Trying to rebuild after 40 frozen years

I wasn't aware of this. I'm glad it's over, but it still pisses me off. A perfect example of bureaucracy run amuck to the detriment of, as usual, 'the least of us'.

LATimes

The Navajo believe that a person will always be tied to the place where his or her umbilical cord is buried. When Gordy was born in 1968, his father put his in this rust-colored dirt. It was here on the family's ranch on the edge of the Painted Desert that his father dreamed of one day building homes for his children, and of tilling a field where watermelon and corn could grow.

But the Gordys were forced to put their dreams on hold. In 1966, the commissioner of Indian Affairs, Robert Bennett, halted development on 1.6 million acres of tribal land in northeastern Arizona that was claimed by both the Navajo nation and the Hopi tribe. Bennett imposed the ban to stop either tribe from taking advantage of the other while they negotiated ownership.

The ban became known as the Bennett Freeze. It meant the Gordys and the 8,000 or so other Navajos living on the land couldn't erect homes, open businesses or even repair their roofs. No roads or schools were built, no electric, gas or water lines were permitted.

Gordy is now 41, with a wife and four children. They live in a drafty trailer in the town of Cameron, a 30-minute drive from the old ranch. Cameron was also under the Freeze, but in town, at least, the family could string an extension cord from a neighbor's house to get electricity, and draw water from a working well a few miles down the highway. Though it is now free to do so, the family has not made improvements to the trailer. The cash Gordy makes selling firewood, and the money his wife earns selling jewelry to tourists at the Grand Canyon, an hour away, isn't enough.

I've been to Cameron. 'Town' is maybe a little bit of a stretch, but that's the way things are out in that country. I've probably met Mrs. Gordy too, given that my co-driver-in-life likes Southwestern jewelry and has the pickup stop at every stand, and there are a lot of them.

'An hour away' out there is about a 120-mile round trip. That's a hell of a commute to sell jewelry to tourists.

That is hard country to live in under the best of circumstances and the Freeze put a big hurt on folks who are spiritually tied to the land up there. They are pretty poor and don't have many options anyway, and to stifle what little development they want to do to make life a little easier was just flat ignorant and unconscionable. Aw, hell, they's just injuns.

Great White Father in D.C. strikes again. Please go read the rest. There's an audio slide show that will make you cringe at how these folks were made to live. The above quotes are the tip of the iceberg.