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"Her Heritage Is Helpful": Race, Ethnicity, And Gender In The Politicization Of Ladonna Harris, Sarah Eppler Janda

Great Plains Quarterly

"What is it like to live in a tent?" asked Robert Kennedy's five-year-old daughter, Kerry, when she met LaDonna Harris for the first time in 1965. LaDonna assured her that Indians no longer lived in "tents" and Kerry's mother, Ethel, jokingly told LaDonna not to disillusion the child. LaDonna insisted that she wanted Kerry to have an accurate understanding of what Indians were like, to which Kerry responded by asking if she shot a bow and arrow. The exchange speaks volumes about the ignorance through which mainstream society viewed Native Americans, and mirrored many of Harris's other experiences with the …