terms of really overseeing virtually all of these services offered in your community. What led to this and how is it working?"

Karen Diver: "We were one of the first tribes to follow Public Law 638, where we can control our own programs -- started in the late 70s and early 80s. I believe that the cultural competency in programming drove it, that federal programs weren't always successful in meeting our needs. I believe job creation was also a part of it, that we wanted to be able to have services provided by our own Band members and not by outsiders. It's been enormously successful. Since then our capacity to deliver programs by developing effective systems of government, administration has allowed us to take on more opportunities, so I think that once tribes are able to move into that arena they quickly gain the experience, the social capital, the staff they need to take those programs to the next level and really round them out to meet a variety of needs."

Mary Kim Titla: "Now, Eddie, you've spent a long time wrestling with social service delivery issues at both the tribal and federal levels. In your experience, what are the major challenges tribes face in this area?"

Eddie Brown: "Well, one is just figuring out how to work with the federal government and state government, and so I think that's one that has moved forward a great deal as tribes have become more experienced in handling working with the federal government and most recently now beginning to develop inter-governmental agreements with the state that recognizes the sovereign jurisdictional issues of both parties. That has been tremendous. Perhaps now when you look at [it], it's building a good solid foundation of making sure that you have your regulations in place. When we talk about foster care programs or child welfare programs, they have a lot of rules and regulations and standards to ensure the protection of the child as well as the parents. Those kind of things, having good regulations in place, hiring competent staff, providing training for those staff, pulling together management information systems that allow them to track and to evaluate the kind of program or the impact of the programs that they're having. I think all of this, it's a tremendous challenge for an administrator today at a tribal level, because there are so many things that need to be done with limited dollars and a growing expectation of tribal members toward the tribal council to begin to act in a full essence of what a government is and that is a government's role is to care for the wellbeing of its citizens."

Mary Kim Titla: "And with leadership changes, I'm sure that that's also a challenge. Every three or four years your leadership changes and sometimes that has an impact on maybe where you proceed."

Karen Diver: "Very much so, and it's often said that politics is personal and no more so than in Indian Country, because those are your families, your clans, your nieces and nephews, and when they have needs that they view as critical and they're standing in front of you, it's sometimes very difficult for tribal leaders to think big picture and to say, 'Is my decision for the good of the all and do I sacrifice the good of the one, or vice versa?' And I think that's a constant struggle for tribal councils, it's a constant struggle for our government in terms of social capital, to make sure that our tribal leaders are really focused on what is good governmental function, and how do we make sure we have the service delivery systems to meet those basic needs and the individual needs in a competent way? Turnover in tribal government has affected a lot of the northern tribes recently, and I think that with programs like the Udall Center and Honoring Nations through Harvard, that it really shows best practices in governance and really holds up models for tribal governments to learn from."

Mary Kim Titla: "Why don't we get back to Public Law 638? I'm not familiar with that. Could you explain that a little bit more and how Native Nations have used this to assume control?"

Eddie Brown: "The impact, of course, is if someone comes to you and offers you an opportunity to not only bring a tremendous amount of federal funding to your community but also allowing you the flexibility to run and make your own decisions. I think tribes over the past 30 years are saying, 'We can do it better and we can show you how to do it better,' and [in] many situations have been very, very successful at that, to the point that now other departments within the federal government are understanding that they need to also loosen the regulation to understand that the tribes can run and operate programs. So it's really provided, I think, a celebration. At this recent NCAI [National Congress of American Indians] conference, basically it was the celebration of 30 years of Indian Self-Determination, because that piece of legislation has probably had more impact in the strengthening of tribal government in the last 100 years than any other previous legislation."

Karen Diver: "I think it's also providing ongoing challenges. Definitely celebration. What I see on a regular basis is tribes can set their big vision through their 638 contracting, but then through program delivery through the federal government, for example through Head Start for example, comes with its own set of regulations that is often in conflict with the direction set from 638 plans that are submitted to the federal government. So trying to merge big picture with service delivery that comes with a separate set of guidelines aside from its governmental functions I think can be a day-to-day challenge for tribes, but it is one that they are being creative about solving."

Mary Kim Titla: "And that was going to be my next question about limitations and how 638 in many ways being a trial-and-error process. Is that true?"

Eddie Brown: "Well, I don't know if it was so much as a trial and error as the idea of, 'Let's see if the tribes can handle it and if they can handle it, then we can see about making some more amendments to loosening and so forth.' So it has been very important therefore when tribes took over programs that they made sure that they could operate them and not retrocede or return them back to the federal government, because if in fact tribes failed, it would in fact maybe prove to what many people thought is tribes are not capable of operating as governments and running their own services. If anything has been proven in the last 30 years, it's that tribes are very much capable, they can do a better job as we've indicated. So while it is a challenge -- and today I look at perhaps administrators working within tribes have the greatest challenge than administrators in other forms of government. Having been involved in state government and federal government and comparing the challenge at a tribal level, I consider the challenge there at the tribal level much greater than what's experienced at states and federal governments because they are breaking new ground. They are having to develop from the ground up, they're having to look at the cultural as well as the more technical management information, etc., which makes it all the more exciting when we see tribes succeed particularly at the level that they're succeeding."

Mary Kim Titla: "What about need versus jobs and going after federal programs based on a need for jobs and not based on whether there's really a need for the service in the community?"

Karen Diver: "I would actually put it a little different way. We see a need for a service and we'll look for funding to fill it, and then it's who to fill those positions with, and we have Band-member preference in hiring, as do many tribes and really looking at what are the qualifications we need and how do we balance the need of our members to have jobs, because we do have high unemployment with the needs of the clients that need to receive the service, and which one should be more important. And I think it's a constant struggle for tribes to say, 'What are the minimum standards for this position and what are we willing to say to our Band members to get them?' And it's a constant educational process of saying, 'We value you, we need your input here at the tribe. There's other ways for you to be involved. We have training available, so that you can reach that level.' And workforce development systems on tribes of looking at coaching, mentoring, additional education so that over time our Band members are qualified to fill those positions is, I think, one of the highest priorities in Indian Country right now."

Mary Kim Titla: "Eddie, are you seeing anything different?"

Eddie Brown: "No, I completely agree. Making sure you have good training. If the goal is to hire tribal employees or tribal members to be employees, the idea is that they've got to do more than just meet minimum qualifications, which is [a] requirement under the Indian preference law, so that we want people that not only meet the minimum qualifications but we want to make sure that we provide training so that the employees can grow as the program grows as well."

Mary Kim Titla: "Now what about the various programs that exist and how important is it for each department head or for these programs really, the people that work in them, to communicate with each other?"

Karen Diver: "Very much so. We had a recent example on our reservation where we're trying to develop supportive housing and rather than just give people a house, it doesn't necessarily take care of all of their other needs that resulted in their initial homelessness -- whether it be chemical dependency, mental health issues, lack of jobs and training where they weren't marketable for suitable living wage employment. So we can't look at a band-aid approach of, 'You're homeless, we're going to give you a house.' We really have to look at a continuum of care to meet the multiple needs of people who really looked at several generations, multiple generations of oppression, and for those gaming nations, gaming jobs don't necessarily fix all of the hurt that came with it and the social ills that resulted in the form of chemical dependency and mental health issues. So developing continuums of care to really allow our Band members and tribal nation members to be self-sufficient means working across those borders of program lines."

Eddie Brown: "Clearly. And you've seen tribes like the Tohono O'odham Nation, Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community that have re-looked at how services are being offered and then restructured, realizing that many of the same people were working with the same families and in some ways providing some duplication of services, where if they just restructured their organizations and maybe integrated the services more, that the services provided will not only be more effective but can be done at a much lower cost as well, so that you've seen tribes lower the cost as well as improve the effectiveness of their service."

Mary Kim Titla: "Thank you both so much for being with us. You've both provided some great input and hopefully some food for thought for Nations that are out there and can improve what they're doing now. Thank you so much for being with us today."

Dr. Eddie Brown: "Thank you."

Karen Diver: "Thank you."

Mary Kim Titla: "Native Nation Building is a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation Building and the issues discussed on today's program, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in to the next edition of Native Nation Building."

Native Nation Building TV: "Intergovernmental and Intertribal Relations"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Jaime Pinkham and Sarah Hicks focus on Native nations’ efforts to enhance their relationships with other governments as a way to advance their nation-building objectives. It details how some Native nations are forging mutually beneficial intergovernmental agreements, and chronicles the many advantages to forging similar intertribal arrangements.

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Intergovernmental and Intertribal Relations" (Episode 8). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program. 

Mark St. Pierre: "Hello, friends. I'm your host, Mark St. Pierre and welcome to Native Nation Building. Contemporary Native Nations face many challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies that fit their culture and circumstances, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity in change. Native Nation Building explores these often complex challenges in the ways Native Nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

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Mark St. Pierre: "Today's show explores the importance of intertribal and intergovernmental relationships and the innovative approaches that many Native Nations are taking as they forge ahead with Nation building goals. With us today to examine these relationships are Jaime Pinkham and Sarah Hicks. Sarah Hicks, a citizen of the Native village of Ouzinkie in Alaska, is a doctoral candidate at Washington University. She also directs the National Congress of American Indians Policy Research Center where she works on a joint project with the National Conference of State Legislatures. Jaime Pinkham, a citizen of the Nez Perce Tribe, is Watershed Program Manager with the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission and Intertribal Fisheries Organization. Welcome to both of you and thanks for being with us." 

Jaime Pinkham: "Thank you."

Sarah Hicks: "Thanks."

Mark St. Pierre: "Jaime, when we talk about intergovernmental and intertribal relationships among Native Nations, what are we really talking about?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Well, Mark, I feel we're talking about creating a platform that respects the individual autonomy of the tribes or the governmental agencies that sit at the table and it's a relationship that's built upon trust and mutual respect and provides our ability to provide collective talent and wisdom and resources to overcome conflicts or to move forward on areas of mutual concern."

Mark St. Pierre: "Would you like to respond to that?"

Sarah Hicks: "Yeah, I think we're really talking about deliberate relationships between sovereign governments who are coming to the table as equals. We're looking at relationships that are across various issue areas, we're looking at relationships that are between different levels of government, different kinds of governments and even different branches of government."

Mark St. Pierre: "Sarah, what role do these relationships play in building a Native nation?"

Sarah Hicks: "Well, these kinds of relationships really provide a way for tribal governments to extend their influence beyond their boundaries. It's really a way for tribal governments to leverage their influence, to bring their voice to the table with other governments to influence the policy making that's going on outside of their boundaries."

Mark St. Pierre: "Just as a follow up, is there a concern that tribes who work with, say, state or county agencies are surrendering some sovereignty, or how does that work out?"

Sarah Hicks: "Historically, because of the government-to-government relationship between the federal government and tribal governments, that there's been a great deal of attention to this very critical important relationship. But on the other hand, as we've seen devolution, or the federal government passing resources and authority to lower levels of government, to state government, to county government, in some cases to tribal government, that I think tribes are becoming less concerned about what they're giving up, and I think they see many more opportunities to cooperate on issues of mutual concern. So they're really looking to their neighboring governments as potential partners to accomplish some of these really important jobs that local governments perform."

Mark St. Pierre: "Jaime, you seem like you want to jump in there."

Jaime Pinkham: "I don't see it as an erosion of sovereignty when we reach to other governments, and I think we're seeing more and more -- because of the capacity that tribes are building -- is we see these other governments reaching out to us. We've built the institutional capacity on resource programs, education and health care, and the other thing is that the tribes have unique access to federal resources, for example highway trust funds, which we can help rebuild or maintain infrastructures, especially in rural communities, that county governments and local municipalities depend upon, too. So I see them reaching out to us as well."

Mark St. Pierre: "You've both seen a shift in how Native nations view these relationships and their potential benefits. Historically, what began that shift in emphasis?"

Sarah Hicks: "Well, I think much of it was devolution as I was just mentioning earlier. Really in the late 1980s, we started to see more and more federal programs, environmental programs, some human service programs, community development programs that are being moved to more local levels of government, and over time the pace of devolution has increased. So throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, we've seen more and more resources really being directed at more local levels of government, and this just increases the incentive for tribal governments and state and county governments to look for these issues of mutual concern, to really bring to bear their limited resources on both sides to address issues that all governments care about."

Jaime Pinkham: "I also see the follow up on that is some courtroom fatigue where too often we're trying to resolve our differences in the court room and when you go to court you have one winner, one loser but when you come together in exploring these relationships you try to harmonize your efforts, and while litigation and negotiations are both difficult paths to take, the difference is the outcome and the outcome is the mutual benefits. The other thing is I've really witnessed over the past 10 to 15 years this elevation of both state and federal governments in formalizing tribal policies. It's an expression of tribal relationships, so we see the cabinet levels in the state legislatures and representatives of the governor's office now reaching out and creating new relationships with Indian tribes."

Mark St. Pierre: "In regions where tribes are really a small minority of the local or general population, have these relationships in fact increased the power of tribes in regional and local politics?"

Sarah Hicks: "I would argue yes. I think that this is a vehicle for tribes to come together on the one hand in intertribal organizations. We've seen an increased growth in regional intertribal organizations, and I would say an increased strength in those organizations as well over the past couple of years. So on the one hand, tribes being able to come together to voice their collective concerns, to share their resources that they have has definitely made a difference, but I also think that on the state and county level, neighboring governments are starting to see tribes as bigger political players. Tribes are getting on the map. They're starting to realize that there are a lot of common interests with tribal governments."

Jaime Pinkham: "And I agree. I think we're seeing many cases where local governments would like to ride upon the coattails of tribal governments because of the capacity that they have at dealing with the variety of levels of issues from very local to national in nature."

Mark St. Pierre: "Just on a personal level, on a human-to-human level, do you see these relationships strengthening communication and relationships between literal neighbors of the reservations?"

Jaime Pinkham: "I think we do, because as the tribes get more active in local politics, especially you start seeing members of the tribal communities becoming on school boards and county governments and city governments, and that helps really soothe and create and foster some positive relationships. What concerns me is we see the growth of these anti-Indian, anti-sovereignty organizations, but if we could work better and have these positive examples, we can try to teach these places where this fear exists of tribal sovereignty that really there's nothing to fear but really there's an opportunity, a partnership that can really help all communities prosper and grow."

Mark St. Pierre: "That kind of leads to a logical question I guess then. How have tribes or Native Nations avoided litigation, avoided conflict in dealing with other governments?"

Sarah Hicks: "Well, I think tribes and neighboring governments have really looked to local agreements as a way to avoid litigation. As Jaime was mentioning earlier, litigation is frequently extremely time-consuming, extremely expensive, and often results in an outcome that nobody's happy with, so to the extent that tribes and states or tribes and counties or tribes and other tribes can come to the table together to negotiate agreements that work better for everybody down on the ground, that's a win-win situation. We've seen a number of examples. If you look to motor fuel taxation and tobacco taxation, there have been some great agreements in Nevada, in Nebraska, in Oklahoma, in Arizona. There have been agreements around natural resource issues, around protection of cultural issues, around human service delivery. So I think we're seeing a proliferation of these kinds of relationships across a whole range of different topic areas."

Mark St. Pierre: "Is it in the best interest of federal, state and municipal governments to cross these traditional divides and work together with Native nations?"

Jaime Pinkham: "I believe it is. If you look out west, where that sense of individuality is treasured, but as long as we remain isolated, anonymous and faceless, we will never be able to come over some of those very difficult issues out west and a lot of those issues will deal in terms of the environment, the return of wolves or the recovery of salmon, where we see divisiveness in our communities. So the best way really is to start as local as you can. It's the politics of place in crafting those relationships very locally and using that to build up the ladder to state, federal governments. Who better to resolve local issues than those of us who live there? And to take those outcomes to where we really need action passed, and whether it's at Congress or at the state legislative level."

Sarah Hicks: "I guess I just wanted to make a related point, which is that I think not only are we seeing these relationships grow in all different kinds of topic areas and really in all different places across the country, but I think we're also seeing relationships that are being built across different branches of government. So increasingly, we're seeing relationships not only with the executive branch but with the legislative branch or in some cases they're relationships with the judiciary, with training of judges around some particularly important issues to tribal communities. So I think the trend is just growing and I think increasingly we're seeing that we have so many common issues where all neighboring governments are concerned about finite resources, about protecting our environment, about serving our citizens, making sure they have the essential governmental services they need. So I think increasingly we're just seeing more opportunities for governments to come together to solve these issues at the local level."

Mark St. Pierre: "Has this caused a shift in how these governments view Native Nations they work with? In other words, the State of Washington for instance, has it created a shift positive or negative in how they view the tribes in Washington?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Well, I can't speak for Washington, but in Idaho when I was on Tribal Council with Nez Perce, we did sense a shift, but unfortunately the shift was going two directions. One is where we were working collectively with a local county government and a city government to provide services to the reservation, but by us being there having access to economic development funds we were able to improve the infrastructure of the City of Lewiston. On the other hand, we saw these other governments riding on this wave of concern about what sovereignty will do to a community, and so we were faced with an alliance of 22 entities from school districts to city governments to county governments who feared tribal sovereignty and what it could do, the concerns about regulation and courts and they feared this word called 'sovereignty.' Sovereignty is something that really is an expression of the health of a community. So we worked hard to try to overcome the misconception that some of these communities had and the way to do it is to try to show the positive relationships we had with other neighboring communities."

Mark St. Pierre: "In South Dakota, I think there's a tremendous fear that in negotiating with the state, for instance, about anything, you're in a sense violating your treaty, because your treaty is between the tribe and the federal government. Do you want to respond to that concern 'cause it's a powerful concern."

Sarah Hicks: "Well, and I think part of this comes from a sense or a fear that many of these protections can be eroded, that the resources, the federal trust responsibility to American Indian tribal governments can be eroded. And so out of the fear to sort of protect what we have, there's been in some cases a real resistance to developing these kinds of relationships. But I think that nationally, we've started to move in a bit of a different direction. We've started to hear in national forums, tribal leaders articulating, 'We need to make sure that the federal trust responsibility is protected. We need assurances from the federal government that increasingly tribal self determination and tribal self-governance efforts, that increasingly, intergovernmental relationships aren't in anyway affecting the federal trust responsibility.' So I think on the one hand, tribes are concerned about that and I think they are looking to ensure that those protections are in place, but on the other hand, because of again the many, many common concerns and because of the increasing resources and opportunities for collaboration at the local level, I think we're seeing tribes move in that direction."

Jaime Pinkham: "And no doubt, I sense there still is some concern in Indian Country, because you have the federal government and then tribal government, state governments and the lower governments, and there's the concern that if we work with governments below us from the states down to city governments, that it's an erosion of our treaty rights and an erosion of our sovereignty. But the thing to keep in mind is we have the sovereign choice to work with those governments only if we choose."

Sarah Hicks: "Right. And I think we are. I think Jaime's right. We're talking about deliberate relationships between sovereign governments. It's governments coming together at the same table as equals to determine the type of relationship they want to have and what that relationship will encompass. So with tribes at the driver seat, I think this is really just underscoring that this really is about tribes as governments, tribes behaving as governments."

Mark St. Pierre: "I certainly think that sends a powerful idea to those tribes that are very nervous about these kinds of things, to hear that there are tribal groups working on positive relationships with local governments. Let's turn to a totally different thing here and look at intertribal relationships. Why are a growing number of Native Nations developing relationships and ties with other tribes in their region or nationally?"

Jaime Pinkham: "I think it's built on longstanding alliances and relationships that we've always had. In the Columbia River it was the salmon that always brought us together. The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, we're focused around the salmon, so we've always had the traditional alliances. The other thing, too, is recognizing the diversity of the landscape of Indian Country with our forms of government, our languages and our economies, it's important that we begin to share our talent and also to share knowledge and wisdom. When you look at parts of the U.S. where maybe we don't have the economic strength or we don't have the political strength and we're going to rely upon our neighboring tribes, and so I think these alliances are pretty fundamental to helping to elevate the tribal voice in places like Washington, D.C."

Sarah Hicks: "Part of it's strength in numbers, the sheer fact that tribes can come together, that we do have consensus on a great many issues and that we have a stronger voice if we work together. I also think that Jaime's right, a lot of this is really just formalizing relationships that have always been there."

Mark St. Pierre: "The tribes that work together, is it important that they kind of have their own internal tribal ducks in a row, that they have an effective government?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Yeah. Again, getting back to all politics is local, yeah, you have to be well-grounded and have strong, stable political leadership and use that as the basis and build up from there."

Sarah Hicks: "There's no doubt that it's important to have a message straight from the top that says, 'These relationships are important, that we're going to do what we can to work collaboratively on issues that we can.' This isn't to say that neighboring governments can always find common ground and can always agree on solutions to joint problems, but it is to say that it's important to have a message from the leadership that articulates very clearly the intention of cooperative relationships. On the other hand, I also think it's really important that the technical folks, that the staff, that the program directors are also on board for this. In some sense, you need the message from the top, the general policy that says, 'We're going to work together.' But on the other hand, it's the technical staff, it's those folks that are actually doing the work who really have to take to heart what it means to work collaboratively, to look for those opportunities to invite the other governments to the table."

Mark St. Pierre: "This question's for Jaime. In your capacity with the Nez Perce Tribe, you've been involved in a number of intergovernmental relationships. How did that process start? Tell us how that began and what it led to."

Jaime Pinkham: "Well, let me use an example, it's a recent example. We were involved in one of the largest water adjudications in the nation, the Snake River Basin, the Snake River Basin Adjudication, and actually we had two tracks going. We had the litigation track in court, but through the McCarran Amendment we're stuck in state court. And that's not the most comfortable place for a tribe to have their issues resolved. The other option we took was to try to find a negotiated settlement and both processes were going on track. And so the Tribe decided that we needed to keep both options open and we aggressively pursued a negotiated settlement working with the State of Idaho as well as representatives of the federal government. And believe me, it took us almost eight years to get this thing through and it took a lot of hard work. And like I said earlier, both paths are difficult but the only difference is the outcome. So we were able to resolve our differences and we had to be prepared to give a little and to gain a little bit. But in the end we avoided court, we avoided a court that may have ruled against our sovereignty, a court that could have ruled against some of our treaty-reserved rights. We preserved that. Those are the core values of our community and through negotiation we were able to preserve them."

Mark St. Pierre: "For those of us that aren't familiar with the actual issue, give us a framework for what brought the conflict to be."

Jaime Pinkham: "Actually, it started when the state went after securing their reserved water rights out of the Snake River Basin and they filed claims with the federal government. Well, the tribe couldn't stand back. We had to submit our claims and our claims were based on really two fundamental principles. One is in-stream flow to protect fisheries and the second one was the consumptive uses on reservation, whether it be for residential or industrial uses. And so we went through a long process to establish our tribal water rights claims."

Mark St. Pierre: "You now work for the Columbia River Intertribal fish Commission and I understand that's an award-winning intertribal organization. How has that commission empowered its member tribes, the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs and Yakama?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Actually, I see it the other way -- that they've empowered us as a real function of tribal government. We provide technical expertise, legal expertise and assistance in intergovernmental affairs, but really when you look, the real strength of our organization rests in the tribes and the capacity they've built on the fisheries front in the four tribes in the Pacific Northwest that have treaty rights on the Columbia River. So really they empower us and we act and respond to whatever directions that they want us to go to. It's a wonderful organization and I would say that we're on the cutting edge of salmon recovery in very contentious times, the fate of the salmon and subsequent fate of the four lower Snake River dams. It is a difficult issue to be dealing with, but fortunately we have four strong tribal governments that have empowered us to act on their behalf."

Mark St. Pierre: "I guess one of the things that I'm looking at, the salmon recovery, is something that has broad economic implications for the region doesn't it?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Oh, it does. The irony is that when the settlers first came out west they had the timber, the agriculture, and the salmon economies, so salmon helped get a foothold. But today you hear them speak only passionately about protecting the timber economy or the agriculture economy and we need to once again elevate the significance that the salmon economy played, not just for Indian people but for the region. And a strong salmon economy also means a strong, healthy environment."

Mark St. Pierre: "Sarah, in your work with the National Congress of American Indians, you've been exposed to many mechanisms available to develop these types of partnerships. Can you talk about how that came about and what some of those methods are?"

Sarah Hicks: "Sure. First, I think just the National Congress of American Indians is an interesting model. Our organization was founded in 1944, actually in response to attempts by the federal government to terminate American Indian tribes. So the very impetus for our organization was that tribes needed to gather together collectively to advocate against the federal policy toward termination. So the whole purpose of our organization was to bring tribes together and to represent their interests to the federal government. So that's just one model of intertribal organizations. But then I think what you're speaking more directly to is a project that the National Congress of American Indians has had with the National Conference of State Legislatures, a national organization that serves the legislators of every state in the United States so actually they serve a little over 7,000 state legislators. And in this work that NCAI has done with NCSL, we've been funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for about six years now to start to provide some targeted technical assistance to states and tribes who are interested in finding new ways to work together. So some of the models that we've looked at and shared broadly include the establishment of Indian Affairs commissions, so these are usually executive-branch offices within the state government that try to coordinate the affairs of the executive branch in relationship to tribes. Then, of course, there are a number of legislative committees. I believe there are 14 states that have 17 different legislative committees that deal specifically with tribal issues. Some deal broadly with state tribal relationships where as others deal with particular issues around the relationships so perhaps repatriation, perhaps gaming, things like that. But there certainly are quite a number of models out there where states and tribes are finding new ways to work together developing new mechanisms and developing new agreements that will sort of chart the circumstances under which these relationships should continue."

Mark St. Pierre: "What I understand, it seems to me from what you're saying that the general climate is improving for the positive. Would that be your..."

Sarah Hicks: "I think so. If you look at some of the work that NCAI has done over the past year, we've been working up in Alaska with the previous administration there to sign a government-to-government agreement with the tribes in Alaska. That was the Millennium Agreement. We've seen similar types of agreements in a variety of other states. We've seen an increased number of Native legislators. I think that's a big sign that Native people think it's worth investing in the state system. We've seen increased number of bills that address tribal issues in state legislatures. So I think across the board we're seeing various indicators that tribes are moving in this direction. And again, not that this is a panacea. We don't think this is the be-all-and-end-all, that this is the solution for everything. Certainly tribal governments and neighboring governments will have very different views on some things in large part because of tribal cultures and tribal values may differ substantially from other governments. But on the other hand, it makes a lot of sense to look at issues that we can agree on and I think we are definitely moving in that direction."

Mark St. Pierre: "Let's turn now to some success stories. I know both of you have tremendous involvement in a wide range of these kinds of relationship building and conflict resolution. Give us some ideas of some of the successes in the country that are based on this new energy."

Jaime Pinkham: "Some of the things that we've worked on back home in Nez Perce country and looking at issues that were once conflict that had now come into a cooperative relationship, and one was when we were looking at protecting our traditional foods and medicines and the federal government had a plan to spray herbicides and it was to take out noxious weeds. And then we protested that so in turn the federal government and the state worked with us to develop a new method of controlling noxious weeds that would safeguard our traditional foods and medicines. So we started a bio-control center, so I think that was one where we took conflict and turned it into something that was positive and actually is providing resources, non-pesticide options to control noxious weeds in the Pacific Northwest."

Mark St. Pierre: "Sarah?"

Sarah Hicks: "I guess there are a couple that I can think of. One is that in 1998, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation signed an agreement with the Narragansett Tribe that would actually allow for tribal members to be hired by the state department of transportation to monitor some of the progress that was being made on developing highways, to be there when human remains or cultural artifacts were found so that there would be tribal members on site to try to make sure that those things were protected and they were addressed in a way that was appropriate to the tribe. So there are some examples like that. There are examples around federal subsidies to tribes to deal with foster care and adoption. Right now the federal funding flow is only to states, but we've seen some progress such that there are 71 tribal state agreements in 13 different states that allow these federal funds that are so urgently needed to deal with child welfare issues in tribal communities, to allow these funds to flow through the state to the tribes and in many cases there are other administrative funds and there are training funds that go with these so we are seeing I think...Jaime's pointing out some examples, and I'm talking about a couple others, and we're seeing that really this isn't relegated to just one domain, that we're actually seeing these kinds of efforts in a variety of different topic areas."

Mark St. Pierre: "I know in the fishing industry in the northwest that there have been arguments about water flow in terms of the revitalization of salmon in those rivers and they've required very complicated agreements. Can you tell us a bit about some of those?"

Jaime Pinkham: "Well, yeah, some of them are complex agreements where we have to work with a variety of people. If you look at the river system, it's a river of life. Not just human life, but an economic life, and a wonderful example is where the Confederate Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation have reached beyond...we can talk about [intergovernmental] relationships and intertribal relationships, but also there's the importance of creating private sector relationships, and the Umatilla Tribe has a wonderful example of that where they were concerned that the irrigators were pulling water out of the life-giving river as they were trying to return salmon to the Umatilla River. So they worked with the local irrigators to do a water exchange to keep water within the river system. So they took what were traditional adversaries and now they've become allies in salmon recovery. So we see those kinds of agreements at play. And I'm hoping we'll see more and more of those. The salmon issue is not going to be resolved overnight and you've got so many players in the game from utilities to irrigation to recreation interests and the long-seated tribal interest that is there, and we need to continue to reach out and build more of these relationships. And you see the tribes who are taking the lead on running fish hatcheries and working with federal government on land restoration to kind of restore the habitat that is important to these species, so the relationships are really building out in the northwest."

Mark St. Pierre: "We want to give a heartfelt thanks to Sarah Hicks and Jaime Pinkham for appearing on today's edition of Native Nation Building, a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation building and the issues discussed here today, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building."

Native Nation Building TV: "Leadership and Strategic Thinking"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Guests Peterson Zah and Angela Russell tie together the themes discussed in the previous segments into a conversation about how Native nations and their leaders move themselves and their peoples towards nation building. They address the question all Native nations have: How do we get where we want to go?

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Leadership and Strategic Thinking" (Episode 9). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program.

Mary Kim Titla: "Welcome to Native Nation Building. I'm your host Mary Kim Titla. Contemporary Native nations face many daunting challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity and change. Native Nation Building explores these complex challenges and the ways Native nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

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[music]

Mary Kim Titla: "The challenges facing contemporary Native leaders are daunting. Typically, they are expected to do everything from defending and expanding the sovereign powers of their nations to tackling day-to-day social issues to finding ways to improve the future of their fellow citizens. Leadership can be tough. You get blamed when things go badly and sometimes fail to get credit when things go well. Today's segment examines what Native leaders are doing and can do to rebuild their Nations and forge a vision for their long-term futures. With me today to discuss leadership and strategic decision making are Peterson Zah and Angela Russell. Peterson Zah, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, has twice served as his tribe's chief executive, first as chairman from 1983 to 1987 and then as president from 1990 to 1994. For the past ten years, he has worked at Arizona State University, where he serves as advisor to the President on American Indian Affairs. Angela Russell, a citizen of the Crow Nation of Montana, currently serves as Chief Judge of the Crow Tribal Court. She previously served as a member of the Crow Legislature as well as the Montana State Legislature. Welcome to both of you."

Angela Russell: "Thank you."

Peterson Zah: "Thank you."

Angela Russell: "Good to be here."

Mary Kim Titla: "Leadership. Peterson, you know best about that I think, and I'm sure Angela can give us her advice as well, but why don't we start out by talking about just leadership in general and how it is so critical to our Native nations as they move forward."

Peterson Zah: "I think it is perhaps the most important issue today, mainly because of all of the questions that are being raised about Native leadership. The issues that we face as Indian nations, there are questions thrown at the Indian people regarding the sovereign powers of [an] Indian tribe, the social problems that we have on our reservation, things that we never ever thought will come to the reservation is now on the reservation, mainly alcoholism, drugs, the behavior of young people at the high school. Those are very, very crucial issues in the area of education. You also have questions on land, and recently it's the administration of justice on Indian land, in Indian Country."

Mary Kim Titla: "Angela, tell me what you can advise after all these years that you've served on the legislature on the tribal level and state level."

Angela Russell: "Well, among our people, when we say leader we say '[Crow term],' which means a good person or a good man, and I think leadership is extremely important to all of our nation,s and it's important not only for the leader to have a vision for his people but as citizens of a particular nation, we need to be very supportive to our leader, but we also need to be participatory in a sense that we need to give some direction, we need to give support, we need to give encouragement. I think too many times it's easy to be very critical and to not look ahead toward the vision. You have to have goals, you have to have reachable goals, whether they're short-term or long-term. So leadership is very important, but it's a very, very difficult thing, because in the past our leaders were usually men who had many deeds, many accomplishments and that's how they became a leader. They were supported by the community, and today it's a whole different role, different dynamics, a different society we live in -- lots of challenges ahead for leaders."

Mary Kim Titla: "You said something that was really interesting to me and that has to do with criticism. As a journalist, I always like to encourage people to give me constructive criticism and you really have to have thick skin."

Angela Russell: "You do, you do. You have to be able to take a lot of abuse. But there are lots of rewards, too. I think it's a real challenge to be in government, to be in leadership, because we are like third-world countries. There's lots of needs there. We do have resources. We may not have gaming where I live, but we do have a lot of natural resources, and that puts responsibility on leadership to take a look at what can the leaders do that would be best for their constituency. Abuse is there, criticism is there, but I truly believe that with good communication, you can dispel some of the criticism that goes on. You've got to have a good media outlet so that people always know what you're doing. We get very suspicious as human beings when we don't know the full story. We want to know what's going on."

Mary Kim Titla: "Peterson, we talked some years ago about your role as President -- Chairman and President -- of the Navajo Nation, and it really is an overwhelming job."

Peterson Zah: "It really is overwhelming. I see some of our leaders today -- particularly with Navajo leadership -- those people are overwhelmed and they have so much on their plate. They have so many things to do decide and every one of them are crucial. Everything that they have on their mind is important that people bring to them. But one thing that the leaders have to learn how to do is prioritize their work, because you have all of these problems coming at you. You have to sit back and say, 'This issue has a priority over all the others,' because in the representation of your constituency you have to learn how to do that. Number two, I always say that you also have to learn how to delegate responsibilities. You have a certain amount of responsibility as the leader for Indian people, Indian communities. You also have on the other side the council, you also have the tribal courts, and they are there to take on certain issues. You have to learn how to play your role and where those limitations are and be able to have enough trust in your people to say that they'll do a good job of handling those situations and you don't need to be everywhere. And that's where learning how to prioritize your work really comes into existence."

Mary Kim Titla: "We are going through elections constantly, and a lot of times people may come across as being a good leader. But after you elect them, you realize, well, 'Maybe they weren't the leader that I thought they would be.' We make mistakes sometimes in choosing our leaders. How can tribes, tribal people protect themselves from poor leadership?"

Angela Russell: "I think it's real important for tribes to have primary elections for one thing. It's only been recently that we've had primary elections. So people just entered a race and if they won, they won. But now I think we have a little more choice and we like to have our candidates be out there and talking about policy, about their platform. I would really like to see us have our leaders address the state of our nations and that would be research: What is the status of our tribes? What is that poverty level? What is the main economic income that's coming in? What are those potentials out there? I think if we had a State of the Indian Nations, or if it was the Crow Tribal Nation, I think any candidate should address that and say, 'This is what I want to see for our people.' You've got to have that vision. You've got to be projecting what is best for your people. You've got to move away from self interest and you've got to be looking at the interest of the whole."

Mary Kim Titla: "I'm sure you've dealt with that, Pete, with especially all the different delegates and members of the tribal council that you have to deal with."

Peterson Zah: "Well, I think the key is participation. The Indian people who are listening to this program for example, the students, the young people, they should never say to themselves, 'Let the tribal council do it, let the tribal chair, the tribal governor do it.' They have to learn that this is their government, these are their leaders that they elected. They have to learn how to work with them and they also have to participate in the tribal government process. In the process of participating, then you can judge how your leaders are doing. So I believe that's very, very important, because our leaders need to be held accountable for many of the things that they do, and I guess that's why I am in education. I always believe that education can solve many, many things and some people will say and argue with me and say that education can't solve everything. But, by god, education can solve a lot of our problems. It may not solve everything, nothing ever does. But if you have an educated community, people who are aware, people that have had the experience handling the affairs of our tribal nations, then I think we're in better hand as a group, rather than just sitting back and watching the tribal government do something that isn't pleasant to the local people."

Mary Kim Titla: "You touched on what was going to be my next question, and that is the role of non-elected leaders in the community. There are many of them. Can you give some examples of how people can become more active in their tribal government? I know attending meetings would be one thing, but can you give some examples of that?"

Angela Russell: "It's important for legislators, and I was one, you need to get out in the community, you need to let people know what is on the agenda for the next session, and you really need to solicit their participation. I had a woman just a few months ago who said she was really concerned about horses that were just all over the road, dogs that were abandoned and not fed, and why were these individuals having livestock and not tending to them. And I said, 'Well, you know what you can do is talk to your legislator and by the petition route, if you get a signature of 10 percent in your district, you can promote [a] resolution and that may become law.' So I think we need to really encourage people to participate instead of griping. You can say, 'Well, you can do something about that.' Another example is truancy: A lot of kids missing school, suspension of kids from school and somewhere, somehow somebody brought together a truancy bill, and now our students have to be in school 'til they're age 18 and we are going to enforce it. In fact we're getting ready through the court to enforce that shortly. So we need to have people participate. Instead of having a gripe, let's put it into action and do something."

Peterson Zah: "I also happen to believe that those things that really make our tribal government function very well is the people who participate in a lot of those programs, because you can go out into any Indian reservation, you won't have any problem finding the problems. They're there, many, many problems. I think the role of the local people, the non-elected people, is to define some of those problems and then say to themselves, 'How can I make a difference as an individual? How can we, the two or the three of us, make a difference? Let's see if we can do something about this particular problem,' instead of not doing anything, and to do that you have to motivate the young people. In the generations of Indian people that we have on Indian land, Indian Country nowadays, students are completely different than those students that I knew when I was just a young man, and motivation has to take place among those young people for them to begin having them become active in a lot of the social problems that we have on the Navajo reservation, for example."

Mary Kim Titla: "And I'd like to see more of that, young people really taking charge in their communities. I tried to do that as a young person and I'm hearing more from young people about efforts they're doing. In fact one young lady I met recently is going to spearhead a suicide-prevention walk, and I thought that was excellent because as we know, that's a big problem in Indian Country right now. What changes do you see in our leaders today? I know you've touched on this a little bit, but from say 10, 20 years ago, how different are they?'

Angela Russell: "Well, I think that the challenges, the demands of leadership today are just monumental. We're bombarded by so many requirements, so many changes that our societies need and I guess even going back further, I really like this term of enlightened democracy, where people have information, they're educated, they can make a decision looking at all the facts. But I think Indian people have a long way to go yet because we have so much poverty on many of our reservations and it really is a luxury to be participating in government, because a lot of our people are just kind of living from day to day, making sure that they're going to get through the day with whatever needs they may have. And it's not unusual for those of us who live on the reservation and are blessed to have employment, we have a lot of people knocking on our doors, people looking for work, people just looking for money and hopefully if we ever have a secure economic base for our people, then I think that we can start having more participation. Right now, I think it's limited, but I'd like to see that expand, and I think the economic situation is really important to take a look at for all tribes, not only our tribe but other tribes, too."

Peterson Zah: "I think this is probably where we have such a big difference between leaders of 20 years ago and today. If you go back 20 years ago, even in this state here [Arizona], we have Dr. Annie Wauneka for example on the Navajo. We have Ronnie Lupe with the White Mountain Apache Indian nation. Agnes Sevilla with the Colorado Tribe. And if you look at those folks, what did they have? What did they not have, and what did they not do for example? They really didn't have the education that we now have with our tribal leaders, but they have one thing that is so important in my own estimation which is a commitment and education and the dedication that they had to their people and they were honest. They didn't have much money to work with. They didn't ask for let's say compensation for their travel. They did things where the Great Spirit told them to do things. When the Great Spirit moved them, that's when they move and they were good leaders, women leaders in this state, and they were solely dedicated to, for example, eradicating tuberculosis on the Navajo by Dr. Wauneka. And she did all of those while there were no roads on the Navajo Nation and she rode horses, she rode wagons and she used radio, she used the Navajo language to do all of those things that needed to be done. She did not have the kind of education that many of our tribal leaders today have. And so I would say probably today's leaders are less traditional than let's say they were 20 years ago, but 20 years ago those leaders, 40 years ago, you could never outdo them in traditional way of doing things. You could never outdo them in dedication and commitment. I think that's what's missing."

Angela Russell: "I think tradition is extremely important, and for many of our tribes, it's real important to speak our language and to communicate with people through our language. We have a clan system and it's important to include clan members or to give them information. I think tradition is really the backbone of our society so we need to foster that and continue it. But I think if you can deal with tradition as well as trying to develop modern ways of dealing with things, I think that's the best route to go."

Mary Kim Titla: "What about our future leaders, our young people? What advice would you have for our young people who want to become tribal council delegates or tribal chairmen or presidents?"

Angela Russell: "I think that we don't use our young people to the extent that we need to use them. I think the tribe really needs to set up internships, they need to set up fellowships, give people practical experience, have them get their feet wet, so to speak. A lot of young people come home, they may go to college with the intention of coming back and doing something and they may graduate, they may come back, and there's nothing there for them. I remember a young man who just got his degree in civil engineering and he came back and he was really excited about working for the tribe, but the tribe did not hire him. And we have other instances like that. We have to make room in our government to encourage young people to participate and to take some leadership roles."

Peterson Zah: "If you look at the three of us, we came from a family where the tradition was very strong so we were taught by our parents and our grandparents about traditional belief. Now, if you look at the young people that we have today in college, their parents are less traditional, and many of the students that we now have coming from single parents and they don't have as much tradition as what the three of us had. And I think that presents a problem because the young kids today represent a totally different set of values that they have. The values aren't the same and I think that's going to cause some problems for the Indian nation. So we have to go not only to the young people but to the parents that are raising them, and then their children. And so to some degree we're losing the tradition that helped us survive among all of the Indian nations for this long. And the young people should never ever forget that we survived as long as we had because of our traditions, because of our language, because of our culture. Those may not have dollar signs, but they were more powerful than all of the dollars that the tribe gets now, and the young people should never ever forget that."

Mary Kim Titla: "One of the things that I was interested in learning more about from you Pete is this Navajo Nation Permanent Fund. Tell me about that and what made it become a reality?"

Peterson Zah: "I was very, very lucky when I became the tribal chair back in 1983. We had an 88-member council. Most of them were traditional people and a totally different perspective about leadership and about Navajo life and Navajo goals and aspirations. The difference is that back then those were visionary leaders and during that period in the history of the Navajo tribe we won several very, very important court decisions. One of them was Kerr McGee versus the Navajo Nation, a United States Supreme Court case where the Navajo Nation wanted to tax all of the companies that were extracting minerals off Navajo land, businesses that operate on Navajo Nation. We decided what we should do is tax them, and that's been in the works with the tribe for many, many years and so finally the tribe says, 'We're going to tax all of you, as you're being taxed elsewhere, you're doing business throughout the United States.' And so we did and they took us to court. While we were in litigation during the court process, they were paying us escrow funds, the amount of taxes that they're supposed to pay the tribe. So by the time we won in 1984, it had accumulated a huge amount of money in the escrow account, so all of a sudden as a young chairman of the Navajo Nation, $214 or $216 million was dropped on my lap and my job was, what to do with the money? As you know and Angela well know, when you have a tribal council such as what we have among Indian people, they want to spend, spend, spend. And any time you raise the issue of wanting to save you were an oddball. So in my case, I decided that I'm going to go against the grain of what the Navajo Nation Council wants, which is we're going to invest all of these monies, and the one that people always hear about is the Permanent Fund. That is where you establish a permanent account and we put something like $26 million into a permanent Navajo fund and we want that to grow. Back then, from 1984 to 2004, for [a] 20-year period we all agreed that we wouldn't touch that amount of money, and then the Navajo Nation was to contribute 12 percent of its total revenues into that account each year. So you had the $26 million that was earning interest and the Navajo Nation council was also depositing 12 percent of the total revenue each year into the account and that thing grew and grew and grew. And to this day, 2006, we're almost at a billion dollars. And when we reach a billion within the next several years, that money is to be used by the Navajo people after they have a referendum vote, so it's not only up to the council to decide how that money should be used. It's going to be up to all the Navajo voters. We had hearings three summers ago and the Navajo people decided that what we should do is don't use it all. Use only the interest off that one billion. We can handle that but keep the one billion in the bank so that you'll always have money in the bank for a rainy day for example, and only use the interest. And we can use that interest just to keep the tribal government, tribal services going and not ever spend the one billion. So that was the kind of visionary leaders the Navajo council was back then, and I was just very, very lucky as a young person to be in that seat working with them when that thing happened."

Mary Kim Titla: "Sure. And Angela, you have a new constitution."

Angela Russell: "We do."

Mary Kim Titla: "Can you talk about what prompted the tribe to develop this and where did the leadership for that come from?"

Angela Russell: "Well, I think there were only a couple of tribes that had a town council form of government. We were one of them. Our constitution was actually modeled after a Moose Lodge charter, and that was in 1948, so that was the constitution we had. And with mineral development possibilities, with changes in our society, we really needed to be more business-minded, and looking at that old constitution, it wasn't going to work. We had a group of individuals that were part of a committee called the 107th Committee but they -- in discussing where the tribe needed to go -- recognized that we needed changes in our constitution and there were a number of things that they really wanted. They wanted separation of powers, they wanted longer terms for tribal officials, looking at maybe limited waivers of sovereignty. There were a number of things that they looked at and when they looked at the old constitution, it just was not going to work. It was either in conflict or it was so inconsistent that it would raise lots of problems. So back in 2001, actually even earlier than that, many of us who participated in those old councils worked hard to try to look at a new constitution or constitutional reform. I remember I had a resolution before the council -- I think it was 1973 -- just asking for a study to look at different constitutions and bring it back to the council and that was defeated. So it's taken a long time to get where we are, but in 2001 we did approve a new constitution, and that gives you the three branches of government, six districts on our reservation and we have three representatives from each of those districts. And then we have the executive branch and then we have the judicial. If we really are going to move forward into business, it's really important that we have the three branches of government, because a lot of businesses don't want to come on Indian land if they don't feel they have a right to certain things or if they believe their rights aren't being protected. At least the courts provide a forum hopefully to be fair to individuals working on the reservation. So it's new and it's pretty exciting. There are problems that we need to work out, but I think it's moving along."

Mary Kim Titla: "We could talk all day about leadership and issues that our leaders are dealing with in their own communities, but we've run out of time. So I just want to thank you for your insight and your advice. I've learned a lot today."

Angela Russell: "Thank you. It's good to be here."

Mary Kim Titla: "We want to thank Peterson Zah and Angela Russell for appearing on today's edition of Native Nation Building. Native Nation Building is a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation building and the issues discussed on today's program, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. That's www.nni.arizona.edu/nativetv. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building."

Native Nation Building TV: "Moving Towards Nation Building"

Producer
Native Nations Institute
Year

Manley A. Begay, Jr. and Stephen Cornell contrast the two basic approaches to Indigenous governance -- the standard approach and the nation-building approach -- and discusses how a growing number of Native nations are moving towards nation building. It provides specific examples of how implementing the five keys to nation building bring wide-ranging benefits to Native communities.

Citation

Native Nations Institute. "Moving Towards Nation Building" (Episode 10). Native Nation Building television/radio series. Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy and the UA Channel, The University of Arizona. Tucson, Arizona. 2006. Television program.

Mark St. Pierre: "Hello, friends. I'm your host, Mark St. Pierre and welcome to Native Nation Building. Contemporary Native Nations face many challenges including building effective governments, developing strong economies that fit their culture and circumstances, solving difficult social problems and balancing cultural integrity in change. Native Nation Building explores these often complex challenges in the ways Native Nations are working to overcome them as they seek to make community and economic development a reality. Don't miss Native Nation Building next."

Mark St. Pierre: "Over the last decade or so, many Indigenous nations have been moving to an approach to economic development that has been described as nation building. Today's program examines this nation-building approach to development and contrasts it with the older approach that remains pretty common today, the so-called standard approach. With me today to discuss these two approaches are Drs. Manley Begay and Stephen Cornell. Dr. Begay, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, is the Director of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona, where he also serves as senior lecturer in the American Indian Studies program. Dr. Cornell is the Director of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and a Professor of Sociology and Public Administration and Policy at the University of Arizona. Welcome, gentlemen. It's nice to have you both here today. The Native Nations Institute in its extensive research has found that there are basically two approaches to Native Nation governance. Can you describe these?"

 

Manley Begay: "The standard approach has been in existence probably for the better part of the 20th century, and it's really an outgrowth of [a] long-held belief that dependency is the way to go by the federal government and also by many state governments as well. And the nation-building approach is a recent phenomenon sort of borne out of the political research and stuff of the '70s. Interestingly enough, I think the roots of the standard approach is really around colonization, forced dependency, and as a result political decision-making has been very slow. Others besides those that are most effected make development decisions, and it sort of views Indigenous culture as an obstacle to development, whereas on the nation-building approach which has been recently pushed and thought of by Indigenous peoples is really rooted around the exercise of sovereignty, claiming jurisdiction, building effective political systems and institutions of self governance, using culture as a way to design political systems and also to design economic systems as well. And so it's really two very different type of approaches, and also has produced two very different types of results."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "Steve, when you talk about the standard approach, what are some of the inevitable outcomes?"

 

Stephen Cornell: "Well, I think the standard approach -- as Manley has indicated -- the results have not been very positive for Indian nations. I think you have to sort of realize that the standard approach leaves...it makes an assumption, it assumes that Indigenous nations are not really capable of making major decisions for themselves, so the priorities in development are ones that are put together in Washington, D.C., put together by federal bureaucrats who are saying, 'Man, these tribes poor, we've got to do something about it, let's come up with a program to help them.' So they design a program and they fund it and they make decisions about how the program will be run and Indian Country experiences the results. But if you look at that model, it's one in which tribal priorities do not appear, bureaucratic priorities do, Washington's priorities do, federal priorities do."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "You could almost call that the well-intended approach."

 

Stephen Cornell: "It's a very well-intended approach, it's just not a very well-accomplished approach. So tribal priorities don't appear in there, tribes do not exercise real decision-making power. In many cases, what it creates is this expectation that well, 'It's up to the feds to do it for us so you get this kind of looking to the feds as the source of not just money, but ideas and suggestions and solutions, so tribes get excluded from the decision-making process, they get excluded from thinking through what kind of development they want. The result over the -- Manley said it sort of dominated the 20th century -- if you look at the 20th century in Indian Country, the performance in economic development is pretty poor."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "Steve, you talked about the standard model, sadly the traditional model of planning that's been used by the EDA [Economic development Adminitsration] planners that tribes hire. Give us an idea of what that process looks like."

 

Stephen Cornell: "Well, as we were saying, a lot of the ideas for what tribes should do tend to come out of Washington. I think very often what happens is an Indian nation, facing tough unemployment, difficult time getting people through the winter -- all the kinds of problems that we see in extremely poor rural communities -- those nations just, they've got to get something going. And so you call in the tribal planner and you tell the tribal planner to go get a grant, go find some money, go get something started. So the planner goes off and looks for whatever they can find out there, where are the federal dollars, has anybody else got anything I can apply for. You start whatever you can fund. You appoint your relatives or your political supporters to run the projects. The council micromanages the heck out of it, and everybody just prays that something will work. We think of it as this sort of six-step model for planning in the standard approach. I think we've seen a lot of that."

 

Manley Begay: "We were in southern British Columbia working with a group of First Nations and we had an executive education session and this is sort of the steps that Steve mentioned. We talked about those steps and then at the end of the presentation one elder in the back raises his hand and he says, 'I know what's wrong with that planning process'. He says, 'They should have prayed first!' Basically he was eluding to the fact that the nation-building approach is very different in terms of planning than the standard approach. There's actually forethought and there's long-term planning, rather than sort of the short, grant-type of mentality. And you're actually more proactive in thinking about how you're going to plan, rather than reacting to the agendas being set by Washington or those that you're getting the money from. And then you're setting the development agenda, not someone else. So the planning process is very different under the nation-building approach."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "Let me follow up with this. If tribal officials are feeling pressured out of desperation to solve immediate, crisis-type problems, they would have to be politically brave to go with the longer vision, to map out something that might take years to accomplish."

 

Stephen Cornell: "It's not that they shouldn't be chasing the federal dollars. From our point of view, there aren't enough federal dollars in Indian Country. There will never be enough money to compensate for what's been taken from Indigenous nations nor to take care of all the problems that are out there. You need those federal dollars and it's right to be pursuing them. The problem is with an approach to economic development that stops there, that simply is looking for where's the homerun project that's going to solve all our problems. 'Oh, man, let's go for this grant, maybe that'll solve our problems. Let's go for this one...' instead of saying, 'How do we build an environment here that can sustain long-term economic growth? How can we build an environment that will actually produce the jobs and the economic activity that fits our culture, fits what our people want and has -- as Manley says -- long-term staying power?' And if tribes manage to do both of those at once, let's find the dollars to deal with the crisis we've got today, but let's not neglect the task of building a nation that's capable of supporting its people for the long run without having to depend on Washington, D.C. That's what tribes need to be doing and it is tough. I think it's...Indian nations face terribly difficult tasks, but they've demonstrated over and over again that they can handle difficult tasks. It's going to take work, but it can happen."

 

Manley Begay: "And Indian nations know best what their needs are. An occasional politician that arrives on the reservation might think, 'Oh, you need a motel right there. That's a good intersection.' So he gets the money, a hotel is built there, and it doesn't work, because that's not exactly what the nation really needed and wanted at that time. It didn't fit into their scheme of things. So somebody else promotes that rather than Indian nations themselves."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "A lot of tribes suffer from brain drain. Do either of you want to talk about that problem and how that comes about?"

 

Stephen Cornell: "Yeah, I'd be glad to say something about that. I think brain drain in fact is one of the characteristics of the old way of doing economic development in Indian Country. One of the things this sort of grant mentality does, it turns tribal government into simply a grants-getting organization, and you begin to encourage an idea among tribal citizens that that's really what tribal government is about. It's a funnel. It's a funnel for jobs, money, services that come from the federal government and they land at tribal government, and tribal government distributes them out to communities and people. And so your idea of tribal government is, there's nothing particularly impressive or ambitious about it, it's just kind of a hand-out-the-goodies organization. And then you look at, let's say, young people on a reservation, the young citizens of the nation and when they imagine what they might do with their lives, are they going to think about, 'Boy, I'm going to get involved in the leadership of this nation'. But if that's all government is, what's exciting about that? When you shift to nation building, a couple of things happen. You move decision-making out of federal hands and you put it in Indigenous hands. Suddenly the burden of responsibility is on the nation itself to decide, 'What kind of future do we want? How are we going to create that future?' And it starts to get real because you feel you're in the driver's seat. You may actually be able to make that future come alive. Suddenly it's starting to get to be an interesting thing, this tribal government business, 'Hey, if we could do that...' So young people may be more likely to stick around. Plus, if you back up that decision-making power with capable government, so that if I'm a young person and I want to invest time and energy and ideas in the future of the nation, I actually have an opportunity to do that. It won't depend who I voted for in the last election or who my relatives are. We've got a more competent government than that. We've got a government that is focused on producing good things for the nation, not on just distributing goodies to friends or something like that. Then I'll begin to think it might make some sense to invest here. I might stick around because I could really build something for my family, my community, for the nation. That begins to slow down that brain drain that has young people headed off to Minneapolis or L.A. or Rapid City or Houston or someplace, and that's a critical thing for the future of Indian Country, is to retain the incredible array of talent and resourcefulness that is in tribal communities and get it working on behalf of these nations."

 

Manley Begay: "Could I just add to that. As Steve was mentioning, it creates a sense of hope. When somebody else is dictating to you how you're going to live, you lose the incentive to do things for yourself. So it becomes more appropriate to just have Washington, D.C. decide for you. Or to compare to Eastern Europe. For a long time, all decisions were made in Moscow, so you'd just go to Moscow. Up in Canada, you go to Ottawa for decisions to be made, and there's less of incentive to do good things and to hope for good things because somebody else is deciding for you. So as a human being, you want to be in a decision-making position about determining for yourself what the future is going to look like. If somebody else is doing it for you, you say, 'Well, forget it.' You have less of a vested interest."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "Some of this seems to be buried in or attached to the original IRA [Indian Reorganization Act] constitutions which were two-year elected terms. Is this relevant to the discussion? Is the fact that many tribes operate on a two-year cycle related to the fact that they can't plan long term?"

 

Stephen Cornell: "If you look at those IRA constitutions, the boilerplate constitutions -- which were not Indigenous creations --those were created in the U.S. Department of the Interior for Indian nations. It was the United States saying, 'We know how you should govern yourselves. Here's the model, take it and go.' If you look at those models, they're very simple models of governance, they tend to put a whole lot of power in the hands of a tribal council, of elected officials. They make no provision for judicial functions or dispute resolution, things that tribes had enormous experience for generations in doing. It's not part of that government. The terms of office are short as you say. You get these two-year terms in many of those governments, so you get real rapid turnover in leadership, and Manley was mentioning you combine that with the federal funding cycles, and basically something's changing every year in the array of people who are working on development. So it's tough to get continuity. Now having said that, that doesn't mean everybody needs four- or five-year terms. We've seen some nations with two-year terms or even shorter, some nations where the senior people in government turn over every year. If the rules by which you govern stay the same, then you can get the kind of stability and continuity that capable governance needs. The real problem is if every two years when that administration perhaps changes, if it's a whole new ballgame, pretty soon you get people sitting there saying, 'Man, I'm heading out of here, I can't deal with this. You never know what the rules are, you never know whether you can trust the people you're working with to still be there tomorrow.' So I think, yeah, the standard model is a model that tolerates very high instability in tribal government, encourages very high instability in tribal government. That's one of the reasons why it's a pretty lousy approach to development."

 

Manley Begay: "And if you don't have staggered terms, it gets even worse."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "That's where I wanted to follow up, Manley. If you could talk a little bit about tribal governments that are operating more within the nation-building approach. What do they look like, tell us what they look like?"

 

Manley Begay: "As Steve was mentioning here earlier, we find that those that are operating within the nation-building approach have stability and stability in the rule of law. We find that to be quite important, because rule of law allows for the understanding that when a new administration comes in, things aren't going to change, contracts don't have to be rewritten. Rather, it creates this stability and so investors begin to feel as though, 'That's the place where I want to invest.' The Indigenous elementary school teacher says, 'I want to go there and work there because I know my investment of time, energy, education is going to be safe and that's where I want to be, and I don't have to leave elsewhere to provide a stability for my family. Rather, this is the place where I want to be.' Outside investors begin to feel as though that their investment will be safe as well because the rules don't change, it's very stable, and you get less of a conflict-of-interest situation where the court system is very stable, it provides for good rules of order, good law that's been set in place, and I think that you find economic development occurring much quicker and in a much better fashion in the long run."

 

Stephen Cornell: "Can I jump in and add a little piece to that which Manley reminded me of? In the standard approach, one of the other characteristics of that approach is the tribal government does everything. Now if you do that, one of the things that happens is you get a lot of political involvement in business management, because you're basically asking councilors to wear a political legislator hat for certain decisions but then take that hat off and be a business manager for other decisions, and for most of us that's tough to carry those kinds of roles and keep them straight, particularly when you're under pressure from constituents. In the nation-building model, one of the striking aspects of that model is the pulling apart of political decisions and the management of enterprises. You begin to get tribal governors, councilors, focused on certain core issues. What are the laws that we need? Do we have the appropriate governance capabilities in place? Do we have a set of policies and rules that will -- going back to the brain drain question -- keep the talented people here? Those are the kinds of things you want elected leadership to deal with, but then when the tribally owned enterprise gets going, you hope that business managers will be able to make intelligent, smart business decisions free from the kinds of political interference that the old model almost guaranteed."

 

Manley Begay: "The root of that type of stability creation really is around claiming jurisdiction, claiming sovereignty. Rather than having somebody else make decisions for your people, your resources, and all the issues that you deal with, you're in the decision-making position. You decide how your resources are going to be allocated, you decide how your political system is going to be developed, and it essentially marries decisions to consequences, whereas in the past, decisions were being made by other folks and you didn't have this marriage actually occurring, and as a result if somebody really messed up from outside of the tribe, they moved to Ohio or Denver or elsewhere. But for Indigenous people there's a vested interest there. You have to make good decisions to get the consequences that you want, and so that's very critical and part of that is just gaining control of the decision seat it seems to me."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "It seems to me that one model tends to foster confidence, growth, hope -- that sort of thing -- but I'm sure even within the nation-building approach, conflicts arise. How are conflicts resolved in either model?"

 

Stephen Cornell: "I think in the standard model, conflicts are resolved by firing people or the feds step in and say, 'We're yanking the grant,' or something like that. And in the nation-building model, ideally, you have some kind of mechanism that is rooted in community, custom, law, tradition so that it has respect in the community, so the people believe in it -- some mechanism that's capable of resolving disputes in a way that the various members of the community think is fair. The question is, how do you deal with those disputes and can you deal with them in ways that don't rip the society apart, so that the disagreement between these two families doesn't suddenly become or eventually become an immobilizing piece of community life where nobody can agree about anything and people are constantly at each others' throats and anything that you get is my loss and that sort of thing? So that sort of dispute-resolution mechanism -- and in many cases, it's an independent tribal court, in some cases, it might be a set of elders who have the authority and the stature to help resolve disputes, it may be traditional kinds of peacemaking approaches. There are a lot of ways to do it, but you've got to have a mechanism like that because there are bound to be disputes."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "And because a nation-building approach, the way you describe it, apparently draws on local culture, tradition, history, it's not a one-size-fits-all sort of situation like sadly the IRA government attempted to be. Manley, when you look at the nation-building approach, how does that affect strategic planning or strategies that tribes can develop over time?"

 

Manley Begay: "The strategic orientation focus in the nation-building approach way of thinking about things really allows for long-term thinking. Rather than the three to five years or 'grant mentality,' you're thinking about, 'What are my kids going to be doing 50 years from now? What kind of clothes will they be wearing? How will they be worshipping? What kind of language will they be speaking?What kind of education will they have? What kind of homes will they be living in? What kind of jobs will they have?' These are questions that must be answered by the leadership, and so [in] the nation-building model, you begin to address those questions, whereas in the standard approach somebody else is making decisions for you. It's just very short-term thinking. So as a result of the nation-building approach, you're planning for the long haul."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "Let's take a few minutes then to look at in your experience -- and you both have a broad experience in this -- some successes and some failures based on these two approaches."

 

Stephen Cornell: "There are a lot of stories out there, because the nation-building approach is not something we came up with. It's something that Indian nations came up with, and I think since really for about 30 years now, since the mid 1970s, we've begun to see a growing number of Indian nations who are taking control of their own affairs, putting in place capable governments and beginning to think very strategically as Manley described and accomplish things. One of the nations that I like to talk about is the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Oklahoma. In the mid 1970s, that Nation had -- today it's a very large nation, more than 20,000 citizens. In the 1970s, they had a tiny land base and almost no money in the bank. They had some ideas. How do we get people to come and invest here so we can create some jobs for our citizens? And the young tribal council member went out to talk to business people around Oklahoma and say to them, 'Hey, you should come and invest in our community. We're good people, we'll give you some tax breaks, come build with us.' And some of these business people, their response was, 'Well, okay, that all sounds real interesting, but let's say I get into a dispute with somebody on the reservation or with the tribe itself. Have you got a court system that I can depend on?' 'No, we don't have a court system.' 'Okay. And how do I know that the promises that you're making to me to help get me to work with you are going to be respected if when the administration changes. Can I count on the rule of law?' 'Well, we haven't really thought that part through.' Eventually this council member came back to the nation and said, 'We've got some political work to do. We've got some governance work to do before we're going to be successful at pulling these people here.' They did that work. It took a long time. They did it piece by piece. They built a capable set of governing institutions and they began to get the kind of investment they were after, not just from outsiders, from their own people. It's a nation that has taken enormous strides by kind of seizing control of its own destiny and then doing the hard work to put the institutions in place that could support what they wanted to do."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "Manley, what's one of your favorite stories? What would you like the viewers to hear?"

 

Manley Begay: "Some of my favorite stories really is around Indian nations actually grabbing hold of sovereignty and moving forward, sort of the first piece of the puzzle in the nation-building approach. There seems to be these defining moments where things just change from the standard approach to the nation-building approach. Some of the nations did it very smoothly and in a calculated fashion, as Steve just mentioned: Citizen Potawatomi. Some Indian nations, you had near violence. For instance, like at Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. When gaming was first being initiated, you found two opposing views of whether that nation should have gaming or not, which led to essentially the closure of a road into the casino and you basically had a standoff which forced negotiation to occur. And at that moment in time things began to change. The Indian nation began to think about themselves as truly a sovereign entity with all the rights and responsibilities of a nation, and there are a number of stories throughout Indian Country about this where Indian women would go into the Bureau of Indian Affairs office and literally threw the superintendent out. And at that moment things began to change. It's not unlike Lech Walesa in Poland saying to the Soviet Union, 'We're going to do things our way.' It's not unlike Nelson Mandela in South Africa saying, 'No more Apartheid, it's got to stop here.' And there are a number of these stories out in Indian Country like that."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "Let's look at First Nations in Canada. What are some examples of First Nations that have gone through a similar process? Steve?"

 

Stephen Cornell: "There's actually a lot happening in Canada right now with First Nations. I can think of a couple of the interesting ones to us. The Meadow Lake Tribal Council in Saskatchewan is a group of nine First Nations, some Dine, some Cree, who first got together to try to do economic development together. They realized that if they started doing development planning as a single group of nations they would get more leverage and be able to do better. Today, they're beginning to build political institutions at that same tribal council level. The Ktunaxa Tribal Council in British Columbia -- that's five First Nations and they're doing kinds...building the kinds of governing institutions that we're talking about at the tribal council level where these five First Nations are cooperating. Right now, they're involved in trying to design a government that will support their long-term strategic goals for preservation of the land, preservation of their culture, development of enough prosperity and productivity to support their community. So it's happening in a lot of different places, and if we had the time we could give you quite a list."

 

Mark St. Pierre: "Well, it's pretty apparent that Native nations that want a successful future have to invest tremendous time and effort into those issues, and I want to thank our two guests today, Dr. Manley Begay and Dr. Stephen Cornell, for appearing on this edition of Native Nation Building. This is a program of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy at the University of Arizona. To learn more about Native Nation Building and the issues discussed here today, please visit the Native Nations Institute's website at nni.arizona.edu. Thank you for joining us and please tune in for the next edition of Native Nation Building."