I Can Carry on from Here: The Relocation of American Indians to Los Angeles

Abstract

Elizabeth Murphy, a Luisefio Indian, and her new roommates at the Regina Hotel in downtown Los Angeles quickly became good friends. We went anywhere alone, she remembers. We always held hands.' For these four young women living away from home for the first time, Los Angeles in 1967 contrasted dramatically with their rural homes in Montana, South Dakota, and Southern California where running water and electricity were considered luxuries. For Elizabeth, the seemingly endless, crowded streets of downtown Los Angeles vastly differed from the dirt roads of her small community of four extended families at Pechanga.2 Although not geographically far from her home, Elizabeth's new environment required immediate, unfamiliar adjustments. Surviving in Los Angeles took on added dimensions at the Regina Hotel which was used not only by the Bureau of Indian affairs to house these American Indian women but also by the State of California for recently released prisoners. Despite the opportunities for city jobs, the exciting attractions of Los Angeles, and the many conveniences of urban life, Elizabeth and her roommates all just talked about going home.3 These brief glimpses into Elizabeth Murphy's first weeks in Los Angeles poignantly reveal the challenges confronting her and her roommates in Los Angeles. Like thousands of other American Indians, they had moved to Los Angeles to take part in federally-sponsored job and job training programs. Arriving from disparate communities with unique historical conditions and societal organizations, American Indians brought to Los Angeles their own different cultural systems and community experiences. Each individual, ultimately, faced the challenge of personally negotiating his or her cultural identity in the new and hostile city. As Elizabeth relates, once in Los Angeles she and her roommates immediately established close emotional ties. These bonds were continuously reinforced through their constant companionship and further supported through hand holding. For these previously unacquainted American Indians alone in downtown Los Angeles, hand-holding was not only reassuring but also physically signified to each other and publicly their collective sense of solidarity and friendship. Elizabeth's repeated emphasis on lasting notions of time, never 'and always,' indicates the importance of these bonds during this disorienting and often frightening process of urbanization. Elizabeth Murphy's experiences are similar to those