2. The feds and Indian Bureau provide measly funds that are mostly wasted
in bureaucratic/not educational purposes so casinos are explored as a means for
developing better education and health services.
To ensure the survival of the culture in a time of cutbacks, casinos are a
double edged sword. They replace the funds that are being cut back but place
the population at multiple risks. The youth lack respect for tradition, as they
become more adapted to mainstream ways. To break from the cycle of poverty, the
cost seems to be losing the main avenue for cultural continuity. Few can
become alternators in practice in that context. Without the language, the
rituals and artefacts soon lose meaning.
3. The assistance provided tends to be POOR, inexperienced teachers/health
care interns there for a short time, doing more harm than good often.
Schooling invites, promotes the loss of connectedness. The choices
seem stark;- To remain poor with clipped wings(loss of culture) or with
wings/culture & mediational means-the Navaho language.
The less fortunate tribes, where the carrier waves of culture, such as
language, were lost, stand as a testament to what is at stake.
Question - is it mostly a question then of capitalist
production relations? or the consumerism and informal socialization for
consumerism brought by the big penetrating eye of the conqueror's TV or
schools? or perhaps more directly, the extent
to which the above and other factors are allowed to break down the means
of cultural continuity? The press for homogenization and nation building/
common identity is still alive and well long after the West was lost/won, and
can be seen in the interface of capitalist production and control of the means
of communication/survival inherent in it.
I guess this may be a partial answer to this 1/2 baked question,
pedro
REGARDS