An Indian among los Indígenas :

Select an Action

Title :

An Indian among los Indígenas : a native travel memoir / Ursula Pike.

Title:

An Indian among los Indígenas :

Author:

Pike, Ursula, 1968-

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

xiv, 233 pages ; 23 cm

ISBN:

9781597145275

Production / Publication Information:

Berkeley, California : Heyday, [2021]

Contents:

A la llegada = Upon arrival -- Cochabamba -- La clase de baile = The dance lesson -- Primer viaje a Kantuta = First trip to Kantuta -- En la noche = In the evening -- El centro infantil = The children's center -- La ch'alla = The christening -- Ropa sucia = Dirty laundry -- La reposteria = The bakery -- Misiñawi = Cat eyes -- La noche más fría del año = The coldest night of the year -- Amigos = Friends -- La aislamiento = Isolation -- La celebración = The celebration -- Aventura = Adventure -- La flota = The bus -- Cantando = Singing -- Bailando = Dancing -- Casa = Home -- Mi salida = Departure.

Summary:

"Memoir by Ursula Pike (Karuk) of her time serving with the Peace Corps in Bolivia. Focusing on international travel from a California Indian perspective, the memoir asks what it means to be both colonizer and colonized, and inquires into the challenges of building relationships between Indigenous groups from very different places"--

Language:

English

Corporate Subject:

Peace Corps (U.S.) -- Biography.

Peace Corps (U.S.) -- Bolivia -- History -- 20th century.

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Geographic Term:

Bolivia -- Colonization.

Personal Subject:

Pike, Ursula, 1968--Travel-Bolivia.

Subject Term:

Karok women -- Biography.

Indians of South America -- Bolivia -- Social conditions.

Indians of North America -- California -- Social conditions.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	BIOGRAPHY PIKE, UR.	31330009231535	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Westford - J.V. Fletcher Library	B PIKE	31990004953670	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

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.

Reviews (1)

Booklist Review

Pike's candid memoir about her time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia is written in such clear-eyed, introspective prose that it's hard to believe it happened in the mid-90s. Pike believed that her brown skin, unusual among the mostly white Peace Corps volunteers, and Native American heritage (she is a member of the Karuk Tribe) would give her a certain insider status with the large Indigenous population of Bolivia. But she discovers that despite the poverty and racism she experienced at home, she's still considered affluent and white by the locals; her privilege laid bare amongst the children she works with. Infused with details, from her Native American upbringing to the sites and sounds of Bolivia, this could be taken as a travelogue. Yet Pike's emotional honesty about her loneliness and feelings of inadequacy combined with her hard questions about the effectiveness of the Peace Corps and the white saviorism often built into charity work lend a heft not always found in armchair travel. Highly recommended for memoir and travel readers, and book clubs.