Letter for the SMOKE SIGNALS

November 2007
Dear Tribal Members,

Enrollment has been and will continue to be a hot topic in not only our Tribe, but all Indian Country. I personally believe that regardless of how the upcoming Constitutional election fares, whether members vote for the changes or for our membership requirements to remain the same, the issue will probably not die out, ever. In our lives I would say it is very likely that we will see other proposed amendments to our Constitution regarding enrollment requirements. What those will be exactly I can’t really say, but I promise you they will come.
Frankly, I am fine with that. Much like immigration issues in our country, developing laws and policies to control population growth is naturally to be expected. You can’t govern a nation when its population is expanding at a rate that is impossible to manage. I think that is what our Tribal Council had in mind back in 1999 when they put forth the Constitutional amendment for the General Membership to vote on.
I don’t think they intended many of the side-effects that have since plagued some of our Tribal families, particularly those with split siblings–one who can enroll and one who cannot. Or people who have plenty of Indian blood but cannot enroll because their parents aren’t on the Restoration roll. Or those 35 children whose parents were sent letters in 2005 informing them of “errors” in their enrollment files, meaning the status they enjoyed as Tribal members would be revoked.
The proposed amendments to our Constitution will fix many of these problems. It may not fix every enrollment problem, realistically some probably can’t be fixed. But it will help heal the damage that has been done to some of our Tribal families. I know this because one of those families is my own.
I am asking you as a fellow Tribal member to please register and vote “yes” on the proposed Constitutional amendments coming up in February. You will be doing something very good, very humane, and very generous. It is the right thing to do.

Sincerely,

Dee Edwards