“Sacheen Littlefeather lived her life — with dignity, grace, compassion and honesty.”
At least Senator Elizabeth Warren had the sense to drop the act long before she became famous. Hollywood, activism and academia though seem to be full of perpetual fake Indians. And, unlike Iron Eyes Cody, of the crying Indian garbage ad, some do real damage.
Sacheen Littlefeather spent her “career” as an activist. And like most Indian activists, she was a fraud.
You might not know her name, but you’ve probably seen the video that made her famous. In 1973, actress and activist Sacheen Littlefeather took the stage at the Oscars dressed in a beaded buckskin dress in place of Marlon Brando, after he was awarded Best Actor for his role as Vito Corleone in “The Godfather.” Claiming Apache heritage, she spoke eloquently, to a backdrop of boos, of the mistreatment of Native Americans by the film industry and beyond.
Her sisters have come forward, long after the fact, to reveal that she was half-Mexican, not Indian at all.
“It’s a lie,” Orlandi told me in an exclusive interview. “My father was who he was. His family came from Mexico. And my dad was born in Oxnard.”
“It is a fraud,” Cruz agreed. “It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people. And it’s just … insulting to my parents.”
Beyond the Oscar appearance, Cruz took part in the Alcatraz occupation (raising the question of whether there were any actual Indians there, or just cosplaying leftists) and attacked Nixon while serving as a spokeswoman for the National American Indian Council which was notorious for the same thing.
It’s not as if this would have been hard to figure out. She never looked like anything except a bad actress portraying a cheesy Hollywood idea of an Indian woman.
Cruz claimed that ‘Littlefeather’ came from the name her father called her and that her mother took her away from her abusive father when she was 4. She tried monetizing her fake Indian routine with cheesy movies and a Playboy spread before Brando picked her up for a little epater le bourgeois. And yet people kept buying her nonsense.
The Academy museum, which infamously made no mention of the Jewish figures in Hollywood history, had a special event celebrating her in September.
Sacheen invites you to a special celebration of live Native American performances featuring a long-awaited statement of apology from the Academy. The evening’s program will include a land acknowledgement courtesy of Virginia Carmelo (Tongva/So. CA), and a conversation between Sacheen and Academy Member, producer, and co-chair of the Academy’s Indigenous Alliance Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne/Mescalero Apache/NM).
It was all fake all along.
And Cruz is one of countless fake Indians who pervade the media, academia and the entertainment industry because they provide a politically convenient tool for attacking America.
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at this Indian Country profile of her nonsense.
It was a quiet protest, delivered as Sacheen Littlefeather lived her life — with dignity, grace, compassion and honesty, the way her ancestors would have wanted.
As the first Indigenous woman ever to stand at the podium at the Academy Awards, she put a spotlight on the inhumanity, stereotypes, disrespect and derision that Indigenous people faced in film and television, and brought the Wounded Knee protest to an international audience.
“I did not go up there in protest, with an up-in-the-air fist, with profanity, with a loud, screeching voice,” Littlefeather, now 75, Apache and Yaqui, told ICT in a recent interview. “The way that I went up on stage was prompted by my ancestors. I prayed that my words would meet not with deaf ears but with open hearts and open minds.”
Especially the honesty part. Did everyone really not know? I doubt it. But politics trumps truth.
Wellington says
I’m so sick of the term “Native American” to describe Indian descendants. Well, I am a true native American. I was born here and have lived in America all my life. I’m as native as you can get. Besides, the archeological and anthropological records reveal that over thousands of years one people wiped out another previous people all through, up and down, the North American and South American continents. But since Europeans traveling across the Atlantic, instead of the ice route between Siberia and Alaska, also engaged in this “replacement activity” they are to be singled out, never mind all others, for unique castigation.
How phony. All across the Earth one group replaced another group, so many times in a violent manner. But it seems only the West is to be excoriated for this—all others exculpated. Yep, phony, stupid and hypocritical in the extreme. Kinda’ like Western imperialism is regularly denounced but Islamic, American Indian (e.g. the Aztecs), Asian, sub-Saharan African, et al. imperialism if left off the hook. Would be deuce difficult to get more phony than this but the victim-oriented, ignorant and mendacious people out there, like the entire Islamic world and immensely silly Leftists here in the West, continue to go along with this rot, this rubbish, this agenda-driven nonsense for all kinds of insupportable reasons.
Yes, it’s all a farce because when you turn an accurate portrayal of what happened in the past into an agenda driven phenomenon, leaving many things out while inordinately emphasizing other matters, then expect the nonsense we are daily experiencing in our era, which is arguably the silliest era in all of mankind’s history. Time for a beer—or maybe three.
James Lincoln says
Wellington,
And to your point, from Encyclopaedia Britannica:
“The ancestors of the American Indians were nomadic hunters of northeast Asia who migrated over the Bering Strait land bridge into North America probably during the last glacial period (11,500–30,000 years ago).”
https://www.britannica.com/summary/American-Indian
So apparently, they too were “colonists” before the Europeans…
somehistory says
Many of us living here ae Native to this land, but most are not allowed to say that.
I have some “Indian” ancestry, but like you, I was born here of parents who were born here who had parents who were born here, and before that.
My parents had some land, but not much spending money. so when they needed a doctor’s services, he charged them in pieces of land until they had no more. My parents had been farmers, but after the doctor got all of their land, they became sharecroppers.
Life is full of challenges. Many meet those by lying through their teeth, and putting the blame for the rot they experience on others.
CogitoErgoSum says
Interesting video clip from the funeral for Sacheen Littlefeather (Marie Louise Cruz):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuE1qtkMr70
Due to poor sound quality you may need to use closed captioning to understand.
It seems she and others from outside her family found a way to exploit her mental illness. It’s something that worked for her and which now has become quite commonplace – especially in the Trans community. She could be an Apache Indian because she believed she was – and anyone can be whatever they want to be if they really believe hard enough, so they say. As George Costanza said, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”
As the nursery rhyme says, “Life is but a dream.” But what dreams may come after this one ends?
somehistory says
Her sisters had to wait until she died to come out in support of their father…who is the one who had a hard life of abuse and poverty.
It was once a risk for one to admit to being of one of the tribes who were here before those fleeing the tyranny of henry, king of the taxers. came to the New World. Now, in the present time, it is a “gain”…so much so that people lie through their teeth.
Dano50 says
I’m CONFUSED.
Using the word “Indian” is supposed to be bad, because it was what us whities called Native Americans “by mistake.”
Well.
Native Americans is not correct either, because German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller is credited with first using the name America in 1507.
And I’m pretty sure “aboriginals” is a whitie word too so…
WHAT do the “natives” (another white word) of North America WANT to be called?
Pick somethin’ all friggin ready.
At least the Innuit made up their minds.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Maybe find out what they call themselves, and call them by that… be it Cherokee, Apache, Iroquois, Navajo, et al. Of course, downside of that is that one would have to know one from the other, which I daresay most Americans don’t!
somehistory says
Many, if not most or even all, are happy to say. My neighbor was happy to tell me he is Seminole, and to show me his tribal card.
Back in the old days, each called their tribe “the people” in what ever word that is in their language.
Scotsman48 says
She fooled a lot of people, me and Brando included.