Siham El-Samahi on Undivided Rights

Chapter 6 of Undivided Rights discusses Native American women and their organized resistance for reproductive rights and against genocide. In one particular section, it talks about how the US government used blood claims and assimilation as a tactic to continue the colonization of Native Americans.

The US government requires an enforcement of “tribal membership”. if one has less than a quarter Indian blood, they’re not recognized as a Native. This would make sense as their goal is to reduce the number of Natives so that they can continue their “rightful” takeover of the land. The more Native Americans become assimilated, the federal government takes away their right to claim their Native identity. I wonder if this causes a conscious internal struggle of identity among assimilated Natives? Or is it less of an internal struggle and more of a recognized community struggle? In 1980, 4% of the Native Population was recognized as having one-quarter or less Indian blood, but in 2080, this number is expected to be 59%. This strengthens the federal government’s agenda of Native Americans “vanishing”.

The reading draws on Andrea Smith’s connection between colonization and reducing the Native American reproduction capacity. In order for the US government to obtain the resources and materials they want from Native American lands, they must uphold this idea of the Native population vanishing or disappearing. When Native people are disappearing then it allows the government to “rightfully” continue controlling the land. Because the indigenous people are gone, then the non-indigenous people have a rightful claim to their land.

While reading about the forced disappearance of Native Americans, I thought of the history we were taught in school. I remember learning about the Trail of Tears in 8^th grade, as a vocabulary word. We were told although it was a hard time for the Native Americans, it had to be done. Recently on Twitter, a parent shared a picture of her child’s history book that discusses the ethnic cleansing of a people in the following two sentences: “When the European settlers arrived, they needed land to live on. The First Nations peoples agreed to move to different areas to make room for the new settlements.” Are you kidding me? This isn’t just giving inaccurate statements from a different point of view, its completely erasing a people’s history! I was really disheartened when I first saw this tweet because it shouldn’t feel like I had a better education when I was barely taught anything beyond Manifest Destiny.

How do we effectively respond to situations like these? Although outrage is the immediate reflex response, how can we approach something like this in a way that can actually have a positive impact and change?