Sure, they aren't scammers. 🙃

Not a lot of money in identifying as Native American on the Census.

I previously worked with an individual who discovered a Native American ancestor in his family tree. He was researching if there were any benefits to be gained from by identifying by that heritage. I don’t know what the outcome was but he was the type of guy who always was always looking for a quick payout or money for shady reasons.

But there is value in certain tribes for things like college.

A few years ago, I found out that I am /64th Taíno. So far as I know, there is no payout coming my way

What you call yourself on the census will have no effect on that.

That is true. But to say there is no benefit in identifying as native American is disingenuous.

Elizabeth Warren vibes.

Strawman argument. They said that there isn't a lot of benefit in identifying as Native American ON THE CENSUS. An important distinction that you've overlooked.

Except for internal consistency. People generally aren't hippocrits if it doesn't matter. Do you really think there has been an 86% increase in the native American population when native born American population is on the decline? Don't be so naive.

Oh sure. It’s a huge advantage to be disadvantaged.

But this is not that. These are people who are suddenly identifying as NA solely for their own gratification… which is weird if you ask me.

Strawman argument. At no point did I state any of my beliefs. You have created a point of view and assigned it to me.

Several tribes changed their constitutional standings around 2010-2012.

They opened up their tribes to accepting "Any direct descendent of a living tribal member".

Meaning If you had a grandma or grandfather in the tribe but your blood quantum was minimal and not enough to claim tribalship on your own you could still apply and become a tribal member.

This has since been overturned but it is once again in talks as native Americans in general are becoming extinct in the terms of blood quantum. There will no longer be living members of tribes with a blood quantum of 50% to 100% in the next 50 years and tribal numbers will become obsolete unless laws change.

You get free government cheese and maybe a reparation of $500. Getting accepted into a tribe that has a casino on their land, even with blood quantum is pretty goddamn difficult.

They know what you're about and no they don't wanna share their tribal money with you.

when I was in college there were only (as far as I know) 12 other students besides myself that were indigenous (out of around 7000 total students)

a portion of those were certainly people who found out they were 1/128th something and changed their whole demeanor because of it. they tended to be just using it as a quirky fact to stand out, and knew nothing about their cultures

but finding out your heritage later is not always necessarily a bad thing; I also have a (newly-met) relative who found out his tribal ancestry and as a result he put enormous effort into learning cultural practices, became fluent in the language, etc, and knows far more than I do, even having grown up in a tribal community

How many even have 100% quantum now? Like 2000?

Probably idiots doing it in a Bill the Butcher sort of way.

Good question, I honestly have no idea

It's weird because I have friends who are clearly of native American descent, who's kids are clearly of native American descent and they can't gain membership to their associated tribes but my family all has their membership; through an ex cheif, from the 1800s from one of our tribes here. We're what I can only describe as Caucasian.

🤷‍♂️.

If the tribes would like to keep their status as soveirgn nations they are going to have to change their constitutions in the next decade.

and on the flip side, as stated by others, there is the issue of blood quantum not being a suitable measure for enrollment anymore (because we're certainly not going to accomplish much by inbreeding), and due to other failings of the enrollment and legal systems, I know people who have a very high blood quantum who can't be enrolled anywhere, but they're certainly involved in culture and community

the question of "what makes someone indigenous" beyond what your genetic make-up is a rather large deal in tribal communities

While some of it might be “1/32 Indian Princess” syndrome, the U.S. census only started allowing for selecting multiple races since 2000, and between the 2010 and 2020 census that option has massively changed demographic reporting across the board in the past 10 years.

census

As the article points out, it gets even more extreme if you go further back:

> According to the census, the Native American population in the U.S. has grown from 552,000 in 1960 to 9.7 million in 2020, a growth of over 1,600%.

The article mentions a lot of potential reasons for this increase, but it seems like a major reason is that in the past people with partial indigenous backgrounds felt more comfortable identifying as white, but in more recent times, claim indigenous heritage (even if it's just a distant connection).

Years ago I had some who were from a casino tribe, they came to my lan game shop and were there so much I just hired them on, they always had wads of $100 bills so all they wanted was access to my internet and play video games all day. They were some good dudes and stupid good at any game they picked up.

Most tribes require a specific percentage of Native “blood,” called blood quantum, in addition to being able to document which tribal member you descend from. Some tribes require as much as 25% Native heritage, and most require at least 1/16th Native heritage, which is one great-great grandparent. Dec 18, 2012

https://dna-explained.com/2012/12/18/proving-native-american-ancestry-using-dna/#:~:text=Most%20tribes%20require%20a%20specific,is%20one%20great%2Dgreat%20grandparent.

Some might say there is an insensitive to marking it down.

there's certainly some of that, but also how the US census has collected racial and ethnic data has changed drastically and most gains come from people identifying as multi racial - people who couldn't before

Seriousness of the issue aside, those people are cowards. Admit your heritage, come out as an attack helicopter. With machine guns and rockets!

Overturned by who? Tribes can define membership based on how they want to. The bia typically stays out of inter tribal matters

In my tribe you have to be born into the tribe. You then have 1 year to apply. No exceptions. That means some people are left out. We have a casino so we want the least amount in our tribe. Before the casino, we had really lax rules on membership.

What are you talking about? Government cheese? I've never heard of any natives getting reparations. I am in a revenue generating tribe and work for them. You sound like you are talking in generalities.

By the tribes as you stated.

I was specifically talking about Ojibwe when I wrote this, I know of a few other tribes as well but the one in most familiar with is Ojibwe because that's part of my lineage.

For us we tried to grow our numbers in 2010-2014. The tribe then voted against that and overturned family lineage once again in favor of blood quantum.

We do have casinos also but not big name or big money casinos. The Ojibwe tribes with major casinos make it next to impossible to claim membership through law.

The tribes where I live get bricks of government cheese. For a short period of time the US Federal government gave out roughly $450-$550 to every tribal member, a one time "reperation" for stolen lands (2012-2013)

Certain tribes here even give you land when you gain membership.

Would people of Latin American descent who also have indigenous heritage (let’s say Maya from Guatemala) be considered Native American?

I'm curious why they would want more people. The less people, the more the money goes around.

Because unless your relatives want to be incestuous, there's no way to keep the current blood quantum requirements.

By government cheese, I assume they're referring to how you gain access (as an enrolled member of a tribe) to tuition waivers for college (some are limited to certain tribes in a state, some are available to any tribe) and being able to go to Indian Health Services for healthcare (which is so unreliable in some parts of the US you might as well have no healthcare)

As for reparations I assume they are referring to tribes who have treaty money disbursed (an example is the 1854 Treaty Authority) in some interval (yearly, quarterly, etc).

Which yeah, is speaking in generalities. I've had people assume we all get "casino money" while my tribe's casino is so poorly managed all it does is lose money, and the only money you're getting from it is working minimum wage as a gift shop cashier

Realistically it should be a lot lower threshold. Even at 10% that's enough with enough mixing in the community to restore a group over several generations.

>It's weird because I have friends who are clearly of native American decent, who's kids are clearly of native American decent and they can't gain membership to their associated tribes but my family all has their membership through an ex cheif from the 1800s of one of our tribes here and we're what I can only describe as Caucasian.

The reason for this is that blood quanta is not how most tribes historically determine membership. Various tribes used either matrilineal of patrilineal descent where if either your mother or father but not the other was part of the tribe then you had a place in their matrineal or patrilineal clan systems, which is to say part of the tribe because the clans were the basis of the tribe.

Tribal membership rooted out of clan membership, if you had no clan you were basically an outcast to the tribe because you had no place, as your clan is what made your place. The political systems revolved entirely around this, in a matrilineal tribe like the Iroquois you would have clan mothers who were like your mother's mother and anyone descended from them was part of that clan and the various clan mothers made a tribe as each clan mother ruled over a longhouse and multiple longhouses made up the village. If you had no clan mother you had no longhouse so you were not part of the village etc. Now the men would still rule usual, but they did so by way of their maternal descent and it was a big taboo to go against your clan mother even if you were the high chief or whatever.

Of course what I am saying is not universally applicable as it is only applicable to the group I am basing it off of, as obviously patrilineal tribes also existed who would be more like Arabs where if your father is an Arab you are an Arab regardless of who your mother was and this extends backwards indefinitely such that you have berbers in north africa who claim to be arab despite being not remotely arab simply as a result of (likely forged) genealogies. In such an analogy various arab "tribes" are more like clans, as several tribes made up the arabs as a whole but you get the idea. The specific name and level of the word used to describe what I'm talking about is irrelevant.

European "dynasties" were obviously a thing and worked similarly but they didn't really make it across the Atlantic so a new system basically rose up where male and female ancestry was weighted equally called blood quanta where you were "half" regardless of if your parent was male or female. I think this was influenced by the fact that they had to deal with confusion arising from having some groups being patrilineal while others were matrilineal so they just created one system to cover both as an attempt to understand why it sometimes worked and sometimes didn't, because otherwise you would have to track every native group individually based on their own rules.

Do they have tribal cards?

My family tree has branches overlapping. Luckily it's a couple generations in the past.

My great great grandma was married and had a child with a man. He then had a child with my great grandma. I also know of at least 2 sets of first cousins, not from my family, who are married with kids.

Bunch of Elizabeth Warrens? 😂

When I was a kid we were convinced Dad was at least a quarter Choctaw. Grew up in Oklahoma, right next to the reservation, he has all the racial profiling features, high cheekbones etc. nope. Welsh/Irish.

A wonderful question! You wouldn't be recognized in the United States as being Native American. US law surrounding indigenous people is based upon "federally-recognized" tribes. As you can imagine, there ARE people within the US whose tribe is not federally recognized- and as a result are barred from any programs, as well as culturally significant legalities, such as being able to handle/possess eagle parts.

I have a friend with tribal heritage from Canada, who was born as a US citizen. As a result, no tribe in the US recognizes her blood quantum, and Canada won't let her enroll because she's not a Canadian citizen.

I identify as native American... I was born in America

My tribe has a casino and we get about $800 a month with a couple $500 easter and Xmas bonuses. It's not enough to live on but it's very very nice.

Our casino was mismanaged by our board and only paid interest on the casino loan of a couple hundred million. That was for 20 years. In the last 10 years things got better and the debt will be paid off in like 2 years.

The college thing is really great. I believe some schools in New Hampshire or Vermont allows tribal members to go for free. The same with the Colorado College of Mines and now all UCs in California. We have a scholarship program and have sent maybe 100 kids through, myself included. The tribes goal is to make each generation better and I think it's working.

Identifying as Native American makes it easier to get into a good college and makes it easier to get a job. Makes sense that more people are doing it.

Elizabeth Warren Effect

To clarify, the Ojibwe people surround the Great Lakes- some are in Canada and some are in the US. In the case of my friend, her Canadian Ojibwe heritage is not recognized by any Ojibwe tribe in the US.

Indigenous ancestry that has no basis within the US (in your example, Maya from Guatemala) not only has no tribes inside the US to recognize/not recognize you, you won't be recognized by the US federally.

Yep. I've got a buddy who is brown, but not black or native, he put down he was native to get into med school lol. The only schools that gave interviews were the ones where he put he was native.

Thank you for taking the time to answer me so fully.

Michigan is another one- the Michigan Indian Tuition Waiver covers full tuition for Master's and PhDs, and in-state tuition for undergraduate programs at all colleges in Michigan. The only stipulations are you need to be enrolled (it doesn't matter where in the US your tribe is) and to have lived in Michigan for a consecutive year. It's certainly the only reason I've gotten an education.

Thankfully Michigan has some great schools for business, law, engineering, nursing, etc that can set you on a stable path in life.

I remember there was a time in in the 2000s where you could get group health insurance if you had an ancestor of a certain tribe (usually a grandparent or great grandparent). A lot of people used that to get coverage. IEEE and USAA were another way to get coverage but they all ditched their health insurance around 2010.

Once Elizabeth Warren went full Cherokee, it got others interested.

Nah they're too mixed with Spanish blood.

You never go full Cherokee.

I’ll admit, I did that, because I AM a native to America, I.e. I was born here. Instructions were unclear, and I wanted to prove a point.

It should have said Aboriginal, and not native.

I mean that’s what affirmative action gets you

It depends on the tribe, Nations like the Mississippian Choctaw and Navajo Nation probably have a lot of people who are 1/1 Blood Quantum while it would be more uncommon for the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma or any if you are Lumbee.

Even being 1/16th on the Blood Quantum doesn't mean you can't be 100% of different Native ancestries since Blood quantum is only based on your distance from an ancestor or ancestors on a roll and you can't mix blood quantum of different tribes.

Anything to do with the popularity of 23andme.com and other website services like that? I found out I’m 4% Native American where as I assumed to be zero. Cool to know personally but doesn’t change anything for me.

Yeah the whole blood quantum thing is pretty wack cuz even full blooded Indians were counted as 1/2 if they were mixed tribe which was fairly common by the time of the Dawes rolls.

Now correct me if I’m wrong but I’m under the impression each nation can choose their membership, and most use blood quantum (which is really based on the Dawes rolls) or relation to the Dawes rolls, but they can choose a method that doesn’t relate to the Dawes rolls at all right? Like that’s how the Cherokee removed the freedmen despite them being on the rolls?

This likely contributed to the change.

A lot of 23andMe natives probably

I was born here. The instructions were vague, and I wanted to prove a point.

I had exactly the same experience!

I didn’t tell the census about though.

Everyone forgets about the Latinos. They make up a large proportion of the population and many have started to reaffirm their native roots. And yes many are mixed but it doesn’t dismiss their ancestral heritage.

Disenrollment was real.

Government cheese is a thing if you're on WIC, since pregnant women need a good diet the government just hands out some food if the woman is low-income, one of those foods being 'government cheese'.

I guess in some states they also give Native Americans government cheese? Seems odd "heyy we stole your land and genocided your people, here's some apology cheese" 🤷.

From what I've been told the cheese comes in an unsliced block and varies in quality. Like I've been told in many states the government cheese is disgusting. In NY though it's better than Boar's Head, best American cheese I've ever eaten.

I identify as a Native American, I don’t like the government either

[deleted]

Politicians?

[deleted]

Yep. My tribes requirements is being able to trace an ancestor on the Dawes roll, but you have to be at least 25% blood quantum to be in the tribal council

Your tribe doesn't have commodities for its members?

Ahm a native muhrkan! I wuz born in Muhrika!

My grandparents used to get 'government cheese' (they were on social security). It was pretty much velveeta.

I think it's a combination of genetic testing and being able to choose multiple races on census forms. "23andMe says I'm 1% North American ancestry! I never new I was Native American!"

I work in HR and was doing an analysis of our diversity and we had only one person who identified as American Indian. I think Raj Patel was perhaps confused by the term 'American Indian'.

No, we give out money instead.

2010 to 2020 is only a 0.5% increase, not 86%.

They want more members because it gives them larger influence plus the government gives grants based on how large the tribe is. You don’t have to be 1/64th to join an Oklahoma tribe- you just have to have an ancestor who signed the Dawes rolls. Many people have CDIB cards showing 1/124th or 1/215th etc.

It’s because of ancestry.com

Most of the tribes in Oklahoma only require that you have at least one relative that signed the Dawes rolls. To be an elder though, many require 1/4. Most tribal members in Oklahoma are of majority white heritage.

I can hear it now, the idiots spewing that natives re trying to “ruin biodiversity” or “eliminate whites”

I say this because we all know we have politicians in the US who would love to jump on any hate wagon.

Native blood quantum is such a weirdly racist concept. I can't imagine any other context where saying "Your blood isn't pure enough to join our group and we are going to explicitly discriminate against you based on that fact" would be tolerated or accepted.

This sounds creepy when you're talking about people lol

[deleted]

I live in a state with a very high number of tribes but I don't know much at all about who is and who isn't considered NA by DNA.

It’s really encouraging to see people wanting to learn about their Indigenous ancestry! It’s definitely a small portion at least within the Mexican community, but there are some of us who have begun reclaiming our native ancestry particularly over the last decade. It’s not uncommon at all to go back 2-3 generations and find they still spoke an Indigenous language, lived in an Indigenous community etc..So I definitely wonder how much this cultural movement (albeit relatively small within the Mexican community alone), has played a role in the rise of Native american identification here in the US.

In the inverse, it was always thought my great grandfather was half Cherokee. There were pictures and he had all sorts of stories about growing up with his Cherokee family and friends.

Well my dad, his grandson, took one of those dna tests, we had exactly zero native American ancestry.

It just made it all very weird.

Yeah it does.

In Oklahoma, it doesn’t go off DNA or even proven ancestry- it goes strictly off the Dawes rolls. Dawes was a man hired by the US government to make a list of all Native Americans for land grants etc. If any of your ancestors signed these rolls, you can get a CDIB card (certified degree of Indian blood) which is the only way to enroll in the tribes there. Once you are enrolled in a tribe, you are considered Native American even if you are majority white. It is not uncommon to see CDIB cardholders with 1/124th or 1/215th etc. Anyone with 1/4 or more is extremely rare and they are eligible to be elders and often get offered special jobs at the nation.

Right, but they may self identify on the census, which would explain a large increase of native ancestry on the census.

Someone needs to have a little chat with great grandma

She's long dead, but It gets wilder.

My dad's mom's brother's son did the same DNA test and he has native ancestry. Definitely something funny going on but not shit can be done about it now but laugh.

great-grandma a ho

You can still get free insurance on healthcare.gov if you are Native American. Most tribes also have free healthcare facilities.

I ain't even mad. GGrandma had game

What band are you from? My dad, aunt & grandmother wered all enrolled members of LCO, but LCO's never responded to me when I reach out about it for myself. It hurts, my grandma was abandoned as a baby and adopted by Slovakian immigrants, though she briefly reconnected with her mother and siblings later in life. My dad left my family when I was a kid.

I just feel robbed as a mutt who's always been an outsider, even in my own home. I did a deep dive in to what it meant to be Anishiaabe, all of my passions & instincts suddenly felt like they made perfect sense. The shores of Lake Superior are the closest thing I have to an ancestral homeland, I wasn't raised to be German or Slovak.

My great grandma was from Old Post, a village that was flooded & destroyed by the Northern States Power Company to provide electricity that the villagers of Post wouldn't even have access to for decades. There's a continual pattern of being kicked out & abandoned that stretches back to that flood. We've been trying to survive on the outside, it was never a choice leave it behind.

I just feel like my Ojibwe heritage has been stolen. I may look like a white guy, but that's what genocide is intended to do, destroy not just the blood but the heritage behind it. It made me proud to learn my great aunt Sandra fought against blood quantums, but the genocide isn't finished yet so that fight isn't over.

Also prevents tribal members from leaving the reservation. You can marry before leaving for a career, but your kids would have to move back to find a partner of their own. Good luck telling your kids that they have to marry not just within the same race, but the same tribe if they want their kids to inherit their identity.

It's basically ensuring those communites shrink until they disappear. It's not historical, it's not traditional, it's a calculated way to drain the blood from the tribe & disguise it as freedom of choice.

Hilarious how one race of people can talk about pure blood lines and special status, but another can't

You don’t have to be a tribal member to self-identify as Native on the census. I’m betting a bunch of people got DNA test results that said they’re 3% indigenous North American and just ran with it.

I've heard a lot of native people won't donate for those DNA tests, so there isn't many to compare against. Doesn't mean his family is lying.

My mother is half Chiricahua and also had a DNA test and it shows no native DNA but my grandmother is registered, as far as I know. I think my grandmother's brothers do (or did, not sure if still alive) live on a reservation.

Also, DNA passing isn't always a perfect mix. Maybe you get a little more of A, a little of B, none of C but your relative does get some C.

Turns out people want to save money on college tuition. Pretending to be a Native American is a good way to do it

Gotta get those casino permits

Are native Hawaiians considered native Americans? Or they considered Polynesian? One of my neighbors was 100% native Hawaiian, I suspect there are plenty of 100% native Hawaiians still around.

So yeah they have a state “office of Hawaiian affairs” but they don’t have the same formal relationship as American Indians and Alaskan Natives. Alaska Natives are treated as a different group by the feds from the rest of the American Indians. For example they don’t have reservations like the rest of the country instead having village and regional “corporations”. But yeah cuz of that Hawaiians don’t really have the same quantum thing

I'm "fathered" into a tribe, because my 2 sons are members.

We get money as well from our tribe (Seneca-cayuga) but it has to be need based usually, revenue from the casino and snow shop/ tobacco plant the commodities are given to all tribal member elders and you get the big ass block of cheese plus like bags of chicken breasts, frozen vegetables, fruits, fresh food like onions potatoes etc didn't matter what tribe you are Cherokee, Ottawa, Miami, etc you get it once a month. Maybe it's just an Oklahoma tribe thing I'm not sure about other States.

I'd agree but my dad's cousin did it and confirmed he had native ancestry. Can't link to my other comment about it

We are in California. Our payments are called general assistance and that allows it to be tax free. Our Indian health(run by the 5 local tribes) gives out food a couple times a month. When our tribe does it people bitch about what they are getting so it's not worth the hassle. The majority are thankfully but a small percentage ruin it for everyone.

I wish there was a way to figure all that out. My mother said her great-grandmother was Native American but I don’t have any way to verify it.

A lot, but law states you can only be enrolled in one tribe so if they’re mother is from one tribe and the father a different tribe they will have two pick one of the two and will only be counted as half native from that tribe.

[removed]

It gets you into a better college than you would otherwise get in to

I'm 7% Native American. My great grandma was part Cherokee

I am a white male and used to live and work on a reservation in Eastern Arizona. The number one way a person would lose all credibility was to walk into work on the first week and tell Native staff that you are 1/32 Cherokee or whatever bullshit they made up.

23andMe is your friend.

God know, I did.

Similar story I'm my family, same tribe coincidentally.

Native Hawaiian here. Ethnically and culturally we are considered Polynesian (or Pacific Islander, which includes other ethnic groups from the Pacific/Oceania besides Polynesians).

Its estimated theres about 5,000 pure blood Native Hawaiians left, out of an estimated 300,000 mixed-race Native Hawaiian population.

Native Hawaiians are not federally recognized as being a Native American tribe, there were efforts in the past to do so, but it was shot down in congress.

We do indeed have a State administered "Office of Hawaiian Affairs" (OHA). and in regards to the tidbit about reservations, we do not have reservations either. Or corporations like the Alaskan natives. We do have whats called "Hawaiian Homelands" which is basically just parcels of land strewn through out our islands that are reserved for Native Hawaiians to (originally) homestead on. Now much of it is regular residential housing. Theres a whole controversy about it but i wont get into it here.

And we dont have a "quantum" thing based on tribal membership, because well, Native Hawaiians dont have tribes. If you can trace your lineage to the Native peoples who lived in Hawaii prior to Western contact (1788 A.D.) you are considered Native Hawaiian. However there is a 50% blood quantum requirement to receive a parcel of land via Hawaiian Homelands.

Start with Dawes Rolls

Good to see capitalism working lol... Please go ahead and down vote me. I earned it :)

Blood Quantum is a BIA thing.

>Now correct me if I’m wrong but I’m under the impression each nation can choose their membership, and most use blood quantum (which is really based on the Dawes rolls) or relation to the Dawes rolls, but they can choose a method that doesn’t relate to the Dawes rolls at all right?

Yes, each US Fed. Recognized Tribe (FRT) can determine their own criteria for tribal membership since 1978 SCOTUS Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez landmark case.

Yes, the vast majority (~85%) of the 574 US FRTs use Blood Quantum as 1 of their criteria and most of those use 1/4 BQ of their own tribal blood as a holdover from what used to be the BIA dictated minimum standard.

No, it's not all really based on the Dawes Rolls. There are over 1 thousand different NDN Census Rolls conducted by NDN Agents from 1885 to 1940s when there were mandatory annual NDN censuses taken on NDN rez's.

The Dawes Rolls only concerned the so-called "5 civilized tribes" and is rather well known because of the Allotment Act but not all tribes were allotted. My tribe chose to use a US Govt. roll from 1954 that I am enrolled by that has nothing to do w/Dawes.

[removed]

Nothing noted this was a population increase. It's an identification increase. Stop strawmanning.

I thought Velveeta was more of a mild cheddar? From what I understand the government cheese in NY is American cheese.

Thanks!

>Thanks!

You're welcome!

Who cares, honestly. It’s the US census, not a tribal census. People aren’t taught anymore there are treaties and agreements in place with tribes being sovereign. When it comes time to get the benefits they ask for your tribal id, and if you don’t have one then you get an eyeroll and labeled a tourist.

When I worked for the public university system in Maine, there was originally a full ride (including room and board) for tribe-associated native people. While I was there, the room and board portion changed from 100% to a sliding scale, but I believe the tuition/fees are still covered.

The original was overturned by the Supreme Court because these changes were made to exclude people who were decendants of slaves they've owned in the past. That's when they started accepting any descendent. It was really controversial at the time. I've lived in Native communities if that matters.

On the list is Elizabeth Warren

It could be also the fact that there are millions of indigenous Americans who have been told they are "Hispanic", "Latino", or "Mexican" and we are starting to realize this as an attempt to erase our native history by erasing our cultures. Through assimilation the native population lost its tribal traditions and history and we became exactly what the white man wanted us to be, ignorant of our past and of our culture.

I'll be sure to tell my cousins living on the RESERVATION some probably white asshole thinks they are racist by trying to preserve what scant resources they have left

How come everybody wanna be a native but no one wanna be a native

Nono, I don't think its racist, I know its racist. Please do tell them that.

And calling people white assholes just means you're one as well.

And no, sorry, racial quotas for immigration are not cool, always racist, and you are a bigot, a racist, and a flat out terrible person if you defend it or think its acceptable in this day and age. Get your head out of the past and stop defending the practices of shitty people.

Breed out the Indian. Got it. Good job taking the moral higher-end of being a 1800s imperialist

Calling natives all shitty people. You are such a scummy person

It’s only been the past decade that my mother, (89-y-o,) has identified—there was tons of shame. All the generation immediately prior to hers were sent to boarding schools to get the Cherokee sanded off. Passing became pretty important.

Everybody wants to go to Heaven but nobody wants to die.

As a native Hawaiian, would you say the majority of Hawaiians are for federal recognition? I know that there are natives who are against it and are for succession but I’m just not sure that’s realistic

Thanks

Yeah, I worked for the 2020 Census as an enumerator and we were required to put down whatever someone identified as. There were quite a few people that said to me things along the lines of “well, I think I have a Native American ancestor” and would then tell me to put down Native American in addition to white. I had people tell me clearly bullshit answers to my questions, and I had to put down whatever they claimed, those were the rules. I wouldn’t doubt if these numbers have been skewed by things like that.

Edit: also as someone who worked for the 2020 census, it would be wise to take the stats that come out of it with a grain of salt. There were a myriad of issues with counting that year, it was a nightmare.

Yes. Probably the reason for the increase. Weird that I had to scroll so far to find this.

I couldnt say how much are for or against it. But I do know that there are some who are against it because getting federal recognition would legitimize US overthrow of the former Monarchy/Kingdom in 1893 and annexation in 1898. There are some who still hold out and think it can be reversed by future US or international law. I personally dont think that would ever happen