My Nonprofit Reviews

There are few times in life when a single place or group of people will positively change who you are in the short course of a week. Pine Ridge changed my perspective on the world, and Tipi Raisers provided the means to spend time at Pine Ridge, the space for meaningful reflection, and the opportunity for action.
Society has a tendency to filter history into its most digestible and anecdotal form. Even within the progressive curriculum of my high school, my experience of American history was grossly dominated by the eurocentric white man’s perspective. Huge historical events were often summarized into less shocking forms that made them seem like fairy tales, with each obstacle or tragedy portrayed as a hump in the road on the way to more power. Although I will never fully understand what the Lakota people have been through, and continue to go through, nor the strength it takes to overcome the adversity they face, I left Pine Ridge knowing that American history is not a determined narrative made to fit in the thousand pages of a text book. Our history is a web of stories and tragedies that come together to create the human experience, the Native American experience, the American experience. There is no one history.
After hearing stories of the Lakota people first hand, it was easy to resort to an instinctual feeling of guilt for what the American government has done, and continues to do to Native American people. But as I continued to build relationships, listen to the elders, and hear stories from the Lakota youth, it became apparent that Lakotas are not sharing their history for the purposes of making white Americans feel ashamed. Lakota stories need to be told because they hold the inherent truth that all humans are related, and in that realization is the intangible power to create a humane world of compassion. From Inipi on the first night, to listening to Basil Braveheart speak, to shouting into the badlands desert, the amount of compassion and love on Pine Ridge and from the people there is incredible, and I think (at least in part) it rubbed off on me. Even now that I have left Pine Ridge, what I learned there and the idea that all humans are related, is constantly on my mind. Going on a trip to Pine Ridge should be a mandatory fee of being an American citizen. It fundamentally changed how I look at the world, how I look at other people, and how I handle the responsibility of being an American. Tipi Raisers gave great context to the power of our experiences, and I would not have had the takeaways I did without the support of Dave and the organization. I plan on returning to Pine Ridge many times in the future.