The Importance of Identity, History, and Culture in the Wellbeing of Indigenous Youth

Abstract

Indigenous people have experienced profound disruptions, including epidemics, forced relocation, cultural colonization, and genocide over the past few centuries. Indigenous young people have not evenly understood or consciously articulated these historical events,1 but the behavioral health consequences for them have been well documented. These historical events have been linked to acculturation stress and identity conflicts, and rapid social change has been associated with significant health problems among Indigenous young people.2–5 Conversely, studies have consistently found robust correlations between positive affiliation and engagement with their culture and Indigenous young people's well-being and resilience.6–9 Resilience, consists in the processes by which people overcome life challenges to achieve their sense of well-being. Although the connection between culture and these processes are clear, previous studies have neglected to describe how cultural identity plays into Indigenous youth wellness and resilience. Specifically, they have failed to explain how a strong and positive link to their culture supports young people, especially as they encounter and respond to hardships. In this article, I will present a model for understanding the role of ethnic identity development in Indigenous youth resilience and will point to the value of historical consciousness in that process.
Historical trauma has been defined as "a combination of acculturative stress, cultural bereavement, genocide, and racism that has been generalized, internalized, and institutionalized.10, 12 Such trauma is cumulative and unresolved,11 as well as both historic and ongoing."12 According to Indigenous people and researchers, historical trauma can be implicated in many of the current health problems experienced by Indigenous communities.13, 14
For example, the youth suicide rate for Indigenous populations around the globe is elevated when compared to other minority groups.15–19 Research has clearly established a connection between these high suicide rates and the culture loss or historical trauma experienced by Indigenous people.16, 20–23 These generalized associations of historical trauma refer to the lingering and negative effects associated with traumas experienced by previous generations and affecting contemporary people.1 Although the influence of historical trauma on Indigenous health is assumed,7, 24 few investigations have provided an explanatory model to describe this link.
This is also true for the converse. Scholarship connecting cultural affiliation to youth well-being is abundant,25–27 but the mechanics of this process go without scrutiny. The link between cultural affiliation and well-being is explained as the answer to core questions such as "Who am I?" "Who are we as a people?" and "Where am I going?"7 but the specific processes involved in this discovery remain unexamined. I will consider how and in what ways historical consciousness and memory—individual and group awareness of the past—intersects with cultural identity and affects the health of Indigenous youth.
Although there has been some scholarship on history and memory that emphasizes linkages between historical understandings and cultural identity,1 there has been little attention paid to the mechanisms that support these connections. The following arguments borrow mainly from youth development, Indigenous mental health, and post-conflict psychology.
Developing a distinct identity and crafting a sense of purpose are key elements in healthy youth development.28, 29 Accomplishing these tasks fosters continued healthy development and psychological ease.
In order to get a realistic picture of how this process works in the lives of Indigenous youth, it is important to consider how the dominant society intersects with identity formation and negotiation in adolescence. Identity formation is related to expectations of what it means to be a man or woman, Indigenous or White, elder or youth in different settings. The relative importance and meaning of these categories is shaped by the young person's community and the dominant society. In the case of Indigenous youth, images of the "noble savage" or the "drunk Indian"30 make it hard for them to construct salient identities within the larger society without a strong sense of their group history. Clearly, identifying with one's heritage and developing a strong cultural identity is extremely important for Indigenous young people.
Cultural identification includes recognizing one's cultural attributes—beliefs, values, practices, norms, traditions, and...

Full text

Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth (v.2.2) © 2009 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
LISA WEXLER
LISA WEXLER
TH E I MP O R TA NC E OF I D E NT IT Y, C ULTU RE A N D
HI S T OR Y F O R I ND IG E N O US YO U T H W EL LN ES S
IN T RO DU CT ION
Indigenous people have experienced profound disruptions, including epidem-
ics, forced relocation, cultural colonization, and genocide over the past few
centuries. Indigenous young people have not evenly understood or consciously
articulated these historical events,1 but the behavioral health consequences for
them have been well documented. These historical events have been linked to
acculturation stress and identity conflicts, and rapid social change has been
associated with significant health problems among Indigenous young people.2–5
Conversely, studies have consistently found robust correlations between
positive affiliation and engagement with their culture and Indigenous young
people’s well-being and resilience.6–9 Resilience, here, can be understood as the
processes by which people overcome life challenges to achieve their sense of
well-being. Although the connection between culture and these processes are
clear, previous studies have neglected to describe how cultural identity plays
into Indigenous youth wellness and resilience. Specifically, they have failed to
explain how a strong and positive link to their culture supports young people,
especially as they encounter and respond to hardships. In this article, I will
present a model for understanding the role of ethnic identity development in
Indigenous youth resilience and will point to the value of historical conscious-
ness in that process.
HI STORI CAL TRAUM A A N D IND IG ENOU S
YOU T H H E A LTH
Historical trauma has been defined as “a combination of acculturative stress,
cultural bereavement, genocide, and racism that has been generalized, internal-
ized, and institutionalized.10, 12 Such trauma is cumulative and unresolved,11
as well as both historic and ongoing.”12 According to Indigenous people and
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268 TH E I MPO RTA N CE O F I DE N TI T Y, CU LT UR E A ND HI STO RY
researchers, historical trauma can be implicated in many of the current health
problems experienced by Indigenous communities.13, 14
For example, the youth suicide rate for Indigenous populations around
the globe is elevated when compared to other minority groups.15–19 Research
has clearly established a connection between these high suicide rates and the
culture loss or historical trauma experienced by Indigenous people.16, 20–23 These
generalized associations of historical trauma refer to the lingering and nega-
tive effects associated with traumas experienced by previous generations and
affecting contemporary people.1 Although the influence of historical trauma on
Indigenous health is assumed,7, 24 few investigations have provided an explana-
tory model to describe this link.
This is also true for the converse. Scholarship connecting cultural affiliation
to youth well-being is abundant,25–27 but the mechanics of this process go with-
out scrutiny. The link between cultural affiliation and well-being is explained as
the answer to core questions such as “Who am I?” “Who are we as a people?”
and “Where am I going?”7 but the specific processes involved in this discovery
remain unexamined. I will consider how and in what ways historical conscious-
ness and memory—individual and group awareness of the past—intersects
with cultural identity and affects the health of Indigenous youth.
Although there has been some scholarship on history and memory that
emphasizes linkages between historical understandings and cultural identity,1
there has been little attention paid to the mechanisms that support these con-
nections. The following arguments borrow mainly from youth development,
Indigenous mental health, and post-conflict psychology.
Adolescent Development and Culture
Developing a distinct identity and crafting a collateral sense of purpose
are key elements in healthy youth development.28, 29 Accomplishing these tasks
fosters continued healthy development and psychological ease.
In order to get a realistic picture of how this process works in the lives of
Indigenous youth, it is important to consider how the dominant society inter-
sects with identity formation and negotiation in adolescence. Identity formation
is related to expectations of what it means to be a man or woman, Indigenous or
White, elder or youth in different settings. The relative importance and meaning
of these categories is shaped by the young person’s community and the domi-
nant society. In the case of Indigenous youth, images of the “noble savage” or
the “drunk Indian”30 make it hard for them to construct salient identities within
the larger society without a strong sense of their group history. Clearly, identify-
ing with one’s heritage and developing a strong cultural identity is extremely
important for Indigenous young people.
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Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 269
Cultural identification includes recognizing one’s cultural attributes—
beliefs, values, practices, norms, traditions, and heritage—along with under-
standing how they are (and are not) reflected in one’s self.31, 32 These cultural
attributes are both internally and externally defined, as they come from per-
sonal choices as well as ascriptions of others. As Indigenous young people
negotiate these different (sometimes contradicting) notions of selfhood, they are
engaged in a creative endeavor.33 They are constrained by ideas of the past and
the present—those found in their traditional culture as well as those embedded
in the dominant society.34 The outcomes of these processes—the development of
a clear sense of self—can be fundamental in supporting healthy development.
Crafting a strong cultural identity is a particularly important developmental
task for Indigenous and other ethnic minority young people who experience
discrimination, racism, and prejudice.35 In the ethnic identity development
model,36 adolescents construct their ethnic identity around two basic dimen-
sions: exploration and commitment. The former measures how much effort is
put into understanding the dimensions and significance of one’s ethnic heri-
tage, whereas the latter signifies the strength of one’s ethnic affiliation. The best
outcome of this process are “adolescents with an achieved ethnic identity [who]
have a working knowledge of their ethnic heritage, a clear idea of the meaning
of their ethnic group membership, and a commitment to their ethnicity and the
role it plays in their lives.”35
A positive ethnic identity seems to provide minority adolescents with self-
esteem gained through coping skills that make them more likely to use active
strategies to confront hardship. This has been found to be particularly impor-
tant for Indigenous young people who may have experienced discrimination
and prejudice based on their ethnic group affiliation.37 A strong sense of cultural
identity has also been correlated with higher levels of psychological health
for Indigenous youth.6, 7, 38 Psychological well-being encourages individuals to
meaningfully engage with larger societal issues.
Historical Memory, Indigenous Identity Development, and Youth Health
History provides groups not only with a platform for mutual affinity, but
also with a sense of collective meaning-making about who they are, where they
came from, and what future direction they should take. This is because “memo-
ry is the foundation of self and society.”39 To create an ethnic identity “requires
that certain beliefs, practices, or characteristics be elevated to core values and
claimed as shared experiences. . . . A shared history invests ethnic identity with
social value and contributes directly to mental health.”22
The ways in which a people understand their collective, cultural history
can have profound effects on an individual’s sense of identity. Joane Nagel’s
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270 THE IM PO R TAN CE OF ID ENT IT Y, C ULT U RE AN D HIS TO RY
work illustrates how the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s pro-
vided incentive for Indigenous individuals to claim (or reclaim) their native
ancestry. In these years, the U.S. Census recorded triple the number of people
claiming American Indian heritage, an increase that cannot be accounted for
by simple population growth or measurement error. She claims that the Red
Power movement strengthened many people’s ethnic identity “by dramatiz-
ing long held grievances, communicating an empowered and empowering
image of Indianness, and providing Native Americans, particularly Native
youth, opportunities for action and participation in the larger Indian cause.”40
In this way, social memory functions as a historical interpretation that imbues
meaning to individuals and communities and presents strategies for future
collective action.41
Collective/cultural memory helps individuals find their place in larger
temporal and social contexts and situates them as actors in their community
and in the world. This is important developmentally since young people tend
to do better if they identify with values that transcend themselves. This means
that youth are more likely to thrive if they relate to values that supersede family
and self and that have historical continuity, commanding respect from others
who have lived before and who will live after them.42 In a large study conducted
with two tribes, one in the Northern Plains and one in the Southwest, Jervis et
al. state, “It is clear that the past is neither forgotten nor deemed unimportant
among contemporary American Indian tribes.”1 As a significant component
of many tribal communities, collective/cultural memory can provide posi-
tive guidance to Indigenous young people as they construct their identities by
pointing the way to a socially and personally productive future.
Within the context of historical trauma and ongoing discrimination, culture
and its historical context can provide individuals with stabilizing resources to
draw on when seeking to frame a coherent sense of self. In this way, affiliation
with one’s Indigenous culture can provide a framework in which individuals
can locate themselves in relation to others, to a larger shared context, and to
history. “The production of culture creates collective meaning, a perception
of community through mythology and history, and shapes symbolic bases for
ethnic mobilization.”40 For individuals, this has translated into feelings of con-
nection, belonging, and purpose which have been associated with resilience
and well-being in many different age groups and peoples.43–45
This cultural orientation and historical foundation can provide a sense of
grounding, self-worth, social connectedness, and purpose to indigenous young
people. This broad explanation provides a rationale for the strong associations
found between various forms of cultural affiliation and Indigenous youth well-
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Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 271
being.6–8, 33, 46 When young people have a clear understanding of their cultural
past, present, and future, it is easier for them to sustain a sense of connectedness
and commitment to their future.47
Cultural identifications emphasize membership and connection to a group,
socially-defined roles that call for moral and civic responsibility, and ways to
enact these roles in service of a greater purpose. In combination, recognition of
a positive, socially defined role and enactment of that role based on a moral and
civic identity are linked to thriving.43, 48–50 This literature has not yet focused on
Indigenous people and the function of cultural identity in producing socially
defined roles, explicit pathways to combat hardships (resilience), and pathways
to contribute to a greater, community good (thriving). Understanding these
processes is vital to support Indigenous efforts to improve the health outcomes
of youth living in post-conflict areas.13, 23
Identity-Relevance of Meaning
Little is known about the social processes and personal and community
meanings that reinforce the connection between history, culture, and health
in the lived experience of Indigenous people, but the concept of Identity-
Relevance of Meaning (IRM)51 provides a helpful theoretical structure for this
inquiry. Simply stated, the theory posits that if young people can make sense
of their experiences by locating themselves and their situation within historical
understandings and community meanings, they are better able to overcome
hardship and sustain psychological health. IRM provides a theoretical foun-
dation to begin to understand the importance of individual meaning-making
within the confines of historical, social, political context.
IRM was developed by Brian Barber after studying young people who have
experienced political violence.51 After interviewing Palestinian and Bosnian
young people years after experiencing war, he came to appreciate that the
perceptions of, functioning in, and experience of adapting to war are shaped
heavily by the meaning that the conflict holds for the young people and their
communities. Thus, the meanings that their historical, political, cultural, and
religious systems give young people to interpret the origin, purpose, and value
of the conflict shapes the psychological and health ramifications of that conflict.
Palestinian young people have a rich ideology that gives clear information as
to the nature of the conflict and their role in it, but there is almost a complete
absence of such historical direction for the Bosnians, who, therefore, have suf-
fered substantially more psychologically from their war experiences.52
IRM provides a useful perspective to understand the stark health dispari-
ties young people in Indigenous communities suffer as they try to make sense
of and adapt to their communities’ post-conflict experience. Although previous
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272 THE IM POR TANC E OF ID E NT IT Y, C ULTU RE AN D H IS TO RY
research has documented Indigenous adults’ and elders’ understanding that
historical events and experiences (e.g., the trauma of boarding schools, outlaw-
ing of traditional languages, and the spread of disease) are the root cause of
many social and health problems,13, 24, 53 Indigenous young people are much less
apt to make this claim. Instead, young Indigenous people often understand
their communities’ present difficulties as arising from personal and collective
failure, rather than emerging from historical trauma and ongoing colonization.54
This is perhaps because contemporary oppression is ambiguous, embedded in
the everyday structures of school,55 business, media, etc.19 This makes it invis-
ible to many.
Because of this inability to locate their current experiences in historical,
post-conflict context, young people have more difficulty associating their per-
sonal hardships with a shared community experience. Without this collective
meaning-making, many Indigenous young people are unable to see clear and
meaningful ways to contribute to their personal and collective struggle. With
this gap in their knowledge, they may experience ambivalence about their cul-
tural identity as well as a lack of connection, legitimacy, and urgency related
to the (cultural) conflict itself. One way of addressing this involves helping
Indigenous young people find a meaningful connection with their heritage
and the role it plays in their lives. This can not only provide them with a solid
foundation for developing their cultural identity, it can also support youth in
crafting a collective, transcendent purpose. These endeavors have been shown
to have real health consequences for Indigenous youth.
CO NC LU SI ON
Although research on Indigenous young people has long identified cultural
affiliation as an important factor in supporting resilience and well-being,
there has been little attention given to developing a theoretical framework to
understand this association more fully. In this paper, I argue that a historical
understanding of and affiliation with one’s culture can provide Indigenous
youth with a perspective that transcends the self, incorporates a larger temporal
and social dimension to individual experiences, and offers young people a col-
lective pathway forward. As in other post-conflict arenas, young people have
improved psychological outcomes when their “systems of meaning provide
information that can be used to understand and define [themselves] within
the events or experiences with which [they are] confronted.” 52 In the case of
Indigenous young people, many do not understand their experiences as embed-
ded in larger historical and social realities that include war, forced relocations,
outlawing of Indigenous languages, and genocide. This does not provide them
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Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 273
with clear ways to understand their own and their communities’ difficulties.
This inability to make connections can lead to collective recriminations and
self-depreciation.54 Having a strong cultural identity can provide Indigenous
young people with a historically grounded, stabilizing way to understand their
people’s and their own past and the present. By developing a strong cultural
identity, Indigenous youth can craft renditions of themselves that have shared
and personal continuity and which can then contribute to a shared and indi-
vidual future.
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