This roundtable stages a conversation between Indigenous historians Jean M. O’Brien, Malinda Maynor Lowery, Doug Kiel, Julie Reed, and Alyssa Mt. Pleasant, with chair Deborah Miranda. Together they will develop a longer and broader conversation about this topic, confronting distorted media coverage and “hot takes” to convey both the detailed history of American Indian identities and the social, political, economic, and legal stakes of this topic for contemporary Indigenous peoples and nations. Roundtable participants will address claims of American Indian heritage, the use of “Pocahontas” as a nickname and slur, the history of appropriation of Cherokee identities, the development of blood quantum criteria, and the relationship between the “one-drop rule” of racial ancestry and American Indian identity and citizenship.

While Warren’s story has raised the visibility of these issues, they are still not well-understood by scholars outside the field of American Indian history, who may not confront them every day but must nonetheless respond to the various interpretations of these events in their classrooms and their professional lives. Presenters on this roundtable will de-center Warren’s particular story, instead illuminating the more nuanced and significant issues surrounding American Indian identities and indigeneity that inform our discussion of both American Indian and United States history. In this way, they will share with historians from a variety of fields a new set of tools and terminology, as well as a deeper appreciation of the significance of these on-going public discussions related to American Indian identities for major policy issues in the Trump era.