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OFFICE/DEPARTMENT
EWC Research Speaker Series
Wednesday, July 5, 2023
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. HST
Cold War Colonialism: US Federal Policy and Indigenous Peoples on the Mainland and in the Pacific
featuring
David Beck, Professor of History, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
US Policies toward Indigenous peoples after World War II and into the 1970s focused primarily on marginalization or else assimilation and Americanization or westernization. On the mainland the policy focused on ending the political relationship between Indian tribes and the United States and moving American Indian individuals from reservation communities to urban areas. In US Pacific holdings, where the overall policy was strategic, Indigenous people were often used as laborers to support US military facilities or displaced from their homelands for nuclear weapons testing. This talk begins to consider the similarities and differences in mainland and Pacific policies.
David Beck has written several award-winning books on American Indian history. They focus on US-Indigenous relations, federal policy, labor, activism, and urbanization. He is a professor of history at the University of Illinois. He spent more than two decades in the Native American Studies department at the University of Montana, and prior to that worked for an American Indian college in Chicago.
The views expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect East-West Center policies or positions.
EWC Research Speaker Series
Wednesday, July 5, 2023
12:00 - 1:00 p.m. HST
Cold War Colonialism: US Federal Policy and Indigenous Peoples on the Mainland and in the Pacific
featuring
David Beck, Professor of History, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
US Policies toward Indigenous peoples after World War II and into the 1970s focused primarily on marginalization or else assimilation and Americanization or westernization. On the mainland the policy focused on ending the political relationship between Indian tribes and the United States and moving American Indian individuals from reservation communities to urban areas. In US Pacific holdings, where the overall policy was strategic, Indigenous people were often used as laborers to support US military facilities or displaced from their homelands for nuclear weapons testing. This talk begins to consider the similarities and differences in mainland and Pacific policies.
David Beck has written several award-winning books on American Indian history. They focus on US-Indigenous relations, federal policy, labor, activism, and urbanization. He is a professor of history at the University of Illinois. He spent more than two decades in the Native American Studies department at the University of Montana, and prior to that worked for an American Indian college in Chicago.
The views expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect East-West Center policies or positions.
