Bill Clark
News and Politics

DNA Tests Are Not An Indicator of Native Identity

Just a heads up, Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

In this op-ed, writer Rory Taylor explains why DNA tests are contested as markers of indigenous identity.

On the morning of October 15, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) released DNA test results noting that she had a Native American in her family tree “dating back six to 10 generations." Warren used the results to settle an ongoing dispute between her and President Donald Trump about her Native ancestry, yet her comments were met with anger by many Indigenous peoples. She first made comments in 2012 claiming to be Cherokee and Delaware, but has simply used “Native American” more recently.

But why do Warren’s results and her choice to use a DNA test matter? First and foremost, they matter to many Native communities, because DNA tests are not accurate indicators of Indigenous identity and heritage. While many types of DNA tests utilize probabilities of hereditary markers, none of these are accurate enough to determine region, tribe, or a family or individual in a person’s genealogy. As well, companies conducting DNA tests have difficulty in determining Native identity due to a lack of information on the genetics of Native people.

Because of these inconsistencies in testing, no federally recognized tribe in the United States uses genetic testing as a means to determine enrollment. While all 573 federally recognized tribes make their own decisions regarding enrollment, generally tribes utilize lineal descendancy among other requirements including blood quantum, tribal residency, and continued contact with the nation. Genetic testing, at this time, is not specific enough to meet any of these common requirements because it would have to link participants with specific ancestors genealogically. So, while Warren may claim that she is some percentage “Native American” and has family stories of a Cherokee or Delaware ancestor, none of the three federally recognized Cherokee nations would recognize her as a member.

Her use of genetic testing also exaggerates the fundamental misunderstanding of how tribal nations — and nationhood — works. Genetic testing forces complex political and social relationships of being indigenous into narrow, stagnant boxes of racialized conceptions of who is “Native.” By using a DNA test, Warren participated in an action that denies present Indigenous peoples their current reality. This is why reframing the narrative to recognize Indigenous communities as political and civic nations, and their participants as citizens, is crucial. Indigenous citizenship is not just a self-identified, and potentially tenuous, connection to a Native community; it is also an acceptance by a Native nation of a person through kinship, connection, and patriotism.

This is why Warren’s choice to release her test results are not only wrong in proving some Indigenous heritage or identity but also harmful to actual Native peoples and nations today. And while modern DNA tests provide high levels of veracity for certain areas, like paternity testing, genetic ancestry testing is limited both by the number of samples and, therefore, the number of markers a given company has. This has resulted in situations where different companies can produce widely different results for a single person's ancestry.

By utilizing genetic testing, Warren has shown that “she focuses on and actually privileges DNA company definitions in this debate, which are ultimately settler-colonial definitions of who is Indigenous,” according to Kim TallBear, a Native studies professor at the University of Alberta in Canada. Warren has fundamentally taken away the right of Native nations, communities, and peoples to define themselves on their own terms, instead utilizing non-Indigenous sources to verify and be the arbiter of what is indigeneity, and who is Indigenous. This concretely harms Indigenous nations as it muddles and dilutes their real grievances about issues impacting them and who has the authority to speak on their behalf (as evidenced by Senator Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) current desire to "beat" Warren's purported Indigenous heritage).

Senator Warren’s actions, while harmful, point to a larger problem of how the American public view Indigenous nations and peoples. Rather than acknowledging that Indigenous peoples and communities are present and living entities, with real problems and grievances, the common narrative highlights a view of Native peoples as relics of a bygone era. The reality is that Native peoples have existed in North America since time immemorial, continue to do so in the present, and will remain here long in the future.


Related: How Foster Care Has Stripped Native American Children of Their Own Cultures

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