OREGON VOICES

Jeff Van Pelt

Celilo Falls, photographed in about 1910–1912 OHS neg., OrHi 66865
Jeff Van Pelt, of Umatilla descent, worked in Cultural Resources in the Department of Natural Resources at the time of this interview and now works in the Fisheries department at the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The following short selection is taken from an oral history interview by Donna Sinclair on March 16, 1999. The interview was conducted as part of the Center For Columbia River History's Columbia River Basin Project. Van Pelt's interview contributes to the community history of Umatilla, Oregon, and is available at www.ccrh.org .
I REMEMBER MY father talking about dipping water out of Celilo in the fifties, the Columbia River, and drinking it. Can you imagine going down and let your kids drink water out of Celilo? The 1950s is fifty years, fifty years! That river has been so polluted we can't drink out of it. Well, my god, what's going to happen in another fifty years? What are you going to leave your children? What are all of us going to leave our children? What are we doing to them? Yeah, you may be going on making a good living doing your job. You may be making all kinds of money, hell you're putting money away and making investments and your kids, they're going to be in a secure place and you're doing your job, but Jesus Christ, they ain't gonna have a bit of clean water to drink. They ain't gonna have no place to go to share things that, believe me, someday when you leave this place you'll know what the true teachings you were supposed to learn while you were here. If you make it that far and learn about it. We're leaving them nothing. We're killing the spirit of our children. So us as Indian people are worrying about them generations of people that were made to go into confusion and not follow the ways. We're worried about them people. Where are them spirits? But we're also worried a lot more about our children having the opportunity to feel the feelings I get when I learn these ways, when I learn these teachings about who I am and how important these things are.	1

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