A People's History

We want to tackle one of the trickiest questions in Indian country.

What does it mean to identify as a Native American?

This brings up Native Twitter, aka the only reason I ever use that app.

Back when everyone was fighting about who's a real Indian and who's a fake.

I was like, okay, whatever.

But then.

Then I saw Buffy Sainte-Marie being called a Pretendian as an a pretend Indian, or someone who claims to have a connection to a Native American community, but actually doesn't.

But, Buffy?

The woman we featured in the first episode, the woman was sang this?

[Starwalker by Buffy Sainte-Marie] I mean, she penned songs that spoke to the issues facing Indian Country while also advocating for various Indigenous causes, which became a main part of her work.

So does advocating for Indigenous culture make you Native, or does it make you an ally or something else entirely?

Well, buckle up because we're about to find out.

This is A People's History of Native America with me.

Tai Leclaire.

How many times have you heard someone say my great grandmother was a Cherokee princess?

Or, I took a DNA test.

I'm Native, too!

Well, for Natives, we've heard it countless times.

This idea of a unified Native American identity is a colonial invention.

all this begs the question: what does it mean to be a member of an Indian tribe?

Well, every tribe counts their members differently.

Some used descendancy records.

Others use blood quantum.

This information was collected as part of the American government's tribal rules back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Blood quantum specifically comes from the Dawes Act, where some tribes had their reservation land divided up by the Federal Government to give individual tribal members their own slice of land.

This gave way for the government agents to divide our blood into quarters and determine who gets what land.

That's why some tribal nations prefer to use descendancy, which grants citizenship to those who can trace their lineage through either the paternal or maternal side back to that tribe.

But in the role of identity politics, citizenship isn't everything.

Because citizenship, like blood quantum, is again a colonial construct.

Our historic systems of community and kinship did not revolve around a plastic tribal ID card, but through cultural and personal connections.

Marriage, adoption, long term residence, or even practicing traditional lifeways such as learning the language, practicing the religion, or any tribal cultural values, could grant acceptance into a tribe.

While our old practices of community adoption still exist to a certain extent today, racialized citizenship standards for Native Americans persist.

when legal identity, such as citizenship, uses biological traits instead of social levels of kinship.

Does biology alone determine what it means to be a Native American?

No, of course not.

Now, take home DNA tests have been exploding in popularity, and as a result, many Americans are now informed of Native American markers in their genes.

So does that mean we can use DNA as we use blood quantum to determine who's Native American?

No.

Do not pull an Elizabeth Warren.

Those genetic markers are not exclusive to Native Americans.

And even if they were, they have no indication of which tribe you're related to, if any at all.

DNA has no connection to any tribal culture belonging.

Blood quantum, despite being imperfect, implies a trackable lineage from generation to generation.

For instance, if tribal governments and communities decide who is a member of the community through blood quantum, the people not belonging to that tribe have to respect that.

After all, tribes are sovereign governments and use citizenship for more reasons than identity.

Citizenship determines a person's access to tribal lands, health care and education, and sometimes per capita payments.

the payments equate to a dividend of the profit from tribal enterprises.

The majority of per capita payments to tribal members is around $1,000 per year.

Considering that one of four Native Americans live below the poverty line, tribes must be judicious about who is entitled to these rights.

So while citizenship is important to access the economic and political identity of Native Americans, it is not the determining factor of who can identify as one.

Okay.

Are you still with me?

Because this is where it gets even more complicated.

On one hand, there are travel citizens who are not connected to their community, language or culture yet have the political status of a tribal member.

On the other, there are people who identify with a tribe because they were raised by tribal members practicing language and culture and even currently living on the reservation, but do not meet blood quantum requirements for enrollment.

But let's bring in an actual Indigenous academic.

Hollie Mackey an associate professor of educational leadership at North Dakota State University.

To help us understand this complex situation.

Professor, can you help us understand what identifying as a Native American actually means?

We have to to really be intentional about what it means and be clear in our conversations about it in terms of how are you identifying as Native American?

But when we're talking about Indigenous identity, we're really talking about a very distinct set of cultural characteristics of language characteristics, of community and connection characteristics that is not tied just to land.

But we also don't want to essentialize.

We don't want to just open up the gate and say like, well, if you feel Native, you're Native I think that there's some due diligence that has to go into that where, you know, if you're questioning your identity, if you're questioning whether or not you belong to a community, you have to do that work.

So lets talk about why we see this boom of non-Native people claiming Native heritage.

In 1998, Phillip J, Deloria wrote a book titled Playing Indian.

This book outlines how the phenomena of non-Natives portraying Natives, which goes back to, well, the birth of this nation.

He uses the Boston Tea Party as a historical example of this impulse to impersonate Native Americans while participating in American politics.

He argues that in the construction of the United States, we had European settlers trying to distance themselves from their roots as much as possible.

So a misrepresentation of our Native American identity is actually what informs early American identity.

To Deloria, The act of playing Indian created a unique American culture while portraying Native Americans as destined to be extinct Perpetuating these myths are only a small segment of how playing Indian harms the lives of actual Indians But from our treaty rights to our unique experience, we're finally receiving more opportunities for social mobility.

However, we're finding that some of these opportunities are actually being occupied by non-Natives who are claiming to be Native.

Not only does this rob a qualified Indigenous person for a job, but it robs everyone else from the work and voice of an authentic Indigenous person.

In a lot of these cases, we see the pretendian lean into stereotypical depictions of Native Americans to support their claims.

Tanning beds, name changing, and the consumption of Indigenous goods, attire, and even ceremonial gifts all to give the perception of authenticity.

All these things actually backfire and just embolden colourism and racism.

The legacy of the media has trained non-Natives to believe that we're all tan with straight black hair and have names like runs with walk.

But in reality, Native Americans can look like anyone.

Professor Mackey, can you help us out here?

I mean, how do we move forward?

people who are non-Native who are claiming to be Native, particularly if they don't know, need the humility to step back and say, oh, you might be right.

And I don't have that patience for the people who know.

But when it comes to these unnecessary attacks or this volatility, I don't think that that that's how our people were.

And so trying to model for people that you can have the conversation without a turning into an argument, without it turning into unnecessary conflict is going to be important moving forward.

But, you know, ultimately people who are doing it intentionally, they don't care, right?

They are hoping not to get caught.

And so for those people, you know, I pray for them we thank you for your time and your thoughtful insights.

Professor Mackey.

So where do we stand now?

According to the U.S. census, from 2010 to 2020, the number of people who identify with having an Indigenous heritage went from 5.2 million in 2010 to 9.6 million in 2020, with most who are self-identifying living off the reservation.

This 87% increase of some of the people suddenly identifying as Indigenous may be true.

The reality is, at the same time of the surge of self-identifying Native American people, fertility rates among Native women from 2008 to 2016 have fallen by about 24%.

Look!

It's clear from the numbers alone that there's some pretending going on.

Like Sacheen Littlefeather, Real name.

Maria Louise Cruz.

who used her platform to speak up about Indigenous representation in Hollywood.

But according to her sisters, Littlefeather then fabricated parts of her life and identity around harmful stereotypes, such as growing up in poverty with prevalent alcohol abuse.

But it's also important to remember the trickle down effects of having pretendians writing real laws, teaching real classes, or becoming thought leaders on the many important issues across Indian Country.

So what about Buffy Sainte-Marie?

I mean, yes, CBC reports her name is technically Beverly Santamaria.

And sure, she was born in Boston to white parents, but she didn't make a meaningful connection to the tribal nation In 1964. she was officially adopted into the Piapot Nation in Canada.

And even if it was under false pretenses, it's only up to the Piapot nation.

If they want to change their mind.

At the same time, we have to learn from this Buffy situation because she did not have to do any of this.

That's what's so frustrating.

Anyone can be an ally of Native Americans, but not by occupying space and resources reserves specifically for us.

Because when we enter a space, we bring all the things you've been learning about watching on the series.

We have parents who survived boarding schools.

We're connected with our land.

We might know our language and customs.

And if we don't, we know why we don't.

We as Natives know the last names in our community because it's so tight knit.

If we don't know you personally, we certainly know some of your family.

People can call us white, brown or black or the infamous apple White on the inside.

Red on the outside.

And to those who antagonize us, often never know