Calvin lecture on the American Indian Warrior Tradition

October 6, 2005 == MEDIA ADVISORY

The second talk in the annual Calvin College Alumni Lecture Series promises to
be informative and intriguing.

Kimberly Huyser, a 2003 Calvin graduate, will speak on "So, You Wanna Be a
Soldier? American Indian Warrior Tradition in the U.S. Military."

That talk will take place on Thursday, October 20 at 3:30 pm in the Meeter
Center Lecture Hall at Calvin.

Huyser is a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin
who studies race and ethnic relations, social organizations and American
Indians. She grew up on the Navajo Reservation in Window Rock, Arizona.

Huyser will talk about an interesting military phenomenon: American Indians
are the smallest pan-ethnic group in the United States, comprising one percent
of the U.S. population, but have a 33 percent or one in three per capita
military participation rate.

"What contributes to having such an outstanding military record," Huyser asks.
 "Are they motivated by the opportunity to gain educational and vocational
skills? Or, if the motivation for entering the military is not socioeconomic
gain, what are the educational and economic outcomes for American Indian
veterans?"

Huyser says that most research literature to date has focused on African
American and non-Hispanic white outcomes rather than looking at the
participation or the outcomes of the military service of American Indians.

She is centering her research on a comparison of American Indian veteran
education and income outcomes to African American and white veteran outcomes.

She says: "I expect that the outcomes of American Indians will look different
than the outcomes of African Americans and non-Hispanic whites. My hypothesis
is that American Indians are motivated less by social mobility and more by
their Warrior Tradition. The Warrior Tradition is the most common explanation
given by American Indian veterans for their military participation."

Contact Huyser at khuyser@prc.utexas.edu

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Received on Thu Oct 6 15:42:07 2005