American Indian Culture and Research Journal

The topic of cultural lifestyles of immigrant populations in the United States has received considerable attention over a span of many years. Most of this attention has focused on examining and describing the ways foreign-born populations immerse themselves into mainstream US culture. Examinations of cultural lifestyles based on immersion in one culture only can be labeled monocultural. Various researchers have proposed that monocultural methods are ineffective because of their inability to measure the extent to which individuals also immerse themselves in their native heritage. For example, with respect to the Mexican-American population, a monocultural approach cannot distinguish between individuals who immerse exclusively into the mainstream US culture and those who immerse equally and extensively into both Mexican and mainstream US communities. Theoretical and empirical examinations of cultural lifestyles of immigrant populations based on levels of immersion into two cultures—an alternate non-native community as well as a native heritage—can be labeled bicultural. Within the American Indian community, monocultural and bicultural methods may be ineffective in assessing accurately the complex cultural experiences and lifestyle practices of many American Indians. Specifically, unlike many foreign-born populations that may have primary contact with their Native heritage and/or mainstream US culture, American Indians, as a community, have a long-standing history of extensive contact with many non-Indian ethnic and cultural groups, not just mainstream Anglo-American culture. As a result, it is estimated that over 50 percent of American Indians are of mixed Indian and non-Indian ethnic heritage. This exposure and amalgamation of multiple cultural groups renders typical monocultural and bicultural methods ineffective in assessing the many varieties of beliefs and practices that may manifest within the American Indian community. This study represents a preliminary effort to evaluate the utility of an inventory designed to measure cultural beliefs and practices of American Indians with respect to five major groups in the United States: American Indian, Anglo-American, Latino, African-American, and Asian-American.