The movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline is among the struggles examined by Stephanie Woodward in her new book, American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle for Self-Determination and Inclusion. Photo: Joe Brusky
Peter d'Errico: New book explores struggles facing Native nations and peoples
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle for Self-Determination and Inclusion - Stephanie Woodard
Book Review by Peter d’Errico
Stephanie Woodard’s new book, American Apartheid (New York: Ig Publishing, 2018), provides a comprehensive investigation of Native issues. It draws on Woodard’s twenty years’ experience as a reporter and editor in Indian Country. The high quality of her work has been recognized by the Native American Journalists Association, which awarded her its top annual prize for investigative reporting.
American Apartheid demonstrates the best of investigative journalism – digging into social issues to discover their systemic political and economic elements. In every chapter, Woodard presents detailed information about how contemporary Native problems arise from historical forces and conditions besetting Native Nations and Peoples. She carries the stories forward, showing through interviews and close observation how Native persons and communities are engaging with history as they tackle present-day problems.
American Apartheid demonstrates that Native Nations and Peoples are alive and active today, dealing with multiple forms of historical trauma at the hands of the United States. Woodard doesn’t shy from showing how the U.S. continues to inflict trauma on Natives, even as Natives bind up their wounds and gird for further struggle to protect coming generations.
One of the virtues of Woodard’s approach is her acknowledgement of the limitations of language, particularly English, to describe Native experiences and practices. When she reports about Native farming – including forestry as well as food crops – she says, “I had no idea how to use the English language to describe what I was seeing.”
She poses her language questions to Cochiti Pueblo elders, who explain to her that plant-rearing is akin to child-rearing: the two share terms and concepts, as well as spiritual and practical considerations. The language lessons take root in her work – “writing across the divide,” as she puts it: She realizes you cannot talk about Native culture without talking about land and understanding that “interaction with the natural world is the basis of every aspect of life.”
I wish the subtitle of American Apartheid were in the plural – “Struggles” instead of “Struggle” for Self-Determination and Inclusion. First, because the range of issues and perspectives explored in the book shows Natives are following different paths in dealing with U.S. domination; and second, because self-determination is not the same as inclusion. This is a tricky difference to understand in light of contemporary rhetoric about Native rights and civil rights, but it is a fundamental difference.
The main and best example is the contrast between those who are pushing for “voting rights” in U.S. elections and those who are fighting U.S. domination in their own lands through their own governments. Voting in a U.S. election implies – indeed, it affirms – that the voters are part of the U.S. political system; the voters explain they want a “voice” at the dominator’s table to help decide what the U.S. does to Natives.
In contrast, Native Nations struggling against federal domination in their own lands aim to take Native lands and lives off the dominator’s table altogether. Woodard doesn’t take sides between these two approaches, which is a sign of her integrity as a reporter. Where I would emphasize that voting is a “civil right” and sovereignty is a “Native right” (and that voting is a form of assimilation that undermines separate sovereignty), Woodard leaves that debate to readers and to those who are engaged in these contrasting approaches.
Stephanie Woodward on YouTube: American Apartheid: The Native American Struggle for Self-Determination and Inclusion
In her opening chapter, “Destitute by Design,” Woodard explores how federal Indian law creates a “state of siege” around Native Nations, even as the U.S. claims to be the “trustee” guarding Native lands. She surveys the U.S. anti-Native program – from legal rules defining “dependent tribes,” through the Dawes Allotment Act and the Termination acts, to extraction of “natural resources” from reservation lands in violation of treaties. She cites Robert Miller’s research showing prosperous Native economies and stable property relations prior to colonial interventions. She quotes Patrick Adakai, “Our land is essential to our sovereignty.” Woodard presents this information from the perspectives of those directly engaged with the defense of Native lands and sovereignty.
When she turns to a chapter “On the Voting Rights Frontline,” Woodard follows the same principle – presenting what people say and do and providing the information they rely on. She interviews voting advocates on their own ground, where they believe “voting rights are the rights from which all others flow.” She surveys the efforts of the Coalition of Large Tribes and quotes legislative affairs director O.J. Semans, who says he is optimistic because “our elected officials know that…if a measure or policy will affect Indian country, they can bet we’ll turn out.”
A chapter entitled “Gods and Monsters” explores corporate invasions of Native lands facilitated by the U.S. The examples include Standing Rock, Oak Flat, and many others – such as Chippewa opposition to oil pipelines crossing their lands and waters. Woodard speaks with attorney Rollie Wilson, who says, “treaty rights…are the foundation of the government-to-government relationship” with the United States. She also contacts the pipeline operator, who says, “Enbridge respects Bad River’s sovereignty and authority over its lands. We remain committed to the mediation process….”
The chapter includes battles over repatriation and access to sacred places, quoting Oglala attorney Brett Lee referring to museums as “yet another extractive industry preying on indigenous people.” She quotes Apache leader Wendsler Nosie saying, “federal and state involvement with us has always been military…until this very day.” She reports the work of Native leaders preparing younger generations to take responsibility for their people and lands, laying a spiritual foundation for legal and political actions, quoting Carina Miller (Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs), “our younger generation is empowered because of the healing work that has been done and the conversations we have had about the historical trauma….”
Other chapters explore the dysfunctions of police and criminal justice operations in Indian country (“Rough Justice”) and the “dismembering” of Native communities by removal and adoption of children into non-Native homes and institutions (“Take the Children”). In these chapters Woodard follows the same pattern of presenting historical and contemporary evidence and voices. For example, she quotes Ojibwe Anita Fineday discussing child welfare, “We can’t be afraid to use words like genocide. The endgame, the official federal policy, was that the tribes wouldn’t exist.” Woodard keeps community debates about tactics and strategy front and center; most important, she demonstrates the significance of the fact that these are community debates – they are rooted in spiritual traditions and focused on self-governance.
The book closes with a chapter exploring how Native Peoples are reclaiming lifeways and knowledge that U.S. domination has marginalized. Woodard writes that these reclamations connect the “deep past…with the future.” She says they “underpin the resilience I have observed…from the Southwest to the Northeast, from the plains across to the Northwest and Alaska.” She describes Natives as “surviving violence and privation – much of it recent, and indeed much of it ongoing,” and she says Natives are moving “forward with optimism.” She quotes Ohkay Owingeh Herman Agoyo, “It’s inspiring to see that our forebears were so knowledgeable.”
American Apartheid is an inspiring and informative book; Woodard presents the history (in many ways, the ongoing history) of U.S. efforts to exterminate Native Nations and Peoples and encapsulates that information within a powerful narrative of contemporary Native voices speaking Native truths.
Peter d’Errico graduated from Yale Law School in 1968. He was Staff attorney in Dinébe’iiná Náhiiłna be Agha’diit’ahii Navajo Legal Services, 1968-1970, in Shiprock. He taught Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1970-2002. He is a consulting attorney on Indigenous issues.