Who Gets to Be Indian?

In Who Gets to Be Indian?, scholar Dina Gilio-Whitaker investigates how Native American identity has been commodified and exploited under settler capitalism, leading to widespread confusion over what it means to be Indigenous in the U.S. She examines the phenomenon of “pretendians”—people who falsely claim Native heritage—through a case study of Sacheen Littlefeather, tracing its roots to Southern California, where forced assimilation and the Hollywood film industry turned “Indianness” into a marketable persona that anyone could adopt. Using socio-historical analysis and personal reflection, Gilio-Whitaker argues that this commodification has not only enabled ethnic fraud but has also disenfranchised legitimate tribal members, leaving many disconnected from their communities. The book ultimately seeks to clarify these issues and counter the harms of pretendianism and disenrollment.