Sacheen Littlefeather’s Heritage Disputed in New Column

Three weeks following the demise of Sacheen Littlefeather, the activist who famously accepted Marlon Brando’s Oscar for “The Godfather” on the 1973 Academy Awards, a brand new column alleges that Littlefeather had been posing as a Native American by means of her life.

Printed Saturday within the San Francisco Chronicle, the piece options quotes from Littlefeather’s sisters, Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Orlandi, who referred to as the activist’s id as a Native American a “lie.”

Littlefeather, who died on Oct. 2 of breast most cancers on the age of 75, first publicly claimed White Mountain Apache heritage, a tribe in Arizona, within the Nineteen Seventies. Based on the column, no tribal officers might present information of Littlefeather or her relations being enrolled. Littlefeather additionally declared herself to be of Yaqui descent in later years. The Yaqui folks come from each Arizona and from the Mexican state of Sonora.

Littlefeather was born in Salinas, Ariz. below the identify Maria Louise Cruz to folks Manuel Ybarra Cruz and Gertrude Barnitz. The columnist’s evaluate of her father’s ancestry, the place Littlefeather claimed Native heritage, discovered no ties to Native American nations within the U.S. Littlefeather’s heritage allegedly traced to territories that at the moment are a part of Mexico.

“It’s a lie,” Orlandi advised the Chronicle. “My father was who he was. His household got here from Mexico. And my dad was born in Oxnard.”

“It’s a fraud,” Cruz mentioned. “It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal folks. And it’s simply… insulting to my mother and father.”

Littlefeather’s sisters additionally disputed the activist’s claims of an impoverished background and “mentally ailing” mother and father. Each sisters first realized of Littlefeather’s demise by means of the web; neither was invited to the funeral.

Notably, a number of Native American writers and activists have denounced the Chronicle column on social media, saying that its author, Jacqueline Keeler, has long-exercised a vendetta towards Littlefeather, amongst different figures she calls “Pretendians.” In addition they say Littlefeather’s sisters thought they have been of Native American ancestry till Wheeler knowledgeable them they weren’t. “Her need to weed out Pretendians has led to a violent vendetta towards genuinely reconnecting Natives who don’t meet colonial requirements,” wrote CarlyMButton on Twitter.

Keeler and representatives for the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences weren’t instantly obtainable for remark.