Elizabeth Warren Has a Native American Ancestor. Does That Make Her Native American?

@TRP You are being far too charitable to her. Did she say "I am an enrolled Cherokee" or "I am a member of the Cherokee tribe?" Perhaps not. But let's be real here. She listed her ethnicity as "Native American." According to her story, her belief was that she was 1/32. Suppose you had one great great great grandparent who was black, and 31 who were white. You are asked for your ethnicity on work or school paperwork. Among the several options are "White/Caucausian" and "African-American." You could decline to answer, or choose one and only one response. Would you choose African-American? Either way, would you consider it a morally defensible option for you? Even if so, can you see why people of many different ethnic backgrounds might take exception to you doing so, and why they might think you are trying to exploit an identity that you have, at best, minimal claim to for selfish reasons involving unjustified personal gain? If that makes sense to you, then perhaps you will conclude on further reflection that the criticisms of Senator Warren are actually not "so unfair." Nor do I think you can universally credit her and her family with complete honesty. In a rather embarrassing decision, she contributed a crab omelet recipe to the cookbook "Pow Wow Chow," which she claimed was Cherokee in origin, despite it having been lifted (whether by her or a relative who passed it down to her) from a NY Times Cookbook as contributed by a French chef. Somebody was faking.

@Beth It is more or less written in the Boston Globe, for one: archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/05/31/elizabet... "Warren had previously said only that she indicated minority status in an Association of American Law Schools directory used to make diversity-friendly hires beginning in the 1986-87 school year, the year before she was hired at Penn. She stopped listing herself in the directory in 1995, the year she became a tenured professor at Harvard." Primary identity may be a bridge too far, but it looks like she was actively trying to use her purported ethnicity as a hiring advantage. The reporting above seems to indicate that this information was based on her own prior statements to that effect. ("Warren had previously said..."). The use of the identity when she thought it would be to her advantage, I'd argue, is much more of an issue than the obviously silly Rachel Dolezal-esque idea that it was her "primary identity" in every day life. You could almost pity the self-delusion involved in sincerely considering herself to be an actual Native American with, even by her own stated belief, 1/32 Native blood (and at most half that, in reality). This is worse. This is pre-meditated and cynical cultural appropriation for the purposes of benefiting in terms of money and prestige. Even assuming she was 100% convinced she was 1/32 Native American, this is reprehensible.

@N. Louanna Furbee In his usual humorous fashion, Donald Trump was joking about the genetic testing. His point is that Elizabeth Warren is not an American Indian. She may have an American Indian ancestor deep in history, but that doesn't change anything. Her genetic test is meaningless.

@Rose You are wrong, and that's the whole point. Elizabeth Warren has claimed, from time to time, that she is an American Indian. A Cherokee, to be exact. And she has refused to acknowledge that she is not, as some Cherokees have asked her to do.

@Rose I did not hear Senator Warren claim to BE a Native American. Her video makes clear she was not hired as a law professor on the basis of diversity & affirmative action. She was hired because she was a great teacher (look at the students in her classroom.

@Ann I'm not familiar with the specifics of 23andMe's coverage of Ireland, but there is a broad trend--both among DNA test companies and research groups--to get down to fine-grained genetic maps of the world where possible. This kind of analysis can potentially work well in places where people have lived for many centuries in a small region--such as around an Irish village. Some genetic variants can become unusually common (or rare) among them thanks to pure chance. It also requires gathering lots of those variants from lots of people. In the next ~20 years, ancestry testing will probably make some incredible advances as a result.

Dave- The article is a fair and balanced assessment of Senator Warren’s response to the First Bafoon’s continuing use of ‘Pocahontas’ instead of her well-earned title. Paragraph 23: ‘Is only’ A small distraction

@Dave Harvard made that claim while she taught there for ten years in their diversity hire filings with the government. She never did.

What? She did what? I didn’t know we could do that. You mean we can just pick like that?!

@Oregon guy, Warren claims she is part Cherokee. She says her family talked about being part Cherokee, not just “oh, we have an indian ancestor back there somewhere”. My understanding is she put Cherokee on her college applications, academic applications, and that Harvard claimed her as such. The DNA analysis here shows her as having, perhaps 10 generations ago, either a Canadian or Latin American tribal ancestor (not plural). A far cry from what she has relied on both academically and politically.

@Ann none of this is true. While she was teaching at Harvard, Harvard chose to list her as Native American in their hiring diversity filings. She never did. And she never put anything on her college applications or anything else. Your information is faulty.

@Diane, less and less DNA from distant ancestors is passed on with every generation. This means it is perfectly normal for one sibling or cousin to have inherited the DNA of your Spanish ancestor and another to not have inherited it. It is not the fault of DNA tests - it is simply the way Mendelian genetics works.

@James Panico, Warren is claiming she’s part Cherokee. Clearly, she is not.

@James Panico, he DNA results also show NO links to Native Americans. Her very tiny link, as much as 10 generations back, is to either the First Peoples of Canada OR some unspecified Latin American native people.

@James Panico The DNA results prove Central American DNA connections, nothing more. The connection between natives of Central America and North America is purely hypothetical. Maybe one of her ancestors was Mexican- but that's not as romantic as Cherokee, is it? But the evidence is there for Mexico. For the Cherokee, no. For her "my parents were so in love" fairy tale, evidence is utterly missing.

@John. Facts are so conveniently reinterpreted.

She was correct? She said her mother was an "part Cherokee and part Deleware," that her father's family could not approve of the wedding because of this. She did not say that her great great great great great great great great great grandfather might have been native american. The average white american has more native american blood. She claimed to be a minority at Harvard until tenured, then went back to calling herself white. How is this correct? This is a problem

@Susan, the Cherokee nation (which is more than one group) made their own decisions about who to include in the tribe in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was not based on descent or science or culture, since, as is well known, it was more of a popularity contest. Africa Americans who were part Cherokee were left out. Families of political opponents were removed from the lists. Enemies of specific families were out. It is not a pure process, and other than family stories, Warren never claimed anything tribal. There is also no way, and never will be a DNA way, to test tribal affiliation; the founder population is too small - Native American DNA has very limited variation as a result. What is sad and laughable is how little history and science the commenters understand - but also that the author of the article did not include any of this well-known information.

@George N. Wells You are correct in that all human being came originally from Africa. When asked where I can from I say I am either Native American, by the virtue of being born here, or African-American because that's where my ancestors came from. Everything else were just stops along the journey. Unfortunately it really does matter if your government and schools classify you or you try to gain advantage in being accepted by claiming you have a certain heritage. By the Times estimation, Warren may have even less "Native-American" heritage that the average American.

@Paul, exactly. Warren claims she is part Cherokee, and these DNA results prove no such thing. At most they show she has a single ancestor, perhaps 10 generations back, who was either a member of the Canadian First Peoples or a South Amercian Indian. Part Cherokee, she ain’t.

@Paul Senator Warren has NOT tried to claim this ancestry for an advantage over others. Her education and career advances were solely due to her own merits. Myself, I think she just wants Trump to shut up and pay up. $1,000,000 was the deal. And she named the charity he can send it to.

@Jim You seem to be blaming this on “a couple of universities.” Warren said she was Native American when she filled out papers for those universities. They did not come up with that info. She did. I recall my father, who would be 110, saying that there was an “Indian” on our family tree. No one paid any attention because here in Wyoming we heard similar comments frequently in those days (the 1950-60’s). I never considered identifying as Native American. I often feel some embarrassment about identifying as Scottish even though both maternal grandparents emigrated from Scotland. I guess it is because I feel that I am an American. Yes, I realize there is a difference between your nationality and your racial identity, but I would prefer a President who identifies with his/her nationality rather racial identity. Barack Obama comes to mind.

@Jim Unfortunately, Warren did herself a disservice with this test. The point is there are many Americans who feel people abuse ethnic/racial categories by partaking in the benefits sometimes awarded to these categories but not partaking in any of the burdens (i.e. they often don't look the part!). She could have simply stated -- as she has -- that her mother told her of her Cherokee heritage and that the university chose to identify that heritage on its forms but she does not claim to be part Cherokee or partake in the privileges extended to that tribe due to past discrimination. To me, this doesn't bode well for her ability to handle someone like Trump.

@Ralph Averill all she ever claimed were family stories. And most people descended from Native Americans have never lived, or set foot, on a reservation. Her family stories have been shown to have a basis in reality through the DNA tests. That's all there is to it.

@Matthew and her family stories, which are indeed hers to tell.

Because she inappropriately claimed she was a native American to get beneficial treatment otherwise not available to a white woman.

@Stormy this never happened. She received no beneficial treatment. Harvard chose to list her this way for the ten years she worked there in order to improve the university's diversity figures. Their decision: not hers. Even Fox agrees with this.

And you are wrong, Stormy. 100% wrong.