Los Angeles County could be called the secret capital of Indian America. There are an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 Native Americans, more than in any other U.S. metropolitan area, more than on any reservation--and yet they are invisible to most Angelenos.

Today a delegation of American Indians from Los Angeles will travel to Washington to join a meeting with White House officials aimed at raising the profile of urban Indians.

Noting that 60% of Native Americans live in cities, activists from across the country plan to lobby the federal government for social services targeted specifically at urban Indians.

The goal is to make the government "more aware of the fact that Indian people are struggling in urban areas," said David Rambeau, a Paiute and director of a Skid Row center that serves poor families and homeless people of many tribes. "There needs to be an urban Indian policy."

Until now, urban Indians say, it has been reservation Indians who get virtually all public and government attention, as evidenced by the high-profile meeting of tribal leaders with President Bill Clinton two months ago.

Urban Indians do not expect their visit to receive the heavy television coverage that was given to the tribal leaders. They will not wear camera-attracting feather headdresses, and some, because they are of mixed ancestry, do not look like people's stereotypical images of Indians. Yet for these activists, tribal identity remains central to their lives.

Los Angeles has a large Native American population largely because of a U.S. government relocation policy in the 1950s and 1960s. Tens of thousands of people from scores of tribes were given bus tickets off their reservations and were promised help finding jobs in big cities.

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Local Indian activists have long believed the government's aim was not merely to assimilate Native Americans but to wipe out their Indian identity by immersing them in mainstream environments, says Colleen Colson, a Cherokee who is a member of the Los Angeles City-County Native American Indian Commission.

"Obviously (the policy) didn't work because we're all still here," Colson said. "(It) makes us want to fight harder to be close to our culture."