I went to the Manhattan Film Festival for book research to see the premiere of You’re No Indian, a documentary about the controversial practice of disenrollment (when Tribal Nations revoke citizenship of their members).
I’ve been following the film since I saw I first heard about it in January. I really lucked out that it came to NYC! Thank you, Vene, for joining me and helping connect me with the Director. 😁
It discussed how over 11,000 Indigenous peoples have been stripped of their tribal citizenship and the impacts this has had on some of the disenrolled and their families. Disenrollment impacts healthcare, housing, access to services, belonging/identity, and everyone down the line (e.g. children, grandchildren). The film positioned disenrollment as a human rights issue while highlighting the lack of legal protections disenrolled members had (e.g. no due process). For many cases, the records to “prove” Indigeneity were weaponized as a double standard by some Tribal Nations.
Seeing this gave me more ideas for my book “Archives and the Politics of Tribal Sovereignty Violence.” I’m writing the second chapter (due Friday), which explores the hegemonic colonial logics underlying how the US government uses archives as a mechanism for sovereignty violence to perpetuate setter state fictions as fact. My book explores the ways the US government uses records to justify its permanent residency and sovereign entitlement from the perspective of an archivist.