How Fake Claims To Native Identity Cause Real Harm

Dina Gilio-Whitaker knows that it’s complicated to talk about Native American identity. She occupies a gray zone herself: she’s a legal descendant of the Colville Confederated Tribes but not an enrolled member. As she worked to make sense of her own liminal identity, she also started witnessing a troubling phenomenon: people coming forward with fraudulent claims to Nativeness. Dina — now an academic — tells Anita about the personal experiences that led her to research this phenomenon, the harms this “pretendianism” perpetuates and the conversations she’s starting about possible solutions.Meet the guest:- Dina Gilio-Whitaker is a lecturer at California State University San Marcos and the author of “Who Gets to Be Indian? Ethnic Fraud, Disenrollment, and Other Difficult Conversations About Native American Identity” Read the transcript | Review the podcast on your preferred platformFollow Embodied on Instagram Leave a message for Embodied