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Now in paperback: a gripping, witty travel memoir that offers "a fascinating look at voluntourism from an Indigenous perspective" (Book Riot)
"Ursula Pike's memoir is unlike any other I've read, with her perceptive, always-seeking, and lovely narrative voice." —Susan Straight, author of Mecca
"This book is alive with a spirit that welcomed mine to meet it." —Elissa Washuta, author of White Magic
When she was twenty-five, Ursula Pike boarded a plane to Bolivia and began her term of service in the Peace Corps. A member of the Karuk Tribe, Pike sought to make meaningful connections with Indigenous people halfway around the world. But she arrived in La Paz with trepidation as well as excitement, "knowing I followed in the footsteps of Western colonizers and missionaries who had also claimed they were there to help." In the following two years, as a series of dramatic episodes brought that tension to a boiling point, she began to ask: What does it mean to have experienced the effects of colonialism firsthand, and yet to risk becoming a colonizing force in turn? An Indian Among los Indígenas, Pike's memoir of this experience, upends a canon of travel memoirs that has historically been dominated by white writers. It is a sharp, honest, and unnerving examination of the shadows that colonial history casts over even the most well-intentioned attempts at cross-cultural aid. With masterful deadpan wit, it signals a shift in travel writing that is long overdue.
"Ursula Pike is a fine writer, with an eye for people and places in Bolivia, and an ear for the sounds of languages, buses, and silence; she is deeply reflective about the critical tensions of the cross-cultural experience and the mission to serve; and Pike is Indigenous herself, an enrolled member of the Karuk Tribe of Northern California who grew up an 'urban Indian,' largely in Portland, Oregon." —Rich Wandschneider, Worldview Magazine
"A fascinating look at voluntourism from an Indigenous perspective." —Book Riot
"Pike's desire to be seen by Bolivians as being just like them was not to be realized, and her own concepts of what it meant to be Indigenous were tried, tested, and transformed. [...] An Indian Among Los Indígenas is an engaging memoir about travel and volunteerism from an Indigenous perspective." —Foreword Reviews
"A brutally honest and badly needed story. . . Witty and clearly written, this memoir is a must read, not just for Peace Corps volunteers, anthropologists, and others working in foreign lands, but for everyone—all of us finding ourselves in an ever increasing diverse and complex cultural landscape." —Greg Sarris, author of How a Mountain Was Made
"Ursula Pike's memoir is unlike any other I've read, with her perceptive, always-seeking, and lovely narrative voice. . . No one's written about the Peace Corps like this, with the details of food and family and landscape told through the vision of an Indigenous woman finding new stories in a deeply-rooted place miles from her own." —Susan Straight
"Pike's emotional honesty . . . combined with her hard questions about the effectiveness of the Peace Corps and the white saviorism often built into charity work lend a heft not always found in armchair travel. Highly recommended for memoir and travel readers, and book clubs." —Booklist
"In Ursula Pike's perceptive and poignant debut memoir, a North American Indian woman knowingly enters the complex dynamics of voluntourism and discovers aspects about her own identity, colonialism, and comparative privilege while navigating the vivid landscapes and personalities of a small Bolivian community in the Andes." —Chip Livingston, author of Crow-Blue, Crow-Black
"The Indigenous peoples Pike lived and worked with speak loudly from these pages, challenging many of us to check privileges we didn’t know we had, demanding the right to be complex, strong, and human. This book is all heart, all vulnerability, as a young California Indian woman makes family far from home." —Deborah A. Miranda, author of Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir
"A riveting memoir of personal transformation, a vivid piece of travel writing, and a necessary portrait of the long shadow that colonization casts over even the most genuine attempts to 'help' those outside of our own cultures. In lucid, intelligent, and amiable prose, Pike illuminates the complexities of these transactions and models the grace with which it is possible to scrutinize the dynamics that undergird one's own best intentions." —Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me and Girlhood
"Ursula Pike's tender recollection of two years in Bolivia makes space for a complex and captivating portrait of a spirit wanting to relate. By bringing wisdom, clarity, and tremendous insight to her Peace Corps memories, she offers us a necessary perspective on the inseparability of Indigeneity and place. This book is alive with a spirit that welcomed mine to meet it." —Elissa Washuta, author of White Magic and My Body Is a Book of Rules
"Pike's honest account of her Peace Corps experience is neither too political nor sanitized to show only a moralistic tale of white American saviorship. . . . What makes her memoir an insightful read is her insistence on focusing on what’s right and beautiful about the Bolivian culture, stressing the universality of human connection" —Seattle Book Review
Ursula Pike is the author of An Indian Among los Indígenas and is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her work won the 2019 Writers' League of Texas Manuscript Contest in the memoir category, and her writing has appeared in Yellow Medicine Review, World Literature Today, and Ligeia Magazine. She has an MA in economics, with a focus on community economic development, and was a Peace Corps fellow at Western Illinois University. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia from 1994 to 1996. An enrolled member of the Karuk Tribe, she was born in California and grew up in Daly City, California, and Portland, Oregon. She currently lives in Austin, Texas.
Preface
1 A la Llegada – Upon Arrival
2 Cochabamba
3 La Clase de Baile – The Dance Lesson
4 Primer Viaje a Kantuta – First Trip to Kantuta
5 En la Noche – In the Evening
6 El Centro Infantil – The Children’s Center
7 La Ch’alla – The Christening
8 Ropa Sucia – Dirty Laundry
9 La Repostería – The Baker
10 Misiñawi – Cat Eyes 81
11 La Noche Más Fría del Año – The Coldest Night of the Year
12 Amigos – Friends
13 La Aislamiento – Isolation
14 La Celebración – The Celebration
15 Aventura – Adventure
16 La Flota – The Bus
17 Cantando – Singing
18 Bailando – Dancing
19 Casa – Home
20 Mi Salida – Departure
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author