links for 2011-04-04

With all due respect to the blithering nitwits that came up with the current system shouldn’t the Shoshone be deciding who qualifies as Shoshone?

The PR data struck me as interesting – my father-in-law insists that he’s “pure Castilian,” until his daughter starts talking more about the family and he’ll admit that they’re all pretty mixed. My husband grew up thinking he was Italian and then later considered himself a white Puerto Rican, despite the permanent tan. Now after a decade of exposure to me and to social justice issues, he identifies as mixed PR. I think as it becomes politically less advantageous to identify as “white” and OK with being seen as mixed, people are more open to the truth.

I’m not surprised that more PRs on the island consider themselves native, especially since the Taino are trying to be recognized as an official tribe, after decades of being lebeled “extinct” despite what I’m told is a pretty strong tribal culture in the center of Puerto Rico.

CaliOak, it IS the Shoshone who decide who qualifies as Shoshone. This is just what they’ve decided. Different tribes have made different decisions, for example you just need an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls to be an enrolled Cherokee. But as many Cherokees will tell you, this leads to a lot of cultural dissolution and a lot of culturally disconnected (often white) people enrolling just for the heck of it, or to get their hands on the tribe’s resources (not to say that all culturally unconnected people have ulterior motives, of course).