Cultural Processes of Ethnoracial Disadvantage among Native American College Students

Although indigenous populations have been subjected to some of the worst forms of institutionalized oppression in the United States, little social science research has sought to understand the day-to-day ethnoracial biases that contemporary Native American populations face. Seeking to expand this knowledge, we present a theoretical framework of the cultural processes of ethnoracial disadvantage experienced by Native American students in predominantly white colleges. Drawing on 65 in-depth interviews with 50 Native students, we identify four cultural processes of disadvantage: derogatory stereotyping, exoticized othering, delegitimation, and assimilation pressures related to cultural hegemony. Intertwined with these processes is the cultural permissibility of ignorance, a willful dearth of knowledge—and lack of accountability for knowledge—about indigenous peoples, traditions, and histories of oppression which enable these biases and exclusions. Students tend to respond to these cultural processes of disadvantage in three ways: educating others, working to disprove stereotypes, and spanning two worlds. We end by discussing how these results help advance theoretical understanding of ethnoracial bias toward indigenous populations and cultural processes of ethnoracial inequality in the United States more broadly.