Dealing with Low Self-Worth among the Dakota Youth
Introduction
Imagine being treated like second-class citizens in your own country. The Dakota youth sometimes feel neglected and ill-treated, considering their current state today in America. The Native Americans have been told many times to move on and forget their horrors in the past. The Dakota youth are today facing distress from actions that were done to their fore-fathers many years ago. These experiences can be related to intergenerational Trauma responses and long-term pain. The Dakota youth and other native Americans have, for a long time, dealt with grief problems, such as having their land stripped away and being forced to abandon their cultures. The mental states of the native American youths today should be seen as wounds carried from grandparents. To overcome the pain of historical trauma, the youths need to confront history, understand the trauma, and develop mechanisms that will enable them to transcend the trauma.
Background
The Dakota people make about two percent of the population in the United States. Interestingly they make about eight percent of people living without homes on their land. Out of the total percentage of the United States population, 70 percent of the native population suffers from mental illnesses (Whiteback, 2004). The numbers clearly show a population affected by mental distress as a Native American is 1.5 times more likely to have low esteem than the general population. The conditions are worse since the population also has a lower capacity to seek mental services. The mental status is then followed by a very high rate of suicide that is three times higher than that of general Americans.
Native Americans are also referred to as American Indians, a name they prefer to be associated with. Academicians coined the term Native America as they tried to differentiate between the Native populations with Indian people. Research has identified trauma symptoms among the native youths, something that has been associated with historical and intergenerational tragedies. Historical trauma is defined as the psychological and emotional damage caused by traumatic life events happening recently and those across multiple generations. The effects of historical events such as colonization battles with the US military, forced removal from their land, and military actions probably affect the native Americans even today.
Although the Dakota youths have not experienced first-hand social and economic injustices, they still feel their pinch today. Events such as the Lakota massacre, whereby over 200 people were killed while kneeling, are still fresh in the Dakota youths who were not even present at that time. These events have been related to activities of rampant substance abuse and violence today among the Dakota youths. The attempts to help the Dakota people have also been followed by further injustice that distresses them more. There has been a lot of violations of treaties concerning land rights, racism, and assimilation policies. There is often intense and sensational emotional response upon recounting the ancestral trauma.
The fact that the losses experienced by Dakota people came when they were doing well socially and politically has made it hard for the people to adjust. The native communities had occupied northern America for a long time alone before being distracted by the Europeans and Russians. Their individual and resilient spirit was all over a sudden, washed away by the distraction. Their spirit of low-worth can only be attributed to the purported discovery and colonization of North America.
The colonialization process was so detrimental to the American natives since their natural immunity could not protect them; hence they acquired some strange diseases. The shock that befalls the Dakota people decades ago has never been recovered even by many generations later. Some bruises hardly heal and may be passed to tens of ages; the colonialists’ actions often mean the people being colonized. According to Smith, 1999, indigenous communities often have their own culture and value systems that are valuable to them, although the outsiders may not understand their importance. The enculturation process that foreign forces such as the Europeans from England have tried on the Dakota people have failed. Enculturation cannot mediate or moderate the consequences of discrimination as itself comes with negative consequences (Whitback,2004). Attempting enculturation among the Dakota people adds more pain to the problem considering they already view some of these people as enemies. The effects of low self-worth among the Dakota people have resulted in them leading in suicide and substance abuse matters.
How to Address the Low Self-Worth of Dakota People?
We must agree and appreciate the feeling of low self-worth by Dakota people who emerge from being marginalized and discriminated against. The first step of raising the Dakota people’s self-worth is making them feel part of the American community. The people need to be helped in dealing with intergenerational trauma that has dragged them for many years. The Dakota people must be helped psychologically to break the transmitted attachment relationships from their parents. Through psychosocial support, the community must feel safe in America and other people (Manson, 2003). Although the grandparents of Dakota people were subjected to a lot of abuse and exploitation, the current generation should be shown the light and hope of being in America. The government needs to invest in intense education in the community concerning their trauma. The Dakota people need to be educated on their past and how it affects their feelings about themselves. It would be more efficient to educate the elderly population to avoid passing on their young ones’ toxic feelings. The family system approach is better while trying to break intergenerational trauma. The approach would involve counseling and talk to individual members of the Dakota tribe about their feelings. Since the target is to rehabilitate the whole community, it would be better to choose specific members showing intergenerational trauma signs.
The government also has a role in supporting the Dakota people’s economic development without disrupting their culture. People like to be associated with their co-parents’ culture, and denying them the chance to enjoy the culture is a great mistake. Native people have their cultures that they consider sweet and will always want to be associated with it (Kimmerer,2013). It will be important for the government to develop the necessary infrastructure in the predominantly inhabited areas by native Americans (Loftyhouse, 2020). Part of why the Dakota people feel abandoned is the government’s failure to support their developmental agenda. To increase the Dakota people’s self-worth, the government needs to reduce the high rates of family poverty among the tribe. There are already many legislative policies that have been designed and are lying unacted upon in the parliament. Implementing the developmental plan as envisioned by past planners would make the Dakota people economically independent. Ensuring the Dakota children have an equal education opportunity will ensure they are in better positions to compete with other Americans.
The public, media, and the government must collaboratively establish mechanisms of making the Dakota people feel proud to be Americans. The public has, in particular, a very intense role in speaking against the social and economic injustice carried against the native. To end the cycle of physical and psychological torture carried out towards the Dakota people, we cannot operate in silence. Calling out irresponsible and violent behavior towards the native community will greatly improve their confidence. If the Dakota people witness people from the more extensive and popular communities speaking against their exploitations, they will feel more proud to be Americans.
The government has recently shown effort and will to protect the Native Americans physically, socially, and emotionally. Operation Lady Justice taskforce, formed by President Trump, has done exemplarily well in reporting the problems of native Americans (Hovland, 2020). It is now the larger American population’s responsibility to support the taskforce by giving information about the Dakota people’s physical and emotional status. The American people can better support the Dakota people, considering we are in the internet and social media era where we can pass information very quickly. The Americans need to share, discuss, and protect the Dakota people as their own. The Dakota people’s rich history should be spread and discussed widely, as this would boost their confidence.
In conclusion, Dakota youths have faced a lot of problems over the past years. The memories of torture, humiliation, and economic exploitation have been passed to generations. The Dakota youths experienced a lot of intergenerational trauma that comes from the experiences of their forefathers. These experiences have made the youths develop feelings of being second-class citizens in their own countries. The Dakota youth needs support from the government, the public, and the media. The government needs to implement policies that will empower the youths by implementing strategies that have been set to help the native Americans. On the other hand, the public has a responsibility to support the community by not belittling and criticizing them. The whole community needs to ensure they accommodate the Dakota youths as their own and not belittle their capability. Psychological support in dealing with intergenerational trauma is necessary for the Dakota youths to deal with the generation crisis.
References
Kimmerer, R. (2013). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.
Les Whitbeck, B., Chen, X., Hoyt, D. R., & Adams, G. W. (2004). Discrimination, historical loss, and enculturation: Culturally specific risk and resiliency factors for alcohol abuse among American Indians. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 65(4), 409-418. https://doi.org/10.15288/jsa.2004.65.409
Lofthouse, J. (2020). undefined. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3514536
Manson, S. M. (2003). Extending the boundaries, bridging the gaps: Crafting mental health: Culture, race, and ethnicity, a supplement to the surgeon general’s report on mental health. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 27(4), 395-408. https://doi.org/10.1023/b:medi.0000005479.04694.e2
Smith, L. T. (1999). Braiding Sweet Grass Section. Zed Books.