The author's father, Charles KeelerI first published this in Indian Country Today in 2013. I've been recently thinking about my dad a lot. We lost him within a week of being diagnosed with Stage 4 Cancer. It's something I'm still processing. The anger, the feeling he was stolen from us. But he was a great dad, an extraordinary thinker, and really smart. I certainly look like him, more so than I resemble my mom. I write to understand the complexity of my familial experiences and diversity. My father's experience growing up mixed-blood (5/8ths ...

I was recently quoted in a Boston Globe article "Should museums verify claims of Indigenous ancestry? Fruitlands show postponed over this ‘profoundly divisive’ issue" about the postponement of an art installation featuring Indigenous artists at the Fruitland Museum. Gina Adams and Merritt Johnson voluntarily withdrew their work from the show due to questions about their claims to tribal identity. Full disclosure, Merritt Johnson, who claims to be of Mohawk and Blackfoot descent, is on the list of Alleged Pretendians I have been investigating. ...

My latest at Sierra Magazine. Photo: Dustin Wero "Many Diné I have spoken to over the years have expressed hope that the revival of the Fundamental Law offers us a way to reconnect to the wisdom of our ancestors. Another hope is that our non-Native neighbors and fellow US citizens might find a way to learn from the example of our long-standing values. Among those lessons is the connection between right relationships among people and right relationships to place. 'These lands offer a form of healing that we want people to accept so we ca...

Senator Warren (far right) and her family from her campaign website: FACTSQUAD By Jacqueline Keeler Voters are divided on party lines as Republicans revel and Democrats react in disgust at President Trump’s latest tweet referencing the Cherokee Trail of Tears, a tribe from which the senator has claimed descent. Despite Warren’s punchy response that Trump will probably not even been in the 2020 race because “he won’t be even a free man,” his base has not abandoned yet. The answer is in U.S. history. On the night of the State of t...

Reps. Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo-NM) and Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk-WI) at an event celebrating their swearing-in to Congress (Creative Commons non-commercial license) Historian Colin G. Calloway, author of “Indian World of George Washington The First President the First Americans & the Birth of the Nation,” writes, “Washington knew what history has forgotten: Indian nations still dominated large areas of the North American continent.” And consequently, “Washington’s entire Indian policy and his vision for the nation depended on the acquis...