Love in the Time of Blood Quantum

Hundreds of years ago when colonizers instituted the idea of “blood quantum” as a means of reducing the Native population, our Native ancestors probably did not envision a modern Indigenous world of Tinder, multi-billion dollar tribal enterprises and per cap payments, or a world where who we love might determine if our children are considered Indigenous at all. Last episode we talked about Blood Quantum through history, law, science, and policy. In this episode, we’ll approach the topic on a more personal level--how does it affect our love lives? Join Matika and Adrienne as they talk with our production team members Brooke and Nita about how we’ve navigated finding partners, racist federal/tribal policy, and how we’ve had no choice but to consider how blood quantum affects our children, our families, and our nations.

This is an emotional episode, we talk about a lot of really hard and personal things things--from enrollment and belonging, to cancer and to sexual assault. So we want to give you a heads up that this might be an episode you need to be emotionally ready for, and might want to give yourself the space to smudge or decompress after. But it’s also us--so we promise to maintain the chuckle.

We’re also at the end of Season One! We’d especially like to thank Brooke and Nita for weighing in on this episode, and for all of their hard work on Season One. This couldn’t and wouldn’t be possible without the help of our good friend Teo Shantz, who does all the production, engineering, and editing for this project. Also Ciara Sana, who creates the most beautiful episode art for us. We also want to thank the amazing Katherine Paul aka Black Belt Eagle Scout for the music on this episode, and we especially want to thank you. Thank you for listening. We love you! We’ll be back soon.