In this compelling collection of literary nonfiction, Native Americans describe their struggle to preserve their heritage in contemporary urban America.

- Marijo Moore was chosen as North Carolina's Distinguished Woman of the Year in Arts (1998) and named by Native Peoples magazine as one of the top five America Indian writers of the new century.- Draws together Native American writers living both on and off the reservation.

pt. 1. Keeping the home fires burning in urban circles. To carry the fire home / Kathryn Lucci-Cooper — Blood flowing in two worlds / Mary Black Bonnet — Home : urban and reservation / Barbara Helen Hill — Indian in a strange land / Wiley Steve Thornton — Everyone needs someone / MariJo Moore — Unci (Grandmother) / Ben Geobe — From Brooklyn to the reservation : five poems / Maurice Kenny — pt. 2. Young American Indians : the need to reclaim identity. The genocide of a generation's identity / Gabriel Horn — We, the people : young American Indians reclaiming their identity / Lee Francis — Indians in the attic / Joel Waters — America's urban youth and the importance of remembering / Dave Stephenson — pt. 3. Native languages : where will they go from here? Song, poetry, and language : expression and perception / Simon J. Ortiz — X. Alatsep (written down) / Joseph Dandurand — Don't talk, don't live / Carol Snow Moon Bachofner — Iah enionkwatewennahton'se' : we will not lose our words / James Aronhiotas Stevens — The spirit of language / Neil McKay — A different rhythm / H. Lee Karalis — Names by which the spirits know us / Sean Lee Fahrlander — pt. 4. Indians as mascots : an issue to be resolved. Symbolic racism, history, and reality : the real problem with Indian mascots / Kimberly Roppolo — Indian as mascots : perpetuating the stereotype / Alfred Young Man — Invisible emblems : empty words and sacred honor / Steve Russell — pt. 5. Who we are, who we are not : memories, misconceptions, and modifications. Yellow Woman and a beauty of the spirit / Leslie Marmon Silko — She's nothing like we thought / Molly McGlennen — Manitowac : spirit place in Anishinaabe / Tim Hays — Pyramids, art, museum, and bones : some brief memories / David Bunn Martine — Identification pleas / Eric Gansworth — Raising the American Indian community house / Mifaunwy Shunatona Hines — The secret of breathing / Steve Elm — The Indians are alive / Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve — "Indians," solipsisms, and archetypal holocausts / Paula Gunn Allen — Buffalo medicine : an essay and a play / David Seals — Postcolonial hyperbaggage : a few poems of resistance and survival / Carter Revard — About American Indian Artists, Inc. / Diane Fraher.