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
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COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: James Sebring.
(Pause.)
MR. SEBRING: My heart is (indiscernible) pounding, and what I did was -- Mr. Chairman, and distinguished guests, I'm James Sebring from Tutka Bay, and I came on my own; and I had to count every pennies that I had in order to pay for my fare; and just to try and address what concerns me the most. Not only the people that I am from, but the hoping to speak for my fellow Alaska Natives.
And my biggest concern is the education;
and I have worked for the schools for the past 22 years; and
I finally get to the point where I am very concerned about
young people’s education. First seven years, I worked for the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, which were the elementary; and past
17 years, I work for the Lower Kuskokwim School District in
high school level, where these young peoples are preparing
for the adult life and higher education.
As parents, leaders, and elders, we must get deeply involved within our children's education, both at the elementary and the high school level. We must get involved in villages' educational system, visiting our schools, and participating in programs of the schools, to insure that they are given the good education.
By our involvements, the students will begin to understand why the education is very important. Be a counselor for higher education, encourage high school graduates to go higher education, colleges, so that they may be able to take care of themself and be able to face the challenges of tomorrow worth of living.
And we must help our children and be very
involved in their education. And one of the things I also have
in mind is because it's part of the education, too, is the
job that will open education for our young people that are
graduated from high school; and here they have no future and
-- I mean, they don’t know where to go, and here they stay
out in the villages without jobs, because they are not qualified
for -- they don't have the qualifications.
Job development education. While there is still money available for job training, job development training, tomorrow there may be no money available, because the revenues are declining. Work to get our young people to get involved in job development programs, which are offered by Alaska Vocational Training Center, which is located in Seward, Kotzebue Training Center, and apprenticeship career program. This is just to name a few. So that our young people may have the required qualifications for the jobs.
In our rural areas, we just cannot ignore the jobless people of our young people. We must help them and encourage them to apply for the training to meet the challenges of tomorrow, that-they will be able to participate in the industries.
And one of the things that I have voluntarily work is to try and get these young people to go to the job training; and I get a chance to get some of our young people to go to the job training and get certificated for the job training. And we must also help those people -- our young people to get involved within job training for the qualification purposes, because without a piece of paper today, we cannot be a laborer or work for a construction firm, because we don't have a piece of paper showing that we can cut the board with a skilsaw, or piece of paper showing that we can dr -- pound a nail through the wall all the way with a hammer; or have a piece of paper that we can put the wires together and make the lights work; or have a piece of paper that we can do the flooring, or ceiling, or painting, or put up a building, those things.
And one of the things that I am also concerned about is the local development -- local economic developments. We just study our resources that we have. We must start looking at what we can develop to make the local revenues for the good of our people's revenue. Example: processing of fish to generate income to our people in our villages, so that we may be able to leave some inheritance when we are gone, because we the people, parents, leaders, and elders are not planted here on earth to live forever. We must start planning the local economic developments; start studying our local resources that can bring economic and revenue to our communities, jobs to -- jobs for our communities. Things that can bring income to our people. If we really care about the future of our children and their children, we must -- we should be working our heads off, planning the long-term plannings in a very careful studies, because the carelessness in a long-term planning can bring a disaster for the future.
And I usually -- one of the things of St. Mary's -- when I went to school in St. Mary's back in 1957, St. Mary's was a -- just like a small village; and it only had one school - - boarding school, and maybe about 15 houses, and there was one store. And I attended the school there for three years; and then I went home.
Thirty years later I went back to St. Mary's, and I couldn't believe what I see. There was a big airport, big terminus, restaurants, hotels, roads, sand pits, everything. And I couldn't imagine what I see, because these changes could happen and they could be big; and it -- maybe they could also hurt our cultural and traditional way of life And, therefore, the careful study -- when we're planning -- when we do plan, careful study is very important, so that we make the wise decisions for the future of our young people, their children, and their children, so that they may have a better living in their future.
Today, we the people of Nelson Island are puzzled, because our own -- because
of our own people coming and informing us of the super powers they have.
We seem to get to the point where we stand not knowing what to do. A planning
for the better living rests upon us all, for we the Native of Alaska must
not expect AFN to solve all our problems. We have major problem, that should
be addressed at the AFH conferences. Example: ANCSA 1971 to December 1992
which is 20 years, which have been extended to 18 months that has a deadline
of June 1993. Are we all planning for the takeover? Is the future protected?
Do we know what we are going to do? Does each of US, our shareholders, given
instructions of their responsibilities, and so
on? Planning and studying for a better living and
education. Our professionalism as Native people
is very important.
These are the - - where I come from, I -- we have a - - federal and state government
gave us the pro -- fish processing plant and big walk-in freezer way bigger
than this building; and we have people with, the limited-entry permits out
there; and our resources are right next door. And those are the things that
I keep asking the people of Nelson Island to start looking into, because
if we ever make it happen, and make it work, it would create jobs to the
local people, and for the people that might be interested in working.
And back in 1970 when I went to Saskatchewan Cooperative College through CDC, we had an offer there of herring roe from Japan that they would also -- they give me an example of the sample of the herring roes which were already processed, and asked me to take them to Nelson Island and show them to the United Villages meetings. And, at that time, I showed them, but the people there didn't know what I was talking about; and Japan also told us that if we ever go -- decide to go into the processing business, they would send us their technical assistance, and they would also be in the market for it. And it was a very good price at that time. And I guess today it's -- they are still open.
And the last thing is -- which also concerns me very much is the education of our cultural and traditional way of life and language. We, the young parents, leaders, and elders, are professional educators, and our elders are also declining. We must educate our children how to be Native on the roles and laws of our traditional and cultural ways, so that they will know what is right from wrong. We must preserve our language and tradition, and cultural way of life. We must not let it die.
To my understanding, the Native language is gone in some villages. If we are to be the Native people today, we must look back to our past history and look at what we -- what has already happened.
We the people are changing, following today's changing modern world of living and technologies of today's world. If we look back 20 to 30 years of history, we can easily see the tremendous changes. Look ahead to 20 to 30 years, and look at the children and what are -- that are heading -- these little children that are heading to the pre-schools, they will be adults in those years. Then what?
If we are to be calling ourselves Natives, our childrens must be well-informed and well-educated, both in White man's way and in that -- and in the Native way. We must insure that they are left with good food preparation, for we are not planted here on earth to live forever. So that they will be able to take care of themselves when we are gone, for they are the future of this world.
If we can only listen to the hearts and souls of our children, as well as adults, addressing their needs to help -- for help, I bet we would be working full blast.
And lastly, we cannot expect the school to keep our culture alive. They teach courses; culture is a way of life. It needs to be practiced and thought as a way of life outside of the school by the parents and elders. It must be practiced. If we lose our language, we will lose our culture. It is not impossible or difficult for young people to learn English, which is necessary for economic and social reason, and Yup'ik, which is our language and keeps our culture alive. Parents must speak their Native language to their children of our people. And that's the end of it, and I thank you very much.
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Thank you, James.
(Applause.)
COMMISSIONER MASEK: I'd like to say I really appreciate you coming here and telling us; your testimony was really helpful. It bring a lot of positive ideas, and thank you for coming all the way from Hooper Bay here. It's really great of you.
MR. SEBRING: Thank you very much,
COMMISSIONER TOWARAK: Yeah, I had thought about cutting him off at the seven-minute hour (laughing), but I think he was a good one to conclude our testimony today. We will be meeting again at 5:30 at the Hilton Dillingham Room; and then we can hear the nine others that are signed up here there.
MR. WILLIAMS: Anyway, who said Native people
weren’t talkative?
(Laughter.)
(Off record at 5:05 p.m.)
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