Ceremony Lesson Plan

What was life like in Gallup?

Most people in Gallup lived in squalor. It was a mix of Native Americans, white people, and folks of other ethnicities. The American Indians there wanted to get off of the reservation by any means necessary, so they took whatever jobs they could. The young boy described at the end of the previous session could be Tayo with his mother. He lived in abject poverty. The employers in Gallup knew that they could pay low wages and keep poor working conditions because the American Indians would either stay despite the harsh conditions or they would leave and another American Indian would immediately replace them. Students may find that Gallup seems...