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Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (Indigenous Americas Series) Hardcover – April 14, 2009

by Paul Chaat Smith (Author)

4.4 85 ratings

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In this sweeping work of memoir and commentary, leading cultural critic Paul Chaat Smith illustrates with dry wit and brutal honesty the contradictions of life in “the Indian business.”

Raised in suburban Maryland and Oklahoma, Smith dove head first into the political radicalism of the 1970s, working with the American Indian Movement until it dissolved into dysfunction and infighting. Afterward he lived in New York, the city of choice for political exiles, and eventually arrived in Washington, D.C., at the newly minted National Museum of the American Indian (“a bad idea whose time has come”) as a curator. In his journey from fighting activist to federal employee, Smith tells us he has discovered at least two things: there is no one true representation of the American Indian experience, and even the best of intentions sometimes ends in catastrophe. Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong is a highly entertaining and, at times, searing critique of the deeply disputed role of American Indians in the United States. In “A Place Called Irony,” Smith whizzes through his early life, showing us the ironic pop culture signposts that marked this Native American’s coming of age in suburbia: “We would order Chinese food and slap a favorite video into the machine—the Grammy Awards or a Reagan press conference—and argue about Cyndi Lauper or who should coach the Knicks.” In “Lost in Translation,” Smith explores why American Indians are so often misunderstood and misrepresented in today’s media: “We’re lousy television.” In “Every Picture Tells a Story,” Smith remembers his Comanche grandfather as he muses on the images of American Indians as “a half-remembered presence, both comforting and dangerous, lurking just below the surface.”

Smith walks this tightrope between comforting and dangerous, offering unrepentant skepticism and, ultimately, empathy. “This book is called Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong, but it’s a book title, folks, not to be taken literally. Of course I don’t mean everything, just most things. And ‘you’ really means we, as in all of us.”

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this acerbic collection of essays, Comanche cultural critic and art curator Smith (Like a Hurricane) riffs on the romantic stereotypes of Indian as spiritual masters and first environmentalists, as tragic victims of technology and civilization, as primal beings brimming with nomad authenticity, their every artifact a gem of folk art. Such tropes, he complains, hide the riotous complexity of the modern Indian experience, which he visits in pieces that explore his grandfather's Christian church, Sitting Bull's savvy manipulation of his media image (he had an agent) and the author's own Comanche forebears, who were both world-class barbarians and avid adopters of the white man's gadgetry. These loose-limbed essays range all over the landscape, from Hollywood westerns to the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee to (somewhat obscurely) the contemporary Indian art scene. Smith doesn't entirely square his view of Indians as just plain folks with his advancing of a unique Indian cultural perspective, but his keen, skeptical eye makes such ironies both amusing and enlightening. Photos. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Smith's recognition of the contradictions within his own life inspires his readers to resist adherence to categories that may seem comforting but actually limit personal growth. --NeoAmericanist (added by author)

In this rigorously insightful collection of essays written between 1992 to 2008, Smith, a wry, sharp-edged cultural critic, and associate curator for the NMAI, addresses the myriad ironic complexities of American Indian reality. --Washington Post (added by author)

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0816656010
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Univ Of Minnesota Press; First Edition (April 14, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 212 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780816656011
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0816656011
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 1 year and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.38 x 1 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #371,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #482 in Native American Demographic Studies
- #1,001 in Native American History (Books)
- #1,082 in Arts & Photography Criticism

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4.4 85 ratings

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Paul Chaat Smith

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Paul Chaat Smith is a Comanche writer and curator whose work is focused on American Indian political and cultural space. He is the author of Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong and coauthor of Like a Hurricane: the Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, as well as numerous essays on cultural politics. Smith lives in Washington, DC.

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Joyce Godwin Grubbs

Gritty, authentic, edgy and no-holds-barred Indigenous read.

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2013

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The most outstanding book I have read on Indians (Indigenous Americans) and one of the best I have read of Paul Chaat Smith. The book is authentic, edgy, no-holds-barred. It is what all Americans need to read to get to the crux of all that is the Indian struggle and the Indian successes. This is an inspiration to the Indians, and to the readers who seek to truly understand the culture that is North American Indigenous.

9 people found this helpful

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Ursiform

Personal and quirky

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2009

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Paul Chaat Smith is an associate curator at the National Museum of the American Indian, an institution he once described as "a bad idea whose time has come". That line alone should give warning about the unvarnished opinions he offers in this book of essays, grouped to offer a flow of sorts.

In the earlier parts of the book he discusses how the idea of "Indians" didn't exist until the Europeans arrived. Before that time the Americas was divided up between nations, much as Europe was. There were conflicts between nations, and boundaries changed with time, but that also happened in Europe. It was the Europeans who imposed the idea that all natives were one group of primitive people divided into "tribes", rather than a kaleidoscope of cultures similar to the situation in Europe.

[Note: For an outstanding book on what the Americas were really like before the landing of Columbus, and how the nations of the new world fell, see "1491" by Charles C. Mann, an outstanding book.]

He continues on to explain, often quite amusingly, how movies and other media formed a popular but inaccurate image of native people. (Crazy Horse was nicknamed "Curly" as a kid?!)

Next Smith talks about his involvement with the American Indian Movement. For those who lived through the era, it provides another viewpoint. (A dysfunctional take, by the way.) For younger readers it can serve a brief primer on ancient history.

Then he move into contemporary Indian art. I'll just say I have different tastes than the author, especially regarding performance art.

In the end he returns to the dichotomy between how Indians are viewed and how they really live.

There are parts of this book I really enjoyed, and parts where I disagreed with the author. But it's a short book, and a personal one, and his voice deserves to be heard. If the subject interests you, go ahead and read it. Even when you disagree you'll be forced to think.

55 people found this helpful

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GSP

Read this book

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2020

Verified Purchase

Well written. Interesting read

One person found this helpful

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indigo

Indians are People Too.

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2013

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Well written and interesting to read. This is a modern take of how silly non-Indians can be, New Agers, Hippies, Quakers and other free-thinkiners. I'll read anything written by Paul Chaat Smith

2 people found this helpful

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D. Pierce

haven't read it yet

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2012

Verified Purchase

I chose this rating purely because I haven't had the chance to read it, yet. But it was on my list

One person found this helpful

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Nancy Fox

Finally, the truth.

Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2019

For leisure reading.

Essays to consider while traveling.

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2014

Verified Purchase

Some of the essays are better than others but the shift in the perspective the reader gets, is interesting and challenging.

One person found this helpful

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TofuGirlSF

Startling insights

Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2011

Verified Purchase

A compelling insight on every page, and your friends will be grow tired of your telling them cool stuff you learned from this wonderful book. Beautifully written.

9 people found this helpful

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