Inappropriation: The Contested Legacy of Y-Indian Guides

In 1926, Harold Keltner, a YMCA Boys Work secretary from St. Louis, and Joe Friday, a member of the Canadian Ojibwe First Peoples, channeled white middle-class fascination with Native Americans into what became the Y-Indian Guides youth pro­gram, engaging over a half million participants across the nation at the height of its 77-year history. Intended to soften the stereo­typical stern father, the program traced a complicated thread of American history, touching upon themes of family, race, class, and privilege.

The Y-Indian Guides was a father-son (and later parent-child) program that encouraged real and enduring bonds through play and an authentic appreciation of family. While “playing Indian” seemed harmless to most participants during the pro­gram’s heyday, Paul Hillmer and Ryan Bean demonstrate the problematic nature of its methods. In the process of seeking to admire and emulate Indigenous Peoples, Y-Indian Guide participants often misrepresented American Indians and reinforced harmful ste­reotypes. Ultimately, this history demonstrates many ways in which American culture undermines and harms its Indigenous communities.

 

Paul Hillmer is the Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and a Professor of History at Concordia University-St. Paul. His research focuses on Southeast Asia, especially among the Hmong hill tribes of Laos who became refugees and settled in America, and the history of the YMCA. He has written histories of the Cleveland and Minneapolis YMCAs, produced a History Channel-funded documentary, From Strangers to Neighbors, about Hmong settlements in the Twin Cities, and authored A People’s History of the Hmong.
 
Ryan Bean is the Reference and Outreach Archivist for the Kautz Family YMCA Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries, a position he has held since 2009. Bean has contributed chapters to academic volumes on themes as diverse as the YMCA in China and the role of archives in undergraduate education. He has also contributed numerous articles to various YMCA publications on themes related to the history of the YMCA.