Native Land, Youth, and The Future

by Special Correspondent Jessica Yee

Much of what people know about historic Native issues has to do with land on some level. Indeed, much of what we are about today has to do with our land also. Our Mother Earth is the ultimate living entity, something that sustains life and guides us as a people. They say that without our land, we are nothing.

Nowadays, the news that is frequently dispelled from our communities if you are involved in any left-learning circles are about things like land claims, environmental degradation and destruction, and the suffering and plight of our people as a result of our Mother Earth being taken away from us. While this is all true and essential to acknowledge that we need land for the people, we also need people for the land. I know for myself that whenever I enter an activist space of some sort, I’m constantly being asked about whatever land struggle that is currently going on in some Native community, to which I’ll often reply “I work in sexual and reproductive health. Do you know the latest statistic on AIDS in Aboriginal communities?”

People ask me this I think for maybe a few stereotypical reasons (like they think that we all know everything about each other and send smoke signals the other way to find out), but mostly because it would appear that these are very key issues for us to be involved in, and in reality, we do need this place for the prophecies of our next 7 generations to come true. While I am still a learner when it comes to subjects like environmental justice and food sustainability, I know I cannot separate myself from my community whatsoever, and these are the simultaneous realities we must deal with when even discussing things like sexuality and violence prevention in our communities. I have to be informed.

We cannot pit one issue on top of the other as being more pressing; it’s all affecting us somehow.

Even my own heroine of heroines, Katsi Cook, from my home community of Akwesasne, a leader in reproductive justice and traditional midwifery, starting the Mother’s Milk Project and the first Haudenosaunee Birthing Centre at Six Nations, is now an internationally renowned environmental activist, who (among many of the other corporate squalors she has exposed in her time) had to simultaneously bring light to the fact that PCBs from the General Motors plant were getting into our fish and waters and gravely affecting the women and the way they birthed babies in my community. This is how I know that as a young First Nations woman, I have to care about all of this at the same time and don’t have the luxury of just picking one sector to be vocal on. I wouldn’t want to anyways.

Interestingly enough however, when it comes to understanding the 7 generations teaching, it’s important to remember that we are actually on number 7 right now. This generation and the people my age and younger are supposed to be the catalysts to effect concrete, positive change and send ripples of transformation throughout our nations to be stronger, better, and to live longer. Ironically when it comes to looking at what is going on with youth across our lands, we are certainly failing them the most.

For example in the US:

• Native American youth represent just over 1 percent of the U.S. population, yet they constitute 2 to 3 percent of the youth arrested for such offenses as larceny-theft and liquor law violations.. • Alcohol-related deaths among Native Americans ages 15-24 are 17 times higher than the national averages. The suicide rate for Native American youth is three times the national average. • Over 30% of Native American youth do not graduate from high school

And in Canada:

• More than 27 000 First Nations children are in state care • Aboriginal youth ages 15-24 have the highest rate of sexually transmitted infections in the country • 40% of Aboriginal youth live in poverty

I won’t even go into how much youth-focused programming and youth-led initiatives are lacking across the board. This isn’t only due to funding and racist constraints from government; this has to do with a lot of older people still not getting it that it has to be about the youth now. You need to give up some of your power and privilege for the next generations to continue on the important work you think you are doing.

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