[Homalosa]

Hello cousins,
Yes, it's been a long time since you've seen my face around here and I apologize for that. We have a pressing issue going on in the Dallas area and I knew I had to reach out to cyber Indian Country to get the word out.

Richardson, Texas is a suburb just outside of Dallas and is home to the housing subdivision Estates North which informally calls itself "The Reservation". Residents there took the name because of their streets named after various tribes. They now want to make it official and have proposed to used city tax dollars for street sign toppers and signage marking their entry ways. As usual, their response to local native outrage is two fold; they claim they are honoring our cultures and their whopping two residents of native descent are proud to call their affluent neighborhood a reservation. Please check out the links I provide below and let your voice be heard with the City of Richardson.

Thanks,

Homa


Dallas Morning News article by Ian McCann

Reservations about Richardson's Reservation Neighborhood

City of Richardson, Texas

Estates North Housing Subdivision

[Joe's Dad]

Right now...I juss wanna say ..."Hi chock-lack-chick!!!

[yaahl]

Oh man this is great, do you have any idea how long I've waited for the non-natives to end up in places called reservations? jk

I think we have to pick our battles carefully because while we are fighting a minor skirmish, our enemies are sneaking up on us while we are distracted.

Up here in Canada, we have an entire warship class called the Tribal Class. Each ship carries the name of a Tribe in Canada. In a lot of cases even our tribal names are misnomers as the non-natives who first met us relied on our neighbours to tell then who we were. They forgot to ask what we called ourselves. So the Anishinabe became the Ojibwa, the Haudenosaunee became the Iroquois and so on. I often ask myself why we get so upset when a non-native uses a name that we ourselves don't even like using. If they want to name a ship the Iroquois, what is the big deal? It's the wrong name anyway. Did we live on reservations prior to Columbus getting lost? No we didn't, the reservation is a white man's name and concept. They own that concept, we never did.

I think in my own little corner of the world that if you truly want to defeat this issue, then use the energy to point how erroneous these folks are in the names and terms the have chosen to use. Give them a history lesson. Maybe when they realize what silly people they are, the name thing won't be have such a shiny appearance to them. But whatever you do, don't take ownership of names and terms that were never ours to begin with. Tell them who you really are.

My two elk teeth anyway.

[Homalosa]

Hey Joe's Dad!
@yaahl, we do have to pick our battles wisely and the community here chose this one because the dominant culture here likes to pretend we don't even exist. We had to organize to get native programming on in November here with the local PBS affiliate. Other markets showed programs but we saw nothing. The station's response was "there are no Indians in DFW." American Indian Education Programs are alway the first on the budget chopping block. So this is important because we don't want a precedent set.

[Grits & Beans]

good thread topic chica...

*waits for jd to come back and write a paragraph or more*

i wonder if this "reservation" consists of people who have more money than they do brains?

[AmigoKumeyaay]

Isn't there already a place called "White Settlement" over your way?

Hmmm....Could they be happy with "Pilgrims Estates"?

[OLChemist]

Originally Posted by AmigoKumeyaay

Isn't there already a place called "White Settlement" over your way?

Hmmm....Could they be happy with "Pilgrims Estates"?

The City of White Settlement

[Homalosa]

A few of us attended the city council meeting last night and to our surprise, there were no other people there outside of the council members. We peacefully spoke our peace, giving personal stories, historical and current data. The council was very pleased and asked us to come back next month when they vote on the issue. Hopefully this means someone in Richardson has sense.

[wyo_rose]

Good for you, Homalosa! Nice to see you back in these parts!

[Zeke]

Are we REALLY upset by this?

Mad because somehow -- now -- we're trying to appropriate a contraction of "Federal Reserve Land" as some sort of culture? (i.e., don't use "Reservation" or, you know, tribes as streets: although Pontiac, MI, is okay and Miami, FL/OK, is okay if you pronounce it right... We're not going to complain about that because they're not Richardson or Plano...)

That's like your landlord letting you drive his Chevy but YOU getting mad if he decides to call another car a Chevette...

If they were going to call their housing development The Plantation should Southerners be irate?

This is silly and makes us look thin-skinned and entitled.

Oh, wait...