Paul Chaat Smith

In this sweeping work of memoir and commentary, leading cultural critic Paul Chaat Smith illustrates with dry wit and brutal honesty the contradictions of life in “the Indian business.” Raised in suburban Maryland and Oklahoma, Smith dove head first into the political radicalism of the 1970s, working with the American Indian Movement until it dissolved into dysfunction and infighting. Afterward he lived in New York, the city of choice for political exiles, and eventually arrived in Washington, D.C., at the newly minted National Museum of the American Indian (“a bad idea whose time has come”) as a curator. In his journey from fighting activist to federal employee, Smith tells us he has discovered at least two things: there is no one true representation of the American Indian experience, and even the best of intentions sometimes ends in catastrophe. Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong is a highly entertaining and, at times, searing critique of the deeply disputed role of American Indians in the United States. In “A Place Called Irony,” Smith whizzes through his early life, showing us the ironic pop culture signposts that marked this Native American's coming of age in suburbia: “We would order Chinese food and slap a favorite video into the machine—the Grammy Awards or a Reagan press conference—and argue about Cyndi Lauper or who should coach the Knicks.” In “Lost in Translation,” Smith explores why American Indians are so often misunderstood and misrepresented in today's media: “We're lousy television.” In “Every Picture Tells a Story,” Smith remembers his Comanche grandfather as he muses on the images of American Indians as “a half-remembered presence, both comforting and dangerous, lurking just below the surface.” Smith walks this tightrope between comforting and dangerous, offering unrepentant skepticism and, ultimately, empathy. “This book is called Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong, but it's a book title, folks, not to be taken literally. Of course I don't mean everything, just most things. And 'you' really means we, as in all of us.”

Everything You Know about Indians is Wrong

Robert Allen Warrior

Two Native American authors describe the growth of the American Indian Movement and chronicle three key events between 1969 and 1973

The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee

Like a Hurricane

Truman Lowe

Lowery Stokes Sims

Fritz Scholder

In the 1960s and '70s, the notion of American Indian art was turned on its head by artists who fought against prejudice and popular cliches. At the forefront of this revolution was Fritz Scholder (Luiseno, 1937-2005), whose dark, energetic, and unsettling paintings of Native Americans combined realism, tragedy, and spirituality with the genres of abstract impressionism and pop art. Published to coincide with a landmark two-city exhibition in New York and Washington, D.C., this beautiful volume features hundreds of extraordinary paintings, prints, sculptures, and photographs, along with thoughtful discussions of Scholder's myth-shattering depictions of the Native American experience.

Indian Not Indian

For a brief but brilliant season beginning in the late 1960s, American Indians seized national attention in a series of radical acts of resistance. Like a Hurricane is a gripping account of the dramatic, breathtaking events of this tumultuous period. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials, interviews, and the authors' own experiences of these events, Like a Hurricane offers a rare, unflinchingly honest assessment of the period's successes and failures.

The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee (Large Print 16pt)

Fergus M. Bordewich

This collection of work by both Native and non-Native artists speaks of the complexity of Native American historical and cultural influences in contemporary culture. Rather than focusing on artists who attempt to maintain strict cultural practices, it brings together a group of artists who engage the larger contemporary art world and are not afraid to step beyond the bounds of tradition. Focusing on a group of 10 artists who came of age since the initial Native Rights movement of the 1960s and 70s, the book emphasizes art that does not so much "look Indian," but incorporates Native content in surprising and innovative ways that defy easy categorization. The Native artists featured here focus on the evolution of cultural traditions. The non-Native artists focus primarily on the history of European colonization in America. Artists include Matthew Buckingham, Lewis deSoto, Peter Edlund, Nicholas Galanin, Jeffrey Gibson, Rigo 23, Duane Slick, Marie Watt, Edie Winograde and Yoram Wolberger.

Paul Chaat Smith

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