Nearly a year and a half ago, the late Sacheen Littlefeather became the face of Native identity fraud when skepticism about her background was publicized shortly after her death in October 2022. Now, one of her friends and former associates has come forward with genealogical records that indicate the activist best known for refusing Marlon Brando’s 1973 Oscar on his behalf may have had Indigenous ancestry after all.
Gayle Anne Kelley, whom Littlefeather first approached to produce her 2018 documentary short Sacheen: Breaking the Silence, commissioned a private investigator to look into Littlefeather’s background after Native independent journalist Jacqueline Keeler (Diné/Dakota) published an explosive report in the San Francisco Chronicle alleging that she was not Apache and Yaqui on her father’s side, as she had claimed, but rather Mexican. (That her mother’s side is white has never been disputed.)
“My heart was broken, and I was very concerned...
Gayle Anne Kelley, whom Littlefeather first approached to produce her 2018 documentary short Sacheen: Breaking the Silence, commissioned a private investigator to look into Littlefeather’s background after Native independent journalist Jacqueline Keeler (Diné/Dakota) published an explosive report in the San Francisco Chronicle alleging that she was not Apache and Yaqui on her father’s side, as she had claimed, but rather Mexican. (That her mother’s side is white has never been disputed.)
“My heart was broken, and I was very concerned...
- 3/7/2024
- by Rebecca Sun
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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