Disenrollment Leaves Natives ‘Culturally Homeless’

Wow! Smh.

Disenrollment leaves Natives ‘culturally homeless’

By Toyacoyah Brown on January 27, 2014 | www.powwows.com

Mia Prickett’s ancestor was a leader of the Cascade Indians along the Columbia River and was one of the chiefs who signed an 1855 treaty that helped establish the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde in Oregon. But the Grand Ronde now wants to disenroll Prickett and 79 relatives, and possibly hundreds of other tribal members, because they no longer satisfy new enrollment requirements. Prickett’s family is fighting the effort, part of what some experts have dubbed the “disenrollment epidemic” — a rising number of dramatic clashes over tribal belonging that are sweeping through more than a dozen states, from California to Michigan. “In my entire life, I have always known I was an Indian. I have always known my family’s history, and I am so proud of that,” Prickett said. She said her ancestor chief Tumulth was unjustly accused of participating in a revolt and was executed by the U.S. Army — and hence didn’t make it onto the tribe’s roll, which is now a membership requirement.

The prospect of losing her membership is “gut-wrenching,” Prickett said. “It’s like coming home one day and having the keys taken from you,” she said. “You’re culturally homeless.” The enrollment battles come at a time when many tribes — long poverty-stricken and oppressed by government policies — are finally coming into their own, gaining wealth and building infrastructure with revenues from Indian casinos. Critics of disenrollment say the rising tide of tribal expulsions is due to greed over increased gambling profits, along with political in-fighting and old family and personal feuds. But at the core of the problem, tribes and experts agree, is a debate over identity — over who is “Indian enough” to be a tribal member. “It ultimately comes down to the question of how we define what it means to be Native today,” said David Wilkins, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota and a member of North Carolina’s Lumbee Tribe.

“As tribes who suffered genocidal policies, boarding school laws and now out-marriage try to recover their identity in the 20th century, some are more fractured, and they appear to lack the kind of common elements that lead to true cohesion.”