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New book explores history of American Indians in cities

LAWRENCE -- The history of modern American Indians is complex and more likely to be found in cities than on reservations, according to Donald L. Fixico, historian and director of the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at the University of Kansas.

Fixico has written the first ethnohistory of modern urban Indians, titled "The Urban Indian Experience in America."

Two-thirds of American Indians live in cities, not on reservations, Fixico said. His new book examines the record of survival and adaptation by American Indians in cities over the past 50 years.

"Today's American Indian is very modernized by constant contact with the mainstream. Their values have been somewhat adjusted in living with the mainstream," Fixico said.

Many urban Indians are descendants of those who first came to cities during the federal government's push for relocation from the late 1940s through the 1960s, Fixico said. Under relocation programs in those years, many Indians looking for jobs and housing moved into cities such as Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City or Tulsa.

Although the Kansas City area and Wichita were not part of those relocation programs, they were cities also attracting Indian populations in the Midwest because of jobs and housing opportunities, Fixico said.

Regardless of their tribal histories, urban Indians share common experiences that serve to bind American Indians together and form new communities, Fixico said. In fact, he says a kind of retribalization or intertribalness has occurred in cities since the late 1960s and the 1970s.

"Even those tribes who fought historical wars against each other tend to cross tribal lines and form Indian communities in urban areas," Fixico says.

"Urbanization promoted more of an Indian identity as defined by Indian people and not defined by external influences like Hollywood or history books, literature about Indian people, including the federal government policies."

Fixico's final chapter, "Urban Indian Crisis," examines the psychological impact on third and fourth-generation American Indians who have no link to a reservation. Urban Indians run a risk of losing their identity, Fixico said. They may identify themselves, for example, as a Chicago Indian or an Indian person of Dallas.

Yet in seeking a psychological balance, urbanized American Indians may rely on inherent tribal values and traits that have made their people strong historically.

Fixico introduces each chapter of the book with stories about a fictional urban Indian ironworker and his family that reflect a composite of stories he encountered as he worked on the book.

"It's the stories in the oral tradition that even in postmodern times bind Indian people together. The stories bind them together in a community and form a new identity -- even without land. On reservations the land would be very important to bringing about this cohesiveness."

As more scholars of American Indians develop, the history of the American Indian is becoming more complex, Fixico said. Two types of Indian history are evolving. Modern Indian histories examine Indian organizations, the quest for sovereignty, tribal governments and legal issues -- Indian gaming and repatriation concerns, for example. Older histories record events such as Indian wars, biographies, myths and legends.

The University of New Mexico Press released Fixico's book in November. Fixico's previous books are "The Invasion of Indian Country in the 20th Century: American Capitalism and Tribal Natural Resources," "Urban Indians," "Termination and Relocation: Federal Indian Policy, 1945-1960," "Rethinking American Indian History" and "An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indian History."

Fixico has completed a new book project now under consideration for publication, titled "The American Indian and History: Native Reality and Indigenous Ethos."