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Week 5 · Chapter

Chapter 5 — Indigenous Survivance and Self-Determination

Introduction to Ethnic Studies Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~30–40 minutes · Objective 4 (analyze Native American and Indigenous experiences: tribal sovereignty as a political status, treaties, removal, allotment, boarding schools, termination and relocation, self-determination, repatriation, and survivance, using settler colonialism as a framework), Objective 3 (compare theories of belonging (assimilation, cultural pluralism, segmented assimilation, internal colonialism, and double consciousness) as frameworks with named authors and named critics, and distinguish immigrant from colonized or incorporated peoples) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slides, the tutorial, the quiz, and the workshop all build on it.

In plain language

This chapter follows Native nations through the twentieth century, from the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 to a 1990 law that requires the return of ancestors' remains and cultural items. The federal government tried to end its tie with tribes through termination (ending the government-to-government relationship with a tribe). It also moved families into cities through relocation (a federal program that sent Native people from reservations to city jobs). Native people answered with organizing, occupation, and new laws for self-determination (tribes running their own programs), and the chapter ends with survivance (survival joined with resistance), a word for nations that are still here. You will learn to read one family's account beside the dated record and say, in one plain sentence, what each one shows.

Why you already care about this

Picture a community center on a busy city street (an illustrative scene). On one night a week, 40 people share a meal there. Some came for a job workshop, some for an art class, and some only to see friends. The families at the long tables come from many different places, and the center is where they found each other.

You could walk past a place like that on your way to class without a second look. An ethnic studies reader asks how such a place came to be. Who moved to this city, and why? Did a law or a federal office send them? What did they keep, and what did they build when they arrived? This week, those questions lead to the story of Native nations in the twentieth century: how they governed, how they resisted, and how they endured.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

explain what the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 did and did not do, and what the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 established;
define termination and relocation as federal policies with a federal goal, and work out the years between their dated events;
read the archive's E4 excerpt for what it says, who made it, whom it affected, and what it leaves out, and place it on the timeline;
describe Red Power and the occupation of Alcatraz by Indians of All Tribes, and the turn from termination to self-determination;
explain self-determination under the 1975 act and repatriation under the 1990 law;
define survivance and use it to read Native nations as nations of the present.

Carry this sentence with you: Native nations are nations of the present — not a chapter that closed.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 gave you the field's questions and positionality. Week 2 defined race, ethnicity, and nation. Week 3 taught the theories of belonging and the line between immigrant and colonized or incorporated peoples. Week 4 taught tribal sovereignty, treaties, removal, allotment, the boarding schools, and settler colonialism.
This week: citizenship and tribal government, termination and relocation, Red Power and Alcatraz, self-determination and repatriation, and survivance.
How they connect: Week 4 showed how land and nations were taken; this week shows how Native nations answered and what the federal government did next.
Where we're going next: Week 6 begins a new unit, African American Experiences I: Slavery, Emancipation, and Jim Crow, where the law that made and unmade slavery takes center stage.

Week 4 gave you the key idea this chapter leans on. Tribal sovereignty is the inherent right of Native nations to govern themselves, so tribal citizenship is a political status, not a racial category. Week 4 also gave you Wolfe (2006), "Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native", Journal of Genocide Research, which argued that settler colonialism is an ongoing structure rather than a single past event. Week 3 gave you assimilation, a group taking on the dominant society's culture and entering its institutions, and it first read the archive's E4 excerpt through internal colonialism. This week you return to E4 with more of the dated record in hand.

A word on names. Many people say Native American, and many say American Indian, which is also a legal and federal term; you will see it in the names of the laws below. Indigenous is used too, often in a worldwide sense. When the material is about one nation, the best choice is that nation's own name.

1. Read the 1924 act and the 1934 act: citizenship, the vote, and self-government

Think about a birth certificate and a voter registration card. Many people assume that the first one brings the second one with it. For Native Americans in the twentieth century, the two did not arrive together.

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. But the right to vote was governed by state law. Some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957. Citizenship came from Congress; the ballot depended on where a person lived.

Worked example — reading the 1924 act for what it did and did not do. Work out how long the gap between citizenship and the vote could last.

The act. The Indian Citizenship Act came in 1924.
The last state bars. Some states barred Native voters until 1957.
The gap. 1957 − 1924 = 33 years.

In words: the Indian Citizenship Act came in 1924, and some states barred Native voters until 1957, so 1957 − 1924 = 33 years could pass between citizenship and the vote. A Native person who was a young adult in 1924 could be middle-aged before every state let Native people vote.

Ten years after the citizenship act came a law about tribal governments. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 is described by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as establishing modern tribal governments. Work out the gap: 1934 − 1924 = 10 years after the 1924 act.

Here is the part that surprises many readers. A Native person can hold two citizenships at once. One is in the United States. The other is in their own nation. That fits what Week 4 taught: tribal citizenship is a political status, not a racial category, so being a U.S. citizen does not erase it.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a right you have on paper that took extra steps to use, such as a library card that needed proof of address. What stood between the paper and the use?
(b) Why might a law that gives citizenship still leave the vote to the states? Name one question you would ask of the 1924 act's record.

Misconception check. Students often think the 1924 act gave every Native person the vote at once. That is tempting, because citizenship and voting feel like one package. But the right to vote was governed by state law, and some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957. The cure: read the act for what it did (citizenship) and what it left to the states (the vote).

2. Name termination and relocation: federal policies with a federal goal

Imagine a city closing a neighborhood school and busing every child to a school across town. The city calls it a fresh start. The families call it losing their school. Whose words describe it better depends on what each side gained and lost.

In the 1950s the federal government made two choices that worked in a similar way, on a far larger scale.

Termination is the federal policy, set by House Concurrent Resolution 108 in 1953, of ending the United States' government-to-government relationship with a tribe.
Relocation is the federal program that moved Native people from reservations to cities for jobs. Relocation offices opened in 1951 in Denver, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles, and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 authorized a vocational training program for adult Native Americans living on or near reservations.

Worked example — working the termination and relocation years. Use the National Archives' dated record.

Termination's span. House Concurrent Resolution 108 came in 1953, and Congress began 60 termination proceedings from 1953 to 1970. The span is 1970 − 1953 = 17 years.
What was lost. More than three million acres of tribal land were given up.
Offices to law. Relocation offices opened in 1951 and the Indian Relocation Act came in 1956, so 1956 − 1951 = 5 years apart.

In words: over 17 years, Congress began 60 termination proceedings, versus 1 relocation law that authorized job training 5 years after the offices opened. The two policies worked side by side in the same decade.

Now read the two policies with the frameworks you already have. With Week 3's assimilation framework, both pushed toward assimilation: ending a tribe's federal relationship and moving its people into city wage work. With Wolfe (2006), they show settler colonialism as a structure that continued long after removal. Here is a caveat about frameworks. Each one is a tool, and none settles a real case on its own; the dated record still has to be read.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a move you or your family made for work. Who offered the move, and what did they promise?
(b) A policy can call itself help and still take something away. What would you check in a record to see both sides of that?

Misconception check. Students often think relocation was a voluntary program with no federal goal. That is tempting, because families signed up and no one was forced onto the bus. But the program came from federal offices and a federal law, and it ran in the same years as termination. The cure: ask what the government wanted from the program, not only what each family chose.

3. Read the record and the voice: E4 against the timeline

A record and a memory answer different questions. A law tells you what a program authorized. A person's account tells you what it was like to live through it.

The course's running archive (Dataset A) is an illustrative, unnamed public library's collection. Its excerpts are constructed for this course, identified by role and decade, and never presented as a real person's words. Here is E4: a man whose family moved to a city under the federal relocation program in the late 1950s, interviewed in the 2000s.

"I was nine when we got on the bus. The relocation office promised my father job training and an apartment. The apartment was real; the job lasted four months. My mother found the Indian center, and that is where we met families from a dozen nations. I learned our language from my grandmother on summer visits home. My children are citizens of our nation. We are still here." (E4, illustrative)

Worked example — reading E4 in the field's order. Walk the five questions every reading asks.

What it says. The office promised job training and an apartment. The apartment was real, and the job lasted four months. The family found the Indian center, where they met families from a dozen nations.
Who made it. It is a first-person account recorded decades later, which tells how relocation felt to one family; the dated record tells what the program authorized.
Whom it affected. A father, a mother, a nine-year-old child, and, later, the child's own children, who are citizens of his nation.
What it leaves out. It does not name the city, the nation, or the year, so its dates are checked against the 1951 offices and the 1956 law. Relocation offices opened in 1951 and the Indian Relocation Act came in 1956, so 1956 − 1951 = 5 years apart. E4's late-1950s move falls after both.
What a comparison adds. E3, the nurse who came after the 1965 immigration law, came from another country to work. E4's family moved inside the country as citizens of a nation incorporated by conquest, under a federal program, so E4 is not an immigrant story.

In words: E4 is an illustrative account of federal relocation after the 1956 law. The promised training matches what the law authorized, the four-month job shows what the record leaves out, and "We are still here" is survivance, Native presence that is active and continuing.

That last phrase gets its full name in section 6. For now, notice the honesty note built into the reading: the excerpt is evidence of experience and meaning, and its dates are checked against the dated record, not taken on trust.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) What is one thing E4 tells you that the 1956 law could never tell you?
(b) What is one thing the 1956 law tells you that E4 could never tell you?

Misconception check. Students often think an account like E4 is a weaker kind of evidence than a law, so it can be skipped. That is tempting, because a law has a date and an official name. But each answers a different question: the law says what was authorized, and the account says what happened to one family and what it meant. The cure: read the two together, and check the account's dates against the record.

4. Trace Red Power: Alcatraz and the turn to self-determination

Think of a campus protest you have seen or read about. A group takes over a building or a lawn, makes a list of demands, and stays until someone listens. The point is not only the place; it is being seen.

Red Power is the Native movement of the late 1960s and 1970s for sovereignty, treaty rights, and self-determination. One of its actions took place on an island in San Francisco Bay. Indians of All Tribes, people from many Native nations, occupied Alcatraz Island from November 1969 to June 1971.

Worked example — counting the occupation. Work out how long it lasted.

The first year. November 1969 to November 1970 is 12 months.
The rest. November 1970 to June 1971 is 7 more months.
The total. 12 + 7 = 19 months.

In words: Indians of All Tribes held Alcatraz Island for 19 months. The National Park Service states that afterward the official policy of termination ended and self-determination became official policy.

Now set Alcatraz on a thread across groups. The course's movements thread (Dataset F) places the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969 beside the campus strikes of 1968 and 1969 that you met in Week 1, when students of many backgrounds pressed for ethnic studies. Both were coalitions. Indians of All Tribes joined people from many Native nations, much as the Indian center in E4 gathered families from a dozen nations.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Why might people from many nations choose one shared name, such as Indians of All Tribes, for one action?
(b) Think of a group you belong to that joins people from different backgrounds. What does the shared name help it do, and what might it hide?

Misconception check. Students often think Alcatraz was a single protest that changed nothing. That is tempting, because the occupation ended and the island emptied. But the National Park Service states that afterward the official policy of termination ended and self-determination became official policy. The cure: read an action by what followed it, not only by how it ended.

5. Explain self-determination and return: the 1975 act and the 1990 law

Imagine an elders' language class (an illustrative scene) that meets in a tribal community building. For years an outside agency ran the building and chose its programs. Then the community took over: it hired its own teachers and set its own schedule. Running your own programs is the plain idea behind this section.

Self-determination is the federal policy, written into law by the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, under which tribes run their own programs and services instead of having the federal government run them. The Bureau of Indian Affairs describes the 1975 act as following the activism of the 1960s and 1970s.
Repatriation is the return of ancestors' remains and cultural items to the people they belong to. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 requires federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funds to repatriate Native American human remains and other cultural items through consultation with lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations.

Worked example — placing the two laws on the timeline. Count from termination.

Termination to self-determination. 1975 − 1953 = 22 years from the termination resolution to the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.
Self-determination to repatriation. 1990 − 1975 = 15 years from the 1975 act to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
The thread. The 1990 law sits on the course's apology, redress, and return thread (Dataset F).

In words: in 22 years, federal policy turned from ending tribes' relationship with the United States to writing tribes' own control of programs into law, and 15 years later a law required the return of ancestors and cultural items.

A limitation is worth naming. A law that requires return does not do the work by itself. Under the 1990 law, return runs through consultation with lineal descendants, tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations, so the nations themselves carry much of it. The language class makes the same point at a smaller size: the law can open a door, and the community does the teaching.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of something your family keeps that belonged to an older relative. Who should decide where it stays, and why?
(b) Why might a law about returning items require consultation with the people they belong to rather than a single federal decision?

Misconception check. Students often think self-determination means the federal government stepped away and the relationship ended. That is tempting, because the word sounds like full separation. But self-determination works inside the government-to-government relationship: tribes run their own programs, and the relationship continues. The cure: read self-determination as a nation running its own affairs, not as termination under a new name.

6. Define survivance: nations of the present

Think about how a story ends in a movie about the past. Often the last scene fades to quiet, and the people in it seem to belong only to history. Many films and books have told Native history that way.

Survivance is a term associated with the Anishinaabe writer Gerald Vizenor; it joins survival and resistance to describe Native presence that is active and continuing, not a story of disappearance. The word answers the fade-out ending. It says that Native people did more than outlast termination and relocation. They kept their languages, built centers, occupied an island, and changed federal law.

Federal recognition is the United States' formal acknowledgment of a tribe as a nation with which it keeps a government-to-government relationship. The Bureau of Indian Affairs lists 575 federally recognized tribes "at present", a count that changes and is never keyed. That phrase, "at present", is itself a lesson: the list is a record of nations of the present, and it can grow.

Worked example — reading E4's last line as survivance. Put the term to work.

The line. E4 ends: "My children are citizens of our nation. We are still here."
Survival. The family outlasted a job that lasted four months and a move far from home.
Resistance. The narrator learned his nation's language from his grandmother on summer visits home, and his children are citizens of their nation.
The reading. Survival alone would stop at step 2. Survivance includes step 3: presence that is active and continuing.

In words: "We are still here" is survivance because it joins outlasting relocation with keeping a nation's language and citizenship alive.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Name one way your own family or community has kept something going that others expected to fade. What kept it alive?
(b) Think of a book, film, or class that showed Native nations only in the past. What would change if it ended in the present tense?

Misconception check. Students often think survivance means survival alone. That is tempting, because the two words look alike. But survivance joins survival and resistance, and it describes presence that is active and continuing. The cure: when you use the word, name both what was outlasted and what is being kept or built.

Key terms

Termination — The federal policy, set by House Concurrent Resolution 108 in 1953, of ending the United States' government-to-government relationship with a tribe; from 1953 to 1970 Congress began 60 termination proceedings, and more than three million acres of tribal land were given up. (first used: 2. Name termination and relocation: federal policies with a federal goal)
Relocation — The federal program that moved Native people from reservations to cities for jobs; relocation offices opened in 1951, and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 authorized a vocational training program for adult Native Americans living on or near reservations. (first used: 2. Name termination and relocation: federal policies with a federal goal)
Red Power — The Native movement of the late 1960s and 1970s for sovereignty, treaty rights, and self-determination, which included the occupation of Alcatraz Island by Indians of All Tribes. (first used: 4. Trace Red Power: Alcatraz and the turn to self-determination)
Indians of All Tribes — The group of people from many Native nations who occupied Alcatraz Island for 19 months, from November 1969 to June 1971. (first used: 4. Trace Red Power: Alcatraz and the turn to self-determination)
Self-determination — The federal policy, written into law by the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, under which tribes run their own programs and services instead of having the federal government run them. (first used: 5. Explain self-determination and return: the 1975 act and the 1990 law)
Repatriation — The return of ancestors' remains and cultural items to the people they belong to; the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 requires it of federal agencies and of institutions that receive federal funds, through consultation with lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. (first used: 5. Explain self-determination and return: the 1975 act and the 1990 law)
Survivance — A term associated with the Anishinaabe writer Gerald Vizenor that joins survival and resistance to describe Native presence that is active and continuing, not a story of disappearance. (first used: 6. Define survivance: nations of the present)
Federal recognition — The United States' formal acknowledgment of a tribe as a nation with which it keeps a government-to-government relationship; the Bureau of Indian Affairs lists the recognized tribes, and its count changes over time. (first used: 6. Define survivance: nations of the present)

Summary

The 1924 act granted citizenship; the vote stayed under state law.
The 1934 act established modern tribal governments.
Termination (1953) and relocation (1951 offices, 1956 law) were federal policies with a federal goal.
E4 is read beside the record: the law says what was authorized, the account says what it meant.
Indians of All Tribes held Alcatraz for 19 months, and termination ended afterward.
The 1975 act wrote self-determination into law; the 1990 law requires repatriation.
Survivance is survival joined with resistance: Native nations are nations of the present.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative tribal language program (not a real one) started in a community building, and its first class of elders and learners met 4 years after the program began. The program then ran 9 more years before it moved to a new building. How many years after it began did the program move?
A classmate writes, "After 1924, every Native American could vote." Explain what is wrong with the sentence and how to fix it.
A city museum (illustrative) holds a carved object that a tribe's representatives say belongs to their nation. Which law from this chapter applies if the museum receives federal funds, and how does that law say the return should be worked out?
A summary of this week ends, "Today these tribes are gone, but their story survives." Name the misconception and rewrite the sentence.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Add the two spans: 4 + 9 = 13 years. The program moved 13 years after it began. Notice that this is a fresh, illustrative program, not one of the dated events on this week's timeline.
The sentence reads the 1924 act for more than it did. The act granted citizenship to Native Americans born in the United States, but the right to vote was governed by state law, and some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957. A fixed sentence: "After 1924, Native Americans born in the United States were citizens, but some states still barred them from voting until 1957."
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 applies to institutions that receive federal funds. It requires repatriation of Native American human remains and other cultural items through consultation with lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations, so the nation's representatives take part in the decision.
The sentence speaks of Native nations only in the past tense, as if they were gone. Native nations exist today, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs lists 575 federally recognized tribes "at present". A fixed sentence: "These nations are still here, governing themselves and keeping their languages alive."

Next up in this module: the lecture, the slide deck, the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week, you read how the law made and unmade slavery, using the reading method you practiced on E4.

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