I, unfortunately, have a dead beat 26 year old grand son who hopes to get aid for college costs by claiming American Indian ancestry. My wife’s grand mother, his G/G/Grand mother was Cherokee.
I hope he fails miserably in this effort.
I have learned that different tribes have different standards concerning who is Indian. Anywhere from 1/4 to 1/16. I don’t know what the official government standard is for an “entitlement”.
You actually can be a Cherokee but if your ancestors failed to get on the Dawes Rolls then you will never be enrolled in the tribe. Many South Central Indians identified as "MINGO" may well be Cherokee or Iroquois but not qualified for enrollment in either. NOTE: Historically both Cherokee and Iroquois groups leveed people out of tributary Mingo groups.
One interesting situation in today's world is that there has been so much intermarriage among and between Indian groups that you have 100% Indians who no longer qualify for the tribe into which they were born ~ so they've gotta' go through all the genealogical records to find out where they might qualify.
That can be a real problem when the tribes records are sealed (like the Iroquois).
I worked for the Mashantucket Pequot tribe here in Connecticut. Their standard for tribal membership was 1/32. That’s about 3%
Interestingly, I idly pursued my own “lore” to get a piece of the casino action years and years ago, but only briefly. Frankly, it’s about the only “entitlement” for American white people, since any American who’s been here a few generations can probably make a claim to being Indian...and at least it makes the race baiters shut up when you say, “Who are you calling white, paleface?”
About four generations back when my family sneaked off the reservation they decided that leaving the government a list of names was perhaps not the wisest of moves.
We don't claim. We don't care. We definitely don't trust.
Official government standard is 'member of an United States federally recognized tribe.' There are no Federal student aide programs for tribal members, etc. Honestly, the only 'federal' benefit is being able to seek treatment at a BIA run health facility. Not exactly the best benefit in the world, but they do have dental...
Most organizations which handle grants or loans for students are affiliated with a particular tribe or tribes, and all the application processing goes through the tribal offices. Largest contributor to American Indian student aide, however, are the tribes themselves.
Marking the checkbox on the application for colleges doesn't actually do a thing, other than to change the college's reported American Indian population.
***My wife’s grand mother, his G/G/Grand mother was Cherokee.***
I believe Bill Clinton was also a Cherokee. You could, at one time, buy an honorary position in the tribe by donating a certain amount of money to a Tahlequah OK Indian group.
At our church, we have blond, blue eyed people with blond facial hair going to college on Indian scholarships. They even have a Tribal issued license plates on their autos.