Most Native Americans live in cities, not reservations. Here are their stories
As I left my small, remote hometown of Joseph, Oregon, driving two hours to the nearest airport to fly south, I thought about my father, a Caddo/Delaware Native American man who spent most of his life in the Bay Area.
Dad arrived in California as a child due to the assimilation policies enacted by the US government in the 1950s, which forcefully relocated Native Americans from their land into urban areas to become “productive” members of society. It also intentionally placed Indian orphans into the homes of white families. Today, 78% of Native Americans live off-reservation, and 72% live in urban or suburban environments.
Those policies had devastating effects. Relocated tribal members became isolated from their communities. Low paying jobs and higher expenses, combined with the inability to return to reservations which had often been dissolved, left many in precarious circumstances.
In the case of my dad, this translated to growing up on the rough streets of Richmond, CA, and spending much of his life burying his trauma at the bottom of a bottle. He was orphaned twice; first when my Native grandmother died in our tribal territory, then when his adopted white mother passed when he was 16. Dad never knew who his birth father was, and his adopted father was also an alcoholic who died not many years after his wife.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/04/native-americans-stories-california