American Indian Culture and Research Journal

In our original article in the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, we presented the results of a study conducted with adolescents aged thirteen to seventeen of a northeastern tribe. The purpose of our study was to achieve an understanding of the bicultural (tribal and nontribal) ethnic identity of the adolescents, highlighting their unique history and experience as members of the tribe. Northeastern tribal adolescents have a distinct history of longer length of contact with settlers and more intermarriage. Despite this, they have been relatively overlooked in the research literature. Most research on the ethnic identity of American Indian adolescents has focused primarily on tribal identity, and samples have primarily come from those living on reservations. Our study departed from previous research, which focused on tribal and nontribal identity of northeastern tribal adolescents without residential reservation land. We have conducted some additional analyses that have provided some interesting and important findings. In the results of our original article, twenty-one females and nine males returned the mail-out survey; they had an average age of 15.57 years. Eleven of the adolescents lived in the tribe’s home state, and nineteen resided out of state.