With well over two million people in state and federal prisons, juvenile correctional facilities, local jails, detention facilities, and other spaces of confinement, the United States incarcerates people at a higher rate than any other country in the world.

Widespread non-enrollment of Indigenous children contributes to a widespread identity crisis among native youth and raises the question of whether independent, sovereign Indigenous nations will survive.

We all have influence over the young people in our lives. But how many of us really see ourselves as “mentors”? And how can mentoring relationships of all kinds directly address the impacts of race, class, gender, sexuality and other factors on young people’s identities and experiences?