Mixed Race Studies

Integration of a mixed race indigenous mind: A personal deconstruction of colonization

California Institute of Integral Studies
208
204 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3306675
ISBN: 9780549538394

Pamela E. Dos Ramos

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Integral Studies with a Concentration in Recovery of Indigenous Mind

This dissertation, in narrative form, documents a process of decolonization and self-integration through a transformative process, called Recovery of Indigenous Mind (RIM). At the California Institute of Integral Studies, this process was created to assist non-native people to reconnect with their own indigenous ancestral knowledge, rituals, and ways of being. The author was enrolled as a graduate student in the RIM Doctoral Program, which shook her to the core and initiated her journey towards wholeness. Through the uncovering of indigenous roots and ancestral histories, the process served as a healing mechanism to integrate all parts of the author’s being, some of which had previously been blocked out and denied unconsciously.

The question implicit in this work is: what makes mixed race women stumble and become immobilized in their quest to find their wholeness of being and solid identity? Written in the first person, this dissertation focuses on the author’s journey by focusing on her identity as a female of mixed race ancestry. In relation to her ancestral heritage, it provides a map, a process of integration that may be followed by other women of mixed race ancestry. However, it may be of particular relevance and importance to those women of ancestral heritages similar to the author’s, who are open to non-Western ways of connecting with, listening to, and learning from the guidance of their ancestors.

Table of Contents

• ABSTRACT
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• Chapter 1: Introduction
  • Importance of This Journey
  • Rationale
  • Personal Background
    • Diverse Origins
    • The Face of Exclusion
    • Discovering History
    • Counselor Heal Thyself
• Chapter 2: Integration of History and process
  • Introduction
  • Uncovering Ancestors’ Stories
    • Colonization: First Peoples, Amerindian Ancestors
    • Colonization: Slavery—African Ancestors
    • Colonization: Indentured Labor—East Indian Ancestors
    • Colonization Legacies of Minds, Hearts and Spirits
  • A World Away: Historical Exclusion in Canada
  • Loss of Ancestral Identity
  • Indigenous Science, Indigenous Mind Worldviews
    • Indigenous Science, Indigenous Mind
    • Worldviews
  • Racial/Cultural Identity Development
  • Mixed Race Identity
• Chapter 3: Indigenous Science, Indigenous Mind
  • Intuitive Inquiry
  • Indigenous Science Inquiry
• Chapter 4: Walking the Path of Recovery
  • Decolonization of Heart and Mind
  • Ancestral Connections: Honoring Grandmothers
    • The Task: Radical Trust in Ancestral Guidance
    • Older Woman Power: The Crone
    • The Crone Today
    • Qualities and Responsibilities of the Crone
    • The Croning Ritual: Planning and Organizing
    • The Croning Ritual: Ceremony
    • Ancestors in Action
  • Further Invoking of My Indigenous Mind
  • Toward Wholeness
    • Going Home
    • Dakar, Senegal: A Foreign Past
    • Full Circle
• Chapter 5: The Home in my Heart
  • Out of the Curtain of Silence
  • Integrating Experiences and Recovery of Indigenous Mind
  • Threads Interwoven
  • Ancestral Gifts
  • The Tapestry Woven
  • A Pathway
  • Mists of Lost Time
  • Limitations
  • Further work
• References
• APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY—OPERATIONAL DEFINITIONS
• APPENDIX B: THE SOCIALIZATION AND ISM PRISM
• APPENDIX C: BILL OF RIGHTS FOR PEOPLE OF MIXED HERITAGE
• APPENDIX D: MULTIRACIAL OATH OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Purchase the dissertation here.