Native American Organizations Research Articles

We Are Still Here: Omission and Perceived Discrimination Galvanized Civic Engagement Among Native Americans

Leading up to the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Native American organizations and tribes launched get-out-the-vote campaigns that motivated Native peoples to vote in record numbers and helped flip battleground states. We conducted four studies (total N = 11,661 Native American adults) to examine the social and cultural factors explaining this historic Native civic engagement (e.g., campaigning). Results revealed that the more participants identified as being Native, the more they reported (a) engaging in civic activities, including get-out-the-vote behaviors during the 2020 election (Study 1); (b) civic engagement more broadly across a 5-year period (pilot study, Study 2); and (c) intentions to engage in civic activities in the future (Study 3). Moreover, participants who more strongly identified as Native were more likely to recognize the omission of their group from society and perceive greater group discrimination, which both independently and serially predicted greater civic engagement. These results suggest that leveraging the link between Native identification and group injustices can motivate action.

Jack Dwayne Farmer April 18, 1947-February 22, 2023.

Jack Dwayne Farmer April 18, 1947-February 22, 2023.

The Impact of Sociability on College Academic Performance and Retention of Native Americans

Colleges and universities have devoted considerable effort toward keeping students in school until graduation. Researchers accordingly have studied various factors that shape these retention rates, including integration into the school's culture and involvement in school activities as well as innate academic ability. Yet more studies need to specifically examine the complex mix of positive and negative influences on Native American student retention. This article evaluates some of those influences by investigating whether a strong desire for social interaction can encourage these students to succeed academically and remain in school until graduation. At one predominantly White institution lacking Native American organizations, we find that increased receptivity to social interactions by Native American students has a positive impact on grades but a negative influence on retention. We propose that schools should adopt a mix of general and culture-specific activities to encourage better Native American graduation rates.

Preliminary Lessons Learned from the “Native Navigators and the Cancer Continuum” (NNACC)

This community-based participatory research (CBPR) study was based on patient navigation (Navigator) among three original sites: Colorado, Michigan, and South Dakota. During 2010, the study added two sites: the Comanche Nation and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation (Oklahoma). The intervention includes 24-h of a Navigator-implemented cancer education program that addresses the full continuum of cancer care. The partners include agreements with up to two local Native American organizations each year, called Memorandum Native Organizations, who have strong relationships with local American Indians. Family fun events are used to initiate the series of workshops and to collect baseline data and also to wrap up and evaluate the series 3 months following the completion of the workshop series. Evaluation data are collected using an audience response system (ARS) and stored using an online evaluation program. Among the lessons learned to date are: the Institutional Review Board processes required both regional and national approvals and took more than 9 months. All of the workshop slides were missing some components and needed refinements. The specifics for the Memorandum Native Organization deliverables needed more details. The ARS required additional training sessions, but once learned the Navigator use the ARS well. Use of the NACR website for a password-protected page to store all NNACC workshop and training materials was easier to manage than use of other online storage programs. The community interest in taking part in the workshops was greater than what was anticipated. All of the Navigators' skills are improving and all are enjoying working with the community.

Protecting Sacred Sites on Public Land: Religion and Alliances in the Mato Tipila-Devils Tower Litigation

Protecting Sacred Sites on Public Land:Religion and Alliances in the Mato Tipila-Devils Tower Litigation Eric Freedman (bio) Conflicts over Native American sacred places on public lands usually involve multiple interest groups. That was true in a dispute over a National Park Service (nps) policy to discourage climbing at Devils Tower National Monument during the month of the Sun Dance. Such conflicts sometimes end in court, as happened when a group called the Bear Lodge Multiple Use Association—a commercial guiding service—and recreational climbers sued the nps to challenge the plan as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; that clause provides that "Congress shall make no law . . . respecting an establishment of religion." The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and several of its spiritual leaders intervened on the side of the nps. What made this case unusual is that a variety of "mainstream" religious and religious rights organizations joined Native American groups and scholars who described themselves as "active in Federal Indian law and/or the religious issues under the First Amendment" in filing friend-of-the-court briefs in Bear Lodge Multiple Use Association v. Babbitt.1 The case reflects a broadening of the more common litigation alliances in which environmental groups participate alongside tribes and other Native American organizations. Here, no environmental groups participated as litigation allies. This case study uses interviews, judicial decisions, litigation documents, and other public records to examine the alliance in this lawsuit and its implications. This article discusses factors that informed decisions by Native American and "public interest" groups and the process by which they allied themselves. Mato Tipila (Bear Lodge)—also known as Devils Tower and, in Lakota, He Hota Paha (Grey Horn Butte)—is a rugged butte towering above the [End Page 1] Belle Fourche River in northeastern Wyoming. The United States' first national monument is a sacred place steeped in Native American culture and history, a place of religious practices and creation. The monument is open for recreational, aesthetic, research, and commercial uses under management by the nps, a unit of the U.S. Department of the Interior. It has become a magnet for as many as five thousand to six thousand climbers and their innumerable spectators among the monument's five hundred thousand annual visitors. As a result it is an economic asset for the regional tourism industry. In 1995 after three years of discussion including consultation with Native American groups, the nps adopted a Climbing Management Plan (CMP) to regulate recreational climbing activities and protect the monument's natural and cultural resources. The CMP culminated from a lengthy administrative planning process that acknowledged the potential for conflict between Indians and climbers.2 The process included extensive participation by stakeholders outside the nps: Native American communities strongly affiliated with the site; local and national climbing organizations; local and national environmental groups; and county government. There were work groups, mutual education efforts, "cultural brokering," and a compromise reflecting cultural values.3 As amended after the litigation began, the plan included educational and environmental programs; but the controversial component asked climbers to "voluntarily refrain from climbing . . . during the culturally significant month of June," when the Sun Dance and other Native American ceremonies occur.4 The CMP cited "the reverence many American Indians hold for Devils Tower as a sacred site." One goal of the plan was to teach the public about the site's character so the number of climbers would drop voluntarily to zero and thus forestall more stringent measures, including a possible mandatory ban. Ultimately, a U.S. district court judge and a federal appeals court rejected the challenge to the CMP. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a further appeal. The voluntary ban remains in effect. The monument's Web site describes the policy this way, "Climbers are asked to refrain from climbing during the month of June out of respect for American Indians."5 The effect of the policy is reflected in an average annual 79 percent decline in the number of June climbers, compared to the 1990–1994 preclosure average for the month. However, the voluntary compliance rate has been declining [End Page 2] and reached a low of 69...

Small Numbers/Big City: Innovative Presentations of Pacific Islander Art and Culture in Phoenix, Arizona

This resource paper provides an overview of how the small but growing Pacific Islander and Asian American community in Phoenix has sustained, developed, and preserved its culture and art in the absence of a permanent AAPI art or cultural museum. This article gives examples of such alternative formats and includes details on dance, music, and other folk cultural practices. Metropolitan statistical areas with AAPI populations comparable to Phoenix include Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Dallas. Phoenix community groups use small, temporary displays at annual AAPI cultural festivals. One approach is a ?museum on wheels? ? a used tour bus filled with certified reproductions of artifacts on loan from the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Native Hawaiians also collaborate with the more numerous Native American organizations that can provide venues for indigenous arts. Universities and state humanities councils are frequent sources of funding for AAPI artists. MSAs with Pacific Islander populations most comparable to Phoenix (in the range of 10,000 to 15,000) are the U.S. Southwestern cities of Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. Pacific Islanders in these cities might be most likely to employ display formats and strategies similar to those used in Phoenix.

Small Numbers/Big City: Innovative Presentations of Pacific Islander Art and Culture in Phoenix, Arizona

This resource paper provides an overview of how the small but growing Pacific Islander and Asian American community in Phoenix has sustained, developed, and preserved its culture and art in the absence of a permanent AAPI art or cultural museum. This article gives examples of such alternative formats and includes details on dance, music, and other folk cultural practices. Metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with AAPI populations comparable to Phoenix include Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Dallas. Phoenix community groups use small, temporary displays at annual AAPI cultural festivals. One approach is a museum on wheels-a used tour bus filled with certified reproductions of artifacts on loan from the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. Native Hawaiians also collaborate with the more numerous Native American organizations that can provide venues for indigenous arts. Universities and state humanities councils are frequent sources of funding for AAPI artists. MSAs with Pacific Islander populations most comparable to Ph...

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

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.

Employees' Sense of Community, Sense of Control, and Work/Family Conflict in Native American Organizations

This study examines two critical psychological states—employees' sense of work community and their sense of control—as mediating variables between personal/work factors and work/family conflict in the context of two Native American organizations. The questionnaire data come from 151 employees, 77 of whom are Nez Perce Indians. Results using structural equation modeling show that employees' sense of community and sense of control at work mediate the relationship among four personal/work factors (employees' ethnicity, family-sensitive supervision, the intrinsic value they place on their work, and work flexibility) and work/family role conflict.

Reducing Cancer Risk among Native American Adolescents

Background.This article discusses the development, implementation, and preliminary testing of an intervention to reduce cancer risks through tobacco use prevention and dietary modification among Native American youth in the Northeastern United States.Methods.The intervention outcome study includes a research design and outcome measurement instruments. In collaboration with Native American communities, reservations, and organizations in the Northeastern United States, implementation of the design quantifies the separate and combined effects of a tobacco use prevention and a dietary modification intervention.Results.Native American youths in the tobacco prevention intervention and in the combined tobacco and dietary intervention increased their knowledge of tobacco facts and their awareness of the motives of tobacco advertising, and showed higher ratings for an ability to resist peer pressure and to refuse offers of tobacco use between pretest and posttest. Youths in the combined intervention were significantly less apt to report smoking of any kind. Youths in the tobacco use prevention-only condition reported significantly less smoking than their counterparts in the dietary modification-only condition and control condition on 4 of 8 measurement items. As for dietary variables, pretest to posttest measurement scores showed that, after receiving the curriculum, youths in the dietary modification intervention and in the combined intervention improved their knowledge of the health implications of consuming dietary fat, fiber, fruits, and vegetables. Youths in the dietary modification and combined intervention also improved their scores of knowledge related to cancer risk-reducing nutritional practices, cultural dietary habits, and healthy food choices available for Native American cultures. Youths in the dietary modification-only condition report significantly increasing their consumption of complex carbohydrates and significantly decreasing their fat intake between pretest and posttest occasions.Conclusions.Data from this longitudinal study suggest the value of the FACETS curriculum for helping Native American youth reduce their risks for cancer associated with tobacco use and dietary preference and consumption patterns. In particular, results indicate the enhanced effects of the combined tobacco use prevention and dietary modification intervention for preventing tobacco use and for improving youths’ knowledge and attitudes with regard to tobacco use and diet. Further, the study demonstrates the value of collaborating with Native American organizations to design a cancer risk-reducing curriculum and to implement tests of that curriculum.