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Gas Prices Hurt Indians More Than Others

By David Pego

Things just got tougher on a lot of American Indian reservations – particularly those in South Dakota, New Mexico and Arizona.

The cost of gasoline is going up faster than those fireworks will in July.  But it’s a particularly cruel blow to some of the nation’s poorest peoples.

Why?

Where do you and your family plan to vacation this year?  I bet if you are like most Americans, the rising cost of filling your gas tank will keep you closer to home.  That’s very bad news for Indians and others who are heavily reliant on summer visitors to their home communities.  Many natives work at tourist attractions and others have season jobs at hotels or stores that are greatly affected by the number of out-of-state license plates they can see in the parking lot.

Gas price hike means costlier groceries

Worse yet, many American Indian communities are far from sizable cities, meaning it will cost more to travel to buy goods that are just not available in their own hometowns.  And you can bet that grocery distribution companies and other businesses will increase the cost of shipping goods to these smaller communities as they pass along the gas hikes their trucks are seeing at the pumps.  That means life just got harder and a lot more costly for many of those who try to make a living on their ancestors’ homelands.

And as summer arrives, many farmers will have less and less of the agricultural jobs that many American Indians take just to make family ends meet.

Another casualty probably will be the growing list of summer powwows.  It’s not going to be an attractive proposition to drive 200 or more miles for some dancers unless they think they have a good chance of scoring some prize money to offset the cost of a couple of tankfuls of fuel.

What’s the problem?

Why is all this happening?  Congressfolks say they are at a loss to explain why gas prices are going out of sight.  I don’t know anyone who can explain it, but I do know that some invisible person is picking the pockets of rural and small-town American Indians more than any other people.  And by summer’s end, this could be almost as bad as when those Winchester rifles starting knocking down thousands of buffalo a day.

How can you and I help?  I’m not sure we can.  Possibly, we can start a campaign to buy American Indian-made arts and other goods first.  A bumper sticker that says, “Buy First American First!”  or says, “Take your honey to your local frybread stand!”

I never know anything

See, I really don’t know.  Smarter minds than me will have to figure all this out.

For now, thought, I can just encourage you to bite the bullet (before someone kills a bison with it) – go ahead, and visit an Indian reservation this year or motels and attractions where you know lots of Indians work.  Besides, it’s cheaper than going to Europe anyway.

This is the point of the story where a lot of native writers would encourage as many folks as possible to go back to Europe, but I’ll pass on that for now.