Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Orginal Publication Date
1984
Journal Title
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Volume
4
Issue
ess/vol4/iss1
First Page
27
Last Page
29
Abstract
In Native Americans and Nixon, Jack D. Forbes, author of several monographs on the Indian in America's past, has undertaken an important subject, one also difficult because essential sources are lacking. Forbes therefore employs a number of hedges such as "we can only guess" (116) in his conjecture about the motives and actions of the Nixon administration relative to Indian Americans. In a foreword taking twenty-three of the 124 pages of "text," Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz of California State University, Hayward, sets the theme of "neocolonialism." Explaining the background of post-World War II techniques of colonial control, she states that "Hundreds of thousands of democratic groups were executed or imprisoned by United States forces directly or through military training and aid to puppet regimes" (7). Readers receptive to this statement will have little difficulty in speculating with these writers that "Nixon's words were hollow" when he stated in 1970 that "We must assure the Indian that he can assume control of his own life without being separated involuntarily from the tribal group" (5).
Rights
Copyright, ©EES, The National Association for Ethnic Studies, 1984