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Hoopa
Valley
Tribe changes enrollment requirements
Donna
Tam
The
Times-Standard
Working in the tribal
courts for more than seven years, first as chief tribal judge and then
as a judge consultant, Byron Nelson Jr. saw many American Indian
children who weren't getting the services they needed because of their
race. Or, more specifically, what race they weren't.
”I could see a lot of
children slipping through the cracks because they weren't protected by
the Indian Child Welfare Act,” said Nelson, who was born and raised in
Hoopa and is a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
Nelson said it's the main
reason why he campaigned to have the blood quantum for
It was one of the highest
turnouts ever, said Tami Hostler, the administration assistance for the
elections office. Out of the 889 members who voted, 469 approved the
proposal, while 418 voted against it. Two ballots were voided and nearly
250 of the valid votes were absentee ballots. The measure was approved
by the Bureau of Indian Affairs on March 30, but has yet to be
implemented by the council.
”It really came out of
a genuine concern for the children,” Nelson said, adding that now more
children can apply to be tribal members and acknowledged by state and
federal law to receive health care from Indian health services, as well
as other access to other types of services such as government housing.
Nelson said he was also
concerned with tribal enrollment numbers, something that is a concern
for many tribes.
”If you look back at
how Indian was identified years ago, it certainly was race,” Nelson
said. “Now the courts are identifying Indian as a critical designation
and that was something that was fought for by tribes of Indians in court
because if you base designation by race then it is a matter of tribes
and existence.”
Nelson said by the end of
last year, 20 of the about 2,230 enrolled members died. He estimates
that the new measure will allow for about 800 new members to be
enrolled.
Nelson, who is
three-eighths Hupa himself, said it's nearly unavoidable to marry
outside of the tribe.
”It's getting to where
we're all related almost,” he said.
At the core of the
argument for tribal existence is a mathematical model used by tribal
member Philip Zastrow, the director of the Indian Teacher &
Educational Personnel Program at
It was a mathematical
model normally used to project the growth of the population of fish or
other animals, but Zastrow saw the value in applying it to tribal size.
His results indicated that the decline would start to begin now.
”Sometimes the question
is kind of murky and people don't really know what might happen if we
continue to do this arrangement,” he said. He estimated that the
out-marriage range in the area is about 75 percent.
”So many of us are
embedded in the non-Indian world,” he said. “In any situation where
you don't have a large geographical area ... where you have the same
group of people, their actions are going to be influenced by people
outside of the area.”
He said since he
published the results of the program, other tribes have contacted him
about calculating their own numbers.
”It's a tremendously
complex issue,” said Joseph Giovannetti, an associate professor of
Native American Studies at HSU and a member of the Smith River
Rancheria, which consists of the Tolowa Tribe. Giovannetti, who is also
a councilman, describes the issue as a matter of choosing inclusiveness
to exclusiveness.
He adds that he realizes
there are people who would opt for more exclusiveness when it comes to
tribal enrollment because of the allotment of resources, or in order to
preserve cultural identity.
”It creates a pressure
on the resources that a tribe has, the relative resources it can extend
to its people,” he said, adding that it is a competition to receive
educational and housing resources.
”There's a lot of state
or federal grants, but the grants can only stretch so far,”
Giovannetti said, adding that resources are already stretched thin. For
example, he said a grant may provide a tribe with $600,000 a year for
rehabbing houses, which equals 12 to 20 houses and only benefits a
fraction of a tribal population.
Even if there is a strain
on the budget, Nelson said he thinks the increased head count will
increase funding.
”The benefits are going
to outweigh the drawbacks,” Nelson said.
Another issue that people
worry about is that lower blood quantum somehow dilutes the strength of
the culture, Giovannetti said.
”'What is assimilation
doing to our tribal membership?' Sometimes people think if we just kept
the blood percentage higher it somehow eliminates that question,”
Giovannetti said. He said his tribe has been revisiting the issue
recently. The tribe doesn't have a specific blood quantum and its
membership follows Tolowa dependency or land-ownership guidelines. He
said no one is 100 percent Tolowa.
”We've started early
discussions of what any of it means,” he said. “I sense within the
membership that they probably don't want to change it.”
Giovannetti said his
tribe's policy is inclusive, but he realizes that other tribes may have
concerns.
”I think people are
naturally concerned, people are kind of leery because sometimes people
can be used by the system to abuse other Indians,” he said. “At the
same time, there are always people in each culture who make
contributions, but might not look like Indians.”
Dale Ann Sherman, a
councilwoman for the Yurok tribe, said blood quantum is something she
wants to abolish completely.
At 5,384 members, the
Yurok is the largest tribe in the state, and requires a one-eighth blood
quantum for membership.
”There's a controversy
around blood quantum because it's just another way for the government to
make our people disappear,”
Giovannetti agrees that
the quantum can act more as a form of control. In the past, American
Indians were denied federal services because they were less than 25
percent American Indian, encouraging some tribes to use the same
guideline for membership. But, a lawsuit in the 1980s challenged the
rule after a woman who was less than one-quarter American Indian was
turned down for a scholarship.
”Indians never went by
a fraction,” Giovannetti said. “It is more about do you live in the
village, are you a good neighbor, a good husband or wife, are you good
to the animals ... are you respectful, those are the things that are
important.”
Donna Tam can be reached
at 441-0532 or dtam@times-standard.com.
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Source:
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_8909919