When thinking about Native Americans, most people think of Oklahoma, the Dakotas or the southwest, not Ohio. Yet 96,500 people who are either exclusively or part Native American call Ohio home, and 34% of these residents live in Cuyahoga County. This is because from the mid-1950s to 1970s, Cleveland was one of nine target cities for the federal government's Urban Relocation Program - a federal policy that physically relocated Natives from reservations into cities. The ultimate goal was to promote rapid assimliation and de-culturalization of Native people. Cleveland was intentionally selected due to its distance from reserations and lack of tribes - counting on a lack of mobility preventing their return to the reservation.

We are now in the fourth generation since the Relocation era, and nevertheless, we persisted. Today, our community's largest obstacle is a general lack of representation in the greater Cleveland region. Our small numbers mean we are often left out of conversations, or our issues not brought to the forefront. The Native American Cultural Garden aims to remedy this, and our steering committe wants to promote our community (and our ancestors' who came before us) with a 1.3 acre representation of Native American culture. This garden will be not only a joy to look at, walk through, and take in - it will also serve as a much-needed functional space for the Native American community to host ceremonies, gatherings and events.