Silent Victims: Hate Crimes Against Native Americans (review)

Silent Victims chronicles the incidences of, mostly unreported, hate crimes against Native Americans in the Four Corners region, the Great Lakes, and the northern plains. Barbara Perry begins the book by explaining the effects of colonization on Native Americans and the impact of colonization on the attitudes of non-Native, especially white, Americans. She then describes how the racial hierarchy created by colonization, with Native Americans placed low in the hierarchy, has created various stereotypes about Native Americans and has "imaged" them inappropriately and unfairly. The author provides examples that range from colonial genocide to name-calling, through the use of 278 interviews with tribal members of the Apache, Navajo, Hopi, Ute, Ojibwe, Crow, Blackfeet, and Northern Cheyenne tribes. The book is rounded off by specific examples of hate crimes committed against Native Americans, the impact of the crimes, and possible solutions for the eradication of hate crimes against Native Americans.

The research model for the book was complicated by several factors. First of all, there is a serious deficiency of empirical evidence and both qualitative and quantitative data regarding hate crimes committed against Native Americans. Barbara Perry outlines the lack of data by stating, "A review of the literature on Native Americans and criminal justice, and even a similar review of the narrower literature on ethnoviolence, reveals virtually no consideration of Native Americans as victims of racially motivated crime" (2). A specific goal of the book was to provide some of the data that are currently missing in the existing literature. Perry seemingly overcomes the challenge of missing data by targeting the right areas to conduct research and locating narrators who were willing to speak about their experiences as hate crime victims.

The lack of data also made narrator selection difficult. Since the author did not know where hate crime was occurring or who it was affecting, she first chose to interview people in her own neighboring area of Flagstaff, Arizona. She then chose to interview people in communities that were the sites of activism and communities that were known for native-nonnative conflict. Specific instances of Native activism, such as the "fish wars" in the Northwest and the occupation of Pine Ridge by the American Indian Movement, directed the research to areas where assertions of Native American treaty rights resulted in the formation of reactionary, and often racist, anti-Indian groups. These areas yielded informative data that Perry hopes will influence public policy in those areas. The author clearly states:

Consequently, this book will provide some initial data with which scholars and policy makers alike can begin to understand the specificity of the experience of hate crime for American Indians; it will open the door for the emergence of additional literature on this unexplored dimension of racially motivated violence, and it will provide the basis for effective interventions among victims, perpetrators, and the community itself.

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Perry's methods for conducting the oral history interviews and the presentation of the interviews are most valuable to the field of oral history. Literature on the subject of conducting oral history interviews with Native Americans is scarce and rather difficult to come by; therefore, interviewers are undereducated on the topic, which makes the actual practice complicated. For the literature that does exist, emphasis is generally placed on the role that oral tradition plays in Native communities. "There is widespread consensus among scholars who work with Native American communities that face-to-face interviews must be the primary means of soliciting insights from indigenous peoples. For the most part, these communities are grounded in oral tradition" (17). She therefore avoided the use of written surveys, which had a very low success rate, and avoided impersonal means of communications. She also used the appropriate channels by involving the tribal governments in her research. She also used detailed informed consent forms and explained her project in great detail to the narrators. Most importantly, Perry remained active in the Native communities at the conclusion of her research and offered...