Oregon family at heart of sticky issue: Does intermarriage threaten Native American culture?
runningwolf
Oregon family at heart of sticky issue: Does intermarriage threaten
Native American culture?
By Richard Cockle, The Oregonian
November 06, 2009, 5:10PM
Aaron Luke is only 7, but his father, Marcus Luke, is already coaching
him on whom to marry when he grows up: a Native American.
It's ironic advice from a man who married a white woman and still
takes grief for it from relatives. But intermarriage has become so
rampant, says Marcus Luke, that Natives are in danger of losing their
culture.
"It's a touchy issue. It's tough, really tough," says Luke, 38, who
lives near the Umatilla Indian Reservation just outside Pendleton with
his wife, Rachel, and their son. "Too much assimilation is what it
comes down to. My son is half Native American and half Caucasian.
Which way does he go?"
Marcus Luke is among Native Americans across the nation grappling with
thorny issues of identity, culture and tribal resources as more among
them marry outside tribe and race.
For both individuals and tribes, questions surrounding intermarriage
strike at the heart of what it means to be a Native American. Just how
much "blood quantum" -- a term U.S. officials coined in the 19th
century -- does it take to be considered a Native American?
And where do tribes set the bar for enrollment? If they set it too
high, they risk shutting out members and dwindling into oblivion; too
low, and they spread resources too thin or render their identity
meaningless. The proliferation of casinos has raised the financial
stakes.
Gary Garrison, a U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesman in
Washington, D.C., envisions a day within a century when "marrying out"
leaves tribal members with little resemblance to their forebears and
little reason to call themselves Natives.
Brooklyn D. Baptiste, vice chairman of the tribal government at
Idaho's Nez Perce Reservation, agrees.
"We do need to let the people know, 'If you continue on this way,
there will be a sunset to our tribe, maybe in 70 or 80 years,'" he
says. "What is the point of fighting for all these treaty rights if
there is nobody left to exercise them?"
Estimates of intermarriage rates are imprecise. A 2000 book by Harvard
professor Werner Sollors says more than half of married Native
American adults in the U.S. in 1990 were married to a non-Native. The
Encyclopedia of American History puts that number at about two-thirds
in 2000.
Garrison says it's impossible to know. No one tracks it, and a study
would be costly and difficult because some tribes "don't want to be
studied."
Paradoxically, intermarriage has played a role in increasing the
Native population. The U.S. census counted just 240,000 American
Indian, Eskimo and Aleut in 1900, down from estimates of as many as 12
million or more in North America before Europeans arrived.
But last year, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the American Indian
and Alaska Native population at more than 3 million (nearly 5 million
counting those who identify themselves as Natives of mixed race), with
54,000 in Oregon. Those numbers are expected to grow.
Not everyone thinks intermarriage is a problem. Joseph Myers,
executive director of the National Indian Justice Center in Santa
Rosa, Calif., says Natives should focus on educating people about
their heritage.
"I don't think we do each other any justice by getting stuck on this
idea that you can save Indian culture and traditions by blood
quantum," says Myers, whose center provides legal education and
training.
The issue is playing out in varied and unexpected ways. At the Nez
Perce Reservation, members must be one-quarter Nez Perce to qualify
for tribal enrollment. That's excluded about 200 young residents from
the tribe's enrollment of about 3,400.
"They live the same lifestyle, in the same community, have the same
needs, but without a tribal card," Baptiste says. And without tribal
hunting and fishing privileges, they can't carry on a tradition of
providing food for elderly grandparents, he says.
Nationally, a trend is under way to boost membership by lowering blood-
quantum requirements, says Garrison of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Oklahoma's Cherokee Nation, for example, requires only that candidates
prove descent from a Native American who lived there between 1896 and
1907, he says.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation accepts
anyone with an enrolled parent or grandparent and who can prove they
have one-quarter Native blood from any federally recognized tribe.
At the same time, a trend of "disenrolling" members is gaining
momentum on other reservations. Though the official reasons may have
to do with blood quantum, attorney Jon Velie says finances and
politics are often the real reasons.
Two years after California's Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians opened a
casino in 2002, the tribe disenrolled hundreds of members, says Velie,
who practices federal Indian law in Norman, Okla., and represents some
of the disenrolled. Remaining members now each receive more than
$30,000 a month in gambling revenue, he says.
"There are some corrupt individuals who have risen to the top of the
tribal community," he says.
"It's a dirty business," concurs John Gomez of Temecula, Calif. He is
among disenrolled Pechangas and formed the American Indian Rights and
Resources Organization to address the issue. "This goes against what I
think Indian people stand for."
Rene Granados, 34, is also among those who saw tribal status slip
away. Granados, a truancy officer on the Umatilla reservation and one-
sixteenth Native American, qualified for enrollment in Oklahoma's
Delaware Tribe as a child. But her mother procrastinated. By the time
she tried to enroll her daughter in the 1990s, the tribe had changed
its blood-quantum requirement to one-eighth.
Now Granados doesn't qualify for a share of Delaware tribal lands,
dividends, education or other benefits that were birthrights of her
grandfather.
Aaron Luke, meanwhile, won't have a problem qualifying for Umatilla
enrollment under current rules. But should he marry a non-Native and
should his children follow that path, his grandchildren will.
Marcus Luke, whose tribal heritage is Umatilla and Yakama, recognizes
that he ignored his own father's advice. Marcus Luke Sr., he says,
often warned him: "'You can go with whoever you want. But if you marry
outside your own, I'll disown you.'"
Still, Luke married his college sweetheart. "I followed my heart," he
says, adding that his father "wasn't very nice" to his wife before he
died nine years ago. Aunts and uncles still tease Luke, sometimes
pointedly.
For now, Aaron, a second-grader, lives in two worlds. Some Sunday
mornings, he accompanies his dad to the Innit, or tribal longhouse, to
worship in the traditional Washat or Seven Drums Religion. There, his
name is Napt Tilipa. Other Sundays, he goes to Baptist services with
his mom.
"He is half me and half her," says Marcus Luke. "In a way, he is a
definition of living in two worlds."
-- Richard Cockle
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/oregon_family_at_heart_of_stic.html
martin
> Oregon family at heart of sticky issue: Does intermarriage threaten
>
>
Marry anyone except mestizos and negroes for they are the kiss of
death.
tt