[Music] There's a long history. In the beginning it was terrible, like, we'd sign a treaty and then walk all over it. With the government there, they don't really necessarily have to abide by the same state laws, but they do have to abide by the federal laws because they're their own sovereign nation within the state. The US government would tell them things and then take them away. Reservations are sovereign nations so we pretty much govern ourselves. And if something's, like, pushing it I guess sometimes the government comes in and deal with them. They don't know it's about the same laws that the rest of the state has to. Indian cultures got all of their land taken away and then they got shoved onto reservations so there's some tension there. I'm not very sure what the relationship between the government and the Native American tribes are, but the last thing I've heard is it wasn't ... I'm just going to say I don't really know for sure what the relationship is. [Music] [Narrator] Since white settlers first came to land now known as Montana, they have created laws to restrict and regulate the lives of American Indians who came before. The policies of the 20th century were meant to assimilate and educate Indians into new white ways, tearing away their culture and traditions in the process. The termination policy of the '50s were successfully fought by Montana tribes and their supporters. The second half of the 20th century saw enormous cultural struggle. By sharing the story of one Montana family, the Juneau's of Browning, we get a glimpse of how the policies of the 20th century shaped their lives. [Stan Juneau] Oh yeah, I was born and raised in Browning which is headquarters for the Blackfeet Indian tribe. After high school I had asked about, asked a couple of my teachers which college I should go to. And they told me that I wasn't academically prepared to go to college and so I should go to a vocational school so. I had an older brother that had gone to Haskell and it seemed like just everybody from on the reservation at one time or another had gone to Haskell. So, I just caught on and followed suit and did the same thing. [Carol Juneau] At that time in the early 1960s it was a BIA Vocational Training School for American Indians. [Stan Juneau] I switched to the business curriculum and two years later graduated from the General Business Department. And went on relocation out to Oakland, California and then that's when I met Carol. [Flute Music] I think if you look back just before the Relocation Program started, the Bureau of Indian Affairs had their termination policy to try to terminate tribes to try to get them into become part of the melting pot of America. But that didn't work. There was such a massive outcry from Indian tribes. And they had the support of churches and a lot of other people that the government had to change that policy. And so when they changed it they came up with the idea: "Well let's relocate 'em all." [Carol Juneau] It was a BIA program, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in the '50s, '60s decided that one of the solutions to assist Indian people was to take them from reservation communities and move them into the urban areas; provide them perhaps with some training or perhaps help them just go right to employment. Cities are difficult for anybody. I think just moving in, moving into a city and moving into that environment. [Stan Juneau] We weren't prepared for how you live in a city and how you have to take public transportation. When I first started riding buses they give me this transfer and I take the transfer and didn't know what it was. I was ridin' and pretty soon I get on another bus and I'd throw another token in there and they'd give me another transfer and I take that and didn't know what it was. But nobody explained those types of things to us. So a lot of little things like that we just had to learn on our own. [Carol Juneau] I'm sure in employment at that time, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was directing us so under the Relocation Program to various places into just certain types of jobs that went from a situation and reservation communities where we were unemployed. But went into a city finding, do you know, public service jobs probably many low-paying jobs and so we became poor in the city, basically. Some areas would rent to us some areas wouldn't. You know it's the old story of you see an apartment for rent, but by the time you get there, you know, and when you get there they're sorry it's already been rented. And I guess, at that time, you know, you didn't know how to fight that. You know you didn't know that there was places you could go or there may be wasn't places you could go at that time to ask about that. [Stan Juneau] When they moved us from the reservations to the cities I think one of the underlying things was to destroy the culture and the language and the history. And the relocation cities, as we found each other, that became even stronger - became more important. Even though the people that we associated with on weekends might have been from other tribes, we kind of created, like, almost an urban Indian tribe. And so I think that our language and our culture and the dances and all that is even more alive now and more important to Indian people now and it probably was even before we started it. In hindsight very little of it worked. [Denise Juneau] I definitely think that the relocation policy has affected my generation and subsequent generations of Indian people because people were on relocation in cities meeting people of different tribes, getting married, having children, who are then this mix of Indian people. And so I would say if you look amongst my generation, it's probably a true mix of different tribes from all across the United States being in one person. [Carol Juneau] When we lived in Oakland, California, it was a real different time in America as well. We lived in the cities, you know, during the growth of the Vietnam War. The Oakland, California area was experiencing lots of things and America was experiencing lots of things and the American Indian movement was beginning to rise. And so I do think the influence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in our reservation communities kept our tribal communities a little more afraid, I guess, to maybe speak out, a little more hesitant to speak out. [Stan Juneau] We had the Black Panthers and you had the Chicanos and all those. Well we had the American Indian Movement. I think it did a lot to let us know that we were Indians and we could be proud, you know, and we could demand. And we had leaders around the [movement] that were willing to put her life on the line to make sure that that happened. [Carol Juneau] The theme was Indian power. Two words define what that movement worked towards. When someone begins to want a little bit of your power that you've had before or you've exercised over a group of people, or and they say we want some of that back or we want to have that ourselves. Surely you know people get very uncomfortable with that. Any social change has that time of, kind of, upheaval. The American Indian Movement, wasn't it probably necessary for that time of change? [Stan Juneau] I think the publicity they were getting in the media worldwide was of a very big concern to the federal government because if they weren't fulfilling their treaties to American Indians in America, how was that going to affect the treaties that they have with other countries. So I think that with our having treaties and exposing the parts of the treaties that were being ignored by the government was very, very worrisome to a lot of people. [Carol Juneau] In the early '70s after the takeover of Washington, the BIA in Washington, DC. After the longest walk, all of the various things that the American Indian Movement did. A lot of, probably, pieces of legislation were passed. The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act was passed. The Indian Education Act of 1972 was passed. I think the government, you know, stood up and took notice and began to create legislation and pass legislation that tried to provide more power to Indian people. [Stan Juneau] On our way back to Browning, the superintendent, at that time, visited with me about being a counselor at the high school. But I was concerned that 98% of the enrollment were Indian kids, but I was about the only certified Indian person working in the school. Kids, when they enter that school, have to see a reflection of themselves. In a lot of our public schools that's not happening. As a counselor I was able to work with kids on a daily basis. I started taking a lot of kids to a lot of college campuses where they could see different occupations, different professional areas and stuff. And then those that went into education, whenever I would go to one of the cities like Missoula or Bozeman or Billings or someplace like that, I'd always go to those campuses and find those people who were in education and encourage them to continue and then to come back, come back and teach. [Denise Juneau] It doesn't matter who you are, you want your family to do well. You want to be able to fit in. You want to be able to belong. You want to be able to have power and prestige. You want to be able to have all those things. And I think those are common among humanity no matter who you are, but I also think Indians bring along that entire history; they know where they been, they know what has happened to them in this country. I think it's very, very important, particularly within the educational realm, that people understand and Indian students understand that there is this entire history that is being omitted from the education system for both Indian and non-Indian students. And in order for them to really, truly understand what the American Dream should be, that is part of the story that needs to be told and it's often left out. [Carol Juneau] You think of Indian people that have been on relocation and came back home, I think you'll come back home with a particular reason: I want to be there, I want to be among my family, this is my home, I want to make it stronger. And so, perhaps, you come back with more courage, more determined to make things better. I've always been involved. I think we both, Stan and I, got involved in politics more at a grassroots level when we were students. I said colleges seem to kind of, breed that, I think in people. [Stan Juneau] We have to know the rules in order to compete. We're now becoming in a position where we can establish those rules, and we can set those guidelines from [within which] we operate. [Carol Juneau] In my role, I'm a state legislator now. And one of the things that I believe really strongly in is that Indian people have to be a part of the decision-making system that sets policy, and that sets budget; not only at the tribal level, but they need to be on school boards, we need to be in county governments, we need to be in state governments. We can't have, I think, other people making those decisions for us any longer. [Native American Chanting] [Stan Juneau] I'm optimistic about the future primarily because the generation that's following us and hopefully the generation after them are going to be knowledgeable about how to bring economic development to the Reservation, and how to create jobs, how to save the environment. We're starting to see some of that movement now. [Denise Juneau] Well I think my life is already different. I mean, I think, that they had learned the lessons of, you know, hard times, and growing up, and being poor, and having lots and lots of siblings. And, you know, watching their parents struggle through a lot of trying to come to terms with just raising a family and being able to be a part of the world. Where, when I grew up, we were already a part of that world because they had gone through those experiences. [Carol Juneau] You know there's been progress made - probably yes. But I do think that there's a lot of things that need to happen in terms of improving and providing better opportunities for Indian people. I think there's still a long ways to go on lots of things. Many of the reservation communities in Montana, particularly, are still some of the poorest communities in the nation. We need to be a part of the decision-making system that impacts us. [Denise Juneau] The legal issues that surround life on the reservation: everyday life, you know, from religion, to hunting, to fishing, to how your government works, to how much government you can have, to the types of court systems you have on the reservation. All of those are somehow influenced or somehow limited or expanded by Congress and by laws. And that tension between the United States government and sovereign tribal nations will continue to be there as long as Indian tribes survive and as long as they continue on and continue doing their daily work, I think that there will be that tension. But I also think it's a good tension because I think that there needs to be the education process within that. And once people understand, really, that tribes our sovereign nations, that they are a distinct group in America, that they do have rights, but that can go a long ways too. [Carol Juneau] I think we've had years and years and years of outside governments: the BIA saying this is what's best for Indian people, the Relocation Program, the Dawes Act, the Bureau Boarding Schools. But I think it's time for us to assume those power positions and not have, you know, the government trying to decide for us, what's best for us, any longer. [Flute Music]