Becoming the Architects of Our Destiny: Understanding Geographic Identity

April 11, 2010

By Rhiana Yazzie

As Native people we know that our tribal identities are not lost when we cross the border from the reservation to the city. Our ability to adapt, along with a bit of humor, has always been a benchmark of our culture’s indomitable spirit whether on the reservation or among second and third “urban” generations living in the big city.

Government work relocation programs that were put into place after World War II brought Native people from reservations to major metropolitan centers across America. Though not always delivered on, these programs promised work, housing, and integration into America’s economic infrastructure.

With large numbers of Native Americans in major metropolitan areas, the concept of geographic identity has become an important idea as these populations have made permanent roots in urban areas.

Unfortunately, in many cities around the country, such as Los Angeles which touts the largest urban Native American population with 150,000, urban Native communities often have no geographic center or focus. Services and Native businesses, like the Native community members themselves, seem to be spread out and isolated from one another. With a lack of a specific location where Native community, goods, services, and cultural support can come together, it often means that Native communities have a harder time leveraging for itself in the broader political life of each large city.

Phoenix, where more than 90,000 Native Americans from varying tribes live, lacked a geographic place that the community could call its own. Architect Daniel J. Glenn in a 2005 press release from Arizona State University’s Stardust Design Center said “the Native community lacks a visible presence in the city, a symbolic center that proclaims to the larger community that despite hundreds of years of domination, the Native American community continues to grow and thrive both on and off the reservation.”

Recognizing the positive impact a cultural center could have for Phoenix, three Native American nonprofit organizations and community leaders set forth to create a place where “Native people can gather together to express and share cultural traditions with fellow tribal members or with the community at large.” According to a press release by Native Market Inc., in 2006 Native American Connections, Native American Community Health Center, and the Phoenix Indian Center, partnered in the purchase of an 85,000-square-foot building where they have begun establishing a permanent home and visible presence for the urban Native American community.

The Native American Youth and Family Center in Portland, Ore., has the same idea. In 2009 they purchased a 10-acre lakeside property to give a cultural home to their urban Native American population. The new center caters to all ages from a private high school to elders programs all housed under the same roof, with room for expansion.

In Minneapolis, Franklin Avenue and the Phillips neighborhood has historically been the geographic center of the Twin Cities’ urban Native American population. However, in 2010, many urban Native people are finding themselves looking to the surrounding suburbs to find quality affordable housing, living wage jobs, more options to educate their youth, and less worry about safety concerns.

With that move to places outside the Phillips community perhaps also goes the ability to leverage politically as a group and to form Minneapolis’ geographic identity outside of reservations.

According to NACDI president Justin Huenemann, “Tribal nation-building does not have to stop at the reservation border.” Huennemann is encouraged by the examples of urban native populations around the country revitalizing and intentionally creating land bases. NACDI’s work with bringing the Woodlands National Bank to the Phillips neighborhood has helped recycle the urban Native dollar within its own community. More Native owned businesses and Native arts organizations can help give strength to the urban Native American community’s ability to create power and leverage when dealing with mainstream politics.

NACDI’s work with facilitating a Franklin Avenue American Indian cultural corridor is a step toward maintaining and strengthening Minneapolis’ urban Native population’s geographic identity. Citing the work already done by urban Natives across the country Huenemann said, “We can become the architects of our destiny.”

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