Document 64: "Speech by Billie Masters, Chair, National American Indian and Alaskan Native Women's Conference, Closing Plenary Session," in National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, The Spirit of Houston: The First National Women's Conference (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1978), pp. 232-33.

p. 232

SPEECH BY BILLIE MASTERS

CHAIR, NATIONAL AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKAN NATIVE

WOMEN'S CONFERENCE

CLOSING PLENARY SESSION
NOVEMBER 21, 1977

   I bring you greetings from the American Indian and Alaskan native women that are here with you today. We have participants, delegates, and observers from the Indian world and the native peoples of this land here.

   There are very special items in our lives that remain with us as the best memories and the best experience of our lives, and those are the times when we are accepted, recognized, and appreciated for our efforts and our concerns.

   This is one of the times that we feel that we have been accepted here, that we have been heard and our efforts have been appreciated and we thank you.

   What is an Indian? That is a question we have to face so often, and I would like to tell you today that we have Federally recognized Indians and we have non-Federally recognized Indians.

p. 233

   We have tribal Indians and we have fullbloods and we have BIA-recognized and we have HEW-recognized; we have quarterbloods and halfbloods, and the divide and destroy concept is at work all the time.

   The concept of divide and destroy cannot be something that we fall prey to. I have never heard of my black sisters being asked if they are fullbloods.

   An Indian is an Indian. We are all together. Termination is a word that might be new to some of you here today, but it is a word that remains as a constant threat to the American Indian woman and the Alaskan Native woman in this country.

   Termination is the destruction of all government responsibility and the destruction of the traditional lifestyle of the native people; and we ask you to take an active part to dedicate yourselves to eliminate the threat of termination that exists in the Indian world. We would like you to do that personally, to accept that as your charge, as you leave here today. I wish to make you aware. I wish you could look into the issues. I wish you could ask embarrassing questions of your Congressmen and your Congresswomen and ask what is being done to protect these lifestyles and to assure the existence of the traditional way of the Alaskan Native people and their reservations. Reservation, by definition, is all the Indians have left. One-tenth of one percent of their original land. We need you to be aware that no Indian people want to give up their reservations. The land base that we have today, even though inadequate for our people and even though low in economic standards, job opportunities, and schools, is the very core of the lifestyle for the American people, and the reservation land base must be secured to the American Indian woman and to all the future generations so that we can have this always, for our own sovereignty.

   Something that America feels strongly about is sovereignty—the right of people to govern themselves, to be recognized—and now the sovereignty of the American Indian people is threatened.

   I cannot begin to tell you the importance of this issue, but I would like your support. I would like you to become aware, to ask questions about sovereignty, and to protect the sovereignty for the native people of this land.

   

Previous Document	Document List	Next Document