New article by Reetta Humalajoki

The latest publication by project PI Reetta Humalajoki just came out on the American Studies in Scandinavia journal. Titled “Seeing Indian in Chicago: Photographic Resilience in an Urban Indigenous Community, 1958-1980,” the article analyzes a photography exhibition titled “Seeing Indian in Chicago” hosted in the summer of 1985 at the Newberry Library, featuring photographs taken by members of the American Indian Center’s camera club. Pairing these photographs with archived oral history interviews of the photographers, this article explores the multiple meanings and interpretations vested within these images through their exhibition for audiences visiting the Newberry Library. Taken between the late 1950s and the early 1980s, the photographs capture life in the decades following the conclusion of the federal relocation program, which was geared towards assimilation, moving Indigenous individuals and families away from their homelands to work in urban areas. The photography exhibition, then, worked to display the adaptation and resilience of this community as both Indigenous and familiar mainstream Americans while also subtly challenging stereotypes of “Indians” that visitors to the exhibition likely held. As such, this article contributes to the growing scholarship challenging victim narratives of Indigenous urbanization.

Peter F. Weil, “Richard McPhearson and Ben Bearskin chat between songs during the McNickle Center’s founding event in 1971,” Photo Courtesy of the Newberry Library.