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On January 31, 2008, Joe A. Garcia, President of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) delivered the 6th Annual "State of the Indian Address" at the Washington Press Club in Washington D.C. His speech was delivered three days after President Bush's State of the Union Address and is a forum for relaying to the President, the American public and Indian Nations the general state of America’s Indian nations.

Here are some quotes from President Garcia's address:

"Native children face devastating poverty. According to the most recent census data nearly a third of Native children live below the federal poverty level. On reservations, it’s over 44 percent, with half of those living in what is defined as
“deep poverty.”

• With fewer than half of Native young people graduating from high school, and more than 8 in 10 eighth-graders reading below grade level, we need better education programs that work for our communities.

• Finally, inadequate health care, and a lack of information about healthy lifestyles, are stealing years – sometimes decades – from Indian lives. Life expectancy for the average American is 76 years, 20 years longer than the life
expectancy for males on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, who have the shortest lifespan of all Americans."


To view the State of the Indian text go to:


http://www.ncai.org/fileadmin/2008SOINSpeechFINAL.pdf

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"English IS a foreign language. It did not originate on this land."

WhoMe

Josiah

Well we have some successes and lots to work on
I wonder who all attended this from Congress or the Government

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