


"Basically, we did not fight for the land because it represented capital, or because it represented money, or because it represented business opportunities. We fought for the land because it represents the spirit of our people (Inupiat, Yu'pik, Indian, Aleut, etc.).
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The fact is, Alaska's native people - just as the Indian people in the 'lower 48' - have fought the same tide of assimilation, acculturation, individualism, and atomization. This process has taken a toll on our spirit, our identity, on our language and on our culture. We have alcoholism and drugs, dropouts, family breakup and crime in our communities because of the pressures we've had on us. We've almost lost the willpower to reassert our tribal identity and reconstitute our languages which are the expression of our spirit and who we are inside.
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Education has been viewed as the panacea - as a cure-all for Native people - but it also has been used by the government, in conjunction with religious groups (like I've witnessed in Thailand Hill Tribe communities), as the means of deculturizing our people.
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Our misled missionaries of education have been drumming into all our people the idea that you can not remain an Eskimo or Indian and still be educated. It is not true, and we should put to rest the thought that Native people are inherently ignorant... I'm not saying that we should not be educated. Education is essential... But we cannot continue to educate our children at the expense of their identity as Inupiat or Yup'ik or Indian or Aleut people. "
-Willie Hensley, Leader in Alaskan Native affairs (1980s), Alaska Geographic Magazine, The Kotzebue Basin, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1981