Inside the Eagles Head Contemporary American Indian Studies

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The Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) is a self-described National American Indian Community College in Albuquerque, New Mexico. SIPI is operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency of the U.S. government that has overseen and managed the relationship between the government and American Indian tribes for almost two hundred years. Students at SIPI are registered members of federally-recognized American Indian tribes from throughout the contiguous United States and Alaska. A fascinatingly hybridized institution, SIPI attempts to meld two conflicting institutional models -- a tribally-controlled college or university and a Bureau of Indian Affairs' Indian school -- with their unique corporate cultures, rules, and philosophies. Students attempt to cope with the institution and successfully make their way through it by using (consciously or not) an array of metaphorical representations of the school. Through a series of interviews, this volume examines the ways in which students attempt to accommodate this variety of conflicts and presents a look into the contemporary state of American Indian educational institutions.