American Indian Ethnic Renewal

American Indian Ethnic Renewal traces the growth of the American Indian population over the past forty years, when the number of Native Americans grew from fewer than one-half million in 1950 to nearly two million in 1990. This is not simply the result of rising birth rates, declining death rates, or immigration. Rather, such growth reflects an increased willingness of Americans to identify themselves as Indians. What is driving this increased ethnic identification, and where and how did it begin? Joane Nagel identifies several historical forces that have converged to create an urban Indian population base, a reservation and urban Indian organizational infrastructure, and a broad cultural climate of ethnic pride and militancy. The book offers a general theory of ethnic resurgence which stresses both structure and agency--the role of politics and the importance of collective and individual action--in understanding how ethnic groups revitalize and reinvent themselves.