By Ray Lenarcic

Imagine if, on a beautiful summer’s morn, they came in and took your children away, taken to a boarding school where they’d learn a new language, have to wear new clothes, be subjected to a new culture, forced to eat new food and, at the pain of the belt, never utter one word of complaint.

Imagine if they came and told you that you have to move. Tomorrow. You could bring only extra clothing. You were then brought to a barren, worthless plot of land surrounded by fences beyond which you were forbidden to go. Gone were the homes where you and generations of your ancestors resided. Gone was the land that provided you and yours with ample and varied foodstuffs; everyone was now forced to choke down strange, tasteless vittles.

Imagine if you could no longer practice the religion that helped sustain you and yours through any trial and tribulation. Instead, you were made to accept a strange faith whose main man ironically encouraged the flock to love one another and be kind to others. Not only religion but every aspect of your culture was condemned. New ways were shoved down your throat, which were so strange that you’d never get the hang of them.

Imagine if you and what was left of your family were infected by a variety of life-threatening pathogens (e.g., smallpox, measles), which, with no one around to treat them, resulted in a fearful loss of lives, especially among the very young and old.

Imagine if you had to forfeit the age-old ways you’d been governed, including the opportunity to choose your leaders. Henceforth, a new, difficult-to-comprehend system would replace your laws. The freedom you once cherished, which made your life worth living, was taken away. Gone forever.

Native Americans, Indigenous people, or Indians, if you like, didn’t have to imagine if. What you’ve just read were real-life experiences for them, a horror story repeated again and again for some three centuries. Because school textbooks and the media in general chose to omit the truth, you probably never did learn about their real history. I never did. Growing up in the ’50s and ’60s, when I heard the word Indian, what immediately came to mind was the word savage. As a result of scores of “Cowboy-Indian” movies always depicting the latter as the bad guys, with war paint and scalping becoming synonymous with the Red man-Native Americans were absurdly stereotyped. By the way, the bad guys’ crime was fighting for their rightful property, way of life, and beloved families.

These negative depictions were in keeping with a well-planned effort to cover up who they really were – don’t want kids, or the general public for that matter, to know the truth. Doing so would make those noble words “ liberty and justice for ALL’ ring hollow as hell. It is best to forget what really transpired in so many ways our first inhabitants contributed to the successful development of this great nation. And forget we did to the sad point that they came to be known as “Forgotten Americans.”

Imagine if a nationwide effort was made to change school textbooks so that they portrayed the truth about our Indigenous people. Imagine if movies or documentaries were made showing in a positive way their history. Imagine if our newspapers and magazines periodically included articles on John Ross, Pontiac, Joseph Brandt, and Ira Hayes, among others, along with the realities of life on reservations in the 2020s. Example: Rwandan and Venezuelan newborns have a longer life expectancy than Native American newborns (65); a Native American male’s life expectancy of just 61.5 years is shorter than the overall life expectancy in Haiti. (NY Times-8/20/23)

Imagine if we, the people, could pressure Uncle Sam into using some of the vastly over-appropriated military budget for investment in programs designed to elevate the unconscionably low standards of living, quality of health education, and life expectancies on our reservations and in urban Red ghettoes.

Imagine if, as a result, the Forgotten American was now remembered. The words of our pledge would actually have meaning. Liberty and justice for all would no longer be a dream for Native Americans but a reality.

Imagine if.