this was excellent, lots of history and using her personal experience and exposure to emphasize that history was well done.

This work of nonfiction educates without over-explaining and without holding back. The author uses her own journey of understanding her Native identity as a framework to explore the ways U.S. colonization continues to affect Native people today via tribal registration rules, family separation, and more. As always with nonfiction, IMO, it's the personal stories and interviews that really shine. It's incredible and heartbreaking to hear stories of people who were sent to boarding schools or adopted into white families, cutting them off from their heritage for years or, sometimes, forever. I'd recommend this especially to white people, extra especially if you've been told you have Native connections deep in your family tree.

“What routinely fails to show up in the textbook though is the modernity of Indian-ness. Native people still live and breathe. Still belly laugh and ugly cry, binge watch and cosplay, ride in ubers and doordash sushi. Native people walk over the same bones of settler colonialism as everyone else. We’re asked to bring a covered dish to Friendsgiving or to go in on a cabin airbnb over Columbus Day weekend.” - Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz

This book fills in the gaps where textbooks fail. The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America is an exploration of the history of indigenous identity in the United States. Lowry Schuettpelz describes both her own relationship with her tribe and the historical context that created it. This book is a satisfying blend of policy description, history, and personal anecdotes. Most importantly, it highlights just how important seemingly small distinctions in rules and policies can have generational impacts, a timely message for those in the US.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for this audiobook for review purposes.

The world needs more books like this that blend history with contemporary personal story. This is an accessible and interesting addition

Thank you to Netgalley and MacMillan Publishers for providing this audiobook for review.
Books like this one is so important in helping people know about native experiences not only of the past, but of current day experiences. This one I can relate to as someone who's far removed from my native ancestry. Something that I thought was myth that my relatives could claim to be something other than black. But tracing my genealogy has identified a possible truth to their stories. But what would be next, according to the authors own experience, I could identify the tribal heritage and hope that the great grandmother I never knew was a registered tribal member. And would I be able to meet the criteria to prove my heritage. Would I have to register annually to claim my heritage as I do my vehicle with the state. Would I now check another box other than black/African American. What other nationalities in this country have to prove their heritage and carry a card to say yes, you've met our standard of what we think you are.
This was an amazing, well researched, personal book that not only did I love but highly recommend especially if you've lost touch with your heritage whether it was through colonialism or generational distance.

It was interesting to listen to how the definition of Indian is not black and white, and depends from tribe to tribe.

The Indian Card by Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz is a fantastic, must-read for those in the US who want to understand the way native identity has been shaped by our history and policies. Threading the needle so perfectly, blending personal narrative with in depth research and analysis, Lowry Schuettpelz provides the reader with a perspective on belonging and identity that is nuanced and carefully considered. I have tried to read a lot of native history in the past few years but The Indian Card is especially effective at making it's point by using the personal narrative. As a reader, I really felt a shift in my perspective on native rights.

Great writing but great audio production as well in the audio version I listened to. Amy Hall does a great job with the topic. Just in time for the holidays, this would make an excellent gift for the non-fiction lovers in your life.

Personal narrative interwoven with the history of identifying Natives—how the US whipsawed from trying to destroy tribes to protecting them, but only if they’d somehow survived the earlier devastation while retaining traditions, governance, a compact enough territory, and a tribal identification system. Not all tribes use a blood quantum definition to identify members, but those who do tend to face resource demands that force difficult decisions. Children of parents from two different tribes may lack the blood quantum necessary to allow them to be enrolled members of either, even though pan-Indian movements have made such relationships more common. And the history on which blood quantum determinations are made is corrupt: the censuses the author examines assign racial classifications apparently arbitrarily and changeably; one ancestor she discusses was given three different labels in three different decennial censuses. One key metric, the Dawes list, included full siblings whose claims to Indianness were treated differently. (The unsurprising constraint on arbitrariness: people who looked white were often allowed to claim Indianness, but people who looked Black were often not.) But the book is not about alternatives—there may not be good ones—it is rather about sitting in the contradictions of using descent to manage identity in the context of Native life.

Many thanks to Netgalley and MacMillan audio for an advanced listening copy of the book. An absolutely eye-opening, fascinating, and reflective primer on looking into the complexities of Native American identity and the many layers of the U.S. Census. Schuettpelz uses her own personal story as a jumping off point to explore the thorny issue of "blood quantum". I had no idea that each tribe/nation has their own policy when it comes to enrollment nor the fact that membership needs to be renewed after a certain amount of years. Schuettpelz does not have the answer to the questions that we have regarding identity and belonging, but gives us a lot to think about. This is going on my staff favorites list of this year.

The audiobook narrator is wonderful and very easy to listen to. You can tell they were interested and passionate about the topic. I will definitely suggest to purchase the audiobook for my library.

Given recent *goings on* in the bookish community, this was a particularly interesting read. It provides great insight into an aspect of "belonging" that I wasn't aware of. The author does a great job of explaining and also delving deeper into the reason that some of these policies are in place. In addition to talking about policy and history, this book also does a great job at connecting to people's lived experiences and stories as well, which makes reading this book even more approachable,

The Indian Card provided great insight to the "right" of making the claim of Native American identity, ancestry, and tribal enrollment that has been so heavily complicated due to the US government and the various rules of the different tribes. It was good to hear this as the author went through her own identity journey and how she navigated the system for herself, while telling the stories of others who met obstacles along their lives. Additionally, it did dive into the horrific history of how the US government colonized and prevent-ed (saying it this way because those laws still have effects today) Native Americans from obtaining their full rights, heritage and land.

I do recommend this book to all. 5 out of 5.

Thank you Netgalley, Macmillan Audio and the author for the opportunity in exchange for an honest review.

I will be posting to socials.

I have native siblings, and nieces and nephews. They only know they are native due to DNA, as their connections to these tribes have been severed. (some of them are more than 50% native and know which tribe). The book does cover some of these instances. There are portions about the racist tests to determine if people were native. It feels gross knowing that our country did this but they did so we need to sit with those feelings.

In my family we do sometimes talk about the history and enrollment. I knew that there were different rules for enrollment for each tribe and that the tribes themselves may not be in charge of how those are enforced. I knew it was racist and exclusive. I knew it was basically crap.
I did not know a lot of other information in this group. Although, I do not have native DNA I do like to know more about how these things affect people in our country and especially my family.
I am so grateful for this book.

The narration was wonderful.

This book feels like essential reading to better want understand when someone talks about tribal membership, blood quantum, and tribal identities. The audiobook experience specifically was powerful—the narrator did a fantastic job bringing this book to life. It was informative but compulsively readable and easy to understand (perhaps at least in part by the way the audiobook narrator read it). I love how the author wove in storytelling (her own and other people who identify as native) to illustrate the reality of the multitude of nuances and specifics involved in this topic. I cannot reccomend this enough and absolutely need to get a physical copy. TYSM Netgalley and the publisher for the audio arc!

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz has written a fantastic book. She explores the idea of Native identity and what that means. She discusses recognition, blood quantum, tribal roles; and the role each has played in denying some Native Americans their rights and allowing white people to continue to take from Native tribes.

One thing I really liked about this book was that while she discusses these difficult and technical topics, she presents them in terms of the people they affect. She brings the bureaucratic nature of the government's attempts to eradicate Native Americans to the average person. She tells stories and discusses the affects of these policies on her family and other families. She talks about how blood quantum is only used to determine breed/family in cows, dogs, and Indians. Indians are the only people subject to this. She discuss tribal recognition in that her tribe is not federally recognized and if it were, they would open a casino on I95 which would take away business from other Native casinos. The politics behind every single policy decision the U.S. government has made regarding Native Americans is made to shine under Ms. Schuettpelz's spotlight.

This was an excellent book and I learned so much from it.

The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America was a Macmillan Audio pick, and I need everyone to read this book. This book is completely indescribable in the insight Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz frankly shares on Native American self and political identity in the United States. It is honestly hard for me to talk about the impositions on Native Americans because it frustrates me on their behalf, and yet I recognize my white, American, privilege. This book would be perfect for anyone on a journey of decolonizing one’s mind—which is so important for living in our world today.

Schuettpelz does not hold back in her call outs of “f-ed up” situations, which I absolutely admired because why would we beat around the bush of ugliness? Sometimes, the data and numbers did lose me a little, and I’d have to go over them again, but she is admittedly into data, and numbers have not historically been it for me. My favorite parts of this book were the anecdotes that Schuettpelz recorded from individuals from around the country and in various tribes, one being a First Nations woman. Schuettpelz peeled back the layers of intricacies of US federal law and tribal law, revealing hypocrisies, racism, and the effects of colonization on Native American tribes’ own cultures.

As you can imagine, this book had no “answers” per se, but it presented data and perspectives I think are important. And that’s honestly such an understatement.

I recommend this book to absolutely everyone. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Amy Hall, a new to me narrator with quite a few titles under her belt, and do recommend it for audiophiles as well.

The Indian Card did an excellent job of exploring stories from different interviewees to give a proper view of what it means to be Native in America today. It was fascinating to learn of the different ways that tribal enrollment works, from blood quantum to paternal lineage. Overall, an interesting read.

I do love a nonfiction book that has personal stories along with well researched data! And Schuettpelz did a great job interweaving the two, and I learned so much that I didn’t know. America tends to gloss over certain parts our history thinking it is in the past and is over and done with. As The Indian Card shows, what was done in the past reverberates in the present and future.

The production and narration of this audiobook was superb. I had a hard time pausing it.

I absolutely loved this. I am Cherokee & I truly believe Carrie did an amazing job in capturing what happened to Native Americans. I feel that she covered every topic she possibly could. Just hearing about how much research she had to go through is astronomical. Especially since we all know that the government did their best to be deceitful in their dealings with the indigenous population. Amy Hall does an amazing job narrating this book. It sounds like you’re on this adventure of discovery with Carrie. It’s very personable & certainly feels like your next top author listening to her tell the story.
I will most definitely recommend this to my native book club & I will recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about what it can take to register.

“Once you are armed with that history and that evidence, this country can’t lie to you anymore about why it looks the way that it does” - Clint Smith on the power of learning and knowing facts.

Written by a former Obama Administration Policy Advisor, this timely work of nonfiction is unsurprisingly data driven, and carefully matched with revealing life stories of people deeply affected by this ominous history. She explores the complicated process of tribal enrollment and how laws from within each tribal community along with federal frameworks, dictate who “gets to be native.”

The U.S. government’s relationship with Indigenous People is subdivided into the policy eras as follows: Coexistence, Removal, Assimilation, Reorganization, Termination and Self Determination. These forbidding terms provide a structure for often times chilling stories of real life Americans.

The census, with a history of misrepresenting the population, focused on the phenomenon of blood quantum (percentage of Native blood) as a legal system of registry. I was shocked to learn how these records themselves provide damning evidence of racism, theft and dehumanization.

The questions of identity, belonging and justice are front and center in this stunning work. As we celebrate this federal holiday I implore people to investigate this history of the tribal nations and their members; a history defining an entire group of Americans who frankly, were here first.

Titles I highly recommend for those who want to dive deeper into this significant subject:
Portraits of Earth Justice: Americans Who Tell the Truth by Robert Shetterly
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Crow Mary by Kathleen Grissom
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty

Many thanks to Flatiron Books, Macmillan Audio and Net Galley for the early copy in exchange for my honest review!

My ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I read this book hoping to find some answers and instead was educated on why and how the answers and even the questions themselves are complicated.
Who is gets to call themselves “Indian”?Only those who are enrolled in their tribes? Those who don’t meet or can’t provide evidence that they meet Blood Quantum standards? Who created those standards and why? (Hint:it was the federal government and the harder to enroll the fewer people qualify for benefits which now also translates into who is eligible for shares of tribal income from casinos, etc.). If a person doesn’t meet/can’t document high enough Blood Quantum for one particular tribe, at what point are they a “Pretend-ian”? Is simply marking oneself as Native American on a census or other federal form and identifying as such a form of political defiance? Should there be a path to join one’s native tribe but not as an official enrolled member with benefits? Who gets to feel part of and deserving of a seat within their native community?