Review Essay: Return of the Native:American Indians as Urban Immigrants
Abstract
REVIEW ESSAY RETURN OF THE NATIVE American Indians as Urban Immigrants RACHEL BUFF, Immigration and the Political Economy of Home: West Indian Brooklyn and American Indian Minneapolis, 1945-1992. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001, pp. xv, 240, illustrations, notes, references, index, $18.95 paper. DONALD L. FIXICO, The Urban Indian Experience in America.Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000, pp. xiii, 251, illustrations, tables, notes, bibliography, index, $35.00 cloth, $17.95 paper. JAMES B. LAGRAND, Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago, 1945-75. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002, pp. xii, 284, illustrations, tables, maps, notes, bibliography, index, $34.95 cloth. In 1884, a four-figure bronze statue group was unveiled in Lincoln Park on Chicago's lakefront. Entitled The Alarm, the statue depicted an Indian war- rior, tomahawk in hand, prepared to defend his family, shown cowering behind him. While the statue is in many ways a sympathetic depiction of the Ottawa Indians, the overwhelming message of the group is that the Indian was the "vanishing American." The original placement of the statue, next to the zoo, reinforced this message. For Chicagoans, the Indian was at best a rare and exotic remnant of the past. Such an attitude was typical of the