The idea for this project came from a genuine curiousity to seek out and learn about the American Indian community in New York City.

When Maureen Googoo arrived in the city for graduate school in August 2006, she expected to run into American Indians. A Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia, Canada, she knew there was an American Indian community since NYC has the highest number of indigenous Americans in the whole country. However, they seemed to be nowhere to be found.

Instead, she was often mistaken for Latina by other Latinos in Manhattan. So, she took to wearing a beaded hairpeace to identify her heritage. The questions in Spanish didn't cease.

In time, Maureen discovered the American Indian Community House in the city, and enjoyed getting to know people at the center, which was not far from Union Square. The community house was running a free lunch program targeted at fostering togetherness among New York's American Indians, some of whom are struggling to make ends meet, or even living in the cold streets. Others live and work at the highest echelons of society.

Maureen wanted to learn more about the people living in America's largest city, especially those who had the closest ties to the original inhabitants. She enlisted Brian Clark Howard, a fellow student at Columbia, to help tackle the research and reporting, as well as construction of this website. Brian had long been interested in American Indian issues, in part because he was told growing up that he has a small amount of Cherokee blood.

Past Video

Iroquois Family: © Museum of the City of New York, The Jacob A. Riis Collection

Wild West Show: © Museum of the City of New York, The Byron Collection

Weber Music Hall, production of Higgledy-Piggledy, 1904: © Museum of the City of New York, The Byron Collection

American Indians at a craft festival, 1976: © AP/Phil Sandlin

Foolish Bear, left, and Drags Wolf of the North Dakota Gros Ventre Indian Tribe, pose in a NYC hotel in 1938: © AP

Indian Show Sign: © Brian Clark Howard

"The Purchase of Manhattan Island," engraving by Alfred Fredricks: © AP

Display at National Museum of the American Indian, NYC: © Maureen Googoo

NYC subway tiles: © Brian Clark Howard

American Indian performers enter the Rice-Eccles Olympic stadium during the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City: © AP/Kevork Djansezian

Members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe of Fort Hall, Utah, dance at a team welcoming ceremony at the Salt Lake Olympic Village in 2002: © AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

A dancer from the Chippewa Cree nation of Montana performs in a ceremony in Salt Lake: © AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta

Two-Spirit Video

Kevin VanWanseele, Sal "Timberwolf" and Harlan Pruden at the Paumanauke Pow Wow in Long Island, NY: © Courtesy Kevin VanWanseele

Kevin VanWanseele organizing the NorthEast Two-Spirit Society's annual march in New York City's Gay Pride Parade: © Courtesy Kevin VanWanseele

American Indian warrior, screenshot, "Dances With Wolves"

Art by Don Burgdorf, http://www.artofdon.com

Family snapshots: © Courtesy Kevin VanWanseele

Health Video

American Indian health clinic: © AP

American Indian getting tested for diabetes: © AP

Crack cocaine: © AP

American Indian seeing a doctor: © AP