{"id":63584,"date":"2022-03-29T18:49:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T18:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63584"},"modified":"2022-03-29T18:56:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T18:56:13","slug":"so-what-exactly-is-blood-quantum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63584","title":{"rendered":"So What Exactly Is &#8216;Blood Quantum&#8217;?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/codeswitch\/2018\/02\/09\/583987261\/so-what-exactly-is-blood-quantum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>So What Exactly Is &#8216;Blood Quantum&#8217;?<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/codeswitch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Code Switch: Race. In Your Face.<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Public Radio<\/a><br \/>\n2018-02-09<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/katchow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Kat Chow<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/codeswitch\/2018\/02\/09\/583987261\/so-what-exactly-is-blood-quantum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; width: 95%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2018\/02\/08\/gettyimages-475158625_custom-3bee15106e2f3142810800b6247062a639a7891c-s1800-c85.webp\" \/><\/a><figcaption style=\"font-size: x-small; display: block; width: 95%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blood_quantum_laws\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Blood quantum<\/a> was initially a system that the federal government placed onto tribes in an effort to limit their citizenship.<br \/>\n<em>Leigh Wells\/Getty Images\/Ikon Images<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/player\/embed\/583987261\/583991922\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nIf you&#8217;re Native American, there&#8217;s a good chance that you&#8217;ve thought a lot about <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blood_quantum_laws\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blood quantum<\/a> \u2014 a highly controversial measurement of the amount of &#8220;Indian blood&#8221; you have. It can affect your identity, your relationships and whether or not you \u2014 or your children \u2014 may become a citizen of your tribe.<\/p>\n<p>Blood quantum was initially a system that the federal government placed onto tribes in an effort to limit their citizenship. Many Native nations, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Navajo_Nation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Navajo Nation<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Turtle_Mountain_Band_of_Chippewa_Indians\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians<\/a>, still use it as part of their citizenship requirements.<\/p>\n<p>And <em>how<\/em> tribes use blood quantum varies from tribe to tribe. The Navajo Nation requires a minimum of 25 percent &#8220;Navajo blood,&#8221; and Turtle Mountain requires a minimum of 25 percent of <em>any<\/em> Indian blood, as long as its in combination with some Turtle Mountain.<\/p>\n<p>Blood quantum minimums really restrict who can be a citizen of a tribe. If you&#8217;ve got 25 percent of Navajo blood \u2014 according to that tribe&#8217;s blood quantum standards \u2014 and you have children with someone who has a lower blood quantum, those kids won&#8217;t be able to enroll.<\/p>\n<p>So why keep a system that&#8217;s decreasing your tribe&#8217;s rolls and could lead to its demise?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I use the term &#8216;Colonial Catch 22&#8217; to say that there is no clear answer, and that one way or another, people are hurt,&#8221; says <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/eruled\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Elizabeth Rule<\/a>. She&#8217;s a doctoral candidate at Brown University who specializes in Native American studies, and also a citizen of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chickasaw_Nation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chickasaw Nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The systems are so complicated,&#8221; she explains, &#8220;but it&#8217;s all part of tribes deciding on their own terms, in their own ways, utilizing their own sovereignty [to decide] what approach is best for them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As we explored blood quantum in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/codeswitch\/2018\/02\/07\/583665568\/love-and-blood-quantum-buy-in-or-die-out\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this week&#8217;s episode<\/a>, we thought a primer of what, exactly, this system is and how it works \u2014 or doesn&#8217;t \u2014 might be useful. Here&#8217;s my interview with Elizabeth Rule, edited and condensed for clarity&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire story <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/codeswitch\/2018\/02\/09\/583987261\/so-what-exactly-is-blood-quantum\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re Native American, there&#8217;s a good chance that you&#8217;ve thought a lot about blood quantum \u2014 a highly controversial measurement of the amount of &#8220;Indian blood&#8221; you have. It can affect your identity, your relationships and whether or not you \u2014 or your children \u2014 may become a citizen of your tribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2850,459,13743,1467,8,3015,20],"tags":[33351,14788,32081,24620,2309,2833],"class_list":["post-63584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-audio","category-history","category-interviews","category-law","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-usa","tag-blood-quantum","tag-code-switch","tag-elizabeth-rule","tag-kat-chow","tag-national-public-radio","tag-npr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63584"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63588,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63584\/revisions\/63588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}