On Tuesday, UW-Milwaukee’s School of Continuing Education hosted a conference on trauma and reimagining solutions for healing. One area of focus is intergenerational trauma and how Indigenous people are affected by colonization, loss of language and culture, and displacement.
Marin Denning is an adjunct lecturer at UWM and a presenter at the conference. His talk explored how connecting to traditional Native American practices can help heal trauma.
“One of the most interesting aspects about trauma in our community is that it's everywhere,” Denning says. “And it's so regular in its presence that we don't even know what's there.”
The family separation, abuse and social isolation that many Indigenous elders suffered while attending American Indian boarding schools has left a legacy of trauma in many indigenous communities, Denning says. In recent years, he says this trauma has been exacerbated in recent years by COVID-19.
“In Milwaukee, Native Americans were number two in transmission and number one in fatality,” he says. “What that translates to is young people not just losing one grandparent or one aunt or one uncle, but a multitude of them.”
Over time, Denning says, many Indigenous folks have learned to stay silent about their struggles. And for many young people, unaddressed trauma impacts academic performance, behavior and self-understanding.
“Trauma affects how we see ourselves, how we interact with each other,” Denning says. “It also affects, again, what we see as normal.”
Intervening in these crises, his work focuses on helping Indigenous people reconnect with their culture, language and traditional modes of dealing with trauma. Denning hopes to offer alternatives to hyper-individualistic approaches to mental health — emphasizing instead mutual uplift and the idea that our collective futures are intertwined.
“I want them to embrace this idea that we are in this together,” Denning says. “No matter where we are from, no matter where we're born, no matter the destination, we're surrounded by love.”
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