Identity Politics of Difference: The Mixed-Race American Indian Experience is an original examination of the active agency shown by, and the difficulties/disadvantages faced by, mixed-race American Indian students in a New Mexico tribal college. Focussing on two main questions, the author asks, “How do the formal and informal schooling contexts shape the identity choices of multiracial students?” (12) and “how do the identity choices of multiracial students conform to and/or resist the racialized social system of the United States?” (12). The book is split into three parts: the politics of multiracialism, American Indian mixed-race experience, and undoing “Indianness.” The first part covers the introductory material, the second part the analysis, and the third part offers conclusions and recommendations.

Part One starts with a positionality statement by the author and an introduction to the topic of race and racial hierarchy in America. The author continues with a literature review, which can be found in chapter 2, and is perfect for anyone wanting to widen their knowledge on this topic of American Indian race in education; the chapter provides an important grounding in similar studies completed to date. Chapter 3 is an overview of the methodology, containing details of the nine participants of Cliff View College (a pseudonym), the methods used for the interviews and focus groups, and the data analysis techniques.

Part Two is an analysis of the interviews through different themes that arose. While overall the author examines how students become active racial agents – deciding what race they want to be by creating, performing, and/or resisting categories of identity – this is done through discussions around blood quantum, racial hierarchy, educational and economic disadvantages, white privilege, family influence, peer interactions, and survival. Many of the discussions in the book revolve around being judged or judging others based on physical traits. Politics, economy, governance and self-determination were also discussed in terms of authenticity and “Playing Indian” – a term that Philip Deloria coined in the book of the same name.

Part Three ends with some discussion of both critical race theory and tribal critical race theory, and some suggestions of how to decolonize tribal colleges and educational institutions in general. Ultimately, the research explains that even within self-determined Native American tribal colleges, those students who are multiracial are subject either to micro-aggressions caused by racism or to white privilege, depending on their phenotypic features. By showing this, the researcher adds to the discourse surrounding race as a social construct, highlighting the need for administrators, teachers, and students in colleges and universities to be educated in identity politics.

The strength of the book lies in the recounting of the very real lived experiences regarding racial identities that the participants share. This gives the reader an insight into the complications and emotions surrounding the topic. The author has used block quotes to help the reader hear the voices, thus giving active agency to the participants. Examples of this include when the participants explain how race plays out in the cafeteria, and how the tables are segregated based on phenotypic features. Although there are autobiographies that highlight the racism towards mixed-race Native Americans (for example, Half-Breed by Maria Campbell (1973) and Raising Ourselves by Velma Wallis (2003)), this often overlooked form of racism is poignant here as it becomes obvious that it is impacting the academic studies of the participants, by either benefiting or hindering. As the author explains, Cliff View College “operated in troubling ways by oppressing, marginalizing, and denigrating mixed-race with black students but not mixed-race with white students, who benefited from their whiteness and found ways to navigate the institution” (124).

Another example of the complications of the theme of race identity, shared by the participants, is on the topic of survival. Several participants confirm the importance of blood quantum, contrary to the racism they have experienced, by stating that marrying a Native American person is essential to continuing their culture and meeting the blood quantum required to be “officially” Native American (i.e. holding a Certificate of Indian Blood card). The author comments how this internalized colonization reinforces problems of race identity as a social construct and is deeply entrenched in the school systems that use CIB cards to give scholarships, asserting that we need to get past US government rules of citizenship if we are to truly reach a decolonized and self-determined state.

This author's inaugural book is highly recommended for anyone researching identity politics of mixed-race Americans, and those interested in the US education system, both K-12 and higher education.