American Indians and the Urban Experience: (Contemporary Native American Communities)

About the Book

Modern American Indian life is urban, rural, and everything in-between. Lobo and Peters have compiled an unprecedented collection of innovative scholarship, stunning art, poetry, and prose that documents American Indian experiences of urban life. A pervasive rural/urban dichotomy still shapes the popular and scholarly perceptions of Native Americans, but this is a false expression of a complex and constantly changing reality. When viewed from the Native perspectives, our concepts of urbanity and approaches to American Indian studies are necessarily transformed. Courses in Native American studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, and urban studies must be in step with contemporary Indian realities, and American Indians and the Urban Experience will be an absolutely essential text for instructors. This powerful combination of path-breaking scholarship and visual and literary arts—from poetry and photography to rap and graffiti—will be enjoyed by students, scholars, and a general audience. A Choice Outstanding Academic Book.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 The Path to the Milky Way Leads to Los Angeles
Part 4 Part I: Overview of Urbanism
Chapter 5 Part I: Introduction
Chapter 6 Chapter 1: The Urban Tradition Among Native Americans
Chapter 7 Two Worlds
Chapter 8 Chapter 2: Telling the Indian Urban: Representations in American Indian Fiction
Chapter 9 Coyote as a Simple Man
Chapter 10 Chapter 3: Yaqui Culture and Linguistic Evolution through a History of Urbanization
Part 11 Part II: Structuring and Dynamics of Urban Communities
Chapter 12 Part II: Introduction
Chapter 13 Chapter 4: Is Urban a Person or a Place?: Characteristics of Urban Indian Country
Chapter 14 Chapter 5: Retribalization in Urban Indian Communities
Chapter 15 Chapter 6: And the Drumbeat Still Goes On...Urban Indian Institutional Survival into the New Millenium
Chapter 16 Cities
Chapter 17 Chapter 7: Continuing Identity: Laguna Pueblo Railroaders in Richmond, California
Chapter 18 Chapter 8: Feminists or Reformers? American Indian Women and Community in Phoenix, 1965-1980
Chapter 19 Metropolitan Indian Series #1
Chapter 20 Chapter 9: The Cid
Chapter 21 Derek and Peter Discuss the Pros and Cons of City Life
Chapter 22 Chapter 10: An Urban Platform for Advocating Justice: Protecting the Menominee Forest
Part 23 Part III: Individuals and Families in Urban Contexts
Chapter 24 Part III: Introduction
Chapter 25 Ruby Roast
Chapter 26 Chapter 11: Urban (Trans)Formations: Changes in the Meaning and Use of American Indian Identiy
Chapter 27 Ironworker I and Ironworker II
Chapter 28 Chapter 12: "This Hole in Our Heart": The Urban-Raised Generation and the Legacy of Silence
Chapter 29 Living Room of an Indian Family in the San Francisco Bay Area: Mantelpiece and Girl Watching T.V.
Chapter 30 Quiet Desperation
Chapter 31 Chapter 13: Weaving Andean Networks in Unstable Labor Markets
Chapter 32 A Poem Maybe for Tina Deschenie
Chapter 33 Kokopeli Gigging in the City
Chapter 34 Chapter 14: Red Wit in the City: Urban Indian Comedy
Chapter 35 Indian Pride
Chapter 36 Chapter 15: Healing through Grief: Urban Indians Reimagining Culture and Community
Chapter 37 Red White & Blue
Chapter 38 Youngest Trapper on 7th Street
Chapter 39 My Uncle
Chapter 40 Chapter 16: Downtown Oklahoma City-1952
Chapter 41 Letter Home
Chapter 42 Chapter 17: Rejection and Belonging in Addiction and Recovery: Four Urban Indian Men in Milwaukee
Chapter 43 Excerpt from a Work in Progress
Chapter 44 Mattie Goes Traveling
Chapter 45 Index

About the Author :
Susan Lobo is a cultural anthropologist and consultant working primarily for American Indian tribes and community organizations in the U.S. and Central and South America. Kurt M. Peters is associate professor of Native American and comparative ethnic studies at Oregon State University.

Review :
Topics and approaches are almost as diverse as the one-half to two-thirds of American Indians who live in cities, not on reservations. The multiplicity of disciplinary angles helps accentuate the many facets of urban Indian experience....A richly suggestive gateway to an all-too-neglected aspect of Native American history and ongoing life. Policy studies have focused on the federal government's relocation program....Social sciences studies have have addressed issues relating to drinking and group membership exclusively through the use of quantitative surveys ... Lobo and Peters' edited collection tries to move beyond these concern and present a fuller, richer picture of American Indian urban life....The majority of essays ... cover an extraordinary wide range—from pre-Columbian urban centers to urban Indians in fiction to the funding challenges faces by urban Indian institutions today....This eclectic group of essays, poems, and photographs effectively introduces readers to the lives of Indian people living in cities. Unbounded by the restraints of traditional research agendas, the contributors to this work bring together research, art, and poetry to discuss themes in the lives of urban Indians.... This phenomenal and long overdue collection is especially useful to those who teach courses in Native American studies, ethnic studies, anthropology, and urban studies.