Native American Trauma Essay

Native Americans have endured the lengthiest form of genocide in modern history. While it is not this paper’s purpose to explore the traumas experienced by Native Americans via colonization and more modern policies which perpetuate Native American trauma, it is important to understand that those experiences have direct impact on these communities. Yellow Horse-Brave Heart (1999) reports that the Historical Trauma Response, which is a collection of symptoms that result in members of a group that have experienced trauma, reveals negative health outcomes that include: Increased suicide rates, mental health disorders, somatic complaints without medical merit, and obsession on trauma, guilt, and grief. Poupart (2003) explains that as First Nations

Boarding school experiences resulted in direct causes for interpersonal violence within the Native American communities. While the experiences of Native Americans in boarding schools is not entirely lost on the dominant American population, the brutal reality and resulting consequences for Native communities is not fully appreciated. Poupart (2003) explains that it is estimated that nearly three quarters of Native Americans that attended Euro-American ran boarding schools, where they were forced to assimilate into dominant culture or else, experienced physical and sexual abuse regularly. Native Americans were forced to cut their hair, don dominant culture clothing, were beaten if they spoke their Native language, and removed from their cultural way of life to learn skills that the dominant culture found fitting. In fact, boarding school abuse was so prevalent for Native Americans that there are existing communities where not a single living adult did not experience or witness abuse. What results out of generations growing up in boarding schools is not only a loss of culture, but a loss of