Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (20 page)

Many urban Native women do not possess the support or ability to acquire services to assist themselves. Native women are often not aware of their rights or feel intimated by the system. They often do not know how to obtain a restraining order or custody orders. They do know where the services are, how to get there, or may have to go to multiple locations for a variety of services. Transportation is a huge problem for Native women in an urban environment. In addition, Native women who are just arriving from the reservation where the violence occurred may also have to work with the tribal courts on their reservation.

Substance abuse is also a barrier to urban Native women seeking services and compounds the other barriers mentioned. A study done at an urban Indian health center showed that most of the women who were being counseled for domestic violence were not married, had low family incomes, and both the women and their partners abused drugs. All the women experienced increased depression and stress due to battering. The battered women reported more problems with alcohol than women with no history of domestic violence.
²¹
Due to historical trauma, as mentioned earlier, many of these women are also experiencing mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Substance abuse and mental health problems will only add to the many barriers they are already challenged with in an urban environment. The lack of coordination of services that the women may need, such as domestic violence services, substance abuse services, and mental health services, further impedes Native women’s ability to access services.

Although there are many specialized services for women victims of violence in urban areas such as rape centers; shelters; and advocacy, medical, law enforcement, mental health, and children’s services, many of these services are not sensitive to the needs of urban Native women. Therefore, urban Native women may find it difficult to leave their family to enter into a shelter that is not aware of the needs or importance of extended family and the traditional significance of family and culture. Urban Native women have difficulty trusting and expressing their feelings, so communication and language can be a barrier. The difficulty in trusting and expressing their feelings may come from the collective past of Native people,
²²
as well as discrimination and oppression from mainstream society and lack of a provider’s awareness of Native people. These different services often play different roles and can make navigating services very cumbersome for many urban Native women. These systems often do not understand or recognize the impact of colonization and multigenerational trauma on Native families and, therefore, are not sensitive to the unique needs of urban Native women.

Working with Native Women in Urban Communities

We need to train more service providers in urban areas to deal with the unique challenges faced by Native women victims of violence. Training should be geared to police, court personnel, social workers and other mental health providers, hotlines, shelters, medical personnel, and teachers.

There is a need for more Native advocates and providers in urban areas so that these services designed to assist Native women draw on the culture and implement the traditions. The first priority for a victim of violence is safety. After the woman is in a safe situation, then the substance abuse and mental health problems have to be addressed, as they have a profound affect on their road to recovery and self-sufficiency. Having Native women who have experienced violence be mentors, advocates, and counselors for other Native women is extremely important.

It is important to educate Native women on their rights pertaining to domestic violence, marital rape, and stalking, as well as Indian child welfare issues. Outreach to Native women in the urban environment is necessary to let them know what services and supports are available to them. For Native women in large urban communities, home visits, if safety is not compromised, are extremely helpful, as is providing transportation for them to get to services.

Vocational training programs would assist Native women to learn job skills in order to become financially independent and stable so that they can live in a nonviolent environment.

Conclusion

Native women victims of violence who live in urban areas experience a unique set of circumstances. They face invisibility, isolation, discrimination, as well as a host of social problems such as poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and substance abuse. Urban Native women experience disproportionately high rates of violence, which affect them, their families, their communities, and their children. This cycle of violence is passed on from generation to generation. This Multigenerational Trauma Cycle contributes to the unresolved grief experienced as a result of historical trauma. Urban Native women face a number of barriers when navigating social service systems in urban areas, including the lack of culturally appropriate services and a lack of service providers who are knowledgeable of the community and cultural needs.

The individual needs of each Native woman who is a victim of violence must be examined to determine what services she needs, and the woman must have a voice in what treatment or services she needs and wants. These treatments could be a combination of evidence-based treatments with traditional Native treatments. Evidence-based treatments are the traditional Western treatments (cognitive-behavioral, psychoanalytic, and so forth). These treatments can often be integrated with or adapted to Native values and traditions to better assist Native women in healing.

Restoring harmony and balance through the use of traditional methods in conjunction with evidenced-based interventions is needed in order to break out of the Multigenerational Trauma Cycle so that future generations are not lost in a cycle of violence.

Notes

1
  R. Clark, “Healing the Generations: Urban American Indians in Recovery,” in
Mental Health Care for Urban Indians: Clinical Insights from Native Practitioners,
T. Witko, ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2006).

2
  Steven W. Perry,
American Indians and Crime: A BJS Statistical Profile 1992–2002
(Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, December 2004, NCJ 203097), available at /
www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pubalp2.htm#aic
.

3
  E. Zahnd, S. Holtby, D. Klein, and C. McCain,
American Indian Women: Preventing Violence and Drinking Project Final Report
(National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the Office for Research on Women’s Health, 2002).

4
  D. Klein, E. Zahnd, B. Kolody, S. Holtby, and L. Midanik,
Final Report of the Pregnant and Parenting American Indian Study
(Western Consortium for Public Health and San Diego State University Foundation, 1995); E. Zahnd and D. Klein, “The Needs of Pregnant and Parenting American Indian Women at Risk for Problem Alcohol or Drug Use,”
American Indian Culture and Research Journal
21. no. 3(1997): 119
–
44.

5
  Perry,
American Indians and Crime.

6
  Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes,
Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey
(National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NCJ 183781, November 2000).

7
  Perry,
American Indians and Crime.

8
  Lawrence A. Greenfeld and Steven K. Smith,
American Indians and Crime
(Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, February 1999, NCJ 173386), available at
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/aic.pdf
.

9
  C. L. Johnson, “An Innovative Healing Model: Empowering Urban Native Americans,” in
Mental Health Care for Urban Indians: Clinical Insights from Native Practitioners,
T. Witko, ed. (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2006).

10
  Johnson, “Innovative Healing Model.”

11
  Johnson, “Innovative Healing Model.”

12
  D. L. Fixico,
The Urban Indian Experience in America
(Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2000).

13
  Scott H. Nelson, George F. McCoy, Maria Stetter, and Craig Vanderwagen, “An Overview of Mental Health Services for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 1990s,”
Hospital and Community Psychiatry
43 (1992): 257
–
61.

14
  See
www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/92/4/520
, last accessed on July 11, 2007.

15
  L. Groginsky and C. Freeman, “Domestic Violence in Native American Indian and Alaskan Native Communities,”
Protecting Children
II, no. 3 (1995): 13
–
16.

16
  Johnson, “Innovative Healing Model.”

17
  J. M. Piasecki, S. M. Manson, M. P. Barnoff, A. B. Hiat, S. S. Taylor, and D. W. Bechtold, “Abuse and Neglect of American Indian Children: Findings from a Survey of Providers,”
American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research
3 (1989): 43
–
62.

18
  S. J. Kunitz, J. E. Levy, J. McCloskey, and K. R. Gabriel, “Alcohol Dependence and Domestic Violence as Sequel of Abuse and Conduct Disorder in Childhood,”
Child Abuse and Neglect
22 (1998): 11.

19
  See, for example, R. A. Geffner, P. G. Jaffe, and M. Sudermann, eds.,
Children Exposed to Domestic Violence: Current Issues in Research, Intervention, Prevention, and Policy Development
(New York: Haworth Maltreatment & Trauma Press, 2000).

20
  Geffner et al.,
Children Exposed.

21
  I. M. Norton and S. M. Manson, “Silent Minority: Battered American Indian Women,”
Journal of Family Violence
10 (1995): 307–18.

22
  Johnson, “Innovative Healing Model.”

Questions

1. What is the relationship between severe childhood violence and adult violence?
   
2. Why do you think Native women who identified as problem drinkers were 5.5 times more likely to be victims of violence?
   
3. Why do you think Native women are significantly more likely to be raped or stalked than women of other races?
   
4. What is meant by the term Multigenerational Trauma Cycle? What is its relationship to violence?
   

In Your Community

1. How can urban communities with small numbers of Native women reach out to Native women?
   
2. What are some of the barriers to services Native women find in the urban area closest to you? What can be done to remove those barriers?
   

Terms Used in Chapter 5

Assimilation
: Refers to the process of becoming a part of or more like another.

Colonization
: The act of establishing colonies, where one dominant culture settles an area generally inhabited by another culture.

Relocation
: Refers to the U.S. policy of moving large numbers of Natives from reservations to urban areas.

Stalking
: Behavior where an individual repeatedly engages in harassing, unwanted conduct directed at another. It could include phoning, following, e-mailing, threatening to harm an individual or his or her family members, or many other types of actions.

Suggested Further Reading

Evans-Campbell, Teresa, et al. “Interpersonal Violence in the Lives of Urban American Indian and Alaska Native Women.”
American Journal of Public Health
96 (2006): 1416.

Fixico, D.L.
The Urban Indian Experience in America
. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2000.

Norton, Ilena M., and Spero M. Manson. “Domestic Violence Intervention in an Urban Indian Health Center.”
Community Mental Health Journal
33 (1997): 331.

II

STORIES OF SURVIVAL

The Dance of Violence

Pulling the blanket up
Hiding
her eyes
She screamed silent
To her own
mother’s cries

the words got lost
in what is good
what is not
she can only know
what she sees
what she’s got

and on the week end
she is a jingle dancer

mama says
don’t let this
happen to you
love should not hurt
she does not know
if it’s true