Alaska Inter-Tribal Council : Advocating for Alaska Tribal Governments

The State of Poverty
by Apanguluk Kairaiuak

Elder Axel Johnson of Alakanak, who was my mentor beginning the time I began my work as the Deputy Director of Nunam Klutsisti (Protectors of the Land), taught me how to reach within for our Iupiak Ancestral insights into our lands, Peoples and our ever changing environment. He also honed many of my skills by showing me his unique, intrinsic knowledge and wisdom he had learned from his Elders.

He only spoke when necessary, which in my case, he saw it to be like a spring flood. I remember the very first words he used to begin my tutelage. We were having NK Board of Directors Meeting at the KVNA Building.

The only topic at that meeting was about the proposed law that was being considered by the U.S. Congress. The Sportsman of Alaska, the State of Alaska Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and all the U.S conservation groups had banned together to write a draft law which would have totally eliminated all of the Alaska native bird hunting and picking of eggs in perpetuity. They all had concluded that the decline of the all the waterfowl was due to the hunting and egging of the Alaska natives. None of the above organizations had talked to any Indigenous groups before, during and after they wrote the draft law.
As the information became clear to me I began to access the realities of our dilemma. Having gone to high school and college I had learned to evaluate and conclude my assessments logically.

The logical facts to me at the time were that the Alaska Fish and Game had around forty (40) million dollars to work with while NK had only $3,900. In my mind, with the humongous differences in our budgets, we had absolutely no chance of winning this fight. So I stated my logical conclusions. It was about 10:30 in the morning.

Elder Johnson got up, picked up his jacket, walked over to me, got me up, handed me my jacket and turned to the rest of the of the NK Board of Directors and said that he and I were having an early lunch break. All of the Elder Board Members (Isaac Hawk, ? Lomack and Jack Williams) smiled and nodded together their approval.

Elder Johnson talked to me for a couple of hours on several topics. At the end of our meeting he instructed me on what to document, record and report to the Board.

In the end all of the sponsors of the law, except for the Sportsman of Alaska, withdrew their names and the U.S. Congress dropped the draft law. Instead, the Pacific Flyway Council was formed with our total involvement and consent. The total tally of funds dedicated by all parties concerned was over eight (8) million dollars for the conservation, protection and perpetuation of the waterfowl.

After my report Elder Johnson talked to me again. He told me that one must always look at all the facts existing or known at the time and make decisions that would solve the critical problems and provide lasting benefits to those we work for.

In looking at the history of our Iupik Peoples and other “Alaska” Indigenous Peoples health and wellbeing it is necessary to look at all the facts that now determine the our present health and wellbeing.

As we all know our Peoples have always lived as healthy as our Ancestral lands, waters and resources provided for us. Most of the years our Mother Earth provided plenty, but there has been times when our Peoples experienced hard times or famines. Our Peoples were well cared for by our Spiritual leaders, medicine men and women. We depended on our leaders, families and communities to take care of us. We had our own governing, educational and Spiritual systems to provide us with stability and security. We had our Elders to guide us into our future.

Eventually foreigners (Russians) came and took our lands, waters and resources as their own without our knowledge, participation and consent. Then the foreigners “sold” the land to a foreign colonial government (the United States of America), again, without our knowledge, participation and consent. Then the foreign colonial government forced and coerced us into accepting their appropriation of our lands, waters and resources. Our historical communities were dissolved by corralling us into the few communities where they decided to put their own churches and schools. Those who refused to submit and follow their plans were threatened with incarceration.

They created a territory for the sole purpose of bringing in their own laws so that they could develop our resources without any interference from us. Then they created the state entity. Since they banned the Alaska Indigenous Peoples from participation via the Literacy Act of 1925 and did not have the numbers to show that the majority of “Alaskans” favored statehood they ordered over 33,000 military servicemen and their families to vote for statehood. They threatened the Indigenous Peoples who knew about the statehood effort with incarcerations and fines if they attempted to participate or interfered with the statehood process.

This fraud was later further clarified and defined in the U.S. Supreme Court Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States,348 U.S. 272 (1955) 348 U.S. Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States. Certiorari to the United States Court of Claims. No. 43. Argued November 12, 1954. Decided February 7, 1955 where the U.S. “find[s] nothing to indicate any intention by Congress to grant to the Indians any permanent rights in the lands of Alaska occupied by them” since “there is no particular form for congressional recognition of Indian right of permanent occupancy.” Their final conclusion was that Alaska lands were for white people only.
This decision was primarily based on the case of Johnson v. McIntosh which " has long been rationalized by the legal theory that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest." The problem with the use of this "legal theory" is that in 1790, during the contest over the northwestern territory, in which the United States, England and Russia was involved, discovery with the symbolic taking of possession was considered insufficient to vest legal title in any of the claimants. Occupation was regarded as an essential proof of prior and continued use, management and regulation in the acquisition of terra niullus.

The Iupik Peoples have claims of occupation to their lands going back at least 60,000 years (History of the Iupik Lands).
The end result of the Alaska statehood is that for most of the Alaska Indigenous Peoples (99+%) the foreign colonial government has created a State of Poverty. For the foreign colonists this is completely justified because they have other “legal theories” that support all their decisions and creations.
Besides the white people, the few Alaska natives who have benefited, those who are now benefiting, those who are either brainwashed or edumacated by the foreign colonists and those who are told what to think, feel and say by those who live by the above “legal theories” will jump up and point to our schools, community buildings, housings, once-in-a-blue-moon community projects, government and corporation jobs. And let us not forget the Alaska permanent fund (about $900 a year, what will that buy now?, who can live off of that for a year?).

So what facts determine the State of Poverty? In the rural areas we have the highest rate of unemployment per capita. Even with the few, seasonal capital projects most our Peoples don’t make enough money to surpass the federal minimum annual wage earnings criteria. Even with promises of lots of jobs, like in Prudhue Bay, very few of our people are ever hired. Other good money making jobs, like Bering Sea crab fishing, are done by outside boats and crew.
Those who do have jobs earn a lot less money (like native school teachers) than those who come from urban areas or outside of Alaska. Outside contractors are afforded Bacon and Davis wages but natives in villages doing the exact same job are paid less in wages on the same projects. Since the cost of projects is so high and those projects are rarely appropriately funded the natives are asked to work with lower wages. Even our native organizations accept, endorse and participate in exercising this unfair practice. Majority of those who do make enough money have to live outside their communities in order to receive those kinds of money. Very high unemployment rates occur in States of Poverty.

Most of our people get some kind of monetary assistance from the federal government. The amount they receive is not enough for a small family to live off. They do not have enough money to pay for all of the necessary needs in their families and community services. Most of our people in rural areas depend on the foreign colonial government to pay for their groceries, fuel and electricity.

Due to the high cost of living in rural areas many now cannot pay for many of their needs. If it was not for the subsistence hunting and fishing many of our peoples would be starving today.
People depend on foreign governments to take care of them in States of Poverty.
All of the major economic developments occur only in areas that non-native people want to develop. In all of the major developments almost all of the money made goes outside of Alaska. In most cases many of our Indigenous Peoples end up watching the outsiders come in and enjoy the benefits and bounties of those developments. If and when the Indigenous Peoples do benefit from those developments they usually get less then crumbs of the total financial benefits.
When those resources are developed in rural areas the benefits to the communities in those areas are further greatly minimized by such things as community development quotas (CDQs) because the lion shares of those CDQ’s go to the outsiders. For example, only about 3.5% of the Bering Sea quotas go to rural communities. Due to this type of typical unfair practice many of our Peoples who participate in the fisheries cannot get money to get the appropriate boats, equipment and facilities to harvest and process the abundant resources in their own back yard.
But when ever resources are developed in urban areas where many of the users are outsiders they built roads, modern facilities, equipment and services for the use of that resource.

Resources are developed in this manner in States of Poverty.
The foreign colonial governments have specific theories and supported by their legal views on the rights and powers of the original inhabitants. They believe that they are superior as human beings and therefore have superiority over our rights, lands and resources. For this reason, in Alaska, (as stated in the Bethel District Court and practiced Alaskawide) they have an urban and a rural native justice system. This does not mean that a native will only get the above judicial treatment in rural Alaska but will get the same legal treatment in urban areas if he or she is native.
Our native leaders who get funds and are working under these foreign colonial systems are enslaved and have no choice but to follow the above foreign doctrines and laws. Even when they know that those doctrines and laws are the only cause of our Peoples suffering they publicly give their full support to those doctrines and laws in order to get their federal funding. Whenever other Indigenous Peoples seek and pursue real and legal solutions that they also know for the above problems their only reason to justify their lack of support, assistance and participation is that those individuals and their process are not “federally recognized”.

This type of relationship between governments, judicial systems, native leaders and the people that they are suppose to serve exists, is condoned and practiced in the State of Poverty.
The foreign colonial entities, the rural municipalities, traditional councils, native villages of and the iras, all do not have an economic tax so therefore they have no money to create and pay for community programs and services. For most of those community entities the only source of public funds that they can generate is from the local gambling operations, otherwise known as bingo. This is because outsiders control all of their resources and take all the money generated from those resources for their own use and profit.
This type of lack of economic control and benefits exist in the States of Poverty.
All of the above is created by design. As long as the Alaska Indigenous Peoples live in a State of Poverty they will never be able to challenge and stop any of the illegal actions and laws of the foreigners. Nor will they be able to use any of the International laws to correct the injustices, seek just compensation and stop the ongoing human rights violations and genocide that are essential elements to creating a concrete States of Poverty.