This theory states that Natives have been oppressed for hundreds of years and as a group have taken into their own psyche the characteristics of the oppressors resulting in the tendency to oppress themselves even in the absence of an identifiable external oppressor. “Historical trauma response (HTR) theory is based on the hypothesis that when people were victims of cultural trauma, the aftereffects can be passed down through the generations.” Variants of this are Transgenerational Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or “soul wound.“ Īnother popular theory is that of “internalized oppression.” Ī number of explanations have been found.

The problems usually mentioned are: Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, alcohol abuse, domestic violence, gang violence, rape, unemployment, jobs with little chance of career growth, depression, suicide and teen pregnancy. “Federal and private agencies have made a series of depressing reports as to the condition of American Indian youth, both in the home and in their interaction with the judicial system.” Sentences like this one are ubiquitous in sources not only on young American Indians.

Despite a writer’s Indian heritage it is unsound to read novels as a “true accounts” of reservation life, yet it seems to me that Erdrich’s depiction of Chippewa families includes some issues that are very much part of American Indian reality. Set on a North Dakota reservation, Louise Erdrich’s novel Love Medicine is first of all a fictitious story.

Love medicine author