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The lingering effects of historical trauma

by Melanie Ford
Zenith City Weekly

My son’s first word was zapato. Both my children spoke Spanish and English before they started school. Once they set foot in a Minnesota kindergarten, though, their Spanish–speaking days were doomed. At home, they responded less and less in Spanish and, eventually, stopped speaking it altogether.

Like millions of first–generation children of European immigrants to the United States, they assimilated into White American culture to fit in. For non–European people without light skin, assimilation isn’t so easy.

Those educating our children and creating our laws should have an understanding of other cultures, whether or not they agree with the values of those cultures. History—the one not taught much in school—shows us why.

White European values dictated that ownership of land created dominance and having people work your land created power. This resulted in more than just policies embracing slavery.

Many Indigenous people feel connected to the earth and value the land, plants, and animals with a sense of kinship, not ownership and dominion. Instead of understanding their worldview, the newcomers saw them as savages and killed them, either intentionally or through the introduction of diseases.

Over the years, U.S. federal policies decimated the Indigenous population, driving them into poverty:

•The Dawes, or General Allotment, Act broke up tribes and secured land for White farmers/homesteaders.

•The Termination Act of the mid–1900s further reduced sovereignty of the tribes and subjected their members to state and federal taxation.

•The Relocation Program of the 1950s and ’60s, enacted after the abysmal results of forcing Native Americans to live off predetermined plots of land, attempted to move tribal members to urban areas for employment.

•About 500 treaties with Native nations have been broken, resulting in loss of water, buffalo, and other resources that had sustained generations of people.

Europeans did not attempt to understand the Native cultures, which placed more value on family, tradition, and a sacred relationship to the earth. Instead, Whites offered money, assimilation, and religious education.

Under the Civilization Fund Act, Native children were removed from their homes to mostly religious boarding schools, under the control of Whites, where they lost their languages and customs.

Parents mourned the loss of their children, who were often sexually and physically assaulted at these schools. Forced to be survivors and without role models, they didn’t learn how to be parents themselves.

Because a third of Native American youth in the 1970s were in out–of–home placement, the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, requiring the government to collaborate with a foster child’s tribe. Unfortunately, it hasn’t succeeded in eliminating the disparities.

This history still affects the health of Native Americans. Adults fall into depression and alcoholism. Teens are more likely to drop out of school or commit suicide.

According to a 2010 report from the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Native youth in our region are 12 times more likely to be placed in foster care.

Data from the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative show that, at times, up to half of those held in detention for alleged delinquency are Native children.

[Author’s disclosure: I obtained funding and technical support to bring the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative to St. Louis County in 2008 and was chair of the oversight committee. I’m currently a community representative on the steering committee.]

Local advocacy groups Mending the Sacred Hoop and Community Action Duluth report that Native American women are three times more likely than White women to be sexually assaulted and 49 percent locally live in poverty. The four–year graduation rate for Native children in the Duluth School district is 34 percent.

I often hear people say Native Americans should stop living off welfare, start paying their share of taxes, pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and go to work. These stereotypes don’t recognize the historical trauma and structural racism that has undermined the social and emotional fabric of Native American families.

It is not up to people of color to pull themselves up—when systems don’t change, the blame is wrongly placed on them, rather than on the institutions that affect them. Agency staff at all levels should learn the histories and cultures of non–White people.

My horoscope for the week of August 11 said: "You are in tune to the ways others perceive the world, but you do not always choose to see things the same way. Your open mind allows you great flexibility of thought."

That’s a good start.

Melanie Ford is a lawyer in Duluth. She is on the Board of Directors of Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, Inc., which works to eliminate racism and the disparate impact of political, social, and governmental policies on people of color.

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