Only Approved Indians is the thirteenth book by Forbes, but
the first one featuring fiction. In these stories he captures the
remarkablebreadth and variety of American Indian life. Drawing on his
skills as scholarand native activist, and, above all, as artist, Forbes
enlarges our senseof how American Indians experience themselves and the
world around them.
Though all the main characters are of Indian descent, each is a unique
combinationof tribal origin, social status, age, and life-style--from
native elderand college professor to lesbian barmaid and Chicano
adolescent. Neverthelessthe U.S. government (and perhaps white society
as a whole) narrows the definitionof "Indian." In the title story, for
example, two basketball teamsbegin fighting when one accuses the other
of lacking BIA status-governmentrecognition. When tournament officials
disqualify the team that lacks "official"Indian players, the "approved"
team celebrates its victory.
Forbes's characters want to be unique, but they must struggle for this
right,and they must endure pain. Forbes shows how such quests can have
personaland political motives and can meet with success or failure and
how thosewho search for individual identity must reckon with the
identity of theirgroup. Thus, in retelling the story of the Seminole
War, Injun Joe caststhe Indians, not the whites, as victors. He cannot
rewrite history, butby recreating it he can come to terms with a
painful legacy. Imaginationis equally important to other characters:
even when they cannot achievechange, they can envision it.
Professor Forbes, chair of Native American Studies and professor of
anthropologyat the University of California, Davis, was born in Long
Beach and grewup in El Monte and Eagle Rock. He has lived in Davis
since 1969. He attendedthe University of Southern California, earning
A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees,the latter in history with a minor in
North American ethnology. Forbes workedhis way through college, serving
on the fire crew of the Lassen NationalForest and driving trucks for
Meadow Gold Dairies. In 1960 he joined thefaculty at California State
University, Northridge. There he received aGuggenheim Fellowship and
then in 1964 moved north to the University ofNevada, Reno.
In 1967 he assumed the post of Research Program Director at the Far
WestLaboratory for Educational Research and Development in Berkeley. He
thenbecame a professor at U.C. Davis in 1969. In 1981-82 he was named a
FulbrightVisiting Professor at the University of Warwick, England, and
in 1983-84he was honored with the Tinbergen Chair at the Erasmus
University of Rotterdam.In 1986-87 he served as a Visiting Scholar at
the Institute of Social Anthropology,Oxford University, England.
Of Powhatan, Delaware and other background, Professor Forbes became
veryactive in Native American affairs very early, organizing the Native
AmericanMovement in 1961. In 1960 he formed the American Indian College
Committeewith Navajo artist Carl Gorman and others to create proposals
for an Indianuniversity. At Cal State Northridge he developed a
proposal for an AmericanIndian Studies program in 1960, ten years ahead
of its time. In 1967 hewas a co-founder of the California Indian
Education Association and in 1971of D-Q University, the Indian college
near Davis. From 1968 through 1969Forbes was a co-organizer of United
Native Americans in the Bay Area andserved as editor of Warpath.
During the same period and later heserved as editior of the Powhatan
newspapers Tsen-Akamak and Attam-Akamik.
Forbes' published writings include twelve books, over twenty short
booksand monographs, ninety-five scholarly articles, over one hundred
populararticles, numerous short stories, and poems. His first book, Apache,Navaho
and Spaniard, remains in print after thirty-two years. Columbusand
Other Cannibals is the current culmination of Forbes' thinking
aboutthe ultimate social causes of aggression and exploitation and
about NativeAmerican philosophical beliefs. His earliest version of the
book was sketchedout in 1976 and published in a preliminary version in
1978.
The stories in Only Approved Indians open our eyes to the
injusticesof this world but at the same time they reveal magic and
provide transcendentvisions of the world as it might be. It is
published by University of OklahomaPress (ISBN: 0-8061-2699-X, March
1995).
For Teachers and Students, Stories for Personal Liberation
"Only Approved Indians" is the title of a short story which has proven to be immensely popular, being reprinted over and over again in literary anthologies for young people and for teaching people how to understand fundamental issues in society and personal identity.
"Only Approved Indians" is included in the book Only Approved Indians, a collection of short stories written by myself. These stories are deeply probing looks into the souls and lives of persons seeking answers to difficult questions, questions revolving around race relations, ethnic identity, sexual identity, female-male relations, women's empowerment, and personal empowerment and fulfillment in a world where much that passes for education is superficial, ethnically biased, class biased, gender biased, and just plain false.
I am a Native American of mixed ancestry who has considerable knowledge in the area of inter-ethnic and inter-class struggles. I am descended from several Native American nations as well as from European ancestors, many of whom were of working-class or economically poor origins. My maternal grandfather spoke only German until he went to school and then only attended for three years, going to work as a Swiss cheese-maker as a young boy. My paternal grandfather was turned out to survive on his own during the U.S. Civil War, at the age of 7 or so, and was educated primarily by his wife, a woman who also saw that her children were exposed to music, literature, and languages. She raised four daughters, all of whom were creative, independent, and strong women during the era in which women were still supposed to take a back seat to men. She also had three sons, all of whom learned to respect the women in their lives and to build houses and buildings as well.
From an early age I was exposed to the heroic stories of resistance to oppression found in the lives of my Powhatan and other Indian ancestors. Similarly, I learned of the resistance of my Swiss, Scots, Irish, and other ancestors to oppression. By the time I entered fifth grade I was also keenly aware of the contradictions of racism and poverty in our society. I grew up in south El Monte, California with Mexicans of Indigenous origin and from them I began to speak Spanish. I also lived around whites and mixed-bloods who often experienced great poverty and I witnessed the problems brought about by alcoholism, wife-abuse, and a lack of spiritual awareness.
Later I grew up in Eagle Rock, in a more white and working-class environment, but my friends included persons of Mexican and U.S. Indian backgrounds and I made the entire city of Los Angeles my textbook. I frequently cut school in order to explore Los Angeles and to observe some of what she had to teach. I found junior high and high school to be uninspiring as well as ethnically biased, and out of that frustration arises some of the insights to be found in Only Approved Indians.
The years since my high school graduation in 1951 have exposed me to many Native American communities, traditions, individuals and their wisdom. And I have had the rich reward of being able to work closely with African-Americans, Chicanos, Boricuas, Asian-Americans, and all kinds of wonderful people of all nationalities and many faiths. I hope that some of the wisdom I have gathered springs forth in the stories in Only Approved Indians.
I believe that our youth today, and especially non-white and economically-deprived youth, but also middle-class and upper-class young people, more than ever, need to learn to think for themselves and need to be able unravel the layers of lies, colonialism, sexism, and plain bigotry which prevent so many from realizing their potential as full human beings.
The brutal, fast, alienating world that we live in seems to be creating new monsters. Often times, young people are among the new future monsters who are essentially trapped in a maze of alienating, brutalizing, and materialistic lies. For so many, this entrapment leads directly to gangs, mass shootings, self-mutilation, suicide, sexual entrapment, low self-worth, outlawry, crime, wasted years, and even mental impairment, and death.
Our objective, it seems to me, should be to open our eyes to the Universe, to the natural world, to the beauty among humans and others of our fellow creatures, to our deep, spiritual relationship to the inner core of our beings. But to be able to do this, often we must first experience liberation, and for each of us that will be a unique process. But it is my hope that the stories in Only Approved Indians can help to begin the process of opening eyes to the different kinds of paths and pitfalls which we all must travel along as we struggle to be authentic.
True liberation comes, I believe, with the learning how to see others as authentic human beings like ourselves and with the same rights to respect and dignity which we must aspire to. "Respect" is really the key to ancient American democracies being able to function internally without coercion, without prisons.
With all that in mind I offer my readers the book Only Approved Indians. It will be a good companion to my novel Red Blood and to Columbus and Other Cannibals, two other books dealing with similar issues of ethical living in a "crazy" world!
In these short stories, Jack D. Forbes captures the remarkable breadth and variety of American Indian life. Drawing on his skills as scholar and native activist, and, above all, as artist, Forbes enlarges our sense of how American Indians experience themselves and the world around them.
Though all the main characters are of Indian descent, each is a
unique combination of tribal origin, social status, age, and life-style
— from native elder and college professor to lesbian barmaid and
Chicano adolescent. Nevertheless the
Forbes's characters want to be unique, but they must struggle for this right, and they must endure pain. Forbes shows how such quests can have personal and political motives and can meet with success or failure and how those who search for individual identity must reckon with the identity of their group. Thus, in retelling the story of the Seminole War, Injun Joe casts the Indians, not the whites, as victors. He cannot rewrite history, but by recreating it he can come to terms with a painful legacy. Imagination is equally important to other characters: even when they cannot achieve change, they can envision it.
Forbes's stories open our eyes to the injustices of this world and provide transcendent visions of the world as it might be.
Volume 12 in the American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series
Jack D. Forbes, Professor of Anthropology and Professor and Chair of
Native American Studies at the
Native American Studies, UCD