Ft. Yukon, Alaska
June 9, 1993
ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Witness List | PDF
Version
TESTIMONY OF POLDINE CARLO
MS. CARLO: I wanted to say something on what Pat said about the Native people being jealous of other Native people that try to make a goal of their life and try to make a better life for themselves and their families. I experience that a lot and my family also. We were at a mining place in the village, coastal village, and those people really gave us a bad time. This one young fellow, he had a wife and two kids, he even used to call us through the winter at home, when me and my husband were alone, 1:00 at night the phone would ring and there would be this guy from this village; we people don't want you in this town, we're going to (indiscernible) your house out into the -- on the bank.
So it's really true what he said, you know. The Native people, instead of helping one another, they don't like to see their own kind making a better home for themselves. And they're always cutting you down. But let a white man come into the village, and they're all out to help that person. Now, what is the difference? Why is that?
And then look -- we're talking about Native
language also. A lot of times when people talk about Native
languages, say, well, it's the BIA or it's the priests, that's
the reason why we lost our language. I -- when I was growing
up, we were not allowed to talk Indian in our school, which
was a Catholic school, because we were going there to learn
our ABC’s, arithmetic, spelling, and why should we talk Indian
when the nuns didn't understand us? There we were there to
learn from them. But soon as we got out of the school, everything
was Indian-Even the kids have Indian names. And we just, la-la-la-la-la,
blah-blah-blah-blah, in Indian, you know, not in school but
outside of the school, that's all we talked was our Indian
language.
People don't seem to understand that -- well, I'm speaking for Nulato. But that
education that I got there from the nuns and the priests, there's no way
that I could ever thank them enough for what they taught me. Because all
through my lifetime, I had a beautiful life. There isn't anything that I
regret that I have done. It's through the teaching of the nuns and the priests,
and also my grandmother and my grandparents, my
grandfather. They taught us the Indian of what
which is right and wrong. The white man's way of
what is right and wrong.
We were so scared of everything we did, you
know, we were so afraid because of the strict ways we were
taught in the Catholic way. But the first time I
-- well, in our Catholic religion we have to go to confession in order
to get excused for whatever wrong we did. So the first time
a young man kissed
me, I remember I was so scared to go to confession. I never went for about
three months. And finally I had to go, you know, so I was telling the priest.
And he said, well, it's not a sin, that's not a sin. But if you play around
with fire, you (indiscernible), if you play around with fire, then you'll
get burned, or something like that. But still, I didn't know what that
was till long afterwards (laughter). I was telling my husband
about it, and he
said, this is what he meant (laughter).
So really, as I say, I -- there's just no way I can thank the whole ways that I was brought up, because I think I had a beautiful, wonderful life, a nice family, a good provider, and good, good family. So that's something that I have to always be thankful for, all through my life (indiscernible). Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Could you please state your name?
MS. CARLO: Poldine Carlo.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Thank you.
MR. SCHAEFFER: Our next speaker is going
to be Titus Peter, but before we -- before I ask him to come
up here and sit down, I'm going to have to catch a plane. I've
got another meeting in Austria that I’ve got to go--
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: (Indiscernible).
MR. SCHAEFFER: (Indiscernible) flying to do. And what I wanted
to do is just mention a couple of things, just in case somebody doesn't bring
them up here for the record. Because I -- like all of you, I've been talking
to other people here. And I wanted to bring up a couple things. And one of the
elders here talked to me about ANICA. And I hadn't heard that anywhere else before.
But the comments he made was that ANICA should be looked at, since it was a program
that the BIA put together for -- to assist villages to get cheaper groceries
and better food services and other supplies. And be felt that if had exceeded
its usefulness, that they were now -- had just built
their own little bureaucracy, didn't even support the state, all of their 35
employees in Seattle. And they placed their orders with Carr-Gottstein in Anchorage
to send stuff to the villages. And not only that, but they put an extra mark-up
on the costs so that they could pay dividends to their member stores every year.
So they were actually charging more than the stores would get if they had some
other system.
And he thought that if the -- the reasons that they first started were still valid, and that was to help the people get cheaper groceries, that we had to look at an alternative for ANICA. That was one.
The other one I wanted to bring up, one of the reasons I wanted to come here was -- and I hope John will talk a little more about it, but I still wanted to make a comment about it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SPEAKER: Off record.
(Tape changed - Tape 2, Side 2)
This document was ocr scanned. We have made every
attempt to keep the online document the same as the original,
including the recorder's original misspellings or typos.
