What Makes Someone American Indian?

Producer
National Public Radio
Year

Who is Native American? It's a complicated question that has tripped up, among others, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. The Democratic presidential hopeful recently apologized for identifying American Indian as her race more than 30 years ago. It was around that time that the U.S. census saw a surge of people identifying as American Indian. NPR's Hansi Lo Wang explains why.

Resource Type
Citation

Lo Wang, Hansi. What Makes Someone American Indian? National Public Radio. February 17, 2019. Retreived from https://www.npr.org/2019/02/17/695536896/what-makes-s... February 21, 2019.

Related Resources

Image
Blood Quantum: A complicated system that determines tribal membership threatens the future of American Indians

Ryan Padraza Comes Last is a full-blooded Indian, Sioux and Cheyenne on his father's side and Assiniboine on his mother's. He will soon receive his Lakota name: "A Rope." (Comes Last raises rodeo horses and always has a rope in his right hand. He likes to call Ryan his "right-hand man.") But…

Image
Indian Country Today Article

A tribal nation with what could be North America’s strictest enrollment criteria may soon decide on more flexible rules that might, if adopted, increase the tribe’s current 3,000-plus membership. A pending election could lower the 5/8 Ute Indian blood degree requirement for membership in the Ute…

Image
Declaration of Tsawwassen Identity & Nationhood

We are Tsawwassen People "People facing the sea", descendants of our ancestors who exercised sovereign authority over our land for thousands of years. Tsawwassen People were governed under the advice and guidance of leaders, highborn women, headmen, and speakers through countless generations...