One American Indian teen-ager continues to love her reservation despite its poor conditions, but she would never live there.

To another American Indian teen-ager of another tribe, the reservation will always be home.

"It's the older people in the community that are running the tribal government, and those are the ones who are the wealthy ones," said Cherith Crazy Boy Smith, a 17-year-old member of the Piegan Blackfoot tribe.

"But when you look at them, you can't really say that they're successful because they're only benefiting themselves. All they're doing is corrupting the tribal government, keeping the people poor to make sure they stay in power, to make sure that they keep the influence in their community."

Cherith calls herself an "urban Indian." She and her family live in Missoula, Mont.

On her reservation - Rosebud Reservation in Rosebud, S.D. - her people live poorly on poor land.

"It's a prairie - like rolling hills. The towns are small, they're dirty, they're littered with trash," she explained. "When you look down the road you see a lot of alcoholics. You see a lot of children, very dirty, wearing hardly anything."

At her reservation, Cherith said it is easy to see which homes are owned by Caucasians and which are owned by American Indians.

Importance of culture

"You see the white houses (owned by Caucasians) and they have the green grass, they have the nice kept yards. And you look across the street and there's an Indian house with no windows, they are all broken out maybe, no doors, no electricity, no bathroom."

Despite these problems, Cherith feels her reservation is important to her culture.

"Your reservation is your lifeline," she said. "That's where everything goes on. That's everything important. That's your culture.

"It's your religion and everything that brings you through all the hardships in your life. It's the place that keeps you alive."

Cherith finds comfort in being near relatives and living on the land that her ancestors lived on.

"The good thing is that's where your people are, that's where you can speak your own tongue and everyone understands you. You have everything in common. That counts," she said.

Nevertheless, she wouldn't return to the reservation.

"I've seen it and I've lived there, and I've seen how destructive it is on a person," she said. "I would like to help though - maybe go back and help, because there is a great need for people who can help, and that's what, all those problems, they make me think about what I can do."

On the other hand, Dawn Irvine, a 17-year-old member of the Flathead tribe who also lives in Missoula, would be eager to live on the Flathead Reservation.

Calls reservation nice place

"I'd move back to my reservation. It's a nice place," she said. "We're slowly getting back there. . . . My parents wanted to go be there next year.

"It's the cleanest reservation. It's got a lot to offer, a lot of diversity because of the people. It's just a nice place."

Cherith pointed out that Flathead Reservation is on lush, fertile land.

"You look at the land they were given. They were given this lake (Flathead Lake, the largest lake in Montana) and everything (so) that they can become prosperous. All of the other reservations are on poor land," she said.

But even Flathead Reservation has its problems.

"On my reservation, there are certain neighborhoods set aside for Indians," said Dawn. "You can tell. Their little kids are running around the streets."

High dropout rate a problem

One problem plagues all reservations - high dropout rates among high schoolers.

"The dropout rate is very high," Cherith said. "Most Native American students that I know that are not urban Indians are thinking about dropping out right now, or see no purpose in education because it is very tiring to come to school and then go home and you're living a different lifestyle."

"The attitude on the reservation is a pretty bleak one," agreed Dawn. "I mean the people, especially the young people, have no hope, and they figure that they'll just grow up, get a real low, minimum-wage paying (job) and live and die on the reservation. And they just don't really think they can go out and get a good education and really make something out of themselves."

Both girls believe that American Indian kids hurt more than themselves when they drop out of school.

"I don't feel that dropping out of school is the best choice, because to empower the youth, the Native American youth, to preserve their own culture, it means getting over the obstacles," Cherith said. "And every single obstacle that you overcome, the greater your empowerment is and the more enfranchised your Indian people will be."

KIDS COUNT Tracking kids

This story resulted from a summer of travel by Children's Express members for Kids Count, a national and state-by-state initiative to track the status of children. The project is funded by the Annie E. Casey foundation.

As part of the 1994 Kids Count project, Children's Express has been gathering the voices of children to accompany the statistics published in the annual Kids Count Data Book.

EDITED BY: Joe Huser, 16