Letter to the editor

Letter to the editor:

These are just my thoughts as I am sitting here thinking about my trips to the stores here on the Reservation. I don’t understand the thinking behind not hiring our own to work in our stores to greet our own people as we patronize these places. I know I have applied for jobs here and have not been able to get a part-time position to supplement my income. We have a huge community now and I am sure that I am not alone. I think we should be able to show outsiders that when they patronize our home here in Akwesasne that we can as a people take care of our own stores. Sometimes I feel like I am going into the stores in Massena, Bombay, Fort Covington, and any of the other surrounding towns as they do not have our people working in their stores. Who’s in charge of accommodating our labor force for our people? Not all of us really want to work for the tribe when there are other places here that can employ our own. A lot of the jobs for the tribe require college degrees, because one has a degree does not make them invincible meaning common sense has to play a role along with the degree. The tribal members living on the northern portion of the Reservation certainly employ our own people, what is wrong on this side? How did this happen? Is this showing the outsiders that in fact we are all smugglers and don’t need to be employed? Does this show the outsiders that only the southern portion of the Reservation is full of smugglers? We know better, and I think we should start considering our own before we hire outsiders and supporting them and giving our jobs away. We support them with the casinos but why all the other places? I am writing this because it seems to run amok at the Tribal meetings and gets nowhere. Others here in Akwesasne need to express these concerns to council. Not all of us are unemployable, not all of us fail to show up to work. Maybe it is my age that keeps me unemployed…I don’t know.

Thanks for your time,

Agnes Terrance