Residents of the Red Lake Nation in northern Minnesota are wrestling with questions of identity, culture, and the possibility of losing their lands or even disappearing completely.

At the center of this is blood quantum, the system imposed by the U.S. government to determine tribal membership. A new Wilder Foundation Research study projects that unless there is a major change to the criteria, Red Lake, like many tribes across the nation, faces catastrophic population loss in coming years. 

Wilder Research scientist Nicole MartinRogers is blunt about what’s ahead for the Red Lake Nation. 

“A tribal population that is right now about 16,000, is going to drop to 1,000 people potentially or under in the next 100 years, if they continue to maintain their current enrollment criteria of one-quarter blood quantum,” she said. “That’s a pretty scary thing.”