The Passamaquoddy and Poverty, an Interview

The Passamaquoddy People have inhabited Maine and New Brunswick for over 12,000 years.  Today many live on their reservation lands on Pleasant Point on Passamaquoddy Bay, known as Sipayik (pronounced Zee By Eek), or Indian Township near the St. Croix River.  Both are located in Washington County.  

For my friend, Marie Francis, Sipayik was her home until she was 15 years old and is still home to many of her family members.  As our text states, Indian reservations are persistently poor areas with poverty rates much higher than the general population.  In fact, the poverty rate at Sipayik, as of the 2000 census, was 38.3% with a median household income of $15,956.  Marie believes her mother's household, which consists of three adults, is living on around $12,000 per year.  

Marie didn't know she was poor when she was a child on the reservation.  Poverty was normalized; everyone lived that way.  She remembered always having enough to eat.  Sometimes they borrowed. Horizontal giving was and is a big part of life.  People looked after and took care of each other.  She doesn't remember ever interacting with a social worker as a child but knows that now it is more common than not to receive some kind of social service.  

In 1st grade, Marie was diagnosed with dyslexia by the Maine Indian Education Department, who told her mother "not to expect too much from her."  Marie remembers taking her textbooks home and teaching herself.  Thankfully, her mother knew she was intelligent and fought for her to get a better education.  When Marie was 15, she left Sipayik to attend a private school in Massachusetts.  Since leaving the reservation, she has done well for herself and hasn't needed any social services since.  

Marie was recently published in Dawnland Voices: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing From New England.  Below you will find her poem, Diminished Dreams:

I look upon her,

She holds my answers, my future,

And my heart.

Her wisdom fades with

The crash

Of sand's time.

Her lost words are

Swallowed

By the waves

Of misconceptions.

Her man-made

Chiseled bounds

Keep her from soaring

To her enlightened highs.

Her cries fall deafly

On the horizon

Of onlookers.

Her voice dulls

With oncoming traffic.

Her love of beauty,

Life and death

Is gone.

I stand in wonderment.

I'm one of the few people

On the verge

Of extinction.

I'm melting away in this pot

Of modern-day life.

I cease to hear the songs

Of my past.

I'm chained to my dollar bills.

I scream for my culture,

But only on the inside.

What I am,

What I was,

And what I could be

Is gone.

I stand over the remains

And wonder

What insight she holds.

I'm always struck by what just a little bit of resources, whether they be monetary, education, etc., can do.  Marie believes that increasing work opportunities would make a huge difference.

References:

Eastern Maine Electric Cooperative. (n.d.). The passamaquoddy. In Who we serve. Retrieved from http://www.emec.com/passamaquoddy.aspx

Passamaquoddy Tribe. (n.d.). Culture and history. In Our people. Retrieved from

http://www.passamaquoddy.com/

Senior, S. (2014). Dawnland voices: An anthology of indigenous writing from new england. Nebraska:  University of Nebraska Press.

Passamaquoddy Pleasant Point Reservation. (2014, August 23). Retrieved on October 28, 2014 from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passamaquoddy_Pleasant_Point_Reservation