RESUMEN
The Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionally affected Indigenous Peoples. Unfortunately, there is no accurate understanding of COVID-19's impacts on Indigenous Peoples and communities due to systematic erasure of Indigenous representation in data. Early evidence suggests that COVID-19 has been able to spread through pre-pandemic mechanisms ranging from disproportionate chronic health conditions, inadequate access to healthcare, and poor living conditions stemming from structural inequalities. Using innovative data, we comprehensively investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples in New Mexico at the zip code level. Specifically, we expand the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) to include the measures of structural vulnerabilities from historical racisms against Indigenous Peoples. We found that historically-embedded structural vulnerabilities (e.g., Tribal land status and higher percentages of house units without telephone and complete plumbing) are critical in understanding the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 that American Indian and Alaska Native populations are experiencing. We found that historically-embedded vulnerability variables that emerged epistemologically from Indigenous knowledge had the largest explanatory power compared to other social vulnerability factors from SVI and COVID-19, especially Tribal land status. The findings demonstrate the critical need in public health to center Indigenous knowledge and methodologies in mitigating the deleterious impacts of COVID-19 on Indigenous Peoples and communities, specifically designing place-based mitigating strategies.
RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: This study examined sources of indigenous identity among urban American Indian youth that map the three theoretical dimensions of a model advanced by Markstrom: identification (tribal and ethnic heritage), connection (through family and reservation ties), and involvement in traditional culture and spirituality. METHOD: Data came from self-administered questionnaires completed by 208 urban American Indian students from five middle schools in a large metropolitan area in the Southwest. RESULTS: Descriptive statistics showed most youth were connected to multiple indicators on all three dimensions of indigenous identity: native parental heritage, native best friends, past and current reservation connections, involvement with cultural practices, tribal language and spirituality, and alignment with native and mainstream cultural orientations. A latent class analysis identified five classes. There were two larger groups, one with strong native heritage and the highest levels of enculturation, and another that was more bicultural in orientation. The remaining three groups were smaller and about equal in size: a highly acculturated group with mixed parental ethnic heritage, those who had strong native heritage but were culturally disengaged, and a group with some mixed ethnic heritage that was low on indicators of enculturation. Evidence for the validity of the latent classes came from significant variations across the classes in scores on an American Indian ethnic identity (modified Phinney) scale, the students' open-ended descriptions of the main sources of their indigenous identities, and the better academic grades of classes that were more culturally engaged. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the challenges of maintaining cultural identities in the urban environment, most youth in this sample expressed a strong sense of indigenous identity, claimed personal and parental tribal heritage, remained connected to reservation communities, and actively engaged in Native cultural and spiritual life.
