(Courtesy of Center for Native Futures)

In a landmark building in the Loop, a band of artists launched a new art gallery unlike any in Chicago. Across from Federal Plaza stands the Marquette Building, built in 1895. Its newest tenant is the forward-looking Center for Native Futures.

The inaugural exhibition showcases dynamic work from artists representing 19 Native tribes. The center was founded by artists on a mission to make an epicenter of Native creativity.

One founder is Chris Pappan, a visual artist who exhibits internationally and helped shape the “Native Truths” exhibition that debuted at the Field Museum in 2022. Pappan is an enrolled member of the Kanza Nation and has Lakota heritage.

“We’re not making pottery for tourists or dreamcatchers to hang in your car,” Pappan told WTTW News. “We are raising important issues of identity, politics, history and survival in our work. We are visualizing and activating our future selves by not kowtowing to pressures of what Native art is supposed to look like or what other people may think. We are defining it for the here and now.”

Pappan’s work is layered with history and alludes to the “ledger art” made by 19th century Native prisoners who made art on ledgers and other scrap paper. His wife, Debra Yepa-Pappan, is also a co-founder and artist. She is of Jemez Pueblo descent.

Chris Pappan’s work alludes to the “ledger art” made by 19th century Native prisoners who made art on ledgers and other scrap paper. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)

“This is really Chris and Debra’s baby,” said artist Monica Rickert-Bolter, a citizen of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation. “They had the vision to do this over 20 years ago. Most of us are from the Great Lakes region or have Chicago ties. We’re all mixed-identity Natives trying to figure out how we keep our traditional practices alive, but also showcase how we’ve evolved and how these things are still continuing.”

The artists have a choice location in the Marquette Building because one of their primary supporters is the MacArthur Foundation, which owns the building. The Marquette is also home to historic Tiffany mosaics — murals that depict the life of the building’s namesake, the French explorer Father Jacques Marquette.

As Rickert-Bolter explained: “There are these beautiful Tiffany murals that display the narrative behind the Jesuit priest Marquette, but it’s problematic. The imagery of the Native people are clearly Plains (as opposed to Potawatomie). It’s very romanticized and uplifting, showing how the Europeans tamed these Natives, these savages, and all that.”

In January 2024 an exhibition will address the problems with the Tiffany murals and explore the history of the Potawatomie people in the area.

(Courtesy of Center for Native Futures)

Artists of the Center for Native Futures refer to “Indigenous futurism,” an ever-evolving term meant to expand possibilities by “imagining our realities without colonial limitations.” They developed the nonprofit gallery with key funding from the Chicago-based Terra Foundation for American Art and opened in September.

“The reaction we’ve been getting in the gallery is showing me that people here have been starving for accurate, contemporary representations of Native people,” Pappan said. “I’m glad we’re able to share that in our hometown.”

The gallery also appears to be the first of its kind.

“In most recent memory, we are the first,” Rickert-Bolter said. “But we don’t want to be the last.”

The inaugural exhibition, “Native Futures,” runs through May 17, 2024, at the Center for Native Futures, 56 W. Adams St. in Chicago.

MENDOCINO, 10/31/23 — Louis Joseph, a member of the Hopland Band of Pomo Indians, has a strategy to change the world. It’s expressed by his website and his newsletter, “I Know a Native.”

“As corny as that may sound, I actually think having a nearly impossible goal is a good thing,” Joseph said at his booth during the seventh iteration of the Native Arts Expo. “I want every person in this world to know a Native. Not because I think we’re better than everyone, but because I think the connection of all our planet’s people will transcend humanity into heights it hasn’t seen.” 

Joseph’s message was echoed by a wide variety of artistic expression at Native Arts Expo 7, held at the Mendocino Art Center in Mendocino on Friday and Saturday. It was the biggest by far, said organizer and founder Eric Wilder (Kashia Band of Pomo Indians). The event is an annual opportunity to see and buy art created by Native American artists living and working in Northern California. 

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Throughout the month of October, the art center exhibited traditional and contemporary Native art in a special exhibition titled “Evolving Traditions.”  The exhibit culminated in the Native Arts Expo, a celebration and showcase of regional Indigenous art that was held in the grassy area outside the center. The event was packed with artists exhibiting their work at booths, live performers and seminars. 

The performances ranged from singers from genres as different as rap, comedy and country. 

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There were poetry readings, Native American-led meditations and reflections, classes and special presentations. Some booths had art for sale, while others asked people to volunteer for causes such as salmon and forest restoration. There were jewelry artists and many basket makers, along with painters, weavers, makers of parkas, fashion designers, blanket makers, a cookbook author, a farmer, a bakery, and a booth showcasing tule boat construction. All the booths were operated by Native Americans from Northern California and other parts of the country. Annual tule boat races are held in Clear Lake every July. 

Joseph was having a conversation with Joe Weber (Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians), who earlier demonstrated to the crowd how a tule boat is made. The two talked about the best way for Native Americans to move forward in a time when exciting things are happening, such as the Land Back movement that restores land sovereignty to local tribal governments. There is also a renewed interest, rapidly gathering steam in this age of wildland fires, in traditional Indigenous forestry practices that involve periodic managed burns. They also discussed how at the same time, Native American communities continue to struggle with a wide range of social issues such as high rates of poverty, addiction and suicide.

Joseph’s solution is for Native Americans to get to know people outside their circle — as well as for non-Indigenous to get to know Native American people. Weber’s solution is to empower Native American communities with their rich history. Other participants at the event hope that music and visual arts can forge a way forward.

Weber said the July tule boat races in Clear Lake are worth the effort it takes to put on the event. Kids having a fun day on the water  realize a cool connection to their own traditions and past. “Someday many years from now, I will be gone but those young people will remember being there to see that and will be able to pass the tradition on,” said Weber.

Joseph said many people love to learn about Native American history and unique traditions such as making tule boats. But of course, history is not for everybody. “Telling the history is so important,” Joseph said. “I am so glad we have people to do this. For me, I’m not about telling the stories of Sitting Bull. That’s important, but I’m more focused on what is going on in the world right now.”

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Joseph’s newsletter touches on subjects ranging from a rapper using the word “squaw” to sports mascot controversies to his own efforts to learn the Northern Pomo language and why Native Americans  might prefer that term over “Indians” or “Indigenous peoples.” Each editorial focuses on his efforts to discuss such issues with others outside the community.

His latest posting is about the movie Killers of the Flower Moon. He said that Martin Scorsese’s personal connections with Native Americans helped motivate him to make the movie.

“Anytime someone hears a story like [Killers of the Flower Moon], it has much more meaning if they know someone who connects them to it,” Joseph said. “People hear all the bad stuff going on out there and then they hear all what was done to Native people and say ‘I don’t know anything about this and really can’t care about it.’ But if they know a Native person personally and then they hear about something in the news or in history, they will be drawn in. ‘That happened to someone I know, that is being done to the people of my friend!’ They will be much more likely to learn about it and care.”

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“Anytime someone hears a story like this, it has much more meaning if they know someone who connects them to it,” Joseph said. “People hear all the bad stuff going on out there and then they hear all what was done to Native people and say ‘I don’t know anything about this and really can’t care about it.’ But if they know a Native person personally and then they hear about something in the news or in history, they will be drawn in. ‘That happened to someone I know, that is being done to the people of my friend!’ They will be much more likely to learn about it and care.”

Organizer Eric Wilder, a prolific artist and member of the Kashia Band of Pomo Indians, said he worked with the Ford House restroom art tile project, where he made connections that led to the event being so big this year. The project brought together artists and community members throughout Mendocino to renovate and redesign a public restroom located in central Mendocino near the historic Ford House. He said he spent a lot of time promoting the expo on social media and talking about the event to tribal people all over California.

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The California Indian Heritage Center had a booth at the event, and implemented surveys and collected input on plans to build a marquee center celebrating California’s many diverse tribal communities on what is now California State Parks property in Sacramento. Representatives from the center are attending events in every county in California and contacting every tribe about contributing to the center. Once built, it could rival the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawaii.

Natyia Whipple spent the weekend helping her mother explain a Native project on salmon restoration. “My mom handles most of this but I know there is a lot going on with dam removal, stream restoration and political work,” she said. “People of all ages are involved.” Read more about Whipple’s mother’s work as covered by The Mendocino Voice here.

The Native Arts Expo started nine years ago in Gualala with a two-year hiatus during the pandemic. Past events had about 20 booths, with 54 this time. There are plans afoot for sponsors and larger venues. Wilder has contributed to the making of Native American designs for Nike shoes, and believes the company can be attracted to sponsor a big event for California Native artists, at a larger venue. He also said Eighth Generation, a Seattle-based art and lifestyle brand owned by the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, would likely be interested.

• Colleagues denounce $167,000-a-year professor of American Indian studies as a ‘con artist’ after she fails to find a single indigenous ancestor
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee launches investigation into Margaret Noodin but she keeps a job with the college teaching part-time 
• She insists she did not lie and says her family told her she was related to American Indians  

By Dominic Yeatman For Dailymail.Com

Published: 16:34 EDT, 31 October 2023 | Updated: 17:19 EDT, 31 October 2023

Former colleagues of a $167,000-a-year university professor of American Indian studies have said they feel betrayed after she admitted having no evidence of Native American ancestry.

Margaret Noodin, 58, was called a ‘con artist’ after leaving her job as director of the Electa Quinney Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee last year amid growing suspicion about her claims to an indigenous identity.

The linguist posted a ‘positionality statement’ insisting her family told her she had Native American relatives when she was a child.

But fellow academic Doug Kiel of Wisconsin‘s Oneida Nation hauled her submissions from an exhibition of indigenous art in Chicago when he read it and denounced her as a fraud.

‘It was really quite rambling babble about, ‘I know a person and I was in a ceremony’,’ he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, ‘And it’s like, no, no, no, no, this is not how this works at all.’

Noodin was working as an Ojibwe language instructor in Michigan when she was appointed by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to teach at the institute in 2014.

Her heritage was called into question in 2021 on a forum called New Age Fraud. The following year, Noodin brought the accusations to the administration’s attention. 

She had denied lying about her heritage, and in 2021 told the Journal-Sentinel that she grew up believing she was indigenous because of what her family told her. 

Noodin said she can not point to any tribal nation she has descended from, but has spent years learning the Ojibwe language and forging connections in the community. 

Dean Scott Gronert apologized to her for ‘having to deal with these challenges to your identity, which you have so openly addressed in your recent posts and throughout your time at UWM.’

That led to Noodin posting a ‘personality statement’ to a page – but its one that drew more questions as it name dropped many people she worked with, those she married and her birth name of O’Donnell. 

It did not discuss her relatives from the Ojibwe tribe or her connections to the past. 

‘My understanding of my own race and ethnicity has evolved over time and there are many ancestors I look forward to meeting when I leave this world,’ she wrote in the online post.

‘I have been part of sugar bush, traditional gardening, wiigwaas harvest, berry processing and wild ricing.

‘I am a former bow-hunter and have caught and cleaned many fish and muskrats,’ she continued.

‘I have dedicated my time on Earth to learning and teaching the language of my ancestors.’

The admission came as a bombshell to former students and colleagues, convinced they had been duped.

‘I felt betrayed,’ said Antonio Doxtator, an Oneida Nation citizen. ‘I never would have taken her classes if I’d known she wasn’t Native.’

University of Michigan instructor Howard Kimewon said Noodin was a ‘con artist’ who took advantage of him and exploited his knowledge of Ojibwe to further her own career.

‘She did enough damage to me,’ he told the Sentinal. ‘I can’t forget it.’

Noonan told her readers that ‘race-shifting, fraud and indigenous identity are important topics being examined closely today.’

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has begun an investigation into Noodin but she retains a job with the college teaching part-timer online. She did leave her $167,000-a-year role with the university amid the scandal. 

Meanwhile she has secured a new post in Minnesota as director of a tribal nation’s Head Start program.

‘Throughout my life I have tried to continually increase my knowledge of my own family and the communities where I am welcome and included,’ she said in a statement.

‘During my life I have listened to relatives, friends and elders who asked that I use my gifts and creativity to honor all of my ancestors without denial or erasure of oral family histories.’

But Assistant Professor Kiel told her she had lost her credibility.

‘No matter how you slice it, you have made very big, inexcusable mistakes that legitimately call into question whether you can be trusted to work with Native people and communities,’ he wrote to her in an email.

‘You have years of amends to start making.’

She is not the only person to come under fire in recent years for allegations of deceiving others about their background. 

Earlier this year, the chief inclusion officer at a Philadelphia-based Quaker group was ‘outed’ by her mother, who said she had no idea why her daughter claimed to be of Latin, South Asian and Arab descent.

Colleagues of Raquel Saraswati at the American Friends Service Committee said the felt ‘conned’ after mother Carol Perone revealed her daughter was ‘white as the driven snow’.

In 2019 Kay LeClaire of Sussex, Wisconsin, resigned from the indigenous artists’ collective she had founded when it was revealed she was a white college student passing off Native American art bought on Etsy as her own.

Perhaps the most famous ‘race-faker’ of all is Rachel Dolezal who spent ten years posing as a black woman before she was outed in 2015.

Dolezal, 45, was a chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Spokane, Washington, and also a teacher of Africana studies at East Washington University. 

INFAMOUS ‘RACE FAKERS’ IN THE US

Rachel Dolezal – former college professor and NAACP activist known for identifying as a black woman despite having been born to white parents. She was ‘outed’ in 2015.

Jessica Krug – a white professor of African American studies at George Washington University confessed in a Medium post earlier in September 2020 that she had been faking being black for years, and was in fact a Jewish woman from Kansas.   

Satchuel Cole – born Jennifer Lynn Benton, the Indiana-based activist and member of Black Lives Matter admitted in a Facebook post in September 2020 to having ‘taken up space as a Black person while knowing I am white’. 

CV Vitolo-Haddad – she resigned from her teaching job at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after admitting in September 2020 that she pretended on multiple occasions to be black or Latino. She is actually Southern Italian and Sicilian.

Hilaria Baldwin – the wife of actor Alec Baldwin was born in Boston to American parents, but changed her name from Hilary in 2009. She has claimed to be Spanish, because her parents live there and she spent time there as a child. She was ‘outed’ in December 2020. 

Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan – in January 2021 the prominent human rights lawyer admitted that she was not a Latina, but was born to white parents in Georgia. 

As one of the oldest cities in the nation, Philadelphia offers a rich tapestry of Indigenous culture, art, artifacts, historical lands and sacred legends.

The sites and stories from the region’s long (and often complicated) relationship with the native Lenape people dot the landscape and can be explored through area museums and public art, at historic sites and battlefields and among the 14,000 Philadelphians of Indigenous ancestry.

The History of Indigenous Peoples in Greater Philadelphia

Before William Penn founded Philadelphia in the early 1680s, before the British took control in 1664, before Swedish and Finnish colonists settled the area in 1623, the region that is now Philadelphia was the ancestral homeland of the Lenape peoples (whom Europeans called the Delaware) for millennia. The area’s earliest residents were Paleo-Indian hunter-gatherers who then settled the area named Lënapehòkink around 8,000 B.C.

By the 1680s, Sakimauchheen Ing — referred to as Shackamaxon by settlers and located in what are now Philadelphia’s River Wards neighborhoods of Fishtown, Kensington and Port Richmond — was an important village to the Turtle Clan of the Unami Lenape, a key location in their territory along the Delaware River watershed. It was at Shackamaxon (fittingly a Lenape term meaning “a place where chiefs meet”) in the early 1680s (the exact year is debated) where William Penn and local Lenape Chief of Chiefs Tamanend signed a treaty agreeing to live in perpetual peace, under an ancient elm tree in modern-day Penn Treaty Park.

While that peace stood firm during his lifetime, the period after William Penn was a time of broken accords, forced migrations and sham agreements. The most egregious aggression: the Walking Purchase of 1737, when Penn’s heirs swindled over 1 million acres from the Lenape through a land grab disguised as a deceitful treaty. Historical markers throughout Bucks County denote important sites of that deception. (More on those below.)

Decades later, the region’s Indigenous peoples fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Some allied with the British to protect their culture and curtail land encroachment, others supported the colonists over personal beliefs, important relationships and British exploitation.

Indigenous Peoples in Greater Philadelphia Today

Today, these stories of allyships, conflicts and culture come to life at sites like Valley Forge National Historical Park and the Museum of the American Revolution. Visitors to the region can walk the battlefield at Barren Hill, view public art like the towering Tamanend statue, explore Indigenous artwork through galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Penn Museum, and study important artifacts — including the wampum belt presented to William Penn at Shackamaxon and the famous Lenape Stone — live in person.

The spirit of the region’s Indigenous culture and history is integral to and bonded with the country’s post-Revolutionary culture and history. Below, find our guide on where to experience Indigenous culture and history today at museums, galleries, businesses and more in Greater Philadelphia.

Weeks out from opening day of an Indigenous art exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum last year, Doug Kiel raised an alarm with other curators.

One of the featured artists, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor and poet Margaret Noodin, had posted a statement online meant to address long-running questions about whether she was really Native.

But to Kiel, who is a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, the statement read like an admission she was not Native.

“It’s really quite rambling babble about, ‘I know a person and I was in a ceremony,’ and it’s like, ‘No, no, no, no. This is not how this works at all,’” said Kiel, a Native American history professor at Northwestern University.

Kiel said he and other curators considered it a breach of trust that Noodin did not disclose her family history was “full of question marks.” They scrambled to remove her work from the exhibit.

“No matter how you slice it, you have made very big, inexcusable mistakes that legitimately call into question whether you can be trusted to work with Native people and communities,” Kiel wrote in an email to Noodin this spring, which he shared with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “You have years of amends to start making.”

It was a flashpoint in a now-yearslong controversy over Noodin’s ancestry that ramped up in 2021 after anonymous users of an online forum began accusing Noodin of misleading people about her identity.

Since then, Noodin stepped down from a $167,000-per-year job as director of UWM’s Electa Quinney Institute, which supports Native students and research. She moved out of the Milwaukee metro area and resettled in Minnesota, where she is director of a tribal nation’s Head Start program. She still teaches online classes part time at UWM.

At best, Noodin has been accused of not being fully transparent about the extent of her Indigenous heritage. At worst, she has been accused of lying about who she is and building a career around a fictitious Indigenous identity.

The controversy over Noodin’s identity has cast a shadow over her work to revitalize Indigenous languages. It raises questions about who belongs in leadership positions that support Indigenous students, and how universities vet those people.

Noodin, who declined to give an interview for this story but touched on her identity in a 2021 Journal Sentinel interview for an unrelated story, has denied lying about who she is.

Despite admitting she does not have documentation of an Indigenous ancestor, she said she grew up believing she was Indigenous because of what her family told her. She cannot point definitively to a tribal nation she is descended from but has spent years learning the Ojibwe language and forging connections with Indigenous communities.

“Throughout my life I have tried to continually increase my knowledge of my own family and the communities where I am welcome and included,” she said in a statement for this story. “During my life I have listened to relatives, friends and elders who asked that I use my gifts and creativity to honor all of my ancestors without denial or erasure of oral family histories.”

Emails obtained by the Journal Sentinel show UWM officials privately backed Noodin and tried sidestepping the controversy until the news organization began asking questions this spring. In response to a public records request, UWM indicated in August it had opened an investigation into Noodin.

UWM declined to make administrators available for an interview but said it is “aware of and troubled by” the allegations against Noodin.

“Our students and communities must trust that we are honest and authentic in our work,” the statement said.

Critics of UWM professor Margaret Noodin feel ‘betrayed’

Noodin began teaching at UWM in 2013, after many years as an Ojibwe language instructor in Michigan. She received tenure in 2016.

The online posts accusing Noodin of lying about her identity began in 2021, on a forum called New Age Fraud.

The following year, Noodin brought the anonymous accusations to the attention of several UWM administrators, emails show. Noodin said the accusers have “been trying for nearly a year to get me fired” and questioned whether it had reached the point of defamation.

In March 2022, she posted a “positionality” statement online, meant to clarify her racial and ethnic identity. She also responded on the forum to users.

“The fact that I haven’t really been misrepresenting myself seems to set off even more fury,” she told UWM officials in an email.

Scott Gronert, dean of the College of Letters and Science, wrote back with an apology for “having to deal with these challenges to your identity, which you have so openly addressed in your recent posts and throughout your time at UWM.”

But at least some students didn’t feel Noodin had been transparent.

Antonio Doxtator, a two-time UWM graduate who took two of her Ojibwe language classes, was stunned to read her statement. To him, it was confirmation Noodin had little, if any, Indigenous ancestry.

“I felt betrayed,” said Doxtator, an Oneida Nation citizen. “I never would have taken her classes if I’d known she wasn’t Native.”

Two other former students who are tribal members described feeling uncomfortable in classes or avoiding campus events because of their suspicions, even before 2021, that Noodin was not Native. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Noodin or her supporters.

Some of Noodin’s former colleagues, like University of Michigan instructor Howard Kimewon, felt similarly betrayed. The two taught Ojibwe language classes together in Michigan.

Kimewon told the Journal Sentinel he felt like Noodin took advantage of him and used him for his knowledge of Ojibwe, his first language, to publish books together and further her career. He said he doesn’t believe Noodin is helping people, going so far as to call her a “con artist.”

“She did enough damage to me,” he said. “I can’t forget it.”

Martina Osawamick, of the Wiikwemkoong First Nation in Ontario, worked with Noodin at a nonprofit for preserving the nation’s languages and culture. She said Noodin implied she was Native and was “appalled” to learn Noodin hadn’t been forthcoming about her identity.

“It’s absolutely not right for people to be doing this,” she said. “It’s disturbing.”

Who can claim Indigeneity?

Noodin’s case comes in the midst of an ongoing debate in Indian Country about race-shifting, fraud and “pretendians,” or people who falsely portray themselves as having Indigenous ancestry.

Madison arts leader Kay LeClaire was exposed earlier this year on the same online forum for allegedly fabricating an Indigenous identity and building a career around it.

Other prominent examples include ethnic studies scholar Andrea Smith, whose claims to Cherokee heritage have been contested repeatedly, and University of California, Berkeley professor Elizabeth Hoover, who admitted to wrongly identifying as Native. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren was criticized for previously claiming she was Native and relying on family stories of Cherokee and Delaware ancestors.

“It does harm because they are taking the microphone from Indigenous people who are perfectly capable of representing themselves,” said Ojibwe language expert Anton Treuer. “It can damage the faith that people have in whatever activity that person is associated with.”

The questions around who can call themselves Indigenous are complex. 

In the U.S., one way Indigenous people identify themselves is through enrollment as a citizen in a recognized tribe.

But not everyone who comes from Indigenous ancestry qualifies for enrollment in a tribe. Many tribes still use “blood quantum” to decide who qualifies for enrollment, a controversial standard that requires a minimum percentage of tribal blood and has origins in federal efforts to disenfranchise Native peoples.

Other tribes do not use blood quantum, and only require members have proof of descent from a tribal member.

Even so, some Indigenous people lack definitive proof of their ancestry. Centuries of federal efforts to forcibly remove Native Americans from their homelands and assimilate them into white society have eroded their ties to tribal communities and caused many to lose connection with their cultures.

But critics of Noodin say that is not Noodin’s story.

“Unverified claims to Indigenous communities is not sufficient, not for an Indigenous studies expert, for a scholar in the field,” said Kiel, the museum curator.

‘We don’t have any evidence’

Born Margaret O’Donnell, Noodin was raised in Chaska, Minnesota, a suburb of the Twin Cities.

She told the Journal Sentinel she grew up believing she was Native American partly because of family stories of boarding school and an older relative who spoke Ojibwe words and phrases. The Ojibwe people, also known as Chippewa, are a culture of Native peoples spread across the northern U.S. and Canada.

Noodin studied at the University of Minnesota and wrote for a Native newspaper, The Circle. She earned her doctorate in 2001. Her thesis was on Native American literature.

Afterward, she began teaching Ojibwe at Michigan universities and publishing books and poetry in the language.

Shortly before leaving for UWM, she changed her last name from her married name of Noori to Noodin, an Ojibwe name meaning “windy.”

In online publications and newspaper articles, Noodin often identified as an Ojibwe descendant without specifying which of the dozens of existing Ojibwe tribes she was supposedly descended from. When she did identify a tribe, she sometimes used vague language, saying she was “affiliated with” or “connected with” that tribe. Over time, she has claimed affiliations with different Ojibwe tribes and with Métis peoples in Canada.

More recently, she has also begun to note her Irish, French and English ancestry.

Noodin has claimed in online posts her Ojibwe ancestry stems from a great-great-grandfather on her father’s side, named Henri Lavallee, but she has provided no documentation of his existence. Early 20th-century marriage records for that family line list a different person as her great-great-grandfather.

“If I can find more records on Henri Lavallee, that would be great,” Noodin told the Journal Sentinel in 2021.

Noodin has acknowledged neither she nor her parents or grandparents are enrolled citizens of a tribe. Yet in a 2010 presentation at a Michigan library, Noodin claimed unspecified members of her family had been “enrolled” in the “Minnesota Chippewa from Grand Portage area.”

In 2021, Noodin said she believed she could have been descended from either the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa or the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, which are both part of the overarching Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.

“I’ve spent a lot of times near those reservations and had elders there work with me to, kind of, figure (it) out. But we don’t have any evidence,” Noodin said then.

Noodin’s mother declined to be interviewed for this story. Her father could not be reached.

Noodin does not fit the criteria for enrollment in either the Grand Portage or Mille Lacs nations and has not received a letter of descendancy, according to Karen Pemberton, of Minnesota Chippewa Tribe’s enrollment department.

The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe had no record of a Henri Lavallee or the great-grandparents on that side of the family, Pemberton added.

Grand Portage Chairman Robert Deschampe did not respond to calls or emails seeking comment. Noodin was hired by the tribe earlier this year to lead its Head Start program.

In another example of Noodin’s inconsistent explanations, she said in 2009 her great-grandmother — four generations removed — was the last person in her family to speak Ojibwe fluently. But in 2020, Noodin claimed it had been “five generations since anybody in my family was fluent in the language.”

Lack of records not an issue, Margaret Noodin’s supporters say

Noodin’s supporters said the lack of definitive records or clear family lines doesn’t matter if the tribal community accepts her as one of their own. They said enrollment and genealogical records are often incomplete, inaccurate or tied to colonial systems designed to erase Indigenous peoples’ very existence.

UW-Milwaukee professor Mark Freeland, whom Noodin helped recruit to succeed her as director of the Electa Quinney Institute, said too often written records are seen as more accurate than spoken family histories.

“I think she has a family narrative, as many people do, and is utilizing that to engage with her community,” he said. “This is not some new career person trying to get ahead. This is somebody who’s been day in, day out working tirelessly to engage.”

Tish Keahna, a member of the Meskwaki Nation, met Noodin decades ago when Noodin worked at The Circle, the Native newspaper in Minnesota. She said Noodin was clear she didn’t know exactly where her Indigenous family was from.

“My understanding is that her grandmother spoke Ojibwe,” she said. “If you’re somebody in the middle of the last century who speaks Ojibwe, and you’re female, that’s a big Ojibwe flag. That’s an indicator of community connection.”

Keahna knows of people who have pretended to be Native, but she believes Noodin is not one of them. She said Noodin is committed to her community and has worked to repair long-lost connections.

“Why are we punishing people who want to come home?” she said.

Some Native scholars say being accepted as kin by an Indigenous community is not the same as having Indigenous ancestry. They also say individuals who have lost touch with their Indigenous roots can at least point to clear family connections within Indigenous communities.

“If you’re an Indigenous person, where is your family?” said Kiel, the museum curator. “Where are the other people who are going to come forward and say, ‘Yeah, I’m a member of such-and-such an Ojibwe nation, and she’s one of my cousins’? It should be as simple as that.”

Jill Doerfler, head of the American Indian Studies department at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, believes it’s inappropriate for anyone to claim they are Native without knowing who in their family was an enrolled tribal citizen. She introduces herself as the daughter of an enrolled White Earth Nation citizen.

“Native people understand the need for specificity,” she said.

Noodin bolstered Indigenous studies program at UW-Milwaukee

Supporters also point to Noodin’s track record of supporting Native studies at UWM.

Before her arrival a decade ago, the university’s Ojibwe language offerings were rudimentary, said former professor and Native studies coordinator Cary Miller. A Native elder taught introductory classes on part-time basis. After the elder’s death, Miller pushed administrators to hire a full-time faculty member.

UWM records show Noodin was recruited as a “target of opportunity” hire, which meant the university could recruit her directly and bypass the typical nationwide search process.

Target opportunity programs have been used in higher education for decades primarily as a way to diversify faculty ranks.

UW-Milwaukee said Noodin was not hired through the target opportunity program based on her identity, but because of her academic credentials and expertise in Ojibwe.

The pool of people who speak Ojibwe, a severely endangered language, is small. The pool of those who speak it and have a doctorate is even smaller.

Noodin brought a unique skill set that went beyond teaching and research, Miller said. She had a knack for budgets and bureaucracy. 

In 2015, state budget cuts put Indigenous student services potentially on the chopping block, Miller recalled. Noodin made the case to keep the Native student support offices by calculating how much tuition money tribally funded students from Wisconsin brought in, more than justifying the few advising positions for them. 

“She went to bat for Indigenous programs at the university on a huge scale,” Miller said.

Recruiting and retaining Indigenous staff was also a priority. When Miller, for example, received an offer from another university, she said Noodin contributed some of her own research funds for the counteroffer to try to keep her. 

Noodin also secured millions in grant money for research. Of a dozen grant applications reviewed by the Journal Sentinel, she identified as Native in two of them.

In one application for a project on Native folk music, Noodin described herself as “Pine Marten Clan and a descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Métis Nation.” The National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, awarded $10,000.

In a second application for environmental-related research money, she described herself as “Native.” The application was not funded.

Vetting processes differ among universities

At the time of Noodin’s hiring, UWM made no extensive effort to confirm her ancestry. Like most all American universities, UWM’s policy at the time was — and still is — self-declaration, where individuals claim Native ancestry and schools largely take them at their word.

Miller recalled Noodin sharing during the hiring process that she wasn’t enrolled in a tribe but said she was recognized as a descendant. Later, Noodin suggested her descendancy went back six or seven generations, according to Miller.

“I probably would not claim it quite as firmly as she had,” Miller said. “But I also don’t think there was a firm messaging out there to suggest that she couldn’t.”

That’s changing, at least in Canada, where Miller now works for the University of Manitoba. 

Canadian institutions are moving away from self-declaration policies and toward policies developed in consultation with Indigenous communities that require additional proof. Queen’s University in Ontario created an Indigenous Oversight Council to provide guidance on identity issues, and the University of Saskatchewan has a document verification process.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to do this, but it is a self-identification free-for-all out there,” said Kim TallBear, a Native studies professor at the University of Alberta. “You’ve got a lot of people out there doing things like Margaret Noodin is accused of doing, who are appropriating and stealing resources as a form of theft.”

Freeland, Noodin’s successor at UWM, sees the Canadian policies as a step in the wrong direction. 

Freeland and other Noodin supporters believe there is a small group of individuals over-policing Native identities. This creates real harm, they say, by discouraging people whose families have lost connections to their Indigenous roots from re-connecting.

“Is self-identification error-free?” he said. “Absolutely not, but it is conducive to us being good Indigenous people, treating one another well.”

Doxtator, one of Noodin’s former students, said UWM is responsible for vetting staff and failed to do so, which in turn failed him as a student. 

Another former Noodin student, Jeneile Luebke, doesn’t know how to feel. She remembers Noodin taking time out of her day to attend Luebke’s doctoral dissertation defense. She said she will continue to support Noodin, as the professor did for her. 

However, Luebke is troubled by Noodin’s inability to provide evidence of her Indigenous ancestry. She feels people should be transparent about who they are.

“If she was knowingly being deceptive, I feel she owes the community an apology and should work to restore trust and make up for damage with the community,” she said. “It’s really on her to figure that out.”

Contact Kelly Meyerhofer atkmeyerhofer@gannett.com or 414-223-5168 and follow her on X at@KellyMeyerhofer. Contact Sarah Volpenhein at svolpenhei@gannett.com or 414-607-2159 and follow her on X at @SarahVolp. Contact Frank Vaisvilas at fvaisvilas@gannett.com or 815-260-2262 and follow him on X at @vaisvilas_frank.