Silent Victims: Hate Crimes Against Native Americans

By Barbara Perry
The University of Arizona Press (2008)

Reviewed by Patty Lambert

Barbara Perry does a good job of shedding light on a topic that is usually ignored by the mainstream. She tells how genocidal practices against the Native people of this country continue to impact Native lives today through racial violence and hate crimes.

Input from Native people in various areas brings the situations and scenarios to life and help to make the experiences of Native people real. In the last chapter, Native people tell how they have responded to situations. She doesn’t just write about the problem; she also offers ideas for solutions through education, community awareness, and rights-based activism.

She provided a few examples of Native and non-Native communities coming together to reconcile, but it would have been interesting to have more information abut this.

Patty Lambert is Indian Studies director at Cankdeska Cikana Community College in Fort Totten, ND.