Roots of Youth Development - YDEV 501

     First of all, this was a very interesting read to me for several reasons. A large one being that I am about 40% Cherokee. I was adopted from Arkansas when I was a little over one years old and my birth father was almost 100% Cherokee. It was a closed adoption, however this was the one piece of information that my birth parents wanted to pass on. It is also a large reason why they decided my adoptive parents were the right family for them (and me) since my father's side of the family is connected heavily to the Mi'kmaq Nation up near the Canadian border. Growing up all I knew of my identity before my adoptive family was that I was born in Arkansas and that I was part Native American. When I was a teenager and would visit my relatives up North, many of whom would leave their homes on the reservation to come and meet us, I asked my Nana what they refer to themselves as and she said they preferred to be referenced as "First Nation" rather than "Native American". Not knowing if this is the same term other people of similar decent would prefer, I generally use this term. These gatherings and anytime I would see my Nana (great grandmother) and my great Aunts is how I learned about this culture. I rarely tell people this part of my heritage because I am white. I identify as white and appearance wise I do have that privilege. Both of my adoptive parents were white and I grew up in a community that was very diverse, however I never knew much about this part of my culture beyond my relatives stories. I remember sobbing one day to my father because my cousins were teasing me and saying I wasn't a member of the Cherokee Nation - my father corrected them and always instilled a sense of pride in me about my background. 

    That being said, the article titled "Decolonizing Youth Development: Re-imagining youthwork for indigenous youth futures" was extremely interesting and saddening to me. What I knew of this topic and how this structuring of youth work came to be was simple and based on my own observations. I specifically remember a teacher telling a group of us in elementary school that we couldn't play "Cowboys and Indians" anymore because it wasn't politically correct. While I didn't understand then, I did remember this when I was older and began to understand race and privilege (or lack of) in this country. I learned in school and through my great Aunt about some of the ways they would assimilate First Nation children into "normal society" and always knew it was a part of this history. However, reading in this article the extent to which this was carried out was sickening to me. Learning how the ideas of Race Development shaped both First Nation education and that of the "regular population" was sobering. The way that these ideals were carried through in so many different ways both in formal education and in outside groups such as The Boy Scouts was shocking and at the same time explained so many things about the framework of many youth development programs. All I could think about when reading was how heavy the contradictions were and how deeply indoctrinated in hate and ignorance you would have to be to believe them. However, the article says that these ideas of assimilation and Race Development "legitimized and nationalized" programs that were structuring themselves in this way which shows how wide reaching this was. 

    As I read, I thought about how deeply ingrained these ideologies still are in youth development programs. We have come a long way from the blatant hate and racism of the past except....have we really come that far? How sad it is that we've developed our children in this way and with these philosophies for decades and yet we are more sick, depressed, and angrier than ever. One quote in this article that gave me pause was "these primitive people are but grown children, living in closer touch with nature (Armitage, 2007, p.52)". When I read this line I realized how simple and absolutely amazing that sounds and how similar it was to the way I tend to live my life. While many of my relatives share painstaking stories of traditions gone, stories burned, and people lost, I can't help but think how wrong we were. I believe we will (and some already have) realize the fault in our judgment and the error in our ways. Dismissing the energy flow of the natural world is something that developed white cultures have continuously been so keen to do. How's that working out? In my mind, it never has and never will. I'll end with one of my favorite quotes: “If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it.” - David Sobel