About Us
In Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong, Paul Chaat Smith wrote that “Only when we recognize that our own individual, crazy personal histories, like those of every other Indian person of this century, are a tumble of extraordinary contradictions, can we begin making sense of lives.” This site is devoted to sharing the individual, crazy personal histories that don’t fit into the typical molds of what is expected of Native people.
The myth that Native families have always stayed in one place is just that — a myth. To assume otherwise is to believe that we are a monolithic people held static in time.
Native families before colonization moved frequently along trade routes, by season for agricultural or hunting purposes, and in response to shifting territories caused by changing political boundaries. While living under the settler colonial state, Native families -- like all families -- have continued to move around for myriad reasons. Sometimes, it’s been involuntary or coerced, like the removal policies of the 1800s which removed thousands of Native people from their homes to facilitate white occupation of Indigenous lands or the economic destabilization of reservations that led some families to seek work elsewhere. Today, about 90% of Native people live in urban and suburban spaces. There are vibrant multi-tribal urban Indigenous spaces in cities like Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. These urban spaces are also Indigenous territories, and those of us whose families have relocated to them are visitors on other nations' lands.
As Indigenous people living in diaspora from our homelands, it's important to recognize that Indigenous relocations are often fluid -- our families have frequently moved back and forth, and many relocated of us retain (or re-build) close ties to our homelands. Many of us are doing the hard work of sustaining and revitalizing our languages, lifeways, and epistemologies wherever we are.
The myth that Native families have always stayed in one place is just that — a myth. To assume otherwise is to believe that we are a monolithic people held static in time.
Native families before colonization moved frequently along trade routes, by season for agricultural or hunting purposes, and in response to shifting territories caused by changing political boundaries. While living under the settler colonial state, Native families -- like all families -- have continued to move around for myriad reasons. Sometimes, it’s been involuntary or coerced, like the removal policies of the 1800s which removed thousands of Native people from their homes to facilitate white occupation of Indigenous lands or the economic destabilization of reservations that led some families to seek work elsewhere. Today, about 90% of Native people live in urban and suburban spaces. There are vibrant multi-tribal urban Indigenous spaces in cities like Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. These urban spaces are also Indigenous territories, and those of us whose families have relocated to them are visitors on other nations' lands.
As Indigenous people living in diaspora from our homelands, it's important to recognize that Indigenous relocations are often fluid -- our families have frequently moved back and forth, and many relocated of us retain (or re-build) close ties to our homelands. Many of us are doing the hard work of sustaining and revitalizing our languages, lifeways, and epistemologies wherever we are.
site curator
The 90% was started by Meredith McCoy. Meredith founded The 90% after she realized how many Native people in the United States had family stories much like her own. This site celebrates the "individual, crazy personal histories" that make Indian Country the vibrant, diverse place it is today.
The 90% was started by Meredith McCoy. Meredith founded The 90% after she realized how many Native people in the United States had family stories much like her own. This site celebrates the "individual, crazy personal histories" that make Indian Country the vibrant, diverse place it is today.
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