Mixed-blood Indians have occupied a strategic role in American history since Europeans first reached this continent. However, the concept of a mixed-blood Indian is too complex to be limited to a biological construct; the mixed-blood Indian represents a class, as well as a race, of people. This analysis of the social construction of the mixed-blood Indian is conducted on three levels, (1) an historiographical approach which examines the study of the mixed-blood topic, (2) a historical analysis, using federal Indian policy and Indian literature as indicators of the mixed-blood social experience and (3) the case study of Mickey Free, the socially-constructed mixed-blood Apache. The study of mixed-blood Indians comprises a study in race, gender and power relations. It is also a study on the final American frontier.

This thesis is a description and analysis of various types of hegemonic changes that have occurred and are occurring in Otavalo, Ecuador. These changes are part of a process of change that extends back in time to 1483 and probably much earlier. Woven into the tapestry of this work is the history of the Inca and Spanish conquests in the area of Otavalo/Imbabura. I exemplify that cultural and ideological changes due to earlier conquests were brought about primarily through the use of extreme force. There was great resistance to Inca and Spanish hegemony. The glaring difference in the present day western hegemonic conquest is that there is little resistance to this form of hegemony. The forces of western hegemony are permeating Otavaleno culture not through armed force but through technology and western ideology.

This thesis focuses on the history of a group of Lakota people who moved from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations in South Dakota to Alliance, a small railroad and agricultural town in the Nebraska panhandle between the 1940s and 1960s. This study addresses a gap in the research about Indian peoples in this century by virtue of its focus on a small off-reservation community. It examines the part Indians played in the local economy and explores the inter-racial dynamics affecting that role. Class and social distinctions structured Alliance's community life. Attention to key factors--federal Indian policy, military presence, labor patterns, law enforcement, corporations, railroad employment policies, and establishment of the Indian Social Center in 1949 by the United Church Women--illustrates how class and race affected Alliance's citizens. Narratives were collected from twelve residents in order to bring personal voices to the work.

For my Master of Arts in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona I have done a comparative analysis of the Docent program's at the Arizona State Museum and the National Museum of the American Indian. A docent program or guided tour program, is part of educational programing at each museum. In order to fully understand and appreciate objects in a museum, especially those in exhibits dealing with Native Americans, requires interpretation. The guided tour is one of the most popular interpretive techniques. In this particular study, I focus on the use of storytelling as an interpretive technique. This study was done in an educational setting through informal observation of the docents, personal interviews and discussion with the docents and Educational Coordinators at each museum, examination of educational training, examination of Native American education techniques, and investigation of storytelling and its relationship to museums and Native peoples.

Responses of ten Native American men, who reported being homeless for at least six months, waiver slightly from the hypothesis that their concept of home denotes community, family, and an indigenous connection to the land. However, they did strategically cope to create home-like atmospheres. Direct answers show that home provides basic necessities, safety, and emotions of well-being, like belonging. Scrutiny of the complete contexts of these men's lives show that friendship often replaced a lack of family. Some participants referred to an indigenous connection to the land and to home as being more than one place, including a natal reservation. Adoption and a period of time away from culture, an uprootedness, also characterized these lives. Researcher recommendations include a permanent wet/dry residence, a camping area, and provisions for more culturally specific homeless services.

To compare maternal prenatal attachment between Anglo and Mexican American women, 68 low-risk primigravidae at 23 to 41 weeks gestation were recruited from childbirth classes, prenatal clinics, and a private obstetrician's office. The respondents completed a questionnaire that included the Muller Prenatal Attachment Inventory as well as provided information on ethnic identity and demographic variables. The questionnaires were available in both English and Spanish. There were no significant differences on maternal prenatal attachment scores between Anglo and Mexican American mothers in this sample. One of the most significant findings was that the women in this sample who were taking prenatal classes tended to be younger and have lower educational and income levels.

The General Allotment Act of 1887 was a two-pronged policy aimed at assimilating American Indians into the dominant Euro-American society by allotting individual plots of land to Indians, thereby creating surplus lands which would then be opened up for non-Indian settlement. The process of allotment officially ended in 1934 with the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act, however, it was used again in the late-1900s to gain an individual trust allotment. Ann-Marie Sayers, a Mutsun Band Costanoan Indian, used the General Allotment Act of 1887 to gain her allotment in 1988. Ms. Sayers appropriated this assimilationist act to promote cultural survival. That is, the General Allotment Act was used to obtain an individual trust allotment, but assimilation was not the outcome. Rather in this case, the outcome was the maintenance and promotion of cultural survival.

When contemporary Native American education in the United States with its historical legacy of ideological management and vocational training, is grafted upon the broader context of modern public education, an ominous threat appears for indigenous communities. What happens to the nature of public education when two principal homogenizing forces--the corporation and the public school--become partners, involving business and industry directly in the education of native youth? This thesis examines the history and philosophy behind the corporate presence in United States public education, the nature and extent of contemporary corporate sponsorship in mainstream education, and the implications of such sponsorship for Navajo students in one public school district in northern New Mexico. The research presented finds that the various forms and objectives of corporate-sponsored education, invariably carrying latent marketing agendas, homogenizing forces, and consumerist values, constitute another potential instrument of assimilation of indigenous students.

The United States Government has allegedly mismanaged Individual Indian Money and Tribal Trust Fund accounts since their creation over 150 years ago. Despite what appears to be a well-documented and incontrovertible body of evidence: extensive governmental and private sector audits, as well as congressional and executive level reports and hearings confirming chronic mismanagement, the BIA continues to lose, misplace, and often fails to collect millions in royalty payments belonging to Indian people without an equitable solution. Consequently, this thesis examines the most recent reform effort, the 1994 American Indian Trust Fund Mismanagement Reform Act offered by the 103rd Congress, the Strategic Plan created by the Office of Special Trustee, and finally, federal and tribal responses to the proposed Strategic Plan. The impact of these varied responses has elucidated several hindrances to effective reform, thus generating key questions which necessitate closer examination in order to advance effective reform.

<p> In the United States, the history of racism and racial oppression is often unexamined within environmental and preservationist movements. Wilderness preservation and access to nature has been used as a method of reinforcing racial hierarchy and promoting and advancing White agendas. Environmental heroes like John Muir promoted racist viewpoints toward others through a vision of wilderness that was exclusive and inaccessible. National Parks and other wilderness areas displaced the original inhabitants of the land now are representative of nature as a place of exclusion. In order to have success with their environmental goals, White environmentalists need to recognize and account for the racism, imperialism, and nationalism, both intentional and unintentional, that has harmed their movement.</p>