“Real” Indians and Others

Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood

By Bonita Lawrence
Categories: Social Sciences, Sociology, Indigenous Studies, History, Indigenous History, Political Science, Indigenous Law, Racism & Discrimination
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774811026, 328 pages, July 2004
Paperback : 9780774811033, 328 pages, July 2004
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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction: Mixed-Blood Native Identity in the Americas

Part 1. The Regulation of Native Identity

1. From Sovereign Nations to “A Vanishing Race”

2. Regulating Native Identity by Gender

3. Reconfiguring Colonial Gender Relations under Bill C-31

4. Métis Identity, the Indian Act, and the Numbered Treaties

Part 2. Mixed-Blood Identity in the Toronto Native Community

5. Killing the Indian to Save the Child

6. Urban Responses to a Heritage of Violence

7. Negotiating an Urban Mixed-Blood Native Identity

8. Maintaining an Urban Native Community

Part 3. Colonial Regulation and Entitlement to Nativeness in the Urban Community

9. Racial Identity in White Society

10. Band Membership and Urban Identity

11. Indian Status and Entitlement

12. Mixed-Blood Urban Native People and the Rebuilding of Indigenous Nations

Appendix 1: Eligibility for Status and Band Membership under Bill C-31

Appendix 2: Issues in Conducting Indigenous Research

Appendix 3: Narratives of Encounters with Genocide

Notes

Bibliography

Index

A pioneering look at how mixed-blood urban Native people understand their identities and struggle to survive in a world that often fails to recognize them.

Description

In this pioneering book, Bonita Lawrence draws on the first-person accounts of thirty Toronto residents of Aboriginal descent, as well as archival materials, sociological research, and her own urban Native heritage and experiences to shed light on the Canadian government’s efforts to define Native identity through the years. She describes the devastating loss of community that has resulted and how urban Native people have wrestled with their past and current identities. Lawrence also explores the forms of nation-building that can reconcile the differences in experiences and distinct agendas of urban and reserve-based Native communities.

Reviews

The strength of her book and its analysis lies in her use of participants’ lived experiences and their recollections of their parents’ own struggles as Indians, Metis, mixed bloods, or descendants of these groups…the book represents an important contribution to an often-neglected group of people in Canada. The strength and passion of the narrative, together with the consistency of the argument, builds a powerful case for government redress and certainly for further study and action.

- Hugh Shewell, York University