When ABC News first met little Tashina Iron Horse, she was 5 years old, a chatty and vivacious kindergartener.
Now she’s 6, in the first grade, and she tells us she wants Justin Bieber to be her boyfriend. If she could, she’d ask President Obama for “Fresh water…and bubble gum…and a backpack.” She wants to grow up to be a police officer, a career choice inspired by her mother Bobbie, who works long hours as a security guard.
Tashina lives on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where most of the 30,000 to 40,000 residents identify as Oglala Lakota Sioux and boast of a rich cultural history and deep-seated spirituality. Located in the southwest corner of South Dakota, Pine Ridge is one of the 565 federally recognized Indian Nations in the United States. It is also one of the poorest.
Pine Ridge residents live amid poverty that rivals that of the third world. Forty-seven percent of the Pine Ridge population lives below the federal poverty level, 65 percent to 80 percent of the adults are unemployed, and rampant alcoholism and an obesity epidemic combine with underfunded schools to make it a rough place to grow up. Tashina lives in government housing in Manderson, 30 minutes north of downtown Pine Ridge. She lives with her grandmother, parents, siblings and uncles – sometimes up to 19 people live in the three-bedroom house, which has seen better days.
Now she’s 6, in the first grade, and she tells us she wants Justin Bieber to be her boyfriend. If she could, she’d ask President Obama for “Fresh water…and bubble gum…and a backpack.” She wants to grow up to be a police officer, a career choice inspired by her mother Bobbie, who works long hours as a security guard.
Tashina lives on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where most of the 30,000 to 40,000 residents identify as Oglala Lakota Sioux and boast of a rich cultural history and deep-seated spirituality. Located in the southwest corner of South Dakota, Pine Ridge is one of the 565 federally recognized Indian Nations in the United States. It is also one of the poorest.
Pine Ridge residents live amid poverty that rivals that of the third world. Forty-seven percent of the Pine Ridge population lives below the federal poverty level, 65 percent to 80 percent of the adults are unemployed, and rampant alcoholism and an obesity epidemic combine with underfunded schools to make it a rough place to grow up. Tashina lives in government housing in Manderson, 30 minutes north of downtown Pine Ridge. She lives with her grandmother, parents, siblings and uncles – sometimes up to 19 people live in the three-bedroom house, which has seen better days.