Muscogee Daughter: My Sojourn to the Miss America Pageant (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780803229716)

How American is Miss America? For Susan Supernaw, a Muscogee (Creek) and Munsee Native American, the question wasn't just academic. Throughout a childhood clouded by poverty, alcoholism, abuse, and a physical disability, Supernaw sought escape in school and dance and the Native American Church. She became a presidential scholar, won a scholarship to college, and was crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1971. Supernaw might not have won the Miss America pageant that year, but she did call attention to the Native peoples living largely invisible lives throughout their own American land. And she did at long last earn her Native American name.

Chronicling a quest to escape poverty and find meaning, Supernaw's story is revealing, humorous, and deeply moving. Muscogee Daughter is the story of finding a Native American identity among the distractions and difficulties of American life and of discerning an identity among competing notions of what it is to be a woman, a Native American, and a citizen of the world.


Author: Susan Supernaw
ISBN-10: 0803229712
ISBN-13: 9780803229716
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 10/01/2010
Pages: 264
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 8.70h x 5.80w x 0.94d

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 09/01/2010 pg. 31