Don’t forget Native voters | Letter

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, January 21, 2026

I recently reread Susan Martin’s editorial ” New barriers to naturalization” (November 26, 2025). She points out the long hard fight for voting rights and the Trump administration’s attempts to disenfranchise voters. She mentions granting of citizenship to African Americans through the Naturalization Act of 1870 and eventually to Asian Americans in 1952. However, I was disappointed that the long plight of Native Americans was not discussed. It wasn’t until the Snyder Act of 1924 conferred citizenship on Native Americans and that did not include the right to vote which had to be granted by individual states. Native Americans were continually disenfranchised by states. It wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the right to vote was granted. Ironically Native cultures influenced the structure of American democracy. Well before the founding of the US some of the eastern regions indigenous peoples had federalist systems of government. Ben Franklin cited the Iroquois Confederacy as a model to emulate as the colonists formed their new union.

Greg Oaksen

Orcas Island