Urban Indian

Urban Indians are Native Americans and Canadian First Nations peoples who live in urban areas. Urban Indians represent a growing proportion of the Native population in the United States. The National Urban Indian Family Coalition (NUIFC) considers the term to apply to "individuals of American Indian and Alaska Native ancestry who may or may not have direct and/or active ties with a particular tribe, but who identify with and are at least somewhat active in the Native community in their urban area."

As defined by NUIFC, urban Indians may variously be permanent residents including long term residents, forced residents, or medium and short term visitors. Long-term residents are those who have been in a city for multiple generations. Some are descendants of the people who traditionally owned land that has been developed as an urban center. Forced residents are those who were forced to relocate to urban centers by government policy or by the need to access specialized health or other services. Medium and short-term visitors are in a city to visit family or friends, to pursue an education, etc. The term "forced residents" is a contested term.

Urban Indian populations are largely concentrated in cities in the Western United States and parts of the Midwest, with a few exceptions. Major U.S. cities with large Native American populations include Los Angeles, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Anchorage, Seattle, Portland, Tucson, Albuquerque, and Minneapolis. Canadian cities with large First Nations populations, most of which are in the Prairie Provinces and Western Canada, include Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina, and Thunder Bay.

The number of American Indians living in urban settings accelerated in the 1950s and 1960s because of the Indian termination policy of that era, which encouraged Native people to leave their reservations. During that period, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) also developed a "relocation" program that encouraged American Indians to move to urban areas. While Native people were not "forced" to move, the BIA has been criticized for promoting unduly optimistic portrayals of life in urban areas. Many Native people were simply unprepared for the challenges of city life, they often encountered discrimination and had difficulty getting jobs and housing, and many returned to their reservations. The program was abolished in the 1970s. Since that era, however, many American Indians have moved to urban areas by their own choice and without any assistance from the BIA. The 2000 US Census indicated that 67% of Native Americans lived in urban areas, and by the 2010 Census the percentage of urban Native people had grown to 71%.

Much of the scholarly literature of the 1970s and 1980s focused on the great hardships that Native Americans encountered in urban areas, and especially the failure and abuses of the BIA's Relocation Program. But, more recent scholarship has demonstrated that Native people were resourceful and able to adapt to the demands of urban living just as poor European immigrants had done in the 19th century. This scholarship is represented by Douglas K. Miller's Indians on the Move, James LaGrand's Indian Metropolis, Joan Weibel-Orlando's Indian Country, L.A., and Shawnee-Sac and Fox-Seminole-Muscogee Creek scholar Donald Fixico's Urban Indian Experience in America. Regarding prior negative stereotypes about adjustment, Native scholar Fixico has stated,

"This downtrodden image does not accurately portray urban Indians, particularly in the 1990s when at least three generations have survived the relocation years of the 1950s and 1960s. The early image misrepresents the urban Indian population to an unfortunate degree, since many Indian citizens in cities hold professional positions and are members of the middle class in America." (p. 27).

Charles Wilkinson, a legal scholar and author of Blood Struggle, has stated:

"Relocation fell into disfavor because of the coercion and ineffectiveness, but one bright light began to shine years later. Although relocation provided few benefits to the people it directly served, many of their children, having grown up in the cities, helped build the Indian professional middle class, which played a central role in revitalizing Indian life in the latter part of the twentieth century." (p. 85)