Native American Communities Quotes

In the late '90s, I spent a lot of time on reservations, and there was a level of poverty and injustice that I had not witnessed before. I was shocked by it. This is federally controlled land, and there was an insidious mix of apathy and exploitation.

One of the first things people think of when they think of Native Americans is reservations. We didn't have any idea what that was. We were just young kids growing up in normal blue-collar America.

Indians have a big problem with alcohol and drugs. I grew up with an admiration for their culture and was sensitive to their problems.

The one thing about Lumbee people is that there's so many stereotypes about Native Americans, especially reservation Native Americans, and we all tend to get lumped under that umbrella. But the Lumbee are non-reservation. I grew up no different than anybody would in normal American communities.

In recent years, the choice of drugs on these reservations and throughout my district has been methamphetamines. It has destroyed the rule of law among the reservation people. It is killing our tribal youth in this country.

Since my residence at Tippecanoe, we have endeavored to level all distinctions, to destroy village chiefs, by whom all mischiefs are done. It is they who sell the land to the Americans.

On any state elections map, the reservations are blue places. Native people are most often progressives, Democrats, and by no means gun-toting vigilantes.

In Indian communities, it's a separate sovereign government, so you have to get permission from the tribal leadership before you can start campaigning on their land.

I represent nine sovereign Sioux tribes. In South Dakota, some of the tribes are in the most remote, rural areas of the country. They lack essential infrastructure. Some communities don't even have clean drinking water.

If I meet someone who's Native American and I don't know anything about indigenous people in New Jersey - which I kind of don't, which is not really good - I can learn more and more about their lives, and that makes me a more open person and a more accepting person.

You'd never have a motorcycle policeman out on the Indian reservation.

Tribes have the potential to provide almost 15 percent of the country's electricity with wind power, and have 4.5 times the solar resources to power the entire U.S.