Historical Consciousness Among Two American Indian Tribes

203 downloads 160 Views 106KB Size Report
Dec 4, 2006 - American Indians have endured numerous significant historical events, including epidemics, warfare, genocide, relocation, and for many, ...
Historical Consciousness Among Two American Indian Tribes

American Behavioral Scientist Volume 50 Number 4 December 2006 526-549 © 2006 Sage Publications 10.1177/0002764206294053 http://abs.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

Lori L. Jervis Janette Beals Calvin D. Croy Suzell A. Klein Spero M. Manson AI-SUPERPFP Team1 University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center

American Indians have endured numerous significant historical events, including epidemics, warfare, genocide, relocation, and for many, confinement to reservations. These events often are thought to be the root cause of contemporary physical and mental health problems within this population. Yet despite the presumed force of history in shaping their contemporary lives, there has been surprisingly little empirical examination of the extent to which Native people contemplate their history or understand it in relation to their present lives. This article explores attitudes toward and knowledge of significant historical events using a representative, community-based sample drawn from two tribes, one in the Northern Plains culture area and the other in the Southwest. Taken as a whole, findings suggest that the past continues to have meaning for contemporary American Indians and is related in important ways to identity and formal education. Keywords: American Indians; history; historical consciousness; collective memory; cultural memory

I

n the 500 years since European colonization began, Native peoples in the Americas have endured many historically significant events, including epidemics, warfare, and the insults of colonial subjugation. Although contemporary American Indians have not directly experienced most of these events, it is widely believed that the cultural memory of the various struggles and atrocities remains, exerting a detrimental effect on contemporary Native communities. Numerous testimonials make clear the difficulties various historical events have imposed on the Indigenous population of North America. It has been argued that historical trauma among American Indians results from a combination of colonialism, acculturative stress, cultural bereavement, genocide, and racism that has been generalized, internalized, and institutionalized (Duran, Duran, Yellow Horse Brave Heart, & Yellow Horse-Davis, 1998; Gagne, 1998). Such trauma has been said to be cumulative and unresolved (Danieli, 1998a), as well as both historic and ongoing 526

Jervis et al. / Historical Consciousness

527

(Gagne, 1998). Yet to date, there has been very little empirical research on historical trauma in Native communities or scrutiny of the concept itself. Moreover, it is not known to what extent people in tribal communities contemplate their history or link events of the past to present community functioning. Although there have been numerous scholarly attempts to understand American Indian history and culture, there has been little empirical examination of contemporary Native people’s historical consciousness per se and no attempt, to date, to measure it quantitatively. Hence, this article is the first to explore American Indian attitudes toward and knowledge of historically significant events using a representative, community-based sample. We examine not only individual awareness of these events but also attitudes toward tribal history’s impact on and importance in participants’ communities. We begin this effort with a theoretical exploration of several related concepts that bear on this issue: historical consciousness, collective memory, and historical trauma. The discussion then moves to the study and results, identifying lines of inquiry worth further consideration in regard to historical consciousness among Native people.

Historical Consciousness, Collective Memory, and Historical Trauma Historical consciousness is, in its simplest sense, the awareness of a past (Figlio, 2003). In the English-speaking world (unlike Germany, where it is used quite differently), there has been a tendency to use the term interchangeably with collective memory (i.e., how ordinary people—as opposed to professional historians—understand the past; Seixas, 2004). In turn, collective memory is sometimes used interchangeably with the newer term cultural memory (Bal, 1999; Sturken, 1997). Scholarship on history and memory stresses linkages between historical understandings and Authors’ Note: American Indian Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project (AI-SUPERPFP) would not have been possible without the significant contributions of many people. The following interviewers and computer/data management and administrative staff supplied energy and enthusiasm for an often difficult job: Anna E. Barón, Amelia T. Begay, Cathy A. E. Bell, Mary Cook, Helen J. Curley, Mary C. Davenport, Rhonda Wiegman Dick, Geneva Emhoolah, Fay Flame, Jolene Fukuhara, Roslyn Green, Billie K. Greene, Jack Herman, Tamara Holmes, Shelly Hubing, Cameron R. Joe, Louise F. Joe, Cheryl L. Martin, Jeff Miller, Robert H. Moran Jr., Natalie K. Murphy, Ralph L. Roanhorse, Margo Schwab, Jennifer Settlemire, Donna M. Shangreaux, Matilda J. Shorty, Selena S. S. Simmons, Jennifer Truel, Lori Trullinger, Marvine D. Two Eagle, Jennifer M. Warren, Theresa (Dawn) Wright, Jenny J. Yazzie, and Sheila A. Young. We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of the Methods Advisory Group: Margarita Alegria, Evelyn J. Bromet, Dedra Buchwald, Steven G. Heeringa, Ronald Kessler, Peter Guarnaccia, R. Jay Turner, and William A. Vega. Finally, we thank the tribal members who so generously participated in this research. The study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grants R01 MH48174 (Manson and Beals, principal investigators) and P01 MH42473 (Manson, principal investigator).

528

American Behavioral Scientist

cultural identity (e.g., the Holocaust and reconfigured notions of Jewishness). It is interesting, however, that little attention has been devoted in the literature on history and memory to the role of formal education in producing historical consciousness— perhaps because embedded in this concept is the assumption that it exists somehow outside of the arena of formal historical discourse (Sturken, 1997). This suggests a false dichotomy because it is quite likely that versions of history taught in the classroom do affect how people understand their personal and collective stories (Lee, 2004; Letourneau & Moisan, 2004). It is less clear how history education available in specific contexts, such as reservation-based educational systems, may affect historical consciousness. To date, historical consciousness has received far less attention in Indian country than has another related concept: historical trauma. Also referred to as intergenerational posttraumatic stress disorder, historical grief, postcolonial stress disorder, and “soul wound” (Ball, 1998; Duran et al., 1998), this notion carries the assumption that historical events may have negative consequences in the present. Indeed, historical trauma has been blamed for the many social ills afflicting some American Indian people, including alcoholism, domestic violence, and internalized oppression (Ball, 1998; Braveheart-Jordan & DeBruyn, 1995; Duran & Duran, 1995; Duran et al., 1998; Manson et al., 1996; Robin, Chester, & Goldman, 1996; Stamm & Stamm, 1999; Yellow Horse Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998). Still, its definition and constituent characteristics have not been well conceptualized or operationalized— although initial steps have been taken to do so (Whitbeck, Adams, Hoyt, & Chen, 2004). Work on historical trauma’s impact on American Indian people has largely been modeled after scholarship on secondary traumatization among Jewish Holocaust survivors (Braveheart-Jordan & DeBruyn, 1995; Duran & Duran, 1995; Yellow Horse Brave Heart & DeBruyn, 1998). Secondary traumatization has been defined as the behaviors and emotions resulting from awareness of a traumatizing event experienced by a significant other (Figley & Kleber, 1995). A voluminous literature has emerged that testifies to the propensity for secondary traumatization among offspring of trauma survivors throughout the world (Danieli, 1998a, 1998b; Felsen, 1998; Nagata, 1998; Rosenheck, 1986; Rosenheck & Fontana, 1998). Despite the application of this concept to diverse settings and traumas, the bulk of this literature is psychoanalytic in orientation and focuses on children of Nazi Holocaust survivors (Danieli, 1998b; Prince, 1985; Rowland-Klein & Dunlop, 1997; Solkoff, 1992; Yehuda, Schmeidler, Giller, Siever, & Binder-Brynes, 1998; Yehuda, Schmeidler, Wainberg, Binder-Brynes, & Duvdevani, 1998). Although their specific emphases may differ, historical consciousness and historical trauma each imply that memories transcend individual and generational boundaries. There is little doubt that various cultural traditions recognize, define, evaluate, and assign meaning to events differently (Fogelson, 1989). Especially in the absence of definitive knowledge about events/personages, complex social histories may be constructed that differ from those of others. This tendency is exemplified by portrayals of Sacagawea,

Jervis et al. / Historical Consciousness

529

the Shoshone woman who interpreted for Lewis and Clark on their “Corps of Discovery.” McBeth (2003) documented unique—and sometimes contradictory—oral histories about Sacagawea among four different tribes, not to mention her appropriation by early 20th-century American suffragettes, among others. Still, the notion that understandings of the past may be shared and ongoing within a cultural group does not exclude the possibility that different types of historical consciousness may coexist within a cultural group or individual (Seixas, 2004). In this article, these literatures provide a theoretical basis for making sense of how American Indians conceptualize significant historical events—many of which were traumatic. Historical consciousness denotes individual and/or group awareness of the past, whereas historical trauma refers to the lingering and presumably negative effects of traumas experienced by previous generations on contemporary peoples. Acknowledging the importance of these theoretical frameworks, this article attempts, in a preliminary manner, to document attitudes toward and awareness of significant historical events among contemporary American Indian people—both for those who believe that an ancestor was involved in those events and for those who do not. Furthermore, we explore demographic and social characteristics associated with level of awareness and perceived impact of these events in a large, populationbased sample.

Method The American Indian Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project (AI-SUPERPFP) allows a unique examination of historical consciousness with the inclusion of four questions that were asked of two distinct tribal reservation population samples. Several research questions guided this work. First, using confirmatory factor analytic methods, we explored whether the four questions formed a single construct. Second, we tested whether this construct would vary in meaningful ways across tribal, gender, age, and ancestor involvement in a significant historical event. Next, we explored the relationship of historical consciousness to demographic correlates. Finally, we examined the relationship of historical consciousness to Indian identity and formal education in the context of the demographic variables. The AI-SUPERPFP methods are described in greater detail elsewhere (Beals, Manson, Mitchell, Spicer, & the AL-SUPERPFP Team, 2003). As the first large, population-based, psychiatric epidemiology study focused exclusively on American Indians, AI-SUPERPFP was designed to comprehensively examine alcohol, drug, and mental health issues, as well as service use, among members of a Southwest (SW) tribe and a Northern Plains (NP) tribe living on or within 20 miles of their reservations.2 Drawn from a random sample of tribal rolls, the 3,084 participants included males and females who were from 15 to 54 years of age in 1997, the year

530

American Behavioral Scientist

in which the sampling frame was developed. The bulk of data was collected between 1997 and 1999. The central component of AI-SUPERPFP was a structured interview examining psychiatric diagnosis, risk/protective factors, and service use. Tribal members who underwent intensive training in research and interviewing procedures collected the data. Tribal and institutional review board approvals were obtained prior to the commencement of data collection. Informed consent was obtained from all adult participants, whereas parental or guardian consent was obtained prior to requesting adolescent assent.

Measures The AI-SUPERPFP interview included several modules encompassing sociodemographics, psychiatric diagnosis, service use, and risk and protective factors. In the latter module, participants were asked a series of questions about stressful events. Four questions specifically inquired about historical consciousness: (a) “How much do you think about [a list of tribally specific significant historical] events like these?” (not at all, some, a lot), (b) “How familiar are you with tribal history, say, for the past 150 years or so?” (not at all, somewhat, very), (c) “How big an impact has tribal history had on your community?” (none, some, a lot), and (d) “How big a problem in your community is ‘a lack of knowledge about tribal history, tradition, and language?’” (not a problem, there are some problems, there are a lot of problems). The first two questions focused on the participant’s own historical consciousness, whereas the remainder assessed attitudes about the impact and importance of such consciousness. The relationships of two sets of variables to historical consciousness were examined. First, demographic variables (tribe, gender, age at time of interview) were tested both for differences in the structure of historical consciousness and as possible correlates of this construct. Second, we examined the relationship of Indian identity and formal education to historical consciousness, controlling for demographics. Following the work of Oetting and Beauvais (1990-1991), our Indian Identity Scale was the mean of four items, each with possible responses of from 0 to 3. This scale measured the extent to which the respondent followed Indian traditions and practices, lived life in an Indian way, and believed maintaining Indian values and practices was important—both individually and as a family. Formal education was derived from a question about years of school attended. Two forms of this variable were used: In the descriptive statistics, the mean of the full range of years of education was reported; however, because of outliers both at the lower and higher ends of this continuum, the endpoints were collapsed into 7 or fewer years and 17 or more years of education in the regressions with historical consciousness. Data were also collected on the specific historical events in which ancestors participated. Events were initially grouped into 36 categories, which were then collapsed into 14 overarching codes because of the small number of responses in some categories. For instance, the category 20th-century wars includes the following events:

Jervis et al. / Historical Consciousness

531

World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf War. A summary of the percentages of people reporting the largest categories is provided.

Sample The two populations of inference for the AI-SUPERPFP sample were enrolled members of a SW tribe and two closely related bands of an NP tribe, the latter living on adjacent reservations in the NP region of the United States. It is important to note that the SW and NP tribes have historically been, and continue to be, culturally unique, with the SW tribe characterized by an agricultural subsistence pattern and matrilineal descent system. Quite different, the NP tribe, in pre-reservation days, employed a foraging subsistence pattern and a patrilineal descent system. Although the SW tribe has retained its native language to a greater extent than the NP tribe, both groups have faced profound changes in their political systems, residence patterns, and means of socialization. Likewise, both the SW and NP tribes experienced a number of notable historical events, such as battles with the U.S. cavalry, relocation, and institutionalization in boarding schools, not to mention ongoing acculturation to the larger U.S. society, much of it coerced. The sampling strategy was a stratified random sample design (Cochran, 1977) with stratifications including age (15 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, and 45 to 54 at the time of sample selection) and gender. Given the lack of good estimates of the percentages of tribal members living on or near their reservations, the total number of persons to be located to gain the target sample size (1,500 per tribe) was initially unknown. For this reason, a replicate strategy was used in which random groupings of names were released. Because many of the addresses were out of date, an extensive location procedure was developed that included consulting official records (local and national telephone directories, utility records, and other tribal listings), as well as contacting family members and other key informants in these tightly knit communities. Overall, 46.5% and 39.5% of the SW and NP tribal members were found to be living on or near their respective reservations. Once located and found to be eligible, 73.7% of the SW group and 76.8% of the NP group agreed to participate. As one of our primary research questions was whether historical consciousness would differ depending on whether participants knew of ancestor involvement in these events, these analyses are restricted to those who answered either yes or no to the question, “Were any of your ancestors involved in events like these [list of tribalspecific events]?” Thus, these analyses did not include the 709 participants who answered don’t know or were otherwise missing data to this question. A comparison of those not included in these analyses to the remaining sample indicated no difference by tribe, gender, or education; however, those who were missing data on the ancestor involvement questions were a year younger (33.1 compared to 34.2 years) and scored lower on the Indian Identity Scale (2.05 compared to 2.14).

532

American Behavioral Scientist

Analyses Variable construction was completed using standard statistical packages: SAS Version 9.1.2 and SPSS 10.0. Inferential analyses of the 2,375 people who reported whether their ancestors had been involved in historical events were conducted in Stata (2003) and Mplus (1998-2006). Mplus, a structural equation modeling software, is well suited to examining the research questions posed here. Confirmatory factor analysis allows for testing the dimensions underlying answers to, in this case, survey questions about historical consciousness. The relationships of other variables to the factor model are tested in two ways. First, one tests whether the factor model differs across such groupings; for instance, whether the structure of historical consciousness is different by tribe. Second, for those variables where the structure is not different, one can test whether these are important covariates and perhaps most important, assess the magnitude of these relationships while controlling for the measurement error modeled in the confirmatory factor analysis, in other words, the regression coefficients of the latent factor (derived from the confirmatory factor analysis) on the potential correlates are estimated without the “noise” of other factors (e.g., response sets). These methods build on classical factor analytic and regression methods by allowing for both to be conducted simultaneously while forcing researchers to be explicit about the models underlying the covariances between variables. Mplus allows confirmatory factor analyses to be conducted without using listwise deletion to remove observations with missing data. The exception here is the stratification variables. Although no variables were missing for the tribe identification variable, as explained above, a significant number reported don’t know or were otherwise missing on the ancestor involvement stratification variable. These 709 observations were omitted from the confirmatory factor analyses.

Findings Descriptive statistics. Table 1 presents summary statistics for all variables, stratified by tribe. Slightly more SW tribal members reported having an ancestor involved (49.5%) than NP tribal members (42.1%). Based on later analyses showing the importance of ancestor involvement in understanding the structure of historical consciousness, the remaining variables are presented by tribe and ancestor involvement. Typically, participants who reported that their ancestors were involved in historical events were more likely to report thinking about such events, being familiar with tribal history, considering this history to have an important impact on their community, and viewing a lack of knowledge about tribal history in their community as a problem; where tribal differences existed, those from the NP were more likely to score high on these items than those in the SW. (text continues on p. 536)

533

Historical consciousness variables Personal frequency: How much you think about events (mean) (0 = not at all, 1 = some, 2 = a lot) Personal familiarity with tribal history (mean) (0 = not at all, 1 = some, 2 = very)

Ancestor involvementb Yes (%) No (%) NP NP

Posthoc Comparisona

0.03

0.03

1.0

SNI, NNI

SNI, NI, NNI

Ancestor Involved SI (N = 555)c

1.50 1.50

SE

1.1

49.5 50.5

% or M

SE

Posthoc Comparison

0.8

0.7

0.03

0.03

SI, NI

SI, NI, NNI

Ancestor Not Involved SNI (N = 560)

% or M

Southwest

1.50 1.50

SE

SW SW

Posthoc Comparison

1.1

1.2

0.03

0.03

SNI, NNI

SI, SNI, NNI

Ancestor Involved NI (N = 516)

42.1 57.9

% or M

SE

Posthoc Comparison

0.9

0.8

0.03

0.02

(continued)

SI, NI

SI, SNI, NI

Ancestor Not Involved NNI (N = 744)

% or M

Northern Plains

Table 1 Historical Consciousness and Demographic Characteristics

534

Community impact of tribal history on community (mean) (0 = none, 1 = some, 2 = a lot) Community lack of knowledge: Extent to which lack of knowledge about tribal history is a problem in community (mean) (0 = not a problem, 1 = some problems, 2 = lot of problems)

Ancestor involvementb Yes (%) No (%) NP NP

Posthoc Comparisona

0.03

0.03

1.1

SNI

SNI, NI

Ancestor Involved SI (N = 555)c

1.50 1.50

SE

1.0

49.5 50.5

% or M

SE

Posthoc Comparison

0.8

0.8

0.03

0.03

SI, NI, NNI

SI, NI, NNI

Ancestor Not Involved SNI (N = 560)

% or M

Southwest

Table 1 (continued)

1.50 1.50

SE

SW SW

Posthoc Comparison

1.2

1.2

0.03

0.03

SNI, NNI

SI, SNI, NNI

Ancestor Involved NI (N = 516)

42.1 57.9

% or M

SE

Posthoc Comparison

1.0

1.0

0.03

0.03

SNI, NI

SNI, NI

Ancestor Not Involved NNI (N = 744)

% or M

Northern Plains

535

0.00

0.10

12.4

1.40 1.60 1.70 1.40 0.30

22.5 25.6 28.4 23.5 35.0

2.2

1.60

58.1

SNI, NNI

SNI, NI, NNI

NNI

NI

11.6

2.0

25.2 29.9 24.0 20.9 33.8

56.0

0.10

0.00

1.40 1.60 1.60 1.30 0.30

1.50

SI, NI

SI, NI

NI

12.2

2.4

22.1 28.8 28.1 21.0 34.3

46.8

0.10

0.00

1.40 1.80 1.90 1.50 0.40

1.80

SNI, NNI

SI, SNI, NNI

SI, SNI

11.8

2.0

23.8 29.3 28.5 18.4 33.9

50.9

0.10

0.00

1.10 1.40 1.40 1.00 0.30

1.30

SI, NI

(continued) SI, NI

SI

a. Group abbreviations denote significant pairwise comparisons in row (p < .01): SW = Southwest, overall; NP = Northern Plains, overall; SI = Southwest, ancestor involved; SNI = Southwest, ancestor not involved; NI = Northern Plains, ancestor involved; NNI = Northern Plains, ancestor not involved. b. Here the percentages of ancestor involvement are reported, overall, by tribe. c. Unweighted Ns.

Indian identity (mean) Education Mean years of education

Possible correlates of historical consciousness Female % Age % 15 to 24 25 to 34 35 to 44 45 to 54 Mean age

536

American Behavioral Scientist

In AI-SUPERPFP generally, the SW had fewer male participants; this likely reflects differential off-reservation migration for job opportunities by gender among members of that tribe. The overall mean age was 34.2; few age differences were found by tribe or ancestor involvement. Those reporting ancestor involvement in significant historical events had significantly more years of formal education and were more likely to score higher on the Indian Identity Scale than those without ancestor involvement. Testing factor structure. Next, we moved to Mplus and tested two alternative factor models: A single-factor model consisting of all four items was contrasted with the two-factor model (personal historical consciousness and attitudes toward historical consciousness). Even with the inclusion of demographic variables to allow the two-factor model to be estimable (fully identified), these two factors were too highly correlated for the model to be calculated. Thus, we concluded, the single-factor model better explained the pattern of relationships between the four historical consciousness measures. Furthermore, with a comparative fit index above .90 and a root mean square error of approximation very near .05, the single factor fit the data well. Next, we tested whether this structure varied importantly across major groupings: tribe (SW, NP), gender (male, female), age (15 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, 45+), and whether the participant had an ancestor involved in a historical event. Table 2 summarizes the tests of the models across these groups. The first in each set constrains the factor loadings to be held equal across the groups (equal); the second allows them to be estimated separately (free). If the fit of the equal model does not differ significantly from the free version, we can assume factor equivalence for that group. Here, the structure was significantly different across only tribe and ancestor involvement; as a consequence, the remaining models were conducted separately for these four groups: SW ancestor involved, SW ancestor not involved, NP ancestor involved, and NP ancestor not involved. The top portion of Table 3 presents the final parameter estimates of the factor loadings, both unstandardized and standardized, for the four groups. As seen here, when comparing factor structures across groups, a “marker variable” strategy should be used to provide a common metric for the models. By fixing the unstandardized loading of personal frequency, How often do you think about historical events? to 1.0, the strength of the other loadings can be interpreted relative to this one. Perhaps most notable here, in both the NP ancestor involved and not involved groups, the loadings for community lack of knowledge were less related to personal frequency than in the SW. Covariate analyses. Table 3 also presents the relationships between historical consciousness and gender, age, education, and Indian identity. First, the demographic correlates of age and gender were examined. As a next step, the relationship of years of formal education (7 years or less, 8, 9 . . . 16, 17 or more) and Indian (text continues on p. 540)

537

Ancestor involvemente

Aged

Genderc

None Tribeb

Stratification

Free

Equal Free Equal Free Equal Free Equal

Parametera

26.962

21.087 74.288 63.345 54.402 53.053 59.694 46.549 35.486

χ2

7

2 10 7 10 7 26 17 10

df

0.959

0.972 0.906 0.917 0.935 0.933 0.947 0.954 0.947

CFI

0.049

0.057 0.066 0.074 0.055 0.067 0.042 0.049 0.046

RMSEA

8.524

13.145

1.349

10.943

Diff Between χ2 Values

3

9

3

3

Diff df

Test of Model Fit

0.036

0.156

0.718

0.012

p

Note: CFI = comparative fit index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation. a. Equal = parameters constrained to be equal across stratification groups; Free = parameters allowed to be freely estimated with different values in each stratification group. b. Stratification groups: Southwest, Northern Plains. c. Stratification groups: female, male. d. Stratification groups: ages 15 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, 45+. e. Stratification groups: ancestor not involved in historical event, ancestor involved.

E2

A B1 B2 C1 C2 D1 D2 E1

Model

Model Fit Statistic

Table 2 Alternative Factor Models of Historical Consciousness

538

Historical consciousness variables Personal frequency Personal familiarity Community impact Community lack of knowledge Demographic correlates of historical consciousness factor Female Age Relationship of education and Indian identity with historical consciousness factor Education Education squared Indian identity 0.320 0.395 0.269

–0.080 0.127

–0.524 0.766 0.393

0.788***

1.011***

0.830***

–0.038 0.003

–0.060 0.004

0.139***

Standardized

0.368

Posthoca

1.000

Unstandardized

Ancestor Involved (SI)

0.119***

0.017 0.002

0.026 0.003

0.799***

0.879***

0.708***

1.000

NI, NNI

NI

Posthoc

0.238

0.093 0.218

0.036 0.085

0.374

0.522

0.398

0.570

Standardized

Ancestor Not Involved (SNI) Unstandardized

Southwest

0.214***

–0.153*** 0.007***

–0.090* 0.006***

0.297*

0.657***

1.238***

1.000

SNI

SNI

Posthoc

0.407

–0.984 1.133

–0.138 0.226

0.136

0.354

0.628

0.528

0.206***

–0.112* 0.007**

–0.052 0.006***

0.489***

0.787***

0.845***

1.000

SNI

Posthoc

0.349

–0.600 0.810

–0.066 0.183

0.253

0.493

0.516

0.622

Standardized

Ancestor Not Involved (NNI) Unstandardized

Northern Plains

Standardized

Ancestor Involved (NI) Unstandardized

Table 3 Details of Final Models

539

0.127

0.187

0.114

0.266

218.02 77 0.848 0.056

0.021

0.021

0.372

0.194

0.141

0.269

0.161

0.095

Note: CFI = comparative fit index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation. a. Group abbreviations denote significant pairwise comparisons in row (p < .05): SI = Southwest, ancestor involved; SNI = Southwest, ancestor not involved; NI = Northern Plains, ancestor involved; NNI = Northern Plains, ancestor not involved. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

R2 of historical consciousness factor Demographic correlates alone Demographics plus education Demographics plus education and Indian identity Overall fit 2 χ df CFI RMSEA

540

American Behavioral Scientist

Figure 1 Relationship of Historical Consciousness With Education

High Historical Consciousness

NP Involved

SW Involved

NP Not Involved

Low

SW Not Involved 7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Years of Education Note: NP = Northern Plains; SW = Southwest.

identity to the historical consciousness factor were investigated. The possibility that historical consciousness might have a quadratic relationship with age and education was tested by including those variables squared; of these, education squared was statistically significant (p < .05). Table 3 presents the final estimates for the full model. Only among the NP ancestor involved group was gender significantly related to historical consciousness; here women were less likely to report high levels of historical consciousness. Furthermore, in both the NP groups, those who were older were more likely to endorse the historical consciousness items. Age and gender typically accounted for small amounts of the variability in the historical consciousness factor; an exception here was for the NP ancestor involved group, where these two correlates explained 14.1% of the variance of historical consciousness. The addition of education and Indian identity increased the variance explained greatly. Indian identity displayed a strong positive relationship with historical consciousness, even after controlling for age, gender, and education. Although education was not significant in the SW, in the NP, both education and education squared were related to historical consciousness. Figure 1 shows the relationship of education to historical consciousness graphically. Among those in the NP with ancestor involvement, however, even after controlling for age, gender, and Indian identity, a curvilinear relationship was found with those having some high school education

Jervis et al. / Historical Consciousness

541

reporting the least historical consciousness in that group. Among NP tribal members without ancestor involvement in a significant historical event, the greater the education, the greater the historical consciousness—especially among those with a postsecondary education. Although the slope parameters were not statistically significant for the SW, inclusion of their data in this figure provides important information about the relative levels of historical consciousness among the four tribe and ancestor involvement groups. As was true when the individual items were examined, those with ancestor involvement clearly had greater historical consciousness; among those without ancestor involvement, the NP tribal members had greater mean levels of this latent construct than did their SW counterparts. Ancestor involvement. Finally, given the centrality of the ancestor involvement in these models, we more carefully explored the events reported. Of the 951 people who reported having an ancestor involved in a historical event, 93.0% said their ancestor was involved in a 19th-century battle, massacre, or removal—the vast majority of which involved the U.S. government. Far fewer participants reported that their ancestors were involved in other types of events. Only 8.3% of participants with an involved ancestor reported that their ancestor participated in a 20th-century event related to federal policies (such as relocation, boarding school, the Indian Reorganization Act, etc.) and only 4.3% reported ancestor involvement in a 20th-century war (World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam).

Discussion To our knowledge, the work described here represents the first exploration of historical consciousness among American Indians—a group for whom, arguably, the insults of colonial subjugation loom large. Several findings appear to be especially noteworthy. First, overall, participants reported thinking at least sometimes about tribal-specific historical events, considered themselves somewhat familiar with tribal history, thought this history had some impact on their communities, and considered the lack of knowledge about tribal history to be somewhat of a problem in their communities. This suggests that for at least these representative samples of two American Indian reservation populations, historical consciousness is present. Furthermore, those who believed that an ancestor had been involved in historical events appeared to have more historical consciousness than those who did not, as did NP tribal members in general. Although the community confidentiality mandated by the tribes precludes a detailed description of cultural factors that might play a role in tribal differences, the NP tribe arguably suffered a greater number and severity of such historical events. Regardless, it is noteworthy that both personal levels of historical consciousness and attitudes toward the importance of historical consciousness in their communities were relatively high in both

542

American Behavioral Scientist

tribal samples and that levels of historical consciousness differed by ancestor involvement and tribe. A second important finding is that the historical consciousness items form a single factor or dimension. Thus, those with a high degree of individual historical consciousness also consider tribal history to be important for their communities. This evokes a question of how personal involvement and attitudes toward the importance of historical consciousness develop with time. Given that these are cross-sectional data from a largely adult sample, we cannot seek to understand their possible sequencing here. We explored whether the structure of historical consciousness differed by tribe, gender, age, and ancestor involvement and found that the models fit better when the factors estimated separately for NP and SW and for ancestor involved and ancestor not involved. In other words, the correlations of each item (personal frequency, personal familiarity, community impact, and community lack of knowledge) to the historical consciousness factor varied across these groupings— and in particular, community lack of knowledge was less correlated with the historical consciousness factor for those in the NP than the SW and also less for those reporting ancestor involvement than those without ancestor involvement. The personal familiarity item also demonstrated some differences. What is most important here, however, is that although some variability was found in the magnitude of the correlations of these items to the factor of historical consciousness, for all groups, these four items still formed a single latent construct; in other words, historical consciousness appears to be a measurable concept in these American Indian communities. Third, historical consciousness as measured here is related in meaningful ways to the demographic variables. In both tribes, gender was largely unrelated to historical consciousness, but age was positively related in the NP. Of more interest were the relationships of education and Indian identity to the latent construct of historical consciousness. As anticipated, Indian identity was positively correlated with historical consciousness, even when controlling for age, gender, and education. This finding also raises interesting developmental questions about whether historical consciousness develops as a precursor to or consequence of Indian identity or whether the two constructs might be “parallel processes” where each develops with time in a mutually reinforcing manner (Muthen & Muthen, 2000). Only carefully designed developmental studies will allow such an exploration. The relationship of education to historical consciousness is perhaps most intriguing. Here again, tribal differences were found with the slope of education being related to historical consciousness only in the NP; furthermore, this slope became steeper as years of formal education increased. Although no questions were asked about where participants obtained their college education, the tribal college system is very strong in the NP and is the only alternative for those tribal members who wish to remain in the community while attending college. In contrast, local community colleges and branches of the state universities have campuses adjacent to the reservation in the SW. Thus, it is quite possible that tribal colleges, which often have

Jervis et al. / Historical Consciousness

543

curricula emphasizing tribal history, might partially explain the tribal differences here. The impact of education in tribal colleges in the NP appears to be especially pronounced among those who do not believe their ancestors were directly involved in significant historic tribal events.

Conclusion This study finds the concept of historical consciousness to be a definable construct with demonstrated relationships to Indian identity and formal education in these two representative samples of American Indians. However, this study has several important limitations that should be kept in mind. For instance, the participating tribes represent only a small proportion of the culturally diverse people identified as American Indian. That important tribal differences were found underscores the importance of not generalizing to other tribes without further work. Also, only American Indians who lived on or near reservations were eligible for the study, leaving unknown how consciousness of significant historical events may differ from what is reported here among American Indians living in geographic contexts other than these. Moreover, the four historically focused questions included in this effort were not designed to comprehensively examine the issue of historical consciousness, nor is it clear that they represent all domains relevant to the concept. Essentially, this effort constitutes a first step toward measuring historical consciousness in these populations. The analytic approach has limitations as well. Although the use of Mplus allowed an investigation of the latent structure of the four available historical consciousness items, we did not take full advantage of this technology. For instance, we chose to use the Indian Identity Scale score rather than including a confirmatory factor model for that construct; in large part, this was done to streamline the analyses presented here. Also, we chose to regress historical consciousness on the demographic variables, education, and Indian identity rather than building a full structural model where we tested, for instance, whether education and Indian identity might be considered mediators between the demographics and historical consciousness. Given the cross-sectional nature of these data and the lack of a theoretical basis for arguing causal precedence of Indian identity before historical consciousness, for instance, we felt a full structural model was unsupportable. That the final model had a comparative fit index of only .848 reflects this decision in that we did not model the relationships between these exogenous variables but instead treated them simply as correlates. However, as mentioned above, we hope this work instigates exploration in the development of historical consciousness. Yet another limitation concerns the difficulties of approaching historical consciousness within the confines of an epidemiological study. Undoubtedly, ethnographic and

544

American Behavioral Scientist

ethnohistorical examination of these issues would contribute greatly to this discussion by illuminating how historical consciousness plays out in people’s worldviews and everyday lives. Of particular interest is the extent to which Native people perceive links between past historical events, their present lives, and their cultural identities. Moreover, ethnographic and ethnohistorical work could provide insight into the sources that inform tribal members’ individual beliefs about the past (e.g., educational system, media, oral history). It is also important to note that no research on historical events can adequately contend with the problem of forgetting. As Sturken (1997) noted, painful events that are too dangerous to keep in active memory may be strategically forgotten by a culture. Fogelson (1989) referred to such happenings as “denied events” (p. 143), exemplified by the relatively small number of Cherokee accounts of their removal exodus, which arguably was so degrading and brutal that it took on an air of unreality among its victims. Obviously, events that have been repressed or lost to memory cannot be reported or reflected on, meaning this article investigates only phenomena that have been rendered into active memory. And this evokes subsequent questions: To what extent are these historically significant events perceived as traumatic? Does the secondary traumatization concept apply here and if so, what is its relationship to historical consciousness? Of the events in which participants reported ancestor involvement, all were Indian specific with the exception of 20th-century wars; even these, however, may have had a unique impact on Native participants. It is ironic that despite their forced colonization and long history of military conflict with the federal government, American Indians are well represented among the U.S. armed forces and have served in this country’s previous wars (Beals et al., 2002). By far the largest number of participants, however, stated that ancestors had been involved in 19th-century battles, massacres, or removals. There are several possible explanations for this, including the possibility that a large number of ancestors actually participated in these kinds of events. Alternatively, these occurrences may function as “epitomizing events,” that is, “narratives that condense, encapsulate, and dramatize longer-term historical processes” (Fogelson, 1989, p. 143). In other words, these battles, massacres, and removals continue to have a high profile within each tribe’s cultural memories precisely because they epitomize and at least partially explain the situation in which Native people, both contemporaneously and historically, find themselves. And because all historical consciousness represents only the remembered past (Lukacs, 1985), reinforcement— either through repeated media exposure, history classes, or other acts of cultural memorization—no doubt increases the odds that particular events will be remembered and accorded cultural significance. As theorists in the area of historical consciousness can attest, there is clearly a relationship between historical education, media portrayals, and collective memory (Seixas, 2004). An important next step might be a more in-depth analysis of these events and whether the structure and

Jervis et al. / Historical Consciousness

545

correlates of historical consciousness differ by these events; however, such an exploration is precluded here given the predominance of 19th-century battles, massacres, and removals. This study only begins to explore issues of historical consciousness among American Indian people. It is clear that much work remains to better understand the impact of historical legacy on contemporary Native people. Despite its limitations, this study finds that the structure of historical consciousness differs by tribe and ancestor involvement, as do the relationships of this construct to education and Indian identity. These findings caution against the temptation to assert that all American Indians share similar perspectives with respect to tribal history. Such a notion has sometimes been an unfortunate implication within the existing literature on Native peoples. Indeed, the present research conveys a sense of how complex these issues are when one considers multivariate data. Although this complexity was indeed pronounced, some straightforward results nonetheless emerged from our analyses. Stated simply, it is clear that the past is neither forgotten nor deemed unimportant among these contemporary American Indian tribes. Moreover, for both tribal groups, those with an ancestor involved in a significant historical event showed greater historical consciousness. The possible directionality of this relationship is interesting in and of itself: Did people with higher levels of historical consciousness have more incentive to believe that their ancestors were involved in historically significant events—either because it was consistent with their general worldview and/or because they were therefore more motivated to investigate these connections—or were the people who reported ancestor involvement from traditional families who were, indeed, more likely to have been involved in these kinds of events? This study raises important questions about the manner in which tribal history is transmitted within Native communities. In the NP, increasing levels of formal education were related to greater historical consciousness. As suggested earlier, variations in available educational opportunities for these communities could account for the tribal differences noted in these analyses. A closer examination of the historical education available in various reservation settings might help shed light on this finding. Taken as a whole, these findings may have implications for cultural survival. Indeed, some scholars have argued that a highly developed sense of historical consciousness is decisive in Native survival when facing genocide and forced acculturation (Fogelson, 1989). History, in this view, is not something received passively by Native peoples but a “potent force that they actively utilize, refashion, and manipulate as a survival mechanism” (Fogelson, 1989, p. 140). The connection between group survival and awareness of tribal history attests to the need for continuing scholarship in the area of historical consciousness among contemporary Indigenous people, many of whom do not take as a given their continued existence as distinct cultural groups.

546

American Behavioral Scientist

Notes 1. Members of the American Indian Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project (AI-SUPERPFP) Team include Cecelia K. Big Crow, Dedra Buchwald, Buck Chambers, Denise A. Dillard, Karen DuBray, Paula A. Espinoza, Candace M. Fleming, Ann Wilson Frederick, Diana Gurley, Shirlene M. Jim, Carol E. Kaufman, Ellen M. Keane, Denise Lee, Monica C. McNulty, Denise L. Middlebrook, Christina M. Mitchell, Laurie A. Moore, Tilda D. Nez, Ilena M. Norton, Douglas K. Novins, Heather D. Orton, Carlette J. Randall, Angela Sam, Michelle L. Christensen Sarche, James H. Shore, Sylvia G. Simpson, Paul Spicer, and Lorette L. Yazzie. 2. At the request of our tribal partners, it is the policy of the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center’s American Indian and Alaska Native Programs, the institution responsible for conducting this research, to maintain participant confidentiality at both the individual and community level. For this reason, the specific tribes with whom we worked are not identified here. To protect tribal confidentiality, in-depth examination of the unique cultural factors playing into understandings of tribal history among the two tribes is not possible.

References Bal, M. (1999). Introduction. In M. Bal, J. Crewe, & L. Spitzer (Eds.), Acts of memory: Cultural recall in the present (pp. vii-xvii). Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Ball, T. J. (1998). Prevalence rates of full and partial PTSD and lifetime trauma in a sample of adult members of an American Indian tribe. Eugene: University of Oregon. Beals, J., Holmes, T., Ashcraft, M., Fairbank, J., Friedman, M., Jones, M., et al. (2002). A comparison of the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder across five racially and ethnically distinct samples of Vietnam theater veterans. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 15(2), 89-97. Beals, J., Manson, S. M., Mitchell, C. M., Spicer, P., & the AI-SUPERPFP Team. (2003). Cultural specificity and comparison in psychiatric epidemiology: Walking the tightrope in American Indian research. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 27, 259-289. Braveheart-Jordan, M., & DeBruyn, L. M. (1995). So she may walk in balance: Integrating the impact of historical trauma in the treatment of Native American Indian women. In J. Adleman & G. M. Enguidanos (Eds.), Racism in the lives of women: Testimony, theory, and guides to antiracist practice (pp. 345-368). New York: Haworth. Cochran, W. G. (1977). Sampling techniques (3rd ed.). New York: John Wiley. Danieli, Y. (1998a). Conclusion and future directions. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 669-689). New York: Plenum. Danieli, Y. (1998b). Introduction: History and conceptual foundations. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), Intergenerational handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 1-17). New York: Plenum. Duran, E., & Duran, B. (1995). Native American postcolonial psychology. New York: State University of New York. Duran, E., Duran, B., Yellow Horse Brave Heart, M., & Yellow Horse-Davis, S. (1998). Healing the American Indian soul wound. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 341-354). New York: Plenum. Felsen, I. (1998). Transgenerational transmission of effects of the Holocaust: The North American research perspective. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), Intergenerational handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 43-68). New York: Plenum. Figley, C. R., & Kleber, R. J. (1995). Beyond the “victim”: Secondary traumatic stress. In R. J. Kleber, C. R. Figley, & B. P. R. Gersons (Eds.), Beyond trauma: Cultural and societal dynamics (pp. 75-98). New York: Plenum.

Jervis et al. / Historical Consciousness

547

Figlio, K. (2003). Getting to the beginning: Identification and concrete thinking in historical consciousness. In S. Radstone & K. Hodgkin (Eds.), Regimes of memory (pp. 152-166). London: Routledge. Fogelson, R. D. (1989). The ethnohistory of events and nonevents. Ethnohistory, 36(2), 133-147. Gagne, M.-A. (1998). The role of dependency and colonialism in generating trauma in First Nations citizens: The James Bay Cree. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 355-372). New York: Plenum. Lee, P. (2004). Understanding history. In P. Seixas (Ed.), Theorizing historical consciousness (pp. 129-164). Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Letourneau, J., & Moisan, S. (2004). Young people’s assimilation of a collective historical memory: A case study of Quebeckers of French-Canadian heritage. In P. Seixas (Ed.), Theorizing historical consciousness (pp. 109-128). Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Lukacs, J. (1985). Historical consciousness: Or the remembered past. New York: Schocken. Manson, S., Beals, J., O’Nell, T., Piasecki, J., Bechtold, D., Keane, E., et al. (1996). Wounded spirits, ailing hearts: PTSD and related disorders among American Indians. In A. J. Marsella, M. J. Friedman, E. T. Gerrity, & R. M. Scurfield (Eds.), Ethnocultural aspects of posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues, research, and clinical applications (pp. 255-283). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. McBeth, S. (2003). Memory, history, and contested pasts: Re-imagining Sacagawea/Sacajawea. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 27(1), 1-32. Mplus user’s guide: Fourth edition, Version 3.13 [Computer program]. (1998-2006). Los Angeles: Muthen and Muthen. Muthen, B., & Muthen, L. K. (2000). Integrating person-centered and variable-centered analyses: Growth mixture modeling with latent trajectory classes. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 24(6), 882-891. Nagata, D. K. (1998). Intergenerational effects of the Japanese American internment. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), Intergenerational handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 125-139). New York: Plenum. Oetting, E. R., & Beauvais, F. (1990-1991). Orthogonal cultural identification theory: The cultural identification of minority adolescents. International Journal of the Addictions, 25, 655-685. Prince, R. M. (1985). Second generation effects of trauma. Psychoanalytic Review, 72(1), 9-29. Robin, R. W., Chester, B., & Goldman, D. (1996). Cumulative trauma and PTSD in American Indian communities. In A. J. Marsella, M. J. Friedman, E. T. Gerrity, & R. M. Scurfield (Eds.), Ethnocultural aspects of posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues, research, and clinical applications (pp. 239-253). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Rosenheck, R. (1986). Impact of posttraumatic stress disorder of World War II on the next generation. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174(6), 319-327. Rosenheck, R., & Fontana, A. (1998). Warrior fathers and warrior sons: Intergenerational aspects of trauma. In Y. Danieli (Ed.), Intergenerational handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 225-242). New York: Plenum. Rowland-Klein, D., & Dunlop, R. (1997). The transmission of trauma across generations: Identification with parental trauma in children of Holocaust survivors. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 31, 358-369. Seixas, P. (2004). Introduction. In P. Seixas (Ed.), Theorizing historical consciousness (pp. 3-20). Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press. Solkoff, N. (1992). Children of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust: A critical review of the literature. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 62(3), 342-358. Stamm, B. H., & Stamm, H. E. (1999). Trauma and loss in Native North America: An ethnographic perspective. In K. Nader, N. Dubrow, & B. H. Stamm (Eds.), Honoring differences: Cultural issues in the treatment of trauma and loss (pp. 49-75). Philadelphia: Taylor & Francis. Stata. (2003). Stata/SE 8.0 for Windows (Version 8.0) [Computer software]. College Station, TX: Stata Corporation.

548

American Behavioral Scientist

Sturken, M. (1997). Tangled memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS epidemic, and the politics of remembering. Berkeley: University of California Press. Whitbeck, L. B., Adams, G. W., Hoyt, D. R., & Chen, X. (2004). Conceptualizing and measuring historical trauma among American Indian people. American Journal of Community Psychology, 33(3/4), 119-130. Yehuda, R., Schmeidler, J., Giller, E. L., Siever, L. J., & Binder-Brynes, K. (1998). Relationship between posttraumatic stress disorder characteristics of Holocaust survivors and their adult offspring. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155(6), 841-843. Yehuda, R., Schmeidler, J., Wainberg, M., Binder-Brynes, K., & Duvdevani, T. (1998). Vulnerability to posttraumatic stress disorder in adult offspring of Holocaust survivors. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155(9), 1163-1171. Yellow Horse Brave Heart, M., & DeBruyn, L. M. (1998). The American Indian holocaust: Healing historical unresolved grief. American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research, 8(2), 56-78.

Lori L. Jervis, PhD, is a medical anthropologist and assistant professor at the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. She has worked on a number of research projects at the intersection of anthropology, psychiatry, and gerontology. Her most recent project focuses on the occurrence and cultural phenomenology of cognitive impairment among Northern Plains Native elders. Her current research interests include cultural expressions of psychiatric distress, ethnogerontology, cognitive impairment, Native North America, and U.S. culture. She has recently published articles on cognitive impairment among older American Indians and on mental health care in tribal nursing homes. Janette Beals, PhD, is a social psychologist and associate professor at the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs (AIANP), Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. Codirector of research, she has directed several of the larger AIANP epidemiologic research efforts including the Flower of Two Soils Reinterview, the American Indian Vietnam Veterans Project, and the American Indian Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project. Her publications include methodological articles, measure development, epidemiological descriptions of American Indian mental health/substance use, and descriptions of service use patterns in American Indian communities. Calvin D. Croy, PhD, is a senior instructor in the American Indian and Alaska Native Programs, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, where he provides statistical analysis support. He has coauthored articles on American Indian decisions to participate in health research, alcohol dependence and natural recovery, statistical sample size determination, and methods for addressing missing data in psychiatric and developmental research. His current research interest is methods for data imputation. Suzell A. Klein, MA, serves as training director and national protocol director for a multisite national randomized controlled trial for adolescents diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and substance use disorders. This protocol examines behavioral, pharmacological, and integrated treatment interventions of therapeutic effect across a broad range of community-based treatment settings and diversified patient populations. She also serves as training director for a behavioral therapies development grant that aims to develop a manualized early intervention for adolescent substance abuse (based on traditional martial arts), and research coordinator for the Adolescent Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. Her training is in social/ personality psychology and health and behavioral sciences. Areas of interest include adolescents with substance use disorders and resiliency.

Jervis et al. / Historical Consciousness

549

Spero M. Manson, PhD (Pembina Chippewa), is a professor of psychiatry and head, American Indian and Alaska Native Programs (AIANP) at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. The AIANP is composed of eight centers, each national in scope, that cover the developmental life span in terms of research, training, continuing education, technical assistance, and information dissemination specific to the health of this special population. He has published more than 170 articles and chapters on the assessment, epidemiology, and prevention of alcohol, drug, mental, and physical health problems across the developmental life span of Indian and Native people. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Indian Health Service’s Distinguished Service Award (1985, 1996, 2004), the prestigious Rema Lapouse Mental Health Epidemiology Award from the American Public Health Association (1998), Walker-Ames Professorship at the University of Washington (1999-2000), the Hammer Award from former Vice President Gore (1999), election to the Institute of Medicine (2002), the Stoklos Visiting Professorship at the University of Arizona (2004), Legacy Award (2006) from the National Institute of Mental Health–sponsored Family Research Consortium, Mentor of the Year (2006) from the Gerontological Society of America, and the Herbert W. Nickens Award (2006) from the Association of American Medical Colleges.