Teresa D. Lafromboise and Kathryn

Teresa D. LaFromboise and Kathryn Graff Low begin their article "American Indian Children and Adolescents" by stating, "For centuries, American Indians have been uprooted, relocated, educated, and socialized in attempts to integrate them into the dominant culture and extinguish their tribal identity and tradition," (114). The authors weave this broad social and political commentary with data gathered from case studies. With a sympathetic and humanistic approach to their research, LaFramboise and Graff Low describe demographic data related to the Native American community and family, an overview of empirical evidence related to mental health in the Native community, and offer suggestions for culturally-specific treatment for mental health issues in particular. The authors offer insight into the structure of Native communities and families and show how and why a monocultural treatment modality might not serve the needs of American Indians. Like many other articles in the collection edited by Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, Larke Nahme Huang, et al. entitled Children of Color, the article's greatest impact may be its potential for application to other minority groups. In focusing on Native American youth and the particular problems that demographic faces, LaFramboise and Graff Low offer the social scientist a means to approach other communities with similar compassion and respect for their unique needs and histories.

LaFramboise and Graff do an excellent job of pointing out the problems with treating minority populations, focusing especially on cultural differences. For example, within the Native American population they focus on in the article, income is low, poverty rampant, and illiteracy relatively high. Moreover, poverty has affected more than just individuals and their families: poverty has fragmented the Native communities and their tribal structures. The authors also show that as more and more American Indians seek improved financial prospects in the city, they become trapped between two worlds. As they state on page 119, Native youth "often feel stranded between two cultures." The sense of isolation and dislocation this creates is enormous and detrimental to the well-being of individuals and the community. The authors' perceptions on the psychological isolation and community fragmentation shed light on the many social problems within American Indian populations.

Readers will be struck by the demographic data that the authors present. For example, child abuse and neglect are all too common within the Native American populations. The problems of parents are passed on to their children: poverty and psychological neglect both create intergenerational problems. Also, psychologists have paid relatively little attention to the specific needs of Native persons; historically they have been a neglected and forgotten group of people. Forced acculturation and assimilation has undermined individuals' mental health as well as the health of the entire community.