Village Allotments, Existing Pipelines and the Proposed Sewer System at the Pala Indian Reservation, San Diego County, California, October, 1912. From the National Archives and Records Administration, Pacific Region, RG 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Pala Superintendency, Pala Indian School and Agency Correspondence, 1910-1920, box 361.
5:30 pm to 6:30 pm
TFL
The paper examines how California Indians resisted the pull of assimilation to non-Indian culture and undermined the homogeneity of federal Indian citizenship policy in the early twentieth century. Prior to 1924, Indians wishing to become United States citizens had to first demonstrate their assimilation to American culture through the ownership and appropriate use of land. In this way, the Indian Office hoped to align the individual, functional relationship with the state to an affective sympathy with the collective national culture. But this paper provides two case studies of how Indians navigated the crosscurrents of federal Indian policy, leveraging citizenship and off-reservation employment to strengthen Indian communities.
AIS seminar papers are pre-circulated electronically two weeks prior to the seminar date. Email mcnickle@newberry.org to request a copy of the paper. Please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend.