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One of the themes that we recently discussed in class was the idea of prejudice against Native American's in terms of who is considered to be an Indian and who isn’t. The article entitled “Who Decides Who Counts as Native American?” written by Brooke Jarvis was very similar to the themes brought up in the article read in class, “Donald Trump and Federal Indian Policy: ‘They Don’t Look Like Indians to Me’. In that article Donald Trump continuously states the idea that if you don’t look Indian, then you can’t possibly be Indian. Trump expects people to fit into his idea of what a Native American/Indian should looks like. When asked about the connection to Indian blood, he doesn’t delve into this comment because he is basically insinuating that it doesn’t matter because you should only be classified based on the outside and not based on the blood running through your veins or your family history.

The article I present here, “Who Decides Who Counts as Native American”, has the same theme throughout. There is an almost segregation of Native Americans by the way that certain individuals categorize Indians. Trump states that he thinks that you must look Indian (going back to the “authentic” and “original” Indian stereotype), whereas Bob Kelly states that you must have original Indian blood in order to be a member. This tribe would not allow the children of Rudy to gain proper membership to their tribe even though they have obvious ties to the tribe, including a full list of family descendants who were Nooksack. It is a constant classification type of segregation because you no longer have the option to be a member of a tribe or consider yourself as a Native American unless you meet the “quotas” that other people set for you (whether that be the way your hair or skin should look, the way you dress, your lifestyle, your family history, or your blood). Who can honestly say whether or not someone is an Indian if they label themselves as such based on their family history and how they were raised? Rudy has many family ancestors who were Nooksack and he believed that he too was linked to the tribe and lived his life as such, but when it came to bringing his family into the tribe he was denied. His bloodline may have been diluted over the years of various marriages and births, but he had always stayed true to the values of the Nooksack tribe and was now being challenged on who he was as a person… or at least who he thought he was.

The story that this article is telling also reminds me of Zitkala-Ša’s "The School Days of an Indian Girl". That story is about the time in which Native families were broken up by western culture as they forced children into mainstream schooling systems in order to ‘rid them’ of their native beliefs and life styles. By not allowing Rudy’s children to join the Nooksack tribe, they are breaking up families within the native community, just like the western culture did many years ago. By not allowing these children to rightfully become members, they essentially ‘lost’ their link to the native culture and are being separated from the culture in which they should be striving in. Rudy also makes the decision that if his family members are now seen as non-tribe members, then he cannot be a member either. They are family and they share the same blood, but to the Nooksack, they are different. It kind of makes you think about whether or not the type of ‘assimilation’ that the Canadian and American governments forced on Indian children could have caused this issue. Perhaps family members may have been forced into western cultures and this is why the blood line could be 'diluted' (in sorts), which is now affecting the future generations of tribe members. it is very unfortunate that this happens, but it goes back to the idea that there is a type of prejudice that each person or society holds over Native Americans and Indians as they try to put them in a ‘box’ which they must look like and act in a certain way in order to be considered an Indian.

Article Links:
https:// http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/magazine/who-decides-who-counts-as-native-american.html?_r=0

http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cusww/zs/SDIG.html

This topic drew me in when I came across it, and I read the article you presented in this post, "Who decides who counts as Native American ?". This article draws attention to the centuries of displacement, colonization, and cultural genocide that have impacted Modern Native American communities.

Connecting the article you presented here to William Apess' "An Indian Looking Glass for the White Man", the relation between the continuous patterns of systemic abuse over centuries explains why we have situations like the ones of the Nooksack peoples. In a very sneaky way through laws and science, the American government and European settlers in power have used land treaties, and definitions of Indian identity to disempower Native American people mentally. The article states that a mix of 18th and 19th century ambiguous definitions of Indian identity have led to the issue of stripping Indians of their status if they cannot prove clear ancestral ties, even though their families have been in the tribe and community for centuries. Similarly, they are also disempowered physically by being dispossessed from ownership and control over their land and its environmental practices. The issues that the article brings up can also be drawn to Momaday's [/i]House of Dawn[i] where through Abel's journey with identity, land practice and one's relationship to the land is shown to be a fundamental factor of identification for Native Americans.

Relating the article to Zitkala-Sa's "The School Days of an Indian Girl" as you have done, it is clear Indian status is used in a similar way to how residential schools were used as a system to wipe away Native Americans' cultural identity. The American government has also used blood quantum and even Eugenics testing of Native feet and hair, as said in the article, to categorize and dilute Native American collectivism as a people which is the foundation of how they see themselves. In my opinion, the article presents the result of intergenerational trauma and the continuous use of the colonizers' tools. Many of these tribe leaders have adopted the 'pure blood practices' in efforts to maintain the Indigenous identity. However, this practice is further dividing people, and placing Native Americans in categories that are disempowering communities.