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Our Elders Lived It: American Indian Identity in the City
More than half of all Native Americans live in cities, yet urban indians have not received the same attention as "traditional" indians who dwell on reservations. This groundbreaking anthropological investigation shatters stereotypes of what it means to be an ndian in America, arguing that the transition to an urban lifestyle requires a reshaping and reconceptualizing of self-identity.
One of the most pressing concerns facing urban Native Americans today is the question of what constitutes a legitimate claim to Native identity. The importance of identity emerges in such practical matters as participation in tribal functions, entitlement to community aid, and political representation. The appropriation of indian symbols and lifeways by nonIndians has further blurred notions of identity.
Explaining that ethnic identity is constructed and maintained through social interaction, Jackson demonstrates the importance of community in indian culture. Our Elders Lived It is the result of extensive fieldwork in an Upper Great Lakes midsized city, where life has been complicated by economic misfortune and social deprivation. Informed but not dominated by identity theory, Jackson's sensitive interviews and personal narratives allow the indian community to speak for itself and to present its own vision of the challenges facing urban Native Americans.
One of the most pressing concerns facing urban Native Americans today is the question of what constitutes a legitimate claim to Native identity. The importance of identity emerges in such practical matters as participation in tribal functions, entitlement to community aid, and political representation. The appropriation of indian symbols and lifeways by nonIndians has further blurred notions of identity.
Explaining that ethnic identity is constructed and maintained through social interaction, Jackson demonstrates the importance of community in indian culture. Our Elders Lived It is the result of extensive fieldwork in an Upper Great Lakes midsized city, where life has been complicated by economic misfortune and social deprivation. Informed but not dominated by identity theory, Jackson's sensitive interviews and personal narratives allow the indian community to speak for itself and to present its own vision of the challenges facing urban Native Americans.
209 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 14, 2019
I read this book to better understand the experiences of urban Indians. This book does a great job of centering around a very specific community and pointing out why describing who an “urban Indian” is and is not is very difficult to do. As a non-native author, Jackson also does a good job quoting her interviewees and allowing the Great Lakes community and Ashinaabe people speak for themselves.
December 26, 2014
I read this book to learn more about contemporary Indians. The author illustrates many of the apparent contradictions of urban Indians who appear to have assimilated to the mainstream culture.
I am reading it as background for a character in a story, Beverly, who it mother of the main character Denise.
Chapter 3, Assimilated Indians, describes the institutions and social pressures of assimilation (and the acculturation of the Indian communities). Jackson presents a paradox in which Indian customs and values survived while the outward expressions of their culture survived. Particulary nterest to me is the idea that the boarding schools were designed to "proletarianize" children to create workers, first for the agricultural economy and later for the industrial economy. There were institutional barriers to achievement, so that students who were trained and capable of contributing on a professional level, joined the working class as laborers. For example, one man interviewed was trained to be an engineer but could not get work except as a laborer. This chapter also describes the extreme poverty faced by Indians in the home communities that drove them to the cities in order to provide for their families. Jackson points out that providing for one's family is a critical value to the Indians of the Great Lakes. She points out that their assimilation as laborers in urban communities is in part a result of their Native value as providers.
Chapter 4, Paper Indians, describes second generation Indians whose parents overtly or subtly denied their Indian identity. Some of these people, now in their early 40's to mid-twenties, are new to their identities as Indians. Much of the tension in the community described by Jackson is caused by the friction between these young Indians who do not know the cultural ways of the other Indians and whose actions are often offensive and considered disrepectful. Their is a section in this chapter about silence as a "presence" and compared the parents' shame to that of survivors of the Holocaust. In raising their children "white" they hoped to shield them from the prejudices that they experienced and hide from the children the shame that resulted from the prejudice and abuses.
The book is well written and accessible to a lay person. I am curious if the tensions described apply to other communities. I am interested in learning about Northwest and other Indians. Many of the books I have found are about the Great Lakes communities.
I am reading it as background for a character in a story, Beverly, who it mother of the main character Denise.
Chapter 3, Assimilated Indians, describes the institutions and social pressures of assimilation (and the acculturation of the Indian communities). Jackson presents a paradox in which Indian customs and values survived while the outward expressions of their culture survived. Particulary nterest to me is the idea that the boarding schools were designed to "proletarianize" children to create workers, first for the agricultural economy and later for the industrial economy. There were institutional barriers to achievement, so that students who were trained and capable of contributing on a professional level, joined the working class as laborers. For example, one man interviewed was trained to be an engineer but could not get work except as a laborer. This chapter also describes the extreme poverty faced by Indians in the home communities that drove them to the cities in order to provide for their families. Jackson points out that providing for one's family is a critical value to the Indians of the Great Lakes. She points out that their assimilation as laborers in urban communities is in part a result of their Native value as providers.
Chapter 4, Paper Indians, describes second generation Indians whose parents overtly or subtly denied their Indian identity. Some of these people, now in their early 40's to mid-twenties, are new to their identities as Indians. Much of the tension in the community described by Jackson is caused by the friction between these young Indians who do not know the cultural ways of the other Indians and whose actions are often offensive and considered disrepectful. Their is a section in this chapter about silence as a "presence" and compared the parents' shame to that of survivors of the Holocaust. In raising their children "white" they hoped to shield them from the prejudices that they experienced and hide from the children the shame that resulted from the prejudice and abuses.
The book is well written and accessible to a lay person. I am curious if the tensions described apply to other communities. I am interested in learning about Northwest and other Indians. Many of the books I have found are about the Great Lakes communities.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews