I am an "Indian" from Rapid City, S.D., who has much in common with the native Hawaiian people in terms of searching for sovereignty and self-determination. My mother is a Sicangu Lakota (a Sioux, according to history) and my father is a Seneca from upstate New York. Most of my knowledge is Lakota, so I will relate it to you as best I can.

For my Lakota ancestors, the world was still big until the "wasicu," white people, flooded into our lands. Just as it was for my Seneca relations a few years earlier, the world became small and crowded when the new nation of the United States spread itself in all directions. The elders and "medicine" people knew a dark road lay ahead for all "Indians" when the wasicu came.

The Lakota warned their people and said, "In the upcoming years only those who walk with the pipe and a clear mind will survive." I am certain that the Hawaiians leaders gave a similar warning when they encountered the wasicu out here. The warning simply told the people to remember who and what they were when walking among other nations of people.

Before Columbus "discovered" America, there were thousands of distinct "Indian" nations. Five centuries later there remain only hundreds. All of us who carry the blood of one of those tribes are survivors of a holocaust; a holocaust that is far more deadly than the one committed by Hitler's Germany. Many of us are just beginning to heal ourselves from it.

In America, the supposed land of the free, it is hard to see a holocaust resulting from the "American dream" coming to fruition. Under everything American is the blood of Indian people who only wanted to live as "Indians."

In South Dakota, we're exiles in our own lands, much as the Hawaiians are. The reservations were originally part of a vast tract of land to support our lifestyle and give our buffalo ample land to graze and thrive. They ultimately became areas to simply dump my relatives so they would be out of the way of "Progress" and "Manifest Desitny."

Take a closer look at these treaties negotiated "with the utmost faith" and you can see why Indians have no land base and only remnants of a culture. They were lied to and told that if they became just like the wasicu, all would be fine. All is not fine and the ideology of assimilation, the melting pot, is a farce and a destroyer of life, identity and pride.

I say this because of the response I received from my Lakota-speaking grandmother before she died in 1992. I asked her why she did not teach any of us to speak and she responded, "I didn't want you to get made fun of by the wasicu."

When she died, I made the decision to stop that cycle and honor the sacrifice that many warriors, women, elders and children made with their lives. Today, I am just as my ancestors were. I carry their blood too and, therefore, have a responsibility to walk in this day and age just as they would.

America and the Hawaiian Islands were stolen from their original people. The original people are told that what has occurred in the past cannot be changed today. We are also told that the wasicu of today are not responsible for what happened and we dark-skinned people should adjust to the present. One could say that for the past 500 years, we "Indians" have been doing exactly that.

This is what self-determination is: the ability to control and direct matters that directly affect one's own existence. This is what all American tribes and the Hawaiians want. All nonnative people of America and Hawaii are unwelcomed and unappreciative guests who meddle in the affairs of people over whom they have no sovereignty.

We, as native people, not only had our lands taken, but also our languages, spirituality, and pride taken. Please think of this and try to put yourself in that position.

This is where we stand. So let's finally understand each other so we can be equals in a very crowded world.

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