The idea for this project came from a genuine curiousity to seek out and learn about the American Indian community in New York City.
When Maureen Googoo arrived in the city for graduate school in August 2006, she expected to run into American Indians. A Mi’kmaq from Nova Scotia, Canada, she knew there was an American Indian community since NYC has the highest number of indigenous Americans in the whole country. However, they seemed to be nowhere to be found.
Instead, she was often mistaken for Latina by other Latinos in Manhattan. So, she took to wearing a beaded hairpeace to identify her heritage. The questions in Spanish didn’t cease.
In time, Maureen discovered the American Indian Community House in the city, and enjoyed getting to know people at the center, which was not far from Union Square. The community house was running a free lunch program targeted at fostering togetherness among New York’s American Indians, some of whom are struggling to make ends meet, or even living in the cold streets. Others live and work at the highest echelons of society.
Maureen wanted to learn more about the people living in America’s largest city, especially those who had the closest ties to the original inhabitants. She enlisted Brian Clark Howard, a fellow student at Columbia, to help tackle the research and reporting, as well as construction of this website. Brian had long been interested in American Indian issues, in part because he was told growing up that he has a small amount of Cherokee blood.
Click on the images below to read and watch video of American Indians living in New York City today
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Click on the links to see more
Art by Don Burgdorf, http://www.artofdon.com
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