Was Sacheen Littlefeather a “pretendian?” The activists sisters say she was not Native American
- Born Marie Louise Cruz - Littlefeather highlighted misrepresentation and mistreatment of Native American people.
- Her sisters say their family roots are in Mexico.
Sacheen Littlefeather gave a speech at the 1973 Academy Awards highlighting the misrepresentation and mistreatment of Native American people by the film industry.
But it has been claimed by her family that she misled people about her Native American ancestry.
In an opinion piece published in the San Francisco Chronicle, two women understood to be her sisters told writer Jacqueline Keeler their family was not Native American.
Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi said their sister, who famously declined the 1973 award on behalf of Marlon Brando and died earlier this month, had created a fraudulent identity.
But a number of Native American activists and writers have attacked the column by Ms Keeler, herself a Native American writer who created a list of so-called Pretendians.
One, @carlymbutton, wrote on Twitter: "Her desire to weed out Pretendians has led to a violent vendetta against genuinely reconnecting Natives who don’t meet colonial standards."
Another claimed that Ms Keeler gave the sisters "an incomplete and inaccurate genealogy".
Why the topic of native ancestry is complicated
In a column for Variety, deputy editor for In The Know by Yahoo Laura Clarke wrote the issue was "more complicated" than many people think.
The Muscogee/Cherokee woman said: "I don’t presume to know about her (Littlefeather's) tribal connections. What I do know is that she has been a strong voice in the Native community and that she has created space for other Natives to feel empowered in their Indigeneity.
"Also, since citizenship requirements vary from tribe to tribe, that connection is her tribes’ call — not mine or anyone else’s.
"But not only that, what many people don’t understand about Native existence is that some Natives aren’t enrolled. Some Natives are reconnecting with their tribes. Some Natives don’t have enough 'Indian blood' to register because of blood quantum minimums. And some Natives have had their tribes nearly erased to the point that organised citizenship records simply don’t exist."
It was not a secret that Littlefeather had been born Marie Louise Cruz but Ms Cruz and Ms Orlandi said the picture Littlefeather or 'Deb' as they called her, had painted of her childhood, was fiction.
They said they identified as Spanish on their father’s side and details about their father’s family having come from Mexico were backed up by the author’s research of their family tree, which found no connection to any Native American tribes.
In the San Francisco Chronicle story Ms Cruz and Ms Orlandi said their sister appeared to have adopted some details of their father’s childhood growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father, as her own.
Ms Orlandi told the Chronicle: "My father’s father, George, he was the alcoholic. My dad never drank. My dad never smoked..."
They told Ms Keeler they had not spoken out previously as they thought the attention on Littlefeather would dissipate and their motive for coming forward now was to restore the truth about their parents.
The author of the expose also spoke to Native American activist and Shoshone woman LaNada Warjack, who said despite Littlefeather having suggested she’d been part of the Alcatraz Island occupation that began in 1969, she “never really knew her until the Oscar night”.
In 1969, more than 70 Native Americans and their supporters occupied Alcatraz Island in San Franscisco Bay for more than 18 months to lay claim to the land that had been, from 1934 to 1963, the site of the Alcatraz prison.
Sacheen Littlefeather died on 2 October. Neither Ms Orlandi or Ms Cruz were invited to her funeral, the article said.
Ms Orlandi said her sister had created a fantasy for herself, “Sacheen did not like herself. She didn’t like being Mexican. So, yes, it was better for her that way to play someone else.”
Littlefeather told the audience at the Academy Awards at the time of her famous speech that she was Apache and repeatedly identified this way throughout her life.
In more recent comments she had said she’d “paid the price of admission so that others could follow… I was the first to make a statement, a political statement. The first Native American Indian woman, the first woman of colour to ever make a statement at the Academy Awards, telling the truth about the way that it really is.”
It appears that Littlefeather’s identity had been called into question on at least one earlier occasion.
A website which states it is the “only authorised website for Sacheen Cruz Littlefeather,” and looks to not have been updated since her recent death, addresses similar claims.
“Contrary to misinformation which has been published on the internet, Sacheen Littlefeather is indeed of true Native America Indian descent.
“Sacheen was born Marie Cruz in Salinas, California… her father was from the White Mountain Apache and Yaqui tribes from Arizona.”
It said she was not a Mexican actress, that Cruz was her father's recognised tribe name and she took the name Sacheen Littlefeather after high school to reflect her natural heritage.
