Native Americans Today
About 70 percent of Native Americans live in urban areas, according to the U.S. Census. Many Native people, although sometimes thousands of miles away from their traditional homeland, still speak their languages or maintain ties with their reservation or Indian communities, but often with some struggle.
Native Americans today face many different issues. Some are old, some are new and some are on-going. Use the buttons below to additional web pages that will give you an insight into a few of these issues. Please read our other web pages for more insight.
Health Issues
Women's Health
Issues
The negative stereotyping, that began so long ago is still prevalent today and serves as an effective vehicle for discrimination and prejudice that inevitably leads to exploitation. Such wrong attitudes and unfair actions can be prevented or changed and corrected only through education.
Although the government and people of the United States express outrage at oppression and abuse of indigenous people in other countries, Native Americans continue to be a dispossessed and disenfranchised minority in their own land.
Third-world living conditions are typical of most reservation communities. Poor health care, miserable poverty and substandard education are a daily fact of life for most American Indians. The top 5 causes of death among native people are alcohol related, and more native teens commit suicide than any other racial group. Native Americans also have a higher infant mortality rate.
Although the federal government spends over $3 billion annually on Indian programs for federally recognized Native Nations, estimates indicate that only ten cents in every dollar actually reaches those desperately in need.
Their
eyes are bright, their minds are clear and aware.
Their every being speaks of strength and courage.
Their souls are calm as the still waters. With pollen in hand, a prayer
on their lips, they set forth on the long journey stretching away before
the time.
As the sise words of their grandfather echoes in the hose of their
minds, they walk the pollen path of beauty.
They are the children of Dine. - Cecelia Nez
Editing by Matthew Lewis.
sdc
Journal #1040
3/4/08
The Lenape were a PEACEFUL PEOPLE who welcomed others to their homelands, and were respected by many tribes as "Grandfathers" in the great councils of the Algonquians. They did not all disappear. Although some migrated north to Canada or west to Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kansas, Idaho and Oklahoma, most of them stayed right here in Pennsylvania and are still here today! Today's Lenape people work, play, and reside in the community, just like you do.
The Lenape Coalition has worked for over 15 years to gain State Recognition for Lenape descendants. For additional information, please see the webpage on Recognition.