Anishinaabe Syndicated : A View from the Rez

7. Full-Blooded White People - 1995

107 7. Full-Blooded White People 8 1995 Hell just froze over because Fonjalackers got a per capita gambling payment. After almost fifteen years of high-stakes bingo and gambling casinos, we got a check for ÷1,500 each. That comes out to a little over a hundred dollars a year. I’m glad we got the money. Now Mom can get that operation and I can send my kids to Harvard. I can also get that Ferrari I’ve always wanted. I’ll decide on the color after my round-the-world vacation. What is it about this gambling? It has taken over our lives. If we’re not actually gambling, we’re talking about it. If we have or don’t have a job at the casino, we’re talking about it. We’re always talking about gambling. Now the latest subject is the per capita payment . We’re all talking about the ÷1,500 payment. Wall-to-wall Shinnobs at Wal-Mart. Everyone is just cashy now. What a boast to the local economy. The cash registers are singing around the rez. At any gathering of Shinnobs, the subject of gambling always comes up. You hear things like: “I hit the white sevens on the single-line machine last night.” Or, “There’s been a change in the casino’s personnel policy manual. Now you can get a day off for a funeral—if it is your own.” Or, “I had an out on the G-ball game. If they would have called my number, I’d have ÷12,000 to spend.” Or, “Gramma, are you going to bingo again?” Or, “Split those nines.” Or, “We just had a jackpot on the quarter Double Diamonds. That winner got ÷1,250.” 108 Anishinaabe Syndicated Or, “What is the RBC doing with all that money?” Or, “I hope I break even. I can use the money.” Gambling is starting to get me worried. I can’t think of anything in the past forty years that has come into our lives with such an impact. This must be what it was like when Christianity first came to the Anishinaabeg. I must confess, I was one of the first gambling workers here on the rez. I worked as a bingo board vendor. It was when Fond du Lac first started with high-stakes bingo. We were using chips in those days and selling boards for a dime. We had carpenter ’s aprons to hold our change as we walked around the bingo players. The game was held at the Ojibwe School and the spillover crowd sat in the Elderly Nutrition Program dining room. Back then I didn’t know it would grow into the monster that so dominates our lives here at Fond du Lac. Fond du Lac gambling is buying us a hotel. The RBC and other dignitaries will be breaking ground for a multimillion-dollar hotel adjacent to the Black Bear Casino. That’s a good business move because of the shortage of quality hotel rooms in the Twin Ports area. When I was growing up on the rez, tar-paper shacks were common. Now the talk is of skywalks connecting the atrium to the casino. What a change in just a few years. I read in the newspapers that when people are arrested for stealing from their employers, they blame the Indian casinos. A new legal defense is born: Blame the Indians. When will the gambling mania end? More importantly, what is going on while we are all so busy talking about gambling? Is someone trying to sneak off with our water or the uranium under the rez? Other than Walt Bressette, who is protecting the treaty rights? Question: What’s a new snagging line at Fond du Lac? Answer: “I didn’t cash my per capita check yet.” Winter is here and my grandson “Aaron Ezigaa” and I went out in the woods to see if we could choke some rabbits. We were tired of TV. Ayaa biboon omaa ninoozhishe “Aaron Ezigaa” bimose waabi 109 Full-Blooded White People giishpin giinetwindgii daa-giibinewen aanind waboozoog. Gii-daa ayekozi ganawaabaam mazinaateshiigan. Snaring is an old and honorable profession among the Shinnobs of northern Minnesota. I told my wife that this is the time of the year when Shinnobs check their trap lines. She shook her Dakota head and said, “A one-snare trap line?” Miish nagwaaganan...