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Indigenous Enough: Rematriating Indigenous Identity Today

  • By: Rachel Arlene Redeye Porter
Rachel Arlene Redeye Porter stands in a blue ribbon skirt holding a handmade sign that says, “ I will not erase myself,” written in purple writing. She is standing in front of the side doors to her elementary school. She is in color, and the background is in gray scale.
Rachel Arlene Redeye Porter stands in front of her former elementary school, wearing a ribbon skirt and holding a sign that reads, “I will not erase myself.” By returning to a place where she once felt invisible, she reclaims her presence and identity. Photo by Adriano Kalin, 2021

As Haudenosaunee people, we define the Indigenous women-led movement of rematriation as “Returning the Sacred to the Mother.” Across Turtle Island (so-called “North America”) and around the world, Indigenous women are reclaiming traditional teachings and fostering healing within our families, clan systems, Nations, and the world. Our resilience exists in the face of centuries of violence perpetrated against us by colonial governments and mainstream culture. In the context of the so-called “United States,” culturally determined membership is challenged by blood quantum percentages and mainstream stereotypes, resulting in a hierarchy of authenticity within our communities. Systems inflicted upon us have blurred our ability to recognize and claim our people—regardless of status—and have shaped the discourse around who is considered “Indigenous Enough” to count. 

As a first-generation unenrolled Onöndowa’ga:’ (Seneca) Descendant, I ask, what would it look like to rematriate Indigenous identity narratives? Would honoring the sacredness of our children and their inherent connection to Mother Earth shift the conversation about who belongs? Would the way we judge ourselves and the relatives we hold at length soften? I have searched for places to explore these questions my entire life. Since I was five years old, I have understood that being a descendant means that I have no political voice within my Nation. In college, I struggled to figure out where I fit, and in my late 20s, I finally realized that if I didn’t claim my Indigeneity, my spirit would never be at peace. In 2021, at the age of 30, I founded The Indigenous Enough Project. I hope to not only embody my own space within the continuum of my ancestors and future generations, but also to create a new space that affirms the identities of other connected descendants, no matter where they are on their journey. The Indigenous Enough Project seeks to be a place where all Indigenous relatives can heal and repair relationships: with ourselves, with Creator, and with one another. All Indigenous peoples—recognized and unrecognized, enrolled and unenrolled, mixed or adopted, connected and re-connecting, disconnected or displaced, and disenrolled—are welcome. 

 

A rectangle of chalkboard paper is stuck to a cream wall. In white letters at the top in all caps is the title, “How do you identify? Join the conversation,” and the fill-in-the-blank prompt, “I feel like I belong when…” Answers by exhibit visitors are scattered across the board in white chalk in all different handwriting.
Interactive element of the Identity/Identify exhibition at the Iroquois Museum in Howes Cave, New York. Visitors were invited to complete the sentence “I feel like I belong when …” by writing their responses in chalk on a blackboard. Photo by Rachel A. R. Porter, 2021

Beginning in Fall 2025, The Indigenous Enough Project will be expanding further into the public sphere. For the last four years, our work has been informal and organic, primarily consisting of 1:1 and small group conversations among Indigenous community members, Indigenous justice activists, and traditional leaders. Beginning with spaces for connected descendants with the intention of expanding beyond that demographic, we will begin hosting Haudenosaunee-specific and intertribal spaces for descendants looking for community and connection. Individual coaching services for descendants looking for more tailored support will be available as well. We aim to provide as many of our offerings as we can at low-cost to no-cost price points and are currently in need of financial sponsorship to make this happen.

The support of enrolled community members will also be essential to the success of The Indigenous Enough Project. Among Haudenosaunee people, there continues to be widespread silence on the issue, but there are an increasing number of enrolled citizens bearing witness to the descendant experience. Accomplished traditional bone and antler carver, Hayden Haynes (Seneca Deer Clan, Kiowa, Muskoke) explores the relationship between enrolled and unenrolled Haudenosaunee people in his piece titled Descendants and Dependants, which was exhibited in 2021 as part of Identity/Identify exhibit at the Iroquois Museum in Howes Cave, New York. In his artist statement, he writes, “We cannot continue to sit by and watch our descendant sisters and brothers struggle […] They live their lives not being white enough or black enough to be accepted by those groups and not Native enough to be accepted by the Natives. But we share the same history, spirits, struggles, victories, and blood in our veins. How long will it be before we take action?” A common critique is that enrolling on the father’s line is not traditional and is at odds with defending the sovereignty of our nations, but the reality is that before colonization, adoptions were somewhat common, and the line between belonging and ostracization was significantly grayer. 

Author’s response to Lance Hodahkwen’s (Onondaga) 2014 work, It’s in Your Heart, exhibited in 2020 as part of Identity/Identify at the Iroquois Museum in Howes Cave, New York. The tile piece depicts figures in traditional Haudenosaunee style, each representing a different degree of Native ancestry—from fully red tiles (4/4 Native) to a single red tile at the heart (1/64). The card was displayed as part of an interactive visitor response. Photo by Rachel A. R. Porter, 2021

I know firsthand the severity of the mental health crisis that Indigenous descendants face. Community silence and lack of access to traditional teachings is an incredibly isolating, confusing, and painful experience. To experience community-inflicted shame related to a desire to claim your own identity is a form of generational trauma and lateral violence that begins in circles between the mind and body. There is a lack of research on the specific mental health experiences of mixed-race, non-status Indigenous people, but it is well documented that multiracial individuals have worse mental health outcomes than monoracial people. Simultaneously, Indigenous people are 2.5 times more likely than the general population to experience severe psychological distress. Non-status Indigenous people, particularly those who are mixed race, have access to even fewer resources to support their specific self-development and wellbeing than either group on their own. With the ongoing attack by the Trump Administration on the people, places, traditions, resources, and words we rely on to uplift and define ourselves, The Indigenous Enough Project has never been more needed. 

The phrase “Indigenous Enough” did not originate with me. It belongs to Indigenous people everywhere and organically trends in online articles about Indigenous identity, pops up in conversations with friends and family, and surfaces in academic articles. The common expression speaks to an experience that many Indigenous people—enrolled, unenrolled, living on rez or off—experience as they walk between two worlds, one rooted in their ancestral traditions and the other created specifically to erase and dominate those roots. Even within Nations such as my own, where citizenship continues to be passed traditionally through the mother, intertribal and interracial marriage has resulted in thousands of children being born to Native fathers who are not recognized as members of their Native mother’s community. Others, like myself, born to non-Native mothers, have no enrollment in any Indigenous nation at all. 

Marique S. Moss (Hidatsa/Dakota, African American), author of Sweetgrass and Soulfood: A Memoir in Poems, beautifully touches on these nuances. When I asked her how the phrase “Indigenous Enough” resonates with her lived experience as an enrolled Afro Indigenous woman she said, “The idea of being ‘Indigenous Enough’ is a wound many of us carry, especially those of us who are reconnecting, who are mixed/Afro Indigenous, who did not grow up with full access to our culture because of adoption, relocation, blood quantum, or assimilation, but I have come to understand that Indigeneity is not something you earn. It is a relationship you tend to. It lives in how you care for your community, how you show up for the land, how you protect language, story, medicine, and memory. Our ancestors did not measure belonging by paperwork or proximity. They measured it by responsibility. So I have stopped asking if I am ‘Indigenous Enough.’ I ask myself if I am living in a way that honors those who made me possible. And in that commitment, in that returning, I know I am.” That sounds like rematriation to me. 

The art of embracing one’s true self vulnerably is a practice that Malia’Kekia Nicolini (Kanaka Maoli) knows well. Malia’Kekia is an internationally touring teaching artist and actress, and co-founder of B4 the Other Creation, which specializes in teaching play and vulnerability. For her, the concept of being “Indigenous Enough” is “a reminder that everything I want to be, I already am [and that there is no need] to bargain my identity in order to belong.” Her work with B4 the Other Creations holds space for “exploration into individual and collective identity” rooted in the idea that “showing up and allowing ourselves to be fully seen is an invaluable tool for catalyzing foundational change in yourself, your community, and systemically.”

We as Indigenous people have always belonged, we have always been enough, and I dream of the day when all of us can remember this truth together in our full bodies and spirits. In my experience, “tending” to our Indigeneity is a lifelong practice. Unboxing ourselves out of colonial restraints and speaking our truths out loud are essential in restoring a narrative of who we are that reflects the full scope of who we are today.

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About the Author

Rachel A. R. Porter is a queer, disabled, chronically ill Seneca descendant and storyteller of mixed ancestry. She earned her Master’s in Human Security and Gender Analysis in International Affairs from The Fletcher School at Tufts University. She is the Founder of the Indigenous Enough Project, an initiative honoring the breadth of contemporary Indigeneity, and Co-Founder of Kneading Change, a narrative justice company.