When nickels were Indians

Born in Los Angeles, a blue-eyed descendant of the Nez Perce band once led by Chief Joseph, Patricia Penn Hilden never looked the part - but she knew its contours. Escorted by her mother to the local natural history museums to view Indian artifacts under glass and even the preserved bodies of little girls, Penn Hilden nonetheless passed in white society, a "vanished Indian, and safe.".

In this memoir of her urban, mixed-blood experience, the author recalls her grandfather, a lingering presence and connection to traditions and people that rarely figure in mainstream American culture's notions of Indian identity.