From Mission to Metropolis: Cupeneo Indian Women in Los Angeles

Bahr, who teaches Native American studies at UCLA, here focuses on three members of an Indian family in an attempt to assess how ethnicity persists in the city. The Cupeno Indians number some 150, and as such are hard to find in Los Angeles, which has the largest population of Native Americans of any American city. Interviewing a grandmother-mother-daughter trio aged 66, 49 and 23, Bahr shows that a traditional interdependent family structure persists. While the family maintains Indian practices of beneficence, the two younger women are more selective than their elder in choosing ``deserving'' recipients of charity. The grandmother claims the gift of divining, but her daughter and granddaughter have a more attenuated relationship with the spirits. Although Bahr concludes that ``Cupeno culture lives in modified form'' in one family, her study is hampered by its limited sample; also, it would be worthwhile to know whether other Cupeenos express the same interest in pan-Indianism. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Sept.)