Ellen Kemper responded to my posting dated April 8, 1992:
>I'm sorry that I don't have the ability to copy from your message within my
>own, but briefly:
>
>My initial references to self-determination were indeed references to "638".
>For those of you who do not know there is a public law, P.L. 93-638 -- The
>Indian Self-Determination Act. In Indian country you often hear people refer
>to "638" as a verb. No kidding, I have seen written reports discussing
>"638ing". My strong conviction is that we are not talking about "638" but
>about SELF-DETERMINATION. I have made task forces that I work with change
>their name (from the 638 Task Force to the Self-Determination Task Force).
>The idea is that the tribe can contract to perform the services otherwise
>performed by a federal agency.
My understanding of 638 is that it is really meant to work for BIA agencies
that service a single tribe, like the Crow Agency. For agencies like in
California that serve multiple tribes it doesn't work as well. For a given
agency, it must be decided what percent of the 638 money will be spent on
roads, what % on law enforcement, what % on education, ... Each recognized
tribal entity of the agency gets 1 vote on how to divide the funds. If a
rancheria has alot of problems with law enforcement and all of their members
are senior citizens (just an example), then they might vote for 100% of the
funds to go to law enforcement... they wouldn't care if no money was
appropriated for education because they have no members in schools. Now if
another tribe of that agency wants most of their money to go to education,
then they are going to be upset that the first tribe voted for no money to
go to education... Of course an agency servicing a single tribe will not
run into this conflict. I remember hearing about this dilemma and thought
it was during a discussion on 638... am I remembering this correctly or
confusing 638 with something else?
>What I mentioned earlier is that I now see a shift, a transition, from the
>tribes who have been able to manage these programs, and now they want to
>CONTROL them. And I'm all for it.
Me too. But, I'll give an example of what might be considered problematic...
Last semester, Ed Parisien (sp?) from the BIA Education Dept visited the
program I am in, ITEPP at Humboldt State. One student complained she was
not receiving BIA funding for school. His reply was basically: "Don't
complain to me; complain to your tribal council. Your tribe decides who
gets funded and who doesn't. I deal with tribes, not individual Indians."
Now, this explanation is perfectly fine with me. But, the unfunded student
believed that the BIA has a trust responsibility to her education. She
didn't want her tribe to have the power to not fund her schooling. A
number of students argued that education should be a special responsibility
that cannot be contracted out with 638. There are other non-638able
(sorry Ellen for the usage of 638 as a verb :-) ) things involving
resources. So, in this example many of my classmates were actually
advocating for less control/power for their tribes, i.e. less
self-determination. I did not agree with my classmates on this issue,
but I could certainly understand their feelings.
>The Self-Governance Demonstration Projects are controversial because they
>force the federal agencies to quantify the services that have been rendered
>to specific tribes. It is very difficult for these agencies to put a dollar
>figure on the services attributable to one particular tribe.
The controversy that I have heard of regarding these projects is mostly
if this will lead to a 1990s version of termination although admittedly I
am not sure why people say this. I think the idea is that the US Govt
may not have any trust reponsibility to a Self-Governance tribe, and the
tribe could possibly lose treaty rights. I believe it's too early to
tell and these are just open questions at the moment. Comments from people
with more information here would be appreciated.
The Demonstration Projects are not true self-governance, but an experiment
offering certain tribes the choice to try partial self-governance. My point
here is that the demonstration tribes still rely on BIA/IHS for some things.
This can lead to accusations of "double-dipping" and in this sense can be
controversial.
>There is uncertainty about how this program will pan out. Congress has said
>that it is a demonstration and that tribes volunteer to participate, no tribe
>will be forced to participate.
I believe that only certain tribes were offered the option to be
demonstration tribes. The tribes selected were the ones considered to
have the best chance to make self-governance work, i.e. relatively rich
tribes with strong political structures.
>But I have wondered from the beginning about
>what happens when enough tribes to elect self-governance "block grants" and it
>is not economically feasible to maintain the federal bureaucracy for the
>remaining tribes.
I wonder about this too... and we're not the only ones.
>Please enlighten me as to who and where you are. Thank you. Ellen Kemper
I don't know if you meant this for me or the BLO research group from
Canada that started this whole discussion. But anyways ...
I am Danny Ammon, a Tsnungwe (South Fork Hupa) tribal member. Our tribe
is seeking to have our "status clarified", i.e. federally recognized status
clarified. We are considered unrecognized by the BIA at this time like many
of the tribes of California. Our neighbors down the river in Hoopa Valley
are one of the Self-Governance Demonstration tribes... this probably explains
some of my comments on this subject.
Although my email address is ammon@cs.stanford.edu, I am not at Stanford
anymore. But as an alumni, the CS Dept allowed me to keep an account on
their machine so I read my email there. Currently, I am in a program at
Humboldt State University in northwest California for Indian Teachers (ITEPP).
danny ammon
ammon@cs.stanford.edu
ammond@axe.humboldt.edu