Post by blackcrowheart on Jan 15, 2008 11:11:14 GMT -5
An Interview with Joseph Bruchac
Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki) is the author of more than fifty books for
young readers, including novels, picture books, traditional tales
and autobiographical writing. This interview was conducted by
telephone and transcribed by Eliza T. Dresang on October 22, 1999,
to accompany the October discussion of Native American literature
for children and teenagers on CCBC-Net.
ETD: Lately I have heard there is a controversy about being a card
carrying Native America. It came up at the USBBY conference in
Madison, Wisconsin, last week. Can you explain more about this and
its implications?
JB: I belong to the Abenaki Nation which is a non-recognized nation
in the United States. My great-grandfather came from the little
village of Odanak in Canada. I do not have a card from a federally
recognized Native American nation. However, if you were to go back a
hundred years, no American Indians had cards.
It has reached the point where Native Americans have become
something like pedigreed dogs, judged on our blood lines and our
papers. I find it very strange. However, I understand the reason why
we have come to this point.
First of all, we are dominated by a European based government that
places great importance on paper identification.
Secondly, numerous individuals over the past seven decades have
presented themselves as Indian but appear to have been entirely
bogus.
Third is the issue of entitlement. Because legal agreements called
treaties were made between Native nations and the U.S. government,
being a card-carrying member of one of those Native nations entitles
you to certain things. I know of numerous native communities -- more
than 200 in the United States -- who are non-recognized Indian
tribes. Among them, quite a few are seeking federal or Congressional
recognition. In some cases, their own relatives in the states where
they live (who are in a tribes that are recognized) are fighting
that recognition for fear it will lessen the pool of money available
to them. So you can see, it is a big issue. It is much bigger than I
could ever hope to be qualified to speak about definitively.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Law that was passed a few years ago
defines who can legally sell arts and crafts as an Indian. However,
under that law, Native people in Canada or south of the U.S. border
cannot called themselves Indian for the purposes of selling arts and
crafts. The artificial borders have become the defining point. This
is absurd. To make it even more absurd, Abenaki people were
relocated on several occasions. The Abenakis in Odanak are
originally from New England. Odanak is a refugee community formed
around the Catholic church. There are many levels and layers of
complexity. Some of these are addressed in Bowman's Store.
Quite frankly, some who are card-carrying Indians are not descended
from Natives. In Oklahoma, when it went from Indian territory into
statehood, oil was discovered. If one was on the tribal rolls, one
was entitled to oil money. Non-Indians bribed officials to put them
on the rolls. They weren't Indian before then. Many Cherokee were
not enrolled and their children are not on any tribal roles because
their ancesters were opposed to the federal policy of Allotment and
refused to enroll. As you can see, there are many possibilities of
corruption, misinterpretation, and disenfranchisement once we allow
the federal government to define who we are.
If an ancestor was not enrolled at the time of enrollment, in many
tribes there may be no way to get on the rolls.
There is another major problem for card-carrying Indians. Tribal ID
cards ignore the fact that human beings have traveled from community
to community by marriage and adoption. They may require you to prove
that you have a certain percentage of ancestry to be eligible for
tribal membership. But, what happens if your grandparents all come
from different tribes? Michael Lacapa's book, Less Than Half More
Than Whole, deals with this. "Pure blood may become inbreeding,"
Jack Gladstone, the Blackfeet song writer, said to me a few weeks
ago. Jack says that his family was always "outbred" because they
welcomed people from other Nations. The old Native way was to draw
people in, not keep them out. We are Indian, not through blood
quantum alone but also by cultural awareness and the maintenance of
a distinct societal identity.
People get very confused. It is only Native Americans who must carry
cards. No one asks you to prove that you are Hispanic or Jewish or
Gypsy. We've become obsessed with this.
Who am I? Earth and Sky know who I am.
ETD: Is there anything else you'd like to share with the CCBC-Net
community?
JB: We need to listen to each other. We need to remember we were
given two ears so we can always hear in more than one direction. I
think we also need to remember that every human being shares the
drumbeat of the heart. As much as we need to recognize those things
that are different between us and celebrate our diversity, we also
need to remember that we all share the heartbeat of the earth.
Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki) is the author of more than fifty books for
young readers, including novels, picture books, traditional tales
and autobiographical writing. This interview was conducted by
telephone and transcribed by Eliza T. Dresang on October 22, 1999,
to accompany the October discussion of Native American literature
for children and teenagers on CCBC-Net.
ETD: Lately I have heard there is a controversy about being a card
carrying Native America. It came up at the USBBY conference in
Madison, Wisconsin, last week. Can you explain more about this and
its implications?
JB: I belong to the Abenaki Nation which is a non-recognized nation
in the United States. My great-grandfather came from the little
village of Odanak in Canada. I do not have a card from a federally
recognized Native American nation. However, if you were to go back a
hundred years, no American Indians had cards.
It has reached the point where Native Americans have become
something like pedigreed dogs, judged on our blood lines and our
papers. I find it very strange. However, I understand the reason why
we have come to this point.
First of all, we are dominated by a European based government that
places great importance on paper identification.
Secondly, numerous individuals over the past seven decades have
presented themselves as Indian but appear to have been entirely
bogus.
Third is the issue of entitlement. Because legal agreements called
treaties were made between Native nations and the U.S. government,
being a card-carrying member of one of those Native nations entitles
you to certain things. I know of numerous native communities -- more
than 200 in the United States -- who are non-recognized Indian
tribes. Among them, quite a few are seeking federal or Congressional
recognition. In some cases, their own relatives in the states where
they live (who are in a tribes that are recognized) are fighting
that recognition for fear it will lessen the pool of money available
to them. So you can see, it is a big issue. It is much bigger than I
could ever hope to be qualified to speak about definitively.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Law that was passed a few years ago
defines who can legally sell arts and crafts as an Indian. However,
under that law, Native people in Canada or south of the U.S. border
cannot called themselves Indian for the purposes of selling arts and
crafts. The artificial borders have become the defining point. This
is absurd. To make it even more absurd, Abenaki people were
relocated on several occasions. The Abenakis in Odanak are
originally from New England. Odanak is a refugee community formed
around the Catholic church. There are many levels and layers of
complexity. Some of these are addressed in Bowman's Store.
Quite frankly, some who are card-carrying Indians are not descended
from Natives. In Oklahoma, when it went from Indian territory into
statehood, oil was discovered. If one was on the tribal rolls, one
was entitled to oil money. Non-Indians bribed officials to put them
on the rolls. They weren't Indian before then. Many Cherokee were
not enrolled and their children are not on any tribal roles because
their ancesters were opposed to the federal policy of Allotment and
refused to enroll. As you can see, there are many possibilities of
corruption, misinterpretation, and disenfranchisement once we allow
the federal government to define who we are.
If an ancestor was not enrolled at the time of enrollment, in many
tribes there may be no way to get on the rolls.
There is another major problem for card-carrying Indians. Tribal ID
cards ignore the fact that human beings have traveled from community
to community by marriage and adoption. They may require you to prove
that you have a certain percentage of ancestry to be eligible for
tribal membership. But, what happens if your grandparents all come
from different tribes? Michael Lacapa's book, Less Than Half More
Than Whole, deals with this. "Pure blood may become inbreeding,"
Jack Gladstone, the Blackfeet song writer, said to me a few weeks
ago. Jack says that his family was always "outbred" because they
welcomed people from other Nations. The old Native way was to draw
people in, not keep them out. We are Indian, not through blood
quantum alone but also by cultural awareness and the maintenance of
a distinct societal identity.
People get very confused. It is only Native Americans who must carry
cards. No one asks you to prove that you are Hispanic or Jewish or
Gypsy. We've become obsessed with this.
Who am I? Earth and Sky know who I am.
ETD: Is there anything else you'd like to share with the CCBC-Net
community?
JB: We need to listen to each other. We need to remember we were
given two ears so we can always hear in more than one direction. I
think we also need to remember that every human being shares the
drumbeat of the heart. As much as we need to recognize those things
that are different between us and celebrate our diversity, we also
need to remember that we all share the heartbeat of the earth.