Why is Native Americans Life Expectancy So Low – Search
Manifest Destiny – Search Some places in America cancer is least of their problems and widespread attack on indigenous lands and peoples are common occurrence. The U.S. military forced relocations of Native peoples disrupting native foodways of hunting, fishing, gathering, and farming.
The military intentionally targeted indigenous food sources, destroying crops and livestock. “We were seen as the enemy. And so we were fed like prisoners of war,” said Martin Reinhardt, a professor at Northern Michigan University.
The people were given measly rations of flour, sugar, salt, and lard—the ingredients to make fry bread, what many think is a traditional indigenous food, but is in fact a food of oppression, cooked up out of necessity.
Later, the U.S. government would provide “commodity foods”— mystery meat, canned vegetables, and yellow cheese—to fulfill their treaty obligations. These commodity foods would become staples of Native kitchens and lead to sky-high rates of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease among indigenous peoples.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, as settlers moved west, the federal government dammed rivers and built reservoirs, siphoning water away from the tribes. “The Hoover Dam provides electricity, damming up the Colorado River.
So you have access to power, access to water. And this is how the West was created,” said Amber Crotty, a Navajo Nation Council delegate.Water is a precious commodity, especially out west.
Without access to safe water, indigenous people haul water by truck over long distances or turn to unsafe sources tainted by contaminants ranging from bacteria to uranium. They might not wash their hands or bathe as frequently, increasing their risk for various infections. It’s hard to prepare food safely. They might drink diabetes-promoting sugar-sweetened beverages because they’re cheaper than bottled water.
Indigenous lands have also been under the assault of extractive industries in search of natural resources like uranium and oil. Abandoned uranium mines now dot the southwest. The radioactive waste still hasn’t been cleaned up.
Native people exposed to the toxins suffer from higher rates of lung cancer and other cancers, scarring of the lungs, asthma and emphysema, blood disorders, birth defects, and more. In other parts of the country, the oil and gas industry has driven up cancer rates while also destroying the shoreline, displacing indigenous peoples yet again.
Missing in the media coverage of dropping American life expectancy was that among indigenous people, deaths from unintentional injuries, mostly drug overdose deaths, were almost tied with deaths from COVID-19, followed closely by chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, largely related to alcohol use.
Over the past 2 decades, drug-related deaths have grown to be a major U.S. public health problem. County-level differences in drug-related mortality rates are large. The relative contributions of social determinants of health to this variation, including the economic, social, and healthcare environments, are unknown.
Mapping the rising tide of suicide deaths across the United States
Long before the so-called “diseases of despair” —alcohol-related liver disease, drug overdoses, and suicide—drove down life expectancy among low-income, less-educated white non-Hispanic Americans at the beginning of the 21st century, these same afflictions were killing indigenous peoples. The causes are similar: the destruction of a way of life and the decline of family and community.
Despair comes from “the loss of meaning, of dignity, of pride, and of self-respect,” write Anne Case and Angus Deaton in Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. Family separations and the loss of cultural knowledge and identity caused an epidemic of despair among indigenous peoples that’s been passed down over generations.
Suicide Mortality Rates by County 2020-2024 – Search Images
The attack on indigenous peoples evolved over time.
It began with overt genocide— “the only good Indian is a dead one” said General Philip Sheridan in the 1860s. Then came the era of assimilation. “Kill the Indian in him, and save the man,” said Captain R. H. Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which like so many other Indian boarding schools, sought to “civilize” Native children.
Indigenous children were separated from their families and sent to boarding schools or fostered or adopted out to non-Native families. Later in the 20th century, more sophisticated tools were used to control the population, like contraception and even forced sterilization. Indigenous peoples have “…a fear that white doctors don’t have your best interests at heart. And those are not fears that came from nowhere.
Those are fears that were passed down from generation to generation,” said Sarah Deer, a Muskogee Creek citizen and a professor at the University of Kansas. Just as mistrust has been a barrier to engagement with the health care system among other communities of color, so, too, is it among indigenous communities.The violence against Native peoples continues.
They are twice as likely to be victims of homicide as other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S., and more than 40% of those murder victims are killed by someone of another race, in sharp contrast to homicide victims of other races who are largely killed by persons of their same race. About half of indigenous women experience intimate partner violence and sexual violence, with over 95% non-Native perpetrators.
“Non-natives, in particular white men, know they can come into tribal communities and they can hunt us as Native women with impunity, because they know that we can’t touch them,” said Lisa Brunner, an enrolled member of the White Earth Ojibwe Nation in Minnesota.Tribal reservations are often in remote places.
The FBI doesn’t go out to investigate unless a major crime has been committed, and even then, U.S. Attorneys Offices are far less likely to prosecute crimes perpetrated in Indian Country, including violent crime, than elsewhere. “…[I]magine your own community where certain people didn’t have to abide by the law.
And what does that do to a community, when that happens?” said Alfred Urbina, attorney general for the Pascua Yaqui tribe. Victims of violent crime are more likely to adopt high-risk coping behaviors like alcohol and drug use. They’re also more likely to experience poor mental health, chronic pain, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other chronic conditions.
Much of this history has been brushed aside and forgotten. What we’re left with are public health statistics taken out of context and medical diagnoses whose socio-pathophysiology we don’t fully understand. Victor Lopez-Carmen, a Hunkpati Dakota-Yaqui student at Harvard Medical School, says, “what I believe is hurtful is that the context is often left out, the context of why.”
And so, our prescriptions and treatment plans fail. Mary Owen, president of the Association of American Indian Physicians, says she’s often been told, “[I]f we only will stop eating the bad foods, if we’ll only stop smoking, if only stop drinking, if we’ll only behave ourselves, then we’ll have better health outcomes.” But that’s not why Native people are sick and dying. Search Videos
For over a year, Sawyer has done special reporting about the poverty-stricken children from parts of Appalachia and Camden, New Jersey, Sawyer and her team followed young fighters and dreamers, this time from the Lakota Indian Tribe in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, living in the shadows of Mount Rushmore. A once-mighty people desperately trying to hold on, Sawyer finds that even with all of its grinding poverty and alcoholism, it’s a place from which warriors can still rise.
📺 Diane Sawyer’s “A Hidden America: Children of the Plains” Takes an In-Depth look at the Young Dreamers and Survivors of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Fighting Against Decades of Neglect aired on 20/20 on Friday, October 14, 2011, at 10:00–11:00 p.m. ET on ABC.
Diane Sawyer travels to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where some of the proudest Americans, living in unthinkable conditions, refuse to be defeated: a young girl filled with “American Idol” dreams, yet facing a life-changing reality; a high school quarterback whose strength and spirit knows no bounds; a magical little girl filled with hope.
This powerful special report takes viewers deep into the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, home to the Oglala Lakota Sioux, where children face staggering poverty, unemployment, and social challenges—but also show remarkable resilience and hope.
WATCH: Girl Teaches Diane Sawyer to Dance
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, located in the southwest corner of South Dakota, is one of the 565 federally recognized Indian Nations in the United States. It is home to an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people, most of whom identify as Oglala Lakota Sioux. The reservation is 2.2 million acres, roughly the size of Connecticut, and the residents boast a rich cultural history and deep-seeded spirituality.
Unfortunately, the Oglala Lakota on Pine Ridge now live amidst levels of poverty that rival that of the third world. 47% of individuals on Pine Ridge are living below the federal poverty level, 65%-80% of the adults are unemployed, and rampant alcoholism and an obesity epidemic combine with underfunded schools to help make it a rough place to grow up.
But in the midst of such economic despair, there are youth across the reservation who are breaking through the hopelessness with huge dreams and powerful stories. Twelve-year-old Robert Looks Twice is captain of his middle school football team, a prize-winning traditional dancer at pow-wows, president of the student council, with the biggest dream of all: to be the first Native American president. He lives with his grandmother, uncle and eight cousins, helps feed his family with his pow-wow prize money.
Alaina Clifford is a bright, well-spoken 18-year-old cheerleader, singer, and actress, known for having the best singing voice at Little Wound High School. Alaina is dating athlete and star student Montana Sierra, who graduated from the only private school on the reservation, Red Cloud Indian School, with a free ride to college from the prestigious Millennium Gates Scholarship and a dream to be an architect. But the two face a harsh reality when Alaina unexpectedly becomes pregnant only four months after they begin dating. Now Alaina has to face tough choices about her next steps, unsure of whether or not she can follow her dreams.
Twelve-year-old Louise Clifford loves reading and math, and is learning how to speak Lakota. Her spirituality is very important to her, as is her horse, Glory Bee. But Louise struggles with an extremely unstable home life – her alcoholic mother Sissy struggles to hold down a job and keep the power and heat on throughout a harsh winter. Louise tried to commit suicide when she was just 11 years old and now her teachers and counselors are rallying around her.
Little Tashina Iron Horse is only five years old but has a huge personality – chatty and vivacious, a bubbly student in her kindergarten class, and a tiny but talented pow-wow dancer. Tashina lives in government housing with her grandmother, parents, siblings and uncles – sometimes 19 people live in the three bedroom house together. Tashina wants to grow up to be a cop, a career choice inspired by her mother, who works long hours as a security guard at the reservation’s casino 45 minutes away. Her father DJ is getting his GED and applying for a position in the tribe’s fire department when tragedy strikes the family.
READ: Reservation Child’s Wish: Fresh Water, Bubble Gum and a Backpack
“A Hidden America: Children of the Plains” also profiles law enforcement officials, schools, individuals and businesses that are helping to change Pine Ridge for the better.
Inside life on the Lakota Sioux reservation l Hidden America: Children of the Plains PART 1/5
Suicide rates, alcoholism among Lakota tribe | Hidden America: Children of the Plains PART 2/5
Lakota girl dreams of being next ‘American Idol’ | Hidden America: Children of the Plains PART 3/5
Lakota girl dances through family tragedy | Hidden America: Children of the Plains PART 4/5
Low life expectancy on Pine Ridge Reservation | Hidden America: Children of the Plains PART 5/5
Diane Sawyer reports on children living in poverty in Appalachia.
A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains’
Feb. 10, 2009 — ABC News: In the hills of Central Appalachia, up winding, mountain roads, is a place where children and families face unthinkable conditions, living without what most Americans take for granted
Central Appalachia is the most scenic ghetto in America, a region of stunning natural vistas and crushing, intractable poverty. ABC News producers spent two years in its hollows and ragged homes documenting the lives of several families. The producers and anchor/interviewer Diane Sawyer focused on four Appalachian youths trying to escape the undertow of joblessness, nutritional ignorance and inadequate health care. The candor of these young people is as memorable as their determination.
Contextual reporting reminds viewers of Appalachia’s patriotic tradition and of the fatalistic courage of its coal miners. It also spotlights addictions that plague the region, notably the abuse of prescription drugs and an unfortunate fondness for the soft drink Mountain Dew.
The manufacturer, PepsiCo, initially denounced ABC News’ revelations about epidemic tooth decay in Appalachia, then donated $100,000 to help a volunteer dentist who repairs devastated mouths buy a second mobile unit. For powerful, empathetic reporting about an oft-forgotten, ongoing national tragedy, a Peabody Award goes to A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains.
Isolated pockets in Central Appalachia have three times the national poverty rate, an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, the shortest life span in the nation, toothlessness, cancer and chronic depression.
It’s been 41 years since Robert Kennedy called on the rest of America to reach out and help the people of Appalachia. These are the descendents of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline and the families of legendary soldiers and pioneers who helped open up the treacherous mountain passes and create an American continent. They are fighters steeped in family, ferocity and faith.
For nearly two years, ABC News cameras followed four Appalachian children, each one facing unimaginable obstacles.
Shawn Grim, 18, an Appalachian high school football superstar, sleeps in his truck to avoid the thievery, alcoholism and despair of his family’s life in the hollow in Flat Gap, Ky. During the course of Sawyer’s report, Grim moves eight times. He is determined to be the first one in his family to graduate from high school and go to college. Will he be able to achieve his dream of a different life?
Courtney, 12, is one of those children whose face reminds us of the famous portraits of the Appalachian past. Her clothes are stuffed in a suitcase under her bed in the small home she shares with 11 relatives in Inez, Ky. Her mother, Angel, struggles to stay off drugs and hopes to give her four daughters a better life by getting her GED and becoming a teacher. With no car and no public transportation, Angel walks 16 miles roundtrip, four hours total, to her GED class.
Erica, 11, hopes to save her mother’s life: “She’s almost 50 and… if I don’t get her out of this town soon, then she’ll probably die any day.” Erica and her mother, Mona, live in Cumberland, Ky., a once booming coal town. Mona battles addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol, her life ravaged by her struggles and despair. The region has a prescription drug abuse rate twice that of major cities like New York or Miami.
Jeremy’s story is one of the four deeply moving narratives featured in Diane Sawyer’s special report A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains, which aired on ABC News. While the full details of Jeremy’s journey are less widely documented than those of Shawn Grim, Courtney, and Erica, the series as a whole paints a vivid picture of the challenges faced by Appalachian youth.
Context of the Series
- The documentary explores life in Central Appalachia, a region marked by extreme poverty, prescription drug abuse, and limited access to healthcare and education.
- Diane Sawyer and her team spent two years following four children, including Jeremy, who were striving to overcome these obstacles and build a better futures
Jeremy’s Story (as part of the broader narrative)
- Jeremy is portrayed as one of the youths trying to escape the cycle of poverty and addiction that grips many families in the region.
- The series emphasizes the resilience and candor of these children, including Jeremy, as they confront systemic challenges like joblessness, poor nutrition, and inadequate healthcare.
PLAYLIST Hidden America: Children of the Mountains – Full Special
The Cursed Appalachian Mining Town
Children of Camden, 10 years of hope, dreams and setbacks l Hidden America (Nightline)
“A Hidden America: Children of the Plains” continues Diane Sawyer’s commitment to award-winning reporting on places on the margins. However, In January 2007, Ms. Sawyer delivered an eye-opening report on poverty in America, “Waiting on the World to Change,” Official Video for “Waiting On the World to Change” #JohnMayer #WaitingOntheWorldtoChange #Continuum
Children of Camden, 10 years of hope, dreams and setbacks l Hidden America (Nightline) which gave viewers insight into the lives of families in Camden, New Jersey – the poorest city in America to see how local children growing up in poverty have fared since our original 2007 Diane Sawyer special report. TheRealStreetz of Camden, NJ
WATCH THE ORIGINAL ‘HIDDEN AMERICA’ REPORT FROM 2007:
4-year-old boy wishes he was ‘Superman’ to escape poverty l Hidden America: Camden Kids PART 1/5
17-year-old struggles to earn diploma amid violence, drugs l Hidden America: Camden Kids PART 2/5
6-year-old girl hopes to one day become a judge l Hidden America: Camden Kids PART 3/5
Meet 3 children living in America’s most dangerous city l Hidden America: Camden Kids PART 4/5
Kids from New Jersey’s richest and poorest neighborhoods meet | Hidden America: Camden Kids PART 5/5
Camden boy who dreamed of learning to read wins school reading award (2007) l Hidden America UPDATE
America’s Hidden Foster Care System
Diane Sawyer meets hopeful young children being placed in forever homes, and older teens still in the system facing a more uncertain future. [Original Air Date 6/1/2006]
Young girl struggles with trauma from abuse l Hidden America: Foster Care in America (2006) PART 1/4
Teen visits mom in jail after 8 months l Hidden America: Foster Care in America (2006) PART 2/4
Lower chance of adoption for teens in foster care l Hidden America: Foster Care in America PART 3/4
Young girl struggles with trauma from abuse l Hidden America: Foster Care in America (2006) PART 4/4
No Place for a Child: The Hidden Truth of Foster Care in America – Factual Docs
No Place for a Child: The Hidden Truth of Foster Care in America
America’s child welfare system is a complex web of city, county and state agencies tasked with investigating abuse and neglect, and, if children are deemed unsafe, placing them outside of their homes temporarily or permanently. Sometimes children will reunite with their parents; other times, they’ll go on to be adopted by family members or non-relatives. In many other cases, they’ll be placed long-term in foster homes, group homes or, for kids with behavioral or other issues, in residential treatment centers.
I’ve been reporting on child welfare for four years, and I’ve focused on what happens to children once they enter the system. But only recently I came to see that the child welfare system as we know it — which, on Sept. 30 2018, involved 437,283 children — is just the visible side of the iceberg. Down below the water, in a scope that’s still murky, lies the “shadow” side, which some experts guess involves potentially just as many children.
Around the country, child welfare systems employ “voluntary safety plans,” in which they ask parents to send their kids to a relative before they initiate a case. That means the custody of these children changes, but no court case is filed, no judge weighs in, and no lawyers are assigned to the parents.
Some jurisdictions, including Texas, have said they use these plans only during the investigatory phase, when they are unsure if the children are safe. But since no case is filed, it’s tough to know for sure how long kids stay in these arrangements.
Because no case is on file, these types of removals aren’t counted as removals in the data collected by states and counties. This means no one knows how many children’s placements have been changed this way — or, in many cases, what happens to the children in their new homes.
Some parental lawyers argue that if Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies investigate families and find conditions they deem unsafe but that may not rise to the level of actionable in court, they employ this tactic. One Texas lawyer told me he had a client who came to him after her kids were living for two and a half years with a family member, and she wanted them back.
Because these voluntary safety plans are made outside a courtroom, they don’t trigger the federal timelines for resolution of a case. They also don’t provide kinship payments to the families for taking care of kids, which are a substantial source of support. Many places don’t require services for parents (or pay for them) in order to get their kids back. This might be one of the reasons the practice is so widespread — it costs CPS a lot less than taking a kid into care.
It’s a legal limbo for the families, though. Many parental lawyers say it robs parents of their due process, and instead of being voluntary, the practice is coercive. Crucially, advocates worry that the specific language of the Family First Prevention Services Act, the recent federal legislation that has opened avenues for funding more prevention services, might be used to codify and expand the use of “hidden” foster care without putting any regulations around its use or even requiring states to disclose data on how widely they use these plans.
“We cannot quantify with precision the total number of children in hidden foster care or what happens to them,” wrote a working group in a letter requesting the federal Children’s Bureau require data on the practice. “Studies suggest that the total number of children brought into hidden foster care each year is roughly on par with the total number of children removed and placed into the formal foster care system — in other words, hundreds of thousands of children each year.”
My project aims to explore exactly how widespread this practice is, and, using narrative examples, what issues can arise from its use. I hope that by outlining the issue and telling stories of the families living under these circumstances, we can get a far more accurate picture of the reach the child welfare system has on American families.
Fear and Hope at Strawberry Mansion | A Hidden America with Diane Sawyer [FULL REPORT 2013]
Diane Sawyer Revisits at Risk School Strawberry Mansion High | A Hidden America (World News)
At Strawberry Mansion High, There’s Fear, Hope | A Hidden America with Diane Sawyer (Nightline)
Lainey Wilson “Heart Like A Truck”, “Things A Man Oughta Know” | Campfire Sessions
Summer Playlist ft. Lainey Wilson, Elle King & More! | CMT Campfire Sessions
Patty Loveless “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive”
In the deep dark hills of eastern Kentucky
That’s the place where I traced my bloodline
And it’s there I read on a hillside gravestone
“You’ll never leave Harlan alive”
Oh my grandfather’s dad crossed the Cumberland Mountains
Where he took a pretty girl to be his bride
Said “Won’t you walk with me out the mouth of this holler
Or we’ll never leave Harlan alive”
Where the sun comes up about ten in the mornin’
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you’ll fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you’re drinkin’
And you spend your life just thinkin’ of how to get away
No one ever knew there was coal in them mountains
Till a man from the northeast arrived
Waving hundred dollar bills
Said “I’ll pay you for your minerals”
But he never left Harlan alive
Grandma sold out cheap and they moved out west of Pikeville
To a farm where Big Richaldn River winds
And I bet they danced them a jig
And they laughted and sang a new song
“Who said we’d never leave Harlan alive”
But the times got hard and tobacco wasn’t selling
And old grandad knew what he’d do to survive
He went and dug for Harlan coal
And sent the money back to grandma
But he never left Harlan alive
Where the sun comes up about ten in the mornin’
And the sun goes down about three in the day
And you’ll fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you’re drinkin’
And you spend your life just thinkin’ of how to get away
You’ll never leave Harlan alive
Songwriters: Darrell Scott
For non-commercial use only.
Data from: Musixmatch