Introduction to Youth Resistance Research and Theories of Change

In 1895, 19 Hopi men were incarcerated in the prison facility on Alcatraz Island, “because, " as reported by a San Francisco newspaper, “they would not let their children go to school.” The U.S. Federal Government had enacted policies in Orayvi and across Hopi lands that were designed to limit Hopi sovereignty and facilitate settler colonialism. The new policies divided shared land into individual tracts, removed Hopi people from mesas, required new agricultural practices, and demanded that Hopi children attend faraway boarding schools (Sakiestewa, 2010). In the lead up to the arrest of the 19 men, white settlers had drawn a false dichotomy between Hopi who were “Friendlies” and “Hostiles”; hostiles were those who refused to give up collective planting of wheat in favor of individualized farming practice, those who refused to adopt Washington ways, and refused to turn over their children. A nearby Mormon/Navajo land dispute involving bloodshed added to settlers’ fearful exasperation over the Hopi refusals.