I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Sept. 3, 1999
By Devlyn Brooks
U.S. Census officials pledged this week to 17 American Indian tribes they will try unprecedented tactics to accurately count the nation's Indian population in the year 2000 census.
Census staff met with representatives of the Indian tribes from four states Tuesday and Wednesday at Onamia's Grand Casino Hotel on the Mille Lacs Reservation.
In a news conference Monday prior to the census conference, Henry Palacios, the Census' Kansas City regional director, said the nation's Indian population was undercounted by more than 12 percent in the 1990 census.
The U.S. Census Bureau, under the Department of Commerce, conducts a census -- an official periodic count of population and recording of economic status, age, sex and other demographics -- once a decade.
Census Partnership Coordinator Tom Beaver said in an interview Wednesday that although other minority groups were also undercounted by 4 to 5 percent in the 1990 census, the case for the nation's Indian people was much worse.
The undercount of Indians in 1990 also is believed to have been about 15 times worse than that of the white population, which has been calculated at about 0.8 percent.
He said there are many reasons to account for the error, some of the fault of the bureau itself and others having to do with the nature of Indian people.
First, he said, Indians have an historic mistrust of the government developed from centuries of abuse.
Second, he said, Indians also mistrust strangers in general, and so when an outsider is sent to a reservation to do head counts, there isn't much cooperation.
Third, Beaver said, people have a strong fear of releasing private information, even if it is promised it won't be given to other government agencies.
To combat the problem of undercounting Indians, the Census Bureau announced at this weeks' conference it would try tactics such as hiring people on reservations to do the census count next year.
Beaver said, in addition, census officials will attempt to work with tribal leaders, asking for advice before it's too late.
They are also developing a paid advertising campaign designed specifically for Indian people, which is intended to reassure them about the privacy of the census and to emphasize the importance of the census in bringing Indians federal funds, billions of which are based on census data.
"The census means two things -- money and power," Beaver said. "Everybody understands power and money and how important it is."
Beaver said census officials tried to impress upon Indian officials at this week's conference that census information can lead to money for housing and health care issues, both of which greatly impact Indian people.
This week's conference in Onamia was the last of 10 that have been held with tribal governments nationwide.
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