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About Smoke signals. (Grand Ronde, Or.) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2023)
10 MAY 1, 2023 Smoke Signals Indian agents applied blood quantum with no scientific data to back up the numbers ENROLLMENT continued from front page tial yearlong pause in enrollments and then abandoned the idea at the next meeting. Tribal Council Chairwoman Cheryle A. Kennedy said that any real solution will require a constitu- tional amendment that will change membership requirements. Tribal Council member Kathleen George said that the Tribe needs to arrive at a solution that will pass constitutional muster 3 being approved by two-thirds of the mem- bership that registers to vote and then casts ballots in a Bureau of Indian Affairs-supervised election. She also lamented that blood quan- tum, which was imposed on Indian Tribes by the federal government, is ingrained in the Tribal Constitution. Tribal Council Vice Chair Chris Mercier said he is a <big fan= of lin- eal descent in which a prospective Tribal member only has to prove they are descended from a previous Tribal member to be admitted into the Tribe. How much Indian blood they have flowing through their veins would become irrelevant. Mercier added that he believes that blood quantum will eventually end the Grand Ronde Tribe if anoth- er answer is not found, yet admitted that he knows Tribal members who staunchly defend using it as an en- rollment criteria. <There are like two parallel things going forward right now,= Tribal Council Secretary Michael Langley said during an April 25 interview with Smoke Signals. <There9s one with the issues within our (enroll- ment) oles and the errors. There9s problems within our files around blood quantum. & But then you also have that we9re going to run out (of people). I think it is over 80 percent and maybe 90 percent now of our people that are enrolled are the last of their bloodline. If there is an opportunity where our people think, 8Yeah, you9re right. We need to do something to address that blood quantum as far as self-terminating our Tribe because we9ll run out of blood quantum. Is there also an op- portunity at the same time then that these issues in our oles around blood quantum are no longer relevant?9 So if we make that change, then these are no longer relevant, then great, we just go forward with the change. But it takes 67 percent to get there. The worry is that while that would be nice and great that that would solve the issue within our oles, it might not happen, so then we9re stuck with the issues in our oles.= ****** When the Grand Ronde Tribe9s Constitution was adopted on Nov. 30, 1984, after Restoration occurred approximately a year earlier, the membership requirements were relatively straightforward. <The membership of the Confed- erated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon shall consist of all persons who are not enrolled as members of another recognized Tribe, band or community,= it stated, 8The risk is that as times change, as Supreme Court justices change, people will start latching on to that 8Well, they9re not really Indian,9 so you run a higher risk of a termination-type event again if you can9t show and demonstrate your ties to your Tribe, your people and your land.9 ~ Michael Langley discussing lineal descent adding that the person9s name had to appear on the ofocial member- ship roll prepared under the Grand Ronde Restoration Act and that the person must possess 1/16th or more degree Indian blood quantum from a federally recognized Tribe or Tribes and be descended from a member of the Grand Ronde Tribe. <For purposes of this section, de- scent from a member of the Confed- erated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon shall include lineal descent from any person who was named on any roll or records of Grand Ronde members prepared by the Department of the Interior prior to the effective date of this Constitution.= Those membership requirements, including the blood quantum, held orm for 15 years until 1999. In re- sponse to an increasing number of enrollment applications prompted by the financial success of Spirit Mountain Casino and the beginning of per capita payment distributions, Tribal members approved an amend- ment that restricted membership. The biggest change was that the applicant had to be born to a parent who was a member of the Tribe at the time of their birth and who, unless they had walked on, was a member of the Tribe when the appli- cant oled an enrollment application. The amendment is now viewed by many as the main cause of several contentious enrollment problems facing the Tribe, including split fam- ilies in which siblings with the same heritage are and are not Tribal mem- bers. In 2019, Tribal voters favored resolving the split-family problem with 63.5 percent supporting an amendment, but the two-thirds majority required by the Tribal Con- stitution thwarted the effort. And, as Kennedy and other Tribal Council members have cited numer- ous times in public meetings, the enrollment problems predate Ter- mination in 1954 and Restoration in 1983. Indian agents employed by the federal government assigned Tribal members blood quantum amounts at their whim with little to no scientioc or genealogical data to support the numbers. The Tribe inherited those blood quantum numbers when it was restored and has since then been dealing with the multi-generational problems they have created. Even today, Kathleen George has said in meetings, Tribal Council receives enrollment applications regarding people who should have the same blood quantum, but do not. <For me, the auditor side of me, I want things settled in the oles in a way that doesn9t harm people,= Langley said. ****** Smoke Signals surveyed the en- rollment requirements of 48 fed- erally recognized Tribes in the continental United States. Using the Department of the Interior9s list of federally recognized Tribes, staff searched for Tribal constitutions and enrollment ordinances on the re- spective Tribes9 websites and found that different membership require- ments are employed nationwide. Since Tribes are sovereign nations, they can set their own criteria for membership. Other Tribes mostly use a combi- nation of lineal descent and blood quantum in their enrollment re- quirements with most required blood quantum amounts ranging from ¼th to 1/16th. For instance, to become a member of Oklahoma9s 17,000-member Co- manche Nation, an applicant must trace their ancestry back to a Tribal member who received a land allot- ment in 1900 and possesses 1/8th quantum of Comanche blood. Closer to home, the 5,700-member Klamath Tribes in southern Oregon require that applicants be named on or be descended from someone on the ofocial 1954 onal roll and possess 1/8th degree or more of Klamath, Modoc or Yahooskin Indian blood. For those who think the current enrollment requirements for the Grand Ronde Tribe are complicat- ed, the rules of the 6,800-member Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation in Montana are more so. According to the Tribe9s website, there are six different eligibility requirements based on when an applicant was born between 1935 and present day. Examples of Tribes that use direct descendancy include the 10,000-member Delaware Tribes of Indians in Oklahoma, which re- quires applicants link back to an an- cestor on the 1904 Pratt Roll. <Your parents and grandparents do not have to be enrolled,= the Delaware Tribes9 enrollment frequently asked questions state. In Oregon, the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians9 Tribal code states that a person is eligible for mem- bership if their name is on the Jan. 1, 1940, census roll or the person is a lineal descendant of a person listed on the roll. There is no blood quantum requirement. <Nor have we ever,= said Enrollment Spe- cialist Debbie Bossley about blood quantum. The 81,000-member Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma also relies sole- ly on lineal descent. <The criteria for citizenship is that you must be Creek by blood and trace back to a direct ancestor listed on the 1906 Dawes Roll by issuance of birth and/ or death certificates,= the Tribe9s website states. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, which has approximately 223,000 members, has perhaps one of the most streamlined membership re- quirements in its constitution. <The Choctaw Nation & shall consist of all Choctaw Indians by blood whose names appear on the onal rolls of the Choctaw Nation approved April 26, 1906, and their lineal descendants.= If any of these examples are appro- priate options for the Grand Ronde Tribe to consider will be decided by the membership. The Tribe is cur- rently in the midst of holding ove meetings during which it hopes to ond consensus for a potential con- stitutional amendment. The remaining meetings will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, May 4, at Portland State University9s Native American Student and Com- munity Center, 710 S.W. Jackson St., and 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 1, in the Tribal Community Center. Both meetings also will be accessi- ble on the Zoom teleconferencing application. The Tribe is also conducting sur- veys on its governmental website www.grandronde.org about going with a 4/4 proposal or lineal de- scent. The 4/4 survey asked Tribal members which date should the Tribe designate in making all Tribal members whole in blood quantum. Mercier said during the April 25 Legislative Action Committee meet- ing that he thinks Tribal members are doing a good job of considering all of the ramiocations of the differ- ent options being proposed to resolve the enrollment issues. Langley said that although lineal descent might seem like the most elegant solution, the membership would have to agree on which De- partment of the Interior member- ship roll or record to begin with and he also worries about activist judges and politicians who might one day decide that Tribal members don9t have enough blood quantum to be considered Native American. He cites the Oklahoma governor9s criticism of the Cherokee Nation because people with miniscule blood quantum can be members of the Tribe because of lineal descent. <It doesn9t come without risk,= Langley said. <What we don9t want to do is something that burdens a future council down the line with a problem just like the 999 amendment did. & The risk is that as times change, as Supreme Court justices change, people will start latching on to that 8Well, they9re not really Indian,9 so you run a higher risk of a termination-type event again if you can9t show and demonstrate your ties to your Tribe, your people and your land. <If we get to the point where we double our numbers and those peo- ple who are doubled are not able to demonstrate those connections, not See ENROLLMENT continued on page 11