Dead in the Water

Dead in the Water

Leah Schrader

Chamberlain/DeVry College

SOCS-350N-64621 Cultural Diversity in the Professions

Professor Adam Rafalovich

Summer, 2013

Dead in the Water

Summertime. A great time during the year when friends and family meet to spend quality time at the lake, boating, skiing, swimming and fishing. Small businesses are thriving, selling fruits and vegetables and other various handmade arts and crafts made from the local Native American Indian tribes that are located around the area. Local diners are busy feeding the tourists and visitors who visit the lake, bait and tackle shops are bustling with eager fishermen who cannot wait to go catch the ‘big one’ to have bragging rights for the season.

The good times that are had on this million acre lake are in trouble, as well as the businesses and life that inhabits along this lake.

A Brief Description

This is the scene on a local area million acre lake, or impoundment that was built as part of the hydroelectric power dam that supplies power for numerous people in various towns that surround this property. Some of the residents around the hydroelectric dam are Native American Indian tribes that inhabit lands that border the lake. Their lands are protected under a Federal law that was mandated over a hundred years ago and the tribe attempts to maintain the culture in which they were raised. This distinguishes them from the dominant society since they practice their own customs, behaviors and they identify themselves as distinct from dominant culture. (Bell, 2007)

In the springtime, the hydroelectric dam lowers the water levels to help control flooding produced by melting snow from the mountain region and allows residents along the lake a change to perform maintenance to existing docks and their property. Usually, this yearly event goes unnoticed, until now.

The local Native American Indian tribe came forward to claim that an ancient burial ground had been revealed when the water...