The federal government in the United States made great strides during the past century in treating people in a fairer manner without regard to race or ethnicity. Yet a strong argument can be made that genuine equality for some Native Americans in the United States remains elusive.

This situation may pertain to three complicating factors: the incredible variations among Native American cultures and ethnicities in the United States, the fact that many Native Americans must deal with multiple governing bodies, and the struggle to maintain tribal identity in a rapidly globalizing world.

Perhaps a controversial item of federal legislation best exemplifies the impact of race based discrimination on some Native Americans today…It illustrates all three of the previous issues impacting the daily lives of people.

Native Americans in the United States remain diverse

First, a complicating factor involves the diversity of the population of the United States. Millions of Americans can claim ancestors from one (or more) Native American tribes somewhere in their family line. Broad racial categories in the United States seem especially inaccurate, since modern Americans often reflect multicultural heritages.

Additionally, Native Americans may lay claim to specific traditions rooted partly in one (or more) of literally thousands of tribes and particular villages or geographic locales. The cultural roots of many Native American communities trace back into the distant past, and sometimes involve spiritual connections with particular terrains or places.

Yet today Apache, Pawnee, Tlingit, Cherokee, Seminole and a host of other unique cultures all fall within the blanket category of “Native American” from the standpoint of federal regulations. A subtle discrimination can occur when people innocently lump distinct cultures together under a single generalized rubric.

For example, would an American of Italian descent appreciate his or her young children being instructed in kindergarten “long ago, your ancestors painted their faces blue, carried spears and followed a female chieftain named Boadicea” simply because some European-Americans trace their ancestry to Picts who opposed the Roman invasion of the British Isle in the days of Julius Caesar?

Europe produced a wide variety of cultures. Lumping disparate traditions together within large geographic locales can produce dissonant results.

No doubt many Native Americans even in this era encounter a similar type of jarring inaccuracy on a frequent basis. A long tradition of Hollywood westerns during the past century generated many pervasive stereotypes. These generalizations cannot possibly relate the scope of Native American diversity accurately.

Native Americans sometimes deal with two levels of bureaucracy

Second, many citizens of Native American ancestry reside in or near tribal lands and they sometimes must deal with two levels of government bureaucracy: the federal government, represented by the very powerful Bureau of Indian Affairs, and local tribal governing bodies. Since any administrative structure involves some level of power-brokering, life for the resident of some reservations proves complex.

Reportedly, many tribes have developed outstanding management records, considerably enriching most members of the tribe and maintaining flourishing cultural centers on carefully preserved reservations and tribal lands. But others cannot point to impressive statistics at all. Some reservations maintain shockingly high rates of poverty, unemployment, crime and substance abuse.

Whether or not an individual Native American faces unfair discrimination in the United States may also depend to some extent on an accident of birth. Does he or she belong to a well managed tribe?

Struggling to preserve tribal identity in a rapidly globalizing world

Third, just like everyone else, many Native Americans face a challenge struggling to preserve important tribal traditions in the face of breathtaking global changes. Even just a few decades ago, the pace of technological development and the exposure to conflicting cultural values generated by the Internet remained inconceivable to most people.

All around the world, cultures struggle to preserve rich language heritages, for instance. The number of Scots who speak Gaelic, for example, has reportedly fallen below the two percent range—soon Scottish Gaelic will become an extinct language if these trends continue. Many Native American tribes face a similar uphill battle. A number have lost the fight to preserve this important aspect of society; others struggle with the issue.

Efforts to preserve cultural identity through legislation in the United States remain highly problematic. For example, during the last century the federal government enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act (the “ICWA”), in part to protect some tribes from declining population numbers by imposing sometimes artificial racial definitions on mixed race children. The legislation in the view of many people represents one of the few specifically racist federal statutes in existence today.

The ICWA as an illustration: diversity, bureaucracy and a struggle for cultural identity in action

Apparently, the legislators who passed the Indian Child Welfare Act hoped in part to address the problem of declining population numbers in some tribes.

During the first half of the twentieth century, for instance, a few tribes permitted the adoption of children to nontribal members with great frequency.  Also, social workers in many states placed Native American wards in non-Native American homes.

In 1978, Congress passed the Indian Child Welfare Act as a comprehensive legislative package intended to cover child custody situations involving “Native American” children.

In most states, the Indian Child Welfare Act has created a two-tiered structure for foster children. Any child of known Native American ancestry (or part Native American ancestry) usually cannot be adopted by a non blood relative lacking at least one sixteenth Native American ancestry.

The statute expresses a race-based preference for placing children who have some Native American ancestry with members of tribes. Unrelated prospective adopters of other races generally are not welcome. Some tribes admit non-Native American adoptive parents to their rolls, others do not. Proving up ancestral genealogies can become complex.

Essentially, the Native American ancestry in the child’s family line outweighs all other cultural heritages of the youngster for federal purposes. And since some children have ancestors from more than one tribe, the situation can become complex indeed if a Native American child loses both parents. Extensive litigation has resulted since the passage of the statute and the Bureau of Indian Affairs has even written guidelines for handling these types of disputes.

As a result of the Indian Child Welfare Act, some tribal membership rolls have probably increased. But at the same time, state wards with part Native American ancestry sometimes languish in foster care and never obtain adoption. They encounter disparate treatment from state governments based solely on their ancestry as a result of the federal statute.

Conclusion

The United States during the past century has taken many steps to eliminate unfair discrimination against Native Americans, but sometimes these efforts have not succeeded. As globalization continues, no doubt many tribes will continue to face challenges in preserving cultural heritages.