65 Facts About Sacheen Littlefeather

Maria Louise Cruz, better known as Sacheen Littlefeather, was an American-born actress and activist for Native American civil rights.

Sacheen Littlefeather continued her activism for Native American issues including healthcare and unemployment, and produced films about Native Americans.

Sacheen Littlefeather said her father was of Apache and Yaqui ancestry and her mother was of European descent.

Sacheen Littlefeather was born Marie Louise Cruz or Maria Louise Cruz on November 14,1946, in Salinas, California.

Sacheen Littlefeather's mother, Geroldine Marie Cruz, was a leather stamper of French, German, and Dutch descent, and was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California.

Sacheen Littlefeather's father was Manuel Ybarra Cruz, a saddlemaker of Mexican descent who was born and raised in Oxnard, California.

Sacheen Littlefeather repeatedly claimed that her father had White Mountain Apache and Yaqui ancestry.

Sacheen Littlefeather attended North Salinas High School from 1960 to 1964 and was active in 4-H, winning awards in home economics categories such as food preservation and fashion.

Sacheen Littlefeather said that around age 19, she spent a year in a psychiatric hospital after previously hearing voices that pushed her to a suicide attempt, recounting what happened during a three-hour visual history interview in 2022 with the director of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

Sacheen Littlefeather said she had been treated with thorazine and other medications but "mostly stabilized with much help" from the San Francisco Bay Area Native American community.

Sacheen Littlefeather claimed to have participated part-time in the occupation of Alcatraz in 1970, though this claim has been disputed.

Sacheen Littlefeather said she chose the name Sacheen because that was the name her father called her before he died, and Littlefeather came from the feather she always wore in her hair.

Sacheen Littlefeather learned more about Native American customs from elders and other protesters, such as Adam Fortunate Eagle.

In 1974, Sacheen Littlefeather attended classes at the American Conservatory Theater, studying acting, yoga, fencing, Shakespeare, dancing, and other various skills for her acting career.

Sacheen Littlefeather played the role of Paleflower in Winterhawk, filmed in Kalispell, Montana.

Sacheen Littlefeather characterized this as either being "adopted", or in foster care.

Sacheen Littlefeather said her mother and two sisters were subject to their father's rage and beatings.

Sacheen Littlefeather worked at a radio station, KFRC, for about six months and did freelance reporting for PBS member station KQED.

Sacheen Littlefeather was personally criticized for what was seen as exploitation of her fame, but she explained that it was "strictly a business agreement" to earn the money needed to attend the World Theater Festival in Nancy, France.

In 1975, Littlefeather reported that she was working on a movie script about Edward S Curtis with Cap Weinberger, Jr, who had written an article about Curtis for Smithsonian magazine.

Sacheen Littlefeather emceed an evening performance at the United National Indian Tribal Youth conference in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in 1976.

Sacheen Littlefeather continued to pursue acting opportunities, such as touring with the "Red Earth Theater Company".

Sacheen Littlefeather said that she met Brando in Washington, DC, where she was presenting to the Federal Communications Commission about minorities.

Sacheen Littlefeather called Littlefeather and asked her to appear on his behalf.

Sacheen Littlefeather joined the audience minutes before the award for Best Actor was announced.

Sacheen Littlefeather wore her long dark hair tied with Native-style beadwork, moccasins and a fringed and beaded buckskin dress.

In other retellings of that night, Sacheen Littlefeather said Koch told her that she had 60 seconds to deliver the speech or else she would be removed from the stage and arrested.

Sacheen Littlefeather walked onto the stage and raised her hand to decline the Oscar trophy that Moore offered her.

Sacheen Littlefeather stated in 2022 that some people mockingly used the tomahawk chop towards her as she was led by.

At a later press conference, Sacheen Littlefeather read to journalists the speech that Brando had prepared; The New York Times published the full text the next day.

Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather's protest was generally considered inappropriate for the awards ceremony.

Sacheen Littlefeather later said that she visited Marlon Brando's house after the Academy Awards and bullets were fired into his front door while they were talking.

Later, though, Sacheen Littlefeather said she was blacklisted by the Hollywood community and received threats.

Sacheen Littlefeather said that media reports published several falsehoods, such as that she was not Native American or had rented the outfit for the occasion.

Sacheen Littlefeather said that the federal government encouraged the blacklisting to abate Native American activism after Wounded Knee.

Sacheen Littlefeather credited the speech with bringing attention back to the situation at Wounded Knee, though news coverage of the standoff at the time makes little mention of Sacheen Littlefeather or Brando.

Russell Means contended that "Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather totally uplifted" the lives of those at Wounded Knee.

Sacheen Littlefeather recorded an episode for the Academy Museum's podcast and a visual history for the Academy Oral History Projects.

Sacheen Littlefeather was described as a founding member of the Red Earth Indian Theater Company in Seattle when awarded an Eagle Spirit Award at the 2013 American Indian Film Festival.

Sacheen Littlefeather served as an advisor to PBS's Dance in America: Song for Dead Warriors, which earned its choreographer, Michael Smuin, an Emmy Award.

Sacheen Littlefeather continued doing activism and became a respected member of California's Native American community.

Sacheen Littlefeather played a role in the mascot change at Tamalpais High School in the late 1980s, first becoming involved when she visited the high school as a guest director for the drama class play, "Grandmother Earth".

Sacheen Littlefeather criticized the use of an Indian-themed mascot at Tomales High in 2001.

Sacheen Littlefeather described herself as one of the original teachers in St Mary's Traditional Indian Medicine program, which consisted of a series of conferences held between 1984 and 1990 and was coordinated by Comanche medicine man Edgar Monetathchi, Jr, who worked for the Indian Health Service and was the first medicine man to be employed full-time by a Catholic hospital.

Around this same time period, Sacheen Littlefeather worked at the Gift of Love AIDS hospice in San Francisco, which was founded in 1988 by Mother Teresa, and had the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa during at least one of her five visits to the facility before her death in 1997.

Sacheen Littlefeather campaigned against obesity, alcoholism, and diabetes, and specifically assisted Native Americans with AIDS.

In 1990, it was reported that Sacheen Littlefeather's brother had died of AIDS.

Sacheen Littlefeather reported in 1991 that she was working on two shows for PBS, Remember Me Forever and The Americas Before Columbus, both scheduled for broadcast in 1992.

Sacheen Littlefeather participated in events related to a year-long celebration of the Americas before Columbus, but there is no record of a PBS show by either name being broadcast in 1992.

In 2015, Sacheen Littlefeather reported that her name and image were being used fraudulently to raise money claimed to be for the Lakota nation.

Sacheen Littlefeather participated in events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Occupation of Alcatraz, including serving as head pow wow judge.

Sacheen Littlefeather was later in a 32-year-long relationship with and married Charles Koshiway Johnston, who died in 2021.

Sacheen Littlefeather studied orthomolecular nutrition and later said that she had "wanted to see where all the 'white' food came from" so she went to Sweden and lived in Stockholm.

Sacheen Littlefeather stated that she wanted to travel in Europe to "see where the white people came from" just as people are "always going to reservations to see where the Indians came from".

Sacheen Littlefeather reported having tuberculosis at age four and received treatment in an oxygen tent while hospitalized.

Sacheen Littlefeather stated that she was suicidal and hospitalized in a mental institution for a year.

In 1991, Sacheen Littlefeather was reported to be recovering from radical cancer surgery.

In 2018, Sacheen Littlefeather developed stage IV breast cancer, a recurrence of the breast cancer from which she was reported to be in remission in 2012.

Sacheen Littlefeather said in a 2021 interview that the cancer had metastasized to her right lung and that she was terminal.

Sacheen Littlefeather died at her home in Novato, California, on October 2,2022, at the age of 75.

Furthermore, Cruz believed Sacheen Littlefeather fabricated a Native identity because she thought it was more "prestigious" to be Native American than to be Hispanic.

Keeler searched records of Sacheen Littlefeather's family going back to 1850 and did not find evidence of Native ancestry.

Sacheen Littlefeather subsequently published a letter received from Littlefeather's lawyer, which asked him to clarify that Littlefeather was Native American, with a father who was "Yaqui and White Mountain Apache".

Academic and journalist Dina Gilio-Whitaker, who studies Native Americans in the US, wrote that the truth about community leaders is "crucial", even if it means losing a "hero", and that the work Sacheen Littlefeather did is still valuable, but there is a need to be honest about the harm done by pretendians, especially by those who manage to fool so many people that they become iconic, as Sacheen Littlefeather did.

The stereotype Sacheen Littlefeather embodied depended on non-Native people not knowing what they were looking at, or knowing what constitutes legitimate American Indian identity.