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DENISA KRASNA
the recognition of these rights for many First Nations.” Conversely, Canada’s
reluctance to grant these rights is symptomatic of the country’s relationship
with First Nations to whom it fails to show proper respect.
EagleWoman asserts that some Indigenous people call the current
methods and strategies of the nation-states’ governments “a policy of
‘divide and conquer, a modern day game of ‘cowboys and Indians.’”®’ It is
in border discrimination where modern-day colonization and continuation
of assimilationist policies of the past decades are painfully evident. The US¬
Canadian border was conceived without an input from Indigenous nations
and present-day border policy negotiations still exclude Indigenous peoples
who continue to be the most affected by this boundary. Leti Volpp suggests
that the pervasive stereotype of Indigenous people as the “vanishing race”
contributes to their dismissal by the nation-states’ authorities. If Indigenous
people are considered people of the past, they cannot be involved in matters
concerning the present and the future." This stereotype thus functions as
a convenient excuse and is constantly perpetuated in education, popular
culture and mainstream media.
But Indigenous peoples are ever more visible in countering the stereotype
as this paper has demonstrated. Ihey are increasingly active in their attempts
to assert their inherent border-crossing rights to protect their culture and
the environment. Some of the most effective strategies are cooperation and
education. During my internship in Cascadia Cross-Border Law, I helped with
some preparations for a conference on the Jay Treaty that was co-organized
by the Northwest Indian College located at the Lummi Nation and Cascadia.
The conference was held in order to spread awareness about the different
rights the Jay Treaty guarantees for Canadian-born First Nations and
American Indians, and to motivate Indigenous people to further collective
action. Greg Boos from Cascadia notes that Indigenous people “should be
prepared for self-advocacy at the time of entry to the US” as border patrol
agents are often unaware of the border-crossing rights granted by the Jay
Treaty.* The need to self-advocate to assert inherent rights is yet another
form of border discrimination that should be addressed by the nation-states.
Boos et al. therefore recommend the creation of a non-expiring Jay Treaty
card that would “document the holder’s legal rights and status under the Jay
Treaty, including the right to work” to prevent conflict.”
66 Caron, Report, n.p.n.
Angelique EagleWoman, Fencing Off the Eagle and the Condor, Border Politics, and
Indigenous Peoples, Natural Resources & Environment, Vol. 23, No. 2 (2008), 33,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40924995 (accessed 2 April 2020).
68 Volpp, The Indigenous As Alien, 297.
°° Boos — McLawsen — Fathali, Canadian Indians, Inuit, Metis, and Metis, 386.
7° Ibid., 395.
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