WaPo | In March 2012, Heather McMillan Nakai wrote a
letter to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs asking the agency to
verify that she was Indian. She was seeking a job at the Indian Health
Service and wanted to apply with “Indian preference.” Nakai knew this
might be difficult: As far as she was aware, no one from her North
Carolina tribe — the Lumbee — had ever been granted such preference.
Her
birth certificate says she’s Indian, as did her first driver’s license.
Both of her parents were required to attend segregated tribal schools
in the 1950s and ’60s. In Nakai’s hometown in Robeson County, N.C.,
strangers can look at the dark ringlets in her hair, hear her speak and
watch her eyes widen when she’s indignant, and know exactly who her
mother and father are. “Who’s your people?” is a common question in
Robeson, allowing locals to pinpoint their place among the generations
of Lumbee who have lived in the area for nearly 300 years.
Yet in
the eyes of the BIA, the Lumbee have never been Indian enough.
Responding to Nakai the following month, tribal government specialist
Chandra Joseph informed her that the Lumbee were not a federally
recognized tribe and therefore couldn’t receive any federal benefits,
including “Indian preference.” Invoking a 1956 law concerning the status
of the Lumbee, Joseph wrote: “The Lumbee Act precludes the Bureau from
extending any benefits to the Indians of Robeson and adjoining
counties.” She enclosed a pamphlet titled “Guide to Tracing Indian
Ancestry.”
As
a staff attorney for the National Indian Gaming Commission, Nakai
understands the intricacies of documenting native bloodlines. In fact,
she had submitted 80 pages of evidence to support her case. The Lumbee
are descended from several Carolina tribes, including the Cheraw, who
intermarried with whites and free African Americans in the 18th and 19th
centuries. Nakai, 38, can trace her family tree back to at least 1900,
when her great-grandfather was listed as Indian on the federal census.
“That’s a terrible feeling,” she says, “to have somebody say to you,
‘You’re so not Indian that you need somebody to send you a pamphlet.’ ”
Lumbees
rely on historic census documents listing the “Indian Population” of
specific counties to enroll members in their tribe. In researching her
response, Nakai realized the same documents could be used to argue that
Lumbees were eligible for federal benefits. She thought hers was a
powerful legal argument. If she could receive Indian preference, then so
could other members of her tribe. “When I’m pushed, I don’t run,” Nakai
says. “I want to push back.” And so she appealed the bureau’s decision —
and kept appealing until her case landed in federal court.
Her
battle would force the Department of the Interior to reexamine its
policy toward the more than 55,000 Lumbee who make up the largest tribe
east of the Mississippi. For more than 60 years, the government has
acknowledged that they are Indians, yet denied them the sovereignty,
land and benefits it grants to other tribes. It’s a situation that
raises fundamental questions about identity: What makes someone Native
American? Is it a matter of race, or culture, or some combination of
both? The Lumbee don’t fit neatly into any racial categories, but they
have long been living as Indians, cultivating unique traditions and
community. Can a country divided by race ever accept them?
