An Indian among Los Indígenas: A Native Travel Memoir
Journals and memoirs, Indigenous peoples, General non-fiction, Travel and geography
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
A gripping, witty memoir about indigeneity, travel, and colonialism When she was twenty-five, Ursula Pike boarded a plane to Bolivia and began her term of service in the Peace Corps. A member of the Karuk Tribe, Pike sought to make… meaningful connections with Indigenous people halfway around the world. But she arrived in La Paz with trepidation as well as excitement, &“knowing I followed in the footsteps of Western colonizers and missionaries who had also claimed they were there to help.&” In the following two years, as a series of dramatic episodes brought that tension to boiling point, she began to ask: what does it mean to have experienced the effects of colonialism firsthand, and yet to risk becoming a colonizing force in turn? An Indian among los Indígenas, Pike’s memoir of this experience, upends a canon of travel memoirs that has historically been dominated by white writers. It is a sharp, honest, and unnerving examination of the shadows that colonial history casts over even the most well-intentioned attempts at cross-cultural aid. It is also the debut of an exceptionally astute writer with a mastery of deadpan wit. It signals a shift in travel writing that is long overdue.