2020’s impact on Indian Reservations
Sanjana Puratchimani
During the pandemic, 26% of Native Americans were unemployed, compared to the national population of 14.5%, leading most reservation residents to live in poverty.
Reservation residents have to travel to distant cities to find businesses, banks, higher education, and jobs, meaning that Indian Reservations don’t have measures to accommodate residents.
The population in reservations faces a murder rate 10 times higher than the national average, with 84% of Native American women experiencing some sort of violence in their life; conditions in reservations are unsafe for multiple women.
In the Dakotas and Montana reservations, extended families shelter together in small houses with no clean water and no internet, making life during the pandemic difficult and causing coronavirus cases to increase.
In the Crow Reservation, individuals who survived by selling food to festivals or neighbors lost their jobs due to the pandemic’s safety measures, meaning that Native Americans who relied on these unorthodox jobs couldn't provide for their families.
35% of households in reservations are unable to access the internet: a necessary resource for distance learning, tribal consultation, telehealth, and communications.
When COVID-19 struck, safe drinking water and sewage disposal systems were unavailable in 13% of reservation homes, compared to 1% of homes overall, making sanitary measures difficult to follow for Native Americans.
There are more than 3,607 confirmed cases of coronavirus among Native Americans with more than 2,000 cases in the Navajo reservation, which stretches across parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah and is home to 250,000 people.
Vaccinations have already started on some reservations such as the Navajo Nation with 3,200 people receiving shots.
In the 2020 election, residents of the Rosebud Reservation had a disadvantage in voting by mail because of limited polling places and cramped post offices on a reservation that’s 2,000 square miles.
Resources:
https://www.theregreview.org/2021/04/08/miller-establishing-economies-indian-reservations/
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/missing-murdered-indigenous-women-and-girls-miss-navajo-nation
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/us/coronavirus-native-americans-indian-country.html
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-20/native-american-coronavirus-vaccine
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