Urban Tribes: Native Americans in the City, edited by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale, offers over twenty firsthand accounts of the experiences of Native Americans in cities across the United States and Canada. The stories offer a fantastic window into the difficulties Native Americans still face today, but also do a great job of normalizing a population that is so poorly understood by mainstream North America. There are stories not just about ceremonies and leaving reservations, but about art, business, networking, and acting in Hollywood. Which is not to say the book is gloss over of the racism still present against Natives in North America. Quite the opposite, as the book also delves deeply into modern day issues stemming from racism and a history of oppression and dispossession which Natives face. All the stories are relatively short, but each one offers something new so that the book never becomes repetitive. The book ends with some general facts and numbers about Native life today, and has a good bibliography and a great list of suggested further readings and web videos. It even includes websites on how to get involved with the books movement to spread the word about Native American life in the modern world. The books one drawback is its formatting. It is very much desktop-published, which leads to some confusion as to when one persons story ends and another begins. The confusion doesn’t last for long, but more tidy editing would have made this an even more powerful book.
Too often, when speaking of oppressed and dispossessed peoples, the narrative is one of victimhood and defeat. That is the greatest single quality of Urban Tribes, its up-by-the-bootstraps, determined, positive, hopeful take on the struggle these teenagers and adults are going through. This book would be an inspiration to teenagers who feel they need have obstacles which they don’t want to weigh them down. ( )

Wonderful book that challenges preconceived notions about indigenous people. With content that includes interviews, tweets, art, personal essays, photography, poetry, and more, this is a powerful compilation that addresses cultures, identity, racism, and colonialism in First Nations people who do not live on reservations. Highly recommended. ( )