Cherokee Nation rails against test

Tribe says nationality counts, not DNA

Members of the Cherokee Nation say Elizabeth Warren’s DNA-test release hasn’t fixed her “Indian problem” — it’s just created a new problem as she comes under heavy criticism from Native Americans.

“She’s thinking she wants to run for president in 2020 and she has to handle the ‘Indian problem,’ ” Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes told the Herald a day after the report came out. “Well, what happened yesterday gave her a bigger Indian problem than she ever had.”

Warren has faced criticism since the Herald first reported in 2012 that she had identified herself as a minority — specifically an Indian with Cherokee and Delaware roots — while working as a professor. The senator hoped to put that to bed earlier this week by releasing the results of a DNA test that shows she likely had a Native American ancestor six to 10 generations back, meaning she’s about 1/64 th to 1/1,024th Indian.

Barnes and the Cherokee Nation, which panned Warren in a statement after the DNA release, say this is totally the wrong way of going about dealing with the situation — affiliation is not about race, but nationality.

“Cherokee can be white, they can be of Indian descent, they can be black,” Barnes said. “It doesn’t matter — it matters who was there with us when the United States government dissolved the Indian territory in Oklahoma in 1902.”

Warren’s campaign didn’t respond to a question about the Indian criticism, but tweeted, “I won’t sit quietly for @realDonaldTrump’s racism, so I took a test. But DNA & family history has nothing to do with tribal affiliation or citizenship, which is determined only — only — by Tribal Nations. I respect the distinction, & don’t list myself as Native in the Senate.”