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The Violence And Its Effects On The Lives Of Contemporary Native Generations Essay

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At the center of Indigenous discourse lies the worrisome subject of suicide. Deeply embedded in Native culture, suicide has come to represent a reminder of a cruel past tainted by violent colonialism. Via inhumane assimilation practices colonialists both directly and indirectly scarred and continue to scar members of the Indigenous community. Trough post traumatic stress mechanism many trauma survivors have and continue to pass their traumatic experiences to subsequent generations. Unintentionally, they sentence their descendants to live with the wounds colonialism left on them. Through space and time the origin of such scars becomes a blur, but the pain, the mourning, the confusion resides. Accordingly, colonialism sentiment is present in the lives of contemporary Native generations. As far as Indigenous family dynamics, particularly the transmitter and receiver relationship between mother and daughter, intergenerational transmission of trauma via substance abuse, domestic violence, and identity implications can potentially result in suicide. First off, substance abuse can facilitate the transmission of trauma from mother to daughter. Whether the mother drinks throughout her pregnancy, drinks in the presence of her daughter, or neglects her child due to a substance problem, the mother partakes in the passing down of trauma in a damaging way. In “Intergenerational Trauma: Convergence of Multiple Processes among First Nations peoples in Canada” Amy Bombay et al. claim,

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