Great video, genuine question tho, what about Latin American immigrants? So Many are straight up indigenous and know exactly what their indigenous culture is, could they also be considered Native American or does “Native American” in this specific topic only apply to natives of the US? I’m an indigenous Ñuu Savi (Mixtec) from Oaxaca Mexico myself, but my indigeneity is often not acknowledged by Americans who just see me as “Latino” (a colonial term), and in the US census im often confused on what I should put, if I should put Native American or not because Latinos are often told to pick white, but I am not white nor am I mixed, but I’m also not a member of any native US Tribe, this goes to show how colonial racial categories are so harmful and confusing! Thank you for this video.
As a Latin European I never understood how people living in the Americas could be considered as Latins. Native Americans colonized by the Spanish were not colonized by Latin Europeans but by Iberic Europeans. Latin people and Latin culture are originally from the Italian Peninsula. Is it referred to the Latin/Roman languages such as Portuguese or Spanish languages?
@@yannickbaroue It's called Latin America because of the group of colonizing languages, not the specific cultures. Spanish, Portuguese, and French are considered "latin" languages, and were the languages spoken in colonized central + south America. It was actually a "marketing term" popularized by Napoleon and originally referred to any parts of America which were predominantly French or Portuguese speakers. The first Latin American conference was in Quebec, so pretty far removed from the central + south American label it now covers. It's 100% about colonization & language, and it was Europeans that originally labelled Latin America "Latin" so take it up with the French.
Hi there. My paternal grandpa was Inca. My maternal grandma was half English. So I get what you are saying. I also contract with the Government, and when they ask "are you Native American" they are specifically referring to "federally recognized tribes". For example, the Chinook Indian Nation is not recognized, so it would not be marked as "native American"... but to be honest... Who is going to challenge that? Just keep in mind the purpose of the form you are answering and answer accordingly.
I'm Hawaiian, and nearly all of these issues are here in some form as well. When it comes down to it bloodline has always been very important to the Hawaiian people, but really I think it's a question of who is perpetuating the language and culture. There are so many non-Hawaiian academics at the University of Hawaii who have done a lot to help preserve parts of our culture we would have otherwise lost.
The late Robert Schacht was one of them. I believe he last worked at UofH. I worked under him at Northern Arizona University as a research assistant during my undergrad years.
Yes but Prince Kuhio himself said a drop of Hawaiian is Hawaiian. Because of our situation with potential genocide, it is beneficial to accept every Hawaiian.
@@omggiiirl2077 As a Kiwi Aussie, I can affirm that most Māori I've met consider blood quantum irrelevant due to whakapapa. As long as someone had a Māori ancestor, they're always a part of them, so they are Māori. There's also an Indigenous Australian saying "no matter how much milk you add to coffee, it's still coffee". It's in protest against the Stolen Generation. In the 60s, the Government abducted many Indigenous Australian kids and assimilated them into White society so that their descendants would look white, to "breed out the black". Horribly ugly stuff. I'm proud that my fellow Australians have said "no" to this and recognise someone's Indigenous heritage, regardless of their appearance.
@@jessc2725 yes, agreed! That's why when he says DNA doesn't make you native American, when indigenous American people have been isolated long enough to have their own haplo group, I want to snort scoff and laugh. I found what he said to be so dismissive and false I wanted to vomit. because he doesn't tell how the five civilized tribes owned my ancestors. And that they raped a lot of black women, and those children were either part of the tribe or kept enslaved. He also doesn't tell that even though Lincoln freed black enslaved people, but those same tribes refused to and kept their slaves and marched them along with them on the trail of tears. He doesn't tell about all those people who were half Black being recorded as 'colored' or 'negroe' on the census because of their phenotype. And the one drop rule working in a negative way. Isn't that crazy? For us in the Pacific one drop anything means you are one of us, it takes no explanation. but everything is screwed in the USA. One drop of Black in the past means you're Black, which now a lot of he younger crowd are rejecting. But indigenous are trying to say that DNA markers showing the ancestral markers for native American doesn't mean you're native American is the wildest thing in the world! What that actually means is that an ancestor is hidden and that the person must find them. I actually found out I was descendant of two tribes doing an ancestry test. But what he said was a bit disgusting.
Thank you for your words! I have found that the values of Aloha, especially as taught by Pono Shim, have given me the values I try to live by. I've been very fortunate to have experience with true hula, I'm trying to learn the language, I've read a lot about the history and appreciate the work of Keanu Sai and my car runs on Hawaiian music. None of that makes me a Hawaiian, but I'm grateful for the values and enjoyment it's brought to my life. I deeply believe it's those values and the values of indigenous people on the continent are the only hope in saving this planet and humanity!
My only beef with some Native American in the USA is that they act like native tribes do not exist in Latin America. My family is Zapotec, my parents know the language, sadly I do not. I was raised to just know Spanish and second language English but I know our culture and we have our traditions, yet I say that and get backlash. I look native, have native blood and culture outside the USA. Just a different part of America that my ancestors are from.
Tbh, dont be upset about them. Its honestly the US government structure that refuses to recognize that there is diversity within Native peoples of the Americas.
Devil's advocate here. Why should they care? Everyone has ancestors native to somewhere. Your family heratige is entirely separate from the history within the USA border and the continuing cultural and legal impacts of the treaties between subsets of the indiginous population and the new nation that supplanted their territory.
I am a member of the Cherokee Nation. I can trace my family through the Dawes Roll. I truly do not understand why people want to be something they are not. In today's society, you can not just look at a person to determine if they are Native. Your video does a great job explaining this unique situation. Wado
What about the people from Latin America? Our culture comes from indigenous roots even though most don't belong to any specific tribes. I believe being native is in the culture and the blood.
I have native ancestry (Mayan) but given poor records & deaths of grandparents/great grandparents at young ages, and immigration to US changing names to Americanize them, our family has lost that connection along the way. So over just a couple generations all of that cultural connection was sadly lost. I deeply appreciate the insights in this program, frank discussions, & knowledge the show provides!
Well, the good thing in your case is that Mayan is a culture that is alive and well, with millions of native speakers. You may not be able to reconnect to direct lineage, but you can still learn your culture and language.
Yes, you should learn more if you want to! I'm not Maya but spent time working with Maya Guatemalans on language revitalization. There are resources available in English and more in Spanish for learning your language, and for figuring out which group your family came from - google a map of Maya languages if you already know where in Guatemala/Mexico your family is from. If you don't know an exact location but do know the region, you can look at "language families" within Maya languages - most languages within the same family are very similar and can understand each other, so any of those languages would be a place to start. For example, in the K'iche family both K'iche and Kaqchikel speakers can understand each other, I can attest that with the basic Kaqchikel I learned while there I was able to chat with K'iche people too when we visited their city. As for the rest of the culture, there are some great books on ancient Maya culture, history, and religion available in English or Spanish although a lot has been lost due to being suppressed. The Popol Vuh is a good place to start, although a bit boring to read in parts, and is mainly about Guatemala (it is K'iche). I've also seen that there are some pretty good genealogy records from Guatemala on FamilySearch these days, available for free. Guatemala especially has had a lot go on in the past 50+ years with regard to indigenous Maya losing their culture (through genocide), so it's important to preserve and connect to it if you're interested. There are also a lot of Maya in the US these days, so there might be a community near you depending where you are. I hope all that helps. I'm also in the process of reconnecting with indigenous heritage from one grandparent from a Native American nation, not Maya... Just an ally to the Maya community.
Something similar though perhaps not quite as extreme happened with a major branch of my Irish ancestors. I only recently discovered there are some records in some archives and some census records and with DNA I have been able to contact and reconstruct much of what I thought was lost forever. There are a huge number of people with Mayan DNA in the United States. I don't know if many are interested in doing so but you may find through DNA testing cousins you might not be aware of who may have more knowledge of your ancestors than you do. At least that was my experience with my Irish relatives. I was able to connect with three cousins in Ireland who made some connections for me that when combined with archival records helped me go back over 250 years. Please don't give up on finding your ancestors. Also, while more recent records might not be perfect, When the Spanish were in New Spain they did keep a lot of records. It may still be possible to trace backwards further than you think. Also don't discount oral history. I have found out that much of the oral history passed down in my family that I thought was more myth than truth turned out to be the other way around.
Mayan from which part? I don't know if you've actually looked but Mexican records are CONSIDERABLY more in tact than US records. Mexico has over 90% of their birth, death, and marriage records intact and they go back even further as it's an older country than the US. I know it's easy to think your family comes from too humble beginnings to have been recorded but that is not the case with Mexico. You can easily get to the first indigenous people in your family tree in the records and it will tell you where they lived and you'd know you're part of that group.
Yeah. It's called being Hispanic. Almost every Mexican and Central American has "native ancestry". The culture is easily available to experience especially in the US. And It's Maya. Not Mayan. Read a book.
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. There is no god but God, He is One, He has no partner; His is the dominion, and His is the praise; He alone grants life, and deals death, and He is living and dies not; all good is in His hand, He is powerful over all things, and with Him all things have their end.
If you're asking for another trail o' tears, chief, I have it right here. You're not special. Your ancestors were warring humans too, just like the European tribes, they just won.
@@kayakMike1000 All the comment says is "we're here". Besides, most people know different tribes fought each other. It's true, but not a checkmate thing.
I was told by my family that we have native american ancestry. This made me so proud when I was younger but now that I am older and wiser it makes me understand that some of my actions in my life have been insensitive to nataive people. I still hold on to admiration and respect for all indigenous people and their culture. I consider myself an ally.
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. There is no god but God, He is One, He has no partner; His is the dominion, and His is the praise; He alone grants life, and deals death, and He is living and dies not; all good is in His hand, He is powerful over all things, and with Him all things have their end.
I am about 1/32 Cherokee but I would not call myself native American because I lack the culture and heritage for me to consider myself Native American. My grandmother was probably the last one in the direct family that would be considered a Native American. When she was young, she did live on the reservation but her mom eventually took her family out east. My only first hand account of my past was hearing stories from my grandmother about the reservation when she was growing up. However, due to leaving there as a young child, she really did not have that much connection to her heritage too. When she and her mom left her mom also decided not to pass down any traditions. The only left of my ancestry is just some knickknacks that my mom has. It is sad that a lot of people are playing Indian but I also see it as some people trying to claim their heritage back from force assimilation a lot of natives went through. Still, they should not be taking benefits for Native Americans.
I agree. My great-great-great grandmother was Native American. I didn't grow up with that culture. Who am I to claim that heritage when it's so far back in my ancestry?
I agree. My uncle was Cherokee. At least half, or close to it. But like many Cherokee, regardless of Band, they became so assimilated, that once you moved off the rez, they threw their heritage out the window. And it's the tribes from the east coast who became the most assimilated, because no laws were on the books yet to create reservations that acknowledged their sovereignty. And not all tribal people lucked out with that as there were white people already living on their ancestral lands. My uncle was also the original Uncle Ruckus. I moved away from him when I was 9, and I was always confused by him. Turned white every winter, and dark brown every summer. I would ask my cousin every 4th of July who that man was, which she would laugh and yell at me, that was her father. And it seemed it was always at summer BBQs that he would slip racial slurs while he was drunk. Seriously confusing. 🙄
@@SkyeIDyou don't need to claim any heritage and say you're native but just realize you're making the decision that her culture and experiences died with you. You don't need to say you're native or anything extreme but at the very least respect that part of your family story by doing research on beliefs she may have held and the struggles of her tribe, don't you think she's owed some thought?
One thing not mentioned here, unless I missed it, is that there are tribes that were either never recognized by the government or that were terminated but still exist.
Espera De Corti was American born to both an Italian and Sicilian emigrants in Kaplan, Louisiana in Vermilion Parish, where he was likely influenced by both Cree and Choctaw growing up. I guess we can say that he had stolen heritage, but the fact that he fooled so many, for so long, shows that he admired the indigenous people so much, he wanted to be part of them, and to represent them. But how he represented them was in a stereotypical way that white mainstream expected from Natives, in how they spoke and behaved. Also, most Natives lived either on reservations or purchased tribal land up through the 70s-80s, so most white people never even meet a Native American up to that time. I'm glad that Kevin Costner worked with the Sioux Lakota to get it right, so that Hollywood learned how to be respectful of our Native Americans and their history. Because if someone didn't get it right in 1990, Hollywood would likely still be exploiting them, and fewer Natives would be working in Film and TV production.
I am blonde, blue eyed and 12% Native American per Ancestry, which includes 3% Manchurian and Mongolian subset, and DNA does indeed graph what part of the USA is my Native lineage. I found my Birth Family, and my Mother was born on the Cheyenne River Reservation and I am Lakota Sioux. I have already been told I am not enough Native to be welcomed, which is too bad, because our family is drastically shrinking, and I seem to be the only one who thoroughly enjoys and has time to study and write out our ancestry, ALL my ancestry, including my European Lineage. Maybe my Birth Mother was right hiding her pregnancy and secretly giving me up for adoption, something not even her siblings new for 55 years when she told them on her deathbed, because she knew no one would welcome me because I am ‘too white’. Well, I’ve had a WONDERFUL life with my adopted family, so I thank her for her courage in giving me up.
It could be another sad reason why they won't accept you and it has something to do with your skin color. Which test did you use? I believe I'm apart of the Cheyenne tribe but I'm not sure.
Ur not native. It doesn't matter if u have 12 percent or 40 percent.... just like ur not black if u have 12 percent African. U will never be a black person a native person. All u racist white ppl want to look white with colors and u want the world to think ur indigenous to north america? U want the world to think that the original native american is you? You want the face of native american to look like you so the rest of latin america is has heavy native american dna in them to claim something other than native?? Think about it. U can't blend in with mexican in mexico, u can't blend in with Guatemala ppl or peru ppl in peru... but u can blend in with any white person in European nations... see how that works???
Ya'eh I'm 1 100% native American mimbreno is me Tino Jesus garces montanez of California you native American don't let them make you feel excluded ❤ much love 🎉
As a very pale, Anglo looking, Native, this was amazing. I know who I am, who my family is. I have two tribal recognitions and three roll numbers. My grandfather help set up Indian Ed in CA. My mother dances at powwow and my grandmother loves fry bread and makes dream catchers (Yes, we are Ojibwe). That being said, I'm only "The Native" as long as I am in a room with other non Natives. I never lived on a rez. I never experienced rascism because of how I look. I have never had my drinking water being poisoned right in front of my eyes. So when there is someone who is Native in the room, I sit down and shut up.
Well said. My mother is quarter Choctaw, through my grandfather's mother, who died when he was 6 years old, and that side of my family maintained no connections with our Choctaw relations after my great-grandfather remarried a few years later. Meanwhile my father is Cherokee, born on reservation to two Cherokee parents, but he and my mother never married, and he abandoned me before I was two years old. I've never met him or anybody from his family. Physically I completely pass as European. I've lived almost all of my life in California. I had no education into the native cultures I descend from, I've never faced racism, etc. I fully support native peoples getting everything they can, whether they be mainland or islanders. But I will never claim to speak for Natives, I'll just do what I can to help them be heard and respected.
I like what the professor did by bringing up the concept of "humility". Pretendians don't seem to have to struggle with humility the way I seem to do. I was kidnapped from Canada and raised by my white American mother. I cannot put into words the wounds I have from having these connections torn from my identity, family, land & communities. It hurts me so much I can't speak sometimes, just tear up. Luckily, I found my way back to Canada, my father and some of his family. I've met a few too many people who take up space in Indian Country, yet have no direct connection and no concrete explanation about what that loss is and how traumatic it is to bear over a lifetime. When I encounter people who take up and claim this connection and it becomes clear that they really do not... it hurts. It's real trauma. I have so much anger, hurt , enragement that comes up. I really don't know what to do with it. I don't feel entitled to walk into just any Native space and be accepted, I am shocked by the gaul of the 'pretendians' who feel that they do. It is really hard to be there and share any calmness and patience I can muster in regards to such people. It makes it difficult to connect sometimes in the few instances I find a place where I can get involved. I feel so unsafe and its very hard for me to process it and stay calm and like a rational reasonable human being. Its a mess! Hey, Indian Country? What do you do about the enragement of identity being taken away? Where is a safe place to process this trauma.... because I'm watching the pretendians coming out to Native places to process their own 'stuff', but it makes it feel so threatening to show up and be vulnerable as a sorta whiteish looking Indian who was enculturated by an entitled white lady. The rage endangers my own humility and I can feel deeply shamed by that. Thanks.
Thank you so much for sharing your story! I know some of that enragement and deep hurt, from other causes. Unfortunately I don't have any solutions for you, but as a non-native who has received a lot of acceptance from native people, I know healing is possible. That healing reduces the hurt and rage to manageable proportions. I'll never be native, I'll never know the language or traditions, but I've recovered my humanity because of the gracious acceptance of wonderful people. I hope that same peace and healing will be yours! I'm so sorry and so angered at the terrible wrongs that have been committed which have hurt so many. That awareness is slowly growing, but it doesn't really help individuals who have been so deeply harmed. It's clear from your words that you are a good person who just wants what we all need....true belonging and a healthy sense of who we are. Your honesty is a great step in that direction. I wish you well and, knowing that's not nearly enough, wish you people who will connect with you.
And yet you seek to disenfranchise other people who have been displaced. I don't need acceptance from anybody no matter what their color. I accept myself. I am valid and the way I live is valid. And yes rejection hurts but only if you require acceptance
Thank you. We need to hear that. I'm white, I'm sorry. There's a guy here in Tennessee who is a well known engineer for this company who has built most of Chattanooga. Kind of a friend, so I know that he also had been taken away from his family and adopted out...actually sold by the state, it was a thing until the '60s. He had to make his way back to his parents, and collect his siblings. He's pretty rich now, and he can do that. But like you were saying, the trauma is so intense, it sneaks up. This man is rich now, and has influence here. But at a family get together, the grand kids were playing in the sun and he about lost his mind about them getting dark. Really lost it, they need to cover up, they need to stay close, they needed for any reason, to stay close to him at all times. Because that's how he got taken as a child, his teachers noticed how dark he was, and asked what his ethnicity was, and social services were at their door soon after. There's no way to fix that. Thank you for sharing your story, and I'm really sorry.
@@carolmoore1038 It doesn’t sound like the OP us seeking to promote disenfranchisement. If you’re able have a sense of identity, good for you. Please don’t dump on others who haven’t had the makings of the same. Their voice is important for their own reconciliation journey. Even if it’s inky finding some way to reconcile their own sense of self.
The "Playing Indian" phenomenon is interesting from a transnational perspective, because it's definitely something that I've seen from settler rhetoric across the Americas. A classic example is Simón Bolívar rhetorically aligning himself and his cause with that of the indigenous people killed or enslaved by Spain, even though he was a wealthy white man with no connection to any of the communities he alludes to, and it's debatable how much his revolutionary project did to improve the lot of indigenous people in South America.
The same sort of hypocrisy occurs in Mexico. For every conflict they wanted Indigenous people to support causes & fight. But wanted the caveat of everyone, regardless of race, identifying as Mestizo, even if you werent mixed race. And today Mexicans will try & argue that racism doesnt exist even when Indigenous & black Mexicans are treated like garbage & when white & lighter skinned Mexicans are who get promoted most in media. I still remember when Yalitza Aparicio, whose hella Indigenous, was being considered for best actress & several Mexican actresses - who were white or fit the Mestizo definition - said truly racist shit about her & called her ugly. Its a problem across Latin America.
@@JurassicLion2049 Or when everybody said to Yasnaya Elena that "we are all indigenous"... Same people who won't hesitate to call them "pinche indio" when organizing because there's no water in Tukyo'm. Mexico is top notch racist. Colombia is very much too. And definitely, Simon Bolívar had no good impact on Wayuu, Kogi, Arhuaco and Wiwa nations as far as they tell me. I would say that Ecuador and Bolivia differ, though the decolonial struggle is far from over in all of America.
@@JurassicLion2049 this part bc I recognize the same thing in Mexicans. There are a lot of indigenous Mexicans but aren’t as quick to acknowledge the ongoing oppression against indigenous peoples in Mexico
My father's mother was full blood Diné but, passed away when I was 5. My dad never talked about her (he said it was painful to) or her side of the family. So, I always felt like I was missing out on some heritage. We were raised Mexican. I wish I could have had more time with her, heard her stories and who her family was. She left reservation in the 40's and married my grandpa and moved to East LA. Cecilia Alvarez was her name and her father was Domingo. That's all I really know. So now I'm trying to learn about my heritage more.
My story isn't the same, but it is similar. My father's mother was Carib. She died when I was 5 (I'm 40 now), but unfortunately I never got to meet her. My dad really didn't say much about her at all so I never knew anything about her. When I got a bit older he actually told me he shunned her and that she is his family because he was embarrassed by them. In the country my parents are from, at the time, there was a lot of racial tension and there was naturally a ranking of races. The indigenous people were at the bottom of the totem pole. My dad is going to be 80 next year and his rejection of his family will be one of his biggest regrets until the day he dies. I really wish I had a connection to that part of my family because I want to learn about their culture first-hand. The saddest part about it is due to colonialism much of their traditions are lost. I'm sorry we're pretty much in the same boat 😢
My maternal grandmother showed me a picture of her grandmother when I was a child. The photo was sepia tone and she wore a headress and deer skin dress. She told me that she was full blooded Cherokee. I grew up in W. Va. and we could actually dig up arrowheads in our yard, and did find several. I suppose it's possible that I have a small percentage of Cherokee blood but there was never a connection with a community nor any cultural discussions. Now, I'm 72 and have lived in Egypt the past twenty-two years and I will die here. As I reach the end of my time on earth, I wish I knew more about my ancestors. I can still see that photo in my mind. I've had an interesting life and am thinking of doing some research to discover my family tree. Better late than never.😂❤
@judemorales4U you definitely sound like you've had a very interesting life.. And to end up in Egypt. That just seems so spiritual. Many blessings upon you. ❤️
@@amfaber84 that was the same with my father. He had a lot of Caucasian friends and grew up in East L.A. and loved motorcross. I am kinda glad that he never talked about race because, I didn't grow up to view ppl that way.
Just as there are Native posers, there are also White folks with Native ancestors who want to learn about this ancestry. This can be met with rejection by those with a genuine Native identity. It goes both ways.
I suspect it depends on how one does so. Keeping in mind one's privilege and the fact that whoever you're dealing with has met far more people who claim to/think they have Native ancestry than actually do is probably going to stand one in good stead. Recognizing that the is a serious difference between cultures and their histories and who holds power - again, privilege - I'm not sure how "it goes both ways" can truly apply. The recent Canadaland Pretendians podcast helped educate me a lot about some of these issues. Highly recommended. This video is excellent but Pretendians has time for agreat deal of nuance and depth.
@@JDoe-gf5oz I disagree that there is no such thing as race privilege. There is legal privilege, where by law you are entitled to certain privileges because of your race. (Think of Laws concerning First Nations in Canada.) There are other forms of privilege that include acceptance by a group, whether that is a family, a Tribe, or an ad-hoc or arbitrary group such as a poker game or picnic.
No southeastern woodland tribes (Cherokee, Seminole, etc) show up in any DNA tests, @StrayVagabond. Also, it’s been proven DNA markers can skip generations. The former is because DNA companies have to have a specific number of elders to donate to the database in order to have markers to compare new DNA test results to, and most of the Five Civilized Tribes won’t allow it.
I’d like to add that DNA test may mess up on markers a LOT when it comes to intergenerational mixing, and so might not show up very well on a lot of white + black indigenous, Metis and Latine individuals. Genealogy is significantly more accurate. While useful for people who have no idea of their ancestry, it is not an end all be all
Thank you for starting to unpack such a complex conversation. History and racialization is such a tricky issue. I'm not Native, but this video brings to mind conversations by Afro-Natives who, despite growing up in a Native community and being able to trace their lineage, may or may not qualify regarding blood quantum because of historical intermixing between previously enslaved Africans and Indigenous Americans. That was the example that came to mind for Natives that don't "count" based on blood, but are still considered Native. I also thought about the history of forced adoption and Natives who may have been taken out of their communities but came into their heritage and identity later on in life when they had the access to knowledge and resources to learn.
@@squirrelsinmykoolaid there were USA census years that required participants to mark themselves white or Black. Those were the only options, and if an adopted child was brought into a family marked that way, the child was also marked that way. This is how one of my Lenape Ancestors was assimilated, instead of being driven west.
As a Mexican, when I found out that I was 60% American Indian or Native American, it completely changed my perspective on life. And I'm very grateful to Professor Mackey for giving those of us who don't know the opportunity to take a step back. I think knowing that I have 60% Native American DNA and only 20% Iberian gave me the opportunity to reject whiteness. For all the whiteness that exists that allows Mexicans to erase indigenousness, knowing that I can at least be an ally is all I really want. Because indigenous culture and identity has been all but erased, but most of all history has been taken away from many Mexicans. And maybe indigenousness is a way to find out where we come from and who we really are, even if it is not what we expected. Thank you for this video. I find myself now very conflicted on what my identity is. So I want to do the work to be sure what I can and cannot be.
@@madi-cw4du say who where is the native American DNA police at we Puerto Ricans are not only of indigenous culture, language and DNA but Mexicans when you scratch the surface, their entire culture is indigenous all their foods language. Everything about a Mexican is indigenous as a matter of fact, from all the Americans north central and south, Mexicans and Peruvians have more indigenous culture and DNA than any North American tribe. I have come around so many American tribes that have blonde hair blue eyes with no trace of Native American culture versus any Latino. Yes we have Spanish culture mixed in because they colonized us within that Spanish culture. There is a whole lot of Native American culture, and there is no culture bigger than the Latino culture that are native Americans think about this the center of all Native Americans culture came from America pyramids calendars Agriculture. Let’s talk about the Peruvian Andy’s people again pyramids stone structures written languages. There’s no northern tribe that could compare to any tribe south of the border, civilization came from America and Andes northern tribes wouldn’t have corn a main staple if it wasn’t for our people south of the border I tell all my Mexican people who feel indigenous representative baby represented because that’s what we are natives to America no matter who likes it
So you are willing to give up most of the customs and traditions we have, such as typical dances, the Day of the Dead, any food that has been brought from Spain, such as beef, pork, cheese, the orange brought from China, the mango brought from the Philippines, the national sport such as charrería, Mexican music, such as mariachi, norteña, pasito duranguense, the wapango, rancheras, corridos, goodbye to Christmas, the Three Wise Men, not resting at Easter, among thousands of other things that surely have Spanish heritage, but that you are probably not willing to give up, among thousands of other things that surely have Spanish heritage, but that you are probably not willing to give up, the wapango, the rancheras, the corridos, the goodbye to Christmas, the Three Wise Men, not resting at Easter, among thousands of other things that surely have Spanish heritage, but that you probably have no idea about it and that you unconsciously consume or practice, so, stop with the bullshit, Mexican culture is mestizo, and if we reject any of the two, we would have nothing left, both complement each other, Viva México hispano 🇲🇽🌮
@@AntonioFloresEsquivel4 that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard Mexicans just like the rest of Latin Americans have been taught to be embarrassed of their indigenous heritage due to the catas system. It’s OK that we have Inc. foreign cultures into our culture. You see culture is not fixed. Culture is fluid so it’s language and DNA. I did the biggest study on Boricua (Puerto Rico.) DNA 63,000 subjects every single Boricua has indigenous blood 100% of them now go to Spain and test them 100% of them do not have indigenous blood additionally from the 63,000 people tested they were broken down into age groups, the ages 70 and had indigenous blood did the younger subjects that were 18 or less the younger subjects collectively had meso American is South American DNA levels of 70% higher than the older subjects. One of the possibilities is that the genes that have adapted to this geographical area are being used more because European and African DNA respectively has gone down and there’s no new indigenous people showing up in boarding to account for any other possibility Darwin theory. So then, regardless to all the Spanish traditions, native DNA is on the rise in Puerto Rico. Only Spain produces Spaniards. Only Africa produces Africans and only produces natives. Literally, we as Latinos must take the castas system out of our head. It is a racist system. according to the system, everybody wanted to identify as a Spaniard because you would get better jobs, political jobs and more benefits there’s more to it than just that a lot of people could petition the crown and petition to be labeled a Spaniard everybody in the empire float to the status of being a Spaniard, but the DNA does not lie my friend Mexicans from all Latin Americans have some of the highest indigenous DNA of any other country over 60% that is way higher than any northern tribes people as a matter fact it is the migrations of Mexicans into North America that’s bringing back the indigenous DNA be proud of who you are because you will never be a Spaniard
I'm half Nicaraguan and Costa Rican heritage from Central America. I took a DNA test and came out 51% Spanish, Portuguese, Jewish, Italian. But the remaining 49% was completely Indigenous from Nicaragua, as well as Indigenous to Panama and Costa Rica.
That’s like the Costa Rican version of my Mexican heritage. I have 48% Native American, 52% Spanish, Filipino, and Jewish. I just identify as a mestizo to keep the culture alive.
@@stardust86x Castizo is like mestizo. Except Mestizo is more leaned towards native while Castizo leaned towards spainard. These we’re terms used by the spainards to separate the ones who had more euro in them, and perfered to have mestizos over full indigenous blood and castizos above mestizos
@@wicked_cool7technically the term native american is wrong aince to call us that wed have to be born after the continent was named n we werent. We have been here since the ice age and no we are not one tribe only
My parents are from Guatemala and boliva, I'm latina in the U.S but when I go to Latin America, I'm "la India" (the Indian). Guatemala and boliva still have big native American populations, and most Latinos have indigenous blood
Im French and German with a few indigenous forebears on both sides. I never presume to be indigenous based on a few remote relations but when i found a stone scraper in my garden i said "hello" to my relative who made it. Thank you for this discussion.
You really missed a huge segment of people who identify as native Americans (because they are). Mexicans and Central Americans are native Americans and have as much native blood as most on reservation indigenous folks. Many of our customs and words can be traced back to pre-colombian times. The reason the vast majority of Mexican immigrants cant trace their indigenous lineage is because the indigenous genocide in Mexico started about 250 years prior to the American Indian genocide by the americans. That doesnt mean thier native lineage isnt real. That being said i agree that those who arent tied to a tribal community shouldn't speak for those who are active members of a tribe.
Existe micha gente indígena en México y la mayoría de ellos murieron de las enfermedades que no tenía inmunidad y también hay mestizos y una minoría blanco y otra pero más pequeña minoría africana. En México es un país diverso.
I don’t think anyone is meaning to “miss” people in Mexico or central/south America… this is just specifically about the tribes of North America. While there is cultural and ethnic connections to other indigenous peoples of the “Americas”, people who are not of the North American tribes do not have any rights to the lands or tribal money of North American tribes, because they do not have any lineage or connection to them. In the same way that a Native American cannot claim indigenous lands in Mexico etc, the indigenous people of Mexico etc cannot claim rights to lands in America either.
As someone who can trace their ancestry to both tribal peoples of Mexico and to the Cahuilla of California and was always told that I was Indian by my family. I still feel the angst of not knowing my tribal traditions because it was lost to us because passing as white was safer and more prosperous. My family once owned (Spanish paperwork /Dons) much of what is now Los Angeles, yet we were also Cahuilla. I have always put on my papers that ID me as Native American but I also check the box for White and Latino. My Husbands family were slaves of the 5 Tribes in Oklahoma and became Freedmen. But they were also Tribal people from central Mexico. Identity is hard. Especially when someone made the choice to leave that community and it affected all their descendants. I have both ancestry and blood, and so do my children, yet we're sadly removed from our culture. Although I have been trying for many years to learn it-to reconnect with my tribe, ancestors and my past. In California, reservations operated differently from reservations in Oklahoma. People were not confined to reservations.
Happened to me too. My family bailed into the kentucky mountains during the trail of tears, so we're not on the dawes roll. My grandfather was born from native parents but because we weren't attached to a tribe anymore, it's meaningless as far as the gov't and tribal laws are concerned.
A lot of cahuila ppl don't know anything about that culture either. The family might have remained in the same place for a long time, so they are enrolled but not any less assimilated 😅
I pray to God to give you a lot of beautiful days and you know God loves us so much, So where are you originally from? I am Sinclair originally from Germany but currently living Texas
This topic is very close to my heart because I'm Cherokee and Choctaw by blood quantum but phenotypically I'm white. I've benefited from native programs all my life, but my great grandparent's, the people I actually get my heritage from, gave up their culture to join the jehovahs witness, and so I was robbed of my tribal culture because of their decision to distance themselves. I've always felt very insecure about my place in the nation, plastic cards aside. I wasn't raised on the rez, my family wasn't that different from white families barring a few superstitions I was surprised to find had tribal roots. For a while I tried too hard to feel like I deserved my identity by learning the language and cultural traditions, and trying work hard for the nation, then I kinda gave up, feeling like I was kist there to fill up a spot on the census and i didn't have a right to that heritage. But after doing some soul searching and research on native history, I think I've reached that middle ground where I can accept that I just am, and giving up that piece of myself is letting colonization win, and that there's no singular way to be or look Indian. I still do research on the history and culture of the nations, but now it's out of a desire to learn and connect with my heritage rather then prove something. Something I didn't know was how pretendians were making me feel less native by publicly leaning into stereotypes and denyingal actual natives opportunities to speak and share their experiences. Thank you so much for making this video, this is a very important topic and I'm grateful to hear some kind of confirmation I'm on the right track, and learn more about how other people experience being native
I really feel you on this. I am also Cherokee (my grandmother on one side) and Choctaw (my grandfather on the other side). My Cherokee line left the tribe because of tragedy. (The father passed away, so the townspeople accused the eldest son of a murder he didn't commit and hung him without a trial to gain their land and mineral rights. The mother and her sons moved to Oregon, leaving the only daughter with an English aunt.) They really didn't hold onto much. My Choctaw line left the tribe either around removal or shortly after and remained in Mississippi before moving to Louisiana. They held onto their language and a lot of their culture, which my dad passed to me as best he could while living in the Rockies (far from the fishing and hunting community he was from). Pretendians and the backlash of that has caused me to be wary and doubt my own place at times. I am not card-carrying and don't benefit from it. I just want to know my heritage and to be able to be who I am.
A white person taking advantage of native benefits due to small blood percent? That’s called a 5 dollar Indian and that’s more sick than being a straight up genociding colonizer. I’m 1/8th creek/muscogee but I would NEVER LEECH of native benefits because I’m still mostly white and refuse to steal cultures and resources
@@Eniral441 You have a right to express every bit of your heritage and should not be judged by the degree of blood you possess. If you can trace your line to a Choctaw on the Dawes roll, you can apply for membership in the tribe. I am a member of the Choctaw tribe of Oklahoma, whose values are Faith, Family, and Culture, although I do have other lines of native heritage (Chickasaw and possibly Algonquin and Iroquois, as well as several indigenous Mexican tribes). The rest are European "tribes." We are fortunate souls to bear the epigenetic imprint of our native histories along with their painful record of imposed disadvantages because our struggles have made us stronger.
My great grandmother was born and raised in a reservation. We hail from the Iroquois Tribe of the Hodeseaune nation. I've always wanted to identify as Native American or Iroquois, but I have never visited the land where our tribe lives, and I wanna learn our language, but I simply haven't gotten started yet. I'm black, with the only connection being my late grandfather who never passed down his teachings or maybe she never passed down hers to him. I've always wanted to identify with them, but I have never visited the reservation. I do like searching for cool things about our tribe and there are some practices that we share. I love the music and the language just hits me on a spiritual level. When I am able to I hope to visit my ancestors and give thanks to them. I wanna be a part of the tribe, even if I don't live on their lands. I just wanna learn. I watched this video to get an idea on what it really means to be Native, but I learned a lot more and I am grateful for it. If anyone here is from the Iroquois Tribe, please share your experiences and give some advice on how to learn and connect with my ancestors. May peace be with you. Thank you for reading and have a nice day. ☺️
I'm Muisca and my ancestral homeland is in Northern Andes (Present day Bogota), but due to displacement I grew up in Salish & Lakota cultures and have been very involved in the community. I consider myself Native and so does nearly everyone I know in Indigenous community, but some people say I'm pretending because the tribe I come from is in South America. Personally I think it's ridiculous seeing as how my tribe was genocided and colonized just like every other, and it's not as though I pretend to be from a tribe I'm not.
This is interesting because I am indigenous to the tribes of mexico/Guatemala but grew up with an absent father who never reached out to me about learning bout traditions. I now visit pow wows around my area and make friends with the elders and tribes peoples. Every time I cleanse/smudge myself with copal and Palo Santo I make sure to give a little sage back to the earth and lands as respect to the ancestors of those peoples. It's okay to connect with other tribes and share inter-tribal traditions..Just make sure to state that you are not native to those lands.
A tribe is cultural. Tribes also evolved or took over/displaced other tribes through out history on 6 continents as well. If you were displaced and then adopted and embraced by another Tribe, then Culturally by definition you are a member of that Tribe. Tribal isn't always bloodline.
Mexican but worked under a Navajo boss, he looked at me as a younger brother and always opened a shift by saying “It’s a great day to be indigenous!” We should all be inclusive enough but there are limits… Mexicans and Apaches..
funny thing was I met two girls in high school who were native american, always bragging about it and brought it up all the time, saying being being native american made them more in touch with the earth and stuff like that, but yet I looked more native american, both my parents are from Mexico
@@olivegrove-gl3tw my boss looked real indigenous I can pass for white at times but I’ve seen blonde pale girls brag about their great grandmother being Cherokee, in tuned with nature but never used a mortar and pestle (mocajete) 🤣
@@pagongtagi6124 and India isnt the original name of the country (which is Bhārat) --so where does that leave you motor-mouth? You arent an Indian anything...youre Tamil.
I grew up hearing stories that there were Native Americans in both sides of my family. I took a DNA test and there was absolutely no Native American at all. Guess you can’t believe family lore. Thanks for an informative video.
Sorry for your disappointment but If your grandma said the family history consist of Indian history then believe it...DNA testing doesn't pinpoint you as a native. However, if you do a test it should be taken by your blood not your spit or saliva. The blood line runs close because the baby ( Offspring) connect to the mother umbilical cord, which enables the blood to flow from mom to baby😮so the saliva will not necessary prove that you are an Indian. The blood will have better proof, however, genes do skip from generation. For instance, your sister may have the genes from your grandma and you might not have your grandma genes. You might have brown eyes and your grandma might have green eyes but your sister is the one who has the same green eyes your grandma had..😮 so, if your family said you have Indian descendants then believe it.
I identify as part Native American. My grandma was Jicarilla Apache but my dad and his sister were estranged from her at a young age and went to live with his dads family (spaniard). I only met her once on her death bed as an adult. I don’t have any tie to the Jicarilla community as my dad passed away young. I have been told I’m not part native because I don’t live on the reservation, but I don’t think a stranger should be able to tell me what I am or am not. When I say I’m part native, I’m not trying to take away anything from anyone it’s just simply that Apache is one of the parts that make me me.
One time I was having my teeth cleaned. The hygienist asked if I had Native American or Asian relatives. She asked because of the shape of my teeth. It was a really interesting conversation. Years later I took a dna test and it showed 38% for Native American. I wish I could find out more but it’s many generations back.
Honey your last name is Mendez and your 38% NA that is not far back. Remember Native American references the American continent not the US of A. A dip in census records and marriage, birth & death would set you on the right track.
im 22% and that's because my grandmother is 100% native American, Nakoda. I'd guess you aren't far back NA. Maybe one of your parents is over 50% im guessing.
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. There is no god but God, He is One, He has no partner; His is the dominion, and His is the praise; He alone grants life, and deals death, and He is living and dies not; all good is in His hand, He is powerful over all things, and with Him all things have their end.
I'm a white guy. I was privileged to meet and work with many individuals from many Native American tribes at an old job. I learned so many things from these wonderful people, but also heard stories of heartbreak. One lady had been part of the Indian School movement that sought to beat, indoctrinate and coerce Native peoples from their cultures. I did, and still feel shame that my ancestors treated theirs so badly. Thankfully the Native Americans I met were not inclined to hold the sins of my ancestors against me. I think that powerful spirit of forgiveness is the only way we, as an American nation can move past our negative aspects of history and bring about some kind of healing, not just for ourselves, but for those who follow us.
I agree and would add that to be forgiven it's essential to say that we know we did something wrong, and feel awful about it. Then ask what can we do to make things better for you, the people we wronged, and DO IT.
If we adopted indigenous beliefs into our government and laws, such as the balancing of the Four Directions, our society would be much more civilized and fair.
@@dottiebaker6623 The point is that most folk living today didn't do those past wrongs; but rather, others - many of which are now long gone - did; so, most of the folk living today need not appologize for those past actions. It's best to learn history & try not to have a modern-version repeat of the terrible parts & yet try to replicate a modern version of the better parts &/or simply move forward with the best one can reasonably do in mind (yet knowing some folk are almost always going to be throwing monkey wrenches into the works in their wicked attempts to screw things up for others & to possibly get or maintain an upper hand on them).
@@carolinematusevich889 If we only adopt the best of some Indigenous Folks' beliefs & ways, then things could possibly be better; but, not all Amerindian beliefs & ways are decent & peaceful; for, there was much death & destruction in the Americas prior to Columbus & crew arriving in the Bahamas in 1492 & his reign of terror in the Caribbean in 1493 (+). And the current U.S. Gov't did adopt some of the practices of Amerindians that had been aggressively involved in expanding southward & eastward before the Mayflower arrived near Plymouth Rock; so, people being people, there's often someone egging on others - or otherwise compelling others - to do wicked things (things often often rationalized/presented as doing good or right). Only YHWH our God - the Creator - has the solution for getting folk to co-exist peaceably; so, we must wait on His good timing (meanwhile we just have to deal with whatever comes our way as best we can while obeying God as best we can while awaiting for God's rescue process to finish). Keep on praying to the Creator, Folks. ✝️😎👍
Rather than the take away from these horrific tragedies our ancestors commited not be " I hope they dont hold it against me..." But rather consider, what happened to them still affects their lives so it should affect ours as well. We need to offer support and fight to correct the wrongs that we can to repare some of that..
I would be really interested in a follow up to this discussing the legacy of stolen children who were adopted outside of their Tribe, and how that can affect them and THEIR children when they want to discover their heritage.
My grandma was native Mexican and she isn’t considered “Native American” by American standards, which is weird, and I’m only considered “Hispanic” or “Latino” in the US stripping my indigenous heritage.
Does the US census specify being from a tribe and ancestry from within US borders (I realize quite a few tribes spread across borders of the current US with some spreading across the border with Mexico and others across the Border with Canada)
exactly! this is the problem with who can identify as native, or "indian", which is a misnomer. native americans live throughout north and south america. this video gives the impression of "exclusivity" when the goal should be "inclusive" of all people with native american decent.
@carreteras101 To be fair it's largely focused on the US. And most of what it is talking about (programs, recognized tribes, tribal membership, and inclusion programs in the US) are specifically focused on descendants from tribes within the borders of the US and often federally or state recognized ones.
Some people also choose not to affiliate with their tribe. Some tribes disenroll depending on lifestyle. Some do not allow same sex marriage or transistioning. Tribal membership is inherently political. The fact someone can have 100% ancestors from a tribe and then lose membership and no longer be considered native is wild to me. I have heard of other tribes granting membership to spouses that lost membership in their own tribe from these things. Just crazy. When you look at other ethnicities we don’t quantify them in any of the same ways..
yes, thank you for posting this. just flat out stupid to say someone is not "native american" because they do not, or cannot claim membership to an USA native american tribe.
@@nostur4984 in canada it's basically a generational system related to "indian status" (google it if you need more info!) that was designed to force natives to inbreed or marry outside our culture and lose status (government recognition we're indigenous, this relates to our legal rights for living on reserve). for example of how this works: 1. "full" status - my late mother had status so she could pass it on to me, regardless of who my father was 2. "half" status - i was born with status but if my non-status wife and i had a biological child together, they wouldn't gain status. even if my wife was 100% indigenous but didn't have status, we still wouldn't be able to pass it on there's no legal difference between full or half, we just use those terms sometimes to make conversations like this easier. it's also worth noting that someone can be 100% indigenous by blood quantum, but not have status because the rules used to be more strict and aren't actually based on your dna whatsoever. adopted children who qualify for status through their biological parents keep their status, whether it's full or half. i think non-indigenous children adopted by a couple with status gain status as well, but i'm not 100% sure. living on a reserve is not a requirement whatsoever (i never did and i've had status since i was born)
I identify as reconnecting. I look white, but I want to meet my family and learn my language. My mom knew our traditions, but I was cut off because I looked white. If that means I’m embarrassing or white, I guess that’s who I am. Edit: I’ll never be a voice for Indigenous people who’ve lived on reservation or always knew their heritage. But I want to be a voice to my native college students that they aren’t alone. I don’t teach our culture or history, but I do want to model that they can succeed I know I’m Sac-Fox, and my history was lost at the end of the Trail of Tears. But I want to uncover it anyway. I want to honor my ancestors’ memories, and what part of them lives in me too…
My last name is Hicks. I was judiciously kidnapped from my father in Alabama to Florida by my incredibly racist maternal grandmother. She hacked off my waist length hair with kitchen scissors to a shoulder bob within days of my being in her house. I was in my early twenties before I found all out all the things she said about my parents were lies. They weren’t alcoholics, they weren’t criminals. They just didn’t have enough money to fight her and her inherited money from another state to get me back. My mother had to abandon my father and come crawling back to her own mother for even a chance to know me. I don’t even know where to begin to undo the damage she did
That's why I will always acknowledge where my ancestry is from, but I will never identify as native because I have lived as white, and so have my parents and grandparents. It is unethical to take from already limited resources, to claim history that I am not connected to in any form.
My dad is 2/4 native and half Spanish and mom is full. I consider to be native with sometimes considering to be mixed only because people tell me I look Mexican or they start talking to me in Spanish. Lol
It's complicated. For instance, I'm an enrolled Chickasaw, but I don't live in the Chickasaw Nation boundaries in OK. My grandma was the last of my matriarchal line to live on our family's allotment. She left in the 1930's with her mom (and a bunch of cousins, etc) after the dust bowl to seek work out in California - there were tons of people that migrated to California at the time. After allotment and being forced to live and farm in a non Chickasaw way, and then being traxed on the allotment (which, by the way was land bought by the tribe when they kicked us out of Mississippi / Tennessee). They were destitute and due to all the forced assimilation crap, there wasn't much of tribal anything left. Out in California, it was super racist and you didn't dare mentioning you were Indian. So, the family out there never talked about being Chickasaw and my mom grew up knowing hardly anything about it. Then, about 15 years ago, an aunt stayed looking into things and getting us all reconnected. We are all trying to learn / participate as much as possible now. But, I'm pretty white, while my brother got the darker skin. So, when I tell people I'm Chickasaw I get all the looks.
I live where the Chicksaw did in TN. My mom and a few of her family members looked like the Land of Lakes girl but she married a blue eyed white guy and had me. A white guy with pillowed eyes and flaky ear wax like Asians... lol
My family is Choctaw, who stayed in Mississippi and eventually moved to Louisiana. Although they still practiced a lot of the culture and spoke the language among family members only, we still have relatives that vehemently deny that we are Choctaw. This comes from two situations. 1- My family tried to blend in to avoid the government (because of removal, I think, but Louisiana is also known for its corruption in government, too). 2- Racism in the South. It was better to be considered black or Canary Islander (with whom they lived among) than it was to be Indian in the South. They denied it on paper while remaining Choctaw in other ways.
@@willt2036 you know blood quantum - which you change to DNA - is a colonizer thing invented to disposes us of even more land and rights. We don't define ourselves in this way. Plus, DNA cannot not tell you which tribe you belong too. Either, we are a sovereign nation and therefore, determine who is a citizen, or others get to tell us who we are.
My father is Indian, my mother is white. I didn't get to actually learn my Indian culture, because they divorced when I was 9 & I didn't see my father until I was in my mid 20's. I know very little about Indian culture, I am now trying to learn as much as I can. As for what I look like- hazel eyes (they lean green), natural hair color dark brown, my skin tone is fairly light (I'm pale). I'm proud of all my generic makeup-as I'm not responsible for the choices that individuals/ancestors made in the past, before I was born. Blessings.
I'm Yoeme, Purepecha, & Apache and unfortunately, my family did all they could to hide and assimilate out of fear, and so that we could survive. I've spent my life uncovering this and trying to connect. For me, it isn't about a tribal card, resources, or anything political. It is about reconnecting with my cultural heritage. It's been an exhausting endeavor, but I understand it's going to be a life long journey to undo the damage and disconnect that colonialism has done.
The same for me. I found roots to my Sioux and Cherokee family members. Most were slaughtered. Those who hid, lived to systematically cover up who we are. Out of fear. Needless to say, most survivors today , have been bred out and on purpose. Apparently the government kept hunting for those they feared. Mine wouldn’t be dead or in hiding if the government did not fear them. It’s heartbreaking to say the least. On the one hand, I want to know my native parts, on the other, I know I am diluted. It does not erase my roots. And so what if I look like my father’s Hungarian side? I want to explore my other side because my soul has not forgotten.
Thank you for sharing your story. I am purepecha and mixteca on my mom’s side of the family, but we were also taught to assimilate to US culture. It makes me feel really conflicted to claim indigenous roots while I’ve grown up pretty much without practicing any sort of ceremony or hearing stories or the language of my non-Spanish ancestors. How do we navigate it? It’s tough, but connecting to similar people makes me feel hopeful.
This is so interesting. As a Māori from Aotearoa, I'm fascinated in the similarities/differences in our experiences. A similarity is the forced assimilation in schools and loss of culture, as well as lots of us having Euro ancestry and so being white passing. However, we seem to have way fewer of these pretenders. I wonder if it's because having indigenous ancestry here is not as 'cool', and there seem to be less social advantages to doing it.
Aloha poly cousin 😁🤙🏽, I’m Hawaiian, I’ve heard that there is a lot of racism against Māori people in New Zealand, is that true and if it is, that’s probably why non-Māori people don’t pretend to be Māori.
I'm a first-born American on my Dad's side. He was born in Puerto Rico, and we're a part of the Taino tribe. This is a great video ! My cousin sent this video to me, and you have a new subscriber hun!! Love from Rhode Island, USA. 💜.
Dude America is a continent not a country if your ancestors were the Arawaks or tainos the first natives Christopher Columbus ran into Why you make yourself look like a Inmigrant when you decend from the Taino Natives .
@@MariaGasca-Reyesprobably because that means 1st generation United States of America citizens. I’m Mexican & I’m a 1st gen American on my father’s side of the family.
This is one aspect of the United States I always found weird because using those laws and logic the majority of the 30 million indigenous Americans in Mexico would not be considered as “Indian” in the USA despite being mesoamericans
The US government only has treaties with tribal nations within US borders. When someone comes from another country in the Americas with Indigenous ancestry, of course they are Native but they have no standing in the eyes of the Federal Government.
The indigenous people of Mexico are not “Native” to the United States of America though, therefore they have no claims to any of the lands in the US. Culturally and ethnically they obviously have overlapping connections, but these laws are more about land rights and rights to tribal money, of which the indigenous people in Mexico have zero rights to. You don’t see Native Americans trying to claim land rights in Mexico, do you?!
@@The.Hawaiian.KingdomI don't think any indigenous people who decended from Mexico want to claim any land. I think they just acknowledgment that they themselves are indigenous.
Especially because most people who are indigenous of Mexican or South America or Central American do not consider themselves as white. Latino is a broad term and the only link is speaking Spanish. Also yes they may not know the suffering of natives in Canada and the US. But indigenous people from all of the Americans have suffered by taking of their land, mass killings, loss of culture but I agree they don't know the American experience of barding schools.
@@lizamorales8171 Then they obviously shouldn’t have any issues not being included in the definition of “Native American”, as that’s simply a term used solely for the indigenous tribes of the United States. Native Americans, like Mexicans, identify by their tribes names, not a westernized umbrella term for all the indigenous peoples of the US. For instance if you ask a Navajo person what they are, they’ll say they’re Navajo, they won’t say they’re Native American… same if you ask an Zapotec person what they are, they’ll say Zapotec. Indigenous peoples of all of the Americas identify by their tribes. I feel like only Ethnic European influence would make an indigenous person think they need to all be categorized in a general umbrella term. There’s absolutely zero reason for indigenous peoples in Mexico, central or South America to fall under the term “Native American”.
That was hilarious. I had hoped she'd mention something about her "Three Sisters," later revealing faces drawn corn husks, squash, and a smiley bean face.
although to be fair, Warren never claimed to be indigenous herself -- she said she had some indigenous ancestry, which is just true. (yeah, I understand no-one is really interested in being fair.)
@@otsoko66 Edit - never mind. You're right. She had some. Not a lot. Perhaps 6-10 generations up the ladder, which works out to 1/64th to 1/1000th. But, there's a trace in there. :-)
@@otsoko66 yeah EW was treated unfairly. I remember her ads in New England for *local* elections & it genuinely did feel like she was trying to use the “im native” to get votes. (you’re right, she didn’t say she was native! She said she had native ancestors!) However EW was honest about her lineage & I find the “Pocahontas” comments soooo distasteful (I’m not native, she campaigned for Senate when I was in college - she brought up the native ancestry in her campaign ad and I remember thinking, ‘girl I know you are not about to try and use that native ish to get elected” ) But tbf…… she really didn’t make that her entire campaign. She mentioned it & in reality, who are we to tell anyone they can’t claim their lineage?
“Or at least know why you don’t” hit me so hard. Our family’s oral story passed down to me is of the struggle of fighting the US Calvary (we are Chiricahua, Apache) and fleeing west to a train stop town in East Los Angeles, welcomed by the local Tongva people, where eventually I had a great great uncle who was the town sheriff and was gunned town for being native as the influx of Italian and Jewish migrants settled in. We lost our language and ceremonial traditions and became a part of the Chicano culture the brewed in my grandparent’s generation. It was so confusing growing being told to be proud of who we are yet all around me my “friends” always said I’m just Mexican or Latino and didn’t even know Spanish 😅 I’m thankful now I know I am still N’de and am reconnecting as I can
I am mixed Indigenous. Not a member of any tribe except my family. I don't want free money or recognition. But, when I identify as mixed Indigenous don't act like you're entitled to question me. That is a "Western" mindset.
lol that western mindset was forced upon you by the Spanish. Genetic research already listed you all as Africans with Asiatic traits. Your use of the word Indigenous is in fact a western mindset....lol
Yes, being native is in the blood, or else anyone could identify as native. Even if you don't know the culture, your DNA and body behave according to those instructions in your indigenous DNA. We can always learn the culture or start our own.
i wish i had a dollar for every time someone's come up to me & began a conversation with that one..lol..i could buy a car, a house, a boat,..maybe even a whole island. i realise they just want to connect, on any level they think they can..but omg it gets Oooolld & is so hard not to laugh out loud...i have to do my wooden injun face.
Here in Canada we have the Metis, who have both white European ancestry and native ancestry. Not being fully accepted into either group, they nutured their own culture, incorporating features of both.
Yeah I am curious how the Metis fall into this discussion. Beyond just being "mixed," true Metis people do have a shared history, cultural heritage, and way of life they have been trying to protect and legitimize since the 1700s.
That boggles my mind. I’ve seen these people and they fully can pass as Caucasian. We have the Native American phenotype, 30-60% DNA, foods and traditions in the Mestizos within the USA and are not acknowledged.
Im so glad citizenship was brought up because so many natives have such complex familial and tribal connections and with forced adoptions its hard for many people to actualy get that card but are still native. Its such a complex issue
I'm 1/2 Central American (with Mayan and Spanish roots, w/Afro Carib on the side) and 1/2 Anglo American. I am very cautious when I say I'm of indigenous descent b/c people assume I'm from a US or Canadian Tribe. I usually just leave it at Central American, but at the same time I've faced disgusting comments from other Latin Americans for my background. Mostly on Central Americans being uneducated "indios", which gave me tough skin and not care what rando strangers want to label me.
Racism against Indigenous people in Central America is sadly very common. Even though one of my grandmother's was Mayan, when she was younger, she was harassed for looking "india". She told us to never refer to her as such because she didn't want the attention.
TIL the term "apple" and put it along with the various othering racial insults used by people: banana, coconut, oreo. Hi if you use any of these to describe someone, please don't.
We need to talk about the Native American ancestry in the black American community. I DO have Native American in my family and the idea that many of you are saying mixing never happened is so disheartening. I am not 100% Native. What about the reclassification of some native Americans as negro?
Kinda weird, but my cousin sent one of those DNA kits in. It comes back and doesn't mention any Native American blood, but we have black DNA. I have family pictures from both sides you can tell they are Native Americans. My great grandmother was fairly dark skinned but that was on my mother's side. My cousin was on my father's. They also found documents after my grandma died it was a ledger with our family name at the top of each page it said White or Black. We also have a family Facebook page for Genealogy and I have seen several Black family members there. So I came to the conclusion that I'm a Mutt. My family came from Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Oklahoma some from Alabama also.
My father, who was Mexican, born in Mexico, is listed as “white” on my birth certificate, 1968 California. I don’t think they accommodated each & every ethnicity on those old documents, & many indigenous parents might have been recorded as “white” simply because they didn’t know what else to write there. ✌🏼
If I need to talk about the Indigenous folks very broadly, I'll simply say "First Nations". Otherwise, I much prefer being more specific, and use the proper name for each Indigenous group. Like, if I'm talking about the Innu, I'll say Innu. If I'm talking about the Naskapi, I'll say Naskapi. And so on & so forth.
If you’re Canadian which I’d guess you are? Indigenous works for all peoples Indigenous to the Americas, and then within that in “Canada” there are Inuit, Métis, and First Nations peoples. Calling Inuit or Métis people First Nations is actually incorrect, but most of us were never taught what these names mean. Hence also many believe that anyone who is of mixed Indigenous and European descent is Métis, rather than Métis being a very specific ethnocultural group.
They are Called "Native Canadians" or "Aboriginal peoples of Canada" that's Canada's umbrella term for their indigenous peoples. In Mexico they are called Native Mexican or Mexican Native American or Indigenous Mexican.
There is a term called "De-Tribalized Native American," which I think describes most people that have been forced to identify as "hispanic" to erase their Native American identity. This de-tribalization happened by design. The US Governent actively (still to this day) worked to erase Native culture out of fear that they'd retake the land.
Hay personas mestizas y no indígenas que no se indentifica con la cultura y lengua indígena, pero hay gente no es indígena son blancos y mestizos que habla lengua indígena como el guaraní en Paraguay.
@@muscledoggs566 90% of Mexicans are "mestizo" or "mixed." Their DNA admixture is usually ~60% native & ~40% white (spanish). Google is free. Look it up or bury your head.
I am not Indian but I am a native of America and I truly hope that designation is not insulting to anyone. My land is where my dead lay buried and I care for it with every cell of my body. Four of my ancestors stepped off that tiny boat that changed the continent and generation after generation moved west. History isn't pretty but it is ours. America isn't perfect but it is ours to care for. All of us.
This is why I identify as indigenous mexican-american, my ancestors range from El Salvador up into the Central Valley and into northern Mexico, and then when the border showed up, a couple family members made some really hard choices and they chose assimilation at all costs. Now I don’t even know Spanish, but I’m learning. My dad once told me to never forget our ancestors, and I am determined not to.
@@MichaelTheophilus906 I don't think you understand what native language means. If you grow up speaking any given language, that's your native language.
I am from Mexico City, and after reading some of the comments, it seems many missed the key points made by both the speaker and the professor in the video. In Mexico, the concept of identity differs somewhat, as it doesn't rely on blood quantum. As the professor highlighted, identity is rooted in “distinct cultural characteristics, language, community, and connection”. In Mexico, having “indigenous” ancestry is different from being recognized as “indigenous”. Most communities in Mexico base their recognition on whether you are from the here, speak the language, and are collectively claimed by that community.
This always gets me on debates and people never want to accept it but a Mexico has shown a better history of Native American representation and reparations than the United States especially in recent history with the several land back and congress reforms positioning native Americans as their own legal group entity granting them special rights over federal land. The Americans just want to believe they are better at this issue when they are not not even close.
@@ericktellez7632 on paper, yes. But in reality, Native Mexican languages are still very discriminated and its hard to live in Mexico not knowing Spanish. Plus, Mexican media is very homogenous and white. Even Hollywood manages to be more diverse than Mexican media.
@@TheJosman I think that's the case in USA as well and Canada and probably all of south America. Its no secret Native indigenous peoples have been affected by colonization and prejudice towards Eurocentric Beauty standards. Native representation in USA is scarce as well.
Don't speak for all Mexicans and the Mexican Gov along with the U.S Gov Are the worst thing that could have happened to the western hemisphere Corrupt . Mexicans regardless of Being Meztizos have the right to call themselves as indigenous too Moctezuma decendents are still alive some are heavily mixed . But at the end of the day he is Moctezuma great grandson and daughter . So what ever to your pathetic logic .
I grew up in New Mexico and my grandma would always tell me that she was Indian, and she would tell me stories and show me pictures. But she did not live on the reservation(Apache) and speculated Navajo ties. I grew up to be absolutely fascinated with the culture and history and Native American culture in New Mexico is so beautiful and so bloody. But I’m adopted with no idea of biological heritage, I’ve always felt so at home with Native Religion, Dances, and Ceremonies. And I’ve never felt that feeling any where else
In defense of Elizabeth Warren, she had a grandmother who told her she was part Native American. This isn't the kind of thing many of us would naturally doubt or take a DNA test to check, especially about 30 years ago when she mentioned it to her university (and she didn't use it to her advantage, but her university posted it). Today, with cheap DNA testing, and with public shaming, I would think most people would check, but when Elizabeth mentioned it in conversation what amounted to verbal family history, I don't think she should be skewered for that.
That was super common in her generation. A lot of white folks are raised believing they have native ancestry due to a grandparent who heard it from their grandparents back in the day. The "Cherokee Heritage" myth in particular originated with biracial southerners who were light enough to pass into white society but still noticeably dark enough to be questioned about their ancestry.
@@mperezmcfinn2511 Except Warren really did have indigenous ancestry -- not much, but exactly as much as one would expect from her grandmother's story. (in Oklahoma, for a variety of reasons, Cherokees were considered by white folks as a higher status tribal nation, so the default was to claim part-Cherokee ancestry. Plus there was a long history of Cherokee-white intermarriage.)
@otsoko66 Yes, she did. I should have clarified that. I was trying to make three separate points simultaneously. The Cherokee, from what I was told 30+ years ago (so take this with a grain of salt), assimilated early and gained favor with the U.S. government, and also mixed with Anglo settlers in higher numbers than other tribes. I believe they may have also been one of the slave owning tribes. As a result, Cherokee became the default tribe for people claiming vague indigenous heritage. The motivation for doing so varied. For example, biracial southerners used it to join white society (passing). There was also a period in the early 20th century where white folks could buy legitimate documents of native ancestry from a corrupt government official or judge in order to gain certain benefits. They were known as "5 dollar Indians." Additionally, there were whites raised in the culture due to adoption, or a step-parent, who had no genetic connection but identified as mixed. Their children would pass down tribal traditions like hunting or fishing techniques, recipes, stories, etc. Those traditions would get lost after a few generations. Eventually, you would have this white descendant with no genetic or cultural connection, excitedly remembering their grandparent telling them they had native ancestry. Only to have their disappointing 23 and Me results feel like a betrayal.
I used to think I had Native American ancestry because that's just what I was told by my elders as they had comparatively darker skin tones than the rest of the family. But the sparse genealogy records on this side of the family coinciding with migration routes of white settlers and chronology between those, and the times around the Indian Removal Act didn't seem to line up for any such intermixing. Dabbled around with a Melungeon hypothesis but I might need a professional genealogist to assist me because my late father's side of the family is filled informational voids, questionable links, and dead ends.
It was also extremely common for mixed-raced people who would have been classified as "mulatto" to identify as "Indian" as a way of avoiding slavery during the years that it was becoming racially codified in the US (1600s and 1700s.). I have an ancestor who used this as part of the lawsuit to demand he (and later his daughters) should be granted their freedom after their indentured servitude was ended. Had he been black, they could have denied him, so he claimed to be native instead.
Melungeons were isolated for a long time. Newmans ridge is a small place. The Lumbee are probably the best arc back. The Indian Removal Act destroyed so much history
Shaming people for being proud of 1/4, 1/8, or even 1/16 heritage is toxic hostility that we don’t need in this world. I don’t care which ethnicity it is. This is mostly about money & tribal shares… that’s when all this hate started being such a big freaking deal. It’s sad to see how far people fall over money. My mom was brought up on a reservation in AZ & left when in grade school. I remember her getting so angry about that school photo that she tore it up. The nuns in Indian school taught her shame. They told her because she was half Irish. She had a shot at being something in her life if she could learn to be white and pretend she wasn’t Native American. She lied about not being native the rest of her life & abused us in order to keep it a secret. I got punished severely just for braiding my hair & didn’t know why until I was 17 & finally put it all together. I have no idea the exact mixture between Irish & native that she was. It was a Navajo reservation. But I’ve learned we have Chickasaw, Hopi, Cherokee relatives as well & I can’t make out which ones would be directly related due to the family lying to cover it all up to be only white. All I know is in the last days of my grandmother‘s life when she was 97 in the nursing home she could only speak. Hopi. The nursing home had to search high and low for a translator even figure out what language she was speaking and understand what she was . She lost the ability to even speak English in the last week of her life. Every time I think about that week and how I wasn’t even told and not even allowed to be with her because I had been thrown out of the family for being a bleeding heart liberal… It makes me cry. Everyone lies that it’s nothing. My background is meaningless they tell me. Yeah sure… that’s why my brother had a nose job to remove the arch so he wouldn’t look native… because it’s nothing. If that wasn’t enough…. I got the strawberry hair, freckles, & green eyes of my Irish grandfather… the dreaded ginger in the family… and so my mom made me dye my hair blond to hide that too. I wasn’t allowed to admit either heritage or ask about it. She called Irish & Native Americans “drunken heathens”. I was forced to say I’m German & English. But my paternal grandparents were Irish/Welsh (grandma) and English. My maternal grandparents were Native American grandma and Irish grandpa. I assume my parents added German because they lived in Germany a couple years when my dad was in the Army. Both of my parents were white supremacists. But I always refused to accept them for that & go along with that hate. My maternal grandma was a midwife on the reservation when she left & even after she went back to work at other reservations in Az & NM. All my life she lived in Albuquerque NM and drove countless miles to reservations delivering babies & bringing car loads of stuff from the Goodwill where she volunteered as well. She was always welcomed with kids & women running out & surrounding the car to greet her & hug her. She was always accepted as one of the tribe & they used to try to get her to stay because the women needed her midwife skills. My mother hated that she took us there several times. She would scowl & pout in the car & refuse to get out among the “dirty savages” she said. I loved it. I especially loved learning to bake bread in big clay ovens. One time I traded my yo-yo with a boy for his moccasins ( this was in the late 60s). When my mother discovered it on the drive back she made me take them off and threw them out the window and grounded me for two weeks & my father got the belt out when we got back to granny’s house. So all my life I wanted to know what I was. My grandfather got so disgusted with all the shame & hate over him being Irish & his wife being native he would take jobs that kept him away from home for as long as I can remember. I only spent time with him a handful of times. So now I resent people today pushing these shames on me like they do. I’m not supposed to talk about any of that. I’m supposed to say I’m a mutt proudly & that my background & experiences are worthless garbage that makes me nothing at all. That’s what everyone wants… for me to be nothing. Most of you will never be happy unless I say that I am nothing if I’m asked & I am supposed to never bring it up & just hope no one ever asks. Then I am supposed to believe THAT hate is called diversity & inclusion & is a form of superior enlightenment & education. Well, it’s not. It’s just more prejudice, hate & shamefulness. There is no integrity to it. Screaming at me on social media for telling my story & calling me a racist for literally being my own heritage after all the batterings I have taken over it & refused to stop being friends with PoC even when kids beat me up at school & I got the same at when I got home… it never has stopped me & it never will. I refuse to be ashamed of myself or stop being friendly & loving toward all types of people regardless what their heritage is. I refuse to be color blind in a world of such wonderful diversity & blendings that make us stronger in every way as humans. You’ll have to yell till you are blue in the face & you still will not change who I am or what I am… and what I believe. I am proud to be PART Native American. Get over it. ☮️
Thank you! The bloodlines of our ancestors, where ever they may be from, lives within us and sometimes comes out in places we travel to, music or food we love, our spirituality, etc. It's difficult to put into writing, but the soul and senses are sometimes more connected than what we are consciously aware of.
You wrote an entire essay on a youtube video, congrats. Is the "shaming" youre referring to in the video just the calling out of white people who love to claim their "great grandmother was a Cherokee princess"? If youre white, youre white. Get over it.
You wrote an entire essay on a youtube video, congrats. Is the "shaming" youre referring to in the video just the calling out of white people who love to claim their "great grandmother was a Cherokee princess"? If youre white, youre white. Get over it.
I'm half Irish, 3/8 British & 1/8 Native, but because I'm from upstate NY I never knew what tribe because in my great grandmother's day it wasn't something to be proud of. I'am proud but I've never tried to claim anything from it.
Yeah a friend of my mom's was told she was Mexican American because there was less racism towards them in that part of the country. She found out as an adult that she was fully Navajo but it was too traumatic for her to connect with her relatives & culture. I've known various other people that had older relatives admit their Native roots when they finally felt safe doing so. Sometimes even on their deathbeds.
I’m currently a junior at Williams College and part of the Native American Student Alliance, which I helped revived. Interestingly, the group was originally started by Elizabeth Hoover, who was later revealed to be one of the "pretend Indians" mentioned in this video. It's a pretty cool, though somewhat contentious, situation. As a Native person, I’ve come to realize that your identity as Native doesn’t need validation from anyone-it’s something spirtual and not granted by others, but by the divine.
When I was growing up, I was informed that I was 1/16th Cherokee/Choctaw. That was something I took pride in, despite me having no ties to Native culture or the like. Later, though, my family found out that the ancestor who was listed as Native was actually Irish. He just was listed as Cherokee/Choctaw due to some clerical error. Since, I've done one of the DNA ancestry tests, and found what I should have known from the start: I'm basically completely Northwestern European, with only the less than one percent Native DNA markers. So, neither culturally, nor genetically, can I have any claim to such heritage (and I already knew back then that the 1/16th number was ridiculously small, not enough to count). It's good to me to know I shouldn't claim some sort of tie to a people I don't have, and know that my ancestors were not the "good ones" among the white settlers. Heck, I know I had awful ancestors. I can trace my lineage to General Custer, after all. Never have I enjoyed that fact. At least I can also say that I can trace myself to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who at least didn't intentionally do anything hurtful to Native Americans (that I know of). Sure, his most famous poem goes with the "noble savage" archetype, but hey, I could have been related to someone who didn't even have that much respect. Eh, it's was inevitable that my ancestors would have been problematic, so I take the small victories, I guess. Especially with the whole Custer relation (and, since I'm half German, I'm certain that even though all my ancestors were here before World War II, I have people in my line who were sympathetic to Germany during the war). Best I can hope is to do what people should endeavor to achieve: be better than those who came before, and hope the future generations do even better than you (though I'm not having kids, so it wouldn't be my own line). Also, to tie back to the subject I babbled myself away from: to not claim an identity that you have no ties to whatsoever. Better for people like me to leave the answer to the video's title as "Not me."
as a white person interested in the real experiences of native american people or tribes - its been a big let down to understand that many of the resources i looked to were in fact pretendians. Now that social media is a thing, its so much easier to seek out and vet the people and hear their ideas with an open mind. I,for years by my family, was told we had heritage, but in the end i think it was that weird southern posturing.
That “and if we don’t, we know why…”hit so hard 😞 Abenaki of Odanak here! To this day the Abenaki have 4 tribes of white people in Vermont and New Hampshire on our homelands, who have had genealogy done, 98% of them are French Canadian and not Abenaki, let alone even Native American. They are stealing and appropriating our culture and heritage. The pretendians are thriving and well and are mocking the pain of our families, benefitting from our extinction. But low and behold, we are still here, and we want healing. Please help us spread awareness and be an ally!
I am indigenous to the south America's and live in NH. Have been to a few pow wows here where I'm literally the only indigenous looking person there. This explains a lot 😂 please let me know how I can help ❤
I have been told by my parents that we had Native ancestry on both sides. I am African American. But after research, and DNA tests, I'm seeing that the majority of my "Native" ancestors were mixed race ( African/European) that probably claim Native heritage to avoid being discriminated against, re enslavement, etc, especially since it was against the law to marry/ procreate outside of your race, so they definitely couldn't lay claim to their European ancestry. But also, because some of that mixing was due to force/r*pe. So I think there are probably many reasons why people think they have Native ancestry, more than just the glamorization of being exotic. I did find 1 line that actually have a Native American connection, but outside of that, most were mulattos ( African/European mixed), but that is my 2 cents.
I've been wondering if this is the case for my family as well. I was told that we have some Cherokee heritage, but i've always been sus about it, especially after learning that "Cherokee" was slang for "mixed" (any combo of black/white/native) in some parts of the U.S.
@@hazey_dazey It's possible. Look and see. Do an ancestry DNA test, or do some family research. I'm glad that I did, now I can truly celebrate who I am.
@@aleqrobinson2876 i've done some research. My grandmother told me before she passed that one of her grandfathers was white and that she met him once when she was young. My sister was given a dna test but she still hasn't taken it yet, she keeps forgetting lol. I might have to get one myself 😆
Where my parent's are from it seems to he the opposite! People don't want to claim it even tho they have the physical characteristics, they're even embarrassed by it.
We should consider why people want to be considered Native Americans and the nature/nurture aspect of gatekeeping. I also wonder why we don’t consider Native Central and South Americans when discussing indigenous people.
My family swears by the Cherokee Princess story. I wish I could afford a DNA test. I've seen enough of these on fellow white southerners to guess that I'd wind up being part African rather than any kind of native American Indian.
@@SafetySpooon yep, I was told that my great-great-great grandmother was Cherokee (a.k.a. Tsalagiyi). I don't claim Native American ancestry, and I'm not hiding my Blackness.
@SafetySpooon In some areas in the South, it was better to be black than Indian. You were treated better as a black person. My Choctaw family did this.
A lot of dna tests don't pick it up because the companies don't have enough of a sample to identify tribal DNA of most of Native America. There are a few exceptions.
I mean the answer seems a bit obvious here, resources should be distributed equally among all people of a a given land and not dependent on 'blood' or 'lineage'. Of course, that would mean a complete restructuring of society, fully funding schools, hospitals, roads, and infrastructure across the nation and possibly first in areas in greatest need (black/Indian/working poor communities). That would require the government to invest in the country and not spend it on war profiteering and subsidies for billion-dollar corporations. As far as historically teaching children about their heritage or other children about the heritage of their neighbors, you would have to look at schooling and move from a 'pass the test model' to one that teaches you to think critically and doesn't limit a child by age but by skill. That of course would mean dismantling the current for-profit school model. I mean it basically boils down to capitalism seeping its way into every nook and cranny of society causing people to fight for the meager resources they have instead of taking on the bigger enemy.
@bfrost7 so you're saying distribute resources from the government to all people living within the country's borders? If so, doesn't that disregard the treaties that were made between that government and sovereign indigenous nations, and ignore the fact that the government controls that land and those resources as a direct result of killing, forcibly removing, marginalizing, and ignoring indigenous peoples for the benefitof particular classes of non-indigenous people?
I was told as a child that my great great great paternal grandfather married a Cherokee woman, but no documentation of it. Always wanted to believe it.
This topic hits way too close to home for me. My mom is Native, raised on the Lower Brule reservation. I was born and raised in a West Coast city. My features take after my white father and I've always felt awkward about claiming my Native heritage. Complicating matters further, my Mom was born out of wedlock so can't properly claim tribal membership so I can't either. And even tho I was raised Native for my early childhood, Mom got into it with some local Elders and stopped engaging with the community we have here. I'm only just now starting to try to reengage but I still feel like a fraud.
Not that my opinion has any authority in this situation, but that's some bullshit! If that's your mom's people then they're your people too! Imagine if there was a law requiring all Americans with indigenous ancestry to register with the government. Then you decided not to sign up because you're white and you weren't raised in your mom's culture. You know damn well you'd be accused of trying to deny your identity.
Here’s something that has bugged me for a while: What do you think about people using Native American legends (or more specifically monsters) to tell their own stories? I see a lot of back and forth on it, the main arguments that I’ve seen being “stories are meant to be shared” vs “it wasn’t yours to take”. I love stories and understanding where they came from and the whole “what the heck did the internet do to this?” thing Is endlessly fascinating to me.
I remember that issue was brought us when J.K incorporated the thunderbird into the stranger beasts series, some were claiming it was cultural appropriation because she didn’t ask permission to use it from a tribe that claims it. The problem I have with that is the thunderbird isn’t part of one tribe or culture, it’s known to pretty much ever indigenous culture across the Americas, it doesn’t belong to only one people. For me the issue lies at the heart of the difference between appropriation and appreciation. Appreciation of another’s culture should be encouraged. People’s have been sharing and exchanging culture for millions of years and our cultures will continue to naturally evolve as well as be influenced by and influence others. If everyone everyone in a single culture regardless of class is free to wear or take part in a particular tradition, then it’s fine for others to take advantage of that also. For example Japanese kimonos, blue jeans, harem pants, moccasins. Now if only certain individuals from a culture were granted or earned the right to wear or take part in something, and even other members of their society weren’t free to do so also, then it’s a NO for others outside the culture to do so. An example are Navajo headdresses, PNW clan crests, Māori tattoos, Scottish clan tartans. Now if it’s something that an entire culture was free to wear or practice, but because of colonialism they were prevented from doing so, then it just isn’t right to do something that those of the culture weren’t/aren’t allowed to do. For individual mythological creatures from indigenous culture, that’s a grey area. The thunderbird is a bad example of people trying to gatekeep something that’s so wide spread. Other things, if it’s specifically only known from one culture, it’s best to contact tribal leaders of that culture for their opinion. The main massive issue is how it’s incorporated or changed. Is the person giving an authentic version or an altered version? Did they give proper reference to the original version, did they even understand the context of the story, did they make it clear that they altered it and that it’s their interpretation? This issue is one of the leading causes of cultural manipulation and destruction I’ve seen with my own culture, people taking things and intentionally twisting it to feed their narrative. I’m Tlingit and we have an entity in our stories known as “kooshda kaa” or “land otter man” which in a nut shell are otter spirits or souls of people taken by otters that can shapeshift to look like various people you know or driftwood and can also possess people. The Bigfoot community appropriated it and turned it into “Kushtaka” which they say is bigfoot and they claim us tlingits worshiped it. Now because many of us PNW natives who aren’t in contact with elders and don’t know their culture, they have taken that as fact, that kooshda kaa is Bigfoot. So our actual culture is being erased in favor of a commercialized cryptid.
1. "Sharing" is an intentional action. If someone shares their culture with others, they are choosing to do that of their own volition. Seeing someone else's culture and deciding to "share" it without their input is called "stealing." 2. Is it a monster or did white people assume it's a monster. Consider how many pagan horned gods got turned into "devils." 3. Because I can guarantee I know what "monsters" you're talking about: are those "shared stories" in any way accurate, or did the "storytellers" make up 99% of the lore, take a Native name, and claim their interpretation should be as valid as any other because "they're just stories"? Here's a hint: antlers & deer have nothing to do with cannibalism in the North Woods.
I don’t feel it’s my place to decide where the line might be, but, I just want to add that I’ve never seen/heard a non-Indigenous person improve on the original stories. Why is the Okanagan known for “Ogopogo” instead of nx̌aʔx̌ʔitkʷ (the spirit of the lake), which is a way better story with a better message? Settlers. I’d rather leave the Indigenous stories to be told by Indigenous storytellers 🤷♀️
Those that do, are doing the colonizers work for them. Yet they'll spout since 1492 while attempting to denying us our ancestors. Don't accept Boricua, etc. Then keep our ancestors out of your mouth.
I think it's because we so deeply identify "American" with those who are members of the United States. Most Canadians that I know will never say they are "Americans", anymore than someone from Mexico will use that moniker. However, I think that since a lot of indigenous people from the southern half of North America and Central and South America, have migrated to this country and made their homes here, we need to open up the demographic info to include them properly...I have also noticed that my doctor's office /hospital has started including many more branches of the human family tree, but this is vital, because a person's ethnicity has a lot to do with health and diseases and conditions endemic to a certain community. And Canadians call their indigenous "First Nations" which I think is pretty descriptive and less confusing than other descriptors.
As some one who is Taino/Boricua, I think it comes down to a limited understanding of what it is to be native. And many of the places you mentioned were at one point under control of the Spanish government who historically counted people differently than the US government.
im going to venture a guess that its because the tribes that existed/exist within the confines of the present day USA have a shared history or genocide at the hands of the United states government, that this is the distinction for them. It doesnt belittle the indigenous cultures and heritage of those in central and southern america, but that those experiences with the conquistadors and the subsequent governements of those areas are an entirely different historical story.
Really well made video! Insightful, thoughtfully produced, and well written! I learned about some new perspectives on indigenous cultural impact. Thank you!
They interviewed a Pretendian and never checked with the tribe. Kiros Auld. They literally said we take your "word." Then the Chief contacted the podcast to complain about his non-status. Along with his ex-wife.
Even many activists have been accused of being Pretendians, which I think is absolutely wretched. Listen up fellow well-meaning white people! You don't need to be part of a marginalized group to learn about culture, struggle, and how to advocate! If a cause is important to you stick by it, and listen to the people you want to help and advocate for. As well don't center yourself, you're not the main character. And accept that even if youre doing your best all the time, some people in the group you advocate for won't accept you. Don't take it personally, and move on. Understand the historical context you exist in.
@POTATOEMPN What did I just say? Don't take it personally. Do your best to listen to genuine feedback, because as long as you make clear you are an advocate and not an authority, people worth talking to will take you in good faith even if they disagree with or criticize you.
I personally know activists that are Pretendian. It’s more about attention seeking than the cause. It’s about clout. Having a position from which to wag their finger. Psychopaths that enjoy getting one over on people. Passing gives them a high. Pulling authority from nowhere. Having a flock of followers.
My mother (born 1931 in Alabama) didn't know she was half Cherokee until, aged 10, she asked her mom - an auburned haired beauty calling herself Simone - to tell Mom about their French heritage. Laughing, her mother ruffled her hair and said, "Oh honey, you're a half breed! I just don't want to sit on the back of the bus." Her real name was Ololia, and she refused to talk about her Cherokee past.
We have the exact same issues here in Australia regarding who is “indigenous” or not. Many hard core political activists who claim to “identify as indigenous” are complete frauds. The numbers of people who claim to be indigenous EXPLODED over the last 10 years particularly, when it became Hip and Cool to be indigenous, and especially since substantial financial and social advantages (eg entry to university courses for some who otherwise would not qualify) were being handed out on the basis of race, and especially when it was discovered that political power could be achieved simply by claiming to “identify as indigenous”. We have reached the point where some of these fraudsters are now the gatekeepers on determining who can identify as indigenous! These fraudsters are stealing funds and benefits that were intended to help some of our indigenous people who truelly are disadvantaged. Race is a harmful and destructive way to determine who gets help and who doesn’t. The most disadvantaged and needy should get help first REGARDLESS of race. It is a racist and cultural slur to say “Oh, you are indigenous, so there is no way you can succeed in life unless we give you some money or social or political benefits”. it is also a racist and cultural slur to say”Oh, you are white, so you must be held responsible for what some white people did 200 years ago”. Identity politics is toxic, we ALL need to reject it for our own good.
Reminds me of my spouse who has never tried to join his tribe because he is so far disconnected from the culture despite only being a couple generations away from it genetically. His great-grandmother was part of the Stolen Generation, and nobody in the family was ever taught the language or customs after her.
Yeah. I will just identify as Mexican-American and Chicano. Even though my biological father told me when I first met him that I am “half Aztec, half Spaniard”. He probably does not truly know what tribe/pueblo he came from, but I did take several DNA tests. And all of my percentiles of indigenous ancestry was slightly more than half. With that being said, I am not comfortable identifying as straight up Native. Mestizo is more fitting. Mesoamerican and Iberian works for me as well. Plus my lived experience was being adopted by white people and being raised in a white town.
I Needed THIS SERIES! Thank y'all!! I'm an anthropologist (armchair as motherhood took over) and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find quality information on Native American culture without worrying about the source (as indicated in the above video) or having to physically read countless hours of books (which I do and love to do but not everyone does). Having this as a resource to educate myself and my children is AMAZING!!! Totally taking that survey, totally going to binge every episode on this whole channel. Y'all this is amazing!!! Thank you!!! (Also be prepared, I've got questions and there are a lot of old videos to comment on!!)
One of the thoughts i had about the growing numbers of those considering themselves native is the fact that it used to be a source of embarrassment and prejudice to say you are in any part native. As that changes, there are more people accepting their ancestry.
My father moved off of the Rez, be cause he said it held you back. Moved to a very prejudiced area, he denied having Native American ancestry ( audacious, as he totally looked Indian) & was very successful at the time. It would be crazy to identify as having Native ancestry- my Mother was European & I pretty much look white & I have no references to Native American culture. However, I have studied the ordeals Native Americans went through;treaties, broken, attempts at genocide, etc. This, I support teaching true history in schools. We must work to have the correct history taught in school, as we are doomed to repeat the terrible mistakes that have been made
@@thecook8964 Thank you for your thoughtful reply. There was/is so much pain, and people decide what is best for them at the time. I'm sorry you lost connection with your culture, and I'm glad to hear you're reading the history, grim tho it is. It's important we all understand what has gone on, and what we need to do to mitigate it. I will also add that I see hope in the native people of today being involved in professions and now being heard. There is great potential for changing this society by learning some of the important values of native people! The spirit of Aloha is an example of that, and I've spoken with native friends who talk about their tribe's Core Values. It's what we need to learn and incorporate in our own lives. Not the identity, not the ceremonies (unless invited), but the VALUES!
I feel connected to tribes but not because I am a tribal member! I helped raise 3 foster in which was adopted by my sister in law all from a full blooded Indian women sadly her life took a dark turn her story to tell not mine.. but that lead to several children born on the streets and put into foster care in which maybe the tribe didn’t know about at the time.. I love my nieces and since the death of my sister help those girls reconnect to their Indian heritage! I pray I for the guidance to help them in this journey…..
My blonde hair blue eyed children are both tribal members because their grandmother proved her lineage and as a result her descendants have the right to membership, each tribe has different requirements.
Great video, genuine question tho, what about Latin American immigrants? So Many are straight up indigenous and know exactly what their indigenous culture is, could they also be considered Native American or does “Native American” in this specific topic only apply to natives of the US? I’m an indigenous Ñuu Savi (Mixtec) from Oaxaca Mexico myself, but my indigeneity is often not acknowledged by Americans who just see me as “Latino” (a colonial term), and in the US census im often confused on what I should put, if I should put Native American or not because Latinos are often told to pick white, but I am not white nor am I mixed, but I’m also not a member of any native US Tribe, this goes to show how colonial racial categories are so harmful and confusing! Thank you for this video.
Big same. This has always deeply confused me (and saddened me when I've seen it implied we're "less indigenous" somehow)
I feel you lil brothers n sisters
As a Latin European I never understood how people living in the Americas could be considered as Latins.
Native Americans colonized by the Spanish were not colonized by Latin Europeans but by Iberic Europeans.
Latin people and Latin culture are originally from the Italian Peninsula.
Is it referred to the Latin/Roman languages such as Portuguese or Spanish languages?
@@yannickbaroue It's called Latin America because of the group of colonizing languages, not the specific cultures. Spanish, Portuguese, and French are considered "latin" languages, and were the languages spoken in colonized central + south America. It was actually a "marketing term" popularized by Napoleon and originally referred to any parts of America which were predominantly French or Portuguese speakers. The first Latin American conference was in Quebec, so pretty far removed from the central + south American label it now covers. It's 100% about colonization & language, and it was Europeans that originally labelled Latin America "Latin" so take it up with the French.
Hi there. My paternal grandpa was Inca. My maternal grandma was half English. So I get what you are saying. I also contract with the Government, and when they ask "are you Native American" they are specifically referring to "federally recognized tribes". For example, the Chinook Indian Nation is not recognized, so it would not be marked as "native American"... but to be honest... Who is going to challenge that? Just keep in mind the purpose of the form you are answering and answer accordingly.
I'm Hawaiian, and nearly all of these issues are here in some form as well. When it comes down to it bloodline has always been very important to the Hawaiian people, but really I think it's a question of who is perpetuating the language and culture. There are so many non-Hawaiian academics at the University of Hawaii who have done a lot to help preserve parts of our culture we would have otherwise lost.
The late Robert Schacht was one of them. I believe he last worked at UofH. I worked under him at Northern Arizona University as a research assistant during my undergrad years.
Yes but Prince Kuhio himself said a drop of Hawaiian is Hawaiian. Because of our situation with potential genocide, it is beneficial to accept every Hawaiian.
@@omggiiirl2077 As a Kiwi Aussie, I can affirm that most Māori I've met consider blood quantum irrelevant due to whakapapa. As long as someone had a Māori ancestor, they're always a part of them, so they are Māori. There's also an Indigenous Australian saying "no matter how much milk you add to coffee, it's still coffee". It's in protest against the Stolen Generation. In the 60s, the Government abducted many Indigenous Australian kids and assimilated them into White society so that their descendants would look white, to "breed out the black". Horribly ugly stuff. I'm proud that my fellow Australians have said "no" to this and recognise someone's Indigenous heritage, regardless of their appearance.
@@jessc2725 yes, agreed! That's why when he says DNA doesn't make you native American, when indigenous American people have been isolated long enough to have their own haplo group, I want to snort scoff and laugh. I found what he said to be so dismissive and false I wanted to vomit. because he doesn't tell how the five civilized tribes owned my ancestors. And that they raped a lot of black women, and those children were either part of the tribe or kept enslaved. He also doesn't tell that even though Lincoln freed black enslaved people, but those same tribes refused to and kept their slaves and marched them along with them on the trail of tears. He doesn't tell about all those people who were half Black being recorded as 'colored' or 'negroe' on the census because of their phenotype. And the one drop rule working in a negative way. Isn't that crazy? For us in the Pacific one drop anything means you are one of us, it takes no explanation. but everything is screwed in the USA. One drop of Black in the past means you're Black, which now a lot of he younger crowd are rejecting. But indigenous are trying to say that DNA markers showing the ancestral markers for native American doesn't mean you're native American is the wildest thing in the world! What that actually means is that an ancestor is hidden and that the person must find them. I actually found out I was descendant of two tribes doing an ancestry test. But what he said was a bit disgusting.
Thank you for your words! I have found that the values of Aloha, especially as taught by Pono Shim, have given me the values I try to live by. I've been very fortunate to have experience with true hula, I'm trying to learn the language, I've read a lot about the history and appreciate the work of Keanu Sai and my car runs on Hawaiian music. None of that makes me a Hawaiian, but I'm grateful for the values and enjoyment it's brought to my life. I deeply believe it's those values and the values of indigenous people on the continent are the only hope in saving this planet and humanity!
My only beef with some Native American in the USA is that they act like native tribes do not exist in Latin America. My family is Zapotec, my parents know the language, sadly I do not. I was raised to just know Spanish and second language English but I know our culture and we have our traditions, yet I say that and get backlash.
I look native, have native blood and culture outside the USA. Just a different part of America that my ancestors are from.
Naw, you're native alrright. They were just being jerks about it. As long as you know who you are it's all that matters.
Tbh, dont be upset about them. Its honestly the US government structure that refuses to recognize that there is diversity within Native peoples of the Americas.
GOOD point!!!
Devil's advocate here. Why should they care? Everyone has ancestors native to somewhere. Your family heratige is entirely separate from the history within the USA border and the continuing cultural and legal impacts of the treaties between subsets of the indiginous population and the new nation that supplanted their territory.
There's definitely a "gatekeeping" atmosphere in America around Native Americans.
I am a member of the Cherokee Nation. I can trace my family through the Dawes Roll. I truly do not understand why people want to be something they are not. In today's society, you can not just look at a person to determine if they are Native. Your video does a great job explaining this unique situation. Wado
What would I do if I have a family member who has ties to Nanyehi Nancy Ward? My cousin 7 xs removed married her daughter.
MONEY! Here in AK 1/8th blood and you hit the freebee lottery.
What about the people from Latin America? Our culture comes from indigenous roots even though most don't belong to any specific tribes. I believe being native is in the culture and the blood.
Yeah people paid money to get on the Dawes roll too and if your skin was dark you were forced to identify as Negro
@@Somebody-g3i When I was growing up it was an insult to be considered any part native.
I have native ancestry (Mayan) but given poor records & deaths of grandparents/great grandparents at young ages, and immigration to US changing names to Americanize them, our family has lost that connection along the way. So over just a couple generations all of that cultural connection was sadly lost. I deeply appreciate the insights in this program, frank discussions, & knowledge the show provides!
Well, the good thing in your case is that Mayan is a culture that is alive and well, with millions of native speakers. You may not be able to reconnect to direct lineage, but you can still learn your culture and language.
Yes, you should learn more if you want to! I'm not Maya but spent time working with Maya Guatemalans on language revitalization. There are resources available in English and more in Spanish for learning your language, and for figuring out which group your family came from - google a map of Maya languages if you already know where in Guatemala/Mexico your family is from. If you don't know an exact location but do know the region, you can look at "language families" within Maya languages - most languages within the same family are very similar and can understand each other, so any of those languages would be a place to start. For example, in the K'iche family both K'iche and Kaqchikel speakers can understand each other, I can attest that with the basic Kaqchikel I learned while there I was able to chat with K'iche people too when we visited their city. As for the rest of the culture, there are some great books on ancient Maya culture, history, and religion available in English or Spanish although a lot has been lost due to being suppressed. The Popol Vuh is a good place to start, although a bit boring to read in parts, and is mainly about Guatemala (it is K'iche). I've also seen that there are some pretty good genealogy records from Guatemala on FamilySearch these days, available for free. Guatemala especially has had a lot go on in the past 50+ years with regard to indigenous Maya losing their culture (through genocide), so it's important to preserve and connect to it if you're interested. There are also a lot of Maya in the US these days, so there might be a community near you depending where you are. I hope all that helps. I'm also in the process of reconnecting with indigenous heritage from one grandparent from a Native American nation, not Maya... Just an ally to the Maya community.
Something similar though perhaps not quite as extreme happened with a major branch of my Irish ancestors. I only recently discovered there are some records in some archives and some census records and with DNA I have been able to contact and reconstruct much of what I thought was lost forever. There are a huge number of people with Mayan DNA in the United States. I don't know if many are interested in doing so but you may find through DNA testing cousins you might not be aware of who may have more knowledge of your ancestors than you do. At least that was my experience with my Irish relatives. I was able to connect with three cousins in Ireland who made some connections for me that when combined with archival records helped me go back over 250 years. Please don't give up on finding your ancestors. Also, while more recent records might not be perfect, When the Spanish were in New Spain they did keep a lot of records. It may still be possible to trace backwards further than you think. Also don't discount oral history. I have found out that much of the oral history passed down in my family that I thought was more myth than truth turned out to be the other way around.
Mayan from which part? I don't know if you've actually looked but Mexican records are CONSIDERABLY more in tact than US records. Mexico has over 90% of their birth, death, and marriage records intact and they go back even further as it's an older country than the US. I know it's easy to think your family comes from too humble beginnings to have been recorded but that is not the case with Mexico. You can easily get to the first indigenous people in your family tree in the records and it will tell you where they lived and you'd know you're part of that group.
Yeah. It's called being Hispanic. Almost every Mexican and Central American has "native ancestry". The culture is easily available to experience especially in the US. And It's Maya. Not Mayan. Read a book.
As a Caribbean person, "we know the language or know why we don't," really hit and helped me further empathize with y'all. 💜
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
There is no god but God, He is One, He has no partner; His is the dominion, and His is the praise; He alone grants life, and deals death, and He is living and dies not; all good is in His hand, He is powerful over all things, and with Him all things have their end.
Do you think this does anything but make you look like a boorish ass butting in where you have no business? God's, fanatics are boring. @@herneyse11
*Some ancestors dipped out altogether and their descendants survived but lost cultural identity! But we ENDURE!*
yeah, about that.... native Americans have to pay taxes, including property tax...
If you're asking for another trail o' tears, chief, I have it right here. You're not special. Your ancestors were warring humans too, just like the European tribes, they just won.
@@kayakMike1000 get well soon
@@kayakMike1000 All the comment says is "we're here". Besides, most people know different tribes fought each other. It's true, but not a checkmate thing.
Or were exiled because they were raped and impregnated by a non native.
I was told by my family that we have native american ancestry. This made me so proud when I was younger but now that I am older and wiser it makes me understand that some of my actions in my life have been insensitive to nataive people. I still hold on to admiration and respect for all indigenous people and their culture. I consider myself an ally.
Combining native with naive is one of those tongue in cheek insults, ain't it whitey?
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
There is no god but God, He is One, He has no partner; His is the dominion, and His is the praise; He alone grants life, and deals death, and He is living and dies not; all good is in His hand, He is powerful over all things, and with Him all things have their end.
I am about 1/32 Cherokee but I would not call myself native American because I lack the culture and heritage for me to consider myself Native American. My grandmother was probably the last one in the direct family that would be considered a Native American. When she was young, she did live on the reservation but her mom eventually took her family out east. My only first hand account of my past was hearing stories from my grandmother about the reservation when she was growing up. However, due to leaving there as a young child, she really did not have that much connection to her heritage too. When she and her mom left her mom also decided not to pass down any traditions. The only left of my ancestry is just some knickknacks that my mom has. It is sad that a lot of people are playing Indian but I also see it as some people trying to claim their heritage back from force assimilation a lot of natives went through. Still, they should not be taking benefits for Native Americans.
I agree. My great-great-great grandmother was Native American. I didn't grow up with that culture. Who am I to claim that heritage when it's so far back in my ancestry?
I agree. My uncle was Cherokee. At least half, or close to it. But like many Cherokee, regardless of Band, they became so assimilated, that once you moved off the rez, they threw their heritage out the window. And it's the tribes from the east coast who became the most assimilated, because no laws were on the books yet to create reservations that acknowledged their sovereignty. And not all tribal people lucked out with that as there were white people already living on their ancestral lands.
My uncle was also the original Uncle Ruckus. I moved away from him when I was 9, and I was always confused by him. Turned white every winter, and dark brown every summer. I would ask my cousin every 4th of July who that man was, which she would laugh and yell at me, that was her father. And it seemed it was always at summer BBQs that he would slip racial slurs while he was drunk. Seriously confusing. 🙄
@@SkyeIDyou don't need to claim any heritage and say you're native but just realize you're making the decision that her culture and experiences died with you. You don't need to say you're native or anything extreme but at the very least respect that part of your family story by doing research on beliefs she may have held and the struggles of her tribe, don't you think she's owed some thought?
People claiming native are ashamed of their actual heritage and romanticize native culture
Everyone is Cherokee. But the East Coast tribe was never that large.
One thing not mentioned here, unless I missed it, is that there are tribes that were either never recognized by the government or that were terminated but still exist.
Absolutely correct
Lumbee from North Carolina
My tribe was just federally recognized in 2018. Beforehand, we were only state recognized.
@@leavemealoha Cool! which tribe?
@@Eniral441 The Chickahominy Tribe in VA ✌🏽😊
It still astonishes me to this day that the guy from those old 70's anti-litter ads wasn't a Native American either.
Yeah, he was Italian.
I mean he looks like a tanned European so it's kinda obvious. Natives don't have the bone structure of a European usually.
@chrisaguilera1564 yeah, Iron Eyes Cody. I met him when I was very young at an L.A. county fair.
@@raymondricci5323 Sicilian, no less.
Espera De Corti was American born to both an Italian and Sicilian emigrants in Kaplan, Louisiana in Vermilion Parish, where he was likely influenced by both Cree and Choctaw growing up.
I guess we can say that he had stolen heritage, but the fact that he fooled so many, for so long, shows that he admired the indigenous people so much, he wanted to be part of them, and to represent them.
But how he represented them was in a stereotypical way that white mainstream expected from Natives, in how they spoke and behaved. Also, most Natives lived either on reservations or purchased tribal land up through the 70s-80s, so most white people never even meet a Native American up to that time.
I'm glad that Kevin Costner worked with the Sioux Lakota to get it right, so that Hollywood learned how to be respectful of our Native Americans and their history. Because if someone didn't get it right in 1990, Hollywood would likely still be exploiting them, and fewer Natives would be working in Film and TV production.
I am blonde, blue eyed and 12% Native American per Ancestry, which includes 3% Manchurian and Mongolian subset, and DNA does indeed graph what part of the USA is my Native lineage. I found my Birth Family, and my Mother was born on the Cheyenne River Reservation and I am Lakota Sioux. I have already been told I am not enough Native to be welcomed, which is too bad, because our family is drastically shrinking, and I seem to be the only one who thoroughly enjoys and has time to study and write out our ancestry, ALL my ancestry, including my European Lineage. Maybe my Birth Mother was right hiding her pregnancy and secretly giving me up for adoption, something not even her siblings new for 55 years when she told them on her deathbed, because she knew no one would welcome me because I am ‘too white’. Well, I’ve had a WONDERFUL life with my adopted family, so I thank her for her courage in giving me up.
You're majority is white. Just embrace it and move on.
It could be another sad reason why they won't accept you and it has something to do with your skin color. Which test did you use? I believe I'm apart of the Cheyenne tribe but I'm not sure.
Ur not native. It doesn't matter if u have 12 percent or 40 percent.... just like ur not black if u have 12 percent African. U will never be a black person a native person. All u racist white ppl want to look white with colors and u want the world to think ur indigenous to north america? U want the world to think that the original native american is you? You want the face of native american to look like you so the rest of latin america is has heavy native american dna in them to claim something other than native?? Think about it. U can't blend in with mexican in mexico, u can't blend in with Guatemala ppl or peru ppl in peru... but u can blend in with any white person in European nations... see how that works???
What ancestry test did you take?
Ya'eh I'm 1 100% native American mimbreno is me Tino Jesus garces montanez of California you native American don't let them make you feel excluded ❤ much love 🎉
As a very pale, Anglo looking, Native, this was amazing.
I know who I am, who my family is. I have two tribal recognitions and three roll numbers. My grandfather help set up Indian Ed in CA. My mother dances at powwow and my grandmother loves fry bread and makes dream catchers (Yes, we are Ojibwe).
That being said, I'm only "The Native" as long as I am in a room with other non Natives. I never lived on a rez. I never experienced rascism because of how I look. I have never had my drinking water being poisoned right in front of my eyes. So when there is someone who is Native in the room, I sit down and shut up.
As Māori, I love how many indigenous cultures have fry bread!
Well said.
My mother is quarter Choctaw, through my grandfather's mother, who died when he was 6 years old, and that side of my family maintained no connections with our Choctaw relations after my great-grandfather remarried a few years later. Meanwhile my father is Cherokee, born on reservation to two Cherokee parents, but he and my mother never married, and he abandoned me before I was two years old. I've never met him or anybody from his family.
Physically I completely pass as European. I've lived almost all of my life in California. I had no education into the native cultures I descend from, I've never faced racism, etc. I fully support native peoples getting everything they can, whether they be mainland or islanders. But I will never claim to speak for Natives, I'll just do what I can to help them be heard and respected.
Don't let anyone tell you that you are not native enough.
Real
@@njp4321”Quarter Choctaw” is white man’s science. Any Native ancestry makes you Native. Period.
I like what the professor did by bringing up the concept of "humility". Pretendians don't seem to have to struggle with humility the way I seem to do. I was kidnapped from Canada and raised by my white American mother. I cannot put into words the wounds I have from having these connections torn from my identity, family, land & communities. It hurts me so much I can't speak sometimes, just tear up. Luckily, I found my way back to Canada, my father and some of his family. I've met a few too many people who take up space in Indian Country, yet have no direct connection and no concrete explanation about what that loss is and how traumatic it is to bear over a lifetime. When I encounter people who take up and claim this connection and it becomes clear that they really do not... it hurts. It's real trauma. I have so much anger, hurt , enragement that comes up. I really don't know what to do with it. I don't feel entitled to walk into just any Native space and be accepted, I am shocked by the gaul of the 'pretendians' who feel that they do. It is really hard to be there and share any calmness and patience I can muster in regards to such people. It makes it difficult to connect sometimes in the few instances I find a place where I can get involved. I feel so unsafe and its very hard for me to process it and stay calm and like a rational reasonable human being. Its a mess!
Hey, Indian Country? What do you do about the enragement of identity being taken away? Where is a safe place to process this trauma.... because I'm watching the pretendians coming out to Native places to process their own 'stuff', but it makes it feel so threatening to show up and be vulnerable as a sorta whiteish looking Indian who was enculturated by an entitled white lady. The rage endangers my own humility and I can feel deeply shamed by that. Thanks.
Thank you so much for sharing your story! I know some of that enragement and deep hurt, from other causes. Unfortunately I don't have any solutions for you, but as a non-native who has received a lot of acceptance from native people, I know healing is possible. That healing reduces the hurt and rage to manageable proportions. I'll never be native, I'll never know the language or traditions, but I've recovered my humanity because of the gracious acceptance of wonderful people. I hope that same peace and healing will be yours! I'm so sorry and so angered at the terrible wrongs that have been committed which have hurt so many. That awareness is slowly growing, but it doesn't really help individuals who have been so deeply harmed. It's clear from your words that you are a good person who just wants what we all need....true belonging and a healthy sense of who we are. Your honesty is a great step in that direction. I wish you well and, knowing that's not nearly enough, wish you people who will connect with you.
And yet you seek to disenfranchise other people who have been displaced. I don't need acceptance from anybody no matter what their color. I accept myself. I am valid and the way I live is valid. And yes rejection hurts but only if you require acceptance
Thank you. We need to hear that. I'm white, I'm sorry. There's a guy here in Tennessee who is a well known engineer for this company who has built most of Chattanooga. Kind of a friend, so I know that he also had been taken away from his family and adopted out...actually sold by the state, it was a thing until the '60s. He had to make his way back to his parents, and collect his siblings. He's pretty rich now, and he can do that. But like you were saying, the trauma is so intense, it sneaks up. This man is rich now, and has influence here. But at a family get together, the grand kids were playing in the sun and he about lost his mind about them getting dark. Really lost it, they need to cover up, they need to stay close, they needed for any reason, to stay close to him at all times. Because that's how he got taken as a child, his teachers noticed how dark he was, and asked what his ethnicity was, and social services were at their door soon after. There's no way to fix that. Thank you for sharing your story, and I'm really sorry.
@@Hollylivengood Well put. Thanks for weighing in with another similar story.
@@carolmoore1038 It doesn’t sound like the OP us seeking to promote disenfranchisement. If you’re able have a sense of identity, good for you. Please don’t dump on others who haven’t had the makings of the same.
Their voice is important for their own reconciliation journey. Even if it’s inky finding some way to reconcile their own sense of self.
The "Playing Indian" phenomenon is interesting from a transnational perspective, because it's definitely something that I've seen from settler rhetoric across the Americas. A classic example is Simón Bolívar rhetorically aligning himself and his cause with that of the indigenous people killed or enslaved by Spain, even though he was a wealthy white man with no connection to any of the communities he alludes to, and it's debatable how much his revolutionary project did to improve the lot of indigenous people in South America.
The same sort of hypocrisy occurs in Mexico. For every conflict they wanted Indigenous people to support causes & fight. But wanted the caveat of everyone, regardless of race, identifying as Mestizo, even if you werent mixed race. And today Mexicans will try & argue that racism doesnt exist even when Indigenous & black Mexicans are treated like garbage & when white & lighter skinned Mexicans are who get promoted most in media. I still remember when Yalitza Aparicio, whose hella Indigenous, was being considered for best actress & several Mexican actresses - who were white or fit the Mestizo definition - said truly racist shit about her & called her ugly. Its a problem across Latin America.
@@JurassicLion2049 Or when everybody said to Yasnaya Elena that "we are all indigenous"...
Same people who won't hesitate to call them "pinche indio" when organizing because there's no water in Tukyo'm.
Mexico is top notch racist.
Colombia is very much too. And definitely, Simon Bolívar had no good impact on Wayuu, Kogi, Arhuaco and Wiwa nations as far as they tell me.
I would say that Ecuador and Bolivia differ, though the decolonial struggle is far from over in all of America.
@@JurassicLion2049 this part bc I recognize the same thing in Mexicans. There are a lot of indigenous Mexicans but aren’t as quick to acknowledge the ongoing oppression against indigenous peoples in Mexico
@@nastatchiathe “we’re all indigenous” trope is just as ridiculous as people saying “we were all slaves once” 😂😂😂
And Bolivar was racist. He was okay with the slavery of African folks.
My father's mother was full blood Diné but, passed away when I was 5. My dad never talked about her (he said it was painful to) or her side of the family. So, I always felt like I was missing out on some heritage. We were raised Mexican. I wish I could have had more time with her, heard her stories and who her family was. She left reservation in the 40's and married my grandpa and moved to East LA. Cecilia Alvarez was her name and her father was Domingo. That's all I really know. So now I'm trying to learn about my heritage more.
it can be a beautiful and sometimes painful journey but worth it .
My story isn't the same, but it is similar. My father's mother was Carib. She died when I was 5 (I'm 40 now), but unfortunately I never got to meet her. My dad really didn't say much about her at all so I never knew anything about her. When I got a bit older he actually told me he shunned her and that she is his family because he was embarrassed by them. In the country my parents are from, at the time, there was a lot of racial tension and there was naturally a ranking of races. The indigenous people were at the bottom of the totem pole. My dad is going to be 80 next year and his rejection of his family will be one of his biggest regrets until the day he dies. I really wish I had a connection to that part of my family because I want to learn about their culture first-hand. The saddest part about it is due to colonialism much of their traditions are lost. I'm sorry we're pretty much in the same boat 😢
My maternal grandmother showed me a picture of her grandmother when I was a child. The photo was sepia tone and she wore a headress and deer skin dress. She told me that she was full blooded Cherokee. I grew up in W. Va. and we could actually dig up arrowheads in our yard, and did find several. I suppose it's possible that I have a small percentage of Cherokee blood but there was never a connection with a community nor any cultural discussions. Now, I'm 72 and have lived in Egypt the past twenty-two years and I will die here. As I reach the end of my time on earth, I wish I knew more about my ancestors. I can still see that photo in my mind. I've had an interesting life and am thinking of doing some research to discover my family tree. Better late than never.😂❤
@judemorales4U you definitely sound like you've had a very interesting life.. And to end up in Egypt. That just seems so spiritual. Many blessings upon you. ❤️
@@amfaber84 that was the same with my father. He had a lot of Caucasian friends and grew up in East L.A. and loved motorcross. I am kinda glad that he never talked about race because, I didn't grow up to view ppl that way.
Just as there are Native posers, there are also White folks with Native ancestors who want to learn about this ancestry. This can be met with rejection by those with a genuine Native identity. It goes both ways.
I suspect it depends on how one does so. Keeping in mind one's privilege and the fact that whoever you're dealing with has met far more people who claim to/think they have Native ancestry than actually do is probably going to stand one in good stead. Recognizing that the is a serious difference between cultures and their histories and who holds power - again, privilege - I'm not sure how "it goes both ways" can truly apply.
The recent Canadaland Pretendians podcast helped educate me a lot about some of these issues. Highly recommended. This video is excellent but Pretendians has time for agreat deal of nuance and depth.
@@annburlingham4563 There is no such thing as race privilege.
Not all Indians are jerks. Just ignore the rude ones.
@@JDoe-gf5oz I disagree that there is no such thing as race privilege. There is legal privilege, where by law you are entitled to certain privileges because of your race. (Think of Laws concerning First Nations in Canada.) There are other forms of privilege that include acceptance by a group, whether that is a family, a Tribe, or an ad-hoc or arbitrary group such as a poker game or picnic.
@@swisstroll3 Hmm.
Took a DNA test online
Turns out I'm 100% white bread
I like the dude that said God created us all the same just in different shades of grain 😅
Shhh….don’t say that out loud. Someone will try to turn you into a sandwich.
bred
No southeastern woodland tribes (Cherokee, Seminole, etc) show up in any DNA tests, @StrayVagabond. Also, it’s been proven DNA markers can skip generations. The former is because DNA companies have to have a specific number of elders to donate to the database in order to have markers to compare new DNA test results to, and most of the Five Civilized Tribes won’t allow it.
I’d like to add that DNA test may mess up on markers a LOT when it comes to intergenerational mixing, and so might not show up very well on a lot of white + black indigenous, Metis and Latine individuals. Genealogy is significantly more accurate. While useful for people who have no idea of their ancestry, it is not an end all be all
Thank you for starting to unpack such a complex conversation. History and racialization is such a tricky issue. I'm not Native, but this video brings to mind conversations by Afro-Natives who, despite growing up in a Native community and being able to trace their lineage, may or may not qualify regarding blood quantum because of historical intermixing between previously enslaved Africans and Indigenous Americans. That was the example that came to mind for Natives that don't "count" based on blood, but are still considered Native.
I also thought about the history of forced adoption and Natives who may have been taken out of their communities but came into their heritage and identity later on in life when they had the access to knowledge and resources to learn.
Thank you for mentioning the Afro-Natives, who aren't mentioned in this video.
@@squirrelsinmykoolaid there were USA census years that required participants to mark themselves white or Black. Those were the only options, and if an adopted child was brought into a family marked that way, the child was also marked that way. This is how one of my Lenape Ancestors was assimilated, instead of being driven west.
Because black people are not native to America. Black equates to being African
This.
As a Mexican, when I found out that I was 60% American Indian or Native American, it completely changed my perspective on life. And I'm very grateful to Professor Mackey for giving those of us who don't know the opportunity to take a step back. I think knowing that I have 60% Native American DNA and only 20% Iberian gave me the opportunity to reject whiteness. For all the whiteness that exists that allows Mexicans to erase indigenousness, knowing that I can at least be an ally is all I really want. Because indigenous culture and identity has been all but erased, but most of all history has been taken away from many Mexicans. And maybe indigenousness is a way to find out where we come from and who we really are, even if it is not what we expected. Thank you for this video. I find myself now very conflicted on what my identity is. So I want to do the work to be sure what I can and cannot be.
Hey Im from Borinquen and all of us Latinos are all indiginous and we dont need no ones approval lol
Having native blood does not mean you’re native.
@@madi-cw4du say who where is the native American DNA police at we Puerto Ricans are not only of indigenous culture, language and DNA but Mexicans when you scratch the surface, their entire culture is indigenous all their foods language. Everything about a Mexican is indigenous as a matter of fact, from all the Americans north central and south, Mexicans and Peruvians have more indigenous culture and DNA than any North American tribe. I have come around so many American tribes that have blonde hair blue eyes with no trace of Native American culture versus any Latino. Yes we have Spanish culture mixed in because they colonized us within that Spanish culture. There is a whole lot of Native American culture, and there is no culture bigger than the Latino culture that are native Americans think about this the center of all Native Americans culture came from America pyramids calendars Agriculture. Let’s talk about the Peruvian Andy’s people again pyramids stone structures written languages. There’s no northern tribe that could compare to any tribe south of the border, civilization came from America and Andes northern tribes wouldn’t have corn a main staple if it wasn’t for our people south of the border I tell all my Mexican people who feel indigenous representative baby represented because that’s what we are natives to America no matter who likes it
So you are willing to give up most of the customs and traditions we have, such as typical dances, the Day of the Dead, any food that has been brought from Spain, such as beef, pork, cheese, the orange brought from China, the mango brought from the Philippines, the national sport such as charrería, Mexican music, such as mariachi, norteña, pasito duranguense, the wapango, rancheras, corridos, goodbye to Christmas, the Three Wise Men, not resting at Easter, among thousands of other things that surely have Spanish heritage, but that you are probably not willing to give up, among thousands of other things that surely have Spanish heritage, but that you are probably not willing to give up, the wapango, the rancheras, the corridos, the goodbye to Christmas, the Three Wise Men, not resting at Easter, among thousands of other things that surely have Spanish heritage, but that you probably have no idea about it and that you unconsciously consume or practice, so, stop with the bullshit, Mexican culture is mestizo, and if we reject any of the two, we would have nothing left, both complement each other, Viva México hispano 🇲🇽🌮
@@AntonioFloresEsquivel4 that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard Mexicans just like the rest of Latin Americans have been taught to be embarrassed of their indigenous heritage due to the catas system. It’s OK that we have Inc. foreign cultures into our culture. You see culture is not fixed. Culture is fluid so it’s language and DNA. I did the biggest study on Boricua (Puerto Rico.) DNA 63,000 subjects every single Boricua has indigenous blood 100% of them now go to Spain and test them 100% of them do not have indigenous blood additionally from the 63,000 people tested they were broken down into age groups, the ages 70 and had indigenous blood did the younger subjects that were 18 or less the younger subjects collectively had meso American is South American DNA levels of 70% higher than the older subjects. One of the possibilities is that the genes that have adapted to this geographical area are being used more because European and African DNA respectively has gone down and there’s no new indigenous people showing up in boarding to account for any other possibility Darwin theory. So then, regardless to all the Spanish traditions, native DNA is on the rise in Puerto Rico. Only Spain produces Spaniards. Only Africa produces Africans and only produces natives. Literally, we as Latinos must take the castas system out of our head. It is a racist system. according to the system, everybody wanted to identify as a Spaniard because you would get better jobs, political jobs and more benefits there’s more to it than just that a lot of people could petition the crown and petition to be labeled a Spaniard everybody in the empire float to the status of being a Spaniard, but the DNA does not lie my friend Mexicans from all Latin Americans have some of the highest indigenous DNA of any other country over 60% that is way higher than any northern tribes people as a matter fact it is the migrations of Mexicans into North America that’s bringing back the indigenous DNA be proud of who you are because you will never be a Spaniard
I'm half Nicaraguan and Costa Rican heritage from Central America. I took a DNA test and came out 51% Spanish, Portuguese, Jewish, Italian. But the remaining 49% was completely Indigenous from Nicaragua, as well as Indigenous to Panama and Costa Rica.
Your Castizo
Still a decendant of conquistadors. My ancestors never slaughtered natives, but I bet you are darker than me. .
That’s like the Costa Rican version of my Mexican heritage. I have 48% Native American, 52% Spanish, Filipino, and Jewish.
I just identify as a mestizo to keep the culture alive.
@@royfajardo586 Conquistadors! If I cannot shrug off the horrors of my forefathers neither can you.
@@stardust86x Castizo is like mestizo. Except Mestizo is more leaned towards native while Castizo leaned towards spainard. These we’re terms used by the spainards to separate the ones who had more euro in them, and perfered to have mestizos over full indigenous blood and castizos above mestizos
it's crazy how much work people will go through in order to label and separate us.
Word! 🙌
Lol separate when we're we ever one people
It's insane. $ seems to have people trying to take our identity. But don't want the MMIWC problems or help us with it.
Yeah, man. The people of Mexico and other parts of Latin America are Native Americans of no tribe. We are our own tribe.
@@wicked_cool7technically the term native american is wrong aince to call us that wed have to be born after the continent was named n we werent. We have been here since the ice age and no we are not one tribe only
My parents are from Guatemala and boliva, I'm latina in the U.S but when I go to Latin America, I'm "la India" (the Indian). Guatemala and boliva still have big native American populations, and most Latinos have indigenous blood
Indian is a racial classification. Latin is just an ethnic classification. You can be any race and be latin.
Im French and German with a few indigenous forebears on both sides. I never presume to be indigenous based on a few remote relations but when i found a stone scraper in my garden i said "hello" to my relative who made it. Thank you for this discussion.
You really missed a huge segment of people who identify as native Americans (because they are). Mexicans and Central Americans are native Americans and have as much native blood as most on reservation indigenous folks. Many of our customs and words can be traced back to pre-colombian times. The reason the vast majority of Mexican immigrants cant trace their indigenous lineage is because the indigenous genocide in Mexico started about 250 years prior to the American Indian genocide by the americans. That doesnt mean thier native lineage isnt real. That being said i agree that those who arent tied to a tribal community shouldn't speak for those who are active members of a tribe.
Existe micha gente indígena en México y la mayoría de ellos murieron de las enfermedades que no tenía inmunidad y también hay mestizos y una minoría blanco y otra pero más pequeña minoría africana. En México es un país diverso.
I don’t think anyone is meaning to “miss” people in Mexico or central/south America… this is just specifically about the tribes of North America.
While there is cultural and ethnic connections to other indigenous peoples of the “Americas”, people who are not of the North American tribes do not have any rights to the lands or tribal money of North American tribes, because they do not have any lineage or connection to them.
In the same way that a Native American cannot claim indigenous lands in Mexico etc, the indigenous people of Mexico etc cannot claim rights to lands in America either.
@@luismanuelpotencianonorato9672ai mas castizos que mestizos
@@The.Hawaiian.KingdomThank you for your educated response. I appreciate you taking the time to explain it clearly.
@@cunksilili909
Thank you, that’s very kind of you, I appreciate you taking the time to read it and also your reply.
Have a good day.
As someone who can trace their ancestry to both tribal peoples of Mexico and to the Cahuilla of California and was always told that I was Indian by my family. I still feel the angst of not knowing my tribal traditions because it was lost to us because passing as white was safer and more prosperous. My family once owned (Spanish paperwork /Dons) much of what is now Los Angeles, yet we were also Cahuilla. I have always put on my papers that ID me as Native American but I also check the box for White and Latino.
My Husbands family were slaves of the 5 Tribes in Oklahoma and became Freedmen. But they were also Tribal people from central Mexico.
Identity is hard. Especially when someone made the choice to leave that community and it affected all their descendants. I have both ancestry and blood, and so do my children, yet we're sadly removed from our culture. Although I have been trying for many years to learn it-to reconnect with my tribe, ancestors and my past. In California, reservations operated differently from reservations in Oklahoma. People were not confined to reservations.
Happened to me too. My family bailed into the kentucky mountains during the trail of tears, so we're not on the dawes roll. My grandfather was born from native parents but because we weren't attached to a tribe anymore, it's meaningless as far as the gov't and tribal laws are concerned.
Take your kids to a pow wow.
A lot of cahuila ppl don't know anything about that culture either. The family might have remained in the same place for a long time, so they are enrolled but not any less assimilated 😅
I pray to God to give you a lot of beautiful days and you know God loves us so much, So where are you originally from? I am Sinclair originally from Germany but currently living Texas
@@SinclairCraig I was born and bred in So. Cal- I left and went to college in Oklahoma, and now live in Missouri.
This topic is very close to my heart because I'm Cherokee and Choctaw by blood quantum but phenotypically I'm white. I've benefited from native programs all my life, but my great grandparent's, the people I actually get my heritage from, gave up their culture to join the jehovahs witness, and so I was robbed of my tribal culture because of their decision to distance themselves.
I've always felt very insecure about my place in the nation, plastic cards aside. I wasn't raised on the rez, my family wasn't that different from white families barring a few superstitions I was surprised to find had tribal roots. For a while I tried too hard to feel like I deserved my identity by learning the language and cultural traditions, and trying work hard for the nation, then I kinda gave up, feeling like I was kist there to fill up a spot on the census and i didn't have a right to that heritage. But after doing some soul searching and research on native history, I think I've reached that middle ground where I can accept that I just am, and giving up that piece of myself is letting colonization win, and that there's no singular way to be or look Indian. I still do research on the history and culture of the nations, but now it's out of a desire to learn and connect with my heritage rather then prove something. Something I didn't know was how pretendians were making me feel less native by publicly leaning into stereotypes and denyingal actual natives opportunities to speak and share their experiences. Thank you so much for making this video, this is a very important topic and I'm grateful to hear some kind of confirmation I'm on the right track, and learn more about how other people experience being native
I really feel you on this. I am also Cherokee (my grandmother on one side) and Choctaw (my grandfather on the other side). My Cherokee line left the tribe because of tragedy. (The father passed away, so the townspeople accused the eldest son of a murder he didn't commit and hung him without a trial to gain their land and mineral rights. The mother and her sons moved to Oregon, leaving the only daughter with an English aunt.) They really didn't hold onto much.
My Choctaw line left the tribe either around removal or shortly after and remained in Mississippi before moving to Louisiana. They held onto their language and a lot of their culture, which my dad passed to me as best he could while living in the Rockies (far from the fishing and hunting community he was from).
Pretendians and the backlash of that has caused me to be wary and doubt my own place at times. I am not card-carrying and don't benefit from it. I just want to know my heritage and to be able to be who I am.
You are white
Every 'Cherokee' I've ever met is white.
A white person taking advantage of native benefits due to small blood percent? That’s called a 5 dollar Indian and that’s more sick than being a straight up genociding colonizer. I’m 1/8th creek/muscogee but I would NEVER LEECH of native benefits because I’m still mostly white and refuse to steal cultures and resources
@@Eniral441 You have a right to express every bit of your heritage and should not be judged by the degree of blood you possess. If you can trace your line to a Choctaw on the Dawes roll, you can apply for membership in the tribe. I am a member of the Choctaw tribe of Oklahoma, whose values are Faith, Family, and Culture, although I do have other lines of native heritage (Chickasaw and possibly Algonquin and Iroquois, as well as several indigenous Mexican tribes). The rest are European "tribes." We are fortunate souls to bear the epigenetic imprint of our native histories along with their painful record of imposed disadvantages because our struggles have made us stronger.
My great grandmother was born and raised in a reservation. We hail from the Iroquois Tribe of the Hodeseaune nation. I've always wanted to identify as Native American or Iroquois, but I have never visited the land where our tribe lives, and I wanna learn our language, but I simply haven't gotten started yet. I'm black, with the only connection being my late grandfather who never passed down his teachings or maybe she never passed down hers to him. I've always wanted to identify with them, but I have never visited the reservation. I do like searching for cool things about our tribe and there are some practices that we share. I love the music and the language just hits me on a spiritual level. When I am able to I hope to visit my ancestors and give thanks to them. I wanna be a part of the tribe, even if I don't live on their lands. I just wanna learn. I watched this video to get an idea on what it really means to be Native, but I learned a lot more and I am grateful for it. If anyone here is from the Iroquois Tribe, please share your experiences and give some advice on how to learn and connect with my ancestors. May peace be with you. Thank you for reading and have a nice day. ☺️
I'm Muisca and my ancestral homeland is in Northern Andes (Present day Bogota), but due to displacement I grew up in Salish & Lakota cultures and have been very involved in the community. I consider myself Native and so does nearly everyone I know in Indigenous community, but some people say I'm pretending because the tribe I come from is in South America. Personally I think it's ridiculous seeing as how my tribe was genocided and colonized just like every other, and it's not as though I pretend to be from a tribe I'm not.
This is interesting because I am indigenous to the tribes of mexico/Guatemala but grew up with an absent father who never reached out to me about learning bout traditions. I now visit pow wows around my area and make friends with the elders and tribes peoples. Every time I cleanse/smudge myself with copal and Palo Santo I make sure to give a little sage back to the earth and lands as respect to the ancestors of those peoples. It's okay to connect with other tribes and share inter-tribal traditions..Just make sure to state that you are not native to those lands.
I believe I’m also Muisca! I’m adopted so I haven’t met anyone else yet. ❤
A tribe is cultural. Tribes also evolved or took over/displaced other tribes through out history on 6 continents as well. If you were displaced and then adopted and embraced by another Tribe, then Culturally by definition you are a member of that Tribe. Tribal isn't always bloodline.
@@JoeSmith-ru9xu what is your point?
@@KindredKaye Tribes are cultural, not biological bloodline. By definition
Mexican but worked under a Navajo boss, he looked at me as a younger brother and always opened a shift by saying “It’s a great day to be indigenous!” We should all be inclusive enough but there are limits… Mexicans and Apaches..
Native tribes in what always mixed.
funny thing was I met two girls in high school who were native american, always bragging about it and brought it up all the time, saying being being native american made them more in touch with the earth and stuff like that, but yet I looked more native american, both my parents are from Mexico
@@olivegrove-gl3tw my boss looked real indigenous I can pass for white at times but I’ve seen blonde pale girls brag about their great grandmother being Cherokee, in tuned with nature but never used a mortar and pestle (mocajete) 🤣
I am Tamil, real indian, you're not.
@@pagongtagi6124 and India isnt the original name of the country (which is Bhārat) --so where does that leave you motor-mouth? You arent an Indian anything...youre Tamil.
I grew up hearing stories that there were Native Americans in both sides of my family. I took a DNA test and there was absolutely no Native American at all. Guess you can’t believe family lore. Thanks for an informative video.
More people need to understand this. I’ve heard the same scenario over and over again.
But he just said DNA doesnt prove anything. It’s cultural.
Sorry for your disappointment but If your grandma said the family history consist of Indian history then believe it...DNA testing doesn't pinpoint you as a native. However, if you do a test it should be taken by your blood not your spit or saliva. The blood line runs close because the baby ( Offspring) connect to the mother umbilical cord, which enables the blood to flow from mom to baby😮so the saliva will not necessary prove that you are an Indian. The blood will have better proof, however, genes do skip from generation. For instance, your sister may have the genes from your grandma and you might not have your grandma genes. You might have brown eyes and your grandma might have green eyes but your sister is the one who has the same green eyes your grandma had..😮 so, if your family said you have Indian descendants then believe it.
@@deitrestolbert4442 Thanks. That’s very interesting. Maybe there is some truth to the stories then. I’ll probably never know for sure.
@@3810-dj4qz you’re right.
I identify as part Native American. My grandma was Jicarilla Apache but my dad and his sister were estranged from her at a young age and went to live with his dads family (spaniard). I only met her once on her death bed as an adult. I don’t have any tie to the Jicarilla community as my dad passed away young. I have been told I’m not part native because I don’t live on the reservation, but I don’t think a stranger should be able to tell me what I am or am not. When I say I’m part native, I’m not trying to take away anything from anyone it’s just simply that Apache is one of the parts that make me me.
One time I was having my teeth cleaned. The hygienist asked if I had Native American or Asian relatives. She asked because of the shape of my teeth. It was a really interesting conversation. Years later I took a dna test and it showed 38% for Native American. I wish I could find out more but it’s many generations back.
Honey your last name is Mendez and your 38% NA that is not far back. Remember Native American references the American continent not the US of A. A dip in census records and marriage, birth & death would set you on the right track.
im 22% and that's because my grandmother is 100% native American, Nakoda. I'd guess you aren't far back NA. Maybe one of your parents is over 50% im guessing.
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
There is no god but God, He is One, He has no partner; His is the dominion, and His is the praise; He alone grants life, and deals death, and He is living and dies not; all good is in His hand, He is powerful over all things, and with Him all things have their end.
Btw you look indigenous too
Percentages are hard
I’m 34% indigenous American and just now found out the exact tribe in Mexico I descend from. It’s so dope
That’s amazing. How did you find out, or what did you use?
Yes, if you can share!
@@kisa5666 The otomi of central Mexico, I used 23&Me
@@rodolforoldan2075 The Otomi of central Mexico
bro, is it worth getting with 23nme for identifying specific tribe?
I'm a white guy. I was privileged to meet and work with many individuals from many Native American tribes at an old job. I learned so many things from these wonderful people, but also heard stories of heartbreak. One lady had been part of the Indian School movement that sought to beat, indoctrinate and coerce Native peoples from their cultures. I did, and still feel shame that my ancestors treated theirs so badly. Thankfully the Native Americans I met were not inclined to hold the sins of my ancestors against me. I think that powerful spirit of forgiveness is the only way we, as an American nation can move past our negative aspects of history and bring about some kind of healing, not just for ourselves, but for those who follow us.
I agree and would add that to be forgiven it's essential to say that we know we did something wrong, and feel awful about it. Then ask what can we do to make things better for you, the people we wronged, and DO IT.
If we adopted indigenous beliefs into our government and laws, such as the balancing of the Four Directions, our society would be much more civilized and fair.
@@dottiebaker6623
The point is that most folk living today didn't do those past wrongs; but rather, others - many of which are now long gone - did; so, most of the folk living today need not appologize for those past actions.
It's best to learn history & try not to have a modern-version repeat of the terrible parts & yet try to replicate a modern version of the better parts &/or simply move forward with the best one can reasonably do in mind (yet knowing some folk are almost always going to be throwing monkey wrenches into the works in their wicked attempts to screw things up for others & to possibly get or maintain an upper hand on them).
@@carolinematusevich889
If we only adopt the best of some Indigenous Folks' beliefs & ways, then things could possibly be better; but, not all Amerindian beliefs & ways are decent & peaceful; for, there was much death & destruction in the Americas prior to Columbus & crew arriving in the Bahamas in 1492 & his reign of terror in the Caribbean in 1493 (+). And the current U.S. Gov't did adopt some of the practices of Amerindians that had been aggressively involved in expanding southward & eastward before the Mayflower arrived near Plymouth Rock; so, people being people, there's often someone egging on others - or otherwise compelling others - to do wicked things (things often often rationalized/presented as doing good or right).
Only YHWH our God - the Creator - has the solution for getting folk to co-exist peaceably; so, we must wait on His good timing (meanwhile we just have to deal with whatever comes our way as best we can while obeying God as best we can while awaiting for God's rescue process to finish).
Keep on praying to the Creator, Folks.
✝️😎👍
Rather than the take away from these horrific tragedies our ancestors commited not be " I hope they dont hold it against me..." But rather consider, what happened to them still affects their lives so it should affect ours as well. We need to offer support and fight to correct the wrongs that we can to repare some of that..
I would be really interested in a follow up to this discussing the legacy of stolen children who were adopted outside of their Tribe, and how that can affect them and THEIR children when they want to discover their heritage.
My grandma was native Mexican and she isn’t considered “Native American” by American standards, which is weird, and I’m only considered “Hispanic” or “Latino” in the US stripping my indigenous heritage.
Does the US census specify being from a tribe and ancestry from within US borders (I realize quite a few tribes spread across borders of the current US with some spreading across the border with Mexico and others across the Border with Canada)
It seems only the US tribe people can be considered Natives.
Nevermind that we are a majority in the south of that country.🤌
It's all political.
exactly! this is the problem with who can identify as native, or "indian", which is a misnomer. native americans live throughout north and south america. this video gives the impression of "exclusivity" when the goal should be "inclusive" of all people with native american decent.
Latinidad is anti-indigenous erasure, latinos are Europeans like French, Spaniards, Italians, Portuguese and Romanians.
@carreteras101 To be fair it's largely focused on the US. And most of what it is talking about (programs, recognized tribes, tribal membership, and inclusion programs in the US) are specifically focused on descendants from tribes within the borders of the US and often federally or state recognized ones.
Some people also choose not to affiliate with their tribe. Some tribes disenroll depending on lifestyle. Some do not allow same sex marriage or transistioning. Tribal membership is inherently political. The fact someone can have 100% ancestors from a tribe and then lose membership and no longer be considered native is wild to me. I have heard of other tribes granting membership to spouses that lost membership in their own tribe from these things. Just crazy. When you look at other ethnicities we don’t quantify them in any of the same ways..
That sounds horrible. What do they even base it on? Is it just moving out of the resrrvation or something more?
yes, thank you for posting this. just flat out stupid to say someone is not "native american" because they do not, or cannot claim membership to an USA native american tribe.
Add Casino money into the mix and see it get real nasty!
@@nostur4984 in canada it's basically a generational system related to "indian status" (google it if you need more info!) that was designed to force natives to inbreed or marry outside our culture and lose status (government recognition we're indigenous, this relates to our legal rights for living on reserve).
for example of how this works:
1. "full" status - my late mother had status so she could pass it on to me, regardless of who my father was
2. "half" status - i was born with status but if my non-status wife and i had a biological child together, they wouldn't gain status. even if my wife was 100% indigenous but didn't have status, we still wouldn't be able to pass it on
there's no legal difference between full or half, we just use those terms sometimes to make conversations like this easier. it's also worth noting that someone can be 100% indigenous by blood quantum, but not have status because the rules used to be more strict and aren't actually based on your dna whatsoever. adopted children who qualify for status through their biological parents keep their status, whether it's full or half. i think non-indigenous children adopted by a couple with status gain status as well, but i'm not 100% sure. living on a reserve is not a requirement whatsoever (i never did and i've had status since i was born)
@@JoeSmith-ru9xu disgusting trope
I identify as reconnecting. I look white, but I want to meet my family and learn my language. My mom knew our traditions, but I was cut off because I looked white. If that means I’m embarrassing or white, I guess that’s who I am.
Edit: I’ll never be a voice for Indigenous people who’ve lived on reservation or always knew their heritage. But I want to be a voice to my native college students that they aren’t alone. I don’t teach our culture or history, but I do want to model that they can succeed
I know I’m Sac-Fox, and my history was lost at the end of the Trail of Tears. But I want to uncover it anyway. I want to honor my ancestors’ memories, and what part of them lives in me too…
Yeah, I never claim anything. I speak only for myself. My ex-husband lived with his uncle on the reservation. But, I have no knowledge of it myself.
@@sageandcandle good for you 👍
@@sageandcandle people in here speaking for their husbands, ex husbands and kids are RIDICULOUS
@@findliza I didn't. I speak for myself only. Don't put words in my mouth.
My last name is Hicks. I was judiciously kidnapped from my father in Alabama to Florida by my incredibly racist maternal grandmother. She hacked off my waist length hair with kitchen scissors to a shoulder bob within days of my being in her house. I was in my early twenties before I found all out all the things she said about my parents were lies. They weren’t alcoholics, they weren’t criminals. They just didn’t have enough money to fight her and her inherited money from another state to get me back. My mother had to abandon my father and come crawling back to her own mother for even a chance to know me. I don’t even know where to begin to undo the damage she did
🙏🏽 Praying for you
I'm so sorry this happened. Start with a good counselor.
❤
@ I did that years ago, wasn’t much help since they kept insisting I needed to forgive her abuse
That's why I will always acknowledge where my ancestry is from, but I will never identify as native because I have lived as white, and so have my parents and grandparents. It is unethical to take from already limited resources, to claim history that I am not connected to in any form.
I claim my native identity, but I do not gain any benefits of it. Then again, I was also raised with some of the culture and language.
I have traceable native lineage but have never lived that culture. I don't consider myself as native.
My dad is 3/4 Indian and my mom is half. I identify as Native by race and Hispanic by ethnicity.
My dad is 2/4 native and half Spanish and mom is full. I consider to be native with sometimes considering to be mixed only because people tell me I look Mexican or they start talking to me in Spanish. Lol
@@ushercollins3543Mexican is just a nationality, that's what most people are missing.
It's complicated. For instance, I'm an enrolled Chickasaw, but I don't live in the Chickasaw Nation boundaries in OK. My grandma was the last of my matriarchal line to live on our family's allotment. She left in the 1930's with her mom (and a bunch of cousins, etc) after the dust bowl to seek work out in California - there were tons of people that migrated to California at the time. After allotment and being forced to live and farm in a non Chickasaw way, and then being traxed on the allotment (which, by the way was land bought by the tribe when they kicked us out of Mississippi / Tennessee). They were destitute and due to all the forced assimilation crap, there wasn't much of tribal anything left.
Out in California, it was super racist and you didn't dare mentioning you were Indian. So, the family out there never talked about being Chickasaw and my mom grew up knowing hardly anything about it. Then, about 15 years ago, an aunt stayed looking into things and getting us all reconnected. We are all trying to learn / participate as much as possible now. But, I'm pretty white, while my brother got the darker skin. So, when I tell people I'm Chickasaw I get all the looks.
This is very similar to my heritage, it feels good to relate 🩵 I’m always unsure where I should stand on all this.
I live where the Chicksaw did in TN. My mom and a few of her family members looked like the Land of Lakes girl but she married a blue eyed white guy and had me. A white guy with pillowed eyes and flaky ear wax like Asians... lol
My family is Choctaw, who stayed in Mississippi and eventually moved to Louisiana. Although they still practiced a lot of the culture and spoke the language among family members only, we still have relatives that vehemently deny that we are Choctaw. This comes from two situations. 1- My family tried to blend in to avoid the government (because of removal, I think, but Louisiana is also known for its corruption in government, too). 2- Racism in the South. It was better to be considered black or Canary Islander (with whom they lived among) than it was to be Indian in the South.
They denied it on paper while remaining Choctaw in other ways.
These comments are hilarious. Why do you all care so much about 5% of your DNA?
@@willt2036 you know blood quantum - which you change to DNA - is a colonizer thing invented to disposes us of even more land and rights. We don't define ourselves in this way. Plus, DNA cannot not tell you which tribe you belong too. Either, we are a sovereign nation and therefore, determine who is a citizen, or others get to tell us who we are.
My father is Indian, my mother is white. I didn't get to actually learn my Indian culture, because they divorced when I was 9 & I didn't see my father until I was in my mid 20's. I know very little about Indian culture, I am now trying to learn as much as I can.
As for what I look like- hazel eyes (they lean green), natural hair color dark brown, my skin tone is fairly light (I'm pale).
I'm proud of all my generic makeup-as I'm not responsible for the choices that individuals/ancestors made in the past, before I was born.
Blessings.
This whole ‘pretending to be other races’ is still such a huge issue.
Why is trans-race an issue? Do you think trans-gender is as well? Consistency, please.
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@@Kaede-Sasaki a little googling will find you answers if self-reflection doesn't. say, "dolezal".
I'm Yoeme, Purepecha, & Apache and unfortunately, my family did all they could to hide and assimilate out of fear, and so that we could survive. I've spent my life uncovering this and trying to connect. For me, it isn't about a tribal card, resources, or anything political. It is about reconnecting with my cultural heritage. It's been an exhausting endeavor, but I understand it's going to be a life long journey to undo the damage and disconnect that colonialism has done.
I’m also Yoeme
The same for me. I found roots to my Sioux and Cherokee family members.
Most were slaughtered. Those who hid, lived to systematically cover up who we are. Out of fear. Needless to say, most survivors today , have been bred out and on purpose. Apparently the government kept hunting for those they feared. Mine wouldn’t be dead or in hiding if the government did not fear them. It’s heartbreaking to say the least. On the one hand, I want to know my native parts, on the other, I know I am diluted. It does not erase my roots.
And so what if I look like my father’s Hungarian side? I want to explore my other side because my soul has not forgotten.
@@rauxieswisdom3102 My family history is VERY similar. You're not alone in your pain. 🫂
Thank you for sharing your story. I am purepecha and mixteca on my mom’s side of the family, but we were also taught to assimilate to US culture. It makes me feel really conflicted to claim indigenous roots while I’ve grown up pretty much without practicing any sort of ceremony or hearing stories or the language of my non-Spanish ancestors. How do we navigate it? It’s tough, but connecting to similar people makes me feel hopeful.
Which Apache?
This is so interesting. As a Māori from Aotearoa, I'm fascinated in the similarities/differences in our experiences. A similarity is the forced assimilation in schools and loss of culture, as well as lots of us having Euro ancestry and so being white passing. However, we seem to have way fewer of these pretenders. I wonder if it's because having indigenous ancestry here is not as 'cool', and there seem to be less social advantages to doing it.
@@georgiac91 do you have entire people groups that the nation still claims to have eradicated? If not it’s not the same
People groups?
@@findlizaAre you challenging their comparison of indigenous experiences in more than one country? That would be odd.
@@findlizathey said there are similarities and differences
Aloha poly cousin 😁🤙🏽, I’m Hawaiian, I’ve heard that there is a lot of racism against Māori people in New Zealand, is that true and if it is, that’s probably why non-Māori people don’t pretend to be Māori.
I'm a first-born American on my Dad's side. He was born in Puerto Rico, and we're a part of the Taino tribe.
This is a great video !
My cousin sent this video to me, and you have a new subscriber hun!!
Love from Rhode Island, USA. 💜.
@CatDavid-e8c I'm doing well. How are you doing?
Dude America is a continent not a country if your ancestors were the Arawaks or tainos the first natives Christopher Columbus ran into
Why you make yourself look like a Inmigrant when you decend from the
Taino Natives .
@@MariaGasca-Reyesprobably because that means 1st generation United States of America citizens. I’m Mexican & I’m a 1st gen American on my father’s side of the family.
This is one aspect of the United States I always found weird because using those laws and logic the majority of the 30 million indigenous Americans in Mexico would not be considered as “Indian” in the USA despite being mesoamericans
The US government only has treaties with tribal nations within US borders. When someone comes from another country in the Americas with Indigenous ancestry, of course they are Native but they have no standing in the eyes of the Federal Government.
The indigenous people of Mexico are not “Native” to the United States of America though, therefore they have no claims to any of the lands in the US.
Culturally and ethnically they obviously have overlapping connections, but these laws are more about land rights and rights to tribal money, of which the indigenous people in Mexico have zero rights to.
You don’t see Native Americans trying to claim land rights in Mexico, do you?!
@@The.Hawaiian.KingdomI don't think any indigenous people who decended from Mexico want to claim any land. I think they just acknowledgment that they themselves are indigenous.
Especially because most people who are indigenous of Mexican or South America or Central American do not consider themselves as white. Latino is a broad term and the only link is speaking Spanish. Also yes they may not know the suffering of natives in Canada and the US. But indigenous people from all of the Americans have suffered by taking of their land, mass killings, loss of culture but I agree they don't know the American experience of barding schools.
@@lizamorales8171
Then they obviously shouldn’t have any issues not being included in the definition of “Native American”, as that’s simply a term used solely for the indigenous tribes of the United States. Native Americans, like Mexicans, identify by their tribes names, not a westernized umbrella term for all the indigenous peoples of the US.
For instance if you ask a Navajo person what they are, they’ll say they’re Navajo, they won’t say they’re Native American… same if you ask an Zapotec person what they are, they’ll say Zapotec. Indigenous peoples of all of the Americas identify by their tribes. I feel like only Ethnic European influence would make an indigenous person think they need to all be categorized in a general umbrella term.
There’s absolutely zero reason for indigenous peoples in Mexico, central or South America to fall under the term “Native American”.
This reminds me of that SNL sketch where Kate McKinnon as Sen. Elizabeth Warren calls ‘maize’ the “food of my ancestors”.
That was hilarious. I had hoped she'd mention something about her "Three Sisters," later revealing faces drawn corn husks, squash, and a smiley bean face.
I didn't see that one. That's funny.
although to be fair, Warren never claimed to be indigenous herself -- she said she had some indigenous ancestry, which is just true. (yeah, I understand no-one is really interested in being fair.)
@@otsoko66 Edit - never mind. You're right. She had some. Not a lot. Perhaps 6-10 generations up the ladder, which works out to 1/64th to 1/1000th. But, there's a trace in there. :-)
@@otsoko66 yeah EW was treated unfairly. I remember her ads in New England for *local* elections & it genuinely did feel like she was trying to use the “im native” to get votes. (you’re right, she didn’t say she was native! She said she had native ancestors!)
However EW was honest about her lineage & I find the “Pocahontas” comments soooo distasteful
(I’m not native, she campaigned for Senate when I was in college - she brought up the native ancestry in her campaign ad and I remember thinking, ‘girl I know you are not about to try and use that native ish to get elected” )
But tbf…… she really didn’t make that her entire campaign. She mentioned it & in reality, who are we to tell anyone they can’t claim their lineage?
“Or at least know why you don’t” hit me so hard. Our family’s oral story passed down to me is of the struggle of fighting the US Calvary (we are Chiricahua, Apache) and fleeing west to a train stop town in East Los Angeles, welcomed by the local Tongva people, where eventually I had a great great uncle who was the town sheriff and was gunned town for being native as the influx of Italian and Jewish migrants settled in. We lost our language and ceremonial traditions and became a part of the Chicano culture the brewed in my grandparent’s generation. It was so confusing growing being told to be proud of who we are yet all around me my “friends” always said I’m just Mexican or Latino and didn’t even know Spanish 😅
I’m thankful now I know I am still N’de and am reconnecting as I can
I am mixed Indigenous. Not a member of any tribe except my family. I don't want free money or recognition. But, when I identify as mixed Indigenous don't act like you're entitled to question me. That is a "Western" mindset.
lol that western mindset was forced upon you by the Spanish. Genetic research already listed you all as Africans with Asiatic traits. Your use of the word Indigenous is in fact a western mindset....lol
Exactly. I’m half but I don’t look for approval for brag about my heritage for money or pity.
Yes, being native is in the blood, or else anyone could identify as native. Even if you don't know the culture, your DNA and body behave according to those instructions in your indigenous DNA. We can always learn the culture or start our own.
@@BlindMellowJelly And not indigineous either. No one alive is. We are not even sure who the original indigineous were.
I live in Pennsylvania, and hella people here say, "My great gramma was Cherokee " hehehe
I asked an old Lakota man (my uncle) what he thought about so many people who claim Cherokee ancestors. His answer: “Them Cherokees got around!”.
A ton of them say it here in Oklahoma too.
i wish i had a dollar for every time someone's come up to me & began a conversation with that one..lol..i could buy a car, a house, a boat,..maybe even a whole island. i realise they just want to connect, on any level they think they can..but omg it gets Oooolld & is so hard not to laugh out loud...i have to do my wooden injun face.
@@tedecker3792 lol..yeah i heard that from Elders too 🤣
It's hilarious. Half the people I know claim a 'Cherokee' grandparent.
Here in Canada we have the Metis, who have both white European ancestry and native ancestry. Not being fully accepted into either group, they nutured their own culture, incorporating features of both.
Yeah I am curious how the Metis fall into this discussion. Beyond just being "mixed," true Metis people do have a shared history, cultural heritage, and way of life they have been trying to protect and legitimize since the 1700s.
My grandmother was Métis, leaving my generation w 8% dna despite her growing up on reserve.
That boggles my mind. I’ve seen these people and they fully can pass as Caucasian. We have the Native American phenotype, 30-60% DNA, foods and traditions in the Mestizos within the USA and are not acknowledged.
Metis have a very distinct lineage of Cree and French ancestry often traced back to the Red River settlement.
@@Happytravellerkimmy yes, that is where she's from.
Im so glad citizenship was brought up because so many natives have such complex familial and tribal connections and with forced adoptions its hard for many people to actualy get that card but are still native. Its such a complex issue
Buffy dedicated her life to Native Americans. She is a treasure. She's done so much for you (us) :)
I'm 1/2 Central American (with Mayan and Spanish roots, w/Afro Carib on the side) and 1/2 Anglo American. I am very cautious when I say I'm of indigenous descent b/c people assume I'm from a US or Canadian Tribe. I usually just leave it at Central American, but at the same time I've faced disgusting comments from other Latin Americans for my background. Mostly on Central Americans being uneducated "indios", which gave me tough skin and not care what rando strangers want to label me.
Racism against Indigenous people in Central America is sadly very common. Even though one of my grandmother's was Mayan, when she was younger, she was harassed for looking "india". She told us to never refer to her as such because she didn't want the attention.
Jesus, never heard "apple" as an insult before. People can be so creative when they want to be ugly.
TIL the term "apple" and put it along with the various othering racial insults used by people: banana, coconut, oreo. Hi if you use any of these to describe someone, please don't.
Potato is another awful thing to call someone, and people shouldn't use
I have heard the other terms, but not "apple", all are rude IMO!
We need to talk about the Native American ancestry in the black American community. I DO have Native American in my family and the idea that many of you are saying mixing never happened is so disheartening. I am not 100% Native. What about the reclassification of some native Americans as negro?
Kinda weird, but my cousin sent one of those DNA kits in. It comes back and doesn't mention any Native American blood, but we have black DNA.
I have family pictures from both sides you can tell they are Native Americans. My great grandmother was fairly dark skinned but that was on my mother's side. My cousin was on my father's. They also found documents after my grandma died it was a ledger with our family name at the top of each page it said White or Black. We also have a family Facebook page for Genealogy and I have seen several Black family members there. So I came to the conclusion that I'm a Mutt. My family came from Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Oklahoma some from Alabama also.
Native American = Black imo
My father, who was Mexican, born in Mexico, is listed as “white” on my birth certificate, 1968 California. I don’t think they accommodated each & every ethnicity on those old documents, & many indigenous parents might have been recorded as “white” simply because they didn’t know what else to write there. ✌🏼
Facts! The term Hispanic, wasn’t coined until around the mid 70’s. Lots of darker ones were considered “black” in those days.
Miigwech. "Thank you" for sharing this.
My ancestors before my grandmother were labeled as “half-breeds,” so it could be worse 😂 We’re Métis.
If I need to talk about the Indigenous folks very broadly, I'll simply say "First Nations". Otherwise, I much prefer being more specific, and use the proper name for each Indigenous group. Like, if I'm talking about the Innu, I'll say Innu. If I'm talking about the Naskapi, I'll say Naskapi. And so on & so forth.
That's fair. It just gets more complicated when you have to generalize more without meaning everybody.
If you’re Canadian which I’d guess you are? Indigenous works for all peoples Indigenous to the Americas, and then within that in “Canada” there are Inuit, Métis, and First Nations peoples. Calling Inuit or Métis people First Nations is actually incorrect, but most of us were never taught what these names mean. Hence also many believe that anyone who is of mixed Indigenous and European descent is Métis, rather than Métis being a very specific ethnocultural group.
They are Called "Native Canadians" or "Aboriginal peoples of Canada" that's Canada's umbrella term for their indigenous peoples. In Mexico they are called Native Mexican or Mexican Native American or Indigenous Mexican.
There is a term called "De-Tribalized Native American," which I think describes most people that have been forced to identify as "hispanic" to erase their Native American identity.
This de-tribalization happened by design. The US Governent actively (still to this day) worked to erase Native culture out of fear that they'd retake the land.
Hay personas mestizas y no indígenas que no se indentifica con la cultura y lengua indígena, pero hay gente no es indígena son blancos y mestizos que habla lengua indígena como el guaraní en Paraguay.
@@luismanuelpotencianonorato9672Mestizos y castizos no som igual
@@JayB-xx5pk Sorry, don't believe you.
@@muscledoggs566 90% of Mexicans are "mestizo" or "mixed." Their DNA admixture is usually ~60% native & ~40% white (spanish).
Google is free. Look it up or bury your head.
Not getting seconds into the video and hearing the classic Cherokee Princess joke. 😆 Always a good ice breaker.
I am not Indian but I am a native of America and I truly hope that designation is not insulting to anyone. My land is where my dead lay buried and I care for it with every cell of my body. Four of my ancestors stepped off that tiny boat that changed the continent and generation after generation moved west. History isn't pretty but it is ours. America isn't perfect but it is ours to care for. All of us.
This is why I identify as indigenous mexican-american, my ancestors range from El Salvador up into the Central Valley and into northern Mexico, and then when the border showed up, a couple family members made some really hard choices and they chose assimilation at all costs. Now I don’t even know Spanish, but I’m learning. My dad once told me to never forget our ancestors, and I am determined not to.
Most Mexican-Americans have a lot of indigenous in them but have bought into this "Hispanic race" nonsense.
Indigenous Mexican American. That works.
@@brigidanow- this is exactly what my dna says too. Not trying to infringe on anyone’s heritage these are just the facts. Native to Mexico.
@@MichaelTheophilus906 I don't think you understand what native language means. If you grow up speaking any given language, that's your native language.
@@MichaelTheophilus906 you simply misused the term native language.
I am from Mexico City, and after reading some of the comments, it seems many missed the key points made by both the speaker and the professor in the video. In Mexico, the concept of identity differs somewhat, as it doesn't rely on blood quantum. As the professor highlighted, identity is rooted in “distinct cultural characteristics, language, community, and connection”. In Mexico, having “indigenous” ancestry is different from being recognized as “indigenous”. Most communities in Mexico base their recognition on whether you are from the here, speak the language, and are collectively claimed by that community.
This always gets me on debates and people never want to accept it but a Mexico has shown a better history of Native American representation and reparations than the United States especially in recent history with the several land back and congress reforms positioning native Americans as their own legal group entity granting them special rights over federal land. The Americans just want to believe they are better at this issue when they are not not even close.
@@ericktellez7632 on paper, yes. But in reality, Native Mexican languages are still very discriminated and its hard to live in Mexico not knowing Spanish. Plus, Mexican media is very homogenous and white. Even Hollywood manages to be more diverse than Mexican media.
@@TheJosman I think that's the case in USA as well and Canada and probably all of south America. Its no secret Native indigenous peoples have been affected by colonization and prejudice towards Eurocentric Beauty standards. Native representation in USA is scarce as well.
Don't speak for all Mexicans and the Mexican Gov along with the U.S Gov
Are the worst thing that could have happened to the western hemisphere
Corrupt . Mexicans regardless of Being Meztizos have the right to call themselves as indigenous too
Moctezuma decendents are still alive some are heavily mixed . But at the end of the day he is Moctezuma great grandson and daughter . So what ever to your pathetic logic .
I grew up in New Mexico and my grandma would always tell me that she was Indian, and she would tell me stories and show me pictures. But she did not live on the reservation(Apache) and speculated Navajo ties. I grew up to be absolutely fascinated with the culture and history and Native American culture in New Mexico is so beautiful and so bloody. But I’m adopted with no idea of biological heritage, I’ve always felt so at home with Native Religion, Dances, and Ceremonies. And I’ve never felt that feeling any where else
In defense of Elizabeth Warren, she had a grandmother who told her she was part Native American. This isn't the kind of thing many of us would naturally doubt or take a DNA test to check, especially about 30 years ago when she mentioned it to her university (and she didn't use it to her advantage, but her university posted it). Today, with cheap DNA testing, and with public shaming, I would think most people would check, but when Elizabeth mentioned it in conversation what amounted to verbal family history, I don't think she should be skewered for that.
That was super common in her generation. A lot of white folks are raised believing they have native ancestry due to a grandparent who heard it from their grandparents back in the day.
The "Cherokee Heritage" myth in particular originated with biracial southerners who were light enough to pass into white society but still noticeably dark enough to be questioned about their ancestry.
@@mperezmcfinn2511 That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.
@@YTEdy I just learned about that fairly recently myself.
@@mperezmcfinn2511 Except Warren really did have indigenous ancestry -- not much, but exactly as much as one would expect from her grandmother's story. (in Oklahoma, for a variety of reasons, Cherokees were considered by white folks as a higher status tribal nation, so the default was to claim part-Cherokee ancestry. Plus there was a long history of Cherokee-white intermarriage.)
@otsoko66 Yes, she did. I should have clarified that. I was trying to make three separate points simultaneously.
The Cherokee, from what I was told 30+ years ago (so take this with a grain of salt), assimilated early and gained favor with the U.S. government, and also mixed with Anglo settlers in higher numbers than other tribes. I believe they may have also been one of the slave owning tribes. As a result, Cherokee became the default tribe for people claiming vague indigenous heritage.
The motivation for doing so varied. For example, biracial southerners used it to join white society (passing). There was also a period in the early 20th century where white folks could buy legitimate documents of native ancestry from a corrupt government official or judge in order to gain certain benefits. They were known as "5 dollar Indians."
Additionally, there were whites raised in the culture due to adoption, or a step-parent, who had no genetic connection but identified as mixed.
Their children would pass down tribal traditions like hunting or fishing techniques, recipes, stories, etc.
Those traditions would get lost after a few generations. Eventually, you would have this white descendant with no genetic or cultural connection, excitedly remembering their grandparent telling them they had native ancestry. Only to have their disappointing 23 and Me results feel like a betrayal.
I used to think I had Native American ancestry because that's just what I was told by my elders as they had comparatively darker skin tones than the rest of the family. But the sparse genealogy records on this side of the family coinciding with migration routes of white settlers and chronology between those, and the times around the Indian Removal Act didn't seem to line up for any such intermixing. Dabbled around with a Melungeon hypothesis but I might need a professional genealogist to assist me because my late father's side of the family is filled informational voids, questionable links, and dead ends.
It was also extremely common for mixed-raced people who would have been classified as "mulatto" to identify as "Indian" as a way of avoiding slavery during the years that it was becoming racially codified in the US (1600s and 1700s.). I have an ancestor who used this as part of the lawsuit to demand he (and later his daughters) should be granted their freedom after their indentured servitude was ended. Had he been black, they could have denied him, so he claimed to be native instead.
Melungeons were isolated for a long time. Newmans ridge is a small place.
The Lumbee are probably the best arc back.
The Indian Removal Act destroyed so much history
Shaming people for being proud of 1/4, 1/8, or even 1/16 heritage is toxic hostility that we don’t need in this world. I don’t care which ethnicity it is. This is mostly about money & tribal shares… that’s when all this hate started being such a big freaking deal. It’s sad to see how far people fall over money.
My mom was brought up on a reservation in AZ & left when in grade school. I remember her getting so angry about that school photo that she tore it up. The nuns in Indian school taught her shame. They told her because she was half Irish. She had a shot at being something in her life if she could learn to be white and pretend she wasn’t Native American. She lied about not being native the rest of her life & abused us in order to keep it a secret. I got punished severely just for braiding my hair & didn’t know why until I was 17 & finally put it all together. I have no idea the exact mixture between Irish & native that she was. It was a Navajo reservation. But I’ve learned we have Chickasaw, Hopi, Cherokee relatives as well & I can’t make out which ones would be directly related due to the family lying to cover it all up to be only white. All I know is in the last days of my grandmother‘s life when she was 97 in the nursing home she could only speak. Hopi. The nursing home had to search high and low for a translator even figure out what language she was speaking and understand what she was . She lost the ability to even speak English in the last week of her life. Every time I think about that week and how I wasn’t even told and not even allowed to be with her because I had been thrown out of the family for being a bleeding heart liberal… It makes me cry.
Everyone lies that it’s nothing. My background is meaningless they tell me. Yeah sure… that’s why my brother had a nose job to remove the arch so he wouldn’t look native… because it’s nothing. If that wasn’t enough…. I got the strawberry hair, freckles, & green eyes of my Irish grandfather… the dreaded ginger in the family… and so my mom made me dye my hair blond to hide that too. I wasn’t allowed to admit either heritage or ask about it. She called Irish & Native Americans “drunken heathens”. I was forced to say I’m German & English. But my paternal grandparents were Irish/Welsh (grandma) and English. My maternal grandparents were Native American grandma and Irish grandpa. I assume my parents added German because they lived in Germany a couple years when my dad was in the Army. Both of my parents were white supremacists. But I always refused to accept them for that & go along with that hate.
My maternal grandma was a midwife on the reservation when she left & even after she went back to work at other reservations in Az & NM. All my life she lived in Albuquerque NM and drove countless miles to reservations delivering babies & bringing car loads of stuff from the Goodwill where she volunteered as well. She was always welcomed with kids & women running out & surrounding the car to greet her & hug her. She was always accepted as one of the tribe & they used to try to get her to stay because the women needed her midwife skills. My mother hated that she took us there several times. She would scowl & pout in the car & refuse to get out among the “dirty savages” she said. I loved it. I especially loved learning to bake bread in big clay ovens. One time I traded my yo-yo with a boy for his moccasins ( this was in the late 60s). When my mother discovered it on the drive back she made me take them off and threw them out the window and grounded me for two weeks & my father got the belt out when we got back to granny’s house.
So all my life I wanted to know what I was. My grandfather got so disgusted with all the shame & hate over him being Irish & his wife being native he would take jobs that kept him away from home for as long as I can remember. I only spent time with him a handful of times.
So now I resent people today pushing these shames on me like they do. I’m not supposed to talk about any of that. I’m supposed to say I’m a mutt proudly & that my background & experiences are worthless garbage that makes me nothing at all. That’s what everyone wants… for me to be nothing. Most of you will never be happy unless I say that I am nothing if I’m asked & I am supposed to never bring it up & just hope no one ever asks. Then I am supposed to believe THAT hate is called diversity & inclusion & is a form of superior enlightenment & education. Well, it’s not. It’s just more prejudice, hate & shamefulness. There is no integrity to it. Screaming at me on social media for telling my story & calling me a racist for literally being my own heritage after all the batterings I have taken over it & refused to stop being friends with PoC even when kids beat me up at school & I got the same at when I got home… it never has stopped me & it never will. I refuse to be ashamed of myself or stop being friendly & loving toward all types of people regardless what their heritage is. I refuse to be color blind in a world of such wonderful diversity & blendings that make us stronger in every way as humans. You’ll have to yell till you are blue in the face & you still will not change who I am or what I am… and what I believe. I am proud to be PART Native American. Get over it. ☮️
..now I wonder if this is why my grandma always abused my mom and me and my sis.... you could see the Cherokee in Mom...
❤
Thank you! The bloodlines of our ancestors, where ever they may be from, lives within us and sometimes comes out in places we travel to, music or food we love, our spirituality, etc. It's difficult to put into writing, but the soul and senses are sometimes more connected than what we are consciously aware of.
You wrote an entire essay on a youtube video, congrats. Is the "shaming" youre referring to in the video just the calling out of white people who love to claim their "great grandmother was a Cherokee princess"? If youre white, youre white. Get over it.
You wrote an entire essay on a youtube video, congrats. Is the "shaming" youre referring to in the video just the calling out of white people who love to claim their "great grandmother was a Cherokee princess"? If youre white, youre white. Get over it.
I'm half Irish, 3/8 British & 1/8 Native, but because I'm from upstate NY I never knew what tribe because in my great grandmother's day it wasn't something to be proud of. I'am proud but I've never tried to claim anything from it.
really cool to watch your content as a Mexican American cuz my family is Mixed Native Nahua. Love to support my northern cousins!
Growing up, my generation (and my dad's as well) you identified as whatever you could get away with to get beat up or bullied the least.
Sounds like an admission of weakness
Yeah a friend of my mom's was told she was Mexican American because there was less racism towards them in that part of the country. She found out as an adult that she was fully Navajo but it was too traumatic for her to connect with her relatives & culture. I've known various other people that had older relatives admit their Native roots when they finally felt safe doing so. Sometimes even on their deathbeds.
@@JoshJones-37334It's more like survival. People have often tried to pass as a member of a different group to get by. Easy to judge in modern times.
@@minngael I find it easy to judge.
The thing is, some people didn't have a choice. Those of us that didn't have a choice had different experiences than those that did.
I’m currently a junior at Williams College and part of the Native American Student Alliance, which I helped revived. Interestingly, the group was originally started by Elizabeth Hoover, who was later revealed to be one of the "pretend Indians" mentioned in this video. It's a pretty cool, though somewhat contentious, situation. As a Native person, I’ve come to realize that your identity as Native doesn’t need validation from anyone-it’s something spirtual and not granted by others, but by the divine.
When I was growing up, I was informed that I was 1/16th Cherokee/Choctaw. That was something I took pride in, despite me having no ties to Native culture or the like. Later, though, my family found out that the ancestor who was listed as Native was actually Irish. He just was listed as Cherokee/Choctaw due to some clerical error. Since, I've done one of the DNA ancestry tests, and found what I should have known from the start: I'm basically completely Northwestern European, with only the less than one percent Native DNA markers. So, neither culturally, nor genetically, can I have any claim to such heritage (and I already knew back then that the 1/16th number was ridiculously small, not enough to count). It's good to me to know I shouldn't claim some sort of tie to a people I don't have, and know that my ancestors were not the "good ones" among the white settlers.
Heck, I know I had awful ancestors. I can trace my lineage to General Custer, after all. Never have I enjoyed that fact. At least I can also say that I can trace myself to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who at least didn't intentionally do anything hurtful to Native Americans (that I know of). Sure, his most famous poem goes with the "noble savage" archetype, but hey, I could have been related to someone who didn't even have that much respect. Eh, it's was inevitable that my ancestors would have been problematic, so I take the small victories, I guess. Especially with the whole Custer relation (and, since I'm half German, I'm certain that even though all my ancestors were here before World War II, I have people in my line who were sympathetic to Germany during the war). Best I can hope is to do what people should endeavor to achieve: be better than those who came before, and hope the future generations do even better than you (though I'm not having kids, so it wouldn't be my own line). Also, to tie back to the subject I babbled myself away from: to not claim an identity that you have no ties to whatsoever. Better for people like me to leave the answer to the video's title as "Not me."
as a white person interested in the real experiences of native american people or tribes - its been a big let down to understand that many of the resources i looked to were in fact pretendians. Now that social media is a thing, its so much easier to seek out and vet the people and hear their ideas with an open mind. I,for years by my family, was told we had heritage, but in the end i think it was that weird southern posturing.
That “and if we don’t, we know why…”hit so hard 😞 Abenaki of Odanak here! To this day the Abenaki have 4 tribes of white people in Vermont and New Hampshire on our homelands, who have had genealogy done, 98% of them are French Canadian and not Abenaki, let alone even Native American. They are stealing and appropriating our culture and heritage. The pretendians are thriving and well and are mocking the pain of our families, benefitting from our extinction. But low and behold, we are still here, and we want healing. Please help us spread awareness and be an ally!
I am indigenous to the south America's and live in NH. Have been to a few pow wows here where I'm literally the only indigenous looking person there. This explains a lot 😂 please let me know how I can help ❤
The only ones fighting blood quantum are white.
Exactly but a Mexican or central American can't claim their Nativeness
According to the U S politics .
@@happyzombiikitti I feel for you do you receive a lot of stares racism ?
I have been told by my parents that we had Native ancestry on both sides. I am African American. But after research, and DNA tests, I'm seeing that the majority of my "Native" ancestors were mixed race ( African/European) that probably claim Native heritage to avoid being discriminated against, re enslavement, etc, especially since it was against the law to marry/ procreate outside of your race, so they definitely couldn't lay claim to their European ancestry. But also, because some of that mixing was due to force/r*pe. So I think there are probably many reasons why people think they have Native ancestry, more than just the glamorization of being exotic. I did find 1 line that actually have a Native American connection, but outside of that, most were mulattos ( African/European mixed), but that is my 2 cents.
I've been wondering if this is the case for my family as well. I was told that we have some Cherokee heritage, but i've always been sus about it, especially after learning that "Cherokee" was slang for "mixed" (any combo of black/white/native) in some parts of the U.S.
@@hazey_dazey It's possible. Look and see. Do an ancestry DNA test, or do some family research. I'm glad that I did, now I can truly celebrate who I am.
@@aleqrobinson2876 i've done some research. My grandmother told me before she passed that one of her grandfathers was white and that she met him once when she was young.
My sister was given a dna test but she still hasn't taken it yet, she keeps forgetting lol. I might have to get one myself 😆
Sound like you're a good ol fashioned "whole lotta stuff" Human! There are many in that Tribe
Where are you and your family from in America?
Where my parent's are from it seems to he the opposite! People don't want to claim it even tho they have the physical characteristics, they're even embarrassed by it.
We should consider why people want to be considered Native Americans and the nature/nurture aspect of gatekeeping. I also wonder why we don’t consider Native Central and South Americans when discussing indigenous people.
In most discussions native American refers to native people of the United States of America. We have to delineate somewhere.
My family swears by the Cherokee Princess story. I wish I could afford a DNA test. I've seen enough of these on fellow white southerners to guess that I'd wind up being part African rather than any kind of native American Indian.
& that's where the "Cherokee princess" crap comes in. People were trying to hide that they were *Black*.
@@SafetySpooon yep, I was told that my great-great-great grandmother was Cherokee (a.k.a. Tsalagiyi). I don't claim Native American ancestry, and I'm not hiding my Blackness.
@SafetySpooon In some areas in the South, it was better to be black than Indian. You were treated better as a black person. My Choctaw family did this.
A lot of dna tests don't pick it up because the companies don't have enough of a sample to identify tribal DNA of most of Native America. There are a few exceptions.
@@Eniral441This is changing! I actually got an update that I am 47% Native American. It’s not East Asian or any other place.
I mean the answer seems a bit obvious here, resources should be distributed equally among all people of a a given land and not dependent on 'blood' or 'lineage'. Of course, that would mean a complete restructuring of society, fully funding schools, hospitals, roads, and infrastructure across the nation and possibly first in areas in greatest need (black/Indian/working poor communities). That would require the government to invest in the country and not spend it on war profiteering and subsidies for billion-dollar corporations. As far as historically teaching children about their heritage or other children about the heritage of their neighbors, you would have to look at schooling and move from a 'pass the test model' to one that teaches you to think critically and doesn't limit a child by age but by skill. That of course would mean dismantling the current for-profit school model. I mean it basically boils down to capitalism seeping its way into every nook and cranny of society causing people to fight for the meager resources they have instead of taking on the bigger enemy.
@bfrost7 so you're saying distribute resources from the government to all people living within the country's borders? If so, doesn't that disregard the treaties that were made between that government and sovereign indigenous nations, and ignore the fact that the government controls that land and those resources as a direct result of killing, forcibly removing, marginalizing, and ignoring indigenous peoples for the benefitof particular classes of non-indigenous people?
Interesting ideas
I was told as a child that my great great great paternal grandfather married a Cherokee woman, but no documentation of it. Always wanted to believe it.
Where are you from Judy?
This topic hits way too close to home for me. My mom is Native, raised on the Lower Brule reservation. I was born and raised in a West Coast city. My features take after my white father and I've always felt awkward about claiming my Native heritage. Complicating matters further, my Mom was born out of wedlock so can't properly claim tribal membership so I can't either. And even tho I was raised Native for my early childhood, Mom got into it with some local Elders and stopped engaging with the community we have here. I'm only just now starting to try to reengage but I still feel like a fraud.
Not that my opinion has any authority in this situation, but that's some bullshit! If that's your mom's people then they're your people too!
Imagine if there was a law requiring all Americans with indigenous ancestry to register with the government. Then you decided not to sign up because you're white and you weren't raised in your mom's culture. You know damn well you'd be accused of trying to deny your identity.
Don’t.
Here’s something that has bugged me for a while: What do you think about people using Native American legends (or more specifically monsters) to tell their own stories? I see a lot of back and forth on it, the main arguments that I’ve seen being “stories are meant to be shared” vs “it wasn’t yours to take”.
I love stories and understanding where they came from and the whole “what the heck did the internet do to this?” thing Is endlessly fascinating to me.
I remember that issue was brought us when J.K incorporated the thunderbird into the stranger beasts series, some were claiming it was cultural appropriation because she didn’t ask permission to use it from a tribe that claims it. The problem I have with that is the thunderbird isn’t part of one tribe or culture, it’s known to pretty much ever indigenous culture across the Americas, it doesn’t belong to only one people.
For me the issue lies at the heart of the difference between appropriation and appreciation. Appreciation of another’s culture should be encouraged. People’s have been sharing and exchanging culture for millions of years and our cultures will continue to naturally evolve as well as be influenced by and influence others.
If everyone everyone in a single culture regardless of class is free to wear or take part in a particular tradition, then it’s fine for others to take advantage of that also. For example Japanese kimonos, blue jeans, harem pants, moccasins.
Now if only certain individuals from a culture were granted or earned the right to wear or take part in something, and even other members of their society weren’t free to do so also, then it’s a NO for others outside the culture to do so. An example are Navajo headdresses, PNW clan crests, Māori tattoos, Scottish clan tartans.
Now if it’s something that an entire culture was free to wear or practice, but because of colonialism they were prevented from doing so, then it just isn’t right to do something that those of the culture weren’t/aren’t allowed to do.
For individual mythological creatures from indigenous culture, that’s a grey area. The thunderbird is a bad example of people trying to gatekeep something that’s so wide spread. Other things, if it’s specifically only known from one culture, it’s best to contact tribal leaders of that culture for their opinion.
The main massive issue is how it’s incorporated or changed. Is the person giving an authentic version or an altered version? Did they give proper reference to the original version, did they even understand the context of the story, did they make it clear that they altered it and that it’s their interpretation? This issue is one of the leading causes of cultural manipulation and destruction I’ve seen with my own culture, people taking things and intentionally twisting it to feed their narrative. I’m Tlingit and we have an entity in our stories known as “kooshda kaa” or “land otter man” which in a nut shell are otter spirits or souls of people taken by otters that can shapeshift to look like various people you know or driftwood and can also possess people. The Bigfoot community appropriated it and turned it into “Kushtaka” which they say is bigfoot and they claim us tlingits worshiped it. Now because many of us PNW natives who aren’t in contact with elders and don’t know their culture, they have taken that as fact, that kooshda kaa is Bigfoot. So our actual culture is being erased in favor of a commercialized cryptid.
1. "Sharing" is an intentional action. If someone shares their culture with others, they are choosing to do that of their own volition. Seeing someone else's culture and deciding to "share" it without their input is called "stealing."
2. Is it a monster or did white people assume it's a monster. Consider how many pagan horned gods got turned into "devils."
3. Because I can guarantee I know what "monsters" you're talking about: are those "shared stories" in any way accurate, or did the "storytellers" make up 99% of the lore, take a Native name, and claim their interpretation should be as valid as any other because "they're just stories"? Here's a hint: antlers & deer have nothing to do with cannibalism in the North Woods.
Nobody "owns" stories unless you're copy righting and profiting
Well people reuse monsters that aren't protected by copyright worldwide.
I don’t feel it’s my place to decide where the line might be, but, I just want to add that I’ve never seen/heard a non-Indigenous person improve on the original stories.
Why is the Okanagan known for “Ogopogo” instead of nx̌aʔx̌ʔitkʷ (the spirit of the lake), which is a way better story with a better message? Settlers.
I’d rather leave the Indigenous stories to be told by Indigenous storytellers 🤷♀️
I've always been curious why it seems like north american natives don't consider indigenous central americans/boricua/caribbeans "native american".
Those that do, are doing the colonizers work for them. Yet they'll spout since 1492 while attempting to denying us our ancestors. Don't accept Boricua, etc. Then keep our ancestors out of your mouth.
Or South Americans
I think it's because we so deeply identify "American" with those who are members of the United States. Most Canadians that I know will never say they are "Americans", anymore than someone from Mexico will use that moniker.
However, I think that since a lot of indigenous people from the southern half of North America and Central and South America, have migrated to this country and made their homes here, we need to open up the demographic info to include them properly...I have also noticed that my doctor's office /hospital has started including many more branches of the human family tree, but this is vital, because a person's ethnicity has a lot to do with health and diseases and conditions endemic to a certain community.
And Canadians call their indigenous "First Nations" which I think is pretty descriptive and less confusing than other descriptors.
As some one who is Taino/Boricua, I think it comes down to a limited understanding of what it is to be native. And many of the places you mentioned were at one point under control of the Spanish government who historically counted people differently than the US government.
im going to venture a guess that its because the tribes that existed/exist within the confines of the present day USA have a shared history or genocide at the hands of the United states government, that this is the distinction for them. It doesnt belittle the indigenous cultures and heritage of those in central and southern america, but that those experiences with the conquistadors and the subsequent governements of those areas are an entirely different historical story.
Really well made video! Insightful, thoughtfully produced, and well written! I learned about some new perspectives on indigenous cultural impact. Thank you!
If you're interested in this, I highly recommend the "Pretendians" podcast from Canadaland, which goes in depth on this phenomenon!
@@djhk15 please don’t support known racist groups. That organization has ties to known hate groups.
@@djhk15I would not recommend the podcast you mentioned. Please stop spamming your podcast targeting vulnerable groups.
They interviewed a Pretendian and never checked with the tribe. Kiros Auld. They literally said we take your "word." Then the Chief contacted the podcast to complain about his non-status. Along with his ex-wife.
@@rozalilu1 Rozalind, you know Kiros called them out for pushing half truths and lying about their research.
@@rozalilu1 is this the #bloodquantumrangers bragging about harassing indigenous communities?
Even many activists have been accused of being Pretendians, which I think is absolutely wretched. Listen up fellow well-meaning white people! You don't need to be part of a marginalized group to learn about culture, struggle, and how to advocate! If a cause is important to you stick by it, and listen to the people you want to help and advocate for. As well don't center yourself, you're not the main character. And accept that even if youre doing your best all the time, some people in the group you advocate for won't accept you. Don't take it personally, and move on. Understand the historical context you exist in.
🌟🌈humility!🌈☀
Yeah but then they just end up getting attacked because you don't speak for us. Or some other such bullshit.
@POTATOEMPN What did I just say? Don't take it personally. Do your best to listen to genuine feedback, because as long as you make clear you are an advocate and not an authority, people worth talking to will take you in good faith even if they disagree with or criticize you.
@@nicolasnamed clearly you don't meet people often. I go global. People are dumb. Why argue?
I personally know activists that are Pretendian. It’s more about attention seeking than the cause. It’s about clout. Having a position from which to wag their finger. Psychopaths that enjoy getting one over on people. Passing gives them a high. Pulling authority from nowhere. Having a flock of followers.
My grandma always claimed we were part cherokee. She grew up in Oklahoma. She took a DNA test. No native heritage. I knew it.
this happens a lot. i have so many people who have no native connection tell me they’re specifically cherokee for some reason
@@mallarieluvsgirls I think many Oklahomans think they are. 🤷♀️
Or sometimes it doesn't come up because it's to far back.
@@shaneekabatty-cross correct, tests are still evolving and probably get better
that happened in my family , there was some native american but not exactly cherokee
My mother (born 1931 in Alabama) didn't know she was half Cherokee until, aged 10, she asked her mom - an auburned haired beauty calling herself Simone - to tell Mom about their French heritage. Laughing, her mother ruffled her hair and said, "Oh honey, you're a half breed! I just don't want to sit on the back of the bus." Her real name was Ololia, and she refused to talk about her Cherokee past.
We have the exact same issues here in Australia regarding who is “indigenous” or not. Many hard core political activists who claim to “identify as indigenous” are complete frauds. The numbers of people who claim to be indigenous EXPLODED over the last 10 years particularly, when it became Hip and Cool to be indigenous, and especially since substantial financial and social advantages (eg entry to university courses for some who otherwise would not qualify) were being handed out on the basis of race, and especially when it was discovered that political power could be achieved simply by claiming to “identify as indigenous”. We have reached the point where some of these fraudsters are now the gatekeepers on determining who can identify as indigenous! These fraudsters are stealing funds and benefits that were intended to help some of our indigenous people who truelly are disadvantaged. Race is a harmful and destructive way to determine who gets help and who doesn’t. The most disadvantaged and needy should get help first REGARDLESS of race. It is a racist and cultural slur to say “Oh, you are indigenous, so there is no way you can succeed in life unless we give you some money or social or political benefits”. it is also a racist and cultural slur to say”Oh, you are white, so you must be held responsible for what some white people did 200 years ago”. Identity politics is toxic, we ALL need to reject it for our own good.
Reminds me of my spouse who has never tried to join his tribe because he is so far disconnected from the culture despite only being a couple generations away from it genetically. His great-grandmother was part of the Stolen Generation, and nobody in the family was ever taught the language or customs after her.
Yeah. I will just identify as Mexican-American and Chicano. Even though my biological father told me when I first met him that I am “half Aztec, half Spaniard”. He probably does not truly know what tribe/pueblo he came from, but I did take several DNA tests. And all of my percentiles of indigenous ancestry was slightly more than half. With that being said, I am not comfortable identifying as straight up Native. Mestizo is more fitting. Mesoamerican and Iberian works for me as well. Plus my lived experience was being adopted by white people and being raised in a white town.
Chicanismo is repackaged Anglo-American settler colonialism. Latinidad is anti-indigenous erasure.
💯
Así es pero sería mejor nahua que azteca y que también hay muchos pueblos indígenas no nahua.
I Needed THIS SERIES! Thank y'all!! I'm an anthropologist (armchair as motherhood took over) and you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find quality information on Native American culture without worrying about the source (as indicated in the above video) or having to physically read countless hours of books (which I do and love to do but not everyone does). Having this as a resource to educate myself and my children is AMAZING!!! Totally taking that survey, totally going to binge every episode on this whole channel. Y'all this is amazing!!! Thank you!!! (Also be prepared, I've got questions and there are a lot of old videos to comment on!!)
One of the thoughts i had about the growing numbers of those considering themselves native is the fact that it used to be a source of embarrassment and prejudice to say you are in any part native. As that changes, there are more people accepting their ancestry.
My father moved off of the Rez, be cause he said it held you back. Moved to a very prejudiced area, he denied having Native American ancestry ( audacious, as he totally looked Indian) & was very successful at the time. It would be crazy to identify as having Native ancestry- my Mother was European & I pretty much look white & I have no references to Native American culture. However, I have studied the ordeals Native Americans went through;treaties, broken, attempts at genocide, etc. This, I support teaching true history in schools. We must work to have the correct history taught in school, as we are doomed to repeat the terrible mistakes that have been made
@@thecook8964 Thank you for your thoughtful reply. There was/is so much pain, and people decide what is best for them at the time. I'm sorry you lost connection with your culture, and I'm glad to hear you're reading the history, grim tho it is. It's important we all understand what has gone on, and what we need to do to mitigate it. I will also add that I see hope in the native people of today being involved in professions and now being heard. There is great potential for changing this society by learning some of the important values of native people! The spirit of Aloha is an example of that, and I've spoken with native friends who talk about their tribe's Core Values. It's what we need to learn and incorporate in our own lives. Not the identity, not the ceremonies (unless invited), but the VALUES!
Absolutely!
@@KiwidinokKinikwe👍🦋
I feel connected to tribes but not because I am a tribal member! I helped raise 3 foster in which was adopted by my sister in law all from a full blooded Indian women sadly her life took a dark turn her story to tell not mine.. but that lead to several children born on the streets and put into foster care in which maybe the tribe didn’t know about at the time.. I love my nieces and since the death of my sister help those girls reconnect to their Indian heritage! I pray I for the guidance to help them in this journey…..
Absolutely love Buffy-Sainte Marieeee 0:34
My blonde hair blue eyed children are both tribal members because their grandmother proved her lineage and as a result her descendants have the right to membership, each tribe has different requirements.