Special Interest Groups

• WHAT IS ITS MISSION?
• HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?
• PRIMARY FUNCTIONS
• PROGRAMS
• BUDGET INFORMATION
• HISTORY
• CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES
• FUTURE DIRECTIONS
• GROUP RESOURCES
• GROUP PUBLICATIONS
• BIBLIOGRAPHY

ESTABLISHED: 1922
EMPLOYEES: 6
MEMBERS: 40,000
PAC: None

Contact Information:
ADDRESS: PO Box 268 Tekakwitha Complex Agency Rd. 7 Sisseton, SD 57262
PHONE: (605) 698-3998
FAX: (605) 698-3316
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Jerry Flute

WHAT IS ITS MISSION?

The Association on American Indian Affairs (AAIA) is a national, nonprofit, private-citizens' organization that exists to promote the well-being of American Indians and Alaska Natives and to defend their rights. The AAIA works with Indian communities throughout the United States, helping them, in its own words, "to achieve full economic and social equality while preserving their unique culture."

To fulfill its mission, the AAIA pursues a number of goals. The organization works to keep native communities better informed of federal legislation that affects them, while also striving to bring Indian interests more effective representation in federal policy-making processes. The AAIA seeks to reverse the disproportionately high levels of unemployment, poverty, disease, alcoholism, and suicide among Indians, and to improve economic stability and living conditions for Indian people. It also seeks to protect tribal land bases and to increase understanding and protection of American Indian religious beliefs and practices.

HOW IS IT STRUCTURED?

The AAIA consists of a small paid staff led by an executive director, a governing board of directors, and a general membership of about 40,000 individuals. General membership meetings take place once a year. Though each of the organization's structural levels is open to Indians and non-Indians alike, in 1997 every member of the board of directors as well as the executive director had American Indian heritage. While the main office operates out of Sisseton, South Dakota, (where it moved from New York in 1995), the AAIA also has field offices in Washington, D.C., and Concord, California.

The executive director, the AAIA's highest-paid staff member, takes responsibility for leading the organization in its daily operations and acts as the primary spokesperson. Other staff members include an executive secretary, an attorney, a general counsel, and a scholarship coordinator, as well as other part-time staff.

The board of directors includes both office-holding members and general members and meets twice a year. Offices include a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. In 1997, 13 directors sat on the board; their backgrounds included the fields of education, law, health, and public service.

In order to pursue its mission of serving American Indian interests on a national level, the AAIA frequently allies itself with like-minded organizations. These affiliates include other national Indian-oriented groups such as the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), more localized entities such as individual tribes or organized groups within tribes, and non-Indian organizations such as environmental activist groups.

PRIMARY FUNCTIONS

The AAIA works to improve the lives of American Indians. It tracks federal legislation, keeps members informed of policies that affect Indian communities, lobbies for Indian interests at both the federal and state levels, provides congressional testimony, and drafts legislation. The organization also conducts research on a variety of Indian issues, organizes conferences, and publishes information intended to educate Indian communities, state and federal policymakers, and the general public. Other services offered to tribes and individuals include legal assistance, technical support, grants, and scholarships.

The AAIA's interest in policy formation and implementation frequently requires its representatives to interact with government bodies. These include federal agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Indian Health Service, and the National Park Service (NPS), as well as state governments and officials. In fact, since its inception, the AAIA has tended to cooperate closely with government agencies, an approach that has sparked criticism from more militant groups such as the American Indian Movement (AIM).

Outside of government, the AAIA also works to build coalitions among Indian advocacy organizations—often involving the NCAI and the NARF—and other groups with compatible agendas. Examples include the Medicine Wheel Coalition and the National Coalition for Religious Freedom. The Medicine Wheel Coalition brings together AAIA representatives, tribal organizations, and environmentalists seeking to protect sacred sites in the Plains states, while the National Coalition for Religious Freedom includes the AAIA, the NCAI, several tribes, environmentalists, churches, and civil rights groups.

PROGRAMS

Many of the AAIA's initiatives occur on a case-by-case basis, in response to tribes that have asked for help with particular situations. Often the AAIA drafts legislation that addresses tribal concerns. Federally adopted AAIA proposals include the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which protects American Indian burial sites and requires museums to return ceremonial artifacts and human remains to tribes, and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which seeks to keep the adoption of Indian children within Indian rather than non-Indian homes.

To combat poor health conditions on reservations, the AAIA played an instrumental role in creating advocacy organizations such as the Association of American Indian Physicians and the Association of American Indian Nurses. It has also organized conferences on such topics as the high rate of diabetes among Indian people. The AAIA provides legal resources and advice to tribes looking to recover land, control resources, and protect sacred sites, and to Indian communities seeking federal recognition. The AAIA has also helped create curriculum guidelines and bibliographic materials for educational purposes.

The AAIA's ongoing programs include the publication of a newsletter called Indian Affairs and a scholarship program for American Indians and Alaskan Natives. The AAIA administers a number of scholarships for undergraduate and graduate study, including the Emergency Aid and Health Professions Scholarships, the AAIA/Adolph Van Pelt Special Fund for Indian Scholarships, and the Sequoyah Graduate Fellowships. These scholarships demonstrate the AAIA's interest in education as well as its commitment to developing leadership from within Indian communities.

BUDGET INFORMATION

In 1997, the AAIA had an operating budget of $750,000. Traditionally the AAIA has generated the bulk of its revenue through contributions—including membership dues—and grants; between 1991 and 1995, private contributions and grants (including government grants) constituted an average of 93 percent of total revenue. Other revenue sources include literature sales and investments.

The Taos people secured the return of Blue Lake, a site in New Mexico sacred to their tribe, with the help of the Association on American Indian Affairs. The federal government in 1970 placed the lake in a permanent trust for the tribe. (National Archives and Records Administration)

The AAIA devotes most of its outgoing funds to program expenses, which include legal costs, public education, scholarships and grants, technical assistance, and training. In 1996, 77 percent of total expenses went to such program expenses, up from 59 percent in 1995. Other expenses include fund-raising and administrative costs.

HISTORY

The AAIA formed in 1922 as a regional, single-issue organization dominated by non-Indians. Since then, it has grown into a national entity, governed by Indian leaders and considered one of the major players among American Indian special-interest groups.

The AAIA began in 1922 in response to proposed anti-Indian legislation in the southwestern United States. In the 1920s, prevailing opinion sought to assimilate Indian people into the mainstream culture and thus threatened Indian-held lands, native religious practices, and other cultural traditions. These trends came to a head in the Southwest with the introduction of the Bursum Bill in 1922. In this bill, Senator Holm Bursum of New Mexico proposed that non-Indian squatters should acquire legal rights to appropriate Rio Grande Pueblo lands. A group of non-Indians sympathetic to the Pueblo side of the conflict formed the Eastern Association on Indian Affairs (EAIA) in opposition to the Bursum Bill, thus founding the first incarnation of the AAIA. In cooperation with the American Indian Defense Association (AIDA) and the New Mexico Association on Indian Affairs (NMAIA), the EAIA launched a national effort to defeat the Bursum Bill, a campaign which proved successful.

The opposition efforts against the Bursum Bill began a pattern for Indian advocacy that continued throughout the 1920s. These forces were led by well-educated white men with both a personal and an academic interest in Indian cultures and issues. In addition to their fight against the Bursum Bill, they also sought to protect southwestern and plains tribes' right to perform religious ceremonies.

New Focus

In the 1930s, the AAIA went through a number of changes. It came under the leadership of Oliver LaFarge, whose influence dominated the organization until 1963. It also grew into a national organization that worked on a broader range of issues. LaFarge, a writer and anthropologist, began his association with the AAIA as board president of the EAIA. During his term, the organization changed its name to the National Association on Indian Affairs (NAIA), to reflect its interest in moving from its southwestern focus to a more national scope. Later in the decade the group became the American Association on Indian Affairs, and finally settled on the Association of American Indian Affairs (AAIA) in 1946. When John Collier, executive secretary of the AIDA, left that post to become the national commissioner of Indian affairs, LaFarge played an instrumental role in merging with the AIDA, a move that probably saved his organization, which suffered from financial difficulties at the time. Though LaFarge's and Collier's personalities had sometimes clashed over the years, because of their organizations' similar agendas, the merger made sense and proved a success.

Tensions between LaFarge and Collier continued as Collier's national Indian policies took shape. LaFarge became president of the AAIA in 1937, and he disagreed with Collier's proposals to make sweeping changes in the BIA and substantially to revamp the system governing national Indian policy. LaFarge favored a more moderate approach and closer cooperation with the existing BIA. On the other hand, LaFarge and the AAIA did support Collier's denunciation of the government's previously aggressive assimilation policies, and his efforts to preserve American Indian cultures and promote more political autonomy for reservation communities. Collier's anti-assimilationist policies became known as the "Indian New Deal," and the AAIA stood behind them. The AAIA also pursued its own agenda of protecting Indian religions, encouraging Indian arts and crafts, and pushing for improvements in agriculture and health conditions on reservations.

World War II (1939–45) brought a shift in the AAIA's activities and level of influence. During the war, LaFarge left his presidency to serve in the air transport command, and the organization's activities almost came to a halt. After the war, LaFarge resumed leadership and the AAIA underwent a reorganization that left it stronger than ever. LaFarge expanded fund-raising efforts, which enabled him to take on more projects. He also restructured the organization by creating an executive director, a legal committee, and a legal counsel. This restructuring allowed the AAIA to defend Indian civil and constitutional rights in the courts, before administrative bodies, and in congressional committees.

The AAIA also launched a more concerted public education campaign, conducting research and field studies that allowed it to publish reports on such topics as the status of the Navajos and California tribes, American Indians and advanced education, living conditions on southwestern reservations, and adjustment to urban environments. AAIA leaders established institutes on a variety of issues; these consisted of public discussions organized around position papers on topics such as self-government and assimilation. The organization also began producing regular publications. It published a quarterly journal called The American Indian from 1943 to 1959, and began publishing its current newsletter, Indian Affairs, in 1949.

The AAIA needed its new-found strength, as the postwar period also brought new challenges. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), founded in 1944, presented one challenge. Unlike the AAIA, the NCAI began as a national organization created by Indian people concerned with Indian issues. As the new organization gained momentum and strengthened its ties with Indian communities across the country, its American Indian leadership contrasted to the white-dominated AAIA.

Federal Policy

Despite differences between the NCAI and the AAIA, they united in opposition to the AAIA's major challenge of the 1950s: the federal policy of termination. Throughout Collier's term as Indian commissioner, many members of the administration had opposed what they saw as his Indian-friendly policies, and after the war, this opposition developed into a bipartisan resistance. In 1953, Collier's opponents gained sway over federal Indian affairs, launching the official policy of termination, which included provisions to end federally recognized and financially supported Indian tribes and reservations. Termination legislation also included a relocation program that sought to move Indian people from reservation communities into major cities. Though LaFarge initially saw some advantages to termination, he eventually changed his mind, and the AAIA joined the NCAI in fighting the policy, which by 1958, had effectively died.

In the late 1950s and 1960s, the AAIA turned to issues that spanned the country and brought the organization into close cooperation with three American Indian groups. Under the leadership of LaVerne Madigan, the AAIA assisted Alaska natives residing near Point Hope in resisting successfully the placement of a nuclear experimental test site near their communities, and gaining greater protection for their lands, resources, and hunting and fishing rights. The AAIA also joined the Senecas of New York in opposing the Kinzua Dam project, begun in the mid-1950s, which threatened to flood a large portion of a Seneca reservation. The resistance failed, and the dam, completed in 1965, flooded Indian burial sites and forced over 700 Seneca people to relocate. Finally, the AAIA provided support to the Taos Pueblo's efforts to secure the return of sacred Blue Lake. The AAIA's legal and technical assistance and congressional lobbying proved crucial to the success of the Taos people's cause in 1970, when the federal government placed the lake in permanent trust for the tribe.

The late 1960s and 1970s saw Indian activism change dramatically. Frustrated with those organizations that worked for gradual change from within the system, new Indian-led groups such as the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) and the American Indian Movement (AIM) introduced a more radical voice that rejected the system altogether. Criticizing the tradition of political lobbying and cooperation with government bodies, these activists pursued "Red Power" through militant rhetoric, public protest, and an overall confrontational style that sought to shake the foundations of federal Indian policy and promote "Indian pride." This period also saw the rise of direct litigation as an increasingly sophisticated version of Indian advocacy. Both of these trends threatened the AAIA's authority as an authentic and effective representative of Indian interests.

The AAIA rose to the challenge, however. The 1980s and 1990s saw an increasing amount of Indian control within the organization. By 1997, the entire board of directors, as well as the executive directorship, were comprised of American Indians. The AAIA also began to develop legislative skills more fully and to put an increasing amount of effort into building coalitions with other Indian organizations. By adapting to change, the AAIA managed to survive, and retain its importance within the broad spectrum of Indian advocacy groups.

CURRENT POLITICAL ISSUES

The AAIA's current concerns involve many of the issues it has focused on in the past. AAIA leaders see child welfare and the strengthening of American Indian families as one of its top priorities. The AAIA works to implement the ICWA by helping tribes negotiate agreements with state officials to keep adoption of Indian children within Indian communities. The AAIA also promotes tribal self-government and federal recognition for Indian communities that would benefit from the economic assistance and protection of land and resources that comes with official tribal status. In its ongoing concern with health issues, the AAIA has begun focusing on fetal-alcohol syndrome and the high incidence of diabetes among American Indians.

Finally, the organization devotes much of its energy and resources to promoting and protecting religious freedom for Indian people. By participating in such groups as the National Coalition for Religious Freedom, and supporting legislation like the Native American Cultural Protection and Free Exercise of Religion Act, the AAIA advocates Indian cultures' rights to use peyote and eagle feathers for religious ceremonies, to practice their religions while in prison, and to enjoy access to, and respect for, their sacred sites.

Case Study: The Medicine Wheel Coalition

One of AAIA's highest priorities is protecting American Indian sacred sites. Sacred sites include geological formations, lakes, burial sites, and other areas that play key roles in Indian communities' religious ceremonies, historical consciousness, and understanding of the natural world and their place in it. Many of these sites become threatened by non-Indian development due to resource extraction, road building, settlement, and tourism. In the 1990s, the AAIA frequently responded to these threats through its participation in the Medicine Wheel Coalition.

The Medicine Wheel Coalition includes AAIA leaders, tribes and tribal organizations, and non-Indian environmental groups interested in protecting sacred sites in the Plains states. The group first formed in response to threats posed to the sacred Medicine Wheel site by tourism and logging enterprises. Located in Wyoming's Bighorn National Forest, the site consists of an ancient, man-made stone circle with spiritual significance for area tribes. The coalition's efforts brought success in 1996, when the Forest Service created a Historic Preservation Plan to protect the site.

As concerned organizations came together to protect the Medicine Wheel site, they decided to expand their scope to include other endangered sacred areas throughout the Plains states. At Devil's Tower in eastern Wyoming, recreational and commercial rock climbing threatened ceremonial use of the area by several Plains tribes. In 1996, the AAIA and other coalition members worked with the NPS to create and implement a Climbing Management Plan, intended to protect the spiritual integrity of the site by placing restrictions on rock climbing there. Specifically, the plan banned commercial climbing during the month of June, when many American Indian tribes gather to celebrate the summer solstice with religious rites.

This ban proved short-lived, however, when a group of commercial climbers challenged the restrictions and went to federal court to fight them. Initial rulings went against the ban, which was found to be a violation of the First Amendment's provision that the government would not favor or establish any religion. The Coalition and NPS appealed the case, and also made the ban voluntary, simply encouraging climbers to stay off of Devil's Tower in June rather than preventing it. In April of 1998, the U.S. District Court of Wyoming ruled that a voluntary ban, made not to benefit, but rather to respect, American Indian religions, was legal and permissible.

The lobbying and educational efforts of American Indian organizations and coalitions have helped raise public awareness of the importance of sacred sites to American Indian cultures, and of the need for greater understanding and protection of Indian religious freedom. In May of 1996, President Bill Clinton issued an executive order calling for federal agencies to respect sacred areas and to allow Indian people ceremonial access to them. Yet as AAIA executive director Jerry Flute pointed out in a 1997 interview in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the president's move remains largely symbolic until Congress passes measures to back it up. While Flute acknowledges such executive orders as "a sign of good intent," he points out that they "don't have the force of law."

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

It seems likely that religious freedom and sacred sites will continue to be a top priority for AAIA. With this, as with other issues, the organization will continue to form coalitions and encourage partnerships in order to reach a broader audience and maintain a vital presence in the policy-making process. AAIA leaders hope to move from encouraging statements of support from the president and other federal and state officials to form legislation and sanctions that will protect native spirituality with the force of law.

GROUP RESOURCES

The AAIA maintains a library with over 200 holdings related to American Indian history and contemporary issues. It also provides mailing lists as well as legal and technical expertise. To access these services, call the national office at (605) 698-3998, or write to PO Box 268, Tekakwitha Complex, Agency Rd. 7, Sisseton, SD 57262.

GROUP PUBLICATIONS

The AAIA publishes a newsletter, Indian Affairs, three times a year. The newsletter includes updates on the status of federal and state legislation affecting Indian communities. It also describes recent activities of the AAIA, its leaders and members, and the various coalitions of which it is a part. Finally, the newsletter gives information on upcoming meetings, conferences, and publications of interest, and includes lists of AAIA scholarship recipients.

In addition to its newsletter, the AAIA has also published a number of reference materials and reports in an effort to provide support to Indian communities and to educate the general public. These include the Economic and Community Development Resource Guide for Native Americans, the Tribal Bond Handbook, the Arts and Crafts Resource Guide, the "Proceedings of the National Sacred Sites Caucus," and documents entitled "Sacred Lands and Religious Freedom," the "American Indian Religious Freedom Project," and Sacred Lands and Religious Freedom, written by Vine Deloria, Jr., with an introduction by Keith Basso. For more information, contact the organization by mail at Association on American Indian Affairs, PO Box 268, Tekakwitha Complex, Agency Rd. 7, Sisseton, SD, 57262; or by phone at (605) 698-3998.