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Why so many white Americans claim to be native? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 day ago by choihanna@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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For some reason when I'm talking to an American from the North East and the fact that I'm mixed comes up they always say they aren't white they're actually native because his grandpa once mentioned something about a Cherokee ancestor.

It's always Cherokee, no other tribe but that one. And it's always the whitest looking person ever, straight up 6ft tall blue eyed and blond guy.

I get it, I'm mostly white too, Spanish and Slavic. But even tho I'm not mostly native American I still look native enough that people think I'm Asian.

But when your ancestry has been so diluted over the generations... You're not native. It's not just that you don't look native, it's also that you don't even participate in the culture.

Dude you're just a farm boy from Philadelphia you're probably more Amish than Cherokee, if that supposed ancestor is even real at all and not just some random claim by some of your ancestors to have a "right over these lands".

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, there are so many Native names on everything, but the tribes themselves are unknown.

Example - Multnomah County:

The Multnomah were a division of the Chinook people, but I'd wager most folks aren't even aware that Multnomah were a people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multnomah_people

"In 1830, a disease generally thought to have been malaria devastated the Multnomah villages.[2] Within five years, the village of Cathlapotle was abandoned and was briefly inhabited by the Cowlitz tribe. The Multnomah people had nearly been wiped out by the year 1834 due to malaria and smallpox outbreaks. With only a few Multnomah left by the year 1910, the remaining people were transferred to the Grand Ronde Community which is also located in the Northwest of Oregon.[3]"