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by Winchinchala Winchinchala (Author)
City Indian a coming-of-age story, like many, rife with familial dysfunction, booze, and lust. This one is set against the back drop of the 1950's; the character, Hebe is only four and the child of an "American Indian" father and a White mother. Interracial marriage is illegal in thirty-five of the forty-eight states, and discrimination and racially-based bullying are legal and accepted practices. They wreaked havoc on families' and children's minds. Among her loving multi-racial family, she learns acceptance, but she goes into the world, to school and faces a society which labels and judges others. In following her through the next seven years in the pre-Civil rights 50's, northeast Native American myths are told. Additionally, Winchinchala has peppered in the almost extinct language, Wampanoag (Wôpanâak). At its heart, City Indian is the tale of an ordinary girl who is, in a way, every child searching for identity. She is tossed from residence to residence. All she wants to do is go back home, though she never really had one.
