It's not that surprising, given our Hollywood history of Native Americans, that the media feel it necessary to coin a term like "Urban Indians." Since Native Americans exist in popular culture as stewards of nature who spend their lives camping under the stars and measuring times in "moons," the fact that millions of Native Americans live in cities doesn't jibe with our media-reinforced notions of race as it corresponds to population density. Thus "urban" is shorthand for black and "suburban" means white. Any exceptions would be similarly worth qualifying, like "suburban blacks" or "country Asians" (e.g. Henry Cho).

So anyway, Natives have a long history of being "urban." Before being decimated by disease, warfare, slavery and famine, Natives were responsible for creating some of the biggest, most-populated cities of their day. Here are some of my favorite Native American urban centers...

ANCIENT CITIES OF NATIVE AMERICA

 

Caral 

Caral was inhabited between roughly 2600 BC and 2000 BC and covered 66 hectares. It's one of the oldest towns in the Americas in what's today Peru) and was home to more than 3,000 members of what is now known as the Norte Chico Civilization. 

In the US, the word "Latino" is used often, regardless of accuracy, as shorthand for a region's dominant Latino population. In the southwest it usually means "Mexican," in the northeast it means "Puerto Rican" and in Florida, "Cuban." Indeed, those are the three largest populations of Latino-Americanos in the country, although it goes without saying that there are many less-recognized groups of Latinos. Each have their own distinct culture, history, and place in America. This entry is about Guatemaltecas, who at around 900,000 estimated to be living in the US, make up the sixth largest Latino population.

The Guatemalan flag

The Guatemalan population is the most purely indigenous in the Americas. 65% of the population identify as Native. Of them, most come from various Mayan groups including K'iche (9%), Kaqchikel (8%), Mam (8%), Q'eqchi (6%) and smaller Mayan groups (9%).