有网友问，美国印第安人的人权与中国的比较。很少人知道印第安人的生活。我去过两个原住民的“保留区” - Catawba，Navajo。Catawba比较好，像一般美国比较落后的小城，Navajo的环境很差，大部分没有正规的铺路。

中国少数民族不受一孩政策，汉人不行。藏人，维人有人民代表，美国原住民没有一个在联邦立法院里 （唯一的一位，也是第一位，刚刚去世）。中国出版维吾尔文，藏文书籍。美国原住民一直不能说自己的语言，小孩从小要与父母分开，上英文学校，经过1970年代的一番斗争，才稍有改变。欧洲人统治北美洲以来，原住民是在最底层，连黑人都不如。奥巴马最近才开始做点工作。

Bureau of Indian Affairs （印第安人事务处）只有一个小房间作档案室，所有与原住民签的几百年的条约胡乱打包，堆在一块，根本没人整理。

关系到印第安人的福利，“主权”是印第安人的。关系到联邦政府利益，主权是联邦政府的。名义上有主权，其实，是无法享受一般公民的福利。这种状况一直没有改变。下面新闻里的印第安人小孩的学校没有暖气，在零下30度（华氏）上课。在其他地方，学校负责人是要罚款坐牢的。

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美国华盛顿邮报2015年5月19日

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/native-american-schools-long-have-been-crumbling-but-now-washington-is-paying-attention/2015/05/19/717560fe-fd6c-11e4-805c-c3f407e5a9e9_story.html

Official Washington has rarely paid much attention to the Bureau of Indian Education, a long-dysfunctional corner of the federal bureaucracy that is responsible for overseeing nearly 200 schools serving approximately 50,000 Native American children in 23 states.

But that might be changing.

President Obama is seeking to boost funding for Indian education by $150 million, including nearly $60 million to begin fixing dozens of tribal school facilities that have languished in disrepair for decades. The funding request is part of a broader administration effort to improve lives for Native American youth.

[Obama budget includes $1 billion for Native American education]

The push comes as Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), the powerful chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, has sought to highlight the BIE’s management troubles with two hearings in recent weeks.

Kline, who recently visited a crumbling tribal school facility in his home state, is urging his fellow Republicans to fund the president’s requested budget increase, calling the investment imperative to ensure that Native American students can go to school in safe buildings.

“You’ve got collapsing roofs, leaking roofs, buckling floors, exposed wires, popping circuit breakers, gas leaks. That’s totally unacceptable,” Kline said at a May 14 hearing on the government’s management of Native American schools. “You can’t be well-educated, in my opinion, when you’re attending school wearing your coat, wearing your mittens and hoping that the blanket keeps out the 30-degree below-zero air.”

Washington’s interest in the BIE comes in the wake of a damning four-part series about the deplorable condition of tribal school buildings, published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune in late 2014. The series, by the newspaper’s editorial board, called on the Obama administration and Congress to do something about the hazardous conditions of dozens of neglected school buildings.

“Kids shivering in thin-walled classrooms or studying under leaky roofs year after year aren’t getting the education they need or deserve,” the newspaper, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, reported in one of the stories. “With the larger community’s visible neglect all around them, they receive the wrong message about the value of education.”

Last year, the federal government reported that about one-third of BIE schools were in poor condition and would require 1.3 billion dollars to be made acceptable. The same report estimated that another 1 billion dollars would be needed to deal with the BIE’s backlog of maintenance and repair issues.

The BIE has undergone several reorganizations in recent years. Director Monty Roessel — the agency’s 33rd director in 36 years — is trying again to reform it. Roessel told lawmakers at the May 14 House committee hearing that he believes his effort will succeed where others have failed because he is focused on two key goals: improving school buildings and improving instruction.

Roessel said that if Congress approves Obama’s budget request in fiscal 2016, the BIE will be able to fix the schools it put on a priority list more than a decade ago — in 2004. He said his agency is putting together its next priority list and hopes to release a plan for tackling its remaining decrepit buildings sometime this summer.

Fifty-eight buildings are currently listed in poor condition, which means it is more cost-effective to replace them than it would be to rebuild. “I agree it’s one of the biggest frustrations that we have,” he said.

The Department of Defense also has many schools in need of repair. In 2010, the department began a $5 billion effort to fix or rebuild 47 of its 181 schools by 2021, according to the Star Tribune. But funding for new BIE schools totaled just $39 million during the past four years — less than the cost of one of the Defense Department’s elementary schools, the Star Tribune reported.

The federal government guaranteed that it would ensure Native American children had access to education in many of the treaties it signed with tribes during the 19th century as settlers pushed west across the country.

But the BIE, part of the Interior Department, has often faltered.

It has been plagued by limited staff capacity and constant leadership turnover, poor communication and inconsistent accountability, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office. Complicating its efforts are the poverty and remoteness of many tribal schools.