Mixed Race Studies

American Indians in Chicago struggle to preserve identity, culture and history

Chicago Tribune
2012-08-13

Dahleen Glanton, Reporter

Recession, social service funding cuts hinder efforts

Susan Kelly Power was 17 when she boarded a train to Chicago, a place that seemed a world away from the Indian reservation she grew up on in North and South Dakota.

In the 70 years since she left her family’s home on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, Power has carved out a distinctive place for herself in Chicago’s youthful American Indian community. The oldest Native American in Chicago, she is the memory keeper in a community where history is sacred.

From the controversial Battle of Fort Dearborn, which marks its 200th anniversary this week, to Chief Illiniwek, the University of Illinois mascot who was forced into retirement five years ago, activists such as Power have made it their mission to set the historical record straight. While the Battle of Fort Dearborn is considered a pivotal part of the city’s history, American Indians living in Chicago have become, for the most part, an invisible population that is struggling.

With few financial resources and no political muscle, the community of about 49,000 American Indians in the Chicago area has struggled to find a voice in a region where they are outnumbered by almost every ethnic group. Once tucked away in Uptown and now scattered throughout the city and suburbs, they could virtually go unnoticed if not for a small but vocal group of elders who refuse to back down from a good fight…

…Wiese said the economic condition of American Indians is more dire than the 2010 census indicates, largely because she believes the figures are skewed. The census form allows anyone to identify themselves as American Indian, whether they have official tribal papers or not, she said. Without those who identified themselves as mixed race, the number of American Indians in Chicago would be cut in half, to just over 13,337, the census shows.

East Indians, whites, African-Americans and Hispanics who do not have tribal documentation are identifying themselves as Native American, Wiese said, driving up the economic status of Indians to artificial levels. Meanwhile, an equal number of tribal-recognized Indians, who like many poor people living with multiple families in a residence, were not counted in the census, she said.

“We call them ‘box checkers,’ the thousands of people who say they are American Indian” but don’t have legal status, said Wiese, whose agency provides educational services for children and adults. “It hurts us when the demographics look higher than they are.”…

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