Mixed Natives Are Still Native

This Native American Heritage Month, I’m reclaiming space for the truths colonization tried to erase. I carry mixed Native ancestry—and so do my children. Our existence challenges the colonial tools of blood quantum, disenrollment, and phenotype policing. From Cherokee Freedmen to Mexican Indigenous lineages, from intertribal marriages to those severed from tribal rolls, our stories are not anomalies—they are the norm across Turtle Island.

This piece is a call to remember: Native identity is not defined by paperwork or pigment. It’s lived, inherited, and often reclaimed. While we must guard against appropriation, we must also resist the colonizer’s spell that says only some of us belong. The Rainbow Warriors prophecy asks us to rise together. That means making room for all our relations—especially those returning home.

This month, I want to speak not just as an advocate, but as a mother, a descendant, and a living witness to the complexity of Native identity. My own genetics and lineage carry the stories of mixed ancestry—proof that Native blood does not conform to colonizer-imposed boundaries. My children, born of me and their fathers, are living examples of what many Native Americans now embody: a tapestry of cultures, histories, and truths that imperial systems tried to unravel.

Let’s be clear: disenrolled Natives exist. Mixed blood quantum is not a measure of belonging—it’s a tool of division. The Dawes Rolls and blood quantum policies were designed to fracture us, to cast spells of separation that still linger. But we are waking up.

Cherokee Freedmen—descendants of Cherokee and Black ancestors—are part of this truth. So are Mexican and Mexican-American peoples, whose Indigenous roots span countless tribes and intermarriages across Turtle Island. The idea that only those who remain registered, untouched by disenrollment, are “real” Natives is a colonial illusion. It’s time we broke it.

The Rainbow Warriors prophecy speaks of a time when people of all colors and backgrounds would rise to heal the Earth. That prophecy cannot come true if we gatekeep identity based on phenotype or paperwork. Native, First Nations, and Indigenous peoples come in many diverse looks. That diversity is not a threat—it’s a strength.

Yes, there are dangers in appropriation. The “Pretendian” phenomenon is real and harmful. But weaponizing that fear against those genuinely seeking reconnection only furthers the colonizer’s goal: to keep us divided, disconnected, and disempowered.

Decolonization means reclaiming what was stolen—including identity, memory, and belonging. It means welcoming those who were lost to the system, who hear the call of their ancestors and seek to return. It means honoring culture without casting out those who carry it differently.

This month, and every month, I stand for the truth: Mixed Natives are Native. Our children are Native. Our ancestors are watching. And the roots are calling us home.