The Other Indian Places: Metro-Based Analysis of American Indian Poverty with Comparison to Other Races

• In Event: 189 - Regular Session. Poverty

Abstract

Today, the American Indian population is highly urbanized as result of a demographic shift that occurred after World War II, facilitated by assimilationist policies such as the poorly administered Direct Relocation program. Like their urban black counterparts, urban American Indians mobilized to bring attention to impoverishment, discrimination, and joblessness. Despite the attention that Indian activists brought to urban Indian populations in the 1960s and 1970s, there is relatively little research on contemporary urban Indian economic conditions. This place-based study of poverty addresses that shortcoming by examining how race-specific place characteristics affect urban American Indian poverty rates. Using data from the American Community Survey Five-Year File, 2006-2010, a set of variables representing demographic categories and opportunity structures of places was used to construct four models based on four population categories—American Indian, black, white, and total populations—to derive predictions of the poverty rate in metro counties with at least 800 American Indians, blacks, and whites, respectively, in residence. The results suggest that opportunity structures are stronger predictors of poverty rates for American Indians in metropolitan counties than demographic factors. Additionally, the results revealed similarities between patterns of predictors of American Indian and black poverty rates. Predictors of white poverty rates, however, differed sharply from those of American Indian poverty rates. The unique history of American Indian urbanization and urban identity coupled with the relationship between urban Indians and home communities demands individualized attention, lest the invisibility of urban Indian reality be reinforced through policies that maintain Indian poverty and deprivation.

Author

• Whitney Mauer, Cornell University