Day Three of our Intro to Public Health class. There are times I forget I'm not the student here; I'm sitting on my hands so I won't raise them to volunteer an answer. Monday started off with a prayer by Arnie, a mature student who deejays a daily afternoon radio show for the Nation. He thanked "Grandfather Creator" for bringing us all together so that we can all learn from each other as we walk together on this path of our lives. Amen!

A talk by Vern on Monday was a short history of the Dakota people, and sadly was basically a history of one treaty after the other broken by the white man, as well as discrimination including lacking the right to own land or make liquor purchases until 1953. The more positive parts of the talk were about the actual beliefs of the Dakota, like Elders -- due to their wisdom and experience -- being responsible for educating the young. (What do parents know?) Women were considered sacred because they undergo a "natural purification process." Not so men. They have to use the sweat lodge to get sacred. It couldn't help but remind me of the Jewish mikveh, where things are a little reversed (required for women, optional for men.) Same theme, different religions.

The last part of Vern's talk focused on the "dual identity" of the Indian. Although they lived on their own lands on the reservations, it was really held "in trust" by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Until 1924, they weren't considered US citizens. Before that, many Indians served in the US Army. But if they died in the line of duty, their widows didn't get benefits because their husbands weren't citizens. Until 1953, they couldn't buy liquor. Today, Indians need to carry both a tribal ID card and a US ID card. 

Just about every conversation I've had with Native Americans includes talk of the split between tribal responsibilities and county/state responsibilities. They'll talk about when they use tribal health care vs having to go to an outside hospital, or tribal roads vs North Dakota roads. Even snow plowing means some roads are the responsibility of the reservation, and others are the responsibility of the county. Separate but equal...sound familiar?

Also on Monday and Tuesday, Dr. Ripp spoke on the "social determinants of health"--in a nutshell, wealth = health. He showed a couple of slides I remember from my Mt. Sinai class on the same topic. They are case studies that look straightforward on first reading, then get complicated when you examine them. "A 25-year-old Hispanic woman living in rural AZ is within walking distance of a community health clinic. Why might she be healthy? Why might she not?" The conversation was just as animated here at Cankdeska Cikana Comm. College as it was at Mt. Sinai in NYC. Is she here illegally? Is she healthy enough to walk without pain? Does she have kids, or someone to watch them while she's at the clinic? Does she work? So, is she healthy or not? It's a great way to break the ice in a course.

Lauren followed up with her truly captivating talk on justice in health care. As if the bar hadn't been high enough from Dr Ripp's lectures, she raised it up way higher. Thanks, Lauren! So we learned that race in biology means a difference species. Race among people is a social construct--we aren't from different species, since there's never been a case where people from two different "races" couldn't procreate. Magdalen summed it up beautifully: "So we're all the same race and we're different races." That cleared things up.

Amitha livened things up today by incorporating video into her talk on Global Health and the Burden of Disease. And Evan had a challenge with what has to be the toughest talk in our syllabus: Research Design & Ethics. I bet there aren't too many YouTube videos on research design! She set the stage quite nicely for my talk tomorrow on community-based participatory research, where researchers partner with community leaders to do studies that benefit the community and lead to social change. I'm anxious about giving the talk; it's my performance anxiety! I'll talk to the mirror tonight; that should help.

A non-class function last night included a dinner visit to Spirit Lake Ministries to hear a talk from an elder, Demus (short for Nicodemus).

On the ride back (in the Fun Car?) I confessed to having difficulty processing the whole experience. Missionaries I've met are among the nicest, sincerest people, but I'm just not comfortable with mission talk of bringing Christ to the People. So much evil has been done in the name of religion, I can't really embrace the idea of bringing anyone to anybody. Just live your life by example, and I'll reach my own conclusions. Surely this comes from an upbringing by Holocaust survivors who suffered terribly at the hands of people who said the Jews deserved the Holocaust because they killed Christ.


However, Demus expressed love equally for Native religion and for Catholicism, and focused on universal themes among all peoples.He told the group that the medicine circle, which has a cross in it, represented the four directions, plus up and down, and that the center was the heart. How could I not think of how we shake the lulav on Sukkot in exactly the same 6 directions? He also commented, "Everything in our house was Dakota first." How could I not think of how in our house growing up, everything was Jewish first? How else to transmit cultural identity without losing it over the generations?

Here's Demus:

The processing will go on and on.

A note to my sister Brook, the professional blogger: it's not easy being in the blogosphere! All day long I think about whether to include this event or that, this photo or that. Some Comments from My Readers would sure come in handy!