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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2002

The following are letters in response to a December 8 column by Delphine Red Shirt, an Oglala Lakota woman who has written for Indian Country Today, who said that Eastern Indians are not real Indians.

Robert L. Rumsey: "Delphine Red Shirt's appalling contribution to the casino debate emphasizes one of the most unfortunate aspects of the furor over Indian gambling in Connecticut: reliance on ancestry to prove tribal membership. Just when it seemed as if the category of race as a biological given was about to finally disappear unlamented from public discourse, we are again in the middle of racial arguments."

Richard S. Arnold: "My great-grandmother, Rachel Cash, was supposedly 1/4 Cherokee. I remember her smoking her corncob pipe. I remember her patience. My 1/32 Indian blood has never made me think of myself as an Indian; Welsh, maybe, because of Rachel's pure-bred Welsh husband, Great-Granddad John Ashcraft. Thanks to Delphine Red Shirt for saying what most people think."

Rev. Joshua M. Pawelek: "Shame on Delphine Red Shirt for using skin color as the basis for her critique of the racial identity of Connecticut's Indian tribes. This is exactly what European Americans have done to Indians and other people of color throughout U.S. history."

Get the Story:
Debating The Definition Of `Indian' (The Hartford Courant 12/12)

Original Column:
Delphine Red Shirt: These Are Not Indians (The Hartford Courant 12/12)