Being Indian and Walking Proud American Indian Identity and Reality

This book explores the identity of American Indians from an Indigenous perspective and how outside influences throughout history, from the arrival of Columbus in 1492 to the twenty-first century, have affected Native people.

Non-Native writers, boarding school teachers, movie directors, bureaucrats, churches, and television have all heavily impacted how Indians are viewed in the United States. Drawing on the life experiences of many American Indian men and women, this volume reveals how American Indian identity comprises multiple identities, including the noble savage, wild savage, Hollywood Indian, church-going Indian, rez Indian, urban Indian, Native woman, Indian activist, casino Indian, and tribal leader. Indigenous people, in their own voices, share their experiences of discrimination, being treated as outsiders in their own country, and the intersections of gender, culture, and politics in Indian-white relations. Yet the book also highlights the resilience of being Indian and the pride felt from being a member of a tribe(s), knowing your relatives, and feeling connected to the earth.

Being Indian and Walking Proud is a compelling resource for any reader interested in Indigenous history, including students and scholars in Native American and Indigenous studies, anthropology, and American history.

1. "The Natural Man": The Noble Savage in Colonial America 2. "The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian": The Savage 3. "It Was Only an Indian and It Did Not Matter": The Vanishing Race to Rez Indians 4. "No Dogs or Indians Allowed!": Legal Indians, Blood Quantum and CDIB 5. "My Grandmother Was a Cherokee Princess": Native Women 6. "Kill the Indian in Him and Save the Man": Growing up and Church Going Indians 7. "By the Shores of Gitche Gumee...": Indians in Literature 8. "Kimo Sabe Means": Indians in Films and the Media 9. "The White Man's Indian": The Urban Indian and Casino Indian 10. "I'm Not Your Indian Anymore": The Indian Activist 11. "Going Native": Self-Identification, Wannabes and Shouldabeens 12. "The Bottom of the Totem Pole": The Indian Identity Crisis and Walking Tall

Donald L. Fixico (Shawnee, Sac and Fox, Muscogee and Seminole) is a Regents’ and Distinguished Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University. He has worked on 25 documentaries on American Indians and has authored or edited 15 books. He is the author of The American Indian Mind in a Linear World.