Where Next, Columbus?: A Native Punk Mixtape
Thomas Michael Swensen
Apr 2026 · New Directions in Native American Studies Series Book 27 · University of Oklahoma Press
Ebook
184
Pages
infoThis book will become available on April 14, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
Just as a mixtape brings together disparate songs to give voice to its curator's musical mindset, in Where Next, Columbus? Thomas Michael Swensen juxtaposes different types of cultural production to explore how Native America and punk coexist, inform each other, and together articulate their own politics.
Through an archive of zines, songs, flyers, and art installation, Swensen's Mixtape maps hardcore, thrash, metal, and even pop punk onto the Indigenous Americas. With each chapter a track, the book compiles a setlist drawn from across the Western Hemisphere, from sparsely populated regions of Alaska to the crowded streets of Mexico City, where a punk market stands atop the ruins of Tenochtitlan. Emerging from the mix is the discovery that Native punk articulates sovereignty beyond definitions of state power by exerting independence from corporations and governments. This mixtape reveals how Native punk, pinned at the crossroads of the personal and the collective, articulates self-determination to question both tribal norms and colonial tropes.
Stage diving with the Friends of Cesar Romero, the Bastard Fairies, Lozen, and Postcommodity, Where Next, Columbus? conducts readers on a journey that engages familiar punk maxims like DIY ethics, disruptive artistry, humor as critique, and the relentless questioning of authority figures—arriving at a kaleidoscopic vision of sovereignty through Native sounds and visual arts.
Where next, Columbus? We're already there. Press play.
Through an archive of zines, songs, flyers, and art installation, Swensen's Mixtape maps hardcore, thrash, metal, and even pop punk onto the Indigenous Americas. With each chapter a track, the book compiles a setlist drawn from across the Western Hemisphere, from sparsely populated regions of Alaska to the crowded streets of Mexico City, where a punk market stands atop the ruins of Tenochtitlan. Emerging from the mix is the discovery that Native punk articulates sovereignty beyond definitions of state power by exerting independence from corporations and governments. This mixtape reveals how Native punk, pinned at the crossroads of the personal and the collective, articulates self-determination to question both tribal norms and colonial tropes.
Stage diving with the Friends of Cesar Romero, the Bastard Fairies, Lozen, and Postcommodity, Where Next, Columbus? conducts readers on a journey that engages familiar punk maxims like DIY ethics, disruptive artistry, humor as critique, and the relentless questioning of authority figures—arriving at a kaleidoscopic vision of sovereignty through Native sounds and visual arts.
Where next, Columbus? We're already there. Press play.
About the author
Thomas Michael Swensen (citizen of Tangirnaq Native village), was born and raised on Kodiak Island and is an original shareholder in Koniag and Leisnoi, organizations established through the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. He is an Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Utah. Punk saved his life.
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