It is an honor to know all of you who are advancing telecommunication opportunities for Native People individually, communally, collectively, tribally, and globally in creative, resourceful, collaborative, and determined ways as both a process and product.
I am of Italian and African-American heritage. Unlike Jean, I am a non-enrolled member of the Navajo Nation. Jean continues to work at the grassroots level for change within the Eastern Navajo Agency.
As Dolores Huerta from the United Farm Worker's Union told me: Change never happens from the top down; it must come from the bottom up-from the people. To be around Jean is to be a part of a momentum, a movement of activity rooted with the people.
As a former teacher and librarian at Lake Valley Navajo School, I became very interested in the emerging telecommunications: how would it affect our community; and better yet, how would our rural community connect to it.
After pursuing my doctorate at Emporia State University in Kansas, this continued interest carries into my current dissertation research.
In 1993, former Congressman Bill Richardson admitted in a field hearing about universal access for Internet connectivity:
"Today across our country there are pockets of neglect when an already underserved population continues to wait for the promise of modern communications."
In 1993, LaDonna Harris and George Baldwin wrote in an opinion paper by the Americans for Indian Opportunity: 'Indian 'America' has special needs and must be approached differently than other ethnic communities' for the reasons that are reflected in the research of the Office of Technology Access, Dr. Riley, Marcia Warren, George Baldwin, FCC, and so many others.
Six years later how far are we progressing, Marcia Warren addresses in her introduction in her Native Networking Publication.
Jean Whitehorse has provided an overview of the challenges we still battle. I will provide an abbreviated case study of Internet activity within Lake Valley community in New Mexico.
The Lake Valley Chapter House (LVCH) has had a computer workstation for over four years as a recipient of the New Mexico State Library Tribal Libraries Program. Their computer is serviced and upgraded with software regularly. I wondered why are they taking so long in getting their Internet connection?
Several reasons emerged:
Inadequate telephone lines. One thousand dollars later in December 1998, LVCH now has an upgraded telephone system. It still took months before the Internet was connected. As Jean has already mentioned, telephone lines are often down not allowing community members to access it.
The concept of the Internet is a foreign idea, just as libraries are foreign concepts to people who when they want information, go to other people first; not inanimate objects, such as books. There is no word for computer in Navajo, and words to describe it are: thinking fast metal, fast writing metal, or white metal thinking. The mass media has contributed to making the word Internet more familiar, yet it still is a mystery with mystique for some.
Many adult community members are not comfortable using computers and shy away from them. All around, the concept is strange, unfamiliar. As one Lake Valley elder, who asked "why don't the chapter officials want the Internet", explained that if I could show them visually, maybe the idea would be better communicated. (The wisdom of the elders.) The elders observe computers from a distance quietly weighing the qualities of this technology with traditional values and sense.
Chapter officials have limited and inadequate monies in their budget to meet the basic needs of the community. The Internet may be seen as extra-fluff-extraneous-not a necessary expenditure.
So acting on the advice of the Lake Valley community elder, seeing would communicate better understanding and by seeing it, local members could adequately judge it. A five-month Internet trial period was established through a community donation.
Initial set-up services totaled $140. Navajo Communications recognizes chapter houses as business establishments. LVCH monthly recurring charge is $63.40, not including state and federal taxes.
At Lake Valley, there is a continuum of computer users: from computer programmers, computer engineers, computer savvy students, curious and cautious parents, parents signing up for email accounts alongside their children, and preschool users.
In the short time LVCH has had their Internet connectivity (and between the 'down' times) several activities have occurred:
LVCH was able to present their military veterans with a website dedicated to Walk With Warriors
The LVCH council member was able to access the NM House Bill that involved $50,000 for Lake Valley to construct a senior citizen center.
A Financial Aid Web Site is being developed for college students to seek supplementary money. The chapter officials specifically asked if the Internet could help Lake Valley college students secure more money for college.
Lake Valley community members are taking advantage of the available computer software and the Internet for their needs: establishing hotmail e-mail accounts; researching; writing resumes; doing homework; creating cards, banners, and flyers; listening to children's stories; and learning more about computers.
At the end of five months, LVCH officials and community members can decide for themselves of what value the Internet will be for them. To keep or not to keep, that will be the financial, cultural, social, and educational question. In the near future, Lake Valley community may pursue other alternatives that bypass telephone lines for their Internet connectivity. However, one certainty remains - more change.