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Urban American Indian Identity: Negotiating Indianness in Northeast Ohio

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Abstract

The number of people identifying as American Indian has increased exponentially in recent decades and the largest increases have occurred in non-reservation environments. Demographic research shows that “new” Indians, or people who did not previously identify as Indians, have contributed to this growth, but little is known about the experience of Indian identity for this segment of the population. My research draws on 39 interviews and 2 ½ years of field work in two Northeast Ohio pan-Indian communities, one comprised primarily of “new” Indians who are reclaiming Indian identities, and one comprised primarily of “old” Indians who relocated from reservation environments to the urban sphere. I explore how these distinct pathways to urban Indian identity—reclamation and relocation—manifest in different experiences for Northeast Ohio Indians. My comparative analysis reveals that both reclaimers and relocators find it difficult to assert American Indian identities in interactions with Northeast Ohio residents. Accomplishing “Indianness” in personal and public realms is particularly challenging for reclaimers, however, because they lack tangible evidence (e.g., brown skin, government issued identification cards) to support their Indian identity claims.

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Notes

  1. Throughout the paper, I use “American Indians,” “Indians,” “indigenous peoples,” and “Natives” interchangeably because these terms were used most frequently by the indigenous peoples with whom I worked.

  2. Paying research participants for their time and expertise helps equalize power relationships between the interviewer and her/his interviewees (Thompson 1996).

  3. Employment opportunities in the rubber and steel industries attracted a number of other migrants to the region as well, including Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, blacks, and people from depressed areas of Appalachia (Grabowski 1998). Not coincidentally, undocumented Native descendants, including Indians whose ancestors “hid in the hills” or refused enrollment on federal allotment rolls, migrated north as well, gradually working their way from the Carolinas to Kentucky or Virginia, then to West Virginia and Ohio.

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Acknowledgments

The author is particularly grateful to the Native people who shared their stories with her and for thoughtful comments on this article provided by anonymous Qualitative Sociology reviewers and Joanna Dreby, Daniela Jauk, David Merolla, and Clare Stacey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State University of New York College at Plattsburgh, Plattsburgh, NY, USA

    Michelle R. Jacobs

  2. Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA

    Michelle R. Jacobs

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Correspondence to Michelle R. Jacobs.

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Jacobs, M.R. Urban American Indian Identity: Negotiating Indianness in Northeast Ohio. Qual Sociol 38, 79–98 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-014-9293-9

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