The Southwest Border Area: Tricultural Development

The Southwest Border Area and Long Island have one thing in common, native americans.  The southwest border area has some of the most well known tribes in the United States, the Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo,  roamed this area long before the Spanish arrived exploring the deserts and canyons of this land. Much like the 13 tribes controlled all of Long Island before the Dutch and English settlers arrived and pushed them out and eventually onto reservations. Unlike the small reservations on Long Island, the Southwest Border Area has some of the largest reservations with very large populations that exist in the United States.

The conditions of the reservations in the Southwest Border Area and on Long Island are different. The reservations on Long Island are in relative poverty compared to the surrounding suburbs, but not extreme poverty that exists on the reservations of the Southwest. Examples of the differences are the tourism that the Long Island Indians have, that generates revenue, like the Shinnecock Indians and thier Annual labor day festival.

In comparison this is a great 7 part series about the Navajo Reservation and the people.

Now you can only learn so much by watching video clips of Indian Reservations. Growing up on Long Island I had the opportunity to visit the reservations often and learn about the culture and see the conditions that the people were living in. I have also been to the Navajo and Hopi reservations among others and seen the conditions first hand, and I can tell you it is a night and day differences. One of the biggest problems that causes this differnce is the lack of economic oppotunity for the Reservations of the Southwest. Unlike Long Island where the reservations are smack in the middle of a vibrant diverse economy with jobs and opportunities that are outside the reservations, many of the Native Americans in the Southwest Border area are on reservations that are proverbally in the middle of nowhere with little economic engines located nearby, and they have land that is arid, and not as useful as the reservations on Long Island. Farming is possible on Long Island, but in the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona this opportunity is not easily available. Perhaps the biggest difference is due to the fact that the Native Americans live on State Reservations not Federal Reservations like the Native Americans in the Southwest Border Area.

Just like Long Island originally belonged to the Dutch before it became part of the British Empire and a colony so too the Southwest Border Area was under the dominion of the Spanish Empire before becoming part of the United States.