I noticed in the Feb. 22 issue a letter by Mr. Tim Walks Tall titled ”Honors Mixed Bloods” [Vol. 27, Iss. 38]. I was very impressed with it and I wanted to respond.
I am a ”terminated” American Indian who lives in eastern Utah. [Our members] were terminated in the late 1950s and early ’60s. Reading Mr. Walks Tall’s letter made me think of our termination and how we were judged by blood quantum. There were only 490 in our group; out of the 490, around 260 were minor children. We were labeled the ”terminated mixed blood,” even though we have full bloods listed on our rolls.
Just like Mr. Walks Tall, I cannot understand how Congress or other tribes would let the government brand American Indians with blood quanta just like the pedigree of a dog, horse or cow. These are ”racial blood degrees,” and should have never come into existence for the American Indian, or anyone else.
We, too, live our lives in peace and harmony trying to teach our children what we have been taught by our elders. We struggle with other tribes who consider us to be ”white” because the U.S. Congress stamped ”Terminated” on our foreheads.
Our people attend Native ceremonies but we are always looked down on. We live in constant fear for other tribes because as long as our termination is alive and breathing, it puts every tribe in the United States at risk of eventually suffering termination when the winds of politics shift direction. Most of our people are now elders and we have seen things happen because of being branded ”mixed-blood” that no Indian should ever have to see or endure.
I agree that the battles that are constantly being waged upon the Natives of this country would be best fought in numbers and not [those] who the government chooses to be Indian, regardless of their Native heritage.
– Oranna B. Felter
Roosevelt, UtahMs. Felter is the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the Interior Department trying to restore federal recognition for the Uintah Band of Utes.