Indigenous Health
Colleague Interview: A Conversation with Mary J. Owen, MD
M
ary Owen, MD is a member of the Tlingit nation. She graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School and North Memorial Family Practice Residency Program before returning home to work for her tribal community in Juneau, Alaska. After 11 years of full-scope family medicine, she returned to the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth Campus in 2014 as the Director of the Center of American Indian and Minority Health (CAIMH). Her work includes developing and managing programs to increase the numbers of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students entering medical careers, reaching out to local and national Native leaders to ensure University of Minnesota Medical School remains in tune with AI/AN healthcare and education needs, developing an AI/AN track for all students interested in providing health care to AI/AN communities and developing research efforts to address AI/AN health disparities. She continues to provide clinical care at the Center of American Indian Resources in Duluth and is the current President of the Association of American Indian Physicians.
American Indian/Alaska Native, Native American, Indigenous — what’s the difference in the terms and how should those terms be used? All these terms can be used interchangeably. That said, many Native people prefer to be referred to by their Tribal identity. Additionally, each person is different. For instance, when I use the term, American Indian, one of my aunties corrects me and says, “Native American.” The only term that I recommend against by people who are not part of the Native community, either by birth or acceptance, is “Indian.” Native people often use it themselves, but I recommend people use the terms American Indian (AI), Alaska Native (AN), Native American (NA) or Indigenous.
How does historical and intergenerational trauma express itself in the lives of the Indigenous peoples of Minnesota? Historical and intergenerational trauma is expressed in part through the persistent health, education, and economic disparities of Native people in Minnesota and the United States. I will give an example of historical and generational trauma playing out in Native communities: by 1920, up to 80% of Native children were in boarding schools — institutions that have been revealed to have been created to assimilate Native people by disallowing their language and culture to be practiced. Once children graduated from or left the boarding schools, they returned to broken communities now dependent on government support because the 6
Spring 2022
traditional practices and ways of survival that Native Americans had practiced for centuries could no longer support them. Family and community structures were in flux, if not destroyed by the imposition of western ways. Young people, now speaking a different language, struggled to communicate with their families when they returned. The youth returning from boarding schools far away from their communities were not raised with common teachings such as how to raise children and families. As young people do, they got together and had children. Without those critical family and societal lessons on how to raise children, how to support your family and how to interact with your traditional community members, dysfunction naturally ensued. Because over half of Native children were sent to boarding schools, which were open through the 1970s, the impact was and is massive. In her book, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz expertly describes the “narrative of dysfunction” in our communities. She cites the teaching of Vine Deloria and other activists who state that “there is a direct link between the suppression of Indigenous sovereignty and the powerlessness manifest in depressed social conditions.”
How do you blend traditional health practices of American Indian tribes with allopathic “Western” medicine? Native ways of knowing, including health practices were in place for centuries before Europeans came to this continent. As in western medicine, many of our patients are interested in healing MetroDoctors
The Journal of the Twin Cities Medical Society
