Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America

The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America

Schuettpelz, Carrie Lowry

Paperback

Native American HistoryIndigenous Studies

Publisher Price: $18.99

ISBN10: 1250903181
ISBN13: 9781250903181
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: Oct 28 2025
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.51
Height: 0.72 Width: 5.48 Depth: 8.24
Language: English

A groundbreaking and deeply personal exploration of Tribal enrollment, and what it means to be Native American in the United States

A genre-bending work of reportage, memoir, and history --The New Yorker

Candid, unflinching . . . Her thorough excavation of the painful history that gave rise to rigid enrollment policies is a courageous gift to our understanding of contemporary Native life. --The Whiting Foundation Jury

Who is Indian enough?

To be Native American is to live in a world of contradictions. At the same time that the number of people in the US who claim Native identity has exploded--increasing 85 percent in just ten years--the number of people formally enrolled in Tribes has not. While the federal government recognizes Tribal sovereignty, being a member of a Tribe requires navigating blood quantum laws and rolls that the federal government created with the intention of wiping out Native people altogether. Over two million Native people are tribally enrolled, yet there are Native people who will never be. Native people who, for a variety of reasons ranging from displacement to disconnection, cannot be card-carrying members of their Tribe.

In The Indian Card, Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz grapples with these contradictions. Through in-depth interviews, she shares the stories of people caught in the mire of identity-formation, trying to define themselves outside of bureaucratic processes. With archival research, she pieces together the history of blood quantum and tribal rolls and federal government intrusion on Native identity-making. Reckoning with her own identity--the story of her enrollment and the enrollment of her children--she investigates the cultural, racial, and political dynamics of today's Tribal identity policing. With this intimate perspective of the ongoing fight for Native sovereignty, The Indian Card sheds light on what it looks like to find a deeper sense of belonging.

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