Racial Cultural Identity Development and Native American History

These flashcards cover key concepts related to racial identity development, Native American history, and the significant impact of cultural loss and reconciliation.

Racial Identity Assumptions

The belief that racism and bias are fundamental aspects of U.S. life, influencing society and institutions historically and currently.

Levels of Consciousness

Stages of awareness regarding racial identity development: Naivete, Conformity, Dissonance, Resistance and Immersion, Introspection, and Integrative Awareness.

Naivete

The initial stage of racial identity development, typically lasting until age 5, where children do not perceive racial differences as problematic.

Conformity

The stage where individuals accept white standards as normative and view other racial identities as subpar.

Dissonance

A stage characterized by questioning fairness in society and recognizing ongoing racism and discrimination.

Resistance and Immersion

The stage where individuals immerse themselves in their cultural identity, often limiting interactions to their cultural group.

Introspection

A stage where individuals reflect on their self-identity and their role in society.

Integrative Awareness

The ability to integrate one's cultural identity while rejecting discrimination and elevation of one race over another.

Cross Cultural Injuries

The need for healing and understanding across cultures, often requiring reconciliation.

The Four stages of Reconciliation

Steps involving acknowledgment of the past, confession and repentance, forgiveness and healing, restoration, and transformation.

Nisenan

A Native American tribe that lived in Northern California for over 2,000 years before European contact.

The Gold Rush

A period that led to greed, violence, disease, and genocide, significantly impacting Native American culture.

Cultural loss in US

The systematic stripping of culture and language from Native American tribes, leading to societal issues such as high rates of alcoholism and domestic violence.

Bicultural

Individuals who are conversant in both their native culture and mainstream culture, able to communicate across various contexts.

Assimilated

Individuals who have fully adopted the values and behaviors of mainstream culture, abandoning their cultural heritage.

Indian Removal Act

A law that facilitated the forced relocation of Native Americans from their homelands, notably leading to the Trail of Tears.

Dawes Land Allotment Act

An act that aimed to assimilate Native Americans by allotting individual parcels of tribal land, undermining communal land ownership.

Termination Policy

A U.S. policy aimed at assimilating Native Americans into mainstream society by terminating the recognition of tribes.

Patrilineal/matrilineal.

Systems for tracing kinship. In a patrilineal system, one traces kinship and inheritance through one’s father. In matrilineal systems, kinship and inheritance are traced through one’s mother.

Boarding Schools

Part of the U.S. government’s policy of coercive acculturation (Americanization) of Native Americans that involved taking Indigenous children from their families and sending them boarding schools. The children were forced to adopt Western ways of thinking and acting (e.g., speaking only in English, converting to Christianity, dressing in Western clothing).

Red Power Movement

A social movement during the 1960s and 1970s that fought for a variety of causes important to Native Americans, including increased autonomy and pride in cultural heritage. Notable activism included fish-ins, the occupation of Alcatraz Island, and the Trail of Broken Treaties. The American Indian Movement (AIM) was a leading movement organization.

Relocation

The government policy that encouraged Native Americans to leave reservations and move to urban areas.

Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

The federal agency responsible for the administration of Indian reservations.

Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (1975).

Legislation that rejected some measures of coercive acculturation and granted Native American tribes more control over their own affairs.

Two-Spirit

Indigenous Americans who identify outside of the Western gender binary, typically as having both “masculine” and “feminine” spirits simultaneously. Today, some people use two-spirit to include non-heterosexual sexual orientations as well (e.g., queer).

Dissimilarity index.

A measure of residential segregation. The higher the score, the greater the segregation, and scores above 60 are considered to indicate extreme segregation.

Nonviolent direct action.

The central tactic used during the Civil Rights Movement in the South to defeat de jure segregation.