"Given the multitude of peoples and tongues that the Mashantucket Pequots and Foxwoods have attracted as casino and employer, how surprising is it, really, that they've finally inspired this:

Earlier this year, American Quarterly, the journal of the American Studies Association published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, printed a 17-page essay by [Mary] Lawlor entitled �Identity in Mashantucket.�

Lawlor's paper, dense, at times, as Ledyard woodland in academic jargon, argues the Pequots have exploited two towers of power and legitimacy � the fabulously successful casino and the richly appointed Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center � to establish the tribe's desired public image.

Success, then, is the currency, indeed, the language, that the public best understands. It negotiates time and tolerance for the Pequots, working backwards from a few strains of lore and random artifacts, and overcoming centuries of �violent oppression and marginalization in Anglo Connecticut,� to construct an identity."

Get the Story:
Steven Slosberg: Buying Tribal Legitimacy (The New London Day 12/20)
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