“More Destruction to These Family Ties”

Abstract

“More Destruction to These Family Ties” looks at the long history of non-Native intervention in the lives of Native American families. It maintains that the desire to educate and raise indigenous children culminated in the 1970s with a catastrophic quarter of Native American youth living away from their families and nations. This article argues that Native women activists were central to arresting the crisis; that they launched a multifaceted agenda to address challenges (rooted in colonialism) that indigenous families faced; and that they championed a framework that complicates existing narratives of women and activism in the United States during the 1970s.