Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

Jolivette (American Indian studies, San Francisco State Univ.) qualitatively examines the experiences of HIV-positive members of San Francisco's Native American mixed-race gay men and transgendered community. Using surveys, focus groups, and community discussion forums, the author constructs a literary narrative about marginalization, discrimination, and coping with HIV. Applying a model of colonial trauma lays the foundation of a psychosocial nexus of interconnected variables that result in high-risk sexual behavior. The author contends that current at-risk behaviors among two-spirit individuals are rooted historically in intergenerational trauma, cultural dissolution, mixed-race cognitive dissonance, sexual violence, and gender and racial discrimination. Addressing these variables, each chapter documents the ways each psychosocial factor relates to other components, producing an interlocking system of trauma and oppression. The result, the author argues, is an intervention model that positions this marginalized population at the research center, creating an effective public health approach grounded in justice and self-determination. A welcome addition to the small but growing health literature about gay and transgendered mixed-race Native men, the work stands as a significant contribution that will certainly initiate further discussion, debate, and empirical investigations.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.