NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTH

NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTH
When compared with other minority youth, Native
American adolescents are more likely to suffer a vari-
ety of health concerns (diabetes, suicide, tuberculosis,
fetal alcohol syndrome) and are at higher risk for living
in poverty, being unemployed, and earning low wages.
Because there are between 400 and 500 differing tribal
affiliations, it is difficult to make very many broad gen-
eralizations concerning Native American youth. Family
structures are typically diffuse compared with other
groups, with children sometimes being raised collec-
tively and having an extensive tribal connection.
Children may consider themselves to have many differ-
ent parents (biological as well as those primarily
responsible for their care) and may consider cousins
and aunts and uncles of similar age to be siblings.
American Indian youth are similar to other minori-
ties in that they have inherited a long-standing legacy
of legalized discrimination. In addition to the reloca-
tion of Native Americans to reservations in the late
19th century, Indian children were historically
removed from their homes and sent to boarding
schools to be stripped of their language and cultural
practices, which were outlawed from 1870 to 1930.
This removal created a precedent for Native American
children to be caught between two worlds, often strug-
gling with an inability to identify with either their
tribal heritage or the European American culture that
surrounds them and often treats them with hostility.
Many Native American cultures do not recognize an
adolescent developmental stage, which may further
contribute to these feelings of being caught between
worlds. Youth may have responsibilities as adults in
their tribal environment (such as caring for siblings or
tending to livestock), although they may be treated as
children by a contemporary school system.
CONCLUSION
Although this review of it has been brief, the litera-
ture on ethnic minority youth in the United States
continues to grow. The majority of this literature
tends to paint a rather disparaging picture of this
population, but the resiliency and successes of many
ethnic minority youth are becoming better docu-
mented. Improving educational achievement of eth-
nic minority youth and differentiating between ethnic
and socioeconomic differences are critical topics for
future research.
—Rufus R. Gonzales
—Elizabeth M. Vera
—Melissa L. Morgan
FURTHER READING
McLoyd, V. C., & Steinberg, L. (Eds.). (1998).  Studying
minority adolescents: Conceptual, methodological, and
theoretical issues. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Montemayor, R.,Adams, G. R., & Gullota, T. P. (Eds.). (2000).
Adolescent diversity in ethnic, economic, and cultural con-
texts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sag