Rez Life

by David Treuer (Atlantic)

“Indians are famous for a few things—for a kind of off-brand environmentalism, Sitting Bull, and broken English, and most of all for being poor,” Treuer writes in this study of Native American reservations. His upbringing on an Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota makes him adept at delving behind stereotypes of Indian life and infuses his account with passion and meticulousness. A chapter on local justice systems, for example, is informed by his mother’s work as a tribal judge, and his understanding of government-tribal relations owes much to his father, a Jewish refugee from Austria who became an unlikely reformer in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Most compelling are Treuer’s accounts of how Indians happened to get into the casino business, his explanation of why more white people than Indians live on reservations, and his regular insistence on the distinction between rights granted and rights reserved. ♦