Healthy Marriage Project makes headway in Indian Country

HONOLULU, HI – Tonight is set aside for “we” time between KiKi Kauwe and her other half, Daniel Cummings. Each is trying to figure out what the other is thinking as they look into each other’s face.  With three children this kind of interaction is rare. They juggle family and work; she as an intake specialist and Cummings as a security guard.

As part of their relationship session, they’ll use a “love map” to highlight each other’s likes and dislikes. Kiki and Daniel were one of eight Native couples out on a “date,” sponsored by the Keiki O Ka ‘Aina Family Learning Center’s Healthy Marriages Program. Kauwe and Cummings are using a relationship how-to guide fashioned by a Native Wellness Institute curriculum to help spawn healthier relationships in Indian Country.

Thanks to five-year grants applied for by tribes and tribal groups through Administration for Native Americans (ANA), federal monies are used to help tribal folks be better couples, developers said.

In their night out, candles are lit and hands held as attendees practice “Ho ‘ohiki Pilina” or “Maintaining Commitment.” In these couples, at least one half is of Native Hawaiian ancestry, like Kauwe, Hawaiian Healthy Marriages director, Jenna Umiamaka said.

Sadly, Native couples are often handicapped when it comes to relationships, officials said. The biggest culprit is often injuries from the past, said Jillene Joseph, Native Wellness Institute executive director. This doesn’t mean an argument from last night or even last year. Wounds go far deeper.  “The impact of historical trauma on Indian couples is awful,” Joseph said. “This goes for boarding school, substance, sexual and physical abuse that leaves issues of unresolved anger and grief. Two people hook up and it’s two times the baggage.”

The Native Wellness curriculum (used in the Healthy Families programs) encourages traditional courting with no substance abuse as a distracter. It’s paired with sharing chores and living in mutual respect under one roof.  Staffers at the Indian Center, Inc. in Lincoln NE, hope to turn the unhealthy to healthy by returning to traditional courting cues. Seeds of better partner behavior are planted, said Indian Center director, Linda Robinson.

Whether partners realize it or not, culture, particularly Indian cultural values, can add to a relationship, Joseph said. Although the idea of trading horses to a woman’s father to win her hand is a thing of the past,  employing respectful gestures and sharing chores puts a traditional touch on the partnership—even if marriages are no longer arranged.

“We have found that unhealthy relationships are not based on cultural things,” Joseph said. “And sometimes if a relationship still ends, it’s just not a healthy relationship to begin with.”

Being a couple in Indian Country is not one-plus-one and the kids. Even with mom and dad in the same house, matrimony is not standard. According to the 2002 U.S Census American Community Survey, American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) males and females aggregately are more likely to be unmarried than Whites at 35 percent for Native males and 29 percent for Native females, compared to 27 percent and 21 percent respectively for Whites. The norm may be Indians living in couples, just not their marriage status.

Togetherness is tricky whether it’s on the Plains of Nebraska, inner Los Angeles or on an island in the Pacific Ocean, experts said. According to program officials, a relationship has a better chance to work when couples learn how to create improved time together.

The Healthy Marriage curriculum has been picked up by groups affiliated with their tribes including the Pawnee Nation, Caddo Nation and the Comanche Nation (Oklahoma) which have sponsored their own date night events and used “Loving Couples, Loving Children,” to help themselves build trust, heal old wounds, stay close after kids, hear two sides to every fight, and other principles.  They get guidance from the Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP) on how to sponsor the free couples seminars.

All the while, Indian couples are reminded an audience is watching.

“We know that children learn everything from those that raise them, their parents,” Umiamaka said. “Children learn how to have healthy relationships by watching their parents have a healthy relationship or ohana (family) sustainability.”

Tribal healthy marriage programs have learned to ad lib with cultural twists that fit Indian couples. In the Nebraska Indian Healthy Marriage Project, the idea of a couples’ Two-Step special at the local tribal powwows blossomed, said Rose Springer, marriage project trainer, and Omaha tribal member from Lincoln, NE. The social dance pairs off couples who dance as a symbol of their unity, she said.

Many are often surprised that culture and tradition are key parts of an Indian marriage blueprint.

“We go into our own culture,” Springer said. “Our young people have not been taught all the old ways and we reacquaint them with that.”

Linda Robinson, director of the Indian Center, Inc. in Lincoln, NE, took a look at marriages in central Plains tribes. In her research, she found the idea of yesteryear Indian marriage placed emphasis on factors like division of labor rather than focusing solely on love. Specifically, men were the hunters who protected the territory while the woman tended to the home and family. Much has changed today as women often become the breadwinners, she offered.

“The focus has a lot to do with respect, nurturing and sharing,” Robinson said.

Securing Indian families works in Los Angeles County with some help, said Donald Salcedo at the United American Involvement center (UAII).  A couple’s relationship skills have a strong effect on family’s stress levels. Young parents are more likely to stay in college and complete their degree if they know how to relate healthily to each other, even in tough times, Salcedo said.

“We have found that if we build on a couple’s relationship skills, there are higher rates of Indian students who enroll and stay in UCLA (University of California),” he said. “That means a degree and higher standard of living for the kids as a result.”

Getting together is relatively easy, it’s staying together that takes skills, Salcedo said. In L.A., good jobs are few while affordable and safe housing is often elusive for Natives.

“Here it’s survival. We (Indians) have to blend in with the rest of the population,” he said. “Relationships are hard; they take a toll on us.”

Making peace or calling a truce in a union goes a long way, program proponents said. Relationships in Indian Country don’t always end happily ever after.  About 12.5 percent of American Indians polled in the 2002 U.S. Census American Community Survey reported being divorced which is the highest among all racial groups. Globally, the United States already has a bad rating according to various websites with more than 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce. India has the best rate with just 1.1 percent.

In Los Angeles, Date Nights do the trick. On the Plains, dancing can make strong bond. But across the ocean, Hawaiian participants get a Kalo (Taro) plant. It represents their people as living, growing and reproducing. The couples are asked to take the plant home, care for it and bring it back, Umiamaka said.

“The goodness of the taro is judged by the fine young plants it produces,” Umiamaka said.