INTRODUCTION
Reframing shared narratives is an important way in which democratic societies evolve with the times and reshape themselves to meet the needs of their citizens in an ever- changing world. This process is especially complex as minority groups seek to influence the shared narrative in a diverse nation.
Ruth Muskrat (1897-1982), Native American poet and activist from Oklahoma, served on the “Committee of One Hundred,” created to advise the White House on Native American policy. In a speech to Calvin Cooolidge in 1923, Muskrat reframed the received narrative of Native Americans and the United States. She rejected the widely held view that indigenous communities and cultures needed to be isolated from the rest of America. Instead, Muskrat advocated for Native Americans to participate in America’s multicultural society with the same balance of patriotism and particularism afforded any other ethnic group. This solution to the “Indian Problem,” she asserted, was as important for America as it was for Native Americans — it was essential for “that great spiritual and artistic unity which such a nation as America must have.” Thus, in reframing the approach needed to restore her people’s “nobility and greatness,” she also reframed the larger American narrative.
TEXT
Mr. President:—This volume of the “Red Man in the United States” is presented to the “Great White Father” in behalf of the many Indian students of America. It is a book which bears the best we have to offer —the story of our struggles and our tragedies, of our victories and our developments. . . . Back on the Cheyenne Reservation in Oklahoma Indian women have worked with loving and painstaking care to make this gift worthy for the “Great White Father,” weaving into this beaded cover the symbolic story of our race —the story of the old type of Indian, greeting with the hand of friendship the founders of this great nation, and the story of the new Indian, emerging from his semi-barbaric state, tilling his soil, and building for citizenship under the guidance of the school. Mr. President, there have been so many discussions of the so-called Indian Problem. May not we, who are the Indian students of America, who must face the burden of that problem, say to you what it means to us?
The old life has gone. A new trail must be found, for the old is not good to travel farther. We are glad to have it so. But these younger leaders who must guide their people along new and untried paths have perhaps a harder task before them than the fight for freedom our older leaders made. Ours must be the problem of leading this vigorous and by no means dying race of people back to their rightful heritage of nobility and greatness. Ours must be the task of leading through these difficult stages of transition into economic independence, into a more adequate expression of their art, and into an awakened spiritual vigor. Ours is a vision as keen and as penetrating as any vision of old. We want to understand and to accept the civilization of the white man. We want to become citizens of the United States, and to have our share in the building of this great nation, that we love. But we want also to preserve the best that is in our own civilization. We want to make our own unique contribution to the civilizations of the world ——to bring our own peculiar gifts to the altar of that great spiritual and artistic unity which such a nation as America must have. This, Mr. President, is the Indian problem which we who are Indians find ourselves facing. No one can find our solution for us but ourselves. . . .