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Description
The demographics of Arizona are changing as Hispanics children are passing through their youth and into adulthood. Yet, even with this changing population Arizona has demonstrated an unwillingness to provide adequate educational opportunities for Hispanic school children. The state has perpetuated fear throughout the Hispanic community in an attempt to marginalize and stigmatize the race. Such attempts have extended to youth in schools creating an environment of fear. This fear limits the academic potential of young Hispanics who are wary of government officials and institutions. Arizona has also failed to provide appropriate funding for programs used predominantly by Hispanic students leaving them unprepared for a workplace that desperately needs them. Finally, Arizona has refused to allow course content with a record of increasing academic achievement and graduation rates amongst Hispanics to be taught in schools. Taken as a whole Arizona's efforts are creating a cadre of unskilled and unprepared laborers who will be desperately needed to take jobs in the Arizona economy in the coming years. This blatant disregard for the educational needs of a large segment of the population will have a devastating impact on Arizona's future.
ContributorsSmith, Jason Ryan (Author) / Davis, T. J. (Thesis director) / Ovando, Carlos (Committee member) / Tsosie, Rebecca (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
Natural resources management is a pressing issue for Native American nations and communities. More than ever before, tribal officials sit at the decision-making tables with federal and state officials as well as non-governmental natural resource stakeholders. This, however, has not always been the case. This dissertation focuses on tribal activism to demonstrate how and why tribal sovereignty, self-determination, and treaty rights protection are tied closely to contemporary environmental issues and natural resources management. With the Klamath Tribes of southern Oregon as a case study, this dissertation analyzes how a tribal nation garnered a political position in which it could both indirectly influence and directly orchestrate natural resource management within and outside of its sovereign boundaries. The Klamath Tribes experienced the devastating termination policy in the 1950s. Termination stripped them of their federal status as an Indian tribe, the government services offered to recognized tribes, and their 1.2-million-acre reservation. Despite this horrific event, the Klamaths emerged by the 2000s as leading natural resource stakeholders in the Klamath River Watershed, a region ten times larger than their former reservation. The Klamaths used tools, such as their treaty and water rights, and employed careful political, legal, and social tactics. For example, they litigated, appropriated science, participated in democratic national environmental policy processes, and developed a lexicon. They also negotiated and established alliances with non-governmental stakeholders in order to refocus watershed management toward a holistic approach that promoted ecological restoration.
This study applies spatial theory and an ethnohistorical approach to show how traditional values drove the Klamaths’ contemporary activism. From their perspective, healing the land would heal the people. The Klamaths’ history illuminates the active roles that tribes have had in the institutionalization of the federal self-determination policy as federal agencies resisted recognizing tribes and working with them in government-to-government relationships. Through their efforts to weave their interests into natural resource management with state, federal, and non-governmental stakeholders, the Klamaths took part in a much larger historical trend, the increased pluralization of American society.
This study applies spatial theory and an ethnohistorical approach to show how traditional values drove the Klamaths’ contemporary activism. From their perspective, healing the land would heal the people. The Klamaths’ history illuminates the active roles that tribes have had in the institutionalization of the federal self-determination policy as federal agencies resisted recognizing tribes and working with them in government-to-government relationships. Through their efforts to weave their interests into natural resource management with state, federal, and non-governmental stakeholders, the Klamaths took part in a much larger historical trend, the increased pluralization of American society.
ContributorsBilka, Monika (Author) / Fixico, Donald L (Thesis advisor) / Hirt, Paul (Committee member) / Tsosie, Rebecca (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015