| This research study explored the perception of historical trauma across Native American nations. Historical Trauma has been established as a by-product of cultural and physical suppression, however research suggested that more information was necessary to have a complete the picture of what historical trauma represented. Cultural psychology details the impact of an individual's culture on the psychological development of the individual. Specifically, human behavior embodies culture, and is the basis for the psychological process. Therefore, by examining the change to the culture that resulted in historical trauma, determination could be made regarding how the individual was impacted. This heuristic phenomenological qualitative research addressed these contentions by interviewing Native American persons from the Eastern and Northern nations of North America and Canada, and determined how historical trauma had influenced their psychological development via symptoms they experienced. The research identified several areas that differed from the extant literature regarding the Eastern and Northern nations. In this group of informants, there was discussion of complete assimilation in to the colonized culture, which resulted in total loss of identity as a Native American/American Indian. However, the most profound finding was that some of the families hid their identity. All of the participants interviewed discussed how their families hid, going as far as changing their names, as well as race information on the U.S. Census forms. This resulted in dual racism, both from the existing federally recognized Native American/American Indian nations, and the descendants of the European colonization. More research is necessary to determine the pervasiveness of this phenomenon; however, this research opens the door to understanding the dichotomy and rift between the families who hid, and denied their heritage, and the established members of the federally recognized nations. |
