In Indian Given María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo addresses current racialized violence and resistance in Mexico and the United States with a genealogy that reaches back to the sixteenth century. Saldaña-Portillo formulates the central place of indigenous peoples in the construction of national spaces and racialized notions of citizenship, showing, for instance, how Chicanos/as in the U.S./Mexico borderlands might affirm or reject their indigenous background based on their location. In this and other ways, she demonstrates how the legacies of colonial Spain's and Britain's differing approaches to encountering indigenous peoples continue to shape perceptions of the natural, racial, and cultural landscapes of the United States and Mexico. Drawing on a mix of archival, historical, literary, and legal texts, Saldaña-Portillo shows how los indios/Indians provided the condition of possibility for the emergence of Mexico and the United States.

Who and what are marriage and sex for? Whose practices and which ways of talking to god can count as religion? Lucinda Ramberg considers these questions based upon two years of ethnographic research on an ongoing South Indian practice of dedication in which girls, and sometimes boys, are married to a goddess. Called devadasis, or jogatis, those dedicated become female and male women who conduct the rites of the goddess outside the walls of her main temple and transact in sex outside the bounds of conjugal matrimony. Marriage to the goddess, as well as the rites that the dedication ceremony authorizes jogatis to perform, have long been seen as illegitimate and criminalized. Kinship with the goddess is productive for the families who dedicate their children, Ramberg argues, and yet it cannot conform to modern conceptions of gender, family, or religion. This nonconformity, she suggests, speaks to the limitations of modern categories, as well as to the possibilities of relations—between and among humans and deities—that exceed such categories.

An all-new edition of the tragicomic smash hit which stormed the New York Times bestseller charts, now featuring an introduction from Markus Zusak. In his first book for young adults, Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist who leaves his school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school. This heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written tale, featuring poignant drawings that reflect the character's art, is based on the author's own experiences. It chronicles contemporary adolescence as seen through the eyes of one Native American boy. 'Excellent in every way' Neil Gaiman Illustrated in a contemporary cartoon style by Ellen Forney.

Adventure abounds when a toy comes to life in this classic novel! It's Omri's birthday, but all he gets from his best friend, Patrick, is a little plastic warrior figure. Trying to hide his disappointment, Omri puts his present in a metal cupboard and locks the door with a mysterious skeleton key that once belonged to his great-grandmother. Little does Omri know that by turning the key, he will transform his ordinary plastic toy into a real live man from an altogether different time and place! Omri and the tiny warrior called Little Bear could hardly be more different, yet soon the two forge a very special friendship. Will Omri be able to keep Little Bear without anyone finding out and taking his new friend away?

What is at stake when our young people attempt to belong to a college environment that reflects a world that does not want them for who they are? In this compelling book, Navajo scholar Amanda Tachine takes a personal look at 10 Navajo teenagers, following their experiences during their last year in high school and into their first year in college. It is common to think of this life transition as a time for creating new connections to a campus community, but what if there are systemic mechanisms lurking in that community that hurt Native students' chances of earning a degree? Tachine describes these mechanisms as systemic monsters and shows how campus environments can be sites of harm for Indigenous students due to factors that she terms monsters' sense of belonging, namely assimilating, diminishing, harming the worldviews of those not rooted in White supremacy, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, racism, and Indigenous erasure. This book addresses the nature of those monsters and details the Indigenous weapons that students use to defeat them. Rooted in love, life, sacredness, and sovereignty, these weapons reawaken students' presence and power. Book Features: Introduces an Indigenous methodological approach called story rug that demonstrates how research can be expanded to encompass all our senses. Weaves together Navajo youths' stories of struggle and hope in educational settings, making visible systemic monsters and Indigenous weaponry. Draws from Navajo knowledge systems as an analytic tool to connect history to present and future realities. Speaks to the contemporary situation of Native peoples, illuminating the challenges that Native students face in making the transition to college. Examines historical and contemporary realities of Navajo systemic monsters, such as the financial hardship monster, deficit (not enough) monster, failure monster, and (in)visibility monster. Offers insights for higher education institutions that are seeking ways to create belonging for diverse students.