1960s & 1970s experience

Community and Identity Politics in the 1960s and 1970s

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Oral history has always been how stories are passed down in Native American cultures . And it is these stories which taught generation after generation the history , values , and spiritual ways of each tribe . After Columbus came and discovered ' their land , the stories changed . They became laden with death , poverty , and a hatred for the White man who had taken their home and often their lives . The history Native Americans have had with those who govern the land they live

on has been fraught with strife and can still be one of distrust and righteous anger Anthropology and ethnography are the most common methods through which non-Native peoples know ' about Native Americans . These methods are flawed in many ways , but the most important one is that they , by their very nature , rely on a middleman , the ethnographer or anthropologist , in to transmit information . Often , the voices of Native Americans get drowned out , or worse are simply not there at all . While these fields certainly have their merits in studying cultures , oral history could potentially contribute greatly to human understanding

This intersectionality was a main component of politics in the 1960s and 1970s , and one of the themes I sought to explore with my brief oral history of Mary Larkin , a Lakota-Sioux-Ukrainian woman currently living in South Dakota , and part-time on the Pine Ridge Reservation near her home . Born in 1947 , Mary grew up in Chicago and South Dakota...