More handpicked essays just for you.
Impacts of colonialism in Native America
Impacts of colonialism in Native America
Impacts of colonialism in Native America
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Impacts of colonialism in Native America
In “Historicizing historical trauma theory,” Krista Maxwell examines the treatment of Aboriginal people by the government over the past few decades up until the present-day through one issue I find particularly important, which is that of child welfare.
She describes the government as, in the past, having frowned upon the Aboriginal culture and deemed it unfit to raise children in. As a result, the government imposed its authority and took children away from their families and placed them in residential schools to assimilate them (Maxwell 420).
Nowadays, the government likes to think of itself as a liberalized and supportive institution, but Maxwell still finds it to be just as coercive as in the past. Even now, Aboriginal communities fit
the bill for the current welfare system to swoop in and take children from families, as they are often riddled by poverty and a host of social problems (Maxwell 421-422). I wholeheartedly agree with her take on the situation, because I believe that the government has only made superficial efforts to address the issues of the Aboriginal people. This is because it still does not fully understand it is responsible for them. In the past, the government held the Aboriginal people to a Western standard that had no place being there, and that standard still exists. The only difference is how that standard is framed—then, it was a measure of foreignness, and now it is called a measure of humaneness. What the government should be doing is working with these people on their own terms to address current social issues instead of explaining away their problems through universalizing the experience of residential schools and thereby perpetuating the current child welfare system (Maxwell 425-426). By limiting their expression to that of a single point of historical trauma, the government continues to assert colonialism over the Aboriginal people and leave them to a self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves their children unprotected. They are not given much choice, which is why I agree being critical of today’s benevolent government is more warranted than being supportive.