Unpapered

Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging

Diane Glancy, Linda Rodriguez

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781496236388
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Native American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Unpapered is a collection of personal narratives by Indigenous writers exploring the meaning and limits of Native American identity beyond its legal margins. Native heritage is neither simple nor always clearly documented, and citizenship is a legal and political matter of sovereign nations determined by such criteria as blood quantum, tribal rolls, or community involvement. Those who claim a Native cultural identity often have family stories of tenuous ties dating back several generations. Given that tribal enrollment was part of a string of government programs and agreements calculated to quantify and dismiss Native populations, many writers who identify culturally and are recognized as Native Americans do not hold tribal citizenship. With essays by Trevino Brings Plenty, Deborah Miranda, Steve Russell, and Kimberly Wieser, among others, Unpapered charts how current exclusionary tactics began as a response to "pretendians"—non-indigenous people assuming a Native identity for job benefits—and have expanded to an intense patrolling of identity that divides Native communities and has resulted in attacks on peoples' professional, spiritual, emotional, and physical states. An essential addition to Native discourse, Unpapered shows how social and political ideologies have created barriers for Native people truthfully claiming identities while simultaneously upholding stereotypes.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction by Diane Glancy
• SHOW YOUR PAPERS
• Paperwork
• Things You Can Do with Your Chart for Calculating Quantum of Indian Blood
• The White Box
• Seeking the Indian Gravy Train
• Unpapered
• FINDING THE WAY
• On Chumash Land
• A Salmon-Fishing Story
• Confessions of a Detribalized Mixed-Blood
• Thinking with Bigfoot about a Jackpine Savage
• IDENTITY WARS
• “You Don’t Look Indian”
• Pretend Indian Exegesis
• Dead Indians. Live Indians. Legal Indians.
• The Animals’ Ballgame
• We Never Spoke
• WHY WE MATTER
• On Being Chamorro and Belonging to Guam
• Aunt Ruby’s Little Sister Dances
• Buffalo Heads in Diners
• And Thus the Tribes Diminish
• Source Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• About the Authors