TRIBAL MEMBERSHIP,
Warren’s DNA results show it’s not so simple
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Jon Rios traces his ancestry to the Pima people of Arizona, but he has no tribal enrollment card, lives in Colorado and isn’t exactly sure what percentage Native American he is. He has no interest in meeting any federally imposed requirements to prove his connection to a tribe. If anyone asks, he says he’s Native American. “I’m a little bit like Elizabeth Warren. I have my ancestral lineage,” Rios said, referring to his affiliation with the Pima, also known as Akimel O’odham. The clash between the Massachusetts Democratic senator and President Trump over her Native American heritage highlights the varying methods tribes use to determine who belongs — a decision that has wide-ranging consequences. Some tribes rely on blood relationships, or “blood quantum,” to confer membership. Historically, they had a broader view that included nonbiological connections and whether a person had a stake in the community. The 573 federally recognized tribes have a unique political relationship with the United States as sovereign governments that must be consulted on issues that affect them, such as sacred sites, environmental rules and commercial development. Treaties guarantee access to health care and certain social services but they can be treated differently when involved in a federal crime on a reservation. Within tribes, enrollment also means being able to seek office, vote in tribal elections and secure property rights. For centuries, a person’s percentage of Native American blood had nothing to do with determining who was a tribal member. And for some tribes, it still doesn’t. Membership was based on kinship and encompassed biological relatives, those who married into the tribe and even people captured by Native Americans during wars. Black slaves held by tribes during the 1800s and their descendants became members of tribes now in Oklahoma after slavery was abolished. The Navajo Nation contemplated ways Mexican slaves could become enrolled, according to Paul Spuhan, an attorney for the tribe. Degree of blood became a widely used standard for tribal enrollment in the 1930s, when the federal government offered boilerplate constitutions to tribes to promote city council-style governments. The blood quantum often was determined in crude ways such as sending anthropologists and federal agents to inspect Native Americans’ physical features, like hair, skin color and nose shape. “It became this very biased, pseudo-science racial measurement,” said Danielle Lucero, a member of Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico and a doctoral student at Arizona State University. Many tribes that adopted constitutions under the Indian Reorganization Act, and even those that did not, changed enrollment requirements. Blood quantum and lineal descent, or a person’s direct ancestors, remain dominant determinants.
‘I’m a little bit like Elizabeth Warren. I have my ancestral lineage.’ JON RIOS, Colorado man unsure how much of his ancestry is Native American