Models for Healing - Indigenous Survivors of Historical Trauma: Theory and Research Implications

Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, PhD
Friday October 9, 2009, 7 p.m.

Dr. Yellow Horse Brave Heart's presentation will describe historical trauma for Indigenous Peoples and the historical trauma response, present an intervention aimed at facilitating healing of this trauma response among American Indian adults and parents, provide preliminary research findings on the intervention effectiveness as well as new data on mental health problems and the suggested role of historical trauma, and suggest areas for future work.

Ethical Borders: NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration

This book takes on many great angles of eurocentrism, including the hypocrisy of blaming Mexicans for coming north for work when the US took their jobs in the first place. As the author sums up in an article he recently wrote (click here to view full article), "At the end of the day, economic investment in Mexico is what’s needed to solve the undocumented migration challenge." Two other great websites on this topic are www.racewire.org and www.lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration.

How does does this book relate to us? It challenges us to think about how we and our clients consciously and unconsciously blame others for taking their "rightful" piece of the pie by working to increase their security, stability, and happiness. We have the powerful and often difficult task of opening people's intrapersonal and collective awareness to the costs and inaccuracy of blame. "Illegal" immigration is a literal and metaphorical example of the ignorance of blame.

- Submitted by Anne Phillips

Summertime Limen---ing

This summer's been busy for The Limen Group - even as we all took a break from retreats. Anne, Stacey and I met with Karma, organizational consultant from the Center for Ethical Leadership, for a discussion about decision making process. We also met with Leticia Nieto for a lively session about addressing and challenging racism and other areas of social inequality in our decision making, representation, objectives, and style. Additionally, many of you met with us about how the group is developing and areas where we might improve in use of time, vision, approach and activities. These meetings were invaluable. Finally, this last weekend the three of us met for a day long retreat to discuss our upcoming retreat, ideas that have come up in our individual meetings with you all, organizational structure, and the overall vision of Limen. It's been a busy and exciting time for the project and also a time of recharging. We look forward to building on this energy and seeing you all in October.

Domestic Partner Rights at Risk

In May of 2009, Governor Gregoire signed into law the Domestic Partnership Expansion Bill. This bill granted same-sex couples, as well as heterosexual, unmarried seniors, the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual, married spouses.

Now those new rights are at risk. Those who oppose granting increased rights to same-sex partnerships created Referendum 71, which will put the new law up for public vote in November's election. Backers of Referendum 71 obtained enough signatures to have their initiative appear on November's ballot. The public vote in November will either uphold, or repeal, the Domestic Partnership Expansion Bill.

Things you need to know about Referendum 71:

- You are voting to uphold, or repeal, a law that was already voted on by our legislators and signed into law by Governor Gregoire.
- The rights granted in this law give gay, lesbian and senior couples the same legal rights that heterosexual, married couples already possess.
- Voting YES on Referendum 71 means you want to UPHOLD the Domestic Partnership Expansion Law, while
- Voting NO on Referendum 71 means you want to REPEAL the Domestic Partnership Expansion Law.

How you can help:

Healers and mental health professionals can play a special role in this type of situation. We have the interpersonal and group process skills to be able to hold differences and facilitate difficult conversations. We have the knowledge of empirical data to support domestic partner relationships and refute discriminatory messages. We also know that contact theory suggests that the best way to reduce discrimination and prejudice is to have personal, 1:1 contact between individuals who hold prejudicial beliefs and those in the target group. Therefore, we are asking you to personally be a part of the effort to VOTE YES on 71.

Equal Rights Washington and Washington Families Standing Together are hosting community meetings throughout September in communities all over Washington. These meetings will give people the information, materials, and support we need to go out into our communities and talk to people about the importance of this law and how it affects same-sex and senior partners on a daily basis. You can visit their website at http://approvereferendum71.org/ to find materials, talking points, and information to help you. The more people go out into their communities and talk about Referendum 71, the better. Their schedule of community meetings appears here (you will need to contact them directly to RSVP).

This is an urgent and time sensitive issue, as mail-in ballots will be sent out to voters in less than 6 weeks. While asking for your support on this issue, we also recognize there are many ways to be a family that Referendum 71 does not include, such as being non-monogomous or polyamorous, and that the rights granted in this legislation are rights that ALL families need, regardless of relational status. Knowing that change is slow and incremental we choose at this time to tackle Referendum 71 while recognizing the bigger picture needs. We hope you will stand with us in supporting domestic partner rights for same-sex and senior couples.

Submitted by Stacey Prince