Segregation and American Indian Reservations

Racial residential segregation is a key feature of the social organization of American society, and is also a fundamental cause of racial inequality. The body of literature on racial residential segregation and its effects on African Americans is expansive, and it is growing for other racial/ethnic groups as well. However, missing from the literature are American Indians. American Indian reservations are prime examples of racial residential segregation. This chapter strives to answer key questions: How is the racial residential segregation of American Indians different from that for other racial/ethnic groups? How can American Indian nations address issues on their reservations that result from segregation? What processes drove the segregation of American Indians onto reservations? American Indian nations are in a unique position to address the effects of racial residential segregation in ways that other racial/ethnic groups cannot. That is because American Indian reservations, despite segregation, are a place of healing.

Advancing Indian Nations’ Motor Vehicle Crash Reporting

The American Indian population is at high risk for motor vehicle (MV) crash injury. Although this is preventable, the majority of these indigenous populations lack fundamental data needed to understand these events and implement effective countermeasures. This cross-case study sets a framework by exploring Indian nations’ crash reporting systems (CRS) and the potential to fill this information void. An inventory process conducted with four tribes produced a pragmatic approach that tribes can refine to fulfill local objectives for accountability, sovereignty, and system integrity. Enormous benefits can be derived from a reliable CRS. The study shows that electronically documenting MV crash event data is plausible with commitment from tribes and support from other stakeholders.

“We Can Do Better”: University Leaders Speak to Tribal-University Relationships

Wielding degrees of influence within educational organizations, university leaders are critical in determining how institutions enact their espoused missions and support severely marginalized campus communities. How do universities address and improve educational outcomes for the most severely underrepresented communities? This article presents emergent findings from an illustrative multiple-case study that examined the relationships between two public universities and local American Indian nations in California. As a preliminary step in understanding the present state of “tribal-university relationships,” I present findings on university leaders’ perceptions and knowledge regarding American Indians broadly and relationships with local Native nations specifically. Using tribal critical race theory as an analytical framework, I posit how colonization, federal recognition, and educational practices affect curricular, political, and economic relationships.

Incorporating Indigenous Nations into International Political Economy

This comment elaborates on and extends the roundtable’s discussion by turning to the context of Indigenous peoples. Even setting aside normative motivations, expanded study of Indigenous peoples provides clear opportunities for theory development in international political economy and international relations more broadly. For example, the legal status of American Indian Nations’ 326 unique political jurisdictions can inform the political economy of marginalized identity groups in a non-Westphalian but nonetheless international context.

Litigating for the Homeland: An Indian Treaty Framework to Climate Litigation in the Wake of Juliana

Climate change is an increasingly pressing issue on the world stage. The federal government, however, has largely declined to address any problems stemming from the effects of climate change, and litigation attempting to force the federal government to take action, as highlighted by Juliana v. United States, has largely failed. This Note presents the case for a class of plaintiffs more likely to succeed than youth plaintiffs in Juliana—federally recognized Indian tribes. Treaties between the United States and Indian nations are independent substantive sources of law that create enforceable obligations on the federal government. The United States maintains a trust relationship with federal Indian tribes, and that relationship obliges a duty of protection upon the federal government. This Note argues that those obligations may support climate change claims under the theory that the government, by failing to address climate change, has failed its duty of protection under its treaties.

Luis Jerónimo de Oré OFM — Symbolo Catholico Indiano (1598)

Brother Luis Jerónimo de Oré’s Symbolo Catholico Indiano was the most important and authorized sixteenth century treatise for the evangelization of the native Andean peoples. In its pages we find a vivid image of Andean reality immediately after the Conquest and a fervent exposition of the Catholic faith inspired in the recent Councils of Trent and Lima. The treatise also presents the missioning methods that served the Franciscans and other priests of the Viceroyalty for the evangelization of the indigenous peoples. Above all, in this text we find an admirable exposition of the theological doctrine and catechetical practice in the anthropological perspective that forms its starting point, which is the Andean man or woman who had never heard a message of salvation and dignity for the human person. Brother Luis Jerónimo de Oré Rojas OFM was born in Huamanga in 1554 (now the geographi- cal Department of Ayacucho in Perú). He was a zealous missionary who travelled throughout the colonizers’ territory, from the extreme north of Florida to the extreme south of Chile. As an intelli- gent linguist he was the author of important rituals and catechisms in Quechua and Aymara. He was one of the first bishops born on the American soil, and the first to be incorporated into the Native Indian Council and the Vatican hierarchy; as a bishop he stood out for his protection of aboriginal groups and his energetic defense of the cultural integrity of Native Indian nations.