Abstract
This chapter examines the conditions for the older population on Indian reservations and how those conditions compare to the non-Indian population. The discussion opens on a national level, though the focus is on tribes in the Western United States. Older Indians on reservations are aging in a society where they are an almost invisible part of rural America. Yet the reservations, despite the poor socioeconomic conditions on many, represent home and a place for off-reservation Native Americans to come back to. To include the voices of Indian elders and gain insights into how they perceive being elders, we report on interviews conducted with older Indians on the Nez Perce reservation in Idaho. The Nez Perce interviews provide insights into how different tribal elders perceive their status and how it has or has not been affected by recent changes on the reservation. We conclude with a discussion of our findings and prospects for the future.
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Rudzitis, G., Barbier, N., Mallickan, D. (2013). Aging on Indian Reservations: The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good. In: Glasgow, N., Berry, E. (eds) Rural Aging in 21st Century America. Understanding Population Trends and Processes, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5567-3_9
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