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Second Place
Aaron Huey Atlas Press
"In The Shadow of Wounded Knee: Life on the Pine Ridge
Indian Reservation"
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On the Great Plains, hidden away on little traveled
back roads, is the place formerly known as American Prisoner of War Camp
Number 334. It is now known as the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of
the Oglala Lakota (Sioux). They are the tribe that suffered the infamous
Wounded Knee Massacre, in December of 1890, in which over one hundred unarmed
women and children were killed. Since that day Wounded Knee, and the Pine
Ridge Indian Reservation, have been a symbol of the wrongs inflicted on
Native Americans by the descendants of Europeans. Pine Ridge is the
quintessential example of the failures of the reservation system, with
staggering statistics on everything from violent crime to education. Sadly,
Pine Ridge continues to be the setting for an ongoing massacre within the
tribe. Gangs on the reservation are out of control, and the violence they
live by grips even the smallest villages. Unemployment on the reservation
fluctuates between 85-90 percent. Recent reports vary but many point out that
the median income on the Pine Ridge Reservation is approximately $2,600 to
$3,500 per year. The housing office is unable to afford to build new
structures, and existing structures are falling apart. Many are homeless,
and those with homes are packed into rotting buildings with up to 5 families.
Frequently, grandparents are raising their grandchildren because their own
children have succumbed to alcoholism, domestic violence, and general apathy.
Making life even more grim, fifty percent of the population over 40 suffers
from diabetes and the life expectancy for men is a mere 48 years.
A rider in horse races commemorating the Sioux's
victory over Custer in the battle of the little Big Horn held every year near
the site of the Wounded Knee massacre. These two events represent Native
Americans' greatest defeat and their greatest victory.
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