In response to mocking charge from President Donald Trump that she has lie about her Cherokee inheritance , Sen. Elizabeth Warrenreleased the results of a DNA testin October 2018 , indicating that she indeed had aNative Americanancestor six to 10 generations back . In acampaign - fashion videoreleased with the results ( Warren , a Democrat , is run for chair in 2020 ) , she clarified that she ’s not enrolled in a kin group and that " only tribe decide tribal citizenship . "
" I realise and respect that note , " Warren says in the video , " but my house history is my kin chronicle . "
Warren asserts that she has never claimed aboriginal American status when applying to school or a occupation , though she had changed her ethnicityfrom white to Native Americanduring her time teaching at the University of Pennsylvania Law School . Her DNA announcement was meet with disappointment and anger by many Native Americans , including Chuck Hoskin Jr. , secretary of state of the Cherokee Nation .
" Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal country , even mistily , is unfitting and incorrect , " Hoskin wrote in astatement . " Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage . "
Also train outCultural Appropriation or Appreciation ? Sometimes the Line Is Blurry .
Warren is far from alone in claiming a mob connection to a Native American folk . Many Americans proudly pass down oral history of a majuscule - big - grandma who was one - quarter Cherokee or Chippewa , excuse , as Warren did , the inception of the menage ’s typical " gamey cheekbones . " What frustrates Native American tribal members about these shadowy genealogic title is that they make it seem like anyone with a neat family chronicle or even a DNA test is mechanically part of a tribe .
David Cornsilk is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation , the expectant of the three federally recognise Cherokee tribes in the United States , as well as a Cherokee historian and genealogist . When presented with a case like Warren ’s , Cornsilk likes to cite a democratic aboriginal American apothegm : " It ’s not about what you claim , it ’s about who claims you . "
Becoming Part of the Cherokee Nation
As Warren advert in her telecasting , there ’s a difference of opinion between aboriginal American blood and tribal citizenship . Anyone can claim aboriginal American ancestry , but only the kin and its self-governing government can take an person as a tribal citizen . The app process is dissimilar for each of the 573 federally recognise Native American tribes , but in the Cherokee Nation , tribal membership hinges ontwo set of U.S. government documentsdrawn up more than 100 class ago .
The Dawes Rolls are late 19th-/early twentieth - century census lists that include Cherokee tribespeople who were forcibly resettle in Oklahoma after being driven from states like Georgia , Alabama and Tennessee along the infamousTrail of Tears . To apply for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation , you must be able to trace your unmediated lineage to an individual on the Dawes Rolls . This is done by providing original birth certificates for each link in the home tree diagram .
concord to the Cherokee Nation , if you may successfully trace and document your lineage back to individuals on either of those axial motion , you may utilise for citizenship . you could also apply for citizenship if you wed a tribal extremity . Any other " proof " of belong — family Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , exposure of congeneric in square headdresses , DNA tests — but wo n’t be considered . ( Other tribes have theirown requirements for membership , but they ’re usually along similar lines . )
" We expect hoi polloi to give respectfulness to our institutions in shape who can arrogate to be a Cherokee , " says Cornsilk . " It ’s not about bloodline from someone who abandoned the tribe 150 age ago . It ’s not about DNA tests that might only represent some statistical dissonance . And it ’s not about family unwritten history , that like a game of telephony are often fraught with change that make them very undependable . "
What Citizenship Means
Citizenship in a federally recognized tribe make you eligible for certain wellness care and housing programs usable through the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs and the kinship group themselves . But the Cherokee Nation website work it exculpated that tribal member do not encounter monthly payments from casino earnings , they still yield U.S. taxes , and tribal citizenship does not mean a free college education .
Warren ’s DNA test is peculiarly worrisome to Cornsilk for two reason . First , current DNA testing technology can only confirm that someone in your fellowship was autochthonal to either North or South America , not that they were understandably American Indian . Second , DNA tests reward the erroneous estimate that citizenship in Cherokee Nation has always been based only on parentage lineage .
Cornsilk explains that back in the mid-19th century , the Cherokee Nation had a naturalisation process for new citizen that had nothing to do with the applier ’s family derivation . Many white people , for example , were welcomed into the kin .
The issue of blood descent only arose after Native American tribes surrender to the U.S. politics and were forcibly relocate to places like Oklahoma . As part of these treaties , the federal government activity promised restitution defrayment and land allotments to member of each federation of tribes . The question was , who was a on-key appendage ?
" When the Union government created the dependency which the Cherokee Nation has experienced over the last 100 years , it did n’t want to give money to people who had no Amerind blood , " says Cornsilk .
Over the ensue 100 , Native American kin were dedicate the sovereign government agency to outline their own citizenship formula . Tribal members like Cornsilk require to move off from the idea that Cherokee identity is written in blood or DNA . Instead , he promotes the perspective that Cherokee Nation and other aboriginal American tribes are independent political entity which , like the United States or Canada , can adjudicate who is and is not a citizen regardless of bloodlines or race .
In fact , race is an increasingly problematical return for Native American tribe . As long as blood lineage is synonymous with tribal identity element , it leaves kindred open to lawsuits alleging racial discrimination . Just last month , a Union motor hotel in Texasstruck down the Native American Child Welfare Act , a 1978 law passed to prevent Native American babies from being adopt away from the kinship group and losing their heritage . The judge ruled that the law violates the adequate shelter clause of the fourteenth Amendment by making espousal conclusion based on race .
