In "A Seat at the Drum", journalist Mark Anthony Rolo (Bad River Ojibwe) seeks to learn how Native Americans in Los Angeles preserve a tribal identity, survive economically and cope with the pressures of assimilation in a challenging metropolis. His personal quest to come to terms with these issues leads him to meet Native community leaders, Indians relocated from reservations, boarding school students, Native business leaders and single parent families whose stories typify the experiences of urban Indians. As these characters tell how Indians in Los Angeles create community and retain a connection to their tribes; choose whether their language and traditions are relevant in the modern world; cope with mounting social problems and declining social services; and develop business empires fueled by gaming profits, Rolo is propelled toward a reckoning with his own identity. Rolo finds that though relocated Indians seem to lose their tribal identity, indigenous California tribes such as the Gabrieleno/Tongva and the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians strive to strengthen theirs. Original inhabitants of the LA Basin, the Gabrieleno/Tongva tribe grasp threads of their original birdsongs, traditional ways and history in an idealistic attempt to gain Federal recognition, and with that, the golden road that the Pechanga have achieved. The Pechanga, a dwindling band before the National Indian Gaming Act was passed, are now so prosperous that Governor Schwarzenegger looks to them and other gaming tribes to help bail out California debt. But what makes them Indian? Is a Federal I.D. number enough? Do the wealthy Indians bear responsibility for philanthropy toward the poor?