I would very much like to explore how Indigenous people gained citizenship and the events that followed it. In addition, I would like to also see more about when they gained the right to vote, which didn’t happen across the US until 1962. My grandmother was not born with the right to vote, her parents were not born citizens despite being here their whole lives. Until then it was up to the local governments to decide. There were even following laws to protect Natives’ rights that were continued to be put into place until 1982.
The question of what did citizenship cost really interests me as well, along with the newer movements to regain the lost traditions. Natives want to revive their tribes in a way to honor their heritage. The question proposed by my teacher about what the process to be federally (or at a state level) recognized as a tribe is. What privileges and/or costs come with being recognized as a tribe? Also highly interest me for these are things I do wish to know. With my family, we had to struggle to prove our blood status and were confronted by the Cherokee and the Government asking if we were wanting a claim on Casino money and free land. We are now recognized as part of the Chickamauga, from the Deer Clan out of the seven families that survived the Trail of Tears. This to me ties into the Indigenous around Philly and their own struggles with such rights and recognition. If there is also a roadblock from the clan itself, much like the Cherokee nation did to us, when it comes to trying to be recognized.