Patty Loew on "Crying Indian" public service announcement first aired on Earth Day 1971

 
The first Earth Day took place in 1970.

New York Times, 2/27/2023

While many viewers found the ad moving, others saw it as an misappropriation of a culture that was little understood.

“Those leather-clad, war-painted Indians on TV? Well, that wasn’t me,” said Patty Loew, a professor at Northwestern University and a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, recalling seeing the ad while growing up in Milwaukee. 

The ad — and the cultural myths about Native Americans that critics thought it perpetrated — propelled Professor Loew to a career writing books and producing public television programs and documentaries about Indigenous history and culture. 

“The whole Crying Indian thing is pretty crystal clear — wrong, wrong, wrong,” she said. “And it opens my eyes to all the cultural appropriation around me. I’ve tried to address the stereotypes and tropes involving Native people that messed me up as a kid. Native America sure could use a confident, well-adjusted next generation.”