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Speaks for Indians‘Vanishing American’WASHINGTON lUPI - WMn« a pants mu and a Hlky blouse. Veronica Murdock uyi she it the middle class product ot a middle-class home ■ here politics wa* (he usual topic ot supper table Ulk Bui home was on a reservation, ihe politics was Indian politics and she wishes now tnai me language spoken around the table had been Mojave instead ol English Mrs Murdock M. is an American Indian and the elected leader ol Indi ansAS THE FIRST woman president ot the largest Indian organisation the National Congress ol American Indians she speaks lor 154 ot the more than WO Indian tribes and lor about 600 000 ol the 1 25 million Indians in AmericaHer earner Pete Homer Sr served 10 years as chairman ol the Mojaves. one ol lour tribes on the ZM COOacre Colorado Kiver Indian Heservation in a lertile valley in Aruonamats why politics dominated tabletalk at home and why Veronica naturally drifted into a political careerShe was only a day over the mandatory age ol 25 wnen she was elected to the nine-member tribal council wmcn governs the reservation Previously she had worked as a secretary tor the Bureau oi Indian Allairs in Pnoemi and with a Great Society program to create jobs lor young Indians on Ihe reservationNOW SHE LIVES the way a leader ol a national woman s organisation might, tlyuig from one conlerence to\ rromca Murdochanother making a speech here and unending a ceremony thereBut lor all her middle-class com lorubleness she sounds angry — and irigntened - when she speaks about me Indian way ot Hie in today s AmericaMrs Murdock, whose job involves Irequrnt appearances belore committees ol Congress i where one bill out ol every live deals with Indian affairs’ nas taken ollice at a troubled momentBecause Indians nave started pressing cUims in courts to vast stretrnes ol eastern states and to 11 thing and minting rights in the west 'and winning favorable court decisional. mere nas sprui* «P * cOo-gress and among tome neighbors ol Indian tribes what the Indians callwhite backlash ' - and it scares the IndiansAs evidence ol backlash. Indians point to the Native Americans Equal Opportunity Act' introduced by Hep John I unnmgham. M-washTHE BILL 9 preamble slates IU purpose To direct the president to abrogate all treaties entered into by the United states with Indian tribes in order to accomplish the purposes ol recogniiing that in the United Stalesno individual or group possesses subordinate or special rights ..A recent Idpagr issue ol the t akima Nation Keview. an Indian newspaper, devotes every article to backlash and carries a map showing that formal or informal oppoal lion to Indian tribes etists in 23 statesIt seems that everything we want to do we have to go to court to do. and so now they re trying to lake away our right to go to court. Mrs Murdock sayswny’ wnat have me tribes done that is so terrible that these people leel they have to completely destroy our lives our e»isi*nce'“9HE COMPARES Indians who lay claim to eastern lands - including a big portion ol me stale ol Maine - to someone who comes upon a deed ui grandma s atuc to land he did not know ne rightfully owned She asks wouktn t ne go to court'II she could have the country s ear and could go on all three networks lor live minutes what would she tell white Americans about red America?In a word, she said, she would ask lor sovereignty • I he tribes leel sovereign and they want to be dealt with in that lasluon.1 the saysSomeone always has the ultimate plan to solve me Indians problems -but it never comes from Indians•TT9 JUJT U1E mdsWrvt -when they reach a certain age they no longer want their lives controlled by outer people especially if you are trying to retain your land and your rigtita and your culture and your Indiannets and you have all these outside torces coming in and trying to use your land, your resources, your water rights Mrs Murdock says the vanishing American lus refused to vanish, and young Indians are lar mors interested in retaining Indian culture, language and traditions than her own generation was with help from her lather - who never spoke Mojave at home — her daughter. Alice. I. speaks far more Mojave than she does, she says — -roudlv
Newspaper Details
Kenosha News
Kenosha, Wisconsin, US
Wed, Feb 01, 1978
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 23 Dec 2015
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