Indian Country, L.A.

Book excerpt: Los Angeles is home to the largest concentration of urban Native Americans in the United States: a geographically dispersed population of tremendous cultural, linguistic, political, and religious diversity. Over the course of more than two decades, Joan Weibel-Orlando has immersed herself in the social, economic, and political life of this population, conducting hundreds of interviews and observing the institutions, rites, and practices that help this urban community define itself. The first ethnographic study of this vibrant community, now expanded and updated, Indian Country, L.A. reveals a society that both incorporates cherished tribal identities and strives constantly to recreate itself within the context of modern urban life. Weibel-Orlando's landmark work proposes a dynamic model of community formation, describing community not by means of static categories but rather in terms of how it is experienced by its members: through collective responsibilities, institutions, cultural continuity, public ritual, locality, communication networks, and shared history.