Invisible People. Invisible Voices.

      

 There are 5.2 million people that are often forgotten.  They are not dwindling, if anything they are growing, by 39% since 2000, twice as fast as the U.S population. We like to pretend that they don’t exist anymore, they are only in our textbooks. No way would they still be present, they probably all died by disease and guns. This is anything but true. However, it sure seems like it. Native Americans are continuously silenced and misrepresented. You don’t see them in your classrooms, you don’t hear their voices. Researchers have argued that Native Americans are an invisible minority (Native American Cultural Stereotypes). This is considered normal. It is normal to go throughout one’s life without questioning their view on natives. It is normal to accept what is taught and settle with that.  I hope that your previous views on native education will be challenged. That is what sociology is about, making the familiar strange, which is what I will do.

       

      “The painful legacy of discrimination means that . . . Native Americans are far more likely to suffer from a lack of opportunity—higher unemployment, [and] higher poverty rates” (White House Office of the Press Secretary 2013) Even the President of the United States has recognized this as a real issue, a whole group of people are trying to recover from hundreds and hundreds of years of horrible discrimination. Even now, stereotypes run deep in American society, with many thinking that natives are lazy and alcoholics. This is a prime example of Labelling Theory, in which strong labels begin to apply to the marginalized group and they begin to accept the label as truth.  In a study by Hanson and Rouse, a group of white college students were asked to match labels with what they would think native people are, 78% of them labeled natives as rural and traditional (Cultural Stereotypes). This means that white people see natives as people of the past, which might explain why natives are common as high school mascots, accounting for 10.6% of all mascots.

Conflict theory is also present in relation to stereotypes .It was found that the endorsement of negative stereotypes about Native Americans tended to vary as a function of perceived competition for resources and the visibility of Native Americans in their geographic area (Cultural Stereotypes). Those in power (white people) want to oppress those who are perceived as lower in order to keep their own power, those with resources will do anything in order to keep it, even if that means enforcing negative and false stereotypes. These labels leak into native communities and contribute to crime through the labelling theory. These stereotypes have a strong impact on the community. It was reported that there were significantly lower levels of self-esteem in natives when they were asked about their community and assumptions people make (Cultural Stereotypes). Low self esteem can also be a barrier to students who want to go to college.

          There is a certain beauty in concrete numbers, they are evidence that cannot be contested. Higher education enrollment for native students is 1.2%. This is incredibly low, comparing to white student enrollment, which is 53%. Why is it that there are so little native students going to college? What kind of barriers keep them from higher education? Lets start with the high school environment of these potential college students. In 2011, greater percentages of AI/AN ( American Indian/American native) students (40%) and NHOPI (native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander) students (39%), than White, Black, or Asian students (23% each) reported that drugs were offered, sold, or given to them on school property. This is a startling statistic, natives encounter drugs almost twice as often as other students. Also, In 2011 42% of AI/AN and 43% of NHOPI students reported being in a physical fight anywhere during the previous 12 months, compared to 29% of White students. About one in four American Indians and Alaska Natives1 (26.4 percent) lived in poverty. In contrast, about one in 10 non-Hispanic whites (11 percent) lived in poverty (U.S. Census Bureau 2013). This is a perfect storm: drugs, violence and poverty. College is out of the question when one’s life is in danger. A reason for such unrest could be attributed to Social Disorganization Theory, which is also called Broken Windows theory, in which if one sees damage in property, they are much more likely to commit crime because of past crime that is visible. If crime is heavily prevalent in the native reservations, the youth will be more likely to commit crime and ignore the thought of college as a whole.  

         Along with unrest, comes higher unemployment, which can serve as discouragement to youth and can serve as a trap for them. Even if they do graduate college, they come back home and find it impossible to find a job, which makes going to college feel useless.

American Indian and white employment and unemployment rates, ages 25–54, 2009–2011

	American Indian	White	Difference (American Indian – white)	Number of jobs needed to make the American Indian rate equal the white rate
Employment rate	64.7%	78.1%	-13.4	233,901
Unemployment rate	14.6%	7.7%	6.9	90,977

          

Number of jobs needed to make the American Indian rate equal the white rate among the 25- to 54-year-old population, 2009–2011

	Using the unemployment rate	Using the employment rate
Number of jobs needed	90,977	233,901

 In conclusion, the main reasons for low representation in higher education is because of conflict theory, those in power want to keep power and do so by enforcing negative stereotypes. These stereotypes leak into the native community which causes them to accept and confine themselves to the labels, which is essentially what Labelling Theory is. When they see crime everywhere, they see it as normal to commit crimes as well, which consists of the Social Disorganization theory. Massive unemployment also plays a critical role by discouraging future students by making it appear that having a college degree means nothing and that unemployment is inevitable. 

Works Cited 

Austin, Algernon. "Native Americans and Jobs: The Challenge and the Promise." Economic Policy Institute. Economic Policy Institute, 17 Dec. 2013. Web. 05 Dec. 2015. <http://www.epi.org/publication/bp370-native-americans-jobs/>.

Erhart, Ryan S. "The Content of Native American Cultural Stereotypes in Comparison to Other Racial Groups." Arizona State University (2013): 1-71. June-July 2013. Web. 05 Dec. 2015. <https://repository.asu.edu/attachments/110701/content/Erhart_asu_0010N_13118.pdf>.

"NIEA Research." National Indian Education Association. National Indian Education Association, n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2015. <http://www.niea.org/Research.aspx>.