Abstract
Research demonstrates that appropriation of aspects of American Indian cultures, pseudo-culture, and ethno-national identities is harmful to American Indians. Yet, when American Indians strive to eliminate this appropriation, they are often met with resistance from White Americans who are attached to the appropriation. Using a survey of 517 White Americans, we explored whether settler colonial collective memory was associated with this attachment. More specifically, we examined the associations between five ideologies that are part of this memory—glorification of U.S. colonialism, nationalism, militarism, masculine toughness, and White identity pride—and support for American Indian mascots and other types of appropriation. We found that these five ideologies are associated with each other, as well as with support for American Indian mascots and the other types of appropriation. In addition, we found that glorification of U.S. colonialism mediated between belief in each of the other four ideologies and support for appropriation. We situate our findings in the context of settler colonial collective memory and discuss how our findings can inform change.
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Data Availability
The dataset generated for the current study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Notes
Our measure of nationalism is focused on national glorification. We are aware that there are other measures of nationalism, such as those focused on national attachment (Roccas et al.,2006).
Although not related to the research questions in the present study, in this data set we observed small to moderate significant bivariate correlations between support for Native appropriation and less support for American Indian nation sovereignty, the trust relationship with the U.S. government, and American Indian efforts to address the oppression they face, buttressing previous findings linking support for Native appropriation to less supportive attitudes toward American Indian Peoples (Davis-Delano et al., 2022). Bivariate correlations from the data set used in the present study are available upon request.
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We would like to acknowledge the consultation with Angela R. Riley and Lawrence R. Baca.
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Davis-Delano, L.R., Galliher, R.V., Keene, A.J. et al. White American Historical Memory and Support for Native Appropriation. Race Soc Probl (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-023-09407-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-023-09407-5