Falling Apart

I am the Health Promotion Specialist for the Blackfeet tribe. That just means that I am the community’s health educator.

The main health issue facing the rez is diabetes. People’s diets here are very bad. Then you have heart disease, a lot of STDs among the youth, and a lot of teen pregnancies.

Every day is different in this job. I also work for the state getting women here who are over 50 to come in for their pap smears and their mammograms. Then I am on the community-planning group for the state under HIV prevention and I supervise an AIDS-prevention outreach worker. I also teach nursing classes here. So everything that I do interlocks. But essentially I have five jobs. Oh yeah, I run a family-planning clinic here too.

I do a lot of presentations out in the community, at the schools and the alcohol treatment centers. I’m also working on getting into the jails to work on HIV and hep C prevention there. I try to reach people who are high risk, but basically everyone is high risk. Hep C is a problem here now because of IV drug use. Meth has gotten huge on the rez lately. Things are not good.

There’s a lot of alcoholism here. That is a very big social problem. And anytime you are using alcohol, you are more inclined to engage in risky behaviors in sex and drugs.
This is a community in crisis for certain. I think that the root cause of all the alcoholism here is the loss of our traditions. It used to be that when we raised our children, we passed on our morals and traditions as Blackfeet to them. When the Jesuits came in the late 1800s, they took that away from us. That’s when they set up the boarding schools, which were white-run educational facilities that Blackfeet children were forcibly sent to. That is when we really started to lose the thread of passing on the Blackfeet way from generation to generation. The kids in boarding schools were not parented and so, when they were old enough to have children, they didn’t know how to be parents to their children.

Then you have the fact that we were essentially under government rein. We were being given handouts, commodities, and welfare. A lot of people have internalized that mentality, even today, of expecting handouts. People here in Browning think that IHS [Indian Health Services] is free, but it’s not. The American government took our land, but they said that in exchange they were going to give us health care, education, and social services. People believe that the government owes it to us. I believe they owe it to us too, but I think they have done a great wrong in just having people line up for handouts. Handouts don’t do anyone any good. It’s created a welfare mentality in our people. The Blackfeet self-esteem and self-worth are in the pits, but their mentality doesn’t let them take any initiative.

I am frustrated with community members here too, though. I am not just frustrated with the government. I was not raised on welfare. My parents both worked as ranchers, and I was very blessed to be raised in a good way. Right now there are so many benefits out there to help people better their lives so they don’t have to live on welfare, but they don’t take advantage of any of them. I’ve even gotten some of my friends and family jobs, but they’ll work for a month or two and then just quit. That is very frustrating. We have 80 percent unemployment here, but there are enough jobs if you really want to work.

People here are just as lax about taking care of their health as they are about work. I make appointments with people for this clinic or with IHS, and I call them and remind them of their appointments, and they still don’t show up. They don’t take responsibility. They are not accountable.

What’s for lunch today—melted synthetic cheese or Skittles? Diabetes and heart disease ensue.

I think one of the main reasons that young girls get pregnant here is that they want somebody to love unconditionally. That’s a need that we all have as human beings—to love and be loved. This may be due to their upbringing and the fact that their parents were teen parents too. The most up-to-date teen pregnancy stats I have are from a couple years ago. Among 14 to 19 year olds, there were 45 pregnancies in 1999. In 2000, there were 61. In 2001, it jumped up to 80. There was even a 13-year-old that was pregnant. It’s hard to say if someone that young was molested or if it was consensual or if they planned it. A lot of girls are good about coming in here and getting their birth control. But just as many will come in once and never come again to pick up their pills. It’s like they just don’t care. Then they come back for a pregnancy test, and it’s positive, and they are all upset about it. So I talk to them about that and say, “This was a planned pregnancy, right? If not, why didn’t you come in and take your birth control pills?” But on the whole, the mentality about teen pregnancy here is that it is socially acceptable.

When I was in high school, in 1975, there were only one or two girls who got pregnant and it was pretty taboo. Now, it’s just acceptable. It’s like, no big deal. As a tribal people, we are generally against abortion. There is no clinic available here, but I have a listing of places they can look at. Personally, I am against abortion. But in my position, I cannot give them my opinion on it.

There was never an HIV-positive person diagnosed here until last year. It wasn’t contracted here, however. Indian people are very transient. We’re nomads. We travel. There are a lot of people coming and going from the rez, especially during the powwow season. That’s when we have our celebrations every year. The number one STD here is chlamydia; we have no syphilis and very little gonorrhea. So I focus on chlamydia. I ask the kids, “What are the biggest college towns and cities in the state?” Then I put down the numbers of how many chlamydia cases each place has reported. Billings, one of the biggest cities in the state, and Missoula are the two highest. But then number three on the chlamydia list is Glacier County—the reservation. We beat out all these bigger cities like Great Falls and Helena.

Does idleness here lead to more of a propensity to have casual sex? Yes. I don’t think it’s the biggest factor though. I really believe that the real cause of all of these health issues is that Blackfeet people are lacking self-esteem and self-worth. Without those things, you are not too likely to be a responsible person.

Even though things are bad now, I do feel some hope. I have always been an optimistic person. All of the drinking and drugging and unsafe sex comes back to how little these kids care about themselves. So that’s what I am focusing on in my presentations now. I feel like we can make a difference.

MARTHA HARRISON DAY RIDER