Throughout this issue, ethnic glosses are used to describe groups. Though all ethnic glosses are bound to be inaccurate and incomplete -and particularly so when they describe broad ethnic groups-it is necessary to use simplified terms in order to communicate, even though it is known that these terms could be questioned. Trimble (1991) has discussed the problem of ethnic glosses in detail, and his paper is well worth perusing. Bea Medicine has commented specifically on the ethnic glosses used to describe American Indians and how acceptability of different terms has varied over time (1981). These papers make it clear that there is no easy answer. Any term used is bound to be "wrong" to some extent, and the appropriateness and acceptability of various terms must change over time. The problem of temporal utility occurs because, when an ethnic gloss is applied to a group that is a victim of prejudice and injustice, whatever term is selected as appropriate gradually becomes "infected" with residual prejudicial meanings and becomes unnacceptable. Various groups within the affected ethnic group will find the term unacceptable and will suggest alternatives. The suggested alternatives often incorporate political meanings or purposes depending on the group proposing the term. A new term gradually achieves consensus and it then becomes the appropriate gloss. The new term then starts to accumulate negative associations until it becomes necessary to start again.In this report the terms "American Indian" and "Indian" are used, for they are currently accepted by a reasonable number of people. "Anglo" is used to describe the rest of the sample because this term is the one most often applied to people who are not Indian or not obviously members of another minority ethnic group. Many of those to whom Anglo is applied object to its use, but it is as fair to apply this Alcoholism and alcohol abuse have been, historically, issues of major concern for Indians. Despite laws that until 1953 prohibited the sale of alcohol to Indian people, high rates of alcoholism continue to be observed among many tribes. Until the early 1970s, therefore, the research literature focused on the use of alcohol. Pinto (1973) was one of the first researchers to suggest that drug use might be a problem among Indian youth. But his argument was indirect, and it was based on the assumption that the same socioeconomic conditions that seemed to spawn alcohol abuse among these youth would lead to high levels of drug abuse. Only a few anecdotal reports of drug use were available at the time, and Pinto made the plea that more data were sorely needed. In addition to interest in prevalence rates, another area of inquiry with respect to Indian adolescent drug and alcohol use has been the search for correlative or causal factors. Much of this work is provocative; however, the majority of it is not data based making it difficult to verify or refute from a research perspective.One theme in this body of literature is that substance abuse behavior is to a large extent infl...
There has been an increasing call for and development of culturally appropriate substance prevention/intervention for ethnic minorities in schools and communities, especially among reservation and in urban American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities. Past attempts to intervene in and reduce misuse of alcohol and other drugs have not had great success. The Journeys of the Circle Project utilized innovative programs with a strong emphasis on historic cultural traditions.
In their recent article, N. Spillane and G. Smith (2007) suggested that reservation-dwelling American Indians have higher rates of problem drinking than do either non–American Indians or those American Indians living in nonreservation settings. These authors further argued that problematic alcohol use patterns in reservation communities are due to the lack of contingencies between drinking and “standard life reinforcers” (SLRs), such as employment, housing, education, and health care. This comment presents evidence that these arguments were based on a partial review of the literature. Weaknesses in the application of SLR constructs to American Indian reservation communities are identified as is the need for culturally contextualized empirical evidence supporting this theory and its application. Cautionary notes are offered about the development of literature reviews, theoretical frameworks, and policy recommendations for American Indian communities.
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