American Indian ethnic renewal : Red power and the resurgence of identity and culture

Does activism matter? This book answers with a clear "yes." __American Indian Ethnic Renewal__ traces the growth of the American Indian population over the past forty years, when the number of Native Americans grew from fewer than one-half million in 1950 to nearly 2 million in 1990. This quadrupling of the American Indian population cannot be explained by rising birth rates, declining death rates, or immigration. Instead, the growth in the number of American Indians is the result of an increased willingness of Americans to identify themselves as Indians. What is driving this increased ethnic identification? In __American Indian Ethnic Renewal__, Joane Nagel identifies several historical forces which have converged to create an urban Indian population base, a reservation and urban Indian organizational infrastructure, and a broad cultural climate of ethnic pride and militancy. Central among these forces was federal Indian "Termination" policy which, ironically, was designed to assimilate and de-tribalize Native America. Reactions against Termination were nurtured by the Civil Rights era atmosphere of ethnic pride to become a central focus of the native rights activist movement known as "Red Power." This resurgence of American Indian ethnic pride inspired increased Indian ethnic identification, launched a renaissance in American Indian culture, language, art, and spirituality, and eventually contributed to the replacement of Termination with new federal policies affirming tribal Self- Determination. __American Indian Ethnic Renewal__ offers a general theory of ethnic resurgence which stresses both structure and agency--the role of politics and the importance of collective and individual action--in understanding how ethnic groups revitalize and reinvent themselves. Scholars and students of American Indians, social movements and activism, and recent United States history, as well as the general reader interested in Native American life, will all find this an engaging and informative work Constructing Ethnic Identity -- Constructing Culture -- Deconstructing Ethnicity -- American Indian Population Growth: Changing Patterns Of Indian Ethnic Identification -- The Politics Of American Indian Ethnicity: Solving The Puzzle Of Indian Ethnic Resurgence -- Red Pwer: Reforging Identity And Culture -- Renewing Culture And Community -- Reconstructing Federal Indian Policy: From Termination To Self-determination -- The Problematics Of American Indian Ethnicity. Joane Nagel. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 257-285) And Index. Originally published in 1996,this book traces the demographic growth in the American Indian population over the past forty years and the rise in native American activities during this century. Nagel focuses on the Red Power movement whose climax marked a shift in native American identification, from tribal association to a pan-Indian consciousness. In the decades after World War II, social science thinking on both the right (assimilationist models) and the left (class models) predicted the end of ethnicity.