Support H-Net | Buy Books Here | Help Support the NBN and NBN en Español on Patreon | Visit New Books Network en Español!
- African Studies
- African American Studies
- American Politics
- American Studies
- American South
- American West
- Asian American Studies
- Australian and New Zealand Studies
- British Studies
- Canadian Studies
- Caribbean Studies
- Central Asian Studies
- Chinese Studies
- East Asian Studies
- Eastern European Studies
- European Politics
- French Studies
- German Studies
- Iberian Studies
- India Studies
- Indian Ocean World
- Iranian Studies
- Irish Studies
- Israel Studies
- Italian Studies
- Japanese Studies
- Korean Studies
- Latino Studies
- Latin American Studies
- Mexican Studies
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Native American Studies
- Pacific Studies
- Polish Studies
- Russian and Eurasian Studies
- Southeast Asian Studies
- South Asian Studies
- Turkish Studies
- Ukrainian Studies
- Western European Studies
- World Affairs
- Animal Studies
- Anthropology
- Archaeology
- Business, Management, and Marketing
- Media
- Critical Theory
- Disability Studies
- Drugs, Addiction and Recovery
- Education
- Economics
- Finance
- Geography
- Gender Studies
- Genocide Studies
- Higher Education
- Human Rights
- Journalism
- Language
- Law
- LGBTQ+ Studies
- National Security
- Philanthropy
- Philosophy
- Policing, Incarceration, and Reform
- Political Science
- Politics & Polemics
- Public Policy
- Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work
- Sociology
- Sound Studies
- Sports
- Urban Studies
- Big Ideas
- Celebration Studies
- Co-Authored
- Cover Story
- Historical Materialism
- History Ex Silo
- Interpretive Political and Social Science
- Invested Investor
- Landscape Architecture
- Late Antiquity
- Mormonism
- NBN Book of the Day
- NBN Seminar
- Postscript: Conversations on Politics and Political Science
- Practical History
- Preparing for Life After Grad School
- Psychology and Climate Change
- Syriac Studies
- The Chair: In The Room at the Fed
- New Books with Miranda Melcher
Jun 20, 2012
Reimagining Indian Country
Native American Migration and Identity in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles
Summary
The term "Indian Country" evokes multiple themes. Encompassing legal, geographic, and ideological dimensions, "Indian Country" is commonly understood to be a space outside of or surrounded by the boundaries of the United States. It's also been used for a pan-tribal, continental consciousness, found, for example, in the popular periodical Indian Country Today. For non-Natives familiar with the term, however, it's safe to say what the term does not connote: cities. Indian County is "out there" somewhere, a dusty reservation remote from the bustle of modern life.
Historian Nicolas G. Rosenthal argues that this concept is not only problematic but wholly inaccurate. In Reimagining Indian Country: Native American Migration and Identity in Twentieth-Century Los Angeles University of North Carolina Press, 2012), Rosenthal illuminates the forces that drew or forced Indian people to Los Angeles, the "urban Indian capital of the United States," and the process of forming individual and communal identities away from tribal homelands. Los Angeles typifies a larger trend. In 1940, the census counted 27,000 Indians living in cities, about 8% of the total Native population. By 1950, it spiked to 45%. In 1980, 53%. While the majority of Rosenthal's compelling narrative focuses on city of angels, he also reckons with these wider trends, reconceptualizing "Indian Country" to reflect a complicated and diverse reality. His intervention is invaluable.
