Three weeks after the demise of Sacheen Littlefeather, a report has emerged claiming that the activist and actor lied about her Indigenous ancestry, sparking controversy amongst Indigenous critics who say the report’s writer is instigating a “witch hunt” and sullying Littlefeather’s legacy.
The report additionally comes 4 months after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences despatched Littlefeather an apology for the way in which she was handled on the 1973 Oscars, when she famously declined the Best Actor award on Marlon Brando’s behalf as an act of protest in opposition to Hollywood’s racist portrayal of Indigenous folks.
Littlefeather, who was simply 26 on the time, confronted threats of violence and was blacklisted from Hollywood following the stunt, she mentioned.
Read extra:
Sacheen Littlefeather, who declined Marlon Brando’s Oscar, dies at 75
Read More
But an opinion piece printed on Saturday within the San Fransisco Chronicle contends that Littlefeather is an “ethnic fraud” that posed as Indigenous regardless of having no connection to an Indigenous nation.
Littlefeather’s sister Trudy Orlandi informed the Chronicle, “It’s a lie. My father was who he was. His family came from Mexico. And my dad was born in Oxnard [California].”
Rosalind Cruz, one other of Littlefeather’s sisters, mentioned, “It is a fraud. It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people. And it’s just… insulting to my parents.”
Littlefeather was born in Arizona to Manuel Ybarra Cruz and Gertrude Barnitz. Her beginning title was Maria Louise Cruz.
The writer of the article, Jacqueline Keeler, who can also be Indigenous, reviewed Littlefeather’s father’s ancestry, the place Littlefeather claimed Indigenous heritage, and located no formal ties to Indigenous nations within the U.S. Keeler says she went by immigration paperwork that confirmed Littlefeather’s household recognized as Caucasian and Mexican once they crossed the Mexican border into the U.S.
Due to assimilation insurance policies in Canada and the U.S., not each Indigenous particular person is listed as a First Nation member or has concrete documentation to point out their affiliation with a selected group.
There are sometimes strict necessities that folks should meet with a view to acquire citizenship to an Indigenous nation — necessities that will not precisely replicate the realities of Indigenous id. For occasion, within the U.S. the “blood quantum” measurement system is used to find out if somebody has sufficient Indigenous “blood” to assert standing, and has been criticized as a solution to management and erase Indigenous peoples.
Keeler’s article has drawn vital backlash from Indigenous critics who accuse her of harassment and policing Native id with colonial ways. Keeler herself is a controversial author in Indigenous circles for creating and sustaining a listing of Indigenous figures she deems “Pretendians” — individuals who declare heritage with no actual Indigenous ancestry.
“I hate that Native people have to spend a single breath talking about Jacqueline Keeler,” Anishinaabe author Ashley Fairbanks mentioned on Twitter. “There’s so many things hurting our communities, and there’s so many beautiful things to celebrate, and her witch hunt sucks up all the oxygen.”
She added: “It’s up to people’s home community, or the one they claim, to speak out if they feel they’re being harmed. Using tribal enrolment as the only measure of Native identity is so colonial.”
Laura Clark, a deputy editor at Yahoo who’s Cherokee, wrote for Variety that “some Natives have had their tribes nearly erased to the point that organized citizenship records simply don’t exist.”
Littlefeather, who died on Oct. 2 of breast most cancers, claimed heritage from the White Mountain Apache, a tribe in Arizona, and the Yaqui, whose folks could be present in Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonara.
“It’s a mess, this Native life,” Clark provides. “And for a reporter to go after a deceased woman who was just honoured for her contributions to Native American existence, who claimed the Yaqui Nation — a tribe that has fought extinction, partly by moving from its origins in Mexico to Arizona — has understandably riled up a community that feels constantly threatened by erasure and genocide.”
Twitter consumer CarlyMButton, who recognized herself as Yaqui, wrote that “The trouble with Yaqui history is that we were so nearly wiped out by colonization, we don’t have clear knowledge of our ancestry/culture. Any crumbs we get are like the pearls our ancestors dove for & we’re often invalidated by Natives who’re lucky enough to have a whole necklace.”
Littlefeather’s sister additionally disputed the actor’s claims of coming from an impoverished, abusive household. Both her sisters discovered about Littlefeather’s demise by the web and neither have been invited to her funeral.
Littlefeather was a longtime activist who organized for the civil rights of Indigenous folks in America. Her protest on the Oscars drew consideration to the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee.
She participated within the occupation of Alcatraz in 1970, and she or he is credited with co-founding the American Indian Registry for Performing Arts and the Red Earth Indian Theatre Company.
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.