The 1925 silent film adaptation of Zane Grey’s popular novel, The Vanishing American, is correctly considered a benchmark in the evolution of the cinematic treatment of Indigenous Americans, in part, because of its contemporaneity. Set in the early 20th century rather than the 19th, this film made audiences aware of the valor of Indigenous Americans […]
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Indigenous Sovereignty against Family Separation
As scholars, advocates, and citizens from Indigenous societies across the Americas have argued since the beginning of European colonization, “Indigenous sovereignty” consists in the power and right of Indigenous peoples to govern themselves and their relations with other societies on their own terms. In short, Native nations have a right to govern through their own […]
Rejecting Plurinationalism: Indigenous Peoples and the (Almost) New Constitution in Chile
In Chile, as in most Latin American countries, there is a complex relationship between the government and indigenous peoples. The latest chapter of this tense interchange took place during the referendum on September 4th, 2022, when the Chilean people rejected a new proposed constitution for the country—62% of the votes cast opposed the new governing […]
Elder Brother’s Divided Home: An Indigenous Perspective on US-Mexico Border Relations
According to the Native American Environmental Protection Coalition (NAEPC), there are thirty Indigenous communities straddling the international boundary that divides the United Mexican States (Mexico) and the United States of America (USA). Most of these are on the US side, organized into reservations, which are self-governing under federal law. On the Mexican side, Indigenous communities […]
The Strange Birth (and Stranger Death) of Judicial Restraint
In the spring semester of 1856, a 25-year-old student at Harvard Law named James Bradley Thayer submitted an entry into the school’s annual essay competition. Undoubtedly, he had the cash prize in mind. After all, Thayer did not descend from Boston’s patrician class that dominated Harvard; he had to fund his own education, given his […]
