A review by onceandfuturereads
The Indian Card: Who Gets to Be Native in America by Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz

informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

The Indian Card is a lot of complex and fascinating ideas wrapped up in a tight package. I learned SO MUCH about census data and rolls - things that I would never have learned about in school. But despite what that subject matter may sound like, it's never dry. I appreciated the author's scattering personal interviews throughout the text and also her unique voice - she writes so poignantly at the same time that she's swearing and I LOVE THAT in a book. She also somehow manages to make parts of this story FUNNY?! I think I was expecting this book to be more about white people pretending to be Native for profit, but that's barely discussed here. Instead, we get a deeply personal narrative about Schuettpelz's own Native identity and why it means so much to her. 

Overall, the combination of U.S. history, memoir, and interview was well done and I'll be looking for more of Schuettpelz's work in the future.