Knowledge and Contemporary Effects of Historical Trauma on American Indian and Alaska Native People

Previous generations of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people endured traumatic events that continue to affect current generations. These traumatic events are remembered across generations and include community massacres, rapid spreading of diseases, forced relocation, forced removal of children to Indian boarding schools, and illegalization of spiritual and cultural practices.5 Additionally, the historical trauma response manifests in feelings of sadness, grief, and anger when Indigenous people remember the historical losses their group has experienced.6 However, the study of historical trauma is new in understanding what these effects are and how they impact individuals, families, and communities. This research examines the knowledge and experiences of historical trauma by American Indian and Alaska Native college students at a four-year college in the Mountain West that has a history of being an Indian Boarding School from 1891 to 1911. Students were asked to tell their stories of how historical trauma has impacted them, and their communities, and how historical trauma influences the way they see the world. Findings within these interviews suggest an impactful journey through storytelling of how each participant conceptualized historical trauma for themselves, their families, and their communities; the initial impact of first learning about historical trauma; connecting the past events to current events, the importance of talking and sharing this information with others; the process of hurting and healing; and the feeling of realization, empowerment, and acceptance of historical trauma. 5  Stannard, D. E. (1992). American holocaust: Columbus and the conquest of the New World. Oxford University Press; Thornton, R. (1987). American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. University of Oklahoma Press. 6  Duran, E., Duran, B., Brave Heart, M. Y. H., & Yellow Horse-Davis, S. (1998). Healing the American Indian soul wound. In International handbook of multigenerational legacies of trauma (pp. 341-354). Springer

CONTESTING LIBERALISM, REFUSING DEATH: A BIOPOLITICAL CRITIQUE OF NAVAJO HISTORY

This dissertation considers the pivotal role that liberalism, particularly as it is expressed and enforced through post-livestock reduction era logics of tribal economic development, plays in advancing a relentless and violent form of U.S. settler colonialism bent on the elimination of Navajo life. I use Michel Foucault’s framework of biopolitics as a theory of history to unlock, identify, and interpret what brought Navajo life into the realm of explicit calculation in Navajo political formations. I use the terms ‘experimental liberalism’ and ‘extractive liberalism’ to frame the two primary biopolitical formations I see at work in this period of Navajo history. I argue that both the experimentation with, and the extraction of, Navajo life emerged in the post-livestock reduction era as two key paradigms for reproducing the ongoing structures and designs of elimination at the heart of U.S. settler colonialism. I examine archival and oral evidence that sheds light on the ways that academic knowledge (the subject of chapter two), ideologies of nationalism (the subject of chapter three), and practices of rape and misogyny (the subject of chapter four) function as technologies of death masquerading as promises of life, and I pair these elements of my study with a critique of the liberal underpinnings of Navajo Studies—a field long dominated by normative approaches to history and anthropology. I call for a reframing of Navajo Studies to what I term Critical Diné Studies. Critical Diné Studies draws from alternative political formations that materialized in the 1970s to resist experimentation and extraction. The politics of life that these political formations have developed can best be described as a refusal to die. Following Audra Simpson, I call these alternative political formations “Diné refusals.” Diné refusals have created equally influential historical possibilities by articulating a different politics of Navajo life that contests, redirects, and, ultimately, opposes the violent registers of settler colonial biopolitics that have motivated the liberal formations I track in this study. I therefore draw from their traditions to ground my approach to Critical Diné Studies

Protection of Navajo Sacred Objects

Navajo cultural items are being misused, lost, stolen, and sold in pawnshops, Indian stores, the internet, and at pow-wows. This thesis argues that tribes should consider enacting tribal legislation to prevent this spiritual loss and provides a model tribal code developed for the Navajo Nation. This study draws from years of personal direct observation, and secondary and primary sources, such as newspaper articles, federal Indian laws, and books. Navajo traditional law and western law visualize "ownership," differently especially the ownership of sacred items. As the two societies interacted, serious problems emerged when western legal concepts were applied to items the Navajo people consider to have spiritual nature. This research finds that current tribal programming is not designed to prevent the sale or pawning of such items. This thesis proposes that the Nation adopt a tribal code that reflects traditional Navajo concepts of ownership to prevent such losses

Availability of Treatment to Youth Offenders: Comparison of Public versus Private Programs from a National Census

Across the United States, the availability of mental health, substance abuse, and recidivism reduction programs in the juvenile justice system (JJS) varies from none or few to a rich variety of programs. Within the last decade, prison privatization in the adult correctional system has influenced the onset of privatization in the JJS. The differences between public and private sectors in their availability of mental health services and treatment programs to juvenile offenders are understudied. In this article, a secondary analysis of a national census of 3163 juvenile facilities was conducted to determine differences in treatment availability as well as the impact of treatment accessibility on the event of a suicide. Results indicate private facilities more likely to offer treatment services and schedule mental health personnel more frequently. Those facilities reporting family counseling treatment programs were less likely to have reported a suicide event. Policy implications and a review of progress towards improvement in the JJS are presented

The Arc and the Sediment

Gretta Bitsilly, gin-steeped mother of two and self-proclaimed expert at standing outside the margins of ethnicity and peering in, has been all but eclipsed by the world that eludes her--as a wife, a writer, a skeptic in the other land of Zion, Utah. Gretta has set off to Fort Defiance, Arizona, where she hopes to convince her Navajo husband, who has escaped not from his family but from alcoholism, to come home. Over a sputtering two-steps-forward, one-step-back desert journey, Gretta is diverted by chance, seizures, an inconstant memory, and the disjointed character of her irresolute quest. She is fueled by a volatile mix of rage and curiosity and is rendered careless by ambivalence toward her marriage--she knows a welcome mat will not be waiting for her, that white girl who can\u27t seem to get anything right. On route Gretta finds herself lost in the landscape, in strange company, or in her own convolution of language and inner space. With a dictionary and a laptop she attempts to write herself into a better existence--a hopeful existence--and to connect points of intellectual, physical, even spiritual reference. This tale, though dark and difficult, is infused with tart, twisted humor. Confused, disheveled, self-deprecating, and self-destructive, Gretta is also sharp and funny. Here, first-time novelist Christine Allen-Yazzie breaks apart her own narrative arc but with gritty reality seals it near-shut again, if in rearrangement, drawing us into Gretta\u27s wrestling match with herself, her husband, her addiction, and the road.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/1084/thumbnail.jp

Information Technology Implementation and Sustainment Model: Data Collection Instrument

The goal of this research was to develop a data collection instrument for an existing information technology implementation and sustainment model. In 2003, a unique system dynamics model was developed at the Air Force Institute of Technology to predict the behavior of information technology implementation and sustainment (Fonnesbeck, 2003). However, no empirical data was used during the model development. In order to collect the needed empirical data, this research develops a data collection instrument for the model. The instrument was sent to 60 Air Force community planners who are currently implementing a geographical information system (Air Force GeoBase) into their planning process. The reliability analysis of the instrument resulted in reliability coefficients exceeding the recommended Cronbach\u27s alpha in all but one factor. The implementation of the model for the first time with empirical data showed promising results. The model output indicated steady increase to implementation completion and solid sustainment thereafter