The bulk of testimony in the writings and recorded histories of the daughters of immigrants and the first generation of Native Americans educated in American schools in the late 19th and early 20th centuries reveals that, although the ties between female generations became more tangled with the strains of acculturation, the bonds were stretched but not severed. A sense of loyalty to their mothers and the cultures they represented remained strong. This paper compares the remembered experiences of the first and newest Americans in an attempt to understand the various ways cultural change can affect the mother-daughter relationship. Although both Native and newly-arrived Americans were subject to pressures of assimilation, the beginnings of the process for each group were vastly different, greatly affecting the maternal response to her daughter's acceptance of American ways. The cycle of life moved most Native American women from daughter to mother to grandmother in an unbroken line, surrounded by the family and the community, living in and with the native homeland. This family solidarity began to splinter when Anglo Americans gained control of Indian land and attempted to control Native American lives. (Author/ERB)