Mixed Race Studies

Those Who Belong: Identity, Family, Blood, and Citizenship among the White Earth Anishinaabeg

University of Manitoba Press
October 2015
214 pages
6 × 9
Paper ISBN: 978-0-88755-796-5

Jill Doerfler (White Earth Anishinaabe), Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies
University of Minnesota, Duluth

Despite the central role blood quantum played in political formations of American Indian identity in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there are few studies that explore how tribal nations have contended with this transformation of tribal citizenship. “Those Who Belong” explores how White Earth Anishinaabeg understood identity and blood quantum in the early twentieth century it was employed and manipulated by the U.S. government, how it came to be the sole requirement for tribal citizenship in 1961, and how a contemporary effort for constitutional reform sought a return to citizenship criteria rooted in Anishinaabe kinship, replacing the blood quantum criteria with lineal descent.

Those Who Belong illustrates the ways in which Anishinaabeg of White Earth negotiated multifaceted identities, both before and after the introduction of blood quantum as a marker of identity and as the sole requirement for tribal citizenship. Doerfler’s research reveals that Anishinaabe leaders resisted blood quantum as a tribal citizenship requirement for decades before acquiescing to federal pressure. Constitutional reform efforts in the twenty-first century brought new life to this longstanding debate and led to the adoption of a new constitution, that requires lineal descent for citizenship.

White Earth members approve new constitution

The Minneapolis Star Tribune
2013-11-21

Pam Louwagie

New constitution does away with blood quantum rule.

In a historic vote that could vastly increase their membership, White Earth Band of Ojibwe members have overwhelmingly approved a new constitution.

The new document removes a requirement that tribal citizens possess one-quarter Minnesota Chippewa Tribe blood, a controversial “blood quantum” standard adopted at the urging of the federal government decades ago. Under the new constitution, White Earth’s declining citizenship will instead be based on lineal descent.

The change could mean more than doubling the population, which now stands at under 20,000.

According to ballots counted Tuesday night, nearly 80 percent of the nearly 3,500 votes cast approved of adopting a new constitution, which in addition to changing citizenship standards will create a tribal government with three branches and a separation of powers instead of one tribal council overseeing everything.

The old citizenship standard was divisive among families, with some members having children or grandchildren who couldn’t become citizens, said Jill Doerfler, associate professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Lineage citizenship won’t be automatic, however. People will still need to apply to become citizens, said Doerfler, who consulted with the tribe on reforming the constitution…

Read the entire article here.