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1984

Eagle Butte, Dewey County, South Dakota

Stacy Youngbird - classroom work - Cheyenne River Eagle Butte Junior High School (BIA) - Kodachrome - 1984

Stacy came a little later in the regular school term, our superb & efficient principal Vicki Birkeland, provided notice of a new student.
During my initial introduction to Stacy, her reservation accent was thick with possibly some speech impediment, I did not understand a single word she said.
What I did know during our first encounter was that she was a truly most joyful person, absolutely excited to be in the art classroom.

I never agree with the phrase "...reservations are like a third world country".
Those and other similar phrases become words of fear, disdain & oppression.
It is true however, reservations remain a different kind of place.
What makes them different?
Plainly & simply, reservations are the remainder of a repressed & abandoned American heritage
and (lower case c) constitution for humans living in harmony with nature.




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