Table 3.

Additional supporting quotes for each theme

Theme 1: Being an urban AI/AN emerging adult means recognizing that one’s identity is multifaceted.
At risk and vulnerable	Resilient and protected
Like we know we’re Native American but it’s like we’re very—I guess, for lack of a better word, like whitewashed, I guess. Like we don’t really know like much of the culture, but we have like quilts and stuff that are like—and a lot of turquoise. And I know about land that my family has in [state name], and I know some of the reservation stuff but a lot of the traditions, unfortunately, have gotten lost so that kind of makes me sad.    – Female 20yr old	I think more internal feelings when I visit family that are still on tribal lands or reservations out there, it’s just a feeling that “Oh, you’re not Indian enough because we’re still here. We’re farmers, we’re ranchers, we know how to ride horses, we do this every day, and you live in the city.” It’s somewhat of that mentality at times. I don’t think they mean to be malice or hateful, it’s just maybe they see that the problems that they’re facing where they are, the people that went to the cities or urban, I guess, is a copout, a way to forget it and that they’re forgetting their own heritage, and more of like a European-centric way.    – Female 22yr old
Well, for a long time I had a hard time accepting, I guess, my culture, ‘cause being urban, I was always surrounded by a lot of white people and some Mexican people in my classes, so I was never really around my own culture for a while unless I went back up north during the summertime…But yeah, I guess in a way I kind of resented it for a while—I was just more so identified with my Mexican friends, since no one really would think I was Native American.    – Female 19yr old	My dad’s side, that’s where I get my Native American heritage from. Now that I’ve had more of a curiosity about learning [my Native Culture] I’ve had conversations with my dad about our traditional foods or any of our traditions and what is a part of our culture, like our tribe. But I always grew up knowing I was Native. That was always told to me and to be proud of it, and I am. But yeah, it’s definitely hard sometimes just because I don’t know my own tribe. Now that I have more questions about it, my dad has been explaining more. I feel better about it.    – Female 19yr old
Theme 2: A multifaceted identity comes with tension of being from multiple worlds.
At risk and vulnerable	Resilient and protected
I have to do a lot of work and kind of try and navigate these really strange, unknown waters which also make me feel like I’m Native enough to be discriminated against, but then sometimes you feel not Native enough to actually engage in your customs, and your traditions, and to even sometimes claim your tribe. So, it’s like this really strange line that I feel like I’m skirting, where some days I feel Native enough and then other days, I don’t.    – Female 24yr old	I mean, growing almost everywhere you look you’ll find something with Hispanic, Latino culture on it, and that is what allowed me to sort of just mix in with the rest of the crowd. And so I guess that is what acted as a buffer for me personally, because I mean at home I knew I was Native. But outside the house, it was almost never acknowledged, even when we went over Native tribes. And so that just added to me being able to just sort of buffer away or hide my own personal identity and just hide behind my second identity, behind my Latino side.    – Male 18yr old
It does affect you no matter what, because it’s like okay, just because I didn’t grow up on the reservation, you think less of me, almost? Like it was kind of hurtful in a way because…just because I didn’t get the chance to grow up on my reservation doesn’t mean that I didn’t want that experience or anything like that. So, it was just kind of hurtful in that way, and I felt like I had to try to prove myself even more. And then I was like no, I’m trying to be more involved and you know, like be there for the community even more and try to show myself like, hey, I’m doing this, this, and that to prove myself that I really love being Native American and love this heritage that I have. When in reality, I shouldn’t have to prove myself just because I didn’t grow up on the reservation.    – Female 23yr old	I’m mixed race, so sometimes I have a hard time just identifying with any of my races or feeling like I belong to any group. But living [at the reservation] really got me in touch with my Native heritage. And even though it wasn’t my own tribe, I still got to learn different customs and I grew up feeling like I was needed and like I belonged in that community…I just felt accepted.    – Female 19yr old
Theme 3: The trajectory of one’s identity grows over time to a deeper desire to connect with their AI/AN culture.
At risk and vulnerable	Resilient and protected
My dad used to teach me how to bead and stuff or tan deer hide. So, learning about that, that was more like [tribal name] type culture, ‘cause al his friends were, like, [tribal name] and stuff. But I don’t know, that was really nice, especially to have a sense of kind of spirituality at a younger age. And then also when I moved onto my reservation now, it’s learning about my tribe’s specific culture. Yeah, yeah, like dancing and beading and stuff.    – Female 21yr old	I really didn’t get to really know my culture, actually, a lot of my culture, until I went to college where I decided to major in human services, and I added Native American studies. Because at my college, it was really something I had a chance to learn about my culture, and I’m proud to say I took the [tribal name] 1 and 2 in college, too.    – Female 25yr old
…that really began in college, in undergrad, learning more about my tribe and their customs and then starting to follow them more. Because my Native heritage, has always been…I’ve always been really proud of it. I just didn’t know much growing up because my mom also doesn’t know much about it. And so, when I became an adult, I started really trying to reconnect, and I’m still working on that. And now I bead weave and follow a lot of the traditional customs. So, it’s a really big part of my life, and I really enjoy taking part in a lot of the customs and traditions. And I try to wear a lot of traditional jewelry and things like that. I like to share my tribe’s story with people I meet. So, it is a big part of my life at the moment.    – Female 24yr old	Recently we sort of were trying to rekindle, I guess would be the appropriate word, that now we’re trying to regain that knowledge of our heritage and trying to find that connection to it so that we could all be closer again, not just be closer with each other, but also be closer to our heritage, to our roots.    – Male 18yr old
So, I started kind of early on in my college career learning more about other tribes and how they’re different than mine and learning how they can all relate and the things that bring us together and also, the things that are different from us. And yeah, feeling disconnected from my traditional foods or my language and just realizing that that requires me to do extra work. That requires me to do research, that requires me to reach out to family members or elders or try my best to stay in the loop. Social media has been great in that aspect. My tribe has a Facebook page that they update all the time, and that’s how I get a lot of my news. So it just requires me to engage in a different way and I feel like if I wasn’t putting in that work, then I might not be so engaged or might not feel as connected.    – Female 24yr old	There was always vague hints of “Oh, yeah, we’re Native,” and I never really understood what that meant, especially ‘cause I was never in a Native environment, I was just in an urban environment, so I didn’t really fully grasp that concept. And it wasn’t till I was, like, 11 that I started kind of learning more about it and I started being more curious and asking my mom and asking my grandpa and stuff just more about, like, what the heck does that mean? And that’s kind of what kickstarted my journey into that.    – Male 21yr old
Theme 4: Understanding that one’s Native American background affects one’s professional trajectory.
At risk and vulnerable	Resilient and protected
So, I work at a college as a program coordinator, planning culturally relevant events and programs for the Native American undergrad and graduate students on our campus and to also educate the broader community on campus including non-Native students and staff, faculty, and expanding into the local community, as well.    – Female 24yr old	With my job—and this also goes back to that Catholic sense, I guess, that quote, if man does have dominion over the animals, then we have a responsibility. And same thing with the Native American heritage where we don’t own the earth, we’re just its helper—we guide it however we can, we nurture it, and then it provides back to us. So this, I guess, would be my way of giving back, either to the animals themselves through spay/neuters or even just caring for them and the people in the community who may not be able to afford those kind of things, or just—yeah.    – Female 22yr old
I’m sociology major. So, I essentially want to be a therapist later on, but I want to help with social services, more particularly in the Native community.    – Female 20yr old	So actually, in particular my tribe, we have our water rights and so the river that goes through our tribe. So right now they’re trying to construct a dam, and so those plans right now, they’re still in the works and I have background in CAD, computer-aided designing, so I would like to get my degree and then eventually go back to my rez and be a part of that. Because yeah, they’re contracting people out and it’d be cool to have one of the tribal members be a part of that.    – Female 25yr old
My mom actually—with her, she works at the clinic out here and she’s the one that’s kind of made me really want to be the nursing and stuff, go into it. So, I’ve definitely been wanting to do that and try to go on the reservation and then do one of the clinics there, because we have two clinics up here. So, I definitely want to be able to try—I’ve told my mom that my entire life, too, like no matter what I do when I grow up, I know I want to be involved with the Native community, no matter what. And she’s definitely on board with it. I’ve talked to the doctor there before and he’s actually paying for her schooling for her to go back to be a delivery nurse and everything, because she just has her certified nursing assistant right now and she wants to go get even more certifications and stuff. They’re actually trying to pay for it and trying to help her, put her through schooling and everything. So that definitely interests me and makes me want to try even harder to do that.    – Female 23yr old	I would say…I mean the reason I applied to the school I go to is because of their strong and vibrant Native American community and the respect and ties they have to the land that they’re on and the people who own that land. That was really the entire reason why I chose that school and that was incredibly important to me when choosing a more traditional higher education route; was to also have those cultural ties. So, I’m studying biomedical engineering and indigenous studies there. I’m the cultural programmer in the Native American House as well as the RA, and as far as goals go, I guess, for the future, right now I do a little bit in tribal health care and I’m hoping to progress on to work for the IHS and fully immerse myself in tribal health care, specifically in [tribal name] nations.    – Female 20yr old