Imagine my pleasure to see in last week’s Sunday “Travel” section of the New York Times an article by a noted cultural events reporter about how he drives around Indian Country in order to decompress from daily life and its stresses. The article was enjoyable until near the end. At one point in his narrative of random driving, he describes how he reached a “scrubby pueblo” where the locals, dressing for a sacred ceremony, were more than ready to run at him menacingly. I would, too, if I’d also been there. Nor did it help a few paragraphs later, when he spoke of Chinle as a “scruffy little town.” I grew up in a part of upstate New York that is undoubtedly scrubby and scruffy to the eyes of New York City folk. My homeland looks that way because of long-time economic disadvantage. Well, so does Indian Country.

No, I’m not advocating romanticizing Indian culture and overlooking its realities. Yet I wonder if that well-educated and privileged reporter understands the mixed message he sends out as a tourist. He wants to enjoy the beauties and atmosphere of the Southwest, but readily denigrates the dwelling places of the inhabitants.