We as a society want to believe that the genocide is over, and that the people who suffered that genocide are somehow disconnected from the modern Indian people who are living today.
The problem is that, especially here in California where the genocide was relatively recent, tribes are still in various states of recovery, and some are truly on the edge of disappearing forever. By discounting the existence of traditional indigenous cultures, we are absolving ourselves of the responsibility and the cost of helping them to preserve their ways of life. [...]
