Response to EVERYONE Who is Asking the Question " Who is Native American" - More Than Just My 2 Cents.... More Like $1.48

Jim Marino with the help of James Lynch has been running a series of commentaries in the Valley Journal beginning in early June. It’s rather difficult to understand what Marino is trying to get across to the reader with his rambling, ambling, rumbling grumblings as he wanders from one topic to another regarding Native American’s but one thing is clear….if he and his buddies had their way, there would be no such thing as reservations with Indians living on them…or at the very least return to the old days where they all lived in poverty, made baskets and beaded jewelry and took whatever the Government threw their way.

One of his comments sums up his view in a nutshell. In his June 25 commentary he says, “Perhaps it is too simple a solution, but if one is more than 50 percent of a non-Indian ancestry, then they are not Indian for any legal purpose.” Well that would certainly be the solution for Marino and friends and everyone who thinks like they do.

No more Indians at all. Move along folks…nothing to see here….go on home….its over.

Marino is out of his time. I think he would be much more comfortable if he were living back in the late 1800’s and perhaps would have been an excellent aid to U.S. Senator Henry L. Dawes, author of the famed General Allotment Act.

Marino is a local attorney who has sued the Chumash twice on behalf of former casino employees but because of a little thing called sovereignty he didn’t fair so well. Because of their sovereign status tribal governments are immune to lawsuits in state court. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that only Congress can remove the shield of sovereign immunity. Hmmm.. seems like that might have been something to consider before going down that short road to no where. Maybe that is the reason for his rants in the Valley Journal…. disgruntled lawyer venting over his losses to the Chumash?

One thing he did get right is when he says that tribal governments do determine who members of a tribe are. That’s it. Case closed and it should end there. Just as the United States is a sovereign government who determines who is and who is not a US citizen, so are tribal governments who determine who the members of a tribe are.

Would you rather we have a foreign government tell us who is a US citizen and who isn’t? Should some other government check our blood lineage, issues us ID cards and tell us who we are? I don’t and why would tribal governments or any other government want that?

Perhaps there are un-warranted, un-fair disenrollments within tribes driven by greed and politics, but until the feds pass a law changing the sovereign status of tribal governments, you and I nor Jim Marino or Jim Lynch can interfere with tribal government’s decisions on tribal memberships.

Our country has many things in its history that we are not proud of. The treatment of Native Americans by our ancestor’s greed for land and flat out prejudice against them is only one example of many. Forced slavery of blacks from Africa is another. Had some foreign government stepped in a couple hundred years ago and told us to stop how we were treating the Indians maybe everyone would be better off today. But there is no way we would have allowed that to happen and so it is to day with tribal governments and how they determine tribal memberships. It is their business and their business only for better or for worse until the law is changed.

I want to be perfectly clear on one thing. I do not believe that you and I should be on a guilt trip over how our ancestors treated the Indians in this country. We had nothing to do with it. We can feel bad and I think the majority of us do, but I don’t believe we should pay for their mistakes and I don’t think we are.

Anyway…back to the Marino Chronicles. As I stated, Marino jumps from one topic to another in a hodge-podge fashion… from buying off of the states politicians, to the inner workings of slot machines…. to what is an Indian where you can’t tell if he thinks there are too many or too few when he says “anyone can be an Indian” then says,” groups of California “Indians” who have only one, two or perhaps a handful of members”. Geeze.. which is it? Too many or too few? Oh wait, that’s right, you don’t want any Indians at all do you? Then he tries and fails miserably to relay some sort of US/ Native American historical timeline for the purpose of… what? I have no idea, except to perhaps to reveal his total ignorance in that field.

Marino dedicates a whole column on how slot machines work and the psychology behind the design. Why? Casinos do make a lot of money on slots. Is it Marino’s intent to educate all the slot players to perhaps dissuade them from playing and in turn hurting all those evil gaming Tribes right where it hurts… in the pocketbook?

Nice try. People play slots because it involves fewer hassles. It’s a fast, simple game where there are no other players that you have to deal with, there is no table, and there are no dealers involved. They play and they have fun….some win….most lose… but that is their entertainment and only a small percentage are problem gamblers. Addictions to alcohol, drugs, food, sex, which are much more devastating addictions, would be at the top of the list for most. But I guess they don’t have much to do with those evil gaming tribes so Marino chooses slots.

A recent study by Ellison Research showed that 70 percent of Americans do not consider gambling to be a sin and the vast majority of Americans are in favor of legalized gambling.

Taking a chance on the unknown is a primeval human trait and probably a reason the human species has survived over time.. we have gambled for thousands of years and a thousand years from now, if we haven’t killed ourselves off or if the “higher power” decides enough is enough and pulls the plug on us, humans will be gambling on something.

You don’t like to play slots or gamble Mr. Marino? Then don’t, but don’t tell others how they should spend their entertainment/vacation money or time.

Besides saying things that are completely untrue when addressing Native American history and issues, Marino makes so many false generalizations to suit his bias I don’t know where to start. He takes a few extreme examples and makes them out be the general state of things.

The relatively new phenomena of tribes transitioning from below poverty level to extremely wealthy, politically powerful entities along with their sovereign status have created some very complex and perplexing issues….issues which are being hammered out daily in courts across the country.

But Marino and Lynch’s belief that blood quantum is what should determine who is or is not an Indian has to be addressed first and foremost. It is such an ignorant and ugly belief that needs to be exposed as such.

I’ve been debating for awhile on whether or not to post on this topic of blood quantum and DNA testing. In my view it is racially charged and my concern was that addressing it might somehow legitimize the questioning of non-tribal members about whom or what a real Indian or Chumash member is and how it should be decided.

Some have said that there are no real Chumash on the reservation. Lynch says the reservation isn’t even legitimate. David Crosby has said,”And frankly, if you want to see them blanch and then get really mad, start talking about DNA testing for who's really an Indian and who isn't. If the guy who's running the tribe here has any Indian blood in him at all, it's a miracle." One person said that they got a kick out of watching and documenting Vince Armenta’s “evolving heritage”.

And now with the recent Marino and Lynch articles and the full frontal attack on Vince Armenta’s blood lineage and family ancestry, I guess my internal debate is over. I need to respond...however unpleasant.

The bigotry and racist overtones in these statements are the reasons I decided to post. Not to defend or speak for the tribe or for their Chairman. That’s not my job and they do very well for themselves. My reason is to hopefully enlighten those who choose to make these racist remarks and perhaps in the process they will understand what the real definition of an Indian is.

The truth is, and it always will be, that it is absolutely none of mine or anyone else’s business when it comes to who is Chumash and who isn’t and who the tribe says is or isn’t Chumash …who has how much Chumash blood and who doesn’t. It is none of our business, and the reason I chose to address this is for those non-Indians who think it is their business and who believe that some sort of DNA testing or blood percentage or other means should be used to determine these things.

Mr. Marino…please pay close attention. The following may help you untangle your grossly convoluted understanding of Native American history and the origins of blood quantum and the devastating effect it has had on Native Americans.

I have, from the beginning, stated that in order to understand where we are today it is very important to look into the past to gain the proper perspective on issues.

There’s that darn word again…. perspective. A lot of people don’t like perspective. It shines a new light on things that they would rather see in the comfortable darkness of their ignorance. I really like perspective.

Throughout Native American history, native blood has not been the driving factor in determining who was or was not included in a tribe. Many times tribes practiced adoption where non-tribal members, over time, became fully functioning members. This happened when tribes would capture members of neighboring tribes, white settlers, or members of enemy tribes during a war.

The story of Jack Crabb played by Dustin Hoffman in the movie “Little Big Man”, which is one of my all-time favorite flicks, comes to mind.

Those adopted into the tribe became full fledged members with the same responsibilities and recognition as that of the “blood” tribal members and the fact that the captors may have been from a completely different ethnic origin played no part in who or who would not be accepted as a member of a tribe.

Descendents of former slaves who came to live among the Seminole Indians of Florida in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the black Seminoles, have been officially recognized by the U.S. government as members of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma since 1866. Their membership in an American Indian tribe has for generations been based on a shared history, rather than on shared Indian genes.

Before European contact, most tribes were very social and open to those outside their own tribe. There were a lot of inter-tribal marriages and inter-breeding. New husbands became full members of their wife's tribe, as were any children they might have.

After colonization, many Europeans and Africans were adopted and fully integrated into Native American tribes. African slaves who escaped their owners, for example, typically were accepted and became members of tribes.

Being a member of a tribe then, as it does today, meant carrying on ancient traditions and languages. Having long standing ties to the land they lived on and having continued contact with the tribe. It meant helping preserve the culture and passing it on to their children. It meant many things. These things are occurring daily on the Chumash Reservation and have been for 150 yrs. It’s not about blood…it’s about who they are, how they live and lived and where they came from.

I am sure Lynch searched for hours to find an example to use in his commentary on blood quantum and then finally found one in Vince Armenta. How convenient.

Ties to the land and carrying on the culture, in my opinion, mean a lot more than some horribly flawed corrupt governmental blood count when looking at who is an Indian and who isn’t. So let’s take a look at an example of that and keeping in step with Lynch let’s use the Armenta family. My apologies to the Armenta’s. As I said, this is very uncomfortable for me.

During the late 1800s, the Catholic Church relocated the Chumash in Santa Ynez to Zanja de Cota Ranch, a 99-acre flood plain. The church eventually donated the land to the Indians, and in 1906, the U.S. government created the nation's only federally recognized Chumash reservation. But life on the reservation was not a walk in the park. The lucky ones lived in dilapidated adobe dwellings. There are eye-witness accounts of families climbing into trees from rickety rooftops to escape the floodwaters of creek that ran through the reservation. The Armenta family lived there back then. Vince Armenta’s grandmother and grandfather, Loreto and Florencia Armenta raised 10 children on the reservation during the depression. The family lived in a lean-to without walls or windows and slept on steel cots lined up on a dirt floor. They bathed in a swimming hole and wore clothes made from discarded flour sacks.

If these people weren’t tribal members nor had long standing ties with the land, as Lynch and Marino and others claim, why would they live there? What would be their motive to stay and live under those conditions?

Did the Armenta’s and other tribal members have a magic ball? I can see them huddled around the fire talking... “Ok kids….here’s the plan. Were not really Indians but nobody cares right now and if we can hold out for about another 50 yrs or so living in poverty you and your kids will be able to build and operate a casino and be rich!”

No, they lived there because they were members of the tribe. It doesn’t matter if they had blue Martian blood in them…..they were members of that tribe and that was their reservation for better or for worse... with worse being the case for a long, long time.

These days, blood quantum, or the percentage of native blood an individual has, is used by many tribes to determine who should be enrolled as a tribal member. It is up to the tribe to determine tribal membership…no one else. I didn’t feel comfortable in asking the Chumash how they determine who is a member and who isn’t. It may well be an assortment of different criteria including blood quantum. I don’t know and I don’t care….none of my business.

Although the use of blood quantum is used today by tribes, it did not originate with the Indians. It has its beginnings back in 1705 when the colony of Virginia adopted laws to deny civil rights to any "negro, mulatto, or Indian”. The law, as worded, made half-bloods, those of half European blood and half Negro or Indian blood legally inferior persons and thus removed those privileges enjoyed by the “whites”. White was made the standard to which all others were measured by.

Following Virginia’s lead other colonies, and later on, other states, adopted similar laws. For example, a North Carolina code decreed that a person with 1/8 American Indian blood and 7/8 European blood was not qualified to enjoy the legal status of the “whites”.

In 1866, Virginia decreed that: "Every person having one-fourth or more Negro blood shall be deemed a colored person, and every person not a colored person having one-fourth or more Indian blood shall be deemed an Indian." Today the Bureau of Indian Affairs uses the ¼ blood concept and many believe the 1866 Virginia code is where it came from.

So, the racist use of blood quantum began early on in our country’s history, dug its roots in deep and has a presence today in daily Indian affairs.

One of the most devastating uses of blood quantum, if not the most devastating use, was the implementation of the Dawes Act of 1887.

By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Indian wars in the United States were pretty much over. The majority of the western tribes had signed treaties with the US and had been given fairly large amounts of territory in exchange.

A whole generation of Indians had grown up on reservations by the time the 1800’s rolled around. But the degradation and poverty of reservation life did not sit well and they became very vocal about their predicament. They wanted sweeping changes made to reservation policies. They were not happy campers.

In reaction to the ripples of discontent coming from the reservations, Congressman Henry Dawes of Massachusetts sponsored a landmark piece of legislation, which later would simply become known as the Dawes Act.

Dawes thought that the Indians should not be left on reservations, but that they should be fully assimilated into the American society. Kinda sounds like some sentiments we hear from some camps in our valley today.

Dawes believed that the Indians should “become civilized” which by his own words meant “wearing civilized clothes, cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey and own property”

Under the Dawes Act, tribes were to give up their traditional communal ownership of their land and replace it with the Anglo-Saxon system of individual land tracts, or private property. The Indians would become American citizens and would receive individual land grants - 160 acres if they were to farm, 80 acres if they wanted to raise cattle and 40 acres for any normal living purposes. The Indians were not owners of this land. The Government was to hold it in trust for a period of 25 years.

The effect of the compulsory Dawes Act was that the Indians were responsible for deciding who was a member of the tribe and who wasn’t and needed to come up with a way to figure it out. The old days were over and because identity had everything to do with who got land and who didn’t it was every family for themselves.

What did they use?… what the European/Americans forced on them from the very beginning…blood quantum.

The enrollment cards used to create tribal rolls for the land allotment process had a blood quantum column for enrollees to indicate what part Indian they were.

The Dawes Act was devastating to the unity, self-government, and culture of the Native American Indian and, frankly, I am amazed that we have Indian reservations today because of this legislation.

I guess it’s a testament to their courage and resolve to not let their culture disappear in the face of wave after wave of US government policies which were clearly meant to extinguish their way of life and assimilate them into a “civilized society”.

Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado who opposed the Dawes Act and saw it for what it really was said "the real aim of [the Dawes Act] is to get at the Indian's land and open it up for settlement."

The Senator had it pegged from the beginning and after the first year of enactment twelve percent of Indian held land had disappeared. By 1920, the 136 million acres held by Indians when the Dawes Act was signed into law had dwindled to 72 million acres -- 17 million of which were leased to white settlers. The reservation system had just about gone into extinction.

There were 5 so-called “civilized” tribes that were initially exempt from this act, the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, but the Appropriation Bill of 1893 changed that. Dawes commissioners began visiting the Five Tribes in 1894 to persuade them to agree to an allotment plan because non-native settlers and other interests wanted more land in Indian Territory. Most leaders of the Five Tribes stalled or refused to hold talks with the commission from 1894-96.

Then came the Curtis Act of 1898 which mandated that allotment would take place among the tribes whether they were willing or not. This pretty much forced the Five Tribes to seriously negotiate and make decisions based on the ratification of the treaties already written.

In order for the tribal members to take part in the allotment, they needed to register on what was called the "Dawes Rolls" where once again blood quantum was the primary tool.

Many Five Tribes citizens refused placement on the Dawes Rolls because they feared government persecution if their ethnicity was formally entered into the system. The Dawes Commission used blood quantum to register and identify who were Indians and of what tribe they belonged. Mixed-blood Indians who had blood from different tribes could only register with one tribe, so a person who’s lineage was half-one tribe and half-of another tribe could only register as belonging to one tribe and would lose part of their heritage, which is one of the reasons why the Dawes rolls and subsequent blood quantum records, like the ones Lynch used for his “research”, became so inaccurate.

Some have wondered why we see so many tribal members with the name Jones or Smith. Surely with names like that they cannot be Indian. The enrollment process was fraught with indignation and corruptness. One requirement was that Indian names had to be anglicized when they registered. For instance an Indian named Red Tail would be registered as Roy Taylor. Aside from stripping away the person’s original identity and attacking their culture it opened up an avenue for unscrupulous government agents to add friends and relatives to the lists who were not Indians and who had no right to the land.

Ahhh…The US Government at its finest. Things really haven’t changed much, have they?

Another ill effect of the allotment process was that the land given to the Indians who registered was mostly the harshest and more arid desert like land unsuitable for farming or raising cattle in the territory leaving the more productive so called “surplus” land available to white settlers.

In 1926, The Secretary of the Interior commissioned a study to examine Federal Indian policy and review condition of Indians. Completed in 1928, and known as the Meriam Report, it documented fraud and misappropriation by government agents and found that the Dawes Act had been used to illegally deprive Native Americans of their land rights.

After considerable debate, Congress terminated the allotment process by enacting the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. From the government’s point of view, the IRA restored Indians’ ability to live and worship in a traditional manner, as well as establishing tribal self-government. But many tribes saw it as just another attempt to dissolve native nations and to assimilate them into the dominant culture.

The racial use of blood quantum unfortunately did not die with the devastating Dawes Act.

The IRA established criteria for eligibility for voting on tribal charters based on blood quantum. This policy attempted to give voting authority solely to tribal members and limit outside interference...a step toward returning self-governance back to the Indians.

So, where does that leave us today with the use of blood quantum to define tribal membership or who is or isn’t a Government recognized Indian.

The future does not bode well for the American Indian if the use of this racist practice continues? Set it at 1/4, or 1/8 and hold that as a rigid definition of who is a member of a tribe and who isn’t, let intermarriages proceed as it has for centuries, and eventually a tribe will be defined out of existence.

I guess that may have been the desired outcome of using blood quantum by the early colonists in the first place and subsequently by the US Government and by Mr. Marino and Mr. Lynch and all through the 300 year long genocide the Native American's have endured….. to eventually be free of the persistent “Indian problem”.

The Nazis used a blood-quantum standard (an idea they got from our government)to help “purify” the Aryan race if that helps put it into the proper perspective.

Orrin Lewis, a Cherokee, put it this way....

"By this standard, white is the default, and everyone is approaching whiteness. Someone who is 1/8 Indian is considered white, and that is the end of their “Indianness” -- they are white and their children will be white, forever. On the other hand, I'm 1/8 white, but that doesn't mean that's the end of whiteness in my line. It keeps sitting there, just as it has since the 19th century when my white ancestors entered my family. Eventually one of my descendants will marry a white person again and hah! We will be 1/4 white. A person can get more white, but not more Indian. Do you see what I mean? Every generation, there are fewer people this system thinks are full-bloods, and all the blood quantums get smaller"

There are those who look at the tribe in our valley and see a group of people who only very recently, relatively speaking, by virtue of their race, they mistakenly believe, were able to open a casino and become very wealthy. They say, “How in the world did this happen? Why are they so lucky?”

Perspective, history, and the truth go along way in explaining how “lucky” these Indians are. Lucky? Indians today are still regulated by about 5,000 more laws than other citizens.

Every federally recognized American Indian is issued a Certified Degree of Indian Blood but nobody makes African-Americans prove their entire family line and apply for some governmental Certificate of Degree of African Blood before they can get a scholarship from the NAACP or put "Black-owned" on their business if they want to.

Seth Prince, a Choctaw and Cherokee with native roots in Oklahoma, wrote eloquently about coming to terms with, and embracing, his Indian identity.

“As I was recently told in the course of sorting out my story, it is what is in my heart, not what pumps through it, that makes me Indian.”

DNA

Some say that we should use DNA to decide who is Indian and who isn’t. Can or should DNA be used to decide tribal enrollment or to identify true Native American Indians? First, like I said, it is no one’s business except the tribe to decide tribal enrollment and how they go about deciding it. But DNA cannot prove who may or may not be descendant of American Indians.

Basically there are two types of tests available to those wishing to use DNA testing to help prove or disprove American Indian ancestry: "DNA fingerprinting" and tests for "Native American haplotypes" or lines of descent.

DNA fingerprinting is the kind of test used to help solve criminal cases. It is also used to establish paternity and maternity of offspring.

One company sells it as a paternity and maternity test and claims that it will ensure that "only Native Americans that deserve to be members of your tribe will be." However, most tribes do not decide enrollment solely based on simple biological connection. For example, they don’t need to use blood quantum to verify who their parents are. There is no question under normal circumstances.

Another company promises to help individuals establish their "identity as a Native American" by testing for Native American DNA. But what is "Native American DNA" and is it relevant to deciding tribal enrollment?" A paper by the Nevada-based Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB) explains why DNA is not a valid test of Native American identity.

Scientists have found "markers" in human genes that they call Native American markers because they believe all "original" Native Americans had these genetic traits. On the mitochondrial DNA, there are a total of five different "haplotypes" … which are increasingly called "Native American markers," and are believed to be a genetic signature of the founding ancestors. As for the Y-chromosome, there are two primary lineages or "haplogroups" that are seen in modern Native American groups

IPCB points out that "Native American markers" are not found solely among Native Americans. While they occur more frequently among Native Americans they are also found in people in other parts of the world.

A second problem with tying markers to Native American identity is that mitochondrial DNA and Y marker testing show only one line of ancestry each. Therefore, Native American ancestors on other lines are invisible.

IPCB addresses a third crucial problem with DNA testing for identity. Genetics cannot help determine specific tribal affiliations for living people or in ancient human remains. This is because, as described above, tribes practiced intermarriage, raiding, adoption, splitting and joining. Those practices prevent genetics from clearly differentiating members of one tribe from another.

So "Native American markers" can tell something about an individual’s biological lineage along a few ancestral lines but falls way short of being a useful tool to help tribes determine enrollment. Many individuals around the world no doubt possess these markers and yet have no close biological, social or cultural attachment to a living tribe, while on the other hand, individuals with strong connections to tribes might not have the markers because their American Indian ancestors are not on the lines of descendancy covered by the tests. DNA testing fails to provide definitive answers on either biological or cultural connections to a tribe.


Sources:

https://eee.uci.edu/clients/tcthorne/chumashconflict2004.htm
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-3018668/Resisting-a-genetic-identity-the.html
http://www.allthingscherokee.com/articles_gene_040101.html
http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/Articles2000/JDForbes001126Blood.htm
http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/challenges/identity2.html
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/6014/Blood-Quantum.html
http://www.auburn.edu/~morrial/Tribal_rolls.pdf
http://members.tripod.com/happytrails_2/newsletter/id48.html
http://www.petitiononline.com/0001/petition.html
http://www.thepeoplespaths.net/Articles2000/JDForbes001126Blood.htm
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/3/22192/21158
http://www.cherokeephoenix.org/News/News.aspx?StoryID=2489
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Act
http://www.manataka.org/page267.html