Indigenous Suburbs: Settler Colonialism, Housing Policy, and American Indians in Suburbia

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota as historically Indian places and demonstrates the continuous residency of American Indians in suburbs. In order to uncover the indigenous history of the suburban Twin Cities, I use an interdisciplinary methodology that includes a demographic analysis of U.S. Census data, a close reading of historical archives, and auto-ethnography based on my personal experiences as a suburban Indian to challenge common narratives of suburbia and to underscore the participation of American Indian people in the processes of suburbanization. Part one of this dissertation focuses on the years between the end of the U.S.-Dakota War (1862) and the start of World War I. Here, I argue Indian people were engaged in the early development of Indian places into suburbs despite policies to remove Indian people and the growing number of non-Native settlers who eclipsed an Indian presence. In part two, I focus on the policies that shaped suburbia and Indian Country during the second half of the twentieth century. I examine the role of World War II era federal housing policies that promoted suburbanization and new home construction, specifically the 1944 G.I. Bill home loan program. My analysis interrogates how the federal Indian policies of Relocation and Termination prevented American Indian suburbanization and homeownership and critiques the more recent Section 184 American Indian Home Loan Program. I problematize scholarship in American studies, urban studies, and suburban studies by challenging narratives of suburbia that predominately focus on whiteness, domesticity, and homeownership in the post-World War II period.