The Reservation, "The Rez"

[JanCarolSeidr]

The Reservations out west are places of hardship, hunger, substance abuse, lost identity and culture – with serious betrayal by the white people and their government. A few hold onto traditions, art, music, culture, and the old ways, and try to teach it to the children. But it is not a path of material wealth. The ones who leave the reservation are often the ones who get white education and succeed in the white world. If they return to the Reservation, it is to help their people. I am a White person, I have only visited these places, so this is just my outsider’s impression of the places. 

A “Reservation” is a place where you have been displaced to. The entire state of Oklahoma was once “reserved” for all the Tribes of the Eastern US, and then later, the defeated tribes of the West. Oklahoma became a tribal melting pot – but – the People were given the poorest land, no meaningful work, and were cut off from the heritage of the land of their birth. The Western Reservations, like you described, are more likely to hold People who are at least living close to their Ancestral Grounds.

That you landed in a Reservation makes me want to ask: what has been displaced in your own life?

[Author]

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