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Retelling “Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field” (Museum of the American Indian)

I stumbled into the Museum of the American Indian in Lower Manhattan with my brother on a weekend trip to New York. There was an exhibit called “Developing Stories: Native Photographers in the Field” that attracted me.

These are the authors of this exhibit:

—Donovan Quintero, Navajo Times columnist

—Tailyr Irvine, editorial and documentary photographer (tailyrirvine.com; Instagram: TailyrIrvine)

—Albert Daniels (linktr.ee/russelalbertdaniels; Instagram: Russelalbertdaniels)

Here are two mini-stories summarizing some of what I learned.

Story #1: Blood Quantum in the Salish and Kootenai Tribes

Blood quantum is the measure of “Native American blood” in a person. It is normally represented as a fraction.

Blood quantum laws are laws that were created and imposed by the United States government in order to legally define members of different Native American tribes.

Some tribes today incorporate blood quantum into their enrollment criteria. Others do not. Among those who do, different tribes require different minimum amounts in order to qualify for membership.

The first section within this exhibit highlighted the personal dilemmas that people in the Salish and Kootenai Tribes, who occupy the Flathead Reservation in western Montana, face due to blood quantum.

The minimum blood quantum required for a person to register as a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes is 1/4. If a couple have a child whose Salish and Kootenai blood quantum is less than 1/4, this child is not eligible to register as a member of the Tribes. As a result, young people in these Tribes feel societal and familial pressures to find a life partner whose blood quantum “matches well” with their own so that when they reproduce, their offspring will meet the minimum 1/4 requirement in order to legally belong to and help sustain the existence of the Tribes. The exhibit told stories of individuals who have this mentality and seek partners based on “blood,” and others who don’t. The exhibit featured same-sex partners who grapple with these pressures, too.

The exhibit featured a story about a couple, one of whom is 7/16 Salish and Kootenai and the other of whom is predominantly Navajo, a Native American tribe with most of its population in the Southwestern United States, with no Salish and Kootenai blood. The couple lives on the Flathead Reservation and had just had a baby. Their baby is, by blood, only 7/32 Salish and Kootenai, and as a result, is not eligible to legally join the Salish and Kootenai Tribes due to their 1/4 minimum blood quantum requirement. The child will grow up on the Flathead Reservation learning the customs and practices of her father’s people, but will never be able to be an official Tribes member, and as soon as she turns 18, will be excluded from certain events and barred from accessing certain parts of the reservation that she will have spent her entire childhood navigating without a special permit.

A bone-chilling quote I read in the exhibit said that “blood quantum laws were completing the genocide of Native American people.”

Story #2: The Genízaro People of Abiquiú

Abiquiú is a tiny village (231 people) in northern New Mexico where the Genízaro people have lived for 300 years. A second section of the exhibit told the story of this place and these people.

In the 1600’s, Spanish colonists abducted and purchased Native Americans from the Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Navajo, Pawnee, and Ute Tribes throughout the area that is today the Southwestern United States with the objectives of “re-educating” and “de-tribalizing” the native people. The Spanish called their captives “Genízaro,” which came from a Turkish word for slaves trained as soldiers.

Now, today, in Abiquiú live the descendants of these native peoples. Of mixed tribal heritage, they now proudly identify as the Genízaro people. The exhibit showed their commitment to honoring their history and preserving the practices of their community.