Beyond Recognition: Native Californian Identity and the Federal Acknowledgment Process

Olivia Chilcote
Ethnic Studies
UC Berkeley

The United States’ Bureau of Indian Affairs creates an artificial hierarchy amongst “federally acknowledged” and “unacknowledged” Native American tribes. Unacknowledged tribes are not considered sovereign nations with a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. To gain sovereign status, hundreds of tribes across the nation are actively petitioning for federal acknowledgment through the BIA’s standardized process, the Federal Acknowledgment Process (FAP). Little scholarship addresses how unacknowledged status impacts Native identity. My dissertation analyzes the connection between the FAP and community identity as it materializes in California. My study interrogates what it means to place tribal understandings of identity at the center of federal Indian law and policy. I examine how new perspectives on law and policy emerge when community-centered ideas of identity engage legal status. To do this, I use a case study of the San Luis Rey Band of Luiseño Mission Indians from San Diego County.