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
COMMISSIONER SEBESTA: Is Edward Casey here?
Pause.) Greg Nothstine? (Pause.) James Patlan? (Pause.)
MR. PATLAN: Here.
COMMISSIONER SEBESTA: Okay,
James. And then it'll be Gregg Capito.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible away from
microphone.)
COMMISSIONER SEBESTA: Yes,
please. Please come forward.
(Pause.)
James, would you like to introduce yourself, where you come from, and give us your comments?
(TESTIMONY OF JAMES PATLAN ATTACHED AS EXHIBIT
#4)
COMMISSIONER SEBESTA: I hear what you're saying about very serious issues, James; and I think that, you know, some of these things require immediate attention. The homeless on the streets is certainly something that has got to be addressed. But another question though associated with it, do you have any ideas of how to approach this problem? In other words, young people coming in, as you say, they're mainly between 14 and 20, and coming into town and, you know, getting into a situation of this type. Do you see any, let's say, more remote program that might be more effective in addressing the prevention of such a situation occurring?
MR. PATLAN: Yes, I do. Now, when I was talking to the health department downtown, I looked at all their program availabilities that they had and the type of services that they offered. None of these programs are staffed with Native people. First of all, there is no program designed to help Native people in this area that are run, operated, and managed by Native people. The young girls feel discriminatory feelings from the people when they go there, because these people that are running the programs are Ph.D. doctors, if you would, and they can't relate to the Native culture or the lifestyle that we live. The services that are available, if we could somehow work with the Municipality and figure out a model program that we could teach them our lifestyles, our customs, our traditions, if you would, they could teach us the implementation of the program, the development, and actual service delivery, we could be able to share our knowledge together and have a program that are run by the Native people. These programs, if we could develop them, have to be put into the communities that need it the most.
An example for right now, if I want to go
downtown and find out if I had any type of, let's say, a sexually-transmitted
disease, I'd have to go all the way downtown towards the Inlet.
If I live in Muldoon or in Mountain View, it costs a dollar
to ride the bus one way, so it's going to be a $2 trip. Now,
we're talking about, I’d say, a good 15- to 20-mile distance
now. These women walk, and by the time they get there, they're
tired. Their baby's screaming and yelling; it needs to be changed
the diapers, and these programs are not close by.
If we could get a program close in our communities, or the communities that need the services the most, we could train them -- I'm talking about the Native people now, we could train them on how to deliver the programs. We could also train them to not sit on their butts -- excuse me for the language -- and wait for people to walk in; but to get up and go out there and start knocking on doors and saying:
"This is our service. These are the programs
we have available in your community. Please utilize it."
If these programs could be put together, maybe we could put it in -- and I know it's going to be a generic term, but a family resource center; but the center would not be a resource in the sense, but it would be more like a training institution, where these people come in, and we could tell them, first of all, about the dangers of having children without knowing your sex partner. We could show them how, once they do have children or become pregnant, on how to raise the children and properly bring them up. We could try to teach them on child development and raising procedures or techniques that -- remember, once you -- I'm not a specialist in this area; I'm just an individual on the street, so to speak. But if we had this resource center in the community, we could address the issues on, first, sex education; child development and raising; the proper health procedures on how to take care of your children, maybe even bring a community health nurse out there to check the kids right there on the spot, you know. The is -- this issue here, you know, it won't go away. It's going to get worse. It's going to mushroom; it's going to mushroom. But if we had the ability to empower ourselves to complete these projects, to deliver these projects, maybe, just maybe, we could set that example for the younger ones to say:
"Why, hey, they're doing this. They' re
helping our people. Let's try to learn what they're doing.
Let's stay in school. Let's not become pregnant. Let's learn
why we don' t want to become pregnant. Let's understand that
if we're going to have a family, let's at least wait until
we graduate out of high school anyway."
That way, they have some experience of going through the system of education, knowledge; and, hopefully, in the schools, they'll start teaching about child raising, and child techniques, and how maybe not to become pregnant. I'm not saying, you know, I don't want nobody to have no kids or anything like that, but at 14 and 15, that's a little too young. And these girls think it's this -- the first taste of sin as the music goes. They think, oh, gee, you know, my first experience with sex, I feel so wonderful. And then they just get caught up in that wonderful feeling, without realizing that they have this baby the rest of their lives. They have to feed it; they have to care it; they have to buy diapers, etcetera, etcetera, for the baby; and this -- there's no program teaching that now. There's nothing. If we had the center, if we a location centrally 'in these areas where we could start delivering these type of activities, we'll get the people in there, believe me. If we could give them something from us, a color, you know, Natives, if we could do that to our people, then maybe we could sort of convince them that, you know, they should pay attention to the education system and try to learn -- become more advanced in your mind and adulthood, if you would; so that way, when they feel like they really want to have a child, they're prepared mentally, physically, and socially at the same time. And that's --
COMMISSIONER ELLIOTT: Yeah.
(Tape changed to Tape #3.)
COMMISSIONER SEBESTA: (Already speaking when tape turned on.) . . . received came from the home, and I think that, in my experience I've witnessed that that is being the most effective also when it's given by parents and family that are really concerned for their younger people. And I know that some of these things have, you know, broken down; some of the family life systems, and so on; but I'm wondering whether maybe programs or some attention shouldn't be addressed to families to help their young children deal with these problems. You know, I think you've outlined very well the fact that they should be well adjusted by the time that they decide to have a family and have children, and so on; bat I'm concerned about who teaches that, because I know that, for example, in the school system, sometimes many of these things are just shuffled on the school system, or, you know, some agency, which really doesn't do the affective job that a loving family can do. And I'm wondering whether maybe you've thought about it in these areas?
MR. PATLAN: Yes, I have; but it's a -- okay, for example, in this community and the town that's part of Anchorage is called Mountain View. In Mountain View, we have approximately 19,000 individuals, not counting the Army people on the base -- I mean the Air Force. In this little town, we have one, two -- we have four liquor stores; we have three sex shops; we have, I'd say, the police department breaking -- busting up something every day; we have so -- the society there is so deteriorated that the community council has put together a community patrol. Basically, they travel the streets at night, looking for kids, dope dealers, people that rip off at the parks. I took my little boy to the park. There was three syringes with needles on it on the ground by the swing set. He came home one day with one of these needles. I don't know if he poked himself. I don't know what was in the syringe; but the first thing I did was find a hammer and a pair of pliers and took care of that system. I went back to the park, for example, and there were 15 individuals in the back there drinking, and smoking, and I don't know what they were doing with that needle. I imagine they were shooting some kind of chemical substance; but this is allowed to happen in our society there daily. We tried taking it to the Mayor's Office; the door was slammed in our face. They said:
"This is the police department's matter."
We took it to the police department. They said:
"Okay, fine, get some phone numbers, addresses,
pictures of these people if you can. Bring that in, and we'll
see if we could get a case to take to the District Attorney."
They didn't do anything about it. We've tried to do something about it now; but it's pretty hard when you got liquor industry against you; when you got the sex and porno industry against you; and when the only legitimate church in that society -- there is one that doesn't seem to want to take Native people that much; or the Native people don't feel comfortable going to that church; and so their spiritual aspect is not there. The family is breaking down. The job opportunities in the urban situation here is not: that much available, so then the parents start drinking. Then that society within their own family structure starts breaking down.
Case in point. I know this one family that
had four girls. One girl got two credits last semester for
school -- for high school, because she only attended school
for two months. The reason she was only able to attend for
two months is because her family got kicked out. And they got
kicked out of their home, so they had to move; they couldn't
have no place. They're down at Brother Francis now. The wife
is running around mad. The two girls is on the streets alone,
and they're 19 years old. She hadn't finished high school.
She got a total of 15 credits; you need 21 in town here to
graduate, but she's only got 15. The school system passed her
forward. She's a senior, or equivalent to a senior; but she's
only got 15 credits. But the process and the system here just
-- society kept pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and pushing,
and pushing. They don’t stop to try to analyze what they're
pushing or what they're promoting if you would. And the family
structure -- not all of them, believe it -- not all of them
was deteriorating; but for the most part, those that have got
hooked on their alcohol, or the dope, if you would, are --
they're falling apart. And the kids see that, and there's no
support close by that they can trust to go to see. And I believe
also this is primarily why they don't want to go to the services,
'cause they can't believe in them; there's no faith or trust
in them. These are just kids, and when they hit the streets,
they have a baby, and their old man throws them out, then there's
that bad taste in their mouth about I can't trust them no more.
They can't go home, 'cause their parents don't want to recognize
the fact that their daughters have illegitimate children, and
it kind of hurts their feelings; and the fights start and they
throw them out again. So here's these young women and kids
on the streets. And there's just no -- there's no place for
them to go. There's no resource center, if you would.
COMMISSIONER SEBESTA: Do any other commission members wish to question James?
(Pause.)
Okay, thank you. I think -- I appreciate your testimony very much, James. I realize that what you're saying is very serious; and I really appreciate the directness of your testimony in trying to inform us of what really the situation is; and so thank you very much.
MR. PATLAN: Well, I'm sorry for the crude language, but --
COMMISSIONER SEBESTA: No, that's --
MR. PATLAN: -- I couldn't think of proper terminologies.
COMMISSIONER SEBESTA: -- we need to hear it the way it is (laughing).
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.
