Identity among American Indians - Essay Example

Number: Identity among American Indians American Indians, despite being the original settlers of America and having long established themselves in this land, are now a minority whose culture and identity are being eroded everyday with the growing influence of modern Western culture as well as intermarriage with other races. The latter especially causes an identity crisis within the various American Indian tribes whose membership is determined by the degree of tribal blood that an individual has. In this paper, we will look at how the American Indians recognize themselves; how those who consider themselves to be Indians or part Indian recognize themselves; and finally how the non Indians identify and label Indians. The predominantly white Anglo-Saxon government of the late nineteenth century tended to favour the individuals with mixed blood in the Indian tribes over the full blooded Indians both materially and in the political arena.1 This was because of the general belief of the time that Indians were a primitive people who were not capable of governing themselves and that only phenotypic looking white mixed bloods were competent enough to do so due to their having white blood. A mixed blood was thought – wrongly - to be at least twice more civilized than the average Indian.2 This served as a basis for the fragmentation of the various Indian societies in America and by the turn of the twentieth century, most Indians were not able to independently determine those who they would have wanted to be the members of their tribes and instead were forced to adopt the federal government’s policy of using the blood quantum to determine who was a legitimate member of the tribe and who was not. The blood quantum policy of the federal government is used to determine who is a legitimate member of an Indian tribe or nation and who is not. The degree of Indian blood one requires to be considered one varies from tribe to tribe. The standard federal requirement is normally for an individual to have at least a quarter Indian blood in order to qualify.3 This not only excludes those people who are legitimate descendants of Indians but it also reduces the members of tribes for who the federal government is responsible.4 The retention of such an outdated practice as the quantum blood policy can be seen not only as a way for the federal government to reduce the number of Indians who are dependent on its support but also as a way of eventually forcing the dissolution of Indian tribal groupings in time and the eventual assimilation into the mainstream American way of life. In reality, the majority, if not all, the current Indians can be said to be of mixed blood to a certain degree. Miscegenation between European settlers and Indians began within the first century of European arrival in North America and has continued since then to modern times. Moreover, as the other racial groups came to America, they also inevitably mixed with the Indians. In the 2000 census more than 1.6 million American Indians reported descent from two or more races and at the beginning of the twenty first century, at least 40% of American Indians were of mixed blood. The lives of Indians is always complicated by the non Indian opinion of how the Indians should look and act because they are often envisioned as noble savages and are expected to look and act just the way their ancestors did during the time of the Pilgrims at Plymouth or as they are depicted in books and movies. What most people in America do not realize is that the Indians have developed and adapted to the modern world just as they themselves have and that their cultures today are not so different to be distinguishable. It is a fact that many of them live and work in the urban areas of America and that they are so well assimilated that it would be very hard to actually recognize them to be phenotypic Indians. A large number of Indians are marrying outside their own communities and in doing so, the number of mixed race Indians has also increased dramatically. This brings us back to the issue of blood quantum, it is estimated that sometime in this century, the proportion of the Indian population with less than the federal standard of a quarter blood quantum will rise to sixty percent. This means that the children of Indians with less than a fourth of Indian blood will be excluded from the federal services and aid. It further means that the possibility of their losing one part of their cultural identity will be highly likely due to not being considered members of a tribe by both federal and tribal regulations. As the mixed blood Indians become the majority of their tribes, the withdrawal of federal protection would mean the erosion of their culture and in the process, the last of the truly American culture will be gone. A major factor that affects the day to day life of many Indians and those who consider themselves to be Indians is the issue of identity. Some Indians identify very strongly with their native cultures and actively participate in them while others are all for the abandonment of their culture and see the adoption of mainstream American culture as the only way to secure their future.5 There are others who take a stand in the middle believing that the best course is to adopt the best from both Indian and American cultures and use them as a basis for their future. The majority of those who support the latter are mixed blood Indians who tend to identify with both cultures but are unable to comfortably fit within either culture. Most of the young unemployed Indians in the reservations would prefer to abandon their culture and go to the cities where they feel that there are better opportunities for them than in the reservations. There are however some Indians who have experienced mainstream American culture and have not found it to be fulfilling. This has led to their rediscovery of their native culture and their participation in it which has filled a void within them.6 In conclusion, it is my opinion that the current means of identifying and determining who can be considered an Indian and who cannot should be changed. It is my belief that all people with Indian blood, however minimal should be identified as an Indian because doing otherwise as it is being done today is very discriminatory. A major step towards ending this discrimination has been the decision of certain Indian tribes to end the use of the quantum blood policy in determining the composition of its members. It should be remembered that no race in the world, whether red, black, white, or yellow, is genetically pure because over the ages, racial mixing has been inevitable. Therefore, the mixed blood Indians should not be excluded from their tribes just because of some outdated racial ideas born during the time of slavery or because the federal government wishes to wash its hands off its obligations towards the American Indians. BIBLIOGRAPHY Carlson, David J. “Indian for a While”: Charles Eastman’s Indian Boyhood and the Discourse of Allotment,” The American Indian Quarterly 25, no 4 (2001): 604-625 Garroutte, Eva Marie, “The Racial Formation of American Indians: Negotiating Legitimate Identities within Tribal and Federal Law,” The American Indian Quarterly 25, no 4 (2001): 224-239 Teuton, Sean, “Placing the Ancestors: Postmodernism, “Realism,” and American Indian Identity in James Welch’s Winter in the Blood,” The American Indian Quarterly 25, no 4 (2001): 626-650 Read More