Only Approved Indians: Stories (Volume 12) (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series) - Hardcover

Forbes Ph.D, Dr. Jack D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080612699X ISBN 13: 9780806126999

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995

Synopsis

In these short stories, Jack D. Forbes captures the remarkable breadth and variety of American Indian life. Drawing on his skills as scholar and native activist, and, above all, as artist, Forbes enlarges our sense of how American Indians experience themselves and the world around them.

Though all the main characters are of Indian descent, each is a unique combination of tribal origin, social status, age, and life-style-from native elder and college professor to lesbian barmaid and Chicano adolescent. Nevertheless the U.S. government (and perhaps white society as a whole) narrows the definition of "Indian".

About this title

About the Author

Jack D. Forbes was a Professor in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. He authored Native Americans of California and Nevada, Warriors of the Colorado: The Yumas of the Quechan Nation and Their Neighbors, and Africans and Native American. He was of Powhatan and Delaware descent.

From Publishers Weekly

In this 12th volume of the publisher's American Indian Literature and Critical Studies series, Native American scholar Forbes turns from anthropology to anthology with 17 short stories about the vicissitudes of life for modern-day Indians. Many of the selections display a strong sense of irony and humor: in the title piece, for example, an Indian basketball team makes it to a championship only to be disqualified because their members aren't recognized as natives by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In "An Incident in a Tour Among the Natives," a Native author receives romantic advances from a woman eager to be ravished by a red savage. Fantasy, too, plays a part in these lives, as in the particularly intriguing "The Cage," in which the last full-blooded male Indian is put in a zoo. The tales portray pain like that of the boy who, losing himself to drink, dreams only of "Someone to Love"; and they portray triumph, as in "A City Indian Goes to School," in which a troubled teen turns his back on alcoholism and delinquency when he recovers his racial identity. Though occasionally heavy-handed, these diverse stories nonetheless reflect a unique style and a thoughtful perspective on a struggling nation.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 080612699X
• ISBN 13: 9780806126999
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 188