The Henry Roe Cloud Series on American Indians and Modernity. The Makings and Unmakings of Americans : Indians and Immigrants in American Literature and Culture, 1879-1924

Challenges the myth of the United States as a nation of immigrants by bringing together two groups rarely read together: Native Americans and Eastern European immigrants In this cultural history of Americanization during the Progressive Era, Cristina Stanciu argues that new immigrants and Native Americans shaped the intellectual and cultural debates over inclusion and exclusion, challenging ideas of national belonging, citizenship, and literary and cultural production. Deeply grounded in a wide-ranging archive of Indigenous and new immigrant writing and visual culture--including congressional acts, testimonies, news reports, cartoons, poetry, fiction, and silent film--this book brings together voices of Native and immigrant America. Stanciu shows that, although Native Americans and new immigrants faced different legal and cultural obstacles to citizenship, the challenges they faced and their resistance to assimilation and Americanization often ran along parallel paths. Both struggled against idealized models of American citizenship that dominated public spaces. Both participated in government-sponsored Americanization efforts and worked to gain agency and sovereignty while negotiating naturalization. Rethinking popular understandings of Americanization, Stanciu argues that the new immigrants and Native Americans at the heart of this book expanded the narrow definitions of American identity. "In this cultural history of Americanization during the Progressive Era, Cristina Stanciu argues that new immigrants and Native Americans shaped the intellectual and cultural debates over inclusion and exclusion, challenging ideas of national belonging, citizenship, and literary and cultural production. Deeply grounded in a wide-ranging archive of Indigenous and new immigrant writing and visual culture--including congressional acts, testimonies, news reports, cartoons, poetry, fiction, and silent film--this book brings together voices of Native and immigrant America. Stanciu shows that, although Native Americans and new immigrants faced different legal and cultural obstacles to citizenship, the challenges they faced and their resistance to assimilation and Americanization often ran along parallel paths. Both struggled against idealized models of American citizenship that dominated public spaces. Both participated in government-sponsored Americanization efforts and worked to gain agency and sovereignty while negotiating naturalization. Rethinking popular understandings of Americanization, Stanciu argues that the new immigrants and Native Americans at the heart of this book expanded the narrow definitions of American identity."--Dust jacket Contents 7 Illustrations 9 Introduction: Indians and Immigrants: Toward a Cultural History of Exclusion 11 1 Native Acts, Immigrant Acts: Citizenship, Naturalization, and the Performance of Civic Identity 34 2 “You Can’t Come In! The Quota for 1620 Is Full” Americanization, Exclusion, Representation 64 3 “That Is Why I Sent You to Carlisle” Native Education, Print Culture, and Americanization at Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879–1918 91 4 “Sing, Strangers!” Education, Print Culture, and the Americanization of New Immigrants 126 5 Americanization on Native Terms: The Society of American Indians, Citizenship Debates, and Tropes of “Racial Difference” in Native Print Culture 159 6 “This Was America!” Americanization and Immigrant Literature at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century 198 7 Spectacular Nationalism: Immigrants on the Silver Screen, Americanization, and the Picture Show 226 8 From “Vanishing Indians” to “Redskins” American Indians on the Silver Screen 257 Conclusion 292 Notes 301 Acknowledgments 349 Index 357