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...

"A fairly comprehensive monograph, highly suitable for classroom use, that offers a wide range of information fit into traditional anthropological categories. . . . an interesting study of cultural integrity and pattern in a setting of what appears to be complex sociopolitical chaos." --American Anthropologist

"Whether or not one accepts Susan Lobo's optimistic analysis, her ability to translate the apparent chaos of shanty-town lives into such neat patterns and to help outsiders view life as the inhabitants do are important contributions." --Inter-American Review of Bibliography...

California has always been America's promised land--for American Indians as much as anyone. In the 1950s, Native people from all over the United States moved to the San Francisco Bay Area as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Relocation Program. Oakland was a major destination of this program, and once there, Indian people arriving from rural and reservation areas had to adjust to urban living. They did it by creating a cooperative, multi-tribal community--not a geographic community, but rather a network of people linked by shared experiences and understandings. The Intertribal...

A self-taught artist in several mediums who became known for stippling, Leonard Chana captured the essence of the Tohono O'odham people. He incorporated subtle details of O'odham life into his art, and his images evoke the smells, sounds, textures, and tastes of the Sonoran desert--all the while depicting the values of his people.
He began his career by creating cards and soon was lending his art to posters and logos for many community-based Native organizations. Winning recognition from these groups, his work was soon actively sought by them. Chana's work also appears on the covers and...