User:HandsomeSquidward311/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Karuk Tribe

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it's directly related to the course material in class. I learned about the Karuk tribe in Dr. Perkins' previous class and was curious to see what information was available on Wiki. The article is hardly/poorly developed. The 'Land' section, in particular needs some historical background. Karuk is another Wiki page that is lacking information. The Karuk Tribe experienced environmental injustices, institutional racism, and stripped from their ancestral rights to land. The existing content does not mention anything about their history post 1850 Gold Rush, or even cultural history prior to colonialism. I believe this topic suits the assignment perfectly because the article does not reflect their true historical background.

Evaluate the article
Overall, The Karuk Tribe article is missing key historical information regarding state and federal projects used against them, including forced assimilation, relocation, and genocide. The leading section refers to this Indigenous group as "Indians", which isn't an appropriate term. The article is overall lacking, so there isn't a lot to work with in the leading section. There are some general facts about location, size of land, and discusses the tribe's government system. Adding more content to the entire article is necessary to improve the leading section, especially regarding land.

The sections are short and don't provide important information such as early history, colonialism, education, and most importantly, culture. Most of the existing content describes the Karuk tribe members' most assimilated skills/achievements, as opposed to their traditions, spiritual beliefs, and stewardship to the land. The tribe lived on the land thousands of years before the arrival of colonizers, managing the landscape, wildlife, and fish species. Their specialized knowledge and relationship to the land was productive and had/have spiritual connections to all biotic and abiotic factors.

There also isn't any information regarding the state of California or the federal government's hand in overtaking the land and their refusal to protect the tribe people, due to agriculture and mining plans. The fight for their land continues today, and the article must reflect current events in addition to historical ones. Current land ownership by tribe members is less than 1% of original ownership.

The article is short and neglects the tribe's racialized environmental history of the colonizers disrupting their livelihood and traditions practiced for thousands of years. This is the information that should be accessible to everyone.Their culture, traditions, spirituality, and identity are tied to the land and river, therefore the article must reflect that. When googling the Karuk tribe, there are many photos and articles discussing traditional clothing- beautiful women in hand-crafted outfits, as well as jewelry and their impressive tobacco fields. I think sections for art and agriculture are appropriate as well.

There are two external links provided at the bottom that are invalid websites. The article does reference the Karuk Tribe official website, where I was able to find some of the statistics on the Wiki page. The rest of the references link to articles about Karuk language and their economic contributions. There aren't any conversations on the talk page, but their is a banner that says the Karuk Tribe article is a "start-class" page and is of "mid-importance".

Overall, the article lacks a lot of information. The existing content doesn't reflect culture or traditional values, nor does the article mention anything about their racialized environmental history. This is an excellent candidate for the semester-long project.