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Public health is about ensuring community conditions help – and don’t harm – everyone’s health and wellbeing. Yet our state and federal governments have consistently found ways to undercut agreements and perpetuate harmful policies toward the tribes in Maine that result in unjust and unfair conditions. Simply put, I believe these conditions were created and sustained in the interest of protecting settler power. It’s time to change that.
The list of warranted grievances is long, and enduring. Indigenous children were stolen from their families and from their tribes, in an act of “cultural genocide”; and were raised without connections to their native cultures, traditions, kin, and language. The Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act of 1980 (MICSA) established a more restrictive status for Wabanaki tribes than other tribes in the U.S. For decades, tribal communities in Maine have been faced with contaminated drinking water, food insecurity, cultural disrespect, hampered economic development, and poverty.
Good progress is being made in the Legislature this session, including bipartisan support for protecting Indigenous families (LD 1970).
On Thursday, though, the Maine House failed to override Gov. Janet Mills’ unfortunate veto of LD 2004, which would have extended long overdue access to federal programs to the tribes in Maine. Please thank your senator and representative if they supported this historic bill, and if
they wavered, please urge them to support the tribes moving forward.
Please visit the Wabanaki Alliance to learn about tribal issues and how you can help.
Dr. Rebecca Boulos, executive director, Maine Public Health Association
Augusta