Addressing Native American and Alaska Native Disparities

In May/June 2021, representatives of the Penelakut Tribe and the First Nations communities found the remains of hundreds of children on the sites of former boarding schools that were part of a network of mandatory state-run boarding schools for Indigenous children in Canada. Although this atrocity was discovered in Canada, American Indians (AI)/Alaska Native (AN) children were stripped of their identity/culture and forced into Native American boarding schools under the guise of “civilizing” Native children into American society. This school experience prompted the Native American drive for political and cultural self-determination in the later 20th century, including the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. As with each individual community, seek understanding and education and acknowledge historical disparities in the AI and AN population. Learn the differences between Traditional and Commercial tobacco use within this population, and use appropriate equity approaches/strategies. CDPHE has created some guidelines for working with the Colorado AI/NA population in this link. Living in Two Worlds: The American Indian Experience (American Indian Traditions) Presents a vivid account of the author who stood in two worlds, born in a buffalo-hide tipi and raised in the traditions of the Sioux, he was sent to the white man’s boarding school and later to college in which he excelled only to return to the Plains as a doctor during the tumultuous and shameful relocation of the Plains Indians to reservations.

The associated files and links are available below.