Native American identity in the United States
Native American identity in the United States is a community identity, determined by the tribal nation the individual or group belongs to.
While some groups and individuals seek to
Factors and terminology
Preferred terminology for
The use of Native American or native American to refer to Indigenous peoples who live in the Americas came into widespread, common use during the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s. This term was considered to represent historical fact more accurately (i.e., "Native" cultures predated European colonization). In addition, activists also believed it was free of negative historical connotations that had come to be associated with previous terms. However, not all Native people accepted the change. In 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in the United States. In 1977, a delegation from the International Indian Treaty Council, an arm of AIM, elected to collectively identify as "American Indian", at the United Nations Conference on Indians in the Americas in Geneva, Switzerland.
Some Indigenous activists and public figures, particularly those from the
Between 1982 and 1993, most American
During the late 20th century the term "Indigenous peoples" evolved into a political term that refers to ethnic groups with historical ties to groups that existed in a territory prior to colonization or formation of a nation state. The "I" is always capitalized as it is in references to a group of people.[13] In the Americas, the term "Indigenous peoples of the Americas" was adopted, and the term is tailored to specific geographic or political regions, such as "Indigenous peoples of Panama". "'Indigenous peoples' ... is a term that internationalizes the experiences, the issues and the struggles of some of the world's colonized peoples", writes Māori educator Linda Tuhiwai Smith. "The final 's' in 'Indigenous peoples' ... [is] a way of recognizing that there are real differences between different Indigenous peoples."[14] Many younger Native Americans now prefer "Indigenous" as a unifying term, over previous options.
Blood quantum or lineal descent
Some tribes have a Blood quantum requirement for citizenship. Others use other methods, such as
Traditional
Definitions of "Traditional" can vary somewhat between Native communities, but usually refer to the observance, preservation, and teaching of the community's language, and their ancestral cultural and ceremonial ways,[16] as well as the protection and maintenance of the community's sacred sites and inherited landbase.[5] Those who maintain these traditions are often referred to as, "traditional" or "traditionals." This definition is defined by Indigenous cultural standards, rather than mainstream academic and legal terminology.[5] Language preservation in particular, and doing one's part to preserve the Native language of one's community, especially for youth in community, is seen as contributing to cultural survival, and an important part of being "traditional."[16]
Some Indian artists find traditional definitions especially important.
Connection to ancestral landbase
The preservation and revitalization of language, cultural and ceremonial traditions is often seen as central to Native American identity.
Construction by others
European and settler conceptions of "Indianness" have influenced how some Native Americans see themselves, by created persistent
In the 19th and 20th century, particularly until
United States government definitions
Some authors have pointed to a connection between social identity of Native Americans and their political status as members of a tribe.
The government and many tribes prefer this definition because it allows the tribes to determine the meaning of "Indianness" in their own membership criteria. However, some still criticize this saying that the federal government's historic role in setting certain conditions on the nature of membership criteria means that this definition does not transcend federal government influence.[26] Thus in some sense, one has greater claim to a Native American identity if one belongs to a federally recognized tribe, recognition that many who claim Indian identity do not have.[27] Holly Reckord, an anthropologist who heads the BIA Branch of Acknowledgment and Recognition, discusses the most common outcome for those who seek membership: "We check and find that they haven't a trace of Indian ancestry, yet they are still totally convinced that they are Indians. Even if you have a trace of Indian blood, why do you want to select that for your identity, and not your Irish or Italian? It's not clear why, but at this point in time, a lot of people want to be Indian.".[28]
The
Some critics believe that using federal laws to define "Indian" allows continued government control over Indians, even as the government seeks to establish a sense of deference to tribal sovereignty. Critics say Indianness becomes a rigid legal term defined by the BIA, rather than an expression of tradition, history, and culture. For instance, some groups which claim descendants from tribes that predate European contact have not been able to achieve federal recognition. On the other hand, Indian tribes have participated in setting policy with BIA as to how tribes should be recognized. According to Rennard Strickland, an Indian Law scholar, the federal government uses the process of recognizing groups to "divide and conquer Indians: "the question of who is 'more' or 'most' Indian may draw people away from common concerns."[31]
Self-identification
In some cases, individuals and groups self-identify as Native American. Some may do so innocently, truly believing they have Indigenous ancestry that simply was not well-documented. Others may do so for other motivations.
For example, individuals may identify as Indian without outside verification when filling out a census form, a college application, or writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper.
- they are not enrolled members of a federally recognized tribe, or
- they are members of groups which are not recognized as tribes
- they are members of legitimate tribes whose recognition was terminated by the government during assimilation and elimination programs in the 1950s and 1960s.[26]
Those who self-identify may consider identity to be a personal issue, based on the way one feels about oneself and one's experiences. Horse (2001) describes five influences on self-identity as Indian:
- "The extent to which one is grounded in one’s Native American language and culture, one’s cultural identity";
- "The validity of one’s American Indian genealogy";
- "The extent to which one holds a traditional American Indian general philosophy or worldview (emphasizing balance and harmony and drawing on Indian spirituality)";
- "One’s self-concept as an American Indian"; and
- "One’s enrollment (or lack of it) in a tribe."[36]
However, this self-id is the opposite of how the tribes recognize members of their communities.[1][3][2] As judge Steve Russell (Cherokee Nation) has written:
The important issue is not who you claim but rather who claims you.[3]
Academic Kim TallBear (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) concurs, adding,
[I]t's a matter of who claims you. And if no Indigenous community claims you, it’s a little bit presumptuous to be running around saying 'I am, therefore, Native American.' You have people with no lived experience in Indigenous community, they can't even name any Indigenous family or ancestors, but they have a family myth about a Cherokee great-grandmother, or they're descended from Pocahontas — you get that a lot in Virginia. So I think it's another kind of claim to own indigeneity, to try to have a moral claim or sense of belonging on the North American continent.[37]
Garroutte identifies some practical problems with self-identification as a policy, quoting the struggles of Indian service providers who deal with many people who claim ancestors, some steps removed, who were Indian. She quotes a social worker, "Hell, if all that was real, there are more Cherokees in the world than there are
Some individuals who self-identify as Native American, or who seek to define "Indianess" differently than do the tribes they claim to belong to, may do so for reasons such as "a longing for recognition."
Patrick Wolfe argues that the problem is more structural, stating that settler colonial ideology actively needs to erase and then reproduce Indigenous identity in order to create and justify claims to land and territory.[45]
Louis Owens, who told interviewers his parents were both Native American - his father 1/2 Choctaw and his mother 1/2 Cherokee - also expressed feelings of "not being a real Indian" because he was not enrolled.[note 1] Despite no proof of any Native heritage, he continued to identify as Native American, but also wrote, "I am not a real Indian. ... Because growing up in different times, I naively thought that Indian was something we were, not something we did or had or were required to prove on demand. Listening to my mother's stories about Oklahoma, about brutally hard lives and dreams that cut across the fabric of every experience, I thought I was Indian."[46]
Pan-Indianism and pretendians
In 1911, Arthur C. Parker, Carlos Montezuma, and others founded the Society of American Indians as the first national association founded and run primarily by Native Americans. The group campaigned for full citizenship for Indians, and other reforms, goals similar to other groups and fraternal clubs, which led to blurred distinctions between the different groups and their members.[47] In 1918, Arapaho Cleaver Warden testified in hearings related to Indian religious ceremonies, "We only ask a fair and impartial trial by reasonable white people, not half-breeds who do not know a bit of their ancestors or kindred. A true Indian is one who helps for a race and not that secretary of the Society of American Indians."
In the 1920s fraternal clubs based on "Indian" themes but open to, founded by, and sometimes solely consisting of, white people were common in New York City. Some included Native Americans in their leadership, and were dedicated to civil rights for Native Americans. Others were formed by non-Natives and including activities such as Playing Indian and titles such as "princess" and "chief" were bestowed by the club to non-Natives, allowing non-Natives to "try on" Indian identities.[48] A non-Native woman calling herself "Princess Chinquilla" (who claimed to have been separated from her Cheyenne parents at birth) and her associate Red Fox James (aka Skiuhushu) (Blackfoot)) created a fraternal club which they claimed was "founded by white people to help the red race."[49] A court case was set to investigate their identities.[49] Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner, John Collier also formed a similar club.[49]
Questions of Native American identity experienced a resurgence and expanded meaning in the 1960s and 1970s with Native American civil rights movements. Groups like the American Indian Movement unified nationalist identity, in contrast to the "brotherhood of tribes" nationalism of groups like the National Indian Youth Council and the National Congress of American Indians.[50] This pan-Indian approach to identity has been cited to the teachings of 19th-century Shawnee leader Tecumseh - as an effort to unify all Indians against white oppression.[note 2] The political and social movements of the 1960s and 1970s made a dramatic change in how many Native Americans came to see their identity, both as separate from non-Natives, as members of tribal nations, and as members of a unified category encompassing all Indians.[51]
Genetic research
In
Genetic research of Native American ancestry, as well as
The
Genetically, Native Americans are most closely related to
Ethnicity admixture
A 2014 study analyzed the genetic ancestry profiles of more than 150,000 customers of the DNA testing company 23andMe. The ethnicity and identity data for the reference panels obtained from Durand, et al. was logged based on the participants self-identification as Native American, European and African.[62] The authors said that, on average, African Americans and White Americans had less than 1% of what these researchers consider Native American ancestry, although some variation was observed, with those living west of the Mississippi River being more likely to have >1% of these indicators. Latinos averaged 18.0%, however, there was a significant amount of variation by geographic and ethnic origin: Latinos from the Southwest had considerably higher percentage results than those from the East Coast or Caribbean.[63][64]
Limitations of DNA research
Within the field of human population genetics, some genetic studies are considered more accurate than others. According to Bryc, et al., studies using genotype data can reliably detect Native American ancestry at low proportions, however other studies have given results that vary greatly, and their estimates of ancestry are poorly quantified.[65]
There is no DNA test that can reliably confirm Native American ancestry, and no DNA test can indicate tribal origin.[1][58][60][66] While there are some genetic markers that are more common among Native Americans, these markers are also found in Asia, and in other parts of the world.[67] The commercial DNA companies that offer ethnicity tests do not have a large enough pool of North American DNA to provide reliable matches.[66][57] The most popular companies have no Indigenous North American DNA, and have stated that their "matches" are to Central Asian and South or Central American populations; smaller companies may have a very small pool from one tribe who participated in a medical study.[68][54][55] The exploitation of Indigenous genetic material, like the theft of human remains, land and artifacts, has led to widespread distrust to outright boycotts of these companies by Native communities.[54][55][66] Attempts by non-Natives to racialize Indigenous identity by DNA tests have been seen by Indigenous people as insensitive at best, often racist, politically, and financially motivated, and dangerous to the survival of Indigenous cultures.[69]
TallBear agrees, stating that not only is there no DNA test that can indicate a tribe, but "there is no DNA-test to prove you're Native American",[58] and that this group (of white non-Natives who test with "Native American" DNA ethnicity percentages) mostly continues to identify as white.[59] Tallbear writes in her book, Native American DNA, that while a DNA test may bring up some markers associated with some Indigenous or Asian populations, the science in these cases is problematic,[58] as Indigenous identity is not about one distant (and possibly nonexistent) ancestor, but rather political citizenship, culture, kinship, and daily, lived experience as part of an Indigenous community.[59][74] Despite the flawed nature of the tests available, and the position the tribes have taken on them, many non-Natives still seek commercial DNA test services, as they may feel they have no other way to confirm whether or not they may have Indigenous ancestry.[66]
Specific tribes
Cherokee
Non-Native constructs of race and
The Cherokee, like most other Southeastern tribes, are historically
There were 158,633 people who identified as Navajo enumerated in the 1980 census, and 219,198 in the 1990 census. The Navajo Nation is the Native American nation with the largest number of enrolled citizens. According to Thornton, there are only a small number of people who self-identify as Navajo who are not citizens.[79]
Lumbee
In 1952, Lumbee people who were organized under the name Croatan Indians voted to adopt the name of "Lumbee," for the Lumber River near their homelands. The US federal government acknowledged them as being Indians in the 1956 Lumbee Act but not as a federally recognized tribe.[80] The Act withheld the full benefits of federal recognition from the tribe.
Since then, the Lumbee people have tried to appeal to Congress for legislation to gain full federal recognition. Their effort has been opposed by several federally recognized tribes.[81][82]
When the Lumbee of North Carolina petitioned for recognition in 1974, many federally recognized tribes adamantly opposed them. These tribes made no secret of their fear that passage of the legislation would dilute services to historically recognized tribes.[83] The Lumbee were at one point known by the state as the Cherokee Indians of Robeson County and applied for federal benefits under that name in the early 20th century.[84] The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has been at the forefront of the opposition of the Lumbee. If granted full federal recognition, the designation would bring tens of millions of dollars in federal benefits, and also the chance to open a casino along Interstate 95 (which would compete with a nearby Eastern Cherokee Nation casino).[84]
See also
Notes
- Blood Quantum 1/4, making both Owens and his parents qualified for enrollment. However, census, military and other official documents all list his parents and grandparents as white.[46]
- ^ Particularly cited is Tecumseh's concern with the alienation of Indian lands and his 1812 statement about Indian unity as discussed in Bonney (1977) p229
References
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- ^ a b c d Furukawa, Julia (May 22, 2023). "Review of genealogies, other records fails to support local leaders' claims of Abenaki ancestry". New Hampshire Public Radio. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
- ^ a b c Russell, Steve (1 July 2015). "Rachel Dolezal Outs Andrea Smith Again; Will Anybody Listen This Time?". Indian Country Today. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
- ^ Garroutte (2003), Paredes (1995)
- ^ a b c d e f Peroff (1997) p487
- ^ "U.S. Census Bureau History: American Indians and Alaska Natives". U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
- ^ "Indian Eristic". Wisconsin Office of State Employment Relations. January 5, 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-17.[permanent dead link]
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- ^ Peroff (1997) p492
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- ^ "AP changes writing style to capitalize "b" in Black". The Associated Press. June 19, 2020. Retrieved August 9, 2023.
The news organization will also now capitalize Indigenous in reference to original inhabitants of a place.
- ^ "FAQ: Capitalization". The Chicago Manual of Style. Retrieved August 9, 2023.
'We would capitalize "Indigenous" in both contexts: that of Indigenous people and groups, on the one hand, and Indigenous culture and society, on the other. Lowercase "indigenous" would be reserved for contexts in which the term does not apply to Indigenous people in any sense—for example, indigenous plant and animal species.'
- ^ "Associated Press Stylebook". www.apstylebook.com. Archived from the original on 2021-08-16. Retrieved 2021-07-04.
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- ^ Garroutte (2003) p16
- ^ a b Etheridge (2007)
- ^ Bordewich (1996) p67
- ^ a b Peroff (2002)
- ^ S2CID 230526013.
- ^ a b Kaur, Harmeet. "Indigenous people across the US want their land back -- and the movement is gaining momentum". CNN. Retrieved 2021-02-10.
- ^ quoted from Robert Johnson, promoter for the fledgling Virginia Colony in Dyar (2003) p819
- ^ Russell (2002) p66-67
- ^ Russell (2002) p67
- ^ Ray (2007) p399
- ^ This right was upheld by the US Supreme Court in Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez in 1978, which is discussed in Ray (2007) p403, see also "The U.S. Relationship To American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes". america.gov. Archived from the original on May 19, 2009. Retrieved February 8, 2006..
- ^ a b Brownell (2001) p299
- ^ Nagel remarks that 1,878,285 people marked Native American as their ethnicity on the 1990 US Census, while the number of members of federally recognized tribes is much smaller, Nagel (1995) p948
- ^ Bordewich (1996) 66
- ^ Brownell (2001) p313
- ^ Brownell (2001) p314
- ^ Brownell (2001) p302
- ^ Garroutte (2003) p82
- ^ Brownell (2001) p276-277 notes that much of the $180 billion dollars a year in federal money for the benefit of Indians are apportioned on the basis of this census population
- ^ Thornton 1997, page 38
- ^ a b Brownell (2001) p315
- ^ Horse (2005) p65
- PRI's The World. Retrieved 6 Aug 2019.
- ^ Nagel (1995) p948
- ^ Russell 149
- ^ Garroutte (2003) p83
- ^ Garroutte (2003), p. 88
- ^ a b Brownell (2001) p275
- ^ a b Lewis, Helen (2021-03-16). "The Identity Hoaxers". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2023-07-21.
The need to be associated with the victims rather than the perpetrators in such a context was, he said, often linked to another trauma in a person's life. [....] Perhaps the subconscious reasoning runs like this: White people are oppressors, but I'm a good person, not an oppressor, so I can't be white.
- from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
- ^ a b Wolfe, Patrick (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native, Journal of Genocide Research, 8:4, 387-409, DOI: 10.1080/14623520601056240
- ^ a b Eva Marie Garroutte, Real Indians: identity and the survival of Native America, (2003), p. 14.
- ^ Carpenter (2005) p141
- ^ Carpenter (2005) p143
- ^ a b c Carpenter (2005) p139
- ^ Bonney (1977) p. 210.
- ^ Schulz (1998)
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- ^ S2CID 57571035. "Despite advances in genetic tests' capacity to pinpoint ancestral relationships, none of the companies can definitively state that ancestral relationships are aligned with any particular tribe. No genetic tests can determine tribal affiliation, nor can they definitively prove Native American ancestry. As we have seen, the key reason behind these limits is simply that there are not enough data in the databases to make strong conclusions."
- ^ Genetic Literacy Project. Archivedfrom the original on November 23, 2021. Retrieved 7 Sep 2021.
- ^ a b c d e Carey, Teresa L. (9 May 2019). "DNA tests stand on shaky ground to define Native American identity". National Human Genome Research Institute. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved 7 Sep 2021.
- ^ Bryc 2015: "Previous studies have shown that African Americans in the US typically carry segments of DNA shaped by contributions from peoples of Europe, Africa, and the Americas, with variation in African and European admixture proportions across individuals and differences in groups across parts of the country.2–4 More recent studies that utilized high-density genotype data provide reliable individual ancestry estimates, illustrate the large variability in African and European ancestry proportions at an individual level, and are able to detect low proportions of Native American ancestry.3–11 Latinos across the Americas have differing proportions of Native American, African, and European genetic ancestry, shaped by local historical interactions with migrants brought by the slave trade, European settlement, and indigenous Native American populations.12–18 Individuals from countries across South America, the Caribbean, and Mexico have different profiles of genetic ancestry molded by each population’s unique history and interactions with local Native American populations.1,19–25 European Americans are often used as proxies for Europeans in genetic studies.26 European Americans, however, have a history of admixture of many genetically distinct European populations.27,28 Studies have shown that European Americans also have non-European ancestry, including African, Native American, and Asian, though it has been poorly quantified with some discordance among estimates even within studies.29–32"
- ^ a b c d e "Two Native American geneticists interpret Elizabeth Warren's DNA test". ABC News. October 22, 2018. Retrieved January 31, 2023.
- ^ a b c d Geddes, Linda (5 February 2014). "'There is no DNA test to prove you're Native American'". New Scientist. Archived from the original on March 15, 2017. Retrieved 31 May 2019.
- ^ a b c TallBear, Kim (2013). Native American DNA: Tribal-belonging and the false Promise of Genetic Science. pp. 132–136.
- ^ a b Marks, Jonathan. "Genetic "Markers"- Not a Valid Test of Native Identity". Indigenous People's Council on Biocolonialism. Archived from the original on 25 July 2008. Retrieved 2023-08-01.
- ISBN 978-1-5387-4970-8. "We know from later comparisons that the Mal'ta boys' people were direct descendants of the Ancient North Siberians from Yana (7). They were broadly ancestral to present day Eurasians. But in comparing his genome to present day populations from across the world, they found that he was also closely related to present day Native Americans; his population was directly ancestral to them. Mal'ta's population -- the ancient Northern Siberians, seems to have encountered the daughter East Asian population described at the beginning of this chapter around 25,000 years ago and interbred with them. Current estimates suggest that approximately 63% of the First Peoples' ancestry comes from the East Asian group and the rest from the Ancient North Siberians. We're not sure where this interaction took place. Some archaeologists believe that it occurred in East Asia, suggesting that this is where the Siberians moved during the LGM" [...] "There's also a case to be made for this interaction having taken place bear the Lake Baikal region in Siberia from genetic evidence, too" [...] "But other archaeologists and geneticists argue that the meeting of the two grandparent populations of Native Americans occurred because people moved north, not south, in response to the LGM"
- ^ Bryc 2015: "We generated cohorts of self-reported European American, African American, and Latino individuals from self-reported ethnicity and identity. We obtained ancestry estimates from genotype data by using a Support Vector Machine-based algorithm that infers population ancestry with Native American, African, and European reference panels, leveraging geographic information collected through surveys (see Durand et al.33). For details on genotyping and ancestry deconvolution methods, see Subjects and Methods."
- PMID 25529636.
- ^ Carl Zimmer (24 December 2014). "White? Black? A murky Distinction grows still murkier". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
The researchers found that European-Americans had genomes that were on average 98.6 percent European, .19 percent African, and .18 Native American.
- ^ Bryc 2015.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-429-51440-1.
- ^ Kim TallBear (2008). "Can DNA Determine Who is American Native American?". The WEYANOKE Association. Retrieved 2009-05-11.
- ^ Tennant, Amie Bowser (9 February 2018). "Why Your DNA Results Didn't Show Your Native American Ancestry". The Genealogy Reporter. Archived from the original on 5 Dec 2018. Retrieved 28 May 2019.
- ^ TallBear, Kim (17 Jan 2019). "Elizabeth Warren's claim to Cherokee ancestry is a form of violence - Be it by the barrel of a carbine or a mail-order DNA test, the American spirit demands the disappearance of Indigenous people". High Country News. Archived from the original on November 22, 2021. Retrieved 5 Nov 2019.
- ^ a b Zimmer, Carl (2018-10-15). "Elizabeth Warren Has a Native American Ancestor, But Does That Make Her Native American?". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2019-03-14. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
- ^ Tsosie, Krystal (2018-10-17). "What to Make of Elizabeth Warren's DNA Test". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2023-01-20.
- ^ Levenson, Michael. "Is Elizabeth Warren's genetic test conclusive?". BostonGlobe.com. Archived from the original on 3 May 2019. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
- ^ a b Ruiz, Rebecca (17 October 2018). "What you should do if a DNA test suggests you're Native American". Mashable. Archived from the original on 2019-05-04. Retrieved 2019-05-02.
- ^ Gupta, Prachi (16 October 2018). "'Our Vote Matters Very Little': Kim TallBear on Elizabeth Warren's Attempt to Claim Native American Heritage". Jezebel. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
- ^ "Cherokee Nation > Home". Archived from the original on 2007-07-18. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
- ^ "Disappearing Indians, Part II: The Hypocrisy of Race in Deciding Who's Enrolled - Indian Country Media Network". Archived from the original on 2017-09-22. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
- ^ Perdue (2000) p564
- ^ Perdue (2000) p564-565
- ^ Thornton 2004
- ^ "1956 Lumbee Act". University of North Carolina, Pembroke. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
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- ^ Houghton, p.750.
- ^ Brownell (2001) p304
- ^ a b Barrett (2007)
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