A youth-suicide epidemic is sweeping Indian country, with Native American teens and young adults killing themselves at more than triple the rate of other young Americans, according to federal government figures.<\/p>\n
In pockets of the United States, suicide among Native American youth is 9 to 19 times as frequent as among other youths, and rising. From Arizona to Alaska, tribes are declaring states of emergency and setting up crisis-intervention teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like wartime,\u201d said Diane Garreau, a child-welfare official on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, in South Dakota. \u201cI\u2019ll see one of our youngsters one day, then find out a couple of days later she\u2019s gone. Our children are self-destructing.\u201d<\/p>\n
So dire is the alarm that of 23 grants the U.S. federal government awarded nationally to prevent youth suicides in September, 10 went to Native American tribes or organizations, with most of them receiving nearly $500,000 per year for three years.<\/p>\n
A former Democratic senator from North Dakota, Byron Dorgan, who chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for 18 years, called those efforts good but insufficient. Dorgan is founder of the Center for Native American Youth, which promotes Indian child health and emphasizes suicide prevention. He describes the Indian Health Service, which serves the nation\u2019s 566 tribes, as chronically underfunded.<\/p>\n
“We need more mental-health services to save the lives of our youngest First Americans,\u201d Dorgan said. \u201cTribes and nonprofits may get two- or three-year grants to address an issue that cannot possibly be resolved in that amount of time. We fund programs, then let them fall off a cliff.<\/p>\n
“The perception may be that tribes have a lot of gaming funds, but that is simply not true for more than a few,\u201d Dorgan said.<\/p>\n
Legacy of trauma<\/strong><\/p>\n The suicide risk factors for Native youth are well known and widely reported. In their homes and communities, many Native youngsters face extreme poverty, hunger, alcoholism, substance abuse and family violence. Diabetes rates are sky high, and untreated mental illnesses such as depression are common. Unemployment tops 80 percent on some reservations, so there are few jobs\u2014even part-time or after-school ones. Bullying and peer pressure pile on more trauma during the vulnerable teen years.<\/p>\n Native youngsters are particularly affected by community-wide grief stemming from the loss of land, language and more, researchers reported in 2011. As many as 20 percent of adolescents said they thought daily about certain sorrows\u2014even more frequently than adults in some cases, the researchers found.<\/p>\n \u201cOur kids hurt so much, they have to shut down the pain,\u201d said Garreau, who is Lakota. \u201cMany have decided they won\u2019t live that long anyway, which in their minds excuses self-destructive behavior, like drinking\u2014or suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n Suicide figures vary from community to community, with the most troubling numbers in the Northern Plains, in Alaska and in parts of the Southwest. In Alaska, the suicide rate for young Native males is about nine times that of all young males in the United States, while Native females in Alaska kill themselves nineteen times as often as all U.S. females their age, according to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.<\/p>\n After a cluster of suicides in 2001, the White Mountain Apache Tribe wanted to develop a prevention program. It mandated reporting of all suicides and attempts on their Arizona reservation, discovering that between 2001 and 2006, their youth ended their lives at 13 times the national rate.<\/p>\n The trauma behind the numbers is excruciating. \u201cWhen my son died by suicide at age 23, I didn\u2019t even know how to think,\u201d said Barbara Jean Franks, who is Tlingit and was living in Juneau, Alaska, at the time. \u201cI couldn\u2019t imagine that hope existed.\u201d<\/p>\n The tragedies ripple through entire communities. Reservations are essentially small towns, and tribal members are often related, whether closely or distantly, Garreau said. \u201cPeople are numbed, overwhelmed. Sometimes they\u2019ll say, I just can\u2019t go to another funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n Because suicide is so common in some Native communities, it\u2019s become an acceptable solution for times when burdens build up, said Alex Crosby, medical epidemiologist with the CDC\u2019s injury-prevention center: \u201cIf people run into trouble\u2014relationship problems, legal problems\u2014this compounds the underlying risk factors, and one of the options is suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n “Is it in our blood?”<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt crosses your mind,\u201d said Jake Martus, whose Yupik\/Eskimo\/Athabaskan father was born in a tiny, remote village on the Yukon River. \u201cI\u2019ve never acted on suicidal thoughts, but they\u2019ve been there my entire life. It\u2019s sad, it\u2019s shocking, but in our communities it\u2019s also somehow normal.\u201d<\/p>\n Martus, who is 26 and a patient advocate for the Alaska Native Epidemiology Center, said suicide is so frequent among his people, he has to ask, \u201cIs it in our blood?\u201d Martus\u2019 father killed himself in jail after being arrested for drunk driving. Behind his dad\u2019s alcoholism were overwhelming memories of sexual abuse by his village\u2019s Catholic priest, Martus said. Similar stories echo throughout Indian country, where lawsuits against the Catholic Church have detailed sexual, physical, and emotional abuse by clerics in parishes or on staff at the notoriously violent boarding schools that Native children were forced to attend until the 1970s.<\/p>\n The lasting effect of the abuse and the loss of land and culture is often called historical trauma. Martus calls it genocide. \u201cThey set us up to kill ourselves,” he said. “The point of all the policies was \u2018take them out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n In some communities, suicide has become so ordinary that boys in particular may dare each other to try it, said Ira Vandever, a Ramah Navajo chef in western New Mexico. He works with Music Is Medicine, a local group that brings guitars, drums and lessons from rock and traditional musicians to Native youngsters. Speaking after dinner at his restaurant,\u00a0La Tinaja,\u00a0he said, \u201cAround here, some who have died by suicide weren\u2019t depressed. They were just responding to a dare.\u201d<\/p>\n Incredible as it may sound to adults, adolescents may not fully understand that shooting or hanging themselves can have permanent results, said social worker Patricia Serna, who helped develop a nationally recognized suicide-prevention program for a New Mexico tribe. \u201cYouth who survived suicide attempts would tell us they just wanted a break from their problems, a little time off.\u201d She explains that important decision-making parts of the brain are not fully developed in adolescents\u2014of all population groups, not just Native youngsters. As a result, they may not foresee the consequences of their actions.<\/p>\n Part of the boys\u2019 difficulty is misunderstanding the warrior tradition that makes up much of Native male identity, according to Alvin Rafelito, Ramah Navajo and director of his community\u2019s health and human services department. \u201cWe have a prayer that describes a warrior as someone who goes the distance spiritually for his people. Nowadays, that ideal has been reduced to simply fighting and violence. In teaching kids to be modern warriors, we have to convey the term\u2019s full, traditional meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n Tradition as a life raft<\/strong><\/p>\n Tradition is key, said Anderson Thomas, Ramah Navajo and director of the community\u2019s behavioral health program. On his reservation, he points out, it\u2019s typically young men who are dying by suicide, not young women. \u201cI\u2019d say more than 90 percent of girls here go through their traditional coming-of-age ceremony,\u201d he said. In contrast, little is done for young males. In large part, he said, that\u2019s because traditional male activities like hunting have diminished, so rituals related to them have dropped off as well. Though Ramah Navajo men and boys can obtain conventional therapy, they also need ceremonies, Thomas said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was my tradition that brought me to safety,\u201d Franks said. As time went on, she went back to school, got a degree and these days promotes suicide prevention statewide on behalf of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. \u201cNow, I can move forward. Instead of saying my son died by suicide, I can say he gave me 23 years of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Crosby, tradition is one of the so-called \u201cprotective factors\u201d that can counter the risk factors\u2014even the deeply embedded ones that afflict tribes. For indigenous people, tradition is distinctive and powerful, say researchers. It incorporates family and clan relationships, reverence for elders and a deeply-held spiritual life. Supporting these traditions and ties makes Native youngsters feel valued and gives them encouragement to seek help, U.S. and Canadian scientists have concluded in study after study.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to be a scientist to figure this out. Alaska Native Tessa Baldwin was a 17-year-old high school student when she learned that feeling connected is vital. At age 5, she had lost an uncle to suicide and in succeeding years, several friends and a boyfriend. \u201cI finally realized it wasn\u2019t something affecting just me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was a lot bigger.\u201d In 2011, she founded Hope4Alaska, one many small grassroots suicide-prevention groups in Indian country.<\/p>\n Through Hope4Alaska, Baldwin traveled to schools in Alaska Native villages to tell her story and find out what other teens thought would help.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had youth\u2013elder discussions, and the kids said they felt useless. They wanted to better their communities but saw no way to make a contribution. The elders were touched, and the kids felt they\u2019d connected with them in an important way,\u201d recalls Baldwin, who has just started her freshman year at the University of California, San Diego.<\/p>\n To make sure Cheyenne River\u2019s children feel part of a community that values them, Diane Garreau\u2019s sister, Julie, runs the Cheyenne River Youth Project, a busy after-school facility. Kids listen to elder storytellers, play basketball and tend a two-acre organic garden. They get healthy meals and homework help. They study in a library, go online in an Internet caf\u00e9, stage fashion shows and organize local beautification projects. In 2011, a youth-leadership group visited the White House.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything we do\u2014from serious to seemingly frivolous\u2014is about letting our kids know we care,\u201d Julie Garreau said.<\/p>\n Continuity counts<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYou could define many things\u2014a school camping trip, a traditional dance group\u2014as suicide prevention,\u201d said Zuni Pueblo\u2019s Superintendent of Schools Hayes Lewis, co-creator\u00a0 of the Zuni Life Skills Development curriculum, one of the first suicide-prevention programs designed for Native Americans, in the late 1980s. The school-based lesson series teaches coping skills like stress management, as well as role-playing responses to suicide threats. It was created after a rise in youth-suicide rates at Zuni\u2014thirteen deaths between 1980 and 1987, according to a paper Lewis co-wrote in 2008.<\/p>\n After Zuni adopted the curriculum in 1991, youth suicide stopped almost immediately, according to Lewis\u2019s co-author, Stanford University education professor Teresa LaFromboise. Fifteen years later, the pueblo\u2019s schools shelved the program. Suicides crept back, and the shocked community asked Lewis to resume the post of school superintendent and re-establish the curriculum. Over the past two years, he\u2019s done just that, he said.<\/p>\n When the Zuni school system ended its program, the officials there didn\u2019t realize \u201chow fragile the peace was,\u201d Lewis testified to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in 2009, telling then-Senator Dorgan and other members: \u201cSuicide prevention and intervention require constant vigilance.\u201d<\/p>\n Agencies, nonprofits, foundations and others can partner with tribes in the effort to protect Native children. Ultimately, though, it\u2019s up to the communities, Lewis said. \u201cWe adults have to practice our core cultural values of compassion, respect, cooperation and concern for our children. We have to talk to youngsters about relationships, clans, societies\u2014all the connections they\u2019re a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to tell our kids how wonderful they are,\u201d adds Julie Garreau. \u201cWe have to give them safe places to learn and have fun and reassure them that they can have a productive life with healthy relationships.\u201d<\/p>\n Franks recently participated with grieving family members in a memorial walk. The group circled a lake in one direction to honor those they\u2019d lost, and the other direction to express support for those who remain. \u201cPrevention includes acknowledging the bereaved and helping them talk about what happened,\u201d Franks said.<\/p>\n Rafelito was hopeful. He was standing in a Ramah Navajo community garden, surrounded by ripening squashes, corn and other heirloom crops. He noted that today\u2019s Native people and their traditions endure, despite centuries of depredations and violence. \u201cLook at our history,\u201d Rafelito said. \u201cIt\u2019s been survival of the fittest. We\u2019re the smartest and the toughest anyone can be.<\/p>\n \u201cOur message to our kids should be, \u2018We\u2019re OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n ___________________________<\/p>\n Stephanie Woodard is a member of 100Reporters<\/a>, a nonprofit investigative news center. This article, the first in a series on preventing Native youth suicide, was made possible by grants from the Fund for Investigative Journalism<\/a>\u00a0and The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships<\/a>,\u00a0a program of USC\u2019s Annenberg School of Journalism. The series will be co-published with Indian Country Today.<\/em><\/p>\n