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Journal: Review of International American Studies

The Case for a Native American 1968 and Its Transnational Legacy

György Tóth

Published: 23-12-2019 | Abstract | pp. 49-70

Partly as a result of compartmentalized academic specializations and history teaching, in accounts of the global upheavals of 1968, Native Americans are either not mentioned, or at best are tagged on as an afterthought. “Was there a Native American 1968?” is the central question this article aims to answer. Native American activism in the 1960s was no less flashy, dramatic or confrontational than the protests by the era’s other struggles – it is simply overshadowed by later actions of the movement. Using approaches from Transnational American Studies and the history of social movements, this article argues that American Indians had a “long 1968” that originated in Native America’s responses to the US government’s Termination policy in the 1950s, and stretched from their ‘training’ period in the 1960s, through their dramatic protests from the late 1960s through the 1970s, all the way to their participation at the United Nations from 1977 through the rest of the Cold War. While their radicalism and protest strategies made Native American activism a part of the US domestic social movements of the long 1960s, the nature of American Indian sovereignty rights and transnationalism place the Native American long 1968 on the rights spectrum further away from civil rights, and closer to a national liberation struggle—which links American Indian activism to the decolonization movements of the Cold War.

2019-12-23



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Our Death is Our Strongest Surviving Tradition. A Guest Essay by the Artist of Our Cover Image

Ukjese van Kampen

Published: 28-08-2023 | Abstract | pp. 31-47

In Canada, Yukon First Nations are politically powerful and, when viewed by an outsider, everything appears to be progressing well. But the adoption of the Western political model has a downside. We have generally sacrificed our culture for that political power. The loss of our culture has resulted in many social problems and this essay discusses what has resulted from those problems, specifically our high death rate. Ironically, our death ritual, the Potlatch, is one of the strongest surviving cultural traditions we still exercise, while our languages, laws, art, lifestyle, and spirituality are almost all forgotten.

2023-08-28



Journal: Review of International American Studies

Ghost Dance Retold: From Sacred Resistance to Political Spectacle

Rachmat Nurcahyo

Published: 30-06-2026 | Abstract | pp. 205-225

This article investigates the transformation of Amerindian narratives through the adaptation of the Ghost Dance episode in Dwight Jon Zimmerman’s Saga of the Sioux (2011), a derivative work based on Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970). While Brown’s original is often commended for its emphasis on Indigenous perspectives and resistance, Zimmerman’s adaptation, intended for a younger audience, illustrates the consequences of narrative simplification, editorial framing, and ideological reframing. This study critically examines how themes of resistance, spirituality, and cultural identity embedded in the Ghost Dance are reinterpreted, diminished, or altered in the adaptation. Employing comparative textual analysis informed by postcolonial theory and narrative ethics, the research highlights how retellings of traumatic histories, especially by non-Indigenous authors, may simultaneously preserve and distort subaltern voices.

2026-06-30