American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism. By David Hollinger. New York Basic Books, 1995, 1996. 224 pages. $22.00 cloth; $13.00 paper. That the People Might Live: Native American Literatures and Native American Community. By Jace Weaver. New York Oxford, 1997. 256 pages. $49.95 cloth; $18.95 paper. When Nickels Were Indians: An Urban Mixed-Blood Story. By Patricia Penn Hilden. Washington: Smithsonian, 1995,1997.260 pages. $29.95 cloth; $17.95 paper. Questions of ethnic identity have become so complex today, not to mention contentious, that one may yearn for a simpler time when blacks were blacks, whites were whites, Indians were Indians, and everyone knew who was who and what was what. The problem is that there was really no such time. Today whites may be simply white, but for many years Jews were not really white, Italians were not very white, and Slavs were off-white at best. As for blacks, there were mulattos, quadroons, and octoroons, categories which disappeared in favor of the “one drop rule,” though perhaps mulatto is coming back as the designation for biracial. As for Indians, there were at least two categories, full-blood and the pejorative half-breed. The arbitrary nature of racial distinctions in regard to Indians is best demonstrated by the 1869 decision of the Supreme Court of New Mexico Territory that Pueblos were “not actually Indians, since they were ‘honest, industrious, and law-abiding citizens’. . . [who] exhibited ‘virtue, honesty, and industry to their more civilized neighbors.” That is hard to beat as a combination of liberal impulse and racist condescension, although there is no shortage of modern examples.