Relocation Has Degraded Indian People

Abstract

While thousands of Native American people actively sought opportunities to improve their and their families’ lives through urban relocation, many could not have anticipated the failures of an underfunded federal program and urban opportunities foreclosed by racism, discrimination, paternalism, poverty, and a dramatically shifting national economy that saw the best jobs and housing relocate from cities to suburbs and the Sunbelt. For many involved, relocation became yet another failed promise on the part of the federal government.