'The Indian Card' explores the question of Native identity in the United States

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz is a self-proclaimed data nerd. So, when she started work on a project on Native identity, she turned to the Census data. Quickly, she noticed that the number of people in the United States who identify as Native had skyrocketed over the last decade. That data made her curious about how communities–and the federal government–have historically defined Native identity. The result of that project is a new nonfiction book, The Indian Card, which combines research and interviews to tell stories about the relationship between identity and bureaucracy. In today's episode, Lowry Schuettpelz joins NPR's Scott Detrow to talk about the historical and personal impact of federal policies like the Indian Relocation Act, blood quantum and tribal enrollment.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Filling out paperwork is quite literally a chore. It's mindless, boring, and tedious, but any journalist or nonfiction writer worth their salt knows that paperwork is where the stories are.
0:18.7	This is what I was thinking about when I listened to today's interview with Carrie Larry
0:22.1	Schuett Peltz.
0:23.1	Her book is called The Indian Card Who Gets to Be Native in America?
0:27.4	And it tells the story of Native American categorization in the U.S.
0:31.9	And in this interview with NPR Scott Detrow, she tells the story of this man.
0:36.3	He's 84 now, but when he was five, he was
0:38.7	relocated and sent to a boarding school away from his family. And he grew up thinking that his
0:44.8	family simply didn't want him or didn't care enough to try and get him home. But the paperwork
0:50.2	revealed that wasn't the case. That interview's coming up.
0:55.3	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky
1:01.5	conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters
1:07.3	on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:14.3	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:19.8	Writer Carrie Lowry Shootpelt says that she's always been a data nerd.
1:23.9	So when she started writing about Native American identity, that's where she turned.
1:28.1	And so I started looking at the census data, and it's hard to miss the fact that the number
1:32.7	of people in this country checking the box for American Indian, Alaska Native has just
1:37.6	skyrocketed. That got her thinking about what it means to be Native American in the U.S.
1:42.6	and the history of how that came to be.
1:45.2	And the result is her new book, The Indian Card, Who Gets to Be Native in America?
1:50.4	It's the story of how the federal government came to categorize native identity, things like
	...

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