The “American Indian nation” had remained forgotten for a very long time in the history of the United States. Efforts were made to silence American Indians and even make them disappear by getting absorbed by the white popular culture that has dominated the country since the very first white American immigrants arrived in the country. Despite all that, the American Indians looked for alternative means to protect their heritage and let the world and America acknowledge them. And it is against that very backdrop that the story of Mary Crow Dog is told in Lakota Woman. The story tells of her involvement in the American Indian Movement (AIM) and that resonates very well with the effort put by many of her tribespeople who got involved in the movement. She participates in the movement and, in the end, gets to view herself differently, not as a white- educated woman but an Indian woman for that matter. But more importantly, Mary has a vision where she hears her dead relatives speak to her, and that marks her turning point, and henceforth she began to take part in ceremonies and rituals that rejuvenated her giving her mental and spiritual strength to take part in the movement.
In the story, Mary experiences a progressive growth from her youth until she achieves self- discovery with regard to her culture, history as well as genealogy. The American culture sought to destroy her identity, and so she is forced to forge it. America wanted her to see herself as white, and it is for that reason that she concedes that “If you plan to be born, make sure you are born white and male” (Crow Dog 4). That only implies that white men are the privileged and favored ones, and everyone else is not regarded as important like white males. Her involvement in the movement makes her see herself as different, unique and special. The rest of the society does not want to see them like that, and that is the reason there is a clash between the two racial opposing sides. They were forced to live on reserves, and federal policy dictated that they become incorporated “into mainstream American society whether Indians wanted to assimilate or not” (Brinkley 840). By being exposed to the activities of the movement, Dog gets to realize how her identity was threatened and that made her realize how important it was for her people to protect themselves from forceful assimilation.
There had been a trail of broken treaties between the Indians and the federal government, but then the government chose to ignore them, and that warranted the Indians to call for mass demonstrations. In the book, the author talks about white civilization being a powerful alien culture that was hell-bent on demeaning every other race but making whites superior. She says, “.just being Indian, trying to hang on to our way of life, language, and values while being surrounded by an alien, more powerful culture” (Crow Dog 5). It is that alien force that descended on the Indians, massacring them “during the siege of Wounded Knee” (Crow Dog 1) where a firefight ensued between law enforcement and the native Indians. Such is one event that brings out her personality, as a tough woman who was willing to do anything for the movement. It is a hard nut to crack, trying to think of a pregnant woman taking part in such a dangerous demonstration and giving birth while at it. But she sacrifices her life and that of her baby just so as to have her voice heard and fought for the rights of her people.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons that come across from her involvement in the movement is the way in which collective movement propelled her to becoming a different person from the unruly young Indian woman she had been all her life. Participation in a social movement helps “create a collective identity, collective subjectivity, by offering their adherents a different view of themselves and their world; different, that is, from the characteristic worldviews and self-concepts offered by the social order which the movements are challenging” (Omi & Winant 83). That collective identity created by the AIM was the most important event that showed how much the Indians were willing to sacrifice their lives to see to it that they received recognition and respect from the white-dominated American society. Mary Crow may never have realized how important to assert and call for the respect of her heritage earlier on especially when she seemed irresponsible. Her participation in the movement and more so the Wounded Knee experience shows how much she had changed to become a fierce rebel of white supremacy and protector of her Indian tradition! It is also important to note how much her people were hated as seen through the experience she had with a white woman in a salon she had visited. AIM gave her the power to fight because through the movement she developed a different perspective of herself and her people.
Mary Crow Dog eventually feels a sense of wholeness and achievement through her participation in the movement because that helped her in rediscovering herself. It is the intolerance exhibited by white supremacists that required Indians to integrate that pushed Mary and many others into AIM. And it is through that movement that she says, “Like many other Native American women, particularly those who had been in AIM, I had an urge to procreate, as if driven by a feeling that I, personally, had to make up for the genocide suffered by our people in the past (Crow Dog 244). And indeed, she succeeded at doing that and much more, because she realized that she too need to take part in the movement so as to bring the change her people desired. Through her participation in the movement, she gets to know that the American society is unfair and that there is so much that she needed to do to become a fully-fledged native Indian.
Works Cited
Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: McGraw Hill, 1993. Print
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print
Crow Dog, Mary with Richard Erdoes. Lakota Woman. New York: Harper Perennial, 1991. print
Omi, Michael & Winant, Howard. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s. New York: Routledge, 1986. Print
Gray, Christine K. The Tribal Moment in American Politics: The Struggle for native American Sovereignty. Lanham: AtlaMira Press, 2013. Print
