Obama to Native American Leaders:You Will Not be Forgotten

The leaders were gathered for the day-long, and first ever, White House Tribal Nations Conference, which, as the Los Angeles Times reports will see issues such as jobs, housing and health care discussed. President Obama, who reminded his audience that he had been adopted by a couple from the Crow nation in Montana, his adoption occurred in May 2008 when he was still seeking the Democratic presidential nomination and was covered by Reuters at the time, described how his own personal circumstances had made him an outsider and therefore he was able to empathize with them regarding the way that the Native American people had frequently been treated by the wider society. According to USA Today the President, acknowledging the marginalization suffered by the Native American population and "a history marked by violence and disease and deprivation", spoke of how some reservations were witnessing unemployment rates close to 80 percent. Furthermore 25 percent of Native Americans are classed as living in poverty, over 14 percent of them having no electricity in their homes. Vowing that “We’re not going to go through the motions and pay tribute to each other, then furl up the flags and go our separate ways”, President Obama also declared that his election to the highest office in the land had come about because large numbers of people in the U.S. wanted to "change the way Washington works" and ensure that certain sections of society were not "excluded from the American Dream". In addition to $3 billion in stimulus funds for Native American communities the President has instructed each of his cabinet agencies to come up with plans for improving the relationship between the U.S. government and the Native American tribes. And Native Americans have been appointed to key positions within the Obama administration. Kimberly Teehee, a member of the Cherokee Nation, the largest tribe in the U.S., is the senior policy advisor for Native American affairs within the Domestic Policy Council. Meanwhile Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, South Dakota, is the Director of the Indian Health Service within the Department of Health and Human Services. The Indian Health Service website confirms that the number of Native Americans, the term covers both American Indians and Alaska Natives, in the U.S. increased from 2 million to 3.3 million between 1990 and 2008. Canada too has a sizable Native American population, the BBC stating that there are one million Native Americans living in the U.S.'s northern neighbor.