Avoid becoming part of the United States

The Iñupiat are an Inuit people , which has its home base in it northernmost Alaska facing the Arctic Ocean.

Here on the tundra became James "Jimmy" Stotts born 78 years ago, specifically in the city of Utqiaģvik, which is the USA's northernmost. Since then he has lived in several other places in the state and now has his own home in its largest city, Anchorage.

The Iñupiat are an Inuit people , which has its home base in it northernmost Alaska facing the Arctic Ocean.

Here on the tundra became James "Jimmy" Stotts born 78 years ago, specifically in the city of Utqiaģvik, which is the USA's northernmost. Since then he has lived in several other places in the state and now has his own home in its largest city, Anchorage.

So Jimmy knows Alaska. But he also feels at home Greenland, for his wife, Karo Heilmann Stotts, is Greenlandic and from Maniitsoq. They have lived for periods in her home country, where their children have cousins.

So where do you live the best life? In Greenland or in Alaska?

- The answer to that question is obvious, says Jimmy and responds with a counter question:

- Who wants to live under the conditions that Donald Trump and his people are about to impose?

Jimmy says the vast majority of Iñupiat cannot like what's going on right now, especially not all the talk of war and gun power. I the conflict with the President of the United States they are – just like a majority of the American population - clearly on Greenland's side.

ANCSA

Their own situation is characterized by a law that was passed by Congress in Washington and signed by then-President Nixon in 1971, and which is called the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, ANCSA. The assigned Inuit and Indians in Alaska a total of 963 million dollars and 180,000 square kilometers of land (more than four times the size of Denmark) as compensation for the demands they which indigenous peoples had faced the loss of their ancestral lands.

The money was not paid out in cash to the population, but were to be placed in locally rooted joint-stock companies owned by the originals people. More than 200 village corporations and 12 regional ones companies ("native regional corporations") were founded. Then came another one regional company to so that there are now 13. The last is for indigenous people who is not a resident of Alaska.

A shareholder became anyone who had at least one quarter native blood in his veins, and who was born before the law came into force in 1971. The idea was, that the companies should invest their money, so the Inuit and Indians in that way through stock dividends gained a share in the exploitation of the riches found in Alaska in the form of oil, minerals, timber and much more. It was then seen as a visionary way to compensate Alaska's native inhabitants for the loss of their birthright.

Capitalists

ANCSA also had the effect that it did local people to capitalists. They had to think that their companies had to make money if they as shareholders were not to lose it all, and therefore dropped out some of their skepticism towards, for example, oil extraction.

- People get excited about money, says Jimmy.

- Some among Alaska's native population have a quite good life, financially speaking, but life is also about other things and more than that prosperity.

ANCSA was not, he says, the "wonder drug that many people thought it was." then thought it would be. Or proclaimed it to be. But it is better than the alternative, which is nothing.”

He himself has been involved in the management of one of the regional ones companies, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, ASRC, owned by 14,000 Iñupiat shareholders. It has 15,000 employees (2023) and operates not just in Alaska, but also in many other US states. The activities are many varying and ranging from providing services to the oil industry above contracting business for tourism.

In addition, subsidiaries of ASRC have contracts with it federal government in Washington in a number of areas, among others telecommunications.

The most successful companies - like ASRC - have grown really big and are now billion-dollar enterprises. While other companies have managed say less well.

- ANCSA is not perfect. There are no perfect solutions, says Jimmy.

- The law was an attempt to go in the right direction. You are have to constantly work on things.

No. F..., NO!

Such is the situation for Alaska's indigenous population developed over decades. But with Trump's accession as president has a lot changed.

- The president is just as quietly undermining us, says Jimmy.

Trump is pushing to get more oil and gas extracted - too in areas where the vulnerable arctic nature risks being harmed - here while the world's attention is directed towards Greenland, Venezuela, Ukraine and Iran:

- While all this is taking place, Trump and his people are operating in the shade. Some of the provisions that have protected indigenous peoples are i slipped. Not just here, but throughout the United States, the support we as the country's are being removed indigenous people have so far received from the federal government.

At the same time, among the Iñupiat there is an increasingly high degree of adaptation to the surrounding American society:

- We have been assimilated, says Jimmy.

- People give in to the new world order. We lose ours culture. We had much stronger leaders 20-30 years ago.

Jimmy once said in an interview that he would like to been a Greenlander. Is that still the case?

- Oh yes, I love Greenland!, he says.

- They have also made some mistakes over there - they do everyone - but I love Greenland.

What is it that he likes so much about his wife's native country?

- The people, he answers promptly.

- I really like the Greenlanders, who still have one sense of justice and generosity intact. Here in Alaska, people have become a lot less spacious.

Because of money?

- Probably. I don't know, but what else would it be.

So you do not recommend that Greenland becomes part of the United States and Greenlanders become Americans?

- No, f... NO! You have lived in Greenland yourself and know that it is quite a special place.