Community violence exposure of Southeast Asian American adolescents

Southeast Asian adolescents in the United States face the daily challenge of adjusting to the American culture and their culture of origin. However, little is known about how the patterns of their bicultural adjustment influence psychological symptoms, especially when faced with other challenges such as community violence and negative life events. Additionally, the overrepresentation of Southeast Asian youth in the mental health and juvenile justice systems also necessitates a deeper understanding of the adjustment of this group of adolescents. Data from a sample of 80 Vietnamese and Cambodian adolescents who were between 13 and 18 years old revealed high rates of community violence witnessing and victimization, and a moderate level of negative life events. All of these stressors were related to higher externalizing and trauma-related symptoms, but only violence victimization and negative life events were related to higher internalizing symptoms. There was an additive effect of higher bicultural orientation related to lower externalizing and traumatic-stress symptoms in the face of stress and violence exposure, but no moderation effects were found.     

A silent minority: Battered American Indian women

Sixteen American Indian women requesting counseling for domestic violence at an urban Indian health center were interviewed using standardized measures. The majority of the women were not married, had low family incomes, and both the women and their partners abused substances. All of the women experienced increased depression and stress as a result of the battering. A mental health needs assessment survey of 198 American Indian women is presented for comparison. Women who reported a history of domestic violence on the survey were more likely to be separated or divorced and reported more problems with alcohol than the women with no history of domestic violence. The results of the domestic violence program interviews are compared to the mental health needs assessment survey and studies of battered women in shelters.     

Positive identification of American Indian skeletal remains from radiograph comparison

The case reported here documents how comparative data gleaned from study of museum collections enabled positive identification of an American Indian homicide victim through radiograph comparison. In particular, the shape of the lateral border of the scapula proved to be a unique anatomical feature, appropriate for establishing positive identification.     

The Jailing of a Journalist: Prosecuting the Press for Receiving Stolen Documents

In 1973, the FBI arrested investigative reporter Les Whitten and charged him with possession of stolen government documents. This jailing of a journalist during the Nixon administration was largely overshadowed by more famous cases involving the media during the Watergate era. But United States v. Whitten turned out to be an important victory for press freedom at a time when First Amendment rights were under siege by the government. The case would eventually inform two other important media law cases, help shape a third, and reinforce new government rules protecting journalistic privilege. Although more recent court decisions appear to be moving toward journalistic liability for receiving stolen documents, the impact of the historic Whitten case is arguably still being felt today.     

American Indian Tribes: ``Not as Belonging to But as Existing Within'

This article is an extended analysis of the historyand anomalies in the doctrine of American Indiantribal sovereignty. I explain that America gainedindependence, but took Indian land and colonized thetribes just as it had been colonized under theBritish. It asserted sovereignty for itself, butsubordinated the once independent tribes with aparadoxical semi-sovereign status as `dependentdomestic nations', all of this justified by the racialand cultural otherness of Indians. Using a Lacanianperspective, I show that America was founded on a`wound' or inconsistency at the heart of itsideological and constitutional order. In order torectify the inconsistencies that the initial `wound'produces, the law and political order havecontinuously had to adopt fictions (legal and racial). American law and policy has never been able to settlethe ambiguous doctrine of Indian sovereignty. As aresult, the law circles round and round in trying todefine it, and asserting and denying it, all in anunsuccessful attempt to make the constitutional orderwhole. It cannot succeed, however, since the ultimatesolution is an American sovereignty which, like God,admits of no limitation.     

African American adolescents living and coping with community violence on Chicago's southside

This study explores community violence exposures among African American adolescents and whether coping strategies were gendered. In-depth interviews are conducted with a sample of 32 African American high school students. Data are analyzed using a thematic analysis. The primary forms of violence exposures are physical attacks, fighting, and incidents involving police, gun violence, and murders. Boys report more exposure to violence as victims and witnesses, whereas girls are more likely to hear about violent acts. Coping styles range from "getting through," which included both an acceptance of community conditions; "getting along," which included self-defense techniques; "getting away," which included avoidance coping strategies; and "getting back," which consisted of confrontational coping strategies. Boys report more confrontational coping styles than are girls, who utilized more avoidance approaches. Widespread school-based interventions are warranted, given the high prevalence of community violence exposure among these youth and may provide important supports for coping against such trauma.     

Legitimizing American Indian Sovereignty: Mobilizing the Constitutive Power of Law through Institutional Entrepreneurship

Extensive sociolegal scholarship has addressed the utility of law as a mechanism through which marginalized groups may promote social change. Within this debate, scholars employing the legal mobilization approach have thus far highlighted law's indirect impact, beyond the formal arenas of law, via effects on the "legal consciousness" of reformers and would-be reformers. This article contributes to this debate, and the legal mobilization framework in particular, by theoretically identifying and empirically documenting ways through which the constitutive power of law may be effectively used by challengers to more directly pursue changes in institutionalized practices themselves. The article examines the strategic use of law by a set of American Indian tribal leaders in the state of Washington who, over a 13-year period, consciously meshed or "cohered" legal and extrajudicial efforts to gain recognition of their sovereign political status. Through a mode of agency known as "institutional entrepreneurship," they utilized the multiplicity of law and exploited resources and opportunities inhering within the state itself, but outside the courts. In the context of ambiguous legal precedent and widespread local challenges to tribal rights, they mobilized latent discourses of federal Indian law that legitimated the sovereign governmental status of tribes. Importantly, they circulated tribal sovereignty discourses well beyond the field of law, but through the authoritative activity and voice of the state, and in doing so, generated a precedent-setting recognition of tribal sovereignty.     

Identifying the Needs of American Indian Women Who Sought Shelter: A Practitioner-Researcher Partnership

American Indian women across all ages are significantly more likely than women of other ethnic groups to be victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Despite their increased risk of interpersonal violence, there are few published studies or reports that explicitly examine the needs of victimized American Indian women. Therefore, both researchers and service providers know very little about the multifaceted needs of victimized American Indian women and whether current community services are meeting the needs of victimized native women. Identifying such needs is a logical next step so that victim service agencies can develop and effectively provide services tailored to victimized American Indian women. This commentary addresses these gaps by (1) identifying the needs of American Indian women in a domestic violence shelter in Arizona, and (2) highlighting the researcher-practitioner partnership that made it possible to gain access to these victims. Drawing on survey responses from 37 American Indian female clients and interviews with 10 staff members, the findings reveal that the domestic violence agency service provider is meeting many of their needs. Findings also indicate that clients have a wide variety of specific personal needs (e.g., safety, housing, transportation), needs relating to their children (e.g., safety, education, socialization), community needs (e.g., relating to their tribe), as well as legal needs (e.g., help obtaining a restraining order or divorce). These multifaceted needs are discussed and specific recommendations are provided for successful researcher-practitioner partnerships.     

美国印第安学校中学女生的未来——基于"可能自我"的个案研究

本质化研究以美国中学的四位印第安女生为个案,重点阐释了她们的中学课堂受教经历对其今后成长的影响。本文采用可能自我理论,对访谈资料进行了审视和分析,所涉主题包括学校问题、教师、关系的重要性及未来计划这样四大方面。结果表明,可能自我理论有助于人们理解这些中学女生是怎样看待她们自己和筹划她们未来的,同时也为解决和预防中学生的辍学问题,提供了一种可能的路径。     

Sexing North American Eskimo and Indian innominate bones with the acetabulum/pubis index

The acetabulum/pubis index was tested on American Eskimo and Indian samples of innominate bones to which sex had been assigned by visual inspection. The index alone sexed 91 and 89% of the Eskimo and Indian samples, respectively. Subsequent sorting of misclassified specimens with femur head diameter resulted in 96 and 99% rates of classification. The index and a measurement of ischial height were used in a discriminant function model which correctly identified the sex of 93% of the Eskimo and 92% of the Indian bones. Using femur head diameter to sort those specimens which were misclassified by their discriminant function score yielded classification rates of 96 and 98%. These results are compared to a range of 92 to 100% obtained with the index in earlier studies of American black and white pelvic bone samples.     

Truth and Consequences: Law,Myth and Metaphor in American Indian Contested Adoption

This article considers the effects of the operations of myth and metaphor on law through a comparison of a United States Supreme Court decision and a novel that deal with the contested trans-racial adoption of an American Indian child. It argues that the United States founding myth of Manifest Destiny—of the divinely ordained fate of the continent to host a (white) Christian state—is determinative of the way in which legal decisions regarding American Indians are made. The myth of Manifest Destiny contains a metaphor of vanished American Indians, such that contemporary American Indians are rendered nearly invisible and whose existence is not easily absorbed into the working of the American legal system. The American Indian Child Welfare Act provides protections against assimilation for indigenous families and community, thus working at cross-purposes to the ultimate aim of Manifest Destiny. What happens in those instances when legal provisions and interpretation run counter to Manifest Destiny? Through the consideration of the situation of a contested adoption, this article reveals the heavy influence of Manifest Destiny in the Supreme Court decision, which is counter to the vision of a pluralistic culture envisioned in both the novel and the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) itself. The consequences of legal resistance to ICWA for American Indian communities and as to the operation of the legal system itself are discussed.     

Social learning theory,drug use,and American Indian youths: A cross-cultural test

Contemporary delinquency theories have been challenged as being biased by inherent cultural myopia, even though there have been few tests of these theories involving samples that share all theoretically important characteristics except cultural heritage. In particular, recent studies of delinquency among American Indians suggest that the central constructs of these explanatory models may operate differently among Indians or may translate poorly into the “Indian experience.” Using a census of rural American Indian and Caucasian youths who lived close to one another, we examined the empirical link between key social learning theory constructs and self-reported deviant behavior. Although there were some intergroup differences, the selected theoretical constructs yielded considerable insights into the level of self-reported youthful misbehavior, in this instance alcohol and marijuana use, of both subgroups.     

Indian 'Compensatory Discrimination' and American 'Affirmative Action': Some Parallels—A Review of Galanter's Competing Equalities*

What importance does Galanter's Competing Equalities have for non-Indianists or, more specifically, for American students of law and social change with respect to racial and ethnic discrimination? To engage in understatement, much.     

Zygomaticomaxillary suture shape analyzed with digital morphometrics: reassessing patterns of variation in American Indian and European populations

Typological classification of human zygomaticomaxillary suture (ZMS) shape is often used in forensic assessment of ancestry, following earlier studies reporting higher frequencies of "angled" sutures among American Indians and higher frequencies of "curved" sutures among Caucasians. In this paper we present a new method of digital morphometrics to quantify and compare ZMS shape in 60 American Indian and 60 European crania. Suture outlines were recorded as three-dimensional (3D) contours on digital models of adult male and female crania created with a portable 3D laser scanner. Each contour was represented by about four hundred point coordinates, which were transformed via Fourier analysis into amplitude coefficients suitable for use in linear discriminant analysis. Discriminant functions were created that accurately predicted group membership for 83% of the crania in the sample, after leave-one-out cross-validation. The results were compared with traditional typological classifications based on visual evaluation of ZMS shape, and the contour-based method was found to be more effective than the typological approach. However, the distribution of ZMS types within the two sample groups did not conform to previously reported patterns. This discrepancy indicates that ZMS shape may reflect not only genetic factors, but also environmental factors such as diet and stress. In addition, some evidence for sexual dimorphism in the zygomaticomaxillary complex was observed. Based on these findings, we recommend caution when using ZMS shape analysis in forensic ancestry determination.     

Academic potential among African American adolescents in juvenile detention centers: Implications for reentry to school

The study explores Black adolescent detainees academic potential and motivation to return to school to inform best practices and policies for juvenile reentry to educational settings. Adolescent detainees (N = 1,576) who were recruited from one male and one female youth detention facility, responded to surveys that assessed post-detention educational plans, as well as social and emotional characteristics, and criminal history. Multivariate analysis techniques were used to compare factors across race and gender, and plot linear relationships between key indicators of academic potential with associate factors. Findings revealed that youth were more likely to evince academic potential when they had a healthy level of self-esteem, adequate future goal orientation, positive mood, family and community involvement, fewer traumatic events, and less delinquent activity.     

Developmental patterns of sex differences in delinquency among African American adolescents: A test of the sex-invariance hypothesis

This paper addresses a developmental issue concerning longitudinal patterns of sex differences in delinquency. Hirschi and Gottfredson argue that the age-delinquency relation is invariant across sex and that sex differences in delinquency are invariant over time as well. A combination of these two propositions generates a hypothesis, called here the sex-invariance hypothesis, that sex differences in delinquency are invariant over developmental stages of adolescents. To test the sex-invariance hypothesis, nine waves of panel data collected from a representative urban sample of African American adolescents are analyzed. The overall findings show that sex differences in delinquency tend to vary as the subjects grow older, rather than remain constant as the invariance thesis posits. Specifically, sex differences in delinquency peak at the age of 15 and thereafter declines with age. We also find that parental supervision significantly explains sex differences in delinquency for younger adolescence, but not for older adolescence.