Community Self-Determination: American Indian Education in Chicago, 1952–2006

Abstract

How did urban American Indians living in Chicago during the period from 1952 to 2006 use education and community action to advance their goals, ultimately making the city a “Native place” (p. xvi)? This fundamental question drives John J. Laukaitis's Community Self-Determination. Laukaitis shifts our attention from the narratives of distant rural reservations, federal and mission boarding schools, and cultural loss, instead asking us to consider the understudied local stories of Native American people creating their own educational spaces within growing urban metropolises. He explores how education can shape ethnic identities and cultural preservation or revitalization in urban environments. Laukaitis characterizes community organizing around education as “slow and steady actions” and “soft and quiet activism” rather than the boisterous, headline-grabbing tactics of direct action associated with the American Indian Movement (p. 1). Laukaitis defines community self-determination as a distinctly local sociopolitical movement, connecting it to new forms of native agency in Chicago that demanded educational opportunity and economic empowerment within native cultural and political spaces.