Warren touches on Oklahoma past

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren cited her family’s Oklahoma history Monday as she inched closer to a widely expected presidential run.

Grainy video clips of a “Welcome to Oklahoma” sign and family memories were featured in a 4-minute video the Massachusetts Democrat posted to Twitter, announcing she had launched an exploratory committee.

Warren, who grew up in Norman and graduated from Northwest Classen High School in Oklahoma City, said a presidential run would seek to recapture an American promise that working hard and playing by the rules allows middle class people to provide for their families.

“Growing up in Oklahoma, that promise came through for me and my family,” Warren said in the video, describing how her mother worked a minimum wage job at Sears after her father’s heart attack. “That job saved our house and our family.”

Warren’s Oklahoma childhood frequently factors into her remarks, though not without controversy. In October, she posted a video filmed in Norman in which she described her family’s Native American heritage, an attempt to dispel

claims she had falsified such heritage in the past.

“I am not enrolled in a tribe and only tribes determine tribal citizenship,” Warren said in the video. “I understand and respect that distinction, but my family history is my family history.”

The video prompted a response from the Cherokee Nation, which disagrees with her use of DNA tests to determine Native American lineage.

“It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., the tribe’s secretary of state, on October 15.

In September, Warren returned to Northwest Classen High School for a rally organized by the American Federation of Teachers, where she urged education supporters to vote.

“This government fails our children, fails our teachers and fails our futures,” Warren said at the time.

Warren, 69, is the most prominent Democrat to announce interest in a 2020 presidential run to date, though many others are expected to do so in 2019.

[AP PHOTO/BILL SIKES] Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks beside her husband Bruce Mann, left, outside their home Monday in Cambridge, Mass., where she confirmed that she is launching an exploratory committee to run for president.

[PHOTO BY DOUG HOKE, THE OKLAHOMAN] American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and U.S. Senator and NWC alum Elizabeth Warren, enter the AFT education rally at Northwest Classen High School in September.