Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

This paper examines language, language programs, and language projects to explore their power and potential for informing, guiding, and improving economic development efforts in the Hoopa Nation of Northern California. Studies have shown that when economic development projects conflict with cultural norms and values, they have either limited success, struggle to remain viable, or simply fail. Despite the crucial role that culture plays in economic development on reservations, scholars have developed neither the theory nor the research to help tribes, practitioners, foundation staff, and policymakers understand and manage the relationship between culture and economic development in order to pursue culturally sustainable projects. This article attempts to fill this gap by offering a new approach for understanding the key role of culture, as well as the power and potential of culture for shaping viable and broadly supported development projects and practices. This study examines the relationship between culture and economic development by drawing from a series of interviews with tribal leaders, development practitioners, business leaders, and tribal officials. It explores the ways in which the conceptualizations, discourses, and practices of Hoopa culture have the potential to inform and shape development projects and the ways in which they provide for greater efficacy. Language provides a medium by which critical cultural information can be accessed in support of self-determined economic development on the reservation. This self-determined, culturally informed development is understood as contributing to larger projects of community healing, nation building, and tribal sovereignty.

Municipal parks with similar design features are found in cities and towns throughout the United States. As public commons, they reveal a great deal about social values, norms, and power. This study utilizes an environmental justice framework and a modified System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities method to evaluate park conditions and usage. Forty-seven parks, most less than seven acres in size, located in census tracts reporting populations at or above the California averages for Asian, African American, or American Indian residents in the cities of Richmond, Berkeley, and Oakland, California were visited at various times throughout the day and week. Observations confirmed previous studies that found predominantly sedentary uses with limited variety. Among adult and teen park users, there were fewer women than men, which also corresponded with previous studies in other cities. Most parks had low levels of use considering the population density of the surrounding neighborhood. Access to sanitary infrastructure and drinking water was limited, as was equipment for adults. Facilities for competitive sports were common, while alternative outdoor facilities for group rhythmic, creative, or coordinated movement were rare. It is recommended that municipalities could address environmental inequalities and increase park usage and benefits for diverse female constituents by providing free or very low-cost culturally appropriate programming and equipment, enhancing sanitation infrastructure, and facilitating active transportation to/from parks.

Women’s experiences have been the nucleus of domestic violence literature, discourse, and policy, and have shaped the therapeutic and/or punitive measures that are characteristic of domestic violence prevention – measures that research has shown are largely ineffective in curbing violence. Consequently, we still know relatively little about why men batter, and how they make sense of the negative “batterer” credential that corresponds with their offense. The few studies that explore batterer behavior are primarily psychological, reducing their violence to individual pathology that can be “treated” in therapy. Accordingly, non-psychological studies are characterized by evaluations of the utility, effectiveness, and/or therapeutic techniques of Batterer Intervention Programs, thus missing thesociologicalroots of batterer behavior. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 15 male batterers, my research shows that these men make sense of the offenses of which they have been accused in different ways, both with regard to the role they attribute to the state in their felt disempowerment and emasculation, and the role they attribute to their female victims. These different meanings are attributable to a number of factors – factors I argue must be addressed to the extent that they are linked to recidivistic risks of battering. The analysis presented in this paper therefore provides a foundation for creating more effective social remedies for battering behavior, and it provides an opportunity to reconsider gender-based theories of interpersonal violence more generally.

Suicide is the leading cause of non-accidental death for Native American young people ages 15-24 years old. Concerningly, suicide rates have continued to rise over the past decade despite a myriad of prevention efforts. This shortcoming has urged some scholars to (re)examine key theoretical constructs to better direct suicide prevention efforts in tribal communities. Using Indigenous Wholistic Theory, an algorithmic approach was employed to identify a broader set of factors that may influence suicidal ideation among Native American high schoolers in California (n = 2,609). Lasso penalized regression was used to select the most accurate predictors of suicidal ideation. Ten out of the 17 input predictors were significant including: depressive symptoms; school-based victimization; sexual and gender minority status; lifetime use of alcohol, vapes, and cannabis; breakfast consumption; access to alcohol and other drugs; and parent education level. The study found that a combination of factors across individual, emotional-social, mental-political, and physical-economic domains could be used to predict the individualized risk of experiencing suicidal ideation. I argue that this multi-level wholistic model is more appropriate and useful, especially for Native American youth. The study highlights the need for a more comprehensive understanding of suicide-related behavior among Native American youth and points to new directions in suicide screening.

This paper examines the ideological conceptions of language and literacy practices in an adult, English as a Second Language (ESL) citizenship class for naturalization. Naturalization refers to the process for obtaining U.S citizenship undergone by lawful permanent residents after meeting extensive federal requirements. I situate neoliberalism within settler-colonial, anti-Black logics, and I define neoliberal citizens through language and economic ideologies. By privileging ESL citizenship students’ perspectives, this paper shows how the ESL citizenship classroom, like others, continues to embrace reductive notions of functionality through English-only instruction. I trace how students take up these neoliberal ideologies through performative belonging and performative othering as well as the ways students deviate from these values and the possibilities therein.

A growing body of literature suggests that the neighborhoods that young people live in have a substantial influence on their lives. As part of this work, researchers have begun to investigate the relationship between young people and local neighborhood institutions such as schools, libraries, grocery stores and youth centers. Engagement with these local institutions has been observed to strengthen youth well-being. Often, this area of research relies on the perspectives of adults and neglects youth experience. This is problematic, given that young people have a great deal of choice and autonomy when selecting neighborhood institutions to engage. Thus, this phenomenological qualitative pilot study highlights youth voice and lived experiences to explore which neighborhood institutions are important to young people and begins to unpack the ways institutional engagement influences well-being. I conducted semi-structured interviews with ten young people between the ages of 14 and 20 who live in East Oakland, California. The findings from this project provide: (1) a descriptive understanding of the different neighborhood institutions that are important to young people, and (2) youth perspectives on why they choose to engage neighborhood institutions. I find that youth-serving organizations, in addition to schools and churches, provide important opportunities for young people to develop both community and individual well-being. Young people say that these institutions strengthen their connectedness to strong social networks, increase positive future outlooks, and provide safe spaces that support a wide variety of interests - including college and career preparation, sports, and arts and crafts. These findings will help practitioners and researchers develop a deeper understanding of the vital role space, place, and institutions play in the lives of youth.

Background and Objectives

Researchers have increasingly considered the importance of age-friendly communities to improve the health and well-being of older adults. Studies have primarily focused on the built environment, such as community infrastructure, older adult behavior, and environmental expectations. Less is known about the role of cultural characteristics in shaping perceptions of age-friendly environments, especially among racial and ethnic minorities.

Research Design and Methods

Using an ethnographic methodological approach, including participant observation in a Latinx community near New York City and 72 semi-structured interviews, this study examines how older Latinxs characterize age-friendly communities.

Results

Latinx older adults described their community as age-friendly by way of the concept Tranquilo Ambiente, translated as calm or peaceful environment. More specifically, TA includes: 1) a sense of perceived personal safety, 2) ethnic and social connectedness, and 3) spatial and cultural accessibility.

Discussion and Implications

This study extends prior research that has largely considered structural or economic components to show how culture may also influence the well-being of older Latinxs, even if living in an under-resourced area. The concept of Tranquilo Ambiente demonstrates that both structural and cultural environmental factors influence older Latinxs understandings of age-friendly communities. By utilizing a socio-cultural lens, this research highlights how Latinx older adults benefit from an environment that supports their physical (e.g., well-lit and newly paved streets), social (e.g., city hall senior center), and cultural (e.g., events and programs that promote cultural heritage) needs.

Nonprofit hospitals are required to provide “community benefits,” although this term and the associated levels of spending are not clearly defined. Over 75% of private nonprofit hospital community benefits are allocated to providing medical services for those who cannot afford care, and fewer investments are made to address structural and social determinants of health (SDOH). In particular, this spending is rarely used to redress racial inequities that shape health. In addition to spending on charity care and medical services, some private nonprofit hospitals invest in non-medical strategies to improve health outcomes. In California, private nonprofit hospitals report $12 billion in annual community benefits that include spending on non-medical strategies intended to improve health promoting conditions for vulnerable populations. This comparative case study analyzes data from organizational documents, interviews, and media communications to examine how hospital community investments in housing and workforce development are rationalized and deployed to address SDOH in Los Angeles County. Findings indicate that community-based resources are essential to align hospital investments with community need and to avoid “colorblind” decisions that emphasize socioeconomic need yet do not adequately address racialized barriers to health. Policy and practices that promote targeted capital investments and prioritize the disproportionate needs of communities of color are needed instead of colorblind hospital community investments that perpetuate racial inequities in health.

This paper explores a self-determined space of health and healing centering ancestral, traditional, and Indigenous medicine and spiritual practices. While ancestral, traditional, and Indigenous (ATI) medicine overlaps with what is conventionally recognized as “alternative” medicine, what sets ATI apart in this work is the political orientation of the Oakland-based Healing Clinic Collective (HCC) and its network of ATI practitioners. Their political orientation and motivation for community organizing begins from practicing and promoting ATI healing modalities to address the impact of interrelated generational experiences shaped by institutional legacies of colonization vis a vis racial capitalism, eurocentrism, and white supremacy.  I use a transdisciplinary and decolonial framework to analyze the HCC’s “ceremonial organizing” model and show how the HCC clinic space offers expansive conceptions of what counts as health, healing, and care at the level of community health. I also show how the HCC is situated in a Bay Area radical community organizing continuum for community survival and self-determination.

A transdisciplinary decolonial framework allows me to think alongside two concepts, therapeutic landscapes and third space, to discuss what it means to organize and hold a healing clinic without replicating a “clinical” experience. Based on ethnographic research, this paper is guided by the following questions:   How does the politicized space created by the HCC clinics interrogate and re-define what counts as health, healing, medicine, and health/care knowledge? How does this sacred-political healing landscape shape a different approach to and experience of community organizing and social movement as a practice of community health/care?

The school-to-prison pipeline is perhaps the most well-known current framework for understanding the relationships between school and incarceration, but the prolific use of this pipeline metaphor is problematic. It tends to omit or obfuscate more complex understandings of the hows and whys adolescents end up incarcerated. Challenging the school-to-prison pipeline narrative is an important precursor to examining the complex factors that lead to and perpetuate youth incarceration, as well as developing solutions for addressing it. This paper first critiques the school-to-prison pipeline narrative. It then offers a way to reimagine how we can think of adolescent criminalization in terms of another metaphor, that of social death, which refers to the systematic criminalization and dehumanization of entire groups of people. Based on an interview study with twenty-nine adults who were first incarcerated as adolescents, this paper uses case studies of three Black and three Latino male participants to demonstrate how social death manifested in zero tolerance, wrongful accusations, and proactive surveillance in and out of the classroom.