scholarly journals American Indian Identity and Blood Quantum in the 21st Century: A Critical Review

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan W. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American Indian ◽  
American Indians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Blood Quantum ◽  
Indian Identity ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
American Society ◽  
Tribal Affiliation

Identity in American Indian communities has continually been a subject of contentious debate among legal scholars, federal policy-makers, anthropologists, historians, and even within Native American society itself. As American Indians have a unique relationship with the United States, their identity has continually been redefined and reconstructed over the last century and a half. This has placed a substantial burden on definitions for legal purposes and tribal affiliation and on American Indians trying to self-identify within multiple cultural contexts. Is there an appropriate means to recognize and define just who is an American Indian? One approach has been to define identity through the use of blood quantum, a metaphorical construction for tracing individual and group ancestry. This paper will review the utility of blood quantum by examining the cultural, social, biological, and legal implications inherent in using such group membership and, further, how American Indian identity is being affected.

Repositioning Indianness: Native American Organizations in Portland, Oregon, 1959––1975

2002 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas G. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
American Indians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Government Relations ◽  
Indian Identity ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Younger Generation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
And Shifts

This article examines the processes of community building among American Indians who migrated to Portland, Oregon, in the decades following World War II, contextualized within a larger movement of Indians to the cities of the United States and shifts in government relations with Indian people. It argues that, during the 1960s, working-and middle-class Indians living in Portland came together and formed groups that enabled them to cultivate "Indianness" or to "be Indian" in the city. As the decade wore on, Indian migration to Portland increased, the social problems of urban Indians became more visible, and a younger generation emerged to challenge the leadership of Portland's established Indian organizations. Influenced by both their college educations and a national Indian activist movement, these new leaders promoted a repositioning of Indianness, taking Indian identity as the starting point from which to solve urban Indian problems. By the mid-1970s, the younger generation of college-educated Indians gained a government mandate and ascended to the helm of Portland's Indian community. In winning support from local, state, and federal officials, these leaders reflected fundamental changes under way in the administration of U.S. Indian affairs not only in Portland, but also across the country.

American Indian Activism after 1945

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bradley Shreve
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
American Indian ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Energy Resource ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Native People ◽  
Treaty Rights ◽  
1960S And 1970S

American Indian activism after 1945 was as much a part of the larger, global decolonization movement rooted in centuries of imperialism as it was a direct response to the ethos of civic nationalism and integration that had gained momentum in the United States following World War II. This ethos manifested itself in the disastrous federal policies of termination and relocation, which sought to end federal services to recognized Indian tribes and encourage Native people to leave reservations for cities. In response, tribal leaders from throughout Indian Country formed the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in 1944 to litigate and lobby for the collective well-being of Native peoples. The NCAI was the first intertribal organization to embrace the concepts of sovereignty, treaty rights, and cultural preservation—principles that continue to guide Native activists today. As American Indian activism grew increasingly militant in the late 1960s and 1970s, civil disobedience, demonstrations, and takeovers became the preferred tactics of “Red Power” organizations such as the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC), the Indians of All Tribes, and the American Indian Movement (AIM). At the same time, others established more focused efforts that employed less confrontational methods. For example, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) served as a legal apparatus that represented Native nations, using the courts to protect treaty rights and expand sovereignty; the Council of Energy Resource Tribes (CERT) sought to secure greater returns on the mineral wealth found on tribal lands; and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) brought Native educators together to work for greater self-determination and culturally rooted curricula in Indian schools. While the more militant of these organizations and efforts have withered, those that have exploited established channels have grown and flourished. Such efforts will no doubt continue into the unforeseeable future so long as the state of Native nations remains uncertain.

scholarly journals ‘Sho-Goh-Wah-Pee-Nay’ - The sugar disease: Not so sweet!

2013 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 048-050
Author(s):  
Vishal Mundra
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American Indian ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Diabetes Education ◽  
Diabetes Prevention Program ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Causes Of Disease ◽  
Indian Tribes

Abstract“Sho-goh-wah-pee-nay” or “sugar disease,” an Oji-Cree word (Native American Indian terminology), is more commonly known as “diabetes." Over the last 70 years, diabetes has become an epidemic within Native American Indian tribes. At about 16%, American Indians and Alaska Natives have the highest occurrence of diabetes in the United States. There are 566 federally recognized tribes. Drifting genes, obesity, and lower educational levels are among the well-known causes of disease management in this group. However, often forgotten are the socio-cultural aspects of this issue. Disease perception, diet, traditional medicine, poor communication, sedentary lifestyle, poor socio-economic status are most important obstacles. Various government-funded programs like National Diabetes Education Program, “We have the power to prevent diabetes” and “Move it! And reduce your risk of diabetes” and diabetes prevention program are in place. Similar guidelines should be developed for all the ethnic or tribal groups across the world before it becomes a pandemic.

Stepfamily Closeness and Depression Among American Indian Emerging Adults: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaitlin P. Ward ◽  
Gordon E. Limb ◽  
Sarah Higbee ◽  
Helena Haueter
Keyword(s):  
American Indian ◽  
Emerging Adults ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Equation Model ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Racial Groups ◽  
Biological Parent ◽  
Parent Child

Stepfamilies are one of the fastest growing family structures among all racial groups in the United States. Stepfamily research among many racial groups, specifically American Indians, is virtually nonexistent. This is unfortunate, as American Indians are more likely to divorce and remarry compared with other populations. From a family systems perspective, this study examined whether retrospectively perceived closeness in three stepfamily relationships, namely child–residential biological parent, child–residential stepparent, and child–stepsibling, were negatively associated with depression scores in 226 American Indian emerging adults. A structural equation model showed that increased child–residential biological parent and child–stepsibling closeness predicted decreased depression scores, whereas child–residential stepparent closeness did not. We also found that depression scores significantly predicted retrospective perceptions of child–residential biological parent, child–residential stepparent, and child–stepsibling closeness. Findings encourage interventions that strengthen American Indian child–residential biological parent and child–stepsibling relationships, and underscore the need for further research that explores American Indian stepfamily relationships.

Negotiating American Indian Inclusion: Sovereignty, Same-Sex Marriage, and Sexual Minorities in Indian Country

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Valerie Lambert
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Indian ◽  
American Indians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Domestic Relations ◽  
Indian Country ◽  
Marriage Laws ◽  
And Gender

American Indians are often overlooked in the story of the struggle for marriage equality in the United States. Using anthropological approaches, this article synthesizes and extends scholarly knowledge about Native participation in this struggle. With sovereign rights to control their own domestic relations, tribes have been actively revising their marriage laws, laws that reflect the range of reservation climates for sexual and gender-identity minorities. Debates in Indian Country over the rights of these minorities and over queering marriage bring to the fore issues that help define the distinctiveness of Native participation in the movement. These include issues of “tradition,” “culture,” and Christianity.

Prevention of Alcohol Misuse: A Review of Health Promotion Efforts among American Indians

1995 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 288-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip A. May ◽  
James R. Moran
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Native American ◽  
American Indian ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Alcohol Misuse ◽  
Heavy Drinking ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Wide Range

Purpose. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of a wide range of potentially useful strategies to address the prevention of alcohol misuse among American Indians. This broad approach to the review is useful because the extreme heterogeneity of the American Indian population requires that health promotion professionals explore many options and tailor their activities to specific communities. Search Method. A literature search was initiated through MEDLINE using the following key words: prevention, alcohol, substance abuse, American Indian, and Native American. The search yielded 29 articles from the years 1982 through 1994. These articles, along with 45 previously identified in three overview articles, form the basis of the review and discussion in this paper. Summary of findings. As a group, American Indians experience many health problems that are related to alcohol misuse. Comparison of Indians to non-Indians shows that the age of first involvement with alcohol is younger, the frequency and amount of drinking is greater, and negative consequences are more common. Health promotion programs that address these issues must take into account American Indian heterogeneity and should use a comprehensive approach that addresses both heavy drinking and the sequelae of problems related to alcohol misuse. Major Conclusions. Important concepts for providing health promotion services to this population are: cultural relevance must be carefully planned and monitored; individuals in the local community must be involved; the drunken Indian stereotype must be addressed; and community empowerment should be an important goal.

scholarly journals Designing and Evaluating Culturally Specific Smoking Cessation Interventions for American Indian Communities

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven S. Fu ◽  
Kristine L. Rhodes ◽  
Christina Robert ◽  
Rachel Widome ◽  
Jean L. Forster ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Smoking Cessation ◽  
American Indian ◽  
Randomized Controlled Trials ◽  
American Indians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Controlled Trials ◽  
Culturally Specific ◽  
Indian Community ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
American Indian Community

Abstract Introduction: American Indians have the highest smoking rates in the United States, yet few randomized controlled trials of culturally specific interventions exist. This study assessed American Indians’ opinions about evidence-based treatment and attitudes toward participating in clinical trials. Methods: Six focus groups were conducted based on smoking status (current/former smoker), sex, and elder status (55 years and older or younger). Meetings were held at local American Indian community organizations. This project was accomplished in partnership with the American Indian Community Tobacco Projects, a community–academic research partnership at the University of Minnesota. Thematic qualitative data analyses were conducted. Results: Participants desired the following: (a) programs led by trained American Indian community members, (b) the opportunity to connect with other American Indian smokers interested in quitting, and (c) programs promoting healthy lifestyles. Strategies desired for treatment included (a) free pharmacotherapy, including nicotine replacement therapy (NRT); (b) nominal incentives, e.g., gift cards for groceries; and (c) culturally specific program components such as American Indian images, education on traditional tobacco use, and quit-smoking messages that target the value of family and include narratives or story telling in recruitment and program materials. Biochemical verification of smoking abstinence, such as salivary cotinine or carbon monoxide breathalyzers, is likely acceptable. Standard treatment or delayed treatment control groups were viewed as potentially acceptable for randomized study designs. Conclusions: Rigorously conducted randomized controlled trials of culturally specific smoking cessation interventions are sorely needed but will only be accomplished with the commitment of funders, researchers, and collaborative trusting relationships with the community.

Legal Realisms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Holbo
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fourteenth Amendment ◽  
Mississippi Valley ◽  
Helen Hunt Jackson ◽  
American Novel ◽  
The Law ◽  
American Society

U.S. historians have long considered the Civil War and its Reconstruction as a second American revolution. Literary scholars, however, have yet to show how fully these years revolutionized the American imagination. One marker of this was the postwar search for a “Great American Novel”—a novel fully adequate to the breadth and diversity of the United States in the era of the Fourteenth Amendment. The debate over what full representation would mean led to a thoroughgoing reconstruction of the meaning of “literature” for readers, writers, politics, and law. Legal Realisms examines the transformation of the idea of “realism” in literature and beyond in the face of uneven developments in the racial, ethnic, gender, and class structure of American society. The ideal of equality before the law conflicted with persistent inequality, and it was called into question by changing ideas about accurate representation and the value of cultural difference within the visual arts, philosophy, law, and political and moral theory. Offering provocative new readings of Mark Twain, Henry James, William Dean Howells, Helen Hunt Jackson, Albion Tourgée, and others, Legal Realisms follows the novel through the worlds of California Native American removal and the Reconstruction-era South, of the Mississippi valley and the urban Northeast. It shows how incomplete emancipation haunted the celebratory pursuit of a literature of national equality and explores the way novelists’ representation of the difficulty of achieving equality before the law helped Americans articulate the need for a more robust concept of society.

Native American Ethnicity: a View from the British Museum1

2000 ◽  
Vol 73 (182) ◽  
pp. 221-238
Author(s):  
J. C. H. King
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Native Identity ◽  
Native North America ◽  
American Ethnicity

Abstract Identity in Native North America is defined by legal, racial, linguistic and ethnic traits. This article looks at the nomenclature of both Indian, Eskimo and Native, and then places them in a historical context, in Canada and the United States. It is argued that ideas about Native Americans derive from medieval concepts, and that these ideas both constrain Native identity and ensure the survival of American Indians despite accelerating loss of language.

Dialect Identity in a Tri-Ethnic Context

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walt Wolfram ◽  
Clare Dannenberg
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
American Indians ◽  
Mississippi River ◽  
Language Change ◽  
American South ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Isolation ◽  
The American South ◽  
English Dialect ◽  
Native American Group

This study examines the development of a Native American Indian variety of English in the context of a rural community in the American South where European Americans, African Americans and Native American Indians have lived together for a couple of centuries now. The Lumbee Native American Indians, the largest Native American group east of the Mississippi River and the largest group in the United States without reservation land, lost their ancestral language relatively early in their contact with outside groups, but they have carved out a unique English dialect niche which now distinguishes them from cohort European American and African American vernaculars. Processes of selective accommodation, differential language change and language innovation have operated to develop this distinct ethnic variety, while their cultural isolation and sense of "otherness" in a bi-polar racial setting have served to maintain its ethnic marking.

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