Upper Sioux tribe working to advance on economic ladder

Renee Ruble

Wednesday, June 2, 2004 | 8:59 a.m.

GRANITE FALLS, Minn. -- It takes only a few minutes to tour the new housing development on the Upper Sioux Indian Community. The circle of homes is a speck in the vast prairie.

Children run and jump on shiny new playground equipment, bracing themselves against gusts of wind that rake the freshly plowed soybean fields.

Helen Blue-Redner, the band's chairwoman, drives slowly through the small neighborhood, pointing out details on the two-story homes, the new septic and water systems. She motions beyond, to the surrounding fields, where she hopes someday to see more homes, a store, roads.

"It's not ours yet," she said of the land. "But it will be."

The Upper Sioux are one of the smallest and poorest of Minnesota's 11 Indian bands. They struggle with their health; they worry simultaneously about the effect of casino money on their kids and that casino revenue might dwindle someday. And they're grateful for the help that comes their way from their fellow Dakota bands.

"All we're trying to do is make sure the Upper Sioux is here -- we have a future," said Tom Ross, a member of the tribal Board of Trustees. "There's no untangling us from the area now."

Nearly all of the Upper Sioux's 414 members live within 15 miles of the community they call Pejuhutazizi Kapi, or "the place where they dig for yellow medicine" in the Minnesota River Valley. ("Yellow medicine" means moon seed plant, used for medicinal purposes.)

Half of the band members are younger than 18. Tribal leaders are giving them special attention, hoping to break the grip of long-running problems such as alcoholism and school dropout rates that range from 50 to 70 percent. There also are new concerns, Blue-Redner says, about a generation growing up with per capita payments, or the monthly checks the tribe cuts to share casino profit.

The Upper Sioux run after-school programs that require a pledge to stay chemical-free. The band offers trips to places such as Arizona and Hawaii, hoping that young people will venture beyond the reservation, learn, and someday want to return and share what they've learned.

"Sometimes you don't know you're home until you leave," Blue-Redner said.

The band offers scholarships for higher education, but a more significant move may be a new requirement that band members must graduate from high school in order to begin receiving casino payments when they turn 18. The requirement starts with this fall's ninth graders.

Band leaders won't reveal the size of the payments, and several band members also declined to reveal them.

"Receiving per capita should be gravy," Blue-Redner said. "Some have used it wisely. Some have not."

The Upper Sioux was the poorest band in Minnesota in 1990, with a median household income of $7,600. That dramatically rose over the next decade to $25,625 fueled by revenue from their Firefly Creek Casino, which recently closed and was replaced with the Prairie's Edge Casino and Resort.

Still, that was only enough to lift the band into 10th place, ahead of just Red Lake ($22,813), according to census figures.

While the band's casino hasn't been as profitable as those near the Twin Cities, the Upper Sioux have benefited from at least $23 million in loans and grants -- mostly loans -- from another Dakota band, the Shakopee Mdewakanton, that is near the metro area. The latter tribe has grown into one of the wealthiest in the country on profit from Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake.

The money has gone toward a community center, public works and land purchases. From the original 746 acres the government returned to the Upper Sioux in 1938, the band now owns 1,250 acres -- some of it purchased at inflated prices because local farmers know the band wants it.

"We have needs and Shakopee is attuned to those needs," Blue-Redner said. "Without them, we wouldn't have a lot of the development we have today."

The Upper Sioux is one of Yellow Medicine County's largest employers with their casino -- where the jobs outnumber band members. It has brought tourism to the region, and the band is working with state and local officials to create a state trail along the river, said David Smiglewski, mayor of nearby Granite Falls.

The Upper Sioux has made donations to local police and treatment centers, and helped the city when it was hit by floods and a tornado in recent years, the mayor said.

But he also recognizes the Upper Sioux's success has been modest compared with other reservations.

"Everybody has Prior Lake in their sights with big checks being handed out; that's not the case here. It's some pretty decent jobs and a definite upgrade in the standard of living on the Upper Sioux Community," Smiglewski said.

Like many other bands, the Upper Sioux worry about maintaining their culture. Only 10 of their elders remain who are fluent in the language of the Upper Sioux, the youngest in her 70s.

One of them, 74-year-old Carolynn Cavender Schommer, holds weekly language classes that attract a handful of children at the community center. Surrounded by drawings of bison, owl, snake and turtle, with their Dakota names, Schommer described how some Dakota words cannot be translated into English.

"You might know the culture, but if you don't know the language, how do you understand your culture?" she said.

Less than a decade ago, Dallas Ross, then-chairman of the Upper Sioux, told the Minnesota Legislature that most tribes in Minnesota were struggling with inadequate housing, drinking water and wastewater systems.

The Upper Sioux have come a long way, but they have far to go, they say.

"We're still getting acclimated to capitalism and we're getting better at it," said Blue-Redner, who was elected by other tribal leaders as president of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, the official liaison between tribal and state governments.

Like many bands across the state, the Upper Sioux worry that the Legislature may open the gambling market to others. They're working feverishly to acquire land, build infrastructure, provide social services and map future development in preparation.

"We've got to diversify to ensure the future of the tribe," Blue-Redner said. "We're mindful of the fact that as much as we can succeed, we can fail."