Recognition Odysseys

Klopotek Brian Klopotek

Description

In Recognition Odysseys, Brian Klopotek explores the complicated relationship between federal tribal recognition policy and American Indian racial and tribal identities. He does so by comparing the experiences of three central Louisiana tribes that have petitioned for federal acknowledgment: the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe (recognized in 1981), the Jena Band of Choctaws (recognized in 1995), and the Clifton-Choctaws (currently seeking recognition). Though recognition has acquired a transformational aura, seemingly able to lift tribes from poverty and cultural decay to wealth and revitalization, these three cases reveal a more complex reality.Klopotek describes the varied effects of the recognition process on the social and political structures, community cohesion, cultural revitalization projects, identity, and economic health of each tribe. He emphasizes that recognition policy is not the only racial project affecting Louisiana tribes. For the Tunica-Biloxis, the Jena Band of Choctaws, and the Clifton-Choctaws, discourses around blackness and whiteness have shaped the boundaries of Indian identity in ways that have only begun to be explored. Klopotek urges scholars and officials from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to acknowledge the multiple discourses and viewpoints influencing tribal identities. At the same time, he puts tribal recognition in broader perspective. Indigenous struggles began long before the BIA existed, and they will continue long after it renders any particular recognition decision.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• Luisiana
• Indigenous peoples
• Biological anthropology
• History of the Americas
• Louisiana
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 30 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822394082
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Recognition Odysseys

narrating native histories

Series editors K. Tsianina Lomawaima Florencia E. Mallon Alcida Rita Ramos Joanne Rappaport

Editorial Advisory Board Denise Y. Arnold Charles R. Hale Roberta Hill Noenoe K. Silva David Wilkins Juan de Dios Yapita

RECOGNIT ION ODYSSEYS

Indigeneity, Race, and Federal Tribal Recognition Policy in Three Louisiana Indian Communities

Brian Klopotek

Duke University Press Durham and London   

∫2011 Duke University Press

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

Designed by Heather Hensley

Typeset in Monotype Dante by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

about the seri es

acknowledgments

i ntroducti on

Contents

1 The Origins of Federal Acknowledgment Policy 2 The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe’s Early Recognition E√orts 3 Tunica Activism from the Termination Era to the Self-Determination Era 4 Treasures: Tunica-Biloxis in the Federal Recognition Era 5 Tribal Enterprise and Tribal Life 6 Jena Choctaws under Jim Crow and outside the Federal Purview 7 Jena Choctaw Tribal Persistence from the Second World War to Recognition

8 Jena Choctaw Recognition 9 On the Outside, Looking In: Clifton-Choctaws, Race, and Federal Acknowledgment 10 Conclusions and Implications appendi x notes

bi bli ography i ndex

vii ix 1 19 41

61 83 97

127

147 165

197 239 273 275 351 375

About the Series

Narrating Native Histories aims to foster a rethinking of the ethi- cal, methodological, and conceptual frameworks within which we locate our work on Native histories and cultures. We seek to create a space for e√ective and ongoing conversations between North and South, Natives and non-Natives, academics and activists, through- out the Americas and the Pacific region. We are committed to com- plicating and transgressing the disciplinary and epistemological boundaries of established academic discourses on Native peoples. This series encourages symmetrical, horizontal, collaborative, and auto-ethnographies; work that recognizes Native intellectuals, cultural interpreters, and alternative knowledge producers within broader academic and intellectual worlds; projects that decolonize the relationship between orality and textuality; narratives that pro- ductively work the tensions between the norms of Native cultures and the requirements for evidence in academic circles; and analyses that contribute to an understanding of Native peoples’ relation- ships with nation-states, including histories of expropriation and exclusion as well as projects for autonomy and sovereignty. An empathetic yet critical examination of how struggles for federal recognition, and the conflicts over the state policies associ- ated with them, have a√ected three tribes in central Louisiana, Brian Klopotek’sRecognition Odysseysis a most welcome addition to our series. By analyzing federal recognition policy as a particular project of national and racial power that reproduces colonial rela- tions, Klopotek critically contributes to conversations around indi- geneity and nationhood in the United States. He shows as well how

the shining promises often attached to the achievement of federal recognition can sometimes ring hollow for the people involved. Finally, his historically and regionally grounded study of specific Native peoples and their experi- ences provides both empirical and theoretical depth to the criticisms leveled at the fields of cultural, ethnic, and American studies for tending to lump indigenous peoples into a broader category of racial minorities, without attending to the di√erences between race and indigeneity. Klopotek’s ability to combine a critical and politically committed analytical perspective with a deep empathy for the Tunica-Biloxis, the Jena Band of Choctaws, and the Clifton-Choctaws who are at the heart of his story provides us with an important model for the kind of methodologies we wish to highlight and foster in our work.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank first and foremost the Indian people of Louisiana whose stories I discuss in this book. I feel an overwhelming debt of gratitude for the generosity of Tunica-Biloxi, Jena Choctaw, and Clifton-Choctaw tribal members in particular, but also the Choctaw-Apache, Apalachee, Houma, Caddo-Adai, and Coushatta tribal members who took the time to work with me in the early stages of this project. All the people I talked with are ethnohis- torians in their own right, and I thank them for modeling tribal knowledge, strength, vision, and persistence for me. Special thanks are due to John Barbry, Brenda Lintinger, Cheryl Smith, and The- resa Clifton Sarpy, without whom this book would not have been possible. In addition, thank you to Aimee and Lydia Barbry, Donna and Michael Pierite, Jean-Luc Pierite, Elisabeth Pierite, Rose Pie- rite White, Anna Juneau, Marshall Sampson Sr., Inez Sampson, Earl Barbry Sr., Becky Wambsgans, Greg Lintinger, Emily Lin- tinger, Alfred Barbre, Steve Johnson, Debbie Johnson, Joe Barbry, Harold Pierite Sr., David Rivas Jr., David Rivas Sr., Robert Bar- bry, Dante White Owl, Daniel Barbry, Linda Bordelon, Mary Jack- son Jones, Jerry Jackson, Christine Norris, Christy Murphy, Clyde Jackson, Barbara Chapman, Rusty Smith, Corine Tyler, Myrtlene Shackleford, Roy Tyler, Amos Tyler, Norris Tyler, Les Sarpy, Sa- brina Webb, and Betty Clifton, who each contributed to this work in ways large and small. I would like to express my deep esteem for several people who have passed away since I began this research: Mary Jackson Jones, Jerry Jackson, Roy Tyler, and Norris Tyler were each helpful and influential on this project, and each beloved