Urban Indians
Books:
Adam, S.K. Extinction or Survival: The Remarkable Story of the Tigua, an Urban
American Indian Tribe. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2010.
“This book tells the story of how the Tigua, a small, urban American Indian
community, has persevered through generations of poverty and persecution. The
contemporary issue of Indian gaming is explored, and the politics behind the
tribe's gaming rise and eventual fall is detailed within the context of what has
become a modern-day power struggle. Using ethnographic and ethnohistoric
methods, this research details the specific cultural mechanisms employed by the
Tigua to resist forced enculturation and survive into the twenty-first century as a
distinct and proud community.” –From the Press
Amerman, Stephen Kent. Urban Indians in Phoenix Schools, 1940-2000. University of
Nebraska Press, 2010.
“In the latter half of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of Native American
families moved to cities across the United States, some via the government
relocation program and some on their own. In the cities, they encountered new
forms of work, entertainment, housing, and education. In this study, Stephen Kent
Amerman focuses on the educational experiences of Native students in urban
schools in Phoenix, Arizona, a city with one of the largest urban Indian
communities in the nation. The educational experiences of Native students in
Phoenix varied over time and even in different parts of the city, but interactions
with other ethnic groups and the experience of being a minority for the first time
presented distinctive challenges and opportunities for Native students.” –From the
Press.
Barron, F. L. and Joseph Garcea, eds. Urban Indian Reserves: Forging New
Relationships in Saskatchewan. Saskatoon: Purich Pub., 1999.
"This volume examines the creation and implications of urban Indian reserves in
Saskatchewan.... The book focuses on four Saskatchewan urban reserves in
Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Yorkton and Fort Qu'Appelle." – Evelyn J. Peters,
Canadian Journal of Urban Research, June 2002.
Brown, Donald N. Crossroads Oklahoma: the Urban Indian Experience in Oklahoma.
Stillwater: Crossroads Oklahoma Project, College of Arts and Sciences Extension,
Oklahoma State University, 1981.
Buff, Rachel. Immigration and the Political Economy of Home: West Indian Brooklyn
and American Indian Minneapolis, 1945-1992. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2001.
"Buff argues that the two groups display interesting similarities. Immigration—or,
as she neatly phrases it, "im/migration"—is the common thread linking the
groups. In both, notable histories of migration, rooted in capitalist/colonialist
hegemony, have led to lasting problems of adjustment after settling in new
homelands. Basically, these problems revolve around the racialization of West
Indians and Native Americans, their economic status, and the fact of
transnationalism, which dynamically links old and new homelands. Moreover, the
two groups have evolved similar mechanisms for coping with their im/migrationrelated problems, and Buff argues that ethnic festivals—Carnival in the case of
West Indians and Native American powwows—are of particular significance. By
conceptualizing, organizing, and participating in these festivals, West Indians and
Native Americans create new communities and identities through which they
adjust to the challenges of migration." –Milton Vickermann, Journal of American
History, vol. 89, no. 2 (Sept. 2002).
Carpio, Myla Vicenti. Indigenous Albuquerque. Texas Tech University Press, 2011.
“Some 30,000 American Indians call Albuquerque, New Mexico, home, and
twelve Indigenous nations, mostly Pueblo, live within a fifty-mile radius of it. Yet
no study until now has focused on the complexities of urban American Indian
experience in the state’s largest city. Indigenous Albuquerque examines the
dilemmas confronting urban Indians as a result of a colonized past—and
present—and the relationship between the City of Albuquerque and its Native
residents. Treating not only issues of identity but also education, welfare, health
care, community organizations, and community efforts to counter colonization,
Myla Vicenti Carpio explores every aspect of Indigenous life in the city.” —P.
Jane Hafen, from the foreword
Chaudhuri, Joyotpaul. Urban Indians of Arizona--Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974.
Danziger, Edmund Jefferson, Jr. Survival and Regeneration: Detroit's American Indian
Community. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991.
Relies on hundreds of oral histories to construct history from 1900 to 1980s
history of Detroit's Indian community. The community emerged as employment
opportunities attracted Indians at the turn of the century. World War II
employment opportunities further expanded, and 1950s relocations grew the
community. During the 1970s cultural pride and civil rights movement Detroit
Indians effected growth of community centers and self determination policies
resulting in a complex and extensive sociocultural infrastructure by the 1980s
Eagle, Adam Fortunate. Heart of the Rock: the Indian Invasion of Alcatraz. In
collaboration with Tim Findley. Foreword by Vine Deloria, Jr. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2002.
"A prominent leader in Bay Area activism, [Adam Fortunate Eagle] was one of
the invasion's primary leaders and remained involved, even as events spiraled out
of control.... His account is comprehensive, beginning with the social unrest and
dire circumstances that led to the 'Indian civil rights movement' and closing with
the fate of its participants after the occupation had come to a close. Heart of the
Rock is.... a memoir of one of the movement's active participants, permeated with
Fortunate Eagle's own political and cultural experiences and perspectives—one
story from the back of the turtle." – Taiawagi Helton, The Western Historical
Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4 (Winter, 2003).
Urban Indians
Fixico, Donald L. Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945-60.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.
"He shows how a combination of often-conflicting circumstances contributed to
the policy shift. They included the rising belief that the Indians should take their
place in American society, a cost-conscious Congress, Indian calls for a loosening
of federal trust restrictions, the lack of an effective Indian commissioner in the
immediate postwar era, as well as the political ascendancy of cultural insensitive
bureaucrats and politicians such as Commissioner Dillon Myer and Sen. Patrick
McCarran." --Laurence M. Hauptman, Journal of American History, Vol. 74, No.
4 (March, 1988), 1387.
_____. The Urban Indian Experience in America. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 2000.
"This work chronicles the governmental, historical, cultural, social, health and
economic realities of the American Indian population who relocated from U.S.
reservations to cities beginning in 1951 under the governments Bureau of
Placement and Relocation. It contends that despite many difficulties, unique and
viable Urban Indian cultures have been established in many of cities." – Raymond
A. Bucko, Anthropology Review Database, May 15, 2002.
Forte, Maximilian C., ed. Indigenous Cosmopolitans: Transnational and Transcultural
Indigeneity in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Lang Publishing, Inc., 2010.
“The essays in this collection develop our understandings of cosmopolitanism and
transnationalism, and related processes and experiences of social and cultural
globalization, showing us that these do not spell the end of ways of being and
becoming indigenous. Instead, indigeneity is reengaged in wider fields, finding
alternative ways of being established and projected, or bolstering older ways of
doing so, while reaching out to other cultures.” –From the Press
Frazier, Gregory W. Urban Indians: Drums from the Cities. Denver: Arrowstar
Publishing, 1993.
Gabourie, Fred Whitedeer. Justice and the Urban American Indian. Sherman Oaks, CA:
Merdler and Gabourie, 1971.
Grant, Gail. The Concrete Reserve: Corporate Programs for Indians in the Urban Work
Place. Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1983.
"Grant describes native employment programs in six firms representative of:
various regions in the west; a variety of industrial sectors; diverse types of native
employment programs, company ownership and size. The case study format is
used, and one chapter is devoted to each program (The Saskatchewan Power
Corporation; Native Metal Industries Limited; Syncrude Canada Limited; NOVA,
an Alberta Corporation; Manitoba Telephone Sytems; an, INCO Metals
Company, Manitoba Division)." –Menno Boldt, Canadian Public Policy, Vol. 10,
No. 4 (Dec., 1984), p. 491.
Groves, Robert. Re-fashioning the Dialogue: Urban Aboriginal Governance in Canada.
Ottawa: National Association of Friendship Centers, 1999.
Guillemin, Jeanne. Urban Renegades: the Cultural Strategy of American Indians. New
York: Columbia University Press, 1975.
"Guillemin focuses on a group of 2-3000 Micmac, the largest Native American
group living in Boston. Originally confined to the Canadian Maritime provinces,
the Micmac are now equally at home on their reservation and in the city.... The
book's strengths are its extensive case studies of a number of individual Micmac
men and women..., its incisive discussion of male peer group behavior, a welcome
look at Micmac women as they cope with each other, their men, and their
children, and finally, a detailed account of the various ways in which the Micmac
retain their Indianness—how they share information, money, cars, rooms, and
child care; why they value social relationships over settings; and how the reserves
in Canada act as 'home bases' where children are socialized, the old retire, and to
which the urban migrants periodically retain from their struggles with city life." –
Robert N. Lynch, American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 2, no. 4 (Winter, 1975-1976),
pp. 380.
Hanson, Winona DuBray. The Urban Indian. San Francisco State University, 1980.
"The document presents six articles that provide a glimpse of the uniqueness of
American Indian cultural conflict, focusing on aspects of the culture which
warrant special attention.... The first article is a case example in social work
pertaining to social development of urban Indians. The next article provides
suggested techniques in grief counseling for Native Americans. The third article
looks at the role Native Americans (spiritual leaders, medicine men) have in
psychotherapy. The fourth article provides a brief history of the American Indian
woman's role from early times to today, and then presents various roles urban
American Indian women play today. The fifth article addresses sexuality and
American Indians; example topics are rape, homosexuality, and sexual
oppression. The last article discusses the plight of the Indian elderly in the urban
areas in reference to their needs, the role of the Indian elderly, mental impairment,
understanding the elderly, and the Older Americans Act." Educational Resource
Information Center, ED231587
Jackson, Deborah Davis. Our Elders Lived It: American Indian Identity in the City.
DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002.
"Deborah Davis Jackson explores American Indian identity in a mid-sized,
industrialized upper Great Lakes city. She attempts to discover both "who might
reasonably be considered American Indian" and "what constituted their
'Indianness"' (p. xii). Jackson studies a real Native-American community, but to
protect the identity of its members she renames the city in which they live
'Riverton.'" – David Beck, Michigan Historical Review, (March, 2003)
Jones, Dorothy Miriam. Urban Native Men and Women: Differences in Their Work
Adapta-Tions. Fairbanks: Institute of Social, Economic, and Government Research,
University of Alaska, 1976.
Kerri, James N. Unwilling Urbanites: the Life Experiences of Canadian Indians in a
Prairie City. Washington: University Press of America, 1978.
Krouse, Susan Applegate and Heather A. Howard. Keeping the Campfires Going: Native
Women’s Activism in Urban Communities. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.
“The essays in this groundbreaking anthology, Keeping the Campfires Going,
highlight the accomplishments of and challenges confronting Native women
activists in American and Canadian cities. Since World War II, Indigenous
women from many communities have stepped forward through organizations, in
their families, or by themselves to take action on behalf of the growing number of
Native people living in urban areas. This collection recounts and assesses the
struggles, successes, and legacies of several of these women in cities across North
America, from San Francisco to Toronto, Vancouver to Chicago, and Seattle to
Milwaukee. These wide-ranging and insightful essays illuminate Native
communities in cities as well as the women activists working to build them.” –
From the Press
LaGrand, James B. Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago, 1945-75. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 2002.
Lawrence, Bonita. "Real" Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and
Indigenous Nationhood. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.
"Centers on what the author refers to as the 'organized obliteration of Indigenous
presence': the erasure of Nativeness, for example on the many official documents
that are today used to deter mine an individual's identity and heritage. Her book
relentlessly challenges those assumptions that pervade the dominant culture that
envision Indianness as something that will continue to "die" with mixedbloodedness and urbanity. She also critically examines the legacy of how colonial
regulation of Native identity has shaped Native self-definitions, varying between
those whose Indianness is assured by federal regulation and those whose
Indianness is not." -- Maximilian C. Forte, KACIKE: Journal of Caribbean
Amerindian History and Anthropology:Urban Indians
Lobo, Susan and Kurt Peters, eds. American Indians and the Urban Experience. Walnut
Creek, CA: Altimira Press, 2001.
A Collection of articles. The article titles are:
 "The Urban Tradition among Native Americans" (Jack D. Forbes)
 "Telling the Indian Urban: Representations in American Indian Fiction" (Carol
Miller)
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"Yaqui Cultural and Linguistic Evolution through a History of Urbanization"
(Octaviana V. Trujillo)
“Is Urban a Person or a Place? Characteristics of Urban Indian
Country" (Susan Lobo)
"Retribalization in Urban Indian Communities" (Terry Straus, Debra Valentino)
"And the Drumbeat Still Goes On...Urban Indian Institutional Survival into the
New Millennium" (Joan Weibel-Orlando)
"Continuing Identity: Laguna Pueblo Railroaders in Richmond, California" (Kurt
M. Peters)
"Feminists or Reformers? American Indian Women and Community in Phoenix,
1965-1980" (Paivi Hoikkala)
"The Cid" (Julian Lang)
"An Urban Platform for Advocating Justice: Protecting the Menominee Forest"
(David M. Beck)
"Urban (Trans)Formations: Changes in the Meaning and Use of American Indian
Identity" (Angela A. Gonzales)
"'This Hole in Our Heart': The Urban-Raised Generation and the Legacy of
Silence" (Deborah Davis Jackson)
"Weaving Andean Networks in Unstable Labor Markets" (Alex Julca)
"Red Wit in the City: Urban Indian Comedy" (Darby Li Po Price)
"Healing through Grief: Urban Indians Reimagining Culture and Community"
(Renya Ramirez)
"Downtown Oklahoma City: 1952" (Victoria Bomberry)
"Rejection and Belonging in Addiction and Recovery: Four Urban Indian Men in
Milwaukee" (Christine T. Lowery).
Makofsky, Abraham. Tradition and Change in the Lumbee Indian Community of
Baltimore. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1971.
Nagler, Mark. Indians in the City: a Study of the Urbanization of Indians in Toronto.
Ottawa: Canadian Research Centre for Anthropology, Saint Paul University, 1970.
"This study, focused upon social and economic adjustment to urban life, is based
on 150 interviews taken in 1964-66 with adult Indians residing mainly in Toronto.
The interviews covered reasons for migration to the city; education and vocational
training; employment; and such problems of social adjustment as welfare,
drinking and criminality, organizational participation, and attitudes toward Indian
ancestry." --Arthur K. Davis, American Sociological Review, Vol. 36, no. 6 (Dec.,
1971), 1163.
Richards, John. Neighbors Matter: Poor Neighborhoods and Urban Aboriginal Policy.
Toronto: C.D. Howe Institute, 2001.
"This Commentary reviews census evidence on social outcomes in eight Canadian
cities with the largest aboriginal populations.... In general, educational levels and
employment rates for aboriginals who live in poor neighborhoods are well below
those for aboriginals in non-poor neighborhoods, which, in general, are below
those for non-aboriginals.... The Commentary advances two recommendations
directed to provincial governments. The first is to create separate school systems
explicitly for aboriginal children.... The second recommendation is to augment inwork benefits for low-income families with children, and to render access to
untied welfare benefits harder for the employable." --from the text
Sandefur, Gary D. American Indian Migration and Economic Opportunities. Madison:
University of Wisconsin, 1986.
Sanderson, Frances and Heather Howard-Bobiwash, eds. The Meeting Place: Aboriginal
Life in Toronto. Toronto: Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, 1997.
"The book offers several perspectives on the Aboriginal history of Toronto, urban
self-government, Elders' views on Native Education, and profiles of eight
community members. The rich and vibrant history of this urban community is
reflected in the documentation of First Nations culture, politics and urban life." –
Author's abstract
Shorten, Lynda. Without Reserve: Stories from Urban Natives. Edmonton: NeWest Press,
1991.
This collection of real-life stories of First Nations people living in Canadian cities
relies on individual voices and words to convey a sense of the difficulty, diversity,
joy and pride in being a contemporary urban Native.
Stanbury, W. T. and Jay H. Siegel. Success and Failure: Indians in Urban Society.
Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1975.
"Originally a joint venture involving social scientists and business faculty at the
University of British Columbia, this report is based on interviews of a sample of
1,095 off-reservation Indians....The relationship of British Columbian Indians to
the institutions of the dominant society is the major focus of the book and the
subject matter of five substantial chapters. Educational achievement, the use of
medical facilities, legal marriage status, and participation in the labor market are
subjected to detailed scrutiny and compared to general statistics on the Canadian
Indian population as a whole." –Jeanne Guillemin, Contemporary Sociology, vol.
5, no.l 5 (Sept., 1976), 645-646.
Straus, Terry. Indians of the Chicago Area. Chicago: NAES College, 1990.
Taylor, Michael. The Urban Indian Experience: a Denver Portrait: Moccasins on
Pavement. Denver: Denver Museum of Natural History, 1978.
Waddell, Jack O. and O. Michael Watson, eds. The American Indian in Urban Society.
Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1971.
"Jorgensen develops the thesis that Indians have been integrated into the national
society for over a century and have been held in an underdeveloped, rural,
satellite, and exploited niche by the economically and politically dominant
'metropolis.' His concern is not with urban Indians so much as with the
conservative hold that dominant metropolis-subordinate satellite relationships
have historically had on reservation communities." --John A. Price,
Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 3, no. 2 (Mar., 1974), 168.
Weibel-Orlando, Joan. Indian Country, L.A.: Maintaining Ethnic Community in Complex
Society. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
"The six sections of the book address the problem of identifying the Los Angeles
Indian commu nity. Section 1 pertains to the historic background of the Los
Angeles Indian community, dating back to the inception of the BIA's relocation
program in 1952.... Section 2 examines the 'community in complex society' and
offers methodological and theoretical solutions to the problem of identifying
ethnicity and community in the postmodern world.... In section 3, Weibel-Orlando
discusses the importance of Indian institutions in the Los Angeles Indian
community....Status and roles in several recreational, religious, and political
Indian institutions are reviewed in section 4.... The status and roles of members of
the Los Angeles Indian community are described in three life histories in section
5.... The final two chapters...cover the attrition and death of the ICI as well as the
ways in which members of the Los Angles Indian community responded to its
loss and some personal tragedies within the community." --Benjamin R. Kracht,
American Ethnologist, Vol. 21, no. 4 (Nov., 1994), 1053-1054.
Urban Indians
Articles, Theses, Dissertations:
Brunette, Pauline. “The Minneapolis Urban Indian Community.” Hennepin County
History 49 (Winter 1989-90): 4-15.
Carrico, Susan Hunter. “Urban Indians in San Diego, 1850-1900.” M. A. thesis,
University of San Diego, 1984.
Englander, Marilyn J. “Through their Words: Tradition and the Urban Indian Woman's
Experience.” Ph. D. diss., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1985.
Metzger, Lynn Rodeman. “Cleveland American Indian Center: Urban Survival and
Adaptation.” Ph. D. diss., Case Western Reserve University, 1989.
Rosenthal, Nicolas G. “‘Walk across the bridge- an' you'll find your people’: Native
Americans in Portland, Oregon, 1945-1980.” M.A. thesis, University of Oregon, 2000.
Sandefur, Gary D. "American Migration and Economic Opportunities," International
Migration Reviews, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring, 1986), 55-68.
"This article examines interstate migration and labor force participation among
White, American Indian, and intermarried Indian/White couples in the US. The
results show that endogamous American Indian couples are much less likely to
change states of residence than are the other 2 groups of couples. The effect of
interstate migration on labor force participation does not vary across the 3 groups
of couples. The implications of these results for the assimilation and internal
colonial models of race relations and for federal Indian policy are discussed." -Author's abstract
Shoemaker, Nancy. “Urban Indians and Ethnic Choices: American Indian Organizations
in Minneapolis, 1920-1950.” Western History Quarterly 19 (November 1988): 431- 47.
Tapia, Lola Ann. “Urban Indians in Orange County.” M.A. thesis, California State
University, 1977.
Vicenti Carpio, Myla. “' Let them know we still exist': Indians in Albuquerque." Ph.D.
dissertation, Arizona State University, 2001.
Wagner, Jean K. “An Examination and Description of Acculturation of Selected
Individual American Indian Women in an Urban Area.” Ph. D. diss., New York
University, 1972.
Zimmerman, Leslie Ann. “The Urban Indian Community of Minneapolis, Minnesota: an
Analysis of Educational Achievements, Housing Conditions, and Health Care from the
Relocation of 1952 to Today.” M.S. thesis, Montana State University, Bozeman, 2004.
Updated by: Meaghan Heisinger, 2011
Originally Compiled by: H-AmIndian Staff, 2008.