In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Dialectics of Ethnicity in America: AView from American Indian Studies ELIZABETH COOK-LYNN & CRAIG HOWE t h e d eve l o p m e n t o f b l ack st u d i e s , a s i a n a m e r i c a n Studies, Puerto Rican, Chicano/a, and Latino/a Studies over the past thirty years, and the move toward comparative study within what has come to be called Ethnic Studies, has brought about the study of race and ethnicity within a postcolonial, pan-American consciousness. The social structure of race in many instances has become subsumed under ethnicity, and claims for understanding the uniqueness of individual groups are often dismissed and ridiculed as “essentialist.” This is especially true in the humanities and in the socialsciences,butisalsoevidentinlawandpolitics.Thiscontextanditsemanatingthemes —suchashybridity,ethnicity,bordercrossing,self-victimization, assimilation, diversity, multiculturalism, and so on—cannot be discounted when discussing the impetus for the development of American Indian Studies as an academic discipline. We can neither begin to define American Indian Studies nor measure its progress until we understand the problem within the United States concerning ethnicity as prescribed in most Ethnic Studies curriculum development circles. The term ethnic refers to a social group within a broad cultural system that is accorded special status on the basis of complex religious, linguistic ,ancestral,orphysicalcharacteristics.Thisemphasisincurriculardevelopment is at the heart of the disagreement concerning treaty status of Indian 1 5 0 enclaves. In this context particularly rancorous and troublesome for many Ethnic Studies professionals is Native scholars’ claim of First Nation status for Native enclaves within the United States. The nature of the study of ethnicity as social systems in the U.S. disputes trivializes, denies, and co-opts citizenship claims and treaty rights within nation-to-nation relationships. Overview The U.S. government, its educational systems, and America’s earliest institutions have confused the issues of First Nation status in a number of ways. The Virginia colonial government, for example, promulgated its 1704 “race laws,” which categorized Indians as participants on the “colored” side of the system. There was an attempt on the part of these early legislators to label Indians as “free persons of color,” ignoring the indigenous, land-holding, First Nation, sovereign status of their origins. While these early designations of Indians as people “of color” have been repudiated and disavowed by Indians onthebasisof indigenousnessratherthancolor,confusionconcerningindigenous populations in this country persists. Most recently, in the educational systems across the country, American Indians have been labeled as “ethnic” divisions within American society. This deliberate obfuscation began as early as 1924, when the U.S. unilaterally conferred its citizenship on tribal peoples and then failed to take into account tribal nation objections.1 Significantly, some groups, such as the Iroquois, did not “accept” U.S. citizenship; rather, they said they would ask for it if they so desired. The Tewa and others also resisted this political categorization into American society, but just as Christian missionaries had methods of carrying out surreptitious baptisms of unbelievers in Native enclaves, so too the U.S. federal government had methods of integrating unwilling Native citizens . In many cases U.S. citizenship was yet another federal policy forced on Indians. The term ethnic pertains to a social group within a cultural and social system that claims or is accorded special status on the basis of complex often variable traits, including religious, linguistic, ancestral, or physical characteristics . Most Indians see ethnicity as an invention, a cultural construction structured within an Anglocentric, monocultural matrix. This is the construction used by sociologists, anthropologists, and some social scientists within the field of Ethnic Studies. Because this construct fails to account for the legal and indigenous treaty status of Native peoples, most Indians reject The Dialectics of Ethnicity in America / 1 5 1 this mainstream perception of their status. Indians in America, as well as indigenous peoples everywhere who have experienced colonialism, face this conflictconcerningstatusandidentity,eventhoughtheymightnothavetreaty relations with their colonizing powers. Native populations in the United States do not consider themselves just social groups within a cultural system called America. Rather, they define themselves as holding specific tribal legal status within the nation of the United States, and a “trust” status holds their reserved lands and resources within a protectorate. Unfortunately, the American Indian protectorate status has too frequently been defined as either ethnic or as a postcolonial dependency, and an entire body of law has been written, which seems to defend and deny variously the status of...

Share