History Main / NeglectedRez

* ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy'' features a reservation in a few episodes. The residents are clearly poorer than the people in nearby Charming, and a local gang leader pretty much runs the place with the Reservation Police in his pocket, using it to grow shrooms and manufacture bullets to sell to the Sons and other gangs in the outside world. As the sheriff's department aren't allowed on the reservation, the [=SoA=] and the other criminal groups in town use it as a TruceZone or to hold events that they don't want the cops spying in on.

That said, fiction tends to make this (and the NativeAmericanCasino) the ''only'' places where modern indigenous people live, but in RealLife, this is far from true. In both the US and Canada, the majority of Indigenous people live in cities or otherwise off-rez. And depictions of all Indigenous people in a work as TheAlcoholic, seen more in old-fashioned works, is now viewed as an offensive characterization and a DiscreditedTrope. Despite that, this trope is still used, often to call attention to the ongoing issues reservations and indigenous people continue to face due to policy conflicts with the settler country, though some have criticized the depiction as being akin to PovertyPorn in its ubiquity.

Indian reservations (as called in the US) or reserves (in Canada) depicted as brutally impoverished places, often plagued by greedy corporations exploiting nearby natural resources at the expense of the locals and clashes with either authorities or (almost always white) citizens from the settler nation, who will use the jurisdiction differences of reservations to do whatever heinous action they wish, knowing they likely won't face legal actions for it. Residents of such places will often lack basic services and amenities, inhabit dilapidated shacks and [[TrashyTrailerHome trailers/RVs]], drive TheAllegedCar, and struggle with [[AddledAddict drug addiction]], [[TheAlcoholic alcoholism]], crime, and unemployment.

That said, fiction tends to make this (and the NativeAmericanCasino) the ''only'' places where modern indigenous people live, but in RealLife, this is far from true. In both the US and Canada, the majority of Indigenous people live in cities or otherwise off-rez. And depictions of all Indigenous people in a work as TheAlcoholic, seen more in old-fashioned works, is now viewed as an offensive characterization and a DiscreditedTrope. Despite that, this trope is still used often to call attention to the ongoing issues reservations and indigenous people continue to face due to policy conflicts with the settler country, though some have criticized the depiction as being akin to PovertyPorn in its ubiquity.

Indian reservations (as called in the US) or reserves (in Canada) depicted as brutally impoverished places, often plagued by greedy corporations exploiting nearby natural resources at the expense of the local environment and clashes with either authorities or (almost always white) citizens from the settler nation, who will use the jurisdiction differences of reservations to do whatever heinous action they wish, knowing they likely won't face legal actions for it. Residents of such places will often lack basic services and amenities, inhabit dilapidated shacks and [[TrashyTrailerHome trailers/RVs]], drive TheAllegedCar, and struggle with [[AddledAddict drug addiction]], [[TheAlcoholic alcoholism]], crime, and unemployment.

* ''Film/WindRiver'': The Wind River Indian Reservation is the primary setting for the film and it suffers from extreme poverty, lawlessness, and absence of proper law enforcement. Jane, a young white FBI agent stationed out in Las Vegas sent there, is horrified by what she sees

Since this aptly describes a lot of reservations--one example being South Dakota's Pine Ridge, which has been infamous in the US since TheSeventies for its low quality of life--this trope is also TruthInTelevision. Quality of life on US reservations is extremely poor, with high unemployment, low graduation rates, low incomes, and entire families often living in one cramped dwelling space. In 2017, over 80% of Canadian reserves had median income below the poverty line, according to census data.

* ''Series/TheFBI'': "A Mouthful of Dust" is set an Apache reservation in New Mexico. When the suspect goes on the run, Erskine and the local enforcement have to chase him across the ThirstyDesert.

* ''Film/Skins2003'': Beaver Creek Indian Reservation for the Lakota Sioux people is depicted as being a poor place with little going for it. Rudy, a tribal police officer struggles to help the town, as well as his brother Mogie, an [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]] single father to a teenaged boy. At one point, Rudy goes berserk on a liquor store the next town over because it's explicitly profiting off of alcoholic residents from the reserve.

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