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Native Americans deal with psychological issues, including “depression, substance abuse, collective trauma exposure, interpersonal losses and unresolved grief and related problems within the lifespans and across generations, along with having higher health disparities than any other racial group in the United States (Brave Heart et. The very fabric of their generational beings has been threatened and abused.
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Across generations, they have had to deal with the attempted erasure of their very selves, their culture, their traditions and what makes them a distinct race. Indigenous peoples across the world, and specifically in the Americas, have experienced both traditional genocide and cultural for centuries. Another form of genocide that has more recently been accepted is cultural genocide, which, according to the European University Institute, is “the systematic destruction of traditions, values, language, and other elements that make one group of people distinct from another” (Novic, 1970). The Holocaust was a recent infamous example of this and the way it has shaped the Jewish population throughout the world is profound. In class, we learned about genocide and the devastating effects on individuals who have lived through genocides of their people, along with the effects that this is bound to have in their lives after survival. It’s a tragic inheritance and the cyclical nature of it means that generational trauma is one of the most devastating results of racism and colonialism present today. Rather, it spans decades and even centuries starting with distant ancestors and accumulating to the experiences of the individual today. Trauma, in this context, is not an isolated event or incident. My mother is Ecuadorian and natively indigenous to that country, so many of the experiences of Canadian Native Americans and are similar to hers and that of her family. Specifically, looking into the effects of intergenerational trauma on indigenous groups piqued my interests. I chose to delve into the effects of intergenerational trauma in individuals. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other disorders that develop as a result of experiencing a traumatic event are at the forefront of this class.
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Its complexities are still not entirely understood and the aftereffects of trauma, even less so. People deal with traumatic situations differently and what may not affect some can scar others for life. The concept of trauma and its aftereffects have long been little understood.