Urban American Indians

Tiokasin Ghosthorse has a daily routine before he starts each morning. He gets up and says his prayers.

"Before I shower, before I turn on the radio or touch anything technical, I burn my sage and sometimes, I sing my songs," Ghosthorse explained about his morning ritual at his home in Staten Island. "Sometimes, I do both. It puts me into contact and I remember this land, I'm a guest here in New York. And that there were other people here and I must honor them."

The people Ghosthorse referred to are the Carnarsee, the Algonquin tribe that originally lived in Manhattan before Europeans arrived in the 1600s (see Past), and before they became extinct two centuries later. Now the main tribes that surround New York City include Shinnecock, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca.

Like many of the American Indians who live in New York City today, Ghosthorse is not originally from New York. The 50-year-old radio host is Lakota from the Cheyenne River Reservation, S.D. He moved to the city in March 2002 to host First Voices Indigenous Radio which airs on WBAI FM radio in New York for an hour on Thursday mornings.

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, approximately 40 percent of New York residents were born in another country. And with American Indians making up only 0.5 percent of the city's population, it is often a challenge to feel a sense of belonging to a particular community, Ghosthorse explained.

"It's hard for me to think individually but I live in an individulastic society," said Ghosthorse. "I often go back to my name, 'He places the nation before himself,' and that serves as my source of strength, knowing that if I don't get up in the morning and I don't say my prayers, I really do feel bad."

But Ghosthorse also wants people to know that American Indians today are more than just "beads and feathers and moccasins and smoke," which is why he concentrates on covering current issues and events affecting indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada.

Some stories he has aired recently included the year-long standoff between Mohawk protesters from the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada and land developers over ownership of a new proposed subdivision in a nearby community.

"Even though people say it's a political endeavour, it's about spirituality among the people in the Haudensaunee area, it's the highest form of politics," explained Ghosthorse. "Likewise, politics should be a form of spirituality."