How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition)

How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition)
Average customer rating:

Good ideas but difficult to implement

some useful information

Ah that balancing act between freedom and law-abiding citizenship!

Keep your money and your privacy.

how to be invisible

How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition)
J.J. Luna
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312319061

Book Description

From cyberspace to crawl spaces, new innovations in information gathering have left the private life of the average person open to scrutiny, and worse, exploitation. In this thoroughly revised update of his immensely popular guide How to Be Invisible, J.J. Luna shows you how to protect yourself from these information predators by securing your vehicle and real estate ownership, your bank accounts, your business dealings, your computer files, your home address, and more.J.J. Luna, a highly trained and experienced security consultant, shows you how to achieve the privacy you crave and deserve, whether you just want to shield yourself from casual scrutiny or take your life savings with you and disappearing without a trace. Whatever your needs, Luna reveals the shocking secrets that private detectives and other seekers of personal information use to uncover information and then shows how to make a serious commitment to safeguarding yourself.There is a prevailing sense in our society that true privacy is a thing of the past. Filled with vivid real life stories drawn from the headlines and from Luna's own consulting experience, How to Be Invisible, Revised Edition is a critical antidote to the privacy concerns that continue only to grow in magnitude as new and more efficient ways of undermining our personal security are made available. Privacy is a commonly-lamented casualty of the Information Age and of the world's changing climate-but that doesn't mean you have to stand for it.

Customer Reviews:

Good ideas but difficult to implement.......2007-09-01

Before you even read this book, you need to bear in mind that the author lived in the Canary Islands under Franco's fascist rule, and developed his lifestyle as a response to that.

This book is fairly good but a little paranoia-inducing, and covers the idea of creating a high level of personal security and protecting your privacy. It's a good idea, whether you're running from crazy killers or trying to avoid bill collectors or just don't want everyone in the world to know where you live. However, for many readers who are immediately spurred to take action, the suggestions are a bit unfeasible. If you have been using your home address for years and suddenly switch to a ghost address (private box or other non-residential address), how are you going to expunge your residential from all your old records? Luna recommends renting over buying, in that it is easier to suddenly vacate the premises if necessary, and so he would probably recommend moving somewhere else and never using that address on any official records, but clearly, that is not feasible for most people.
Much of what he recommends is common sense, like using a cross-cut shredder to dispose of all documents, which would seem intuitively obvious but not enough people do it. Readers of the book should use it as a guideline and follow his suggestions until they feel more comfortable about their level of personal security.

some useful information.......2007-06-14

At least this author doesn't rant against the government and tell the reader not to pay taxes. It is a more reasonable book than the last one I read. Some of the information is obvious, like not receiving mail at your home. Some of it is interesting - he recommends LLCs repeatedly, and just coincidentally happens to have someone in New Mexico who can hook you up. I don't know how useful his information is for the ordinary person who needs to hide from an abusive spouse, for instance. I still think that The Gift of Fear is the best book on that subject.

Ah that balancing act between freedom and law-abiding citizenship!.......2007-06-13

Luna (as does anyone who writes a book on how to maintain your privacy in an age of vanishing private spaces), has to walk a tightrope between being a responsible citizen, who abides by our laws, vs. establishing one's personal space, inviolable and free from intrusion. Although Luna's expositions of the various strategies to establish "invisibility" in the key areas of privacy ( residence, finances, activities, conversations, travel, and personal liaisons) requires significant effort and time investment, his thoughtful and straight discussion about each area, and how his strategies have evolved, makes it clear that he knows his territory, and that his recommendations are products of a smart, pragmatic, methodical, yet prudent man, one who is neither cowed by the myriad "authorities" who endlessly demand and document, and sell, our private information to others, nor (on the other hand) influenced by any "anti-government" axe to grind, or fanaticism. Thus, I felt I could trust his advice. In fact, Luna truly presents an inspiring model to follow: he is clearly living a life both private and peaceful, while maintaining a stance of quiet tough "standing up for" himself, and sharing with his readers his "spunk" and "attitude" as to how to still find "liberty and the pursuit of happiness", free from prying eyes and big brother, in our America. Highly recommended book! Thank you Mr.Luna, you mysterious shade-sporting guy

Keep your money and your privacy........2007-06-06

This book is awesome. I have only tried a few of his methods from his book. It is well written and easy to understand. His website gives you additional information and resource tools.

how to be invisible.......2007-06-05

This book is only for someone who is running from the law, or from the government for some reason. I did not find it helpful for me. The ideas in this book are unreasonable unless for some reason you are wanted and people are really looking for you. I should have been titled how to run from the law.

Cover Your Tracks Without Changing Your Identity: How to Disappear Until You WANT to Be Found

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few good ideas
This book saved my life!
This Title is Unique - Not the Average "Change Your ID" Book
Packed with good information

Cover Your Tracks Without Changing Your Identity: How to Disappear Until You WANT to Be Found
B. Wilson
Manufacturer: Paladin Press, Boulder, CO
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition)
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Secrets of a Back Alley ID Man: Fake ID Construction Techniques of the Underground
Acquiring New ID: How To Easily Use The Latest Technology To Drop Out, Start Over, And Get On With Your Life

Accessories:

philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer

ASIN: 158160419X

Book Description

Is your life on a downward spiral? Why not simply take off, cover your tracks and then return to your old life once the dust has settled? Learn where to go, how to get there, what to take, where to stay, how to live comfortably and securely in your refuge and how to return home when - and if - you decide to.

Customer Reviews:

few good ideas.......2007-07-31

this book is more like a large pamphlet. The book is mainly a lot of ideas that are somewhat common sense (at least to me). In order to make most of this book work for you, you might want to also get a book on how to extremely lower your standards. The author suggests most of his ideas to become homeless and hitchhike as opposed to actually setting up a new identity although there are a few ideas about that. All in all for the length of the read i didnt expect to much, but got a few ideas.

This book saved my life!.......2007-01-13

I am surprised at some of the past reviewers of this book. They sound like armchair secret agents that want a book like this to tell them all the secrets of 9/11, Roswell and the Kennedy assassination, all for under a dollar!

The truth is, however, that this book is a how-to manual for people who need to lay low for a while, because of financial problems, stalkers, vengeful ex-spouses, or what have you.

Do the techniques it describes work? YES. Using them I was able to disappear for several months during a time when a vengeful and psychotic ex-boyfriend wanted very much to put a bullet in me. He is now sitting in prison, and I am safe for at least 20 years. But if I hadn't found this book then I would likely be dead at this point.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who needs to get away from things for a while - without anyone being able to track them down.

This Title is Unique - Not the Average "Change Your ID" Book.......2004-11-08

Most books on the subject of Fake ID tell you how to start over completely. You have to sever ties to your former life permanently and completely. There is no going back. But what if you aren't sure you want to change your ID completely? What if all you need is an extended vacation to collect your thoughts and prepare a plan?

"Cover Your Tracks Without Changing Your Identity" introduces the concept of a "light identity change". This interesting title explains how to leave your old identity intact but keep your problems finding you at your new location. Using Wilson's tactics in "Cover Your Tracks Without Changing Your Identity", you will be able to return to your former identity if you desire.

The information contained in this unique title will undoubtedly help many people.

Packed with good information.......2004-10-09

Anyone needing to increase their personal privacy should read this book. It has advice for people trapped in bad marriages, folks threatened by stalkers, and even those who are just desperately unhappy in their daily lives. Following Wilson's instructions you really can virtually fall off the face of the earth for several weeks up to a year, while you get your head together and figure out what to do next.

Though it's about a very serious topic, the author tosses in some of his own quirky humor and observations which make the book fun to read as well as enlightening. Recommended to anyone interested in privacy protection.

Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities (Law, Meaning, and Violence)

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Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities (Law, Meaning, and Violence)
Gad Barzilai
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0472030795

Book Description

Offers an alternative approach to liberalism and to communitarianism, with an empirical focus on Israel

How to Be Invisible: A Step-By-Step Guide To Protecting Your Assets, Your Identity, And Your Life

Average customer rating:

Excellent Book on Privacy Techniques
Powerful information
One of the best books on privacy so far
A good place to start
Not too shabby.

How to Be Invisible: A Step-By-Step Guide To Protecting Your Assets, Your Identity, And Your Life
J.J. Luna
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312252501

Amazon.com

It's hard to say how private investigators would react to books like J. J. Luna's How to Be Invisible--while it makes their jobs a lot harder, most of them are paid by the hour. If you want to withdraw from the snooping eyes of the government, corporations, stalking ex-boyfriends, or practically anyone else, this practical, down-to-earth guide will help you and your family vanish. It's not a glamorous James Bond life Mr. Luna is inviting you to take part in; it's probably much like the life you're living right now. Spending much of the early part of the book frightening the reader with tales of stalkers and mistaken identities, the author successfully makes his case that a few adjustments to an individual's personal information flow can make a life-or-death difference. While getting his plan off the ground will take a bit of planning and effort (you have to move at least once to clear your trail), it is sustainable and worthwhile even for those who think they have nothing to hide. Learn about anonymous travel and purchase, using trusts and corporations to keep your assets private, and how recent laws (the book's date of publication is 2000) significantly affect older methods of guaranteeing privacy. Luna makes no claim to know the law where you live and suggests that you consult a trusted local attorney before implementing most of his advice. Just knowing how easily a criminal can learn about and exploit your personal information will make you want to do just that. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

For most of us, privacy means an unlisted telephone number. But what about your Social Security number? Your credit card numbers? Your bank account statements? Your personal health data? You may think this information is also secure, but if you've ever ordered anything over the Internet, or if your credit card is on file at the local video store just in case you never return that copy of Titanic, or if you throw out bank statements without shredding them, then this information is now in the public domain and can easily be discovered and used against you by a private eye, a computer hacker, or even a vengeful neighbor or former lover. Once people gain control of even a shred of your personal information, they can gain control of your life. They can transform this information into access to your assets, your loved ones, even your identity. And once your privacy is gone, there's very little you can do to get it back.J. J. Luna, a highly trained and experienced security consultant, can show you how to achieve the privacy you crave, whether you just want to shield yourself from casual scrutiny or take your life savings and disappear without a trace. He reveals the shocking secrets that private detectives use to uncover information, and then shows you how to safeguard against them.Filled with vivid real-life stories drawn from the headlines and from Luna's own consulting experience, How to Be Invisible is the essential guide to preserving your personal security. Privacy is commonly lamented as the first casualty of the Information Age-- but that doesn't mean you have to stand for it.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Book on Privacy Techniques.......2006-08-07

This is an excellent book on privacy techniques. What I like about it is that JJ Luna discusses various levels of privacy, and I have found that the more privacy you want, the more time/effort you will have to go through to maintain it. He talks about how to go about receiving your mail, where to choose to live, how use the phone, how to pay people, and how to title assets more privately. I like this book because JJ Luna does not try to force a one size fits all agenda upon people, but lets the reader decide on what level of privacy is right for them. There are varying levels of privacy which can be obtained for each one, depending on your circumstances (e.g. family, job, etc). Of course, the more privacy you want, the more you will have to sacrifice, but most of these techniques are simple and won't take too much extra time out of your week.

Another thing this book goes into is how to work in a more private fashion. There are varying degrees to this as well and to obtain the highest levels of privacy, JJ Luna ultimately suggests to become self-employed. He touches on some points on that as well, but if you want more on that, then also be sure to check out his other book called Work From Home At Any Age (ISBN 0976387239), which I also highly recommend.

Powerful information.......2005-07-10

I do not generally take the time to write long reviews. I spend my time living and I read a lot of non-fiction books with the desire to deepen it. I submit ratings for those books I loved most. This is one of them. Read it. Whoever J.J. Luna is he challenges readers of his book to go ahead and TRY to find him. I say don't bother, you won't. This guy is for REAL.

One of the best books on privacy so far.......2004-02-17

Even with the changes in the laws, this is still one of the best books available. However, don't buy this book, wait for the 2004 edition coming out very soon.

A good place to start.......2004-02-01

A great book. I've also read "How to Hide Your Assets and Disappear" but this was a much better book. It's pretty discouraging because once you read this you will realize that the government really has us trapped. The key is not giving out your SS number or drivers license number or having your name attached to your "real" address. Both are almost impossible without a lot of work. I wish I had a book like this years ago. The version I read was printed a year before
9/11 so things have gotten much worse in terms of privacy, but this is a good place to start.

Not too shabby........2003-12-12

This book won't really make you disappear, but it will help. Better than nothing.

"¡Mi Raza Primero!" (My People First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978

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"¡Mi Raza Primero!" (My People First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978
Ernesto Chávez
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520230183

Book Description

ÁMi Raza Primero! is the first book to examine the Chicano movement's development in one locale--in this case Los Angeles, home of the largest population of people of Mexican descent outside of Mexico City. Ernesto Chávez focuses on four organizations that constituted the heart of the movement: The Brown Berets, the Chicano Moratorium Committee, La Raza Unida Party, and the Centro de Acción Social Autónomo, commonly known as CASA. Chávez examines and chronicles the ideas and tactics of the insurgency's leaders and their followers who, while differing in their goals and tactics, nonetheless came together as Chicanos and reformers.
Deftly combining personal recollection and interviews of movement participants with an array of archival, newspaper, and secondary sources, Chávez provides an absorbing account of the events that constituted the Los Angeles-based Chicano movement. At the same time he offers insights into the emergence and the fate of the movement elsewhere. He presents a critical analysis of the concept of Chicano nationalism, an idea shared by all leaders of the insurgency, and places it within a larger global and comparative framework. Examining such variables as gender, class, age, and power relationships, this book offers a sophisticated consideration of how ethnic nationalism and identity functioned in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s.

Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Reconfiguring American Political History)

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Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Reconfiguring American Political History)
Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era
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New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975

ASIN: 0801882753

Book Description

In the 1960s, the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party gave voice to many economically disadvantaged and politically isolated African Americans, especially outside the South. Though vilified as extremist and marginal, they were formidable agents of influence and change during the civil rights era and ultimately shaped the Black Power movement. In this fresh study, drawing on deep archival research and interviews with key participants, Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar reconsiders the commingled stories of -- and popular reactions to -- the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, and mainstream civil rights leaders. Ogbar finds that many African Americans embraced the seemingly contradictory political agenda of desegregation and nationalism. Indeed, black nationalism was far more favorably received among African Americans than historians have previously acknowledged. Black Power reveals a civil rights movement in which the ideals of desegregation through nonviolence and black nationalism marched side by side.

Ogbar concludes that Black Power had more lasting cultural consequences among African Americans and others than did the civil rights movement, engendering minority pride and influencing the political, cultural, and religious spheres of mainstream African American life for the next three decades.

At the Risk of Being Heard: Identity, Indigenous Rights, and Postcolonial States

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At the Risk of Being Heard: Identity, Indigenous Rights, and Postcolonial States

Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0472067362

Book Description

Leading experts in the analysis of ethnicity and indigenous rights explore the questions of why and how the circumstances of indigenous peoples are improving in some places of the world, while their human rights continue to be abused in others. Drawing on case studies from Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas, chapters explore how political organization, natural resource management, economic development, and conflicting definitions over cultural, linguistic, religious, and territorial identity have informed indigenous strategies for empowerment.

Combining rich ethnographic descriptions with clear theoretical analyses, At the Risk of Being Heard considers the paradoxical challenges and opportunities confronting indigenous peoples at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In the face of state-sanctioned violence, indigenous peoples encounter considerable risks when asserting their rights, especially to self-determination. Yet, if they remain silent or absent from new arenas of power, hiding in marginalized homelands or cultural practices, they risk being invisible to those allies that would aid them in their struggles for survival.

At the Risk of Being Heard offers needed insights for individuals working on issues of governance, sustainable development, resource management, globalization, and indigenous affairs. It will undoubtedly appeal to undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology, sociology, history, political science, peace studies, and to those students in courses that explore relationships among postcolonial states, indigenous peoples, and human rights.

Bartholomew Dean is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Kansas. Jerome M. Levi is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Carleton College.

We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity

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We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity
Tommie Shelby
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0674019369

Book Description

African American history resounds with calls for black unity. From abolitionist times through the Black Power movement, it was widely seen as a means of securing a full share of America's promised freedom and equality. Yet today, many believe that black solidarity is unnecessary, irrational, rooted in the illusion of "racial" difference, at odds with the goal of integration, and incompatible with liberal ideals and American democracy. A response to such critics, We Who Are Dark provides the first extended philosophical defense of black political solidarity.

Tommie Shelby argues that we can reject a biological idea of race and agree with many criticisms of identity politics yet still view black political solidarity as a needed emancipatory tool. In developing his defense of black solidarity, he draws on the history of black political thought, focusing on the canonical figures of Martin R. Delany and W. E. B. Du Bois, and he urges us to rethink many traditional conceptions of what black unity should entail. In this way, he contributes significantly to the larger effort to re-envision black politics and to modernize the objectives and strategies of black freedom struggles for the post-civil rights era. His book articulates a new African American political philosophy--one that rests firmly on anti-essentialist foundations and, at the same time, urges a commitment to defeating racism, to eliminating racial inequality, and to improving the opportunities of those racialized as "black."

Killing The White Man's Indian; The Reinvention of Native Americans at the End of the 20th Century

Average customer rating:

Exhaustively researched, thoughtfully written and fairly argued...
Political Hatchet Job of Indian Peoples
Great new look at modern American Indians
...as if the Indians were destined to vanish...
Killing the White Man's Indian

Killing The White Man's Indian; The Reinvention of Native Americans at the End of the 20th Century
Fergus M. Bordewich
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Civil Rights & Liberties | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, Twenty-First Century Edition

ASIN: 0385420358
Release Date: 1996-01-01

Amazon.com

Are the modern Indian nations little more than "reminders of a history that we would prefer not to remember," a guilty afterthought? Bordewich answers that yes, thanks to a century and more of federal mismanagement of Indian affairs, they are. Their people are plagued by alcohol, suicide, despair, and neglect. In writing of our nation's dishonorable dealings with its indigenous peoples, Bordewich asks that we examine history closely and that we take issue with received wisdom. After looking at past and present in this lively and provocative book, Bordewich envisions a future in which Native America determines its own destiny.

Book Description

In the face of a new lightly romanticized view of Native Americans, Killing the White Man's Indian bravely confronts the current myths and often contradictory realities of tribal life today. Following two centuries of broken treaties and virtual government extermination of the "savage redmen," Americans today have recast Native Americans into another, equally stereotyped role, that of eternal victims, politically powerless and weakened by poverty and alcoholism, yet whose spiritual ties with the natural world form our last, best hope of salvaging our natural environment and ennobling our souls.

The truth, however, is neither as grim , nor as blindly idealistic, as many would expect. The fact is that a virtual revolution is underway in Indian Country, an upheaval of epic proportions. For the first time in generations, Indians are shaping their own destinies, largely beyond the control of whites, reinventing Indian education and justice, exploiting the principle of tribal sovereignty in ways that empower tribal governments far beyond most American's imaginations. While new found power has enriched tribal life and prospects, and has made Native Americans fuller participants in the American dream, it has brought tribal governments into direct conflict with local economics and the federal government.

Based on three years of research on the Native American reservations, and written without a hidden conservative bias or politically correct agenda, Killing the White Man's Indian takes on Native American politics and policies today in all their contradictory--and controversial-guises."

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews:

Exhaustively researched, thoughtfully written and fairly argued..........2007-07-30

I disagree with the reviewer on here who thinks the author is trying to push some kind of ridiculous agenda. Although I did learn a lot that I didn't know before, it's pretty common knowledge that many reservations are poorly-run places with little to no infrastructure and utilities where the people live steeped in poverty. Is the author's idea that Native American societies should participate in modern business in order to revitalize their economies and provide for their people a racist and degrading proposition? Do you really think his arguments for overhauling badly mismanaged tribal governments in order to better service native peoples are given in the spirit of racism and deceipt?

I think shedding such a unique and supposedly sell-out perspective as his on the subject is extremely important. Sticking to an agenda of just romanticizing the lost Native world won't soon help alleviate the poverty, alcoholism and dysfunction that plagues "Indian Country" in this day and age.

Political Hatchet Job of Indian Peoples.......2005-10-29

Bordewich pretends to be dispelling stereotypes about Indian peoples, but this is just a thin disguise for his real agenda. The book is an attack against Indian sovereignty and against the existence of tribal cultures. Bordewich argues that Native peoples should just assimilate into mainstream American culture and forget about their own. Any Indian who dresses in suit and tie and embraces Bordewich's very conservative political agenda is portrayed in this book as a "good Indian". Anyone else is portrayed as a romantic blinded by stereotypes. Bordewich, however, does not have the decency to be honest about his political agenda, but tries to make his conclusions appear as the work of an impartial observer. In order to beef up his argument, he quotes many scholars out of context and completely twists their statements in an effort to give legitimacy to his conclusions. This is one of the most dishonest, sneaky books I have read in a long time.

Great new look at modern American Indians.......2005-01-13

Fergus Bordewich does a fantastic job as he examined how the American Indians all over the United States are beginning to reinvent themselves, using the "white man's" methods to regained land control, increased in tribal power and regained the upper hand in their own destiny. The author does a good job explaining this as he traced the trouble past history of white-Indian relationship, he leaves no doubt for much of the American history, the Indians were basically left high and dry by the federal government and its white population. This situation helps created many of the myths and misconceptions people have of the American Indians today. However, by the book, the image may not reflect reality.

The author then began to investigate what many of the modern day American Indian tribes are doing to readdressed their plight and what actions seem to be working and what was not. The book reads very nicely, clearly written and reflects on many information that most Americans today are not aware of. That the American Indians are conducting an silent revolution out there in various forms of guises that might reshape the way other Americans look at the American Indians and how they look at themselves.

The book come highly recommended and its informative context should benefit anyone who reads it.

...as if the Indians were destined to vanish..........2002-01-10

The more I learn, the more my skin crawls when I hear references to the "vanishing Indian." If anything, it is even more evidence that our mainstream media is telling us what they want us to believe. Oh, it was a valiant effort made in the creation of "the land of the free and the home of the Brave," but it was not successful. Attempted genocides are rarely, if ever, completely successful. For that, we can be grateful...but just barely.

From the book:
"We, the Indigenous Peoples of this red quarter of Mother Earth, [have survived] 500 years of genocide, ethnocide, ecocide, racism, oppression, colonization and christianization. These excesses of western civilization resulted from contempt for Mother Earth and all our relations; contempt for women, elders, children and Native Peoples; and contempt for a future beyond the present human generation." (Taos, New Mexico, 1992)

Native Americans kept this country and the living forms within it pristine for thousands of years before it was "discovered" and "civilized." In 200 years it has been desecrated, vandalized, poisoned almost beyond repair, in the guise of "Manifest Destiny."

It's incredible to even consider "Patriotism" without considering the roots of its "success." One Nation, "Under God":

"In New England, zealots such as Cotton Mather encouraged the Puritans to regard the Indian as a principal actor in the cosmic drama that governed even the smallest details of life, a 'spetial instrument of God' to punish errant souls in the eternal struggle between good and evil. In such a climate, killing Indians became not merely warfare but the cleansing of sin itself.' ... The degree of violence that was woven into the texture of early frontier life fairly boggles the mind of our, in some ways, far more delicate age. In the 1650s, Dutch colonists brought back eighty decapitated Indian heads from a massacre and used them as kickballs in the streets of New Amsterdam."

"It was widely assumed by Americans that Indians were destined to vanish before the onrush of civilization, a view of things that conveniently allowed cynicism to blend with sentimentality...It was as if the Indians' disappearance were the result of some force completely beyond the human power to stay, like a tidal wave or a change of seasons."

The stories are horrendous, and should be required reading for anyone who claims to be a Patriot. This is not to say that Patriotism, in itself, is wrong. Not at all. Just that it should be an informed Patriotism, one that accepts responsibility for its history with an investment in a better and healthier future.

"Between 1850 and 1859, the federal government reimbursed the State of California $924,259 for what was basically freelance murder. ...In April of 1852, miners at Orleans Bar, 'after meeting to discuss the Indian problem, voted to kill on site all Indians having guns,' a local newspaper reported without comment. The next month, near Weaverville, 153 Wintuns were slaughtered in reprisal for killing five cows that belonged to a white man. In 1853, at Yontoket, several hundred Tolowas were murdered in the midst of their harvest dance. A survivor described it, 'The whitemen built a huge fire and threw in our sacred ceremonial dresses, the regalia, and our feathers, and the flames grew higher. Then they threw in the babies, many of them were still alive.' ...Until the 1880s, California courts barred any kind of testimony from 'Indians, or persons having one-fourth or more Indian blood in an action in which a white person was a party.'"

"Professional slave hunters raided Indian villages with impunity, seizing women and children for sale to miners and to brothels in the gold rush towns. In the mid-1850s, a pubescent girl sold for about $300 and smaller children for as little as $50."

Yes, the roots of child sexual slavery go deep into our history.

But the book is more than horror stories and balanced history. There is a future here, and a challenge to the belief that the "savage Indian" has been wiped from the face of the earth. Historical guilt has its limitations, and that is not the purpose of the book. The history of Indian law under federal policy and Indian education opened my eyes to an expansion of Indian culture that I found heartening and exciting. "More consistently than any other in the nation's history, Indian policy has embodied the nation's unending struggle to apply moral standards to the conduct of public policy."

America is not the only nation to attempt to wipe out indigenous tribes, and that is another course of study. The difference, in America, as the book points out, is that America continues to struggle with that history -- and that is something to get Patriotic about. It is a record that, though flawed, is unequaled by any other nation in its dealings with aboriginal peoples.

The book raised a question about tribal sovereignty that was new to me, and that I continue to struggle with long after having read the book. Does it move them forward, or hold them back? Would mainstreaming the American Indian be empowering? Or would it take from them what remaining culture they have left? That is the ultimate question of "celebrating diversity" vs. the "melting pot" theory of America. It is not limited to Indians. And it is a concept we must struggle with, perhaps to the point of redefining what it means to be "mainstream" in America.

Another concept that made me think was the lack of "civil rights" legislation under reservation law: free press, free speech, and separation of powers. If Federal Law is "hands off" reservation land, where to Indians find justice if their governments are corrupt? For that matter, where do we? Perhaps the question is not, who should have the power, but how do we as a nation challenge corruption?

"What are the limits of federal powers? How can tribalism be squared with the legal and moral dictates of equal protection under the law? What is the role of the states in Indian Country and of the tribes in constitutional democracy? What is the civil juristiction of tribal courts? How can the United States support tribal regimes that reject fundamental aspects of American democracy? What is the basis for asserting that reservation Indians shall have representation in state government but without taxation? On the other hand, what is the basis for asserting that non-Indian residents of Indian Country shall not be represented in tribal government yet be subject to tribal law, courts, and taxation? How can we, as Americans, tolerate double standards?"

Good questions, all of them. And Bordwich doesn't answer them. But he certainly gives us plenty with which to mull them over and discuss them. The important thing is that we not ignore them. The Indians aren't. And we are all in this together.

Killing the White Man's Indian.......2000-01-10

There aren't many books about Native Americans that tell the truth the way it should be told, truth without bias or idealism. The author has done a commendable job in supporting his information with excellent references. While reading this book, I found myself shaking my head in agreement because it addresses facts and issues that need to be addressed more often in the manner in which they are presented. This book will turn the reader from a romantic to a realist.

Fluid Borders: Latino Power, Identity, and Politics in Los Angeles

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Fluid Borders

Fluid Borders: Latino Power, Identity, and Politics in Los Angeles
Lisa Bedolla
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0520243692

Book Description

This provocative study of the Latino political experience offers a nuanced, in-depth, and often surprising perspective on the factors affecting the political engagement of a segment of the population that is now the nation's largest minority. Drawing from one hundred in-depth interviews, Lisa García Bedolla compares the political attitudes and behavior of Latinos in two communities: working-class East Los Angeles and middle-class Montebello. Asking how collective identity and social context have affected political socialization, political attitudes and practices, and levels of political participation among the foreign born and native born, she offers new findings that are often at odds with the conventional wisdom emphasizing the role socioeconomic status plays in political involvement.
Fluid Borders includes the voices of many individuals, offers exciting new research on Latina women indicating that they are more likely than men to vote and to participate in political activities, and considers how the experience of social stigma affects the collective identification and political engagement of members of marginal groups. This innovative study points the way toward a better understanding of the Latino political experience, and how it differs from that of other racial groups, by situating it at the intersection of power, collective identity, and place.

Customer Reviews:

Fluid Borders.......2007-06-16

This is a great book about the borders and boundaries drawn between Latina/os as a result of the proposition 187. The interviews and the case studies illustrate the complexity that Latina/os are not a monolithic group.

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