Let’s ask American Indians about the “immigration crisis”

Original article can be found at The Denver Post  
Originally published on January 14, 2017 By Patty Limerick 

In 2017, as the nation steps into the ring for yet another fight over immigration, the time has come to seek guidance from the people who have endured the most trying encounters with unruly and ill-mannered immigrants. 

For five hundred years, American Indian people have been coping with an immigration crisis. Since 1492, Europeans and Euro-Americans have disrupted long-established native communities with rowdy, sometimes violent conduct. And yet it is also true that natives and newcomers have also built relationships of trade, intermarriage, cultural exchange, negotiation, curiosity, respect, and even affection. 

In some locales, natives and newcomers have found ways to adapt to each other’s presence in surprisingly convivial ways. One such locale, improbably enough, is the area of Eastern Oregon where, a year ago, a group of new arrivals undertook to set a record for the escalation of conflict and contention. 

In January of 2016, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, sons of the prominent Nevada lawbreaker Cliven Bundy, led an armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The Bundys showed not an ounce of awareness of the impressive work of a local coalition that had convened Fish and Wildlife employees, the Burns Paiute tribal leaders, ranchers, environmentalists, and townspeople to arrive—successfully!—at a consensus for the management of the wildlife refuge. 

The very idea—that two ill-informed men from Utah could travel to Harney County, Oregon, and cast themselves as the representatives of local interests—satisfies all the technical criteria for classification as very batty behavior. And then, when the Bundys demanded the return of the public lands to their original owners, their inattention to the existence of the Burns Paiute Tribe put the refuge occupiers on record as pioneers who had lost their bearings on the far frontiers of historical irony. 

When it comes to an accurate grasp on history, Charlotte Rodrigue, the Burns Paiute Tribal Chairwoman, was and is light-years ahead of the Bundys. “I am not sympathetic to a group of armed individuals,” she wrote in the New York Times, “who want territory we have lived on for thousands of years to be ‘returned’ to the ‘people of Oregon.’ ” 

Wondrously, the threat and danger brought to Harney County by these intruders did not immobilize Chairwoman Rodrigue’s sense of humor. Noting that the Burns Paiute Tribe and the federal employees at the wildlife refuge had arrived at terms that made coexistence workable, Rodrigue offered a commentary, at once merry and mocking, of the silly conduct of the occupiers: 

“I will say, though, that the armed group could use some advice on their survival skills. Had the Paiute people staged a similar occupation, we wouldn’t have needed to ask for snacks or winter socks. Roots and berries hit the spot and rabbit fur is remarkably warm.” 

Here is a sure bet: If we have the good sense to include the wise and witty reflections of Indian people in our search for ways to deal with issues of immigration, we will gain more insight than we can, at this point, even start to imagine! 

Burns Paiute Tribal Chairwoman Charlotte Rodrigue will speak at CU Boulder on February 21, at 6:30 p.m. in Benson Earth Sciences Room 180. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.centerwest.org.