# data[].attributes.body
Writer: Neil Diamond
Text/subject: This Documentary by Neil Diamond highlights how the myth of the "injun" has influenced society's understanding and misunderstanding of Native Americans.
Audience: General U.S population, those looking to educate themselves on misrepresentation and stereotypes.
Context: How the history of Native Americans has given people predisposed representations.

Summary: Reel Injun is a documentary about cinema and it brings you through multiple perspectives of people who lived to and wanted to tell there stories about the myths that they have seen throughout the years. One of those people being Clint Eastwood who discussed the image of native Americans that was displayed to the media over the year. This film dives deep into Hollywood and how it promoted stereotypes and racism towards Native Americans and how this ultimately led to the American Indian Movement because of all the incorrect myths that were spread.

Tubi, 1 Jan. 2009, https://tubitv.com/movies/667966/reel-injun. Accessed 1 May 2023.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Hollywood has an impressive track record, one that spans more than 4,000 films, of blatantly misrepresenting Native people and their cultures. Featuring interviews with filmmakers and activists such as Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch and Russell Means, Reel Injun delves into the fascinating history of the Hollywood Indian with razor-sharp insight and humor, tracing its checkered cinematic evolution from the silent film era to today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hollywood has an impressive track record, one that spans more than 4,000 films, of blatantly misrepresenting Native people and their cultures. Featuring interviews with filmmakers and activists such as Clint Eastwood, Jim Jarmusch and Russell Means, Reel Injun delves into the fascinating history of the Hollywood Indian with razor-sharp insight and humor, tracing its checkered cinematic evolution from the silent film era to today.

# data[].attributes.body
Writer: Joy Hajro
Text/subject: Hajro brings light to the violence that Native Americans are encountering after Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, which forced roughly 46,000 native Americans to relocate to Oklahoma.
Audience: The general U.S population, and those studying the Indian Removal Act, and those who endulge poetry.
Context: More than 4,000 people died on that relocation journey to Indian territory which is what Hajro describes in her poetry piece.

Summary: This poem by Joy Hajro, she talks about the level of difficulty for Native Americans to maintain their culture and practices in the modern world and how there is not enough representation in the media and the representation that is shown, is solely rumors and myths about the Native American Culture. This poem displays a lot of themes surrounding racism and the desire for justice.

Harjo, Joy. “An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/92063/an-american-sunrise.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves. We

were surfacing the edge of our ancestors' fights, and ready to strike.

It was difficult to lose days in the Indian bar if you were straight.

Easy if you played pool and drank to remember to forget. We

made plans to be professional - and did. And some of us could sing

so we drummed a fire-lit pathway up to those starry stars. Sin

was invented by the Christians, as was the Devil, we sang. We

were the heathens, but needed to be saved from them - thin

chance. We knew we were all related in this story, a little gin

will clarify the dark and make us all feel like dancing. We

had something to do with the origins of blues and jazz

I argued with a Pueblo as I filled the jukebox with dimes in June,

forty years later and we still want justice. We are still America. We

know the rumors of our demise. We spit them out. They die

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
An American Sunrise by Joy Harjo | Poetry Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves. We

# data[].attributes.body
Writer: National Park Service (NPS)
Text/subject: Informational about the common misconceptions about modern day Chesapeake Bay American Indians
Audience: The general U.S. population, those who are seeking information on where American Indians reside in the United States
Context: Today's American Indian culture in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware

Summary: There are many misconceptions concerning the Native People of the Chesapeake, and one of those is that they no longer live in that region. However there are tens of thousands of people that reside in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. They continue to try and reclaim their heritage and practice the special aspects of their culture.

“American Indian Tribes Today.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, https://www.nps.gov/cajo/learn/historyculture/american-indian-tribes-today.htm.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The original inhabitants of what is now Pennsylvania included the Lenape, or Delaware, tribe and the Susquehannock tribe. Other tribes, particularly the Nanticoke and the Shawnee, migrated into Pennsylvania and New Jersey after the Europeans arrived.

In the early 1600s, there were an estimated 5,000-7,000 Susquehannock but by 1700, their numbers had dwindled to 300, most likely brought on by the introduction of European diseases. According to historical accounts in 1763, a mob lynched the remaining 20 known Susquehannock. Descendents of the Susquahannock remain, although there is no known descendant community.

There are no federally recognized Indian tribes in Pennsylvania, although the most recent census reports an American Indian population of more than 12,000. The Lenape continue to have a modern presence and are working to preserve the heritage of the Algonquian-speaking tribes of eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The Nanticoke tribe, also Algonquian speakers, originally occupied the area between the Delaware and Chesapeake bays in what is today Maryland and Delaware. Today the Nanticoke Indian Association is officially recognized by the state of Delaware.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American Indian Tribes Today - Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The original inhabitants of what is now Pennsylvania included the Lenape, or Delaware, tribe and the Susquehannock tribe. Other tribes, particularly the Nanticoke and the Shawnee, migrated into Pennsylvania and New Jersey after the Europeans arrived.

# data[].attributes.body
Writer: Kate White, with the help of the U.S Department of Health & Human Services.
Text/subject: I think the world overlooks how much of our population that is actually Native American, and by the numbers displayed on my poster, you can see how vast this population is.
Audience: The general U.S population and those who appreciate statistics.
Context: This infographic displays the growing population of Modern Native Americans across the United States, and exactly how much percentage of the population they cover.

Summary: This infographic displays the number and percentage of the population that is Native American, with approximately 5.2 million American Indians that reside in the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
Writer: Patty Ferguson-Bohnee
Text/subject: The voting rights act of 1965 ensure that there would be no suppression of votes for Native Americans, however in 2013 the act was invalidated which impacted the community immensely.
Audience: The general U.S population, voting right activists.
Context: In order for these stories to be heard we must understand the hardships and setbacks that the Native Americans have endured.

Summary: This articles educates readers that for Americans, registering to vote is as simple as clicking a couple buttons, however for those that live on reservations, there are only a couple opportunities for them to register of update their voter registration. That is due to lack of convenience and when registering online, they do not accept tribal identification which makes it unfeasible to vote. To register online you must have a state ID and a valid address, not on a reservation.

Americanbar.org, https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/voting-rights/how-the-native-american-vote-continues-to-be-suppressed/.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Despite the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, many Native Americans living on reservations continued to be excluded from the democratic process. In 1948, Native Americans in New Mexico and Arizona successfully litigated their right to vote. Utah and North Dakota became the last states to afford on-reservation Native Americans the right to vote in 1957 and 1958, respectively. When the right to vote was finally secured, voter suppression laws kept Native Americans from voting and seeking elected office. In Arizona, for example, Native Americans could not fully participate in voting until 1970 when the Supreme Court upheld the ban against using literacy tests ( Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970)). Today, the right to vote continues to be challenged through the passage of new laws and practices that either fail to consider, disregard, or intentionally target Native American voters.

In order to understand the challenges faced by Native American voters, one must recognize the vast differences in experiences, opportunities, and realities facing on-reservation voters as compared to off-reservation voters.

I will never forget the Navajo grandmother who spoke only Navajo and could not vote after Arizona passed its voter ID law in 2004. She tried several times to obtain an Arizona ID on her own but was denied because she was born at home in a hogan, and the boarding schools changed her Navajo name to English. She lived in a modest home on the Navajo Reservation without electricity and running water, and lived a traditional lifestyle taking care of her sheep. She was embarrassed and devastated when she was turned away from the polls for not having an ID. Working with her, a team from the Indian Legal Clinic traveled five hours to meet her at multiple agency offices to obtain her delayed birth certificate; we then went to two separate Motor Vehicle Division Offices. The first one did not issue same-day photo IDs, and the other initially denied her request. The office rejected her delayed Navajo birth certificate, until I was able to intervene and demonstrate to them that it was an acceptable document. The system failed to consider her reality as a Navajo woman and failed to value her as a voter. Fortunately, she was persistent in exercising her right to vote, but not all voters are, nor should they have to be.

This example helps explain why voting can be difficulty for Native American voters. Turnout for Native Americans is the lowest in the country, as compared to other groups. While a number of issues contribute to the low voter turnout, a study conducted by the Native American Voting Rights Coalition found that low levels of trust in government, lack of information on how and where to register and to vote, long travel distances to register or to vote, low levels of access to the internet, hostility toward Native Americans, and intimidation are obstacles. Isolating conditions such as language barriers, socioeconomic disparities, lack of access to transportation, lack of residential addresses, lack of access to mail, and the digital divide limit Native American political participation. Changes to voting processes further frustrate the ability of Native Americans to vote.

As part of their socioeconomic reality, Native Americans face obstacles when making choices about feeding their families or expending resources that might affect their right to vote. This could include renewing their P.O. box, replacing an ID to update a residential address, or driving a considerable distance to register to vote or vote. Nationally, the poverty rate of Native Americans is 26.8 percent. Native Americans are more likely to work multiple jobs, lack reliable transportation, and lack adequate childcare resources, thus making voting pragmatically difficult.

An additional problem affecting many Native Americans is homelessness or near homelessness due to extreme poverty and lack of affordable housing on many reservations. A study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that between 42,000 and 85,000 people in tribal areas are couch surfers, staying with friends or relatives only because they have no place of their own. This lack of permanent housing impacts the ability of these tribal members to have a permanent physical address, yet this should not impede their ability to exercise their right to vote.

Nontraditional Addresses, Voter Registration, and Voter ID Laws

Something as simple as not having a residential address impacts all aspects of voting, including getting your mail, registering to vote, and complying with ever-increasing voter ID laws.

While 84 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, many Native Americans and Alaska Natives live in rural communities that lack residential addresses. Homes are usually described in terms of landmarks, crossroads, and directions. Numerous roads on reservations are unimproved dirt or gravel roads in poor quality and are often unnamed. After storms, many roads are impassable. Due to these poor conditions, the U.S. Postal Service does not deliver mail to the majority of the reservation residents at their homes.

Due to the lack of residential addresses, most residents rely on P.O. boxes in a nearby town or get their mail through a trading post or other location. Some reservation residents have to travel up to 70 miles in one direction to receive mail. In Arizona, for example, only 18 percent of reservation voters outside of Maricopa and Pima Counties have residential addresses and receive mail at home. The Navajo Nation, the largest reservation in the United States-larger than West Virginia-does not have an addressing program, and most people live in remote communities. Similarly, many other reservations lack home mail delivery. On the Tohono O'odham Reservation, there are 1,900 P.O. boxes and some cluster mailboxes. Residents may check their mail every two weeks, and some only once per month.

Through no fault of the voter, the lack of a residential address can result in the political subdivision placing the voter in the wrong precinct, the voter's ID address not matching the voter rolls, and/or the voter not receiving election mail timely, if at all.

While many Americans can register to vote through the click of a button from the comfort of their homes, that is simply not the case for reservation residents. For reservation voters, there are few opportunities to register or update their voter registration due to location of voter registration services, the lack of residential addresses, and lack of broadband capability. Less than half of the homes on tribal lands have reliable broadband access. Even if a voter has access to broadband on the reservation, most online voter registration systems require a state ID to register to vote and do not accept tribal IDs. In Arizona, for example, an individual must have a state ID and a residential address on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles to register online, eliminating this option for most reservation residents.

Registering to vote online or driving somewhere to register to vote, or voting itself, can be logistically challenging if not economically infeasible. For example, in Arizona, the lack of residential addresses resulted in registered voters having their IDs rejected at the polls or being included on a suspense list, meaning the voter is not placed in a voting precinct. While county offices may offer in-person voter registration during normal business hours, this can be challenging for Native American voters who may live 100 miles or more from the county seat. Further, for some Native American and Alaska Natives, oral translations must be provided for voter registration and voting.

Voter ID laws further complicate this issue. Native Americans are less likely to have a form of ID compliant with voter ID laws requiring residential addresses because in addition to states failing to consider tribal IDs when passing these laws, there are also socioeconomic and institutional factors that keep reservation residents from obtaining IDs. Although many tribes issue IDs, not all tribal IDs include addresses. Even if a tribal member has an ID with an address, because reservation voters lack residential addresses, the ID may have a P.O. box or descriptive address. Nontraditional addresses do not fit into county database systems, resulting in counties reassigning addresses to voters. This may result in the ID being rejected due to insufficient poll worker training or because it does not match the residential address in the voter file. This has resulted in voters being denied a regular ballot because the address on their IDs did not match the addresses assigned by the counties for the voter registration database.

A voter ID law requiring a residential address went into effect in North Dakota right before the 2018 midterm elections that expressly excluded the use of P.O. boxes as residential addresses. Over 5,000 Native Americans lacked the requisite form of ID to vote, as no reservation had residential addresses. The tribes searched for solutions prior to Election Day. The North Dakota Secretary of State informed tribal leaders that voters could call the county 911 coordinator to receive an address. This was a meager solution given that most of the tribal reservations span multiple jurisdictions, creating inconsistencies and confusion for tribes. For Sioux County, where the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is located, the 911 coordinator is the county sheriff, which posed a deterrent for community members wary of law enforcement. When a Standing Rock Sioux tribal member called to determine her residential address, the sheriff told her that he was transporting prisoners and could not assign addresses that day. Another voter was assigned a residential address corresponding to a nearby bar, exposing that tribal member to fraud if he voted based on that address.

As a result, North Dakota tribes had to create emergency plans to produce residential addresses and corresponding IDs for their members. They kept their offices open for extended hours and began providing free IDs to tribal members, to the point where the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa's ID machine overheated. Although the Secretary of State never explicitly endorsed the tribes' plan, the tribes were left with no other options and had to undertake the extraordinary effort in order to ensure that their tribal members could vote.

While tribes took actions to issue free tribal IDs meeting the new requirements, they expended resources they did not have in order to assist their tribal members. Tribal members in North Dakota have high unemployment and poverty rates. At Spirit Lake, almost 50 percent of the tribal members live below the poverty line; and at Turtle Mountain, the unemployment rate is almost 70 percent. Native American voters living on reservations have the same constitutional right to vote as any other citizen. In this instance, tribal governments had to expend their own resources to ensure that tribal members could vote in state and federal elections.

Access to In-Person Polling Locations and the Vote-By-Mail Movement

If a Native American or Alaska Native voter living in a rural community overcomes the inherent barriers of nonstandard addresses, voter registration barriers, and manages to have the correct ID, the voter may be further burdened by the vote-by-mail system or the lack of available polling places. Voting by mail is often unreliable and not as accessible for Native Americans living on reservations as it is for off-reservation voters. Native American voters are less likely to have mail delivered to their homes, especially when living on tribal lands. Many on-reservation voters live in rural areas where it is common for mail to arrive late or not at all. Non-Hispanic whites are 350 percent more likely to have mail delivered to their homes than Native Americans in Arizona. The difficulties accessing mail make voting by mail difficult because traveling to the P.O. box to pick up your ballot and then returning it can be an all-day task; without a car, it may be impossible. Similar concerns exist for Alaska Native voters in rural villages who rely on shared P.O. boxes, and at times, mail delivery may take up to three weeks due to weather. In addition, many Native American languages are oral; therefore, language assistance to Native American voters requires in-person translations, which cannot be done through mail.

Because of increased urbanization, many people and policymakers do not understand why it can be difficult for individuals to get to a polling location or to vote by mail. For some, voting by mail has given them more choices and made voting more convenient. However, we need to think about the effects on minority and language minority populations when we eliminate or move polling locations because a right as sacred as voting should not be lost for minority populations in search of convenience for other populations.

The following examples illustrate how decisions made by elected officials affect the ability of Native voters to participate in the democratic process. In 2008, the Alaskan government eliminated polling locations for Alaska Native villages as part of a "district realignment" that resulted in voters having to travel by plane in order to vote. In 2016, the Pyramid Lake and Walker River Paiute Tribes in Nevada filed a lawsuit prior to the 2016 general election in order to get polling locations on the reservation. In 2016, San Juan County, Utah, switched a mail-only voting system and offered in-person early voting only in the majority white part of the county; the Navajo Nation sued to ensure in-person locations and compliance with the language assistance requirements under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act.

For the Kaibab Paiute Tribe in Arizona, voters had to travel 280 miles one way in 2016 and 2018 in order to vote early in person. When Pima County closed early voting on the Pascua Yaqui Reservation in 2018, Pascua Yaqui voters reported that it took over two hours to participate in early voting using public transportation. Recently, the closure of polling locations on the Mandan Hidatsa Reservation in North Dakota resulted in voters having to travel 80-100 miles in order to cast a ballot. These examples demonstrate the extreme distances voters must travel and obstacles they must overcome in order to vote. The prevalence of these barriers undermines our democracy and contributes to low voter participation among Native Americans.

Native American Voting Rights Act

Congress introduced the Native American Voting Rights Act of 2019 (H.R. 1694; S. 739) to remove voting barriers and improve access to voting for Native American and Alaska Native voters. The legislation would provide resources and oversight to ensure that Native Americans have equal access to the voting process. In furtherance of the trust responsibility, the bill would require the Department of Justice to consult annually with tribes on voting issues. Key elements of the bill include improving access to voter registration sites and polling locations, approving the use of tribal IDs for election purposes, and requiring jurisdictions to consult with tribes prior to closing voter registration or polling locations on Indian lands. The bill explicitly states that a tribal ID need not include a residential address or expiration date for voting purposes. The bill would also create a Native American Voting Task Force grant program to provide much needed funding for voter outreach, education, registration, and turnout in Native American communities.

Conclusion

Legislation suppressing the right to vote purports to be neutral; however, in many instances it undermines the most basic right to participate in our democracy. The loss of the right to vote is the loss of a voice in the democratic process. We should do more to ensure that all Americans, including Native Americans, can exercise this right easily and with undue hardship.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the Native American Vote Continues to be Suppressed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Despite the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, many Native Americans living on reservations continued to be excluded from the democratic process. In 1948, Native Americans in New Mexico and Arizona successfully litigated their right to vote. Utah and North Dakota became the last states to afford on-reservation Native Americans the right to vote in 1957 and 1958, respectively.