Zitkala-Sa’s political activism is not directly addressed in her writings, but her beliefs about her people’s right to fair treatment frame her narrative as she portrays the victimization and suffering of Indians at the hands of the white “invaders.” To understand Zitkala-Sa, I want to understand the relationship between her activism, her public identity and her self-identity. That focus led me to the primary source that I chose: a newspaper clipping which gives a glimpse of one aspect of the work she did advocating Indian rights. Published in The Indian School Journal, the October 1918 article, titled “Indian Wife of Army Officer Fights for Race,” chronicles her speech to the National Arts Club about Indian citizenship and about legislation …show more content…
Gertrude Bonnin,” and the headline itself distinguishes her as the “Indian wife of an Army officer.” In this sense, she has been immediately defined by her marital status and by her European name. The article does, to its credit, add later that her “Indian name” is Zitkala-Sa – other newspaper clippings I found did not even do that – but the phrasing makes it seem like Gertrude Bonnin, née Simmons, is her true name, and the name “Zitkala-Sa” is a side note. It might simply be to identify her to a white readership, but it raises the question that I intend to research further: how much did Zitkala-Sa herself come to accept her European name, and with it, her American identity? Her writings discuss her reconciliation with her Indian identity, but not with her American one. In her activism, she could have insisted on being called Zitkala-Sa, seeing how, according to her writings, most, if not all, of her “Americanness” had been forced upon her. Perhaps she chose not to, accepting her European name as a way to forge an inroad with audiences that might not accept her under the name “Zitkala-Sa,” similarly to how female academic writers during the time would have to publish under male pseudonyms to gain any …show more content…
The article gives a quote from her speech to the National Arts Club, in which she says, “If the Indian is good enough to fight for America, he is good enough to be considered American.” (She refers to her husband being of mixed ancestry himself.) In this case, it is evident that her husband’s position gives her a unique position from which to argue for citizenship; the fact that he is currently fighting as an American soldier makes it seem absurd that he is not “technically” American. The article goes on to give a very brief description of the harmful effects of the peyote drug that “rival[s] opium,” and states that Zitkala-Sa has been testifying in front of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, on behalf of the Society of Indian Americans in their efforts to get the Senate to include the prohibition of peyote in a $150,000 appropriations alcohol prohibition bill. Her advocacy of both these issues present interesting dichotomies with more modern ideas of Indian rights activism that I want to explore in further research, as she is not only promoting assimilation through citizenship – a stance reflected in her later writings – but also promoting more direct regulation of the Indian reservations by the federal government. Not that I do not agree that drug addiction is harmful and should be