| Speech by Governor Ted Kulongoski |
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| October 27, 2004 |
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Government-to-Government Summit 2004
REMARKS BY GOVERNOR TED KULONGOSKI
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Thank you, MardiLyn for your introduction – and for serving as my ambassador to Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes.
I also want to thank all of you for coming today, in particular the chairs of the nine Oregon tribes who are up here with me this morning.
And let me offer a special thank you to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation for their generosity in hosting this event.
You just heard me call MardiLyn my “ambassador.” I did not use that word by accident.
Oregon tribes are sovereign governments. I am here to listen – as well as to speak. To ask – as well as to answer. To learn what you know – as well as to pass on what I know.
For me – government-to-government is much more than a shorthand description of this summit. It is the first principle that guides all of the complex economic, cultural and environmental issues that the state and Oregon’s tribes are working together to solve.
One of those issues is: How do we protect, preserve and present our collective cultural heritage?
Accomplishing this great goal will not be easy. But if we are to achieve it, two things are certain: One – all of us will have to work long and hard. And two – all of us will all have to work together.
Americans are sometimes accused of creating a throwaway society.
We chase after what is new – and discard what is old. We live for the next big thing. The next new trend. The next quick fix.
Many Oregonians reject these values. That’s part of what makes this state special. Nevertheless, I think Native Americans have much to teach the rest of us about the importance of holding onto our cultural traditions.
The fact is: American Indians are connected to their cultural traditions in a much more profound way than most non-Indians.
The tribes fully understand the importance of passing on their cultural heritage to their children – and their children’s children.
So I truly believe that there is much that the rest of us can learn from the oral tradition of our native brothers and sisters – and their determination to preserve the wisdom of past generations for the benefit of future generations.
Native tribes also have a lot to teach us about the inseparable link between natural resources and cultural traditions. It’s a link that – unfortunately – many Americans fail to see.
For these Americans, history and cultural heritage are separate and distinct from the natural world. But the tribes know better.
The fish, the rivers and the mountains are as much a part of our heritage as historic landmarks and cemeteries – both Indian and non-Indian.
These natural wonders need protection because they are an important part of our cultural heritage.
This is a lesson that the tribes have taught me. And this is a lesson that has helped inform my views on critical natural resource issues.
I’ll give you two examples: This past summer, I opposed the federal government’s plan to reduce summer spill on the Columbia River.
I also support a federal judge’s ruling that the federal government’s Columbia River Hydro System Biological Opinion does not adequately protect salmon.
In both cases, recognizing the cultural significance of natural resources helped guide my decision about how best to protect these resources.
In addition to highlighting important lessons that Oregon tribes are teaching us about the link between our cultural and natural resources – I also want to talk about two specific ways that Oregon and the tribes can work together to protect, preserve and pass on our collective cultural heritage.
The first is our State Parks. And the second is – the Oregon Cultural Trust.
Earlier this year, I announced my “One Park A Year” initiative. We’re going to open one new state park—either for recreation or heritage or both—every year for the next ten years.
We broke ground on the first new park—Hares Canyon State Park in Washington County – in June. Hares Canyon will be the first new state park since 1972.
What’s the connection between new state parks and protecting our heritage? The answer is that Oregon’s state parks represent some of the most important – and beautiful – cultural and natural landscapes in Oregon.
Our state parks are places that we hold dear.
Our state parks are places where we can show that Oregonians understand the connection between cultural heritage and natural resources.
And our state parks are places where we can work together to assure that our collective cultural heritage is protected and presented in a well-rounded and culturally sensitive way.
That’s exactly what the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation and the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde are doing at Fort Yamhill.
We hope that Fort Yamhill will be the new state park in 2006. With the help of the Grande Ronde, Fort Yamhill will be developed in a balanced and fair way that does justice to Fort Yamhill’s cultural significance to both Indians and non-Indians.
For those of you who don’t know the story of Fort Yamhill – let me give you a quick summary.
The Yamhill band of the Kalapuyas lived in the Yamhill River Valley long before European settlers arrived. In 1856, the U.S. Army forcibly relocated the native people of the Willamette Valley and the southern Oregon Coast to the Coast Indian Reservation.
Fort Yamhill was one of three “reservation forts.” The others were Fort Hoskins, and Fort Umpqua. There was also the Siletz Blockhouse outpost.
Together, the forts and the Siletz Blockhouse served as a buffer between the white settlers and Native Americans, controlling movement between the two sides.
Today, evidence of 24 buildings remains at the Fort Yamhill site, including one the original Officer’s Quarters dating to 1856.
Once the vision for this park is implemented, future park visitors will better understand the importance of the Fort Yamhill site and its rich history.
But the story of the white settlement of Oregon cannot be told without also telling of the devastating effect that the westward migration of non-Indians had on native peoples.
That’s why Fort Yamhill will be developed into an interpretive center where visitors can see – and learn – the complex and complete history of the Fort from both sides.
The overriding purpose of our plan for Fort Yamhill will be to interpret and develop the site in a way that places the Fort within the larger context of the history of local tribes and other ancestral Native Americans.
Interpretive themes will explain to visitors the stories and experiences of the tribes before and after they arrived at the reservation.
The Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation is working closely with the Grande Ronde tribes so that the presentation of Fort Yamhill is fair, balanced and responsible.
I thank both the Grande Ronde tribes and the Department for their partnership and very hard work on this project. What you’ve done is a much needed blueprint for future cooperation between the state and the tribes.
Here’s why that blueprint is important: The story of European-American settlement of the west – what generations of American school children were taught to call Manifest Destiny – goes hand-in-hand with the beginning of a very painful and tragic period for Native Americans.
We need help from the tribes to fully understand, appreciate and interpret this part of the story.
In other words, neither side has lived the full story. And neither side can tell the full story.
But through collaboration in the creation of our new state parks, we will be able to preserve our cultural heritage – while making sure that the complete history of the settlement of Oregon is properly told and understood.
My second example of how we can – and must – work together is the Oregon Cultural Trust. I worked hard during the last legislative session to preserve the Oregon Cultural Trust.
The Trust is a statewide cultural plan to raise and invest new funds in Oregon's arts, humanities and heritage. Funds in the Trust come from private and corporate donations.
If an individual taxpayer contributes to the Trust, that taxpayer gets a dollar-for-dollar tax credit on his or her Oregon tax return up to $500.
But, in order to donate to the Trust and to receive the tax credit, the taxpayer must first make a matching donation to an Oregon-based 501(c)(3) organization that is involved in the production, promotion or presentation of the arts, heritage or humanities.
I said we worked very hard last year to preserve the Trust. We also made some important changes to the legislation that created the Trust. One of those changes greatly benefits Oregon tribes.
Under the original legislation, the nine federally-recognized tribes received an allotment from the one-third of the Trust reserved for counties and tribes. But cultural units within Tribes were not eligible to receive the competitive grants that go to non-profit organizations.
We changed that. Now cultural components of tribal governments are recognized as cultural non-profits.
This year the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla received one of those grants for their Living History Village.
The Village opening will coincide with the commemoration of Lewis and Clark – and depicts tribal culture not as we see it in history books – but as it is being lived today.
The Cultural Trust helps Oregon’s tribes in two ways.
First, as I stated, the tribes are eligible to receive Trust dollars. As the trust grows – and more and more Oregonians learn about and donate to the Trust – funding for tribal culture will also grow.
Second, the Cultural Trust tax credit encourages Oregonians to donate to a qualifying cultural non-profit organization. This is great opportunity for tribes to encourage private and corporate donations to qualifying non-profits that protect and present aspects of Indian culture.
Of course, it is also a great opportunity for each of you to consider making a donation to the Trust before the end of the tax year. I hope you will.
The famous southern writer, William Faulkner, wrote: “The past is never dead. It's not even past.”
But, unfortunately, the past is sometimes neglected or forgotten—or worse, paved over.
When we lose pieces of our heritage we lose pieces of ourselves. We become a narrative without beginning or end – living only for the moment without any understanding of how we reached that moment or where we need to go next.
The consequences of this lack of understanding are great.
We cannot better the human spirit if we don't know the places, triumphs and lessons that carried the human spirit to where it is today.
That’s why as the head of Oregon state government, I pledge to work with Oregon’s tribal governments to make sure that all Oregonians – Indian and non-Indian – have access to our cultural heritage, . . .
. . . and a better understanding that preserving heritage will help us, enrich our lives, teach our children, and – perhaps most important – prevent us from repeating the mistakes of the past.
Thank you.
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